Let me ask this of those of you that are for https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/make-captive-cultivated-not-automatically-no-id-needed/112 but aren’t a fan of my proposal here (and I’m perplexed at the number of you), what do you see as the undesirable difference(s)?
Is it primarily that this includes something that would change how subspecies might be interacted with? If that one detail got taken out, if “look at me, I need you to ID me” still stopped at species, how many of you would then be a fan?
The neat thing about this proposed design is that you don’t have to muck much with the existing engine parts. This is something that can just be built on top of the existing system. It seems like it would be less disruptive (and I’d have thought less contentious) than previous suggestions to create new categories or to redefine existing categories in the Casual → Needs ID → Research Grade flow?
It’s also flexible. We wouldn’t necessarily have to make it go all the way to subspecies (though I think it should, and I had thought it would actually help sell the idea since it’s then no longer just benefitting non-wild observations). You could also include or exclude other factors easily, whether they’re existing factors today or new factors in the future. Perhaps we think we want to ID fossils too (to be clear I’m not proposing that we do). Perhaps we think we don’t want to ID life observed from Mars. Those things could be included or excluded in this design as desired/needed.