Whenever I agree about a identification that makes it research grade and I’m still learning about how to identify that taxa, I going to make sure to click ‘yes it can be improved’ so it cannot be falsely labeled as research grade and keeping it as needs ID. Does anyone else do that as well and is that acceptable to do so? To clarify, I make sure the post only has just one person before me make the original ID that I’m agreeing on.
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i wouldn’t do that. most people aren’t looking at that box. so it may confuse and frustrate people to see that an observation with the usually necessary IDs doesn’t change the status of the observation as research grade.
what i would do instead is just put in a genus-level ID and type in the species tha you think it ise. this way, if you come back to the ID, you know what you would have identified it as, but it won’t trigger the observation to become research grade.
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It’s a good thought, but the issue is that marking “yes it can be improved” means that a total of 5 or 6 identifiers will have to add their identification to make it Research Grade unless someone hunts for the little box and counteracts your vote. I’ve seen observations languish in “needs ID” for a decade because of that box being ticked. You’d be surprised at how many identifiers just add their ID and move on to the next observation without waiting to see whether the observation becomes research grade and without looking at the Data Quality Assessment for the tiny checkmark in the tiny box.
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Good point but also I know some people get frustrated when someone ID the post back down to the genus level as well. I also will also just add in annotations if applicable to the observation which also alerts me if someone puts an ID on the post as well.
adding a genus level ID doesn’t automatically put the observation at genus level. you’d have to make an explicit disagreement to the species-level identification.
some people still might not like a non-disagreeing genus-level identification after a species-level identification, but in my opinion, that’s just a personal problem. such an identificaiton doesn’t hinder the observation from achieving research grade. i’m not 100% sure what happens in terms of notifications in such a case for people who turn off agreeding notifications, but i assume it shouldn’t trigger a notificaiton.
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You can add a genus level ID without disagreeing with the species ID. And that’s what you should do if you are not certain of the species. Please don’t just agree then mark “yes it can be improved” when you aren’t certain. That is not the way to use that option.
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it will still trigger a notification
I’m glad you posted this, because when I’m identifying I often see an observation with 2 or more agreeing species IDs, no disagreements, and it’s still sitting at Needs ID. Invariably, when I click the DQA, I see someone clicked “yes it can be improved”, and I need to counter that vote to get the observation to Research Grade. I’ve often wondered why anyone would have clicked that option, but now I see what the thought process is. As was said above, I wouldn’t recommend clicking that option in these cases.
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Like @paul_dennehy, I appreciate your explanation of your thinking for using the “Yes, it can be improved” option. But the caution others have added is most appropriate: To most of us, and the intent on iNat I think, is that that particular DQA be reserved for cases reviewed by people well-informed of any particular ID challenges with a species or set of species. In such cases, a vote for “No, it’s as good as it can be” for a genus (or higher)-level ID is a mark of a taxonomic “brick wall”.
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If you want to both avoid pushing an obs to RG with your tentative ID
and to avoid irritating whoever
you can simply Follow that obs, and add your ID later, if and when. Unfollow when you lose interest.
Mark as Reviewed (which is only for you).
I won’t clickety click an ID if I don’t feel it adds value - either narrows the ID, or helps against a wrong ID. My choice of how I use my (too much!!) iNat time.
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I think that that box is just annoying; for example, I once checked the box of a ‘needs ID’ observation, and when someone ID-ed it I was annoyed, confused, and about to post it to Bug Reports . Just a side note for those who care, this was my own observation.
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When they see that happening, they can go to the DQA page and look for it. I do that every time I see this situation.
If we can freely complain about observers who don’t take as much care as we feel they ought to, then identifiers are fair game, too. If it is fair to say that there are “low-quality observations,” it is fair to say that there are also “low-quality identifications,” which are not necessarily the incorrect ones.
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What I described isn’t low quality identification though. Waiting (up to ten or more seconds with my internet) for the quality grade to upgrade has precisely zero relation to the quality of the identification.
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Someone clicking that box is one of the most common reasons for observations being posted to Why is this Observation Casual/Needs ID/Research Grade? - “Official” Topic. Regardless of how scrupulous you may think identifiers should be, many people don’t think to check it, so it causes confusion. I agree with the other commenters here that it’s not the best option for what you’re doing. It’s great to hear that you’re working on improving your ID skills, though!
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It takes less time to check the DQA than to post an observation to that thread. So much for “efficient” workflows.
People ask in the thread not because they are too lazy to check the DQA themselves, but because if it is a problem they have not encountered before, they genuinely have no idea what could possibly be happening. One can only problem-solve if one knows what the possible causes are.
It still creates disruptions to the usual IDing workflow when an observation does not behave as expected. One has to stop and consider why it is happening and then either scroll down to the bottom of the page or switch to the DQA tab in Identify. Maybe it doesn’t take all that long to fix, but it breaks one’s focus and distracts attention and energy from the task of IDing.
It is also (in my opinion) a completely unnecessary extra step. The argument that it is quick and easy to fix does not hold much weight when there is no reason why it should be happening in the first place.
The number of situations where clicking the button “ID can be improved” is beneficial seems to me to be extremely small – as a way to countervote an overly hasty “ID cannot be improved” or possibly preventing an observation that has been incorrectly ID’d by many people from becoming RG until there are enough additional IDs to shift the community ID.
If one wants additional confirmation for an ID, there are many other ways to get this, including tagging IDers. Often it happens that the users who click “ID can be improved” because they want more confirmation never remember to unclick it once they have gotten that confirmation, so their forgetfulness results in more work for IDers.
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Can we? We are asked to assume that people mean well and to refrain from unconstructive complaints in the forum. This would suggest to me that complaining about observers is discouraged just as much as complaining about IDers.
There is a difference between complaining and recognizing that certain behaviors hinder the collective goal of producing quality data that is correctly identified and trying to figure out ways to encourage different behaviors or reduce the impact of certain behaviors for other members of the community.
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The DQA is one of those tools that you don’t know until you do. A lot of us had moment trying to figure out a weird observation had a DQA check.
I check “No, can’t be improved” a lot. Usually I only check “Yes, can be improved” when I find an RG at something higher than species that I think I can improve. There are rare occasions when I think I found something odd or rare that I might check yes on my own ID as a way to get more eyes on it, but now a days, I know enough people that I can tag to correct the ID, that I don’t bother.
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