i’ll say it one more time, and if it doesn’t sink in, then i give up…
observations are not the same thing as identifications.
most of what you’re describing in this thread is an implementation of what would effectively be “observations by others which i have identified”, and there’s nothing wrong with that kind of request. but let’s be clear that that kind of implementation doesn’t really address what was described in the other thread that you referenced: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/search-and-filter-identifications/1304.
take a look at the Identifications tab (https://www.inaturalist.org/identifications/earthknight) or Identifications page (https://www.inaturalist.org/identifications?user_id=earthknight&for=others) again, and compare them to what the Observations page (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?ident_user_id=earthknight¬_user_id=earthknight) shows. they’re all similar, but look closely, and you’ll see that the Observations page lacks some of the fields shown by the Identifications tab/page, and the records are sorted differently. why do these differences exist?
try filtering for a particular taxon in the Identifications page, and filter for a particular taxon in the Observations page, and you’ll see the records returned are also potentially very different (beyond the differences in the fields displayed and the different sort order). for example, compare https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?ident_user_id=earthknight¬_user_id=earthknight&taxon_id=121132 vs https://www.inaturalist.org/identifications?for=others&taxon_id=121132&user_id=earthknight. why does this difference exist?
using the /v1/identifications API or Identifications page, you can easily find your maverick IDs. try doing that in the observations screen. can you accomplish this in the observations screen at all? why or why not?