Incorrect Corrections

Yee haw! Exactly. Out here in the Wild West, being a maverick can be a point of pride (whether justified or not). We ain’t gonna let some iNat city boys (and girls) tell us what we done saw out on the range. And don’t be telling me I need to brand my cattle.

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I’m in the UK and I’ve always thought being maverick is good. Only grey-suited corporate types and council jobsworths think it’s bad.

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Good morning iNaturalist

I have only been on this website for a few weeks now. Unfortunately, sometimes I do not fully understand the English comments. It is somewhat difficult for me to formulate complicated matters correctly in a foreign language.

The Adelidae of Europe are of great interest to me. So I’ve seen the many undetermined Adelidae in ID mode and determined some of them. However, many entries are already several years old. The observers / photographers no longer expect feedback. They therefore do not react to my determination. That some of my determinations are called “breakouts” (=? Maverick), I don’t think it’s bad, rather funny.

I have followed this and other discussion in the forum with interest. The reliability of the identification, the award “Researcher ID”, the problem of the many undetermined images and the false determinations, which are never corrected, are one thing. But iNaturalist also attaches great importance to being open to all, not to be an ivory tower of science.

But I find it particularly unfortunate, and also harmful, if a wrongly determined photo remains as a model-picture to a species. For the European Adelidae, for example, this is now the case with Adela albicinctella or Nematopogon adansoniella, for example. These images are constantly causing new misidentifications. I suspect that they also affect the automatically assigned community ID and cause such a wrong determination.

Nor do I know of any solution to how to resolve the contradiction between scientific correctness and openness for all users of iNaturalist. I would, however, like to see this contradiction taken into account.

rbr200

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Welcome to the forum!

With only a few exceptions (e.g. Homo sapiens), any user can change the default taxon photo. If you see one you think is incorrect, from the taxon page choose Curation → Edit Photos and select an appropriate one.

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I was asked to change this. So I will just say the word community gets used a lot here, in particular Community Taxon, if there is a disagreement the proper way to deal with it, is within the community. Tag the person who disagreed and ask them why, tag some experts to take a look at it. We have all made our fair share of incorrect ID’s and we all know it happens, some of us spend quite a bit of time correcting them, in some cases making Maverick ID’s purposely.

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Thank you for your help!

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I have said this before (sorry, I’m not sure which language you speak), but I read someplace on iNat that even if an account is old and unused, adding a correction might help others following in your path. At the very least, if a researcher uses the data, they should be alerted to the disagreement and check it out.
People who do identifications often focus on one group of organisms. Mine is Nocuid moths. If I added an identification to a lizard or amphibian it would be based more on a guess than a real ID!I have seen observations by new users go from ‘Unknown’ to Research grade in a short amount of time just by adding a higher order id.
iNat tries to balance the needs of a novice with those of experts. All in all, I think the platform does a very good job of it.
So, I would suggest that you keep doing what you are already doing. If you do not get any response, that’s fine. You have done the best that you can do. And with time observers will recognize that.

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rbr20 – Sounds like you’re doing good work with a difficult group. Whether the photos you identify are old or recent, your added identification will help researchers who use the data.

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In addition to being able to change the default taxon photo(s), you can also go any observation you believe is wrongly-identified and add what you believe is the correct ID. That’s how this platform works - it is constantly open to correction and improvement. That errors will occur is difficult to escape in any area of natural history, but here, at least they can be discussed and fixed!

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On the other hand, we all have a bad day from time to time. I’m not always the best at letting things pass but it’s usually the best policy.

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I agree, keep it civil whenever possible. But when someone comes in with both barrels blazing, I can forgive another for being less than civil in response.

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It’s always possible, even if the social media world might leave a body with the impression that incivility is obligatory. More to the point, it’s also almost always more productive, if solving problems and resolving conflict is the objective. I can be a grouch when I’m stressed or tired but I have arrived at a point in life where I don’t have any illusions about it being a good thing.

I have two social media accounts, LinkedIn because it’s more or less a professional requirement and this place because it’s a great idea and much more civil than the rest of them. LinkedIn has become increasingly toxic of late so I largely ignore it. Hopefully this place can hold onto a more grown-up standard of discourse.

Everybody has baggage of some sort. None of us knows what load another is carrying. Be kind to rude people.

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Welcome to iNaturalist @daphne1. The culture of iNat intentionally disregards credentials in favor of community consensus. It is a democratic idea, that the community will correct errors over time. I (and most experienced users) would attest it works. Users with credentials and experience in a field can benefit the community, not by weighing their IDs over lay users, but by maximizing their engagement. Identify often. Explain corrections when you disagree, so that everyone can learn from the experience. Make observations with good pictures of all of the relevant diagnostic features. This builds up the whole community.

iNat isn’t a platform where the admins make corrections when there are disagreements with more experienced users. I’d encourage you to try not to feel insulted when your identification is not supported, and trust the system will make it right. Some of the best interactions here are robust disagreements, where everyone can learn from the discussion.

Remember that iNat isn’t primarily about data purity, but helping users engage with nature.

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Just trying to sort through the confusion here. @daphne1 is not her same user name on iNaturalist - someone else already has that user name. @daphne1 has an observation from 2 years ago that is marked as maverick because of likely choosing a misspelled homonym on the drop down menu - easy enough, I’ve seen plenty of very knowledgeable users let the keystrokes get ahead of them. I think she is referring to a recent observation where her suggested ID is maverick and overall is marked as Casual for some reason - maybe because she has opted out of community ID?

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Oh, thanks. My bad-- I didn’t notice the recent casual lizard and just assumed it was the 2 year old sagebrush observation, though it seemed odd that’d trigger such a bellicose response after so long!

And if I may say so, the lizard observation looks like yet another example of why allowing opt-out of community ID in a system that doesn’t also allow for expert validation is a terrible idea. Either believe in democracy (community crowdsourcing), or recognize that some users come with extra powers (in this case authors). We’ve got the worst of both worlds in the hybrid system that’s implemented now.

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Thank you very much. That encourages me to keep going. Often, however, a safe determination is unfortunately not possible only after a photograph.

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Gradually, I understand the philosophy behind iNaturalist. Thank you very much.

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No I did see the observation in question, the username is slightly different but the profile picture is the same, it is a two year old observation.

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No that was the one, there were only a few observations from two years ago (including the lizard), and that was the only maverick ID.

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Sorry to disagree but it is not obvious.

She has a casual observation from Sep 6, 2020 (new lizard) and an observation from Apr 27, 2018 that both have her suggestion as Maverick because her suggested ID taxon is not a descendant or ancestor of the community taxon.

In Explore Filter , with the correct username (Person) and not daphne1, if you deselect Verifiable under the Show section so that nothing in that section is selected, Casual observations will now show as well as Verifiable observations.

It is the Sep 6, 2020 observation that, I believe, has driven her chief complaint.

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