Yep, it is a correct translation
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I understand perfectly well that this is soft pushing those AI summaries, which are (in beta) ridiculously unhelpful with mallard, a common city bird and the only bird they used for some reason. Therefore I stated that user-written wiki or it’s surrogate with tips is my choice. The most use AI has in this is to sort useful tips in a separate filter. I would not entrust it even with translating. There have been grave mistakes in auto-AI-hallucinating the interface of iNat itself, god forbid the same with tips. Like translating single negative into double negative or landmarks into “tourist sightseeing places”(in Russian).
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Thanks for providing the “sort from longest to shortest” in the non-nominated list. I am discovering what a blabbermouth I have been with ID comments! At least now they can count for something.
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I am sad to say I agree on this point – LLMs are statisitical analysis machines, they have no understanding whatsoever of their inputs or outputs. So they are actually very good at sorting things into groups based on arbitrary categories. But horrific at translations.
as much as I like this update, the recent “new homepage” update attempted to implement automatic translations … which were confusing or wrong in many cases. It was clear that most languages were not given the dignity of a native speaker’s input.
That said… it’s probably best to return the overall conversation to the existing and near-future features of the ID-nomination tool.
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Thanks! To be clear, I was asking if I understood the Russian word correctly (it appears in the plant’s page), not if “obovate” is translated correctly. Russian is my fifth language and English my first, and I’ve read a lot more botany in English than in Russian.
Here’s a case for an ID tip on a genus: Alice observes a plant in North America and identifies it as Ailanthus altissima. Bob disagrees, saying it’s Rhus typhina. This bumps the ID to Sapindales. Any ailanto in North America is highly likely to be A. altissima, but there are several species of sumac here. I see that there’s enough detail of the leaflets and identify it as Rhus, noting that the leaves are serrated and lack the lobes at the base that are typical of ailantos. But I don’t identify it to species because I don’t know all the species of sumac.
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Generally unless a person knows their tip operates globally it should only be put regionally. Some experts have a global focus on a genus and can put global tips but most people only know their own region. By nation/state I’m meaning whatever the guides tend to use from which people learn from directly or indirectly. If their tip is smaller such as a city or just a tip for common taxa they can clarify in the tip, the main thing is to be showing tips likely to be relevant to the location not ones from far-flung places.
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Can I add the ID Tips in whatever form they take (I’ve outlined earlier why I think the methodology proposed isn’t the right one :) ) are no substitute for a wiki/guide. We need them both (the IDs proactively pushed, wikis/guides proactively mentioned as a link but more passively followed), and can I emphasise inaturalist always needs its own wikis/guides (of the form taxon-scope in region-scope e.g. Veronica in Britain) instead of wikipedia, because wikipedia only allows people to write what’s written in articles and books and the vast personal expertise people have cannot be written in wikipedia, and wikipedia has no inherent way of tailoring to a region. In having its own wikis/guides I mean in concept, it can be augmented plain text like these comment boxes, or complex like the guides, but there always needs to be something housed on inaturalist. I think the main distinction for a wiki from a guide is likely the collaborative element. Guides could also be just links to PDFs uploaded to archiveorg, researchnet or academiaedu etc but they need to be proactively surfaced to the users where available.
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Plants… See how they handle it. For insects, it works. You can refer to different times of the year by adding bold text as sub headings:
Jan. - Apr.:
…
May - Sep.
…
& so on. I do not know much about plants so the plant guys can discuss what to do.
Plant guides are probably similar to what you’ll find for other life forms. But plants change in appearance depending on habitat/altitude and country, sometimes radically. Wikipedia is full of nonsense for example when it comes to quoting altitude, which might be cited from e.g. Britain but in a hot country the altitude will be completely different. In addition a person identifying a species in e.g. Britain with only 1 or 2 similar alternatives has no need to know all the complex characteristics required in another country to differentiate the plant from many similar endemic ones there (not in Britain). So there need to be some way of regionalising plant guides. In terms of style it would be good if guides could also provide a plain English form wherever a technical one has been made.
Finally, the relevant guide needs to be proactively “pushed” onto observations as a link which people can follow.
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This is a tough thing. Let the plant guys decide how they want to manage it. Even the ID tips will be restricted to the concerned observation, which could be one form and may not apply to all forms. There is no difference here.
On the other hand there is a major problem of integrating things on iNat. can the taxon page feature guides that taxon has been used in? And can we get the people who made listworthy-guides delete their guides and make lists instead?
If the ID tip is just for the observation, there’s not much point making it into a tip. The point about tips is that they should be generally of use.
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Generally these tips are explanations for an id, so they refer to the concerned observation and how the species fits it in particular, if you get the point.
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Yes certainly, hopefully people won’t nominate them for a tip. I think an example might be “You wouldn’t get xxx growing that tall and narrow” or “at that altitude” In different phrasing it might be “tippable”, but as it stands it would not be of tip quality…
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I wish that we could not upvote out own tips. Faulty upvoted tips can be misleading. Let the community decide what is worth it. The one who made the nominated id should only be abel to nominate it.
My suspicion is that people upvoting themself has its place when there is no other upvoting going on. I think there’s a solution: a person upvoting their own tip could be counted as 1 (as usual) so that it is highlighted for people upvoting amongst the mass of listed comments, and an item that’s upvoted by others but not by the person themself should get an extra 1 added as if they had, this would highlight them all in the correct order. The other solution is for people just to have a personal tip that appears as their generic explanation when they add an id (upvoted tips also showing).
I do not think that will work.
The basic problem that needs covering is that many taxa are only going to have one person who is capable of making a tip. If I were to make tips for Antalya plants for example it would be pointless if it required them to be upvoted, because that generally wouldn’t happen due to lack of expertise on iNaturalist for that region. But it could be a person (rather than a tip) could be upvoted so that their tips can operate even when only they have voted for them.
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There are many ID tips, along the lines of species A because
Not species B because
And that info is tied to the location and seasonality of that obs. Definitely useful, with broader application if used thoughtfully. As any ID info should be.
There are 4 sp found here, A on limestone outcrops, B in damp hollows, C only after fire, D has not been seen here for decades – but may return.
Why would that sort of info not be useful ? My example is totally made up.
I think that issue will resolve itself tidily, as more people use the tips, and add their own up and down votes. Or we withdraw our vote, because there is now a better tip. In the same way that IDs and DQAs mostly resolve themselves without acrimony.
When iNat floated the idea of using AI to combine people’s comments about IDs, there was an uproar and some left. This way the identifier’s words stay in context – location and season matter. There is no requirement for the tip to have ‘general application’.
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“There are 4 sp found here…”
I suspect that may be referring to my comment “If the ID tip is just for the observation, there’s not much point making it into a tip. The point about tips is that they should be generally of use.” - if so, I meant “if an ID tip is only useful for the observation and not others…” So I agree with you :)
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The “No Vote” column heading makes no sense. If the “voted” comments are moved here then why are these no-votes? What AM I missing? Seems like a case of programmers doing things that make sense to them alone?
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