Hi all! I’ve got a question regarding etiquette and what is actually useful (or not). My identifying routine is as such: I’ll go to the “Identify” tab, select my region, and then select the taxa I’m more confident in (for me, birds and mammals) as well as “unknown.” I go through the unknowns perio…

I personally think its a great idea. If nothing else, it will likely get attention sooner. I suspect many experts won’t bother with ‘unknown’ observations so why not help them out? IMHO - keep doing what you’re doing!

I do the same thing every so often and tend to notice a lot more notifications afterwards, so other identifiers are definitely finding a decent amount of the observations as a result of them being given those broad IDs. meanwhile, when identifying specific taxa I’ll come across older observations t…

[image] seblivia: notice a lot more notifications afterwards That is the proof. ID what you enjoy - find a slice that encourages you with subsequent notifications. I admit I used to whine about Plant! or Dicot! But - if you can’t beat them, join them. Now I clear the daily slice for Cape Pen…

https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/the-benefits-and-drawbacks-of-adding-coarse-identifications/54469

i do it often and i think it is useful. i do reverse as well, dropping bad photos identied as species back to “what is actually seen”, meaning observation of bird xy gets pushed to aves, if that is all that you can say looking at the five pixels.

Yes it’s absolutely valuable to categorise unknowns, even if just as plant/bird/reptile/insect… The people who get annoyed by this don’t understand the intricacies of how iNaturalist works, that’s all. It’s understandable. Imagine you’re at your local natural reserve and you go up to one of the exp…

[image] DanielAustin: that’s a plant Yes and there are 812 K waiting for ID … at Kingdom across the world (cannot resist a page of Unknowns, peeled 7 out of the latest 30), but without Africa since I have cleared my continent. That is what bothers me. Almost a million obs. For Aves only 184…

I work on that bunch every once in a while and I like to use the url modifier &order_by=updated_at&order=asc I end up id’ing the observations that have been sitting around the longest. Makes it feel more rewarding to resolve a 10yr old observation.

Please continue identifying unknowns! It’s really helpful. To head of annoying comments, write something like, “I put the general name “Lepidoptera” on your observations to help people who know them well to find your observation and give it a more precise name.” Also, realize that some prolific o…

I have found that identifying unknowns has become my most satisfying niche of iNat. The thing I know the best is Eastern North American birds, and they don’t lack for identifiers. I do have a pretty good grasp on the basics of many organisms that commonly appear in my area. So I feel it’s the way I …

Is it worthy to (vaguely) categorize “Unknowns”?

General

AdamWargon March 16, 2025, 5:23am 3

https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/should-i-give-up-identifying-unknowns/58790

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Is it worthy to (vaguely) categorize “Unknowns”?

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