In defense of "lazy" observers (like me)

[lotteryd]

@axarus

I actually think that setting the RG criterion to genus rather than species would make more sense because it would lessen the urge to propose species-level IDs

@matthewvosper

The problem is that most people do not set their searches to ID Research Grade observations. If the RG requirement were set to Genus, and an ID gets to Genus and becomes RG, you will mostly never find out whether they could go further, because no-one will be looking to ID it unless it’s in ‘NeedsID’

I’d vote for a feature request that sent all Genus to RG automatically without having to manually tick a box every time. I bet experts/interested amateurs would just adjust their workflow to look at genus > species in the RG pile, and nonexperts wouldn’t. Which to me might help each type of identifier focus their labor. (Does such a feature req already exist?)

Meanwhile in Needs ID:

@DianaStuder

I prefer to work from Unknowns to ID, because there is the odd bug, or mushroom, in between 9 out of 10 are green leafies

@DianaStuder

picking thru Unknowns.
But I quite frankly can’t face, rinse and repeat with thousands of It’s A Plant.

Hm, my own workflow may end up hurting your unknowns experience then, apologies! I tend to kick out everything that’s not plants in a swath, then do the not dicots, leaving those difficult dicot “deserts” for later, though formally still Unknown. Like I’ve said in another thread though, I’ll just get to all those later after I know more. Like “dessert”? ;)

@tisli

Would you think it reasonable to expect that one day there are so many (generalist) ID’ers who take on all the Unknowns that we could add things like Plantae and such?

Yep, just like that!

@tisli

What if we would create a project where children would learn to ID from Unknown to the right kingdom, where teachers verify their IDs? This would be so worthwhile!

Here’s a stub that’s a wiki (so that anyone can redo it better if they want): https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/wiki-an-unknown-identifiers-tree-of-life-draft/38591

If the hard part (like, the big breakdowns done with smooth and clear organization, where people could easily follow the steps) were cast toward your kids above, it would probably be a win for either kid or adult novices. If anyone wants to take a hack at it before I get back to it myself, be welcome!