Not a disagreement with all the IDs in the observation, but with all the taxonomic levels in between the new ID and the ID being disagreed with. I edited my comment to state it better, I hope.
And here’s the Help page about it:
https://www.inaturalist.org/blog/25514-clarifying-ancestor-disagreements
Sometimes; I’ve even seen people totally unnecessarily bump things back to ‘Life’ (good thing there isn’t a tier above that were you can disagree with every possible future ID). However, it also sometimes happens where, say, I know it is definitely neither the species nor genus, am sure it is that order, but am uncertain on whether or not the family is right. So the only real option that conveys what I mean is to bump it back to order, disagree with the family even though I don’t really, and monitor for if someone else IDs it back to a different genus in that family and then withdraw it back to a non-disagreeing ID.
This is a particularly severe problem in asteraceae because of all the extra ranks (which are in general very nice). I also see it occasionally where it was ID’d to species and knocked back to genus but the subgenus was correct, which is a little annoying but less of a problem because as long as its in the right genus its relatively easy for others to find in the future.
Sorry, I understood you, and you are right. But I also wanted to add the “hard disagree” effects future IDs on the observation, and the pop up certainly does not warn people about that.
Two thoughts on this topic:
First: from my own, admittedly limited, experience reverting the ID back several taxonomic steps isn’t a considerable issue. I would say it is fine to have coarse disagreements as long as experts are still able to find them by applying their filters.
In insects (where I am IDing most of the time), this would largely be the level of order, in other arthropods even higher levels and in fungi even the complete kindom (with exception of Klass Lecanoromycetes - Lichen) will be found by experts. Just to mention some cases.
I see only one major exception, and that is the use of ’plantae’, where ‘angiosperm’ or ‘dicot’ would (even for a non-botanist) be a reasonable choice. That’s probably mainly because the name is deceiving and people aren’t aware that green algae and mosses are also included in that taxon.
And, additionally, many of those plant observations are probably identifiable on a species or genus level, whereas with small critters, even reverting an unnecessary coarse ID would rarely lead to a species-level ID.
Second:
Care has to be taken when you are a ‘coarse disagreer’ paying attention to subsequent ‘expert’ IDs - just because how the iNat-logic works
Many mis-IDs come from wrong CV suggestions, but are often correct at least on family level. Those observations are tricky to handle:
Example:
Because there is no option to refine the ID plus disagree with Musca domestica at the same time, that ID (from the second IDer) is not ‘connected’ to the observer’s ID. So, when you don’t want to block the ID from becoming finer by your initial coarse ID, but also want to prevent the observation to reach (wrong) species level again, you would first have to withdraw your ID, then need to wait until the observation updates, then add the refined ID with explicit disagreement again.
I had no idea any algaes were considered plants until a week or so ago - I had been marking green algae observation as Protozoa for years!
I’ve been going through Unknowns to pull out Fungi for a couple of weeks now, and it took me a while to catch on to the fact that Slime Molds are part of Protozoa, not Fungi. Oopsie. Yet another thing I’ve learned from iNaturalist!
I too had to learn that, as well as the fact that the grayish-green stuff we call ‘mold’ is not actually a slime mold. So for a while I was calling slime molds fungi, and fungi slime molds. The real problem was just a language discrepancy though - I knew that molds were fungi, but when I searched for ‘mold’ to add an ID ‘slime mold’ was the only option, and I’d never heard of that. I figured it must be right since it was the only thing called ‘mold’, which was the only name I had for the fungus I was trying to add an ID to.
Honestly this is one of my favorite things about inat - I’ve learned SO much about taxonomy and families that I would never have learned with mis-identifying stuff and being corrected on it. As long as you pay attention to notifications and revise IDs as appropriate, it’s all part of the process.
My big struggle is red vs brown algaes (why oh why do they look so similar and not have a common kingdom, argh).
Yes, and learning about how often the ‘weird’ observations turn out to be cyanobacteria somehow.
In an earlier post I had written
Seaweeds are tough because they are polyphyletic:
- Brown Algaes (such as Leathesia) are in the Class Phaeophyceae within the Kingdom Chromista
- Blue-Green Algae (such as Nostoc) is Phylum Cyanobacteria within the Kingdom Bacteria
- Red Algae (such as Halosaccion) is Phylum Rhodophyta within the Kingdom Plantae
- Green Algae (such as Dictyosphaeria) is Phylum Chlorophyta within the Kingdom Plantae
These algaes can all appear seaweedy depending on your acumen.
- Identification conflicts between Red and Green Algaes will move the ID to Kingdom Plantae
- Identification conflicts between Red or Green Algaes and Blue-Green Algaes will move the ID to State of matter Life
- Identification conflicts between Red or Green Algaes and Brown Algaes will move the ID to State of matter Life
- Identification conflicts between Blue-Green Algae and Brown Algaes will move the ID to State of matter Life
I created a Research Grade Collection project called Branchy and/or Seaweedy Organisms Marine and Fresh Water in hopes that it would help people train their eyes and use it for regional comparisons and find regional experts.
Ah great, I will add stuff to that for sure. Is pond scum/amorphous blobs on the bottom of streams and rocks sufficiently ‘seaweedy’?
Edit: I realized it is not a ‘traditional’ project to add stuff to.
A question: Where the observer has opted out of community ID, is it appropriate to mark the observation as “good as it can be?” I assume that moves it out of the Unknowns, but I don’t know for sure.
I would say no. The observer can always change it back to allowing community ID.
Ok, so they’ll just stay in Unknowns till that time.
Is there a way to exclude those not allowing Community ID from your searches? It is such a waste of my time. I often see that they have already been IDed to species and sometimes by several people.
You probably know that you can still make a suggested ID and it is possible that they will accept the community ID once they have had time to do their own research to confirm yes indeed it is so - some take forever to do this but it is their process and their observation. We all have our own ways of doing things - some hate to see things unfinished, others may be too busy observing and enjoying the good weather to hunker down and finalize their IDs
I would say yes IF the community have already ID’d it to the point it would be research grade, and you leave a note to the effect “This observation cannot become research grade at present because you have opted out of community taxon. Just wanted to make sure this is intentional.” (some people doubtless do not understand the implications)
They can always opt back in, and then it will become research grade. If you do it earlier you will be denying them IDs from the community.
If you see 10 people ided it and observer doesn’t care - mark it, all such observations do is taking other’s time for no reason.
I tried putting “as good as it can be” for an observation marked unknown by the observer. One with a community ID at class level and one with a community ID at species level. Nothing happened. It is still marked as Needs ID Unknown.
it won’t do anything unless there are at least 2 IDs.