At the moment, it takes 2 independent IDs before the quality mark “No, it’s as good as it can be” has any effect. If the CID is at family or lower, the observation goes to research grade, if it is at a higher taxon, it goes to casual and removes the observation from the needs ID pool. I suggest that it should be possible to set observations (old, with no existing ID, and no information provided by the observer) to casual with a single vote on that quality mark. The two-observation minimum to set it to RG should not be changed.
you probably saw my post elsewhere but i didn’t even realize it didn’t work on things without another ID until recently. I do think this should be added. Some things are just never going to get a second ID, such as really blurry pictures of nothing that are added accidentally.
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Yes, it just came up on google groups, although I don’t remember who started it.
I do run into this all the time with people, probably mostly ‘duress’ students, submitting sceneries w/o any indication of what they’re interested in, no initial ID, and no contribution at all in a year.
Similar cases are observations with multiple organisms in different pictures. Somebody asks the observer to make separate observations, but nothing happens in a year. Observations where the observer has disengaged don’t need to remain in “needs ID” status – there are so many other observations that actually do need ID.
This change shouldn’t be too onerous, since a simple vote “Yes, can be improved” can reset the status back to “needs ID”.
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i do also think it should be possible to get a notification if someone flags your observation that way, though.
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I tend to only use the “No, it’s as good as it can be” tick only on old observations with multiple photos of different species, where I have ID’d them to the lowest common taxon and a good amount of time has passed (months) since the observer was asked to separate photos of different species and there has been no response. Generally by then someone has agreed with the lowest common taxon.
I don’t see the requirement of two IDs before it takes effect to be too oneous.
For cases where it is a super-blurry photo etc and you can’t even work out whether it is maybe live maybe inanimate, I just tick ‘no evidence’.
–Tony
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mostly i try to use it on my own observation where i see that an ID can’t really be made, and i don’t want to bug people with it but nor do i want to delete the photo.
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There isn’t a community ID until there are two IDs, so I’m not sure how this would work.
I would just imagine it would take your ID as a “casual” Id and remove it from “needs id”
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Yes, this is how I would like to see it work. This is motivated by seeing many years-old observations by now inactive users who had to take a class or were compelled to participate in a bioblitz or similar event.
The “no evidence” dqa is an alternative, but doesn’t fit as well as “as good as it gets (under the circumstances)”. I don’t see it as onerous because it can easily be overruled should the user become active again.
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@kueda, “No, it’s as good as it can be” used to take effect with fewer than 2 IDs, right? (but like over a year or 2 ago, if I’m remembering correctly…)
Can you comment on why the change, if there was one, and whether it would be changed it back?
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Ok good so I wasn’t hallucinating that. I definitely preferred the old way. Need to be able to mark super blurry things as not needing Id
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I don’t like the idea of just a single ID making something casual. The heart of iNaturalist is it’s CommunityID system, so I would much rather see it continue to be 2 IDs reqd, no matter what the level. I have bad days and miss things, having a 2nd’er is a safety net in a way, and allows me to be much more confident than I would otherwise be
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Data Quality Assessments (DQAs) are orthogonal to identifications (IDs).
It currently takes one DQA of an incorrect date of an observation to remove the observation from the needs-ID queue. It also takes one such DQA to counter the initial DQA. This takes effect regardless of how many ID’s exist for that observation, or if there are any at all.
The proposal is simply to make “No, it’s as good as it can be” consistent with how all other DQA categories apply.
If you
then you fundamentally disagree with the way all other DQAs are currently handled.
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I believe the change was made when the main/leading species ID displayed at the top of the page was separated from the community ID.
All the other data quality section votes take effect with only a single vote, I’m not sure this one should have different behaviour.
I do think the notification issue does need to be addressed.
I also am in the camp it should be used more often. However, I also think, and always do this myself, that if I vote as such, I always leave a comment on the record so the observer or any other identifier on the record can see that I have done it, and vote against id they wish (in lieu of any kind of notification).
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It does take effect with a single vote. The observation just needs 2 IDs first.
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No such requirement exists for any of the other DQA’s.
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Right, since none of the others are based on the status of the community ID.
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and also the checkbox is dual purpose: people can also check ‘yes’ to basically request a third opinion (or whatever) when something qualifies for research grade if they think it shouldn’t be yet.
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The feature request could be resolved by introducing yet another DQA that communicates “ I, the humble reviewer, consider this observation as not needing further review.” It doesn’t have to be the current community-ID dependent one.
One would have to consider the benefits of accounting for the nuances of each case vs. the confusion of different reviewers interpreting the increasingly complex rules of observation viability like this, and not like this. From the perspective of database management, maybe introducing an additional DQA item would be the best thing to do.