Making identifying more fun/interesting - wiki

[cazort]

I also do these sorts of things, for the exact reasons you describe.

Another thing that I like to do, when I’m new to a particular taxon, even if it’s one I know well in-person, but I’m new to identifying it on iNaturalist, I like to start by going through research-grade identifications, looking closely at them, and agreeing (or rarely, disagreeing) with them.

Looking only at research grade ones really reduces the amount of low-quality observations, i.e. ones that are already identified by 2 or more users, usually have more evidence, like clearer photography and/or multiple photos, often a pin on the map that gives relevant clues to habitat, etc.

Once I’ve gotten comfortable with the process for that species on iNat, and what the pictures tend to look like on iNat, then I go into the more general, trickier ones.

Also, sometimes I’m surprised to find mis-ID’s in research grade. It happens most frequently when there are only 2 ID’s and they’re both made by inexperienced users. But it happens often enough that it’s really important for users to look through the research grade observations too. So, not only will you be familiarizing yourself with the process and honing your own ID skills, but you are doing the very important work of catching errors in observations that may be used for scientific research.

[bouteloua]

@bouteloua

I know I can get a bit discouraged sometimes when the first batch of observations I see in Identify are all “picked over”, either because they’re all species that are difficult to identify, or the photos aren’t high quality or sufficient for showing diagnostic characters, or something else. A few tricks for finding more interesting/IDable/fun observations to identify:

• sort by random
• jump to a random month in a previous year, e.g. June 2016

Curious to hear what people might think about changing the default sort to from “most recently added” to “random”?

[astra_the_dragon]

It would probably cause confusion among newcomers and revolt among experienced identifiers… But a curious idea in theory.

I’d prefer sticky settings per user on the Identify page.

[arboretum_amy]

The only thing that I don’t like about random is that it stops showing the number of pages at the bottom. I find the page count motivating.

Definitely would love more sticky settings!

[jasonhernandez74]

@bouteloua

jump to a random month in a previous year, e.g. June 2016

Thank you for drawing my attention to this; now I don’t have to bring up the issue I was going to bring up. Namely, what happens when your still-not-research grade observation is on page 500 of 1000 pages – people working either ascending or descending may not have the time or motivation to get there.