The undersea cables which connect Africa to the internet. See the map.
Two of the cables which supply South Africa are damaged and won’t be repaired till mid to late September. Currently the repair ship is working off Mombasa. Needs to pass Cape Town and head halfway up the West coast.
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Re not logging in that reminds me, I see a lot of observations that could be from academic and/or nonprofit operations (judging by some of the project names they sometimes have). @carrieseltzer does iNat have a recommended way of reaching out to more uh, “local expertise” at that sort of level, outside of iNat platform, if that’s even a good idea? (we might need better identifier onboarding before trying outreach though)
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Interesting map and explanation! I usually don’t think about what underlies the computer connections we have.
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Unfortunately this could mean we’ll have reduced local expertise during the whole challenge? Well I’ll just keep hacking now with my good bandwidth (and no keyboard, I’m using a game controller workaround) and just get schooled when all the experts come back. ;)
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Hi! You are correct. The first graph is showing the total needs ID obs that are Unknown and Plantae kingdom: the goal is for these lines to reach zero.
The second is showing the change in number of obs in all the categories since the start of the project: The goal for these is to get them into the negatives, like the species line.
The reason most of the lines in the second graph are going up are because there are more people adding coarse IDs (for example Unknown → Dicots or Plantae → Family) than there are people adding finer IDs (Family → Genus or Genus → Species). What is really cool is that the species line is going down, which means that even with people adding new Species level IDs there are enough people agreeing with existing IDs to get them to Research Grade :)
I used to have the second graph in the same style as the first (see my earlier updates), but the number of obs is too large to be able to see meaningful changes.
Feel free to ask more questions about the data! Happy to answer and explain.
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We don’t have any secret tricks for this kind of outreach so I’m just answering as an iNat user myself. Occasionally I’ll email someone I know with a link to one or two observations and encourage them to weigh in on iNat (if I know they have an account but they don’t use it much). If I’m doing more inreach (trying to get people who are somewhat active on iNat and seem to have some expertise more involved) then I DM with an identify link to a filtered set of obs (something with a manageable number that they might be able to complete or at least review) and a link to one or both of these pages:
https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/getting+started#identify
https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/video+tutorials#identify
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On a couple of occasions while going thru the list of “Plantae”, I had to find out that actually an animal is the focus of the observation. A bird sitting on a leafless tree - I assume the observation is about the bird. A grasshopper on soil, with a couple of dried leafs nearby: it’s about the grasshopper. A bug sitting on a leaf: I think it’s about the bug, not the plant. Etc.
How do you handle this? Would you disagree with my id which brought the observation from “Plantae” to “life”?
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There are some where the observer is now duplicating for the plant, and some where the observer makes a comment as if it’s about the animal, but may have accidentally clicked plant. I use context if there is any, and then leave a comment with my id, “if you want the [other thing] instead, please reply and I’ll switch, thanks!”
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I just noticed I’m now the world’s top identifier of Balanites aegyptiaca because I see Smilax spines in the desert? What is that? Now it’s an “accomplishment” and we’re only halfway through yet! Woohoo!
Do y’all feel like you have any weird accomplishments of your own so far?
Also, feel free to share your own tips about what might have become “low hanging fruit” for your id in some region. We need minimum 2 people at species to get 100% on the mission. ;)
Edit: Meanwhile here’s how Flora of Africa looks, at about halfway:
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Also look at their other obs. What do they focus on?
All birds. Or bugs. Or plants.
If they have already added an ID - use that choice.
Unless bit of tree and focus on bird - bird seems a reasonable choice. IDing ‘bit of tree’ is … optimistic.
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I enjoy that steady rise. About 100 new species. And also about 100 new identifiers.
Both good for future IDs.
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Update from an Annotation side mission I’m doing- I’ve been ticking “no evidence of flowering” if it looks applicable to the photo. I know my interpretation may be incorrect at times- plus I have 0.1-2% typo rate (judging from lepidoptera).
If you catch an annotation error from me, please do @ me on the obs for a fix. (If someone just disagrees with “no evidence,” or other single marking, the otherwise-fine record can no longer be found using the annotation filters.) Thanks for “proofreading” help!
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Update - fixed - https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/user-photo-profile-looks-odd-when-using-identification-tool/44265/3
Today’s fresh bug - photobombing ‘heads’
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/observer-profile-pic-on-each-observation-has-moved-upwards-in-identify/44257/5
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Ive realised I have to be so careful with the fruiting annotation. If the fruit is ON the plant and attached then it is the plant that is fruiting. But if the fruit is detached and lying on the ground then I cant use the annotation fruiting. Also what if the fruit is dried up and dessicated on the plant and has been there for many months and hasnt detached, then I suppose the plant is no longer fruiting. @lotteryd how do you deal with this ? Perhaps there should be separate annotations. Fruit att attached to plant and fruit detached from plant. Mission Impossible has been a great exercise for me, personally. In the past I just added observations of plants and focused on IDs of insects. Now I realise there are many plants I can ID with a fair accuracy. Thans for this exercise. Im now a plant Ider because of Mission Impossible ! Thanks so much @DianaStuder.
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Given our limited choices - I do ID as fruit, whether it is on the plant, green or ripe or rotten, or fallen. Botanists want more options, but for ‘citizen scientists’ there is a limit to what we can sort out. I want to use that fruit annotation to sort out pictures of fruit
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/lets-talk-annotations/627
Welcome to one of the one hundred new plant identifiers in Africa !!
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Partway through week 3 we have 2000 obs joining Flora of Africa and 700 at Species or lower leaving. Also notably the Phylum line on the second graph has gone slightly down for the first time since the start of the challenge! This is a good thing: more obs are being refined down from Phylum than new obs are being ID’ed at Phylum level :)
Let’s have a look at the numbers…
Number of observations in thousands for Africa excluding the Cape (counts including Cape in brackets).
Most recent counts shown as change relative to start of week 3
| 14-08-2023 | 17-08-2023 | |
|---|---|---|
| Not in Flora of Africa | ||
| Plantae at Kingdom | 11.4 (18.5) | -0.7 (-0.9) |
| Unknowns | 6.3 (9.7) | -0.6 (-1.1) |
| Flora of Africa | ||
| Phylum to Class | 44.8 (63.9) | +0.1 (+0.5) |
| Dicots | 27.1 (37.3) | +1.0 (+1.4) |
| Subclass to Subtribe | 52.0 (101.4) | +0.5 (+0.5) |
| Genus to Complex | 131.3 (317.3) | +0.2 (+0.4) |
| Species and lower | 177.9 (359.7) | -0.3 (-0.7) |
| Captive | ||
| Unknowns | 3.6 (9.3) | -0.1 (-0.2) |
| Plantae | 76.4 (183.4) | +0.2 (+0.6) |
Observations not in Flora of Africa. Black lines are including the Cape
Change in observations in Flora of Africa, relative to start of project.
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I use “fruiting” for fruit on the ground as well as on the plant. It’s the best of the three options for this, though not perfect.
As to dead fruit from last year on the plant . . . I find that a problem. Sometimes I choose “fruiting” because the fruit is there. Sometimes I don’t. Not sure what I should do.
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At this point I’m treating the phenology annotations as iNat identification aids. Like, if I see a plant’s fruit in the picture, I mark for fruit even if it it may be from a prior season. Same with spent flowers.
If it’s super important for someone to track in-season fruits only, the researcher can always download the observation dataset they’re interested in, delete iNat’s annotations column and then assign their own for their publications. So I’m not worried about “messing things up” this way.
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Help, please!
I have set up some habitat/view observations to be taken out of the ID queue. My approach mirrors the one taken already by the observer.
If you would be so kind as to follow this link and click agree, another troche will be done. Thanks for considering the request.
Patti
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I do feel that whatever researchersdo about checking iNaturalist data, it’s essential to check the outliers, both geographic and temporal outliers.
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