Oh wow. I would just about have to die of mortification if I thought people were going to know if I even saw their observations. 
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BAMONA and iNat are different worlds. With BAMONA, the identifier is God Emperor. What they say goes, and it’s very difficult to challenge their decisions (you can flag an ID for reconsideration, but they are free to ignore it). I guess you have to commit to ID all the observations for the taxon/region you’re in charge of, but it’s undoubtedly a lot less work, and a lot less frustrating than covering the equivalent number of observations on iNat. On BAMONA, you just enter the ID and you’re done. No discussion required. On iNat, even if you’re the recognized world expert on a taxon, your ID counts the same as that of any know-nothing who just fell off the turnip wagon. You can’t simply correct an ID, you have to try to convince the other contributors that they are wrong. Even if you have the patience to enter an explanation, the other contributors may never read it, or they may ignore it, and then you are forced to enlist the help of other identifiers to steer the ID in the right direction. That’s a huge amount of work.
Personally, I don’t like the God Emperor model, but I can see it being more attractive to someone with limited time/patience. The commitment is less open ended. iNat can try the patience of a saint. Why on earth would a professional want to subject themselves to this?
I do identifications because I want to ensure the integrity of the data that my project gets from iNat. It’s pretty much 100% transactional.
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Moths have an okay amount of identifiers in my opinion (although they could always have more). There are so many other taxa with even less identifiers, or just 1 or 2 specialists
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That sounds a lot like ‘I wish I could stop people who disagree with me from disagreeing with me’.
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Yeah, I suppose it might, but I welcome the input of folks with experience/expertise. In fact, I solicit it on a regular basis. I HAVE to do this, to correct bogus IDs that have been entered by the know-nothings (i’m not talking about initially incorrect IDs submitted by the original observers).
I don’t go off identifying fungi, or fish, or sedges because I have no expertise in these taxa. I recognize that however good my intentions might be, I would do more harm than good by entering IDs for them. I even hesitate to provide IDs for butterflies outside my region when folks tag me for help (I have been getting more and more of these tags recently - sometimes from the far side of the world). I just wish other people would show similar restraint, or at least check to see if help is actually needed before jumping in.
I recognize that many observers are not experts, and expect their initial IDs to sometimes be off (though the CV usually gets them in the right ballpark). There’s about a 12hr lag on my checking observations for my taxon/region every day. Even in those few hours, I see a great many incorrect IDs entered by other iNat users (not the original observers) that I then have to work to get back on track. These aren’t regular contributors - just random people, often with only a few observations/identifications to their names, or sometimes contributors who clearly have expertise, but in other taxa. I also see a few “irregulars” returning from time to time. They clearly have some knowledge of butterflies, but they are based a long way away and are unaware of some of the finer points of ranges/flight seasons in our area (ie. they try to apply knowledge from their region to ours). I try to explain why things are a bit different in our area, but they seem to forget by the time they come around again some months later, and make the same mistakes. I really don’t understand this when there are so many regions where observations languish for long periods without anyone reviewing them. I’m checking ALL the newly submitted observations for our region EVERY day (it takes several hours). There are several other IDers who also regularly check the new observations (but perhaps not quite as methodical as I do). (the most helpful one is actually from a nearby state in the US) Yet somehow there are folks who seem to have the impression that we are desperately in need of help and whose idle hands seem all too willing to do the devil’s work.
I would post examples, but my impression is that this is frowned upon because it might result in hurt feelings.
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Actually, I’m more worried about folks refining IDs down to species level that should be left at the genus level (or higher). I’m not sure, but my understanding is that I won’t be notified of this as a disagreement. We usually provide detailed explanations for why the ID should remain where it is, and we’ll get someone with zero expertise in the taxon plunking a species level ID on it with no countervailing explanation.
(not sure if there’s a way I can search for observations like this via URL - like, show me all observations where the community ID is finer than mine)
No issue if an expert chimes in and explains why their ID is valid. I’m always open to learning new tricks.
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you’ll be notified about this
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I feel called out for posting a lot of moths as an amateur before my kitty catches them. 
I do find lepidoptera wing coloration to be very distinct between species and accurately-replicated. Makes species identification feel pretty easy with visual+habitat AI assistance, whereas outside of lepidoptera I tend to err on the side of genus, family, etc. in a lot of cases. It does seem like entomologists are approving all of my observations…
But of course I don’t suppose you want amateurs’ grubby paws all over the field.
This is true for many species, but there are definitely problem groups where there are a number of very similar species that are frequently confused. Some species simply cannot be distinguished based on field photos. Even experts may not be up on the latest research. Just because someone is an entomologist doesn’t mean they are an expert on lepidoptera, or even an expert on a particular lepidoptera group, or an expert on that group in a particular geographic region. I correct professional entomologists all the time. I cite chapter and verse, point to references, and if necessary, enlist the help of other entomologists if appeal to authority is required. I’ve locked horns with one fellow who never argues field marks or cites references. His arguments never go beyond “I’m a professional entomologist”, even though he clearly isn’t an expert on Lepidoptera. I stopped looking at his observations - I don’t care whether or not they are ID’d correctly and I certainly can’t fix stupid.
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Is this true if you have notifications for confirming ID’s turned off?
yes, because if you had previously added an ID to genus, then a subsequent ID to species is not a confirming ID per iNat definition. A confirming ID is defined as the same ID as yours [= same rank, same taxon]
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thank you for this information! Then I guess my biggest concern would be research grade observations where I’ve just clicked “reviewed”, that may subsequently have their IDs changed.
Yes, this is one reason it can be useful to agree (even if the observation is already RG at whatever its lowest level is). I do this and having confirming ID notifications turned off, and I find that most ID notifications that I get are relevant and the number isn’t overwhelming. The only real downside is that I don’t know when my own observations get IDed sometimes if my initial ID was correct.
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I would do this if there was an “Agree all” button somewhere. My daily routine is to look at all the new “Needs ID” observations first, and I handle them as needed. Then I go to the new Research grade observations, and thankfully, I can often use the “Mark all as Reviewed” button to mark a whole page of observations as reviewed. It would take a lot longer to agree with each observation individually (it makes a difference when you have 9 or 10 or even sometimes 15 pages of RG observations to review every day). And at the end of the season I may have many more pages to go through for the nuisance taxa that I skip during the season.
? but you know ‘people’ see your obs, and iNatters know that everything on iNat is public. Including these forum posts. Using your calendar - anyone can see where you were when - that is disconcerting. Some let the location on their cellphone display their actual home address.
This is social media. It is out there.
@tiwane had a post with numbers for people who use iNat, who dip in and out, who read along - without signing up or engaging visibly. Active iNatters are the smaller part.
Does the obs not show adequate field marks?
Just a d&mned difficult taxon even for the specialists ?
You came, you saw, and you didn’t leave an ID? Me too - all those dicots - MANY MANY more.
You are at the receiving end of what I see - interested in … dragonflies … but so many Unknowns … will help by IDing to plants. We need less emphasis on Unknowns to Needs ID to RG - and much more on - wait, let the ID develop as the right identifier gets to it. The other day I caught one that had waited … ten … years - now RG thanks to me nudging a taxon specialist - please sir, it has waited ten years??
A better way to deliberately mentor willing identifiers ??
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Sorry, you’re responding to my post, but I’m not understanding what you’re trying to say. Maybe I’m just dense today.
Broadly to this paragraph ?
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Still not getting it. I just see a bunch of only vaguely connected statements - maybe it’s supposed to be a stream of consciousness kind of thing (vs a step by step argument).
I know that people see my observations, yes, but I don’t know which people, and honestly, I don’t know how knowing that would help me, because I don’t know what they were doing there. The way it currently stands, I only know if people are looking at my observations if they choose to interact, which is the way people generally expect websites to work.
Unless you were talking about just a view counter, which I’m fine with, although I don’t think it would be very useful, either.
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