Since you are volunteering your time, I think you need to be driven in large part by what you enjoy doing.
In terms of what might be helpful, I think development of scripts for comments to share identification knowledge (eg pasting an identification guide for a genus, or giving tips on what needs to be captured in photo or field observation to support ID). Because I am interested in the idea, I am beginning to work on it. It is slow going because I am learning as I go. I don’t know if it will be a meaningful contribution, but I am enjoying the process.
When I need a break, but still want to iNat, I switch back to IDing. I’ve become a bit of an unknown junky. I love getting all the notifications as the observations progress.
Depends on what your goals are, if you wish to help the system with numbers, then move stuff to RG, if you want to help with less number of observations, but with more number of species and older observations, then learning and iding harder groups is the thing. If you still have time to organize id-a-thons, do it, we’re ready.
New observers will learn from your ids.
You just choose a set of keystrokes you enter (make sure they’re not something you’d usually type), and the extension replaces those characters with predetermined text. For example, I have a combination for the text I use for Observation of the Day every day:
Found out there’re close to 70 pages of unided muskrats, that is weird, most photos are easy to id, so if you wish to help, I’m going through them, but many (especially with tracks/dens) I don’t check. That shows that many common (and easy) species can have tons of unided observations, check your local mammal obs if you can!
I checked the first 60 “needs ID” willows from Oregon. 10% were outright wrong. 25% had to stay at "Salix because they weren’t identifiable. The other 65% are right, as far as I can tell. (And I can tell pretty well.)
I’ll check more willows over the next few weeks, but won’t take time to report results.
I removed several of the above posts, which were created by a user who’s been suspended twice from both iNaturalist and the Forum. I’m sorry they were able to get here again. I’ve also told them they can email help@inaturalist.org if they have any concerns.
I finally finished checking muskrats, 30 pages of revied observations left, many are unidable because there’s almost nothing seen at all, but I was lasy enough to only mark those with no signs of evidence of animal or its presence, if someone has a will to go through and add general ids to some + mark them as “can’t be improved”, that’d help to make this pile even smaller, there’re some observations left that are possible to id, but I was cautious and didn’t id them. Also many tracks, burrows and bones.
Anyone want to play with 1K arachnids in Africa south of the Equator for #GSB22?
I will look at them, but my IDs are geared to picking - that’s a spider, and a scorpion - from Unknowns. These are already available for taxon filters to find.
Well, I have the little Sasol guide to spiders and scorpions, but that emphasizes South Africa, and it goes sometimes to genus, sometimes to family. I can give it a try, though.
I did try. But almost all of them are already IDed beyond me!
Thank you. PS despite being called South, there are a few projects included in South America which are actually North of the Equator - so you could help there rather?
I will do a species search on GBIF for species that were selected by the Observer but do not show up in the iNat database or are inactive. GBIF will often have the synonym, basionym, or accepted taxon listed.
I didn’t have the time to read every one of the posts in this thread, but I did not find any mention of one problem I find with this site that relates to “Needs ID”.
I am going through my collection (yes, all dead and mounted) and look to see if something I’ve identified this last year was posted here. I often notice that there are none posted in the USA, or in a particular state. Since I have already gotten it identified by sending it to a taxonomist or visiting one and have a determination label on it, I think it would be a good idea to post it here to fill in missing gaps.
The problem is, even though it has been identified by a specialist in the field, I can’t get it “Verified” as correct. Some are small insects 1mm long but most are much larger, but things the casual observer would not know about. So, it never gets those 2 more “Likes” to become a valid posting. There should be a short-cut if you post a determination label proving it has been verified so it can count as a valid observation without others agreeing.
A) even experts make mistakes
B) all Needs ID observations appear on maps alongside RG unless you specifically filter them out, so there’s nothing invalid in your example
C) collection data is better off submitted to SCAN, GBIF, or bug guide if you don’t want to engage in ‘community ID’
I tend to find inactives entries when I am trying to clean up the 