Hmmm… My experience (for Europe) is different. Absolutely major part of untagged non-wild OBs come from the newbies with few OBs. And absolutely major part of these newbies leave when (apparently) a school projectis ends.
2 Likes
Well i am of German origin, so i rather love to stick to rules. But observing the decreased efficiency of the several ID support systems on iNat in Haiti, after the tagging rush of users from abroad, made me think of strategies to stay ahead of the tagging. I really would love to see more Haitian observers getting motivated, by being able to correctly ID their first plant observation (which is usually the red Ixora that is cultivated all over Haiti, but never wild). When every red Ixora is tagged as cultivated, the ID support systems will not suggest Ixora - leaving the new user frustrated and caught in plant blindness.
As I said - it may work for Haiti, but what ID training or motivation comes from a potted peperomia in Sweden or a begonia in Scotland? Besides, 90 % of these who upload potted, or cut, or garden ornamentals usually do the only thing - reach certain number of OBs (project requirement?) and cut it. Their OBs usually include potted plant, domestic cat, some human relative or friend and maybe some indiscernable bug or weed from their closest environs. Often they are not even interested whether anybody has identified their OBs. Some are even surprised and definitely amused (if ever they come back) when people are discussing on the IDs of their OB (non-cultivated). During my one year inat activities I encountered maybe two cases when people with cultivated plant IDs were genuinely interested. It was easy to indicate a relevant project where they could use their OBs even with “cultivated” tag…
3 Likes
I think this is a very good idea. We have a two-tiered system for wild observations, and we should have one for captives/cultivated things, too. A system that keeps the unidentified captive/cultivated observations coming up for identification until they’re ID’d, and that give both the poster and the identifier a feeling of success when an identification is agreed on.
6 Likes
Well if i imagine i were again 10 years old, and in a school project on iNat … what would i upload? The organisms i see the most during terms:
yes - very likely something like this. What would happen then, given the current features of iNat:
- Potted plant, computer vision would not suggest anything useful, this observation will go into casual limbo and remain unidentified.
- I would likely find the correct name for my domestic cat observation, and maybe somebody would add the same ID … but the tag stays gray and says “casual”.
- friend observation … observation of Homo sapiens. tag is gray.
- My first photo of a bug would likely not be good enough for species ID. So this observation sticks at “needs ID”.
What would be my impression of iNat after this experience?
Well it did not help me to identify my house plants or any of the species i did not know. I did not get any appreciation for any of my observations either.
Would i use it again? E.g. while spending time in the vineyards of southern Germany, with my granny (surrounded by many rare species)? Or in my holidays that i spend with the family on a beach of Germany or France?
Well after this first impression very likely not.
Currently computer vision (and the compare feature) suggest IDs from the pool of wild organisms. … A similar function could be implemented for non-wild observations. In observations that are tagged captive-cultivated, computer vision (and the compare feature) could suggest IDs from a pool of captive-cultivated organisms. This new feature would motivate users to tag their observations as captive-cultivated … as marking your observations captive-cultivated would then not decrease, but even improve the chances of a positive ID. Together with the two tiered system for non-wild observations, this could provide positive feedback for young users, that are used to instant gratification. These new users would soon find out, that their species counter goes up only, if they observe more than cats and humans … and then they might become the observers and later identifiers that iNat wants.
We can not expect that new users do everything right, but instead of motivating them to break the rules, we should motivate them to become the users iNat wants.
6 Likes
That said, onboarding new users with a reminder to mark captive/cultivated for the first few observations sounds reasonable.
2 Likes
Well the computer vision seems to ID Homo sapiens now. This is new to me and great news! Did edit my posting above.
Has this been fixed too? Or is RG still part of the requirements?
I can answer that – from the impressions of my childhood (long ago). I was seeing bugs and plants I was interested in but it was very difficult to find answers what they were (no inat, no internet, guidebooks very few and rare in between, no one knowledgeable in my closest environment). Did it deter me from further watching and investigating – no. Though none of my childhood friends ever expressed similar interest. Many just don‘t – they have different interests, only dutifully (or not so) do their school project tasks. Another thing – main purpose of inat (according to the creators) is to get people to know the nature. But people (and kids, too) must learn to distingush between agriculture and nature. Or else it will turn like a tourist in Sri Lanka: „I love Sri Lanka – look at all this green nature around!“ It happened when we were passing unending plantations of coconut palms and other crops for a whole day.
3 Likes
I just spent a couple of hours cleaning up “ponderosa pine” observations in places hundreds to thousands of miles from any native or naturalized ponderosa pines. The large majority of these observations were on the grounds of public middle or high schools, frequently they were clustered, and many of them had been elevated to “research grade” on the same day by other persons represented in the cluster. I think it’s pretty clear what’s going on here. A classroom group goes out and identifies a tree based on the iNaturalist app’s recommendation, and then the students raise each others’ observations to “research grade.” I might add that nearly all of these were cultivated trees, thus not “wild”, and none of them were marked as such. So… I think it’s great that teachers are using iNat as a teaching tool, but please, when you teach it, ensure that students understand (1) that cultivated plants need to be marked as such, and (2) that you don’t do ID on plants where you’re trusting iNaturalist to do the hard work of making the ID. And afterwards, it would be nice if you would check the observations made at your school so you can clean up the inevitable errors. Pretty please, OK?
I’m sure I’m not the first person to raise this idea, but I suspect it bears repeating each school year.
5 Likes
Going back to the original question, how to better inform new users. The information about needing to indicate “not wild” in the “getting started” guide is buried pretty deep! https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/getting+started
Put that, at the very top, and make a picture for it, and briefly explain why it’s important. Most school kids will NOT be reading the guide, though.
So, the next option that I think would be most effective is to require, on the phone app, checking either a wild or captive/cultivated button. Most newbies use the phone app. Require checking either or (but not neither) before the submission can be uploaded. That would help a lot, I think, and would not be a huge burden on everyone.
One problem that nothing will help is a huge portion of the public makes no distinction between what is wild and what is captive/cultivated. They have no sense of native vs. non-native. It’s a foreign concept.
8 Likes
I also proposed to translate the site instructions in Italian but received no answers. Many people, especially if very young or old, may find difficult to understand a long paragraph in English.
3 Likes
This topic was automatically closed 60 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.