I think it’s also important to remember that the purpose of iNat is not “to get IDs on things”. I sometimes post a bunch of shots of an organism that I just think are aesthetic and look cool, in addition to some standard “ID shots”. I would hope I don’t need to justify the photos I post in terms of their usefulness to an identifier. If I see a cool flower and post 20 pictures of it because I think it’s super cool, that’s reason enough to do so. We should be encouraging interaction with nature. If I find a species I’ve been looking for for years, get excited an post 30 pictures of it, I wouldn’t want someone coming along and stifling my excitement by saying “this is identifiable from just the first three pictures, don’t post more than that”. My response would be “I didn’t post them for you, I posted them for me; if you don’t like it, move on to another observation.”
For example, this past weekend I made a day trip out of going to see Amethyst Shooting Star for the first time. I took a boatload of photos of them, and posted 8 or 10 shots of some of the plants if I thought the flowers looked really nice. Here and here are some of them. Any one shot would be more than sufficient to “get an ID” on the plant, but how sad would it be to spend a day hunting down such a gorgeous organism only to have my thoughts stuck on “what would an iNat identifier want me to post about these?”
So I say post however many photos you want. If you can’t load a big observation because of a slow internet connection, skip it and move on to the next one. It’s not like there’s a lack of one-photo observations in Needs ID to keep us perpetually occupied.
Very useful as a checklist… how about if this, together with something similar for other categories, were made easily accessible and available for observers wanting to improve the quality and “IDability” of their obs?
Just one more thing from me on this topic. Maybe I should have expressed myself better with the initial query on the forum. Although large numbers of images for a record can be difficult for those with limited internet reception, like myself, as I mentioned somewhere above I fully understand the need for many different images in the hope that at least one can shed light on the identity of a species. That makes complete sense. The difficulty arises when there are many bulky images that have not been cropped or the subject is a tiny speck in the middle of an “ocean” of background. Surely, to spend a little time editing -making the photos smaller or blowing up the subject- will assist in identification and can only help the submitter’s own cause. Sometimes I feel those identifying are expected to work miracles with what they are presented with when all that might be required is a little work.
Yes - identifiers agree with you all the way. Please crop … when I am wading thru unknowns, having finally found ‘what we are looking at’, I leave a ‘what and where on the picture’ we are looking at, comment. Placeholder backup helps - if the observer says - there’s a dragonfly there …
Or actually moving a little closer to the subject (if we’re talking about plants, they won’t run away!). I understand that it may be difficult to get closeups of foliage if it’s a super tall tree or on the other side of a creek, but mostly it’s just that they haven’t taken the four extra steps to get close enough to show foliage as more than a blur. (Sorry - I’ll end my rant now!)
I imagine virtually all forum users are aware of this and agree with you.
New users who come to iNat without much background in nature observation may not be aware of the effort that goes into identification-- they may not even be aware that there are human identifiers looking at their observations. It is fairly likely that they have never thought much about how one knows what something is. They may not fully realize the difference between what they know they saw and what is visible in their photo (I know I didn’t when I first started on iNat, though I did endeavor to crop my photos).
A kind comment in such observations suggesting that it would be helpful to IDers if they could crop or mark their images might be more effective than posting here. (I will note that some experienced users choose not to do this because they see it as inefficient and do not feel that it is their responsibility to make things easier for IDers since their observations are intended primarily for themselves. So it can be strategically sensible to check how many observations the user has before leaving a comment.)
I forgive in such instances as the swamp-residing Melaleuca :P One’s poor feetses!
I must also forgive failing to think to look at the floor for fallen leaves and fruit. I forget that’s an option myself. >.<
I shall ne’er be forgiven for forgetting to photograph the trunk of the canopy tree though, nor for not flipping that dead beetle. That was pure carelessness on my part.
But yeah that’s the eternal gripe. There are contexts where it makes sense, especially when folks simply don’t know anything about the taxa, but a lot of the time it’s a little bit of missed effort.
It’s as if they think there’s one type of tree/shrub/groundcover/grass in an area, so all you need to do is show ‘it’s a tree!’, and it’s instantly obvious what it must be?
I know there are times when there are good reasons for bad photos (umm… most of my bird photos: I can’t get close enough, the wretched things keep on moving or flying away altogether, sorry!), and I’m sure there are times when I don’t take the photos I need for things I’m unfamiliar with - but for every good reason it feels like there are 100 bad reasons. And some basic requirements feel like they should just be so obvious!
I try to remind myself to be patient and if necessary just move on - but I’m definitely a work in progress.
I guess I’m not sufficiently obsessive or dedicated or whatever term is appropriate when it comes to IDing. If the photo is terrible I don’t give it any more time than it takes to jump to another record. If I see too many of those, I’m done and will do something else that day … like work on my own observations which I spend a lot of time on making them as clear and easily IDable as possible.
Hey, you got the dead snakes! You definitely skipped mentioning the arthropods though, tut tut, and that when they’re the group most likely to need genitalia dissections to identify! how could you? disappointed. as unforgivable as my unflipped beetle.
Unfortunately, every time I’m inclined to complain about that I only need to look at the photos on my phone to wince at the number of daisies where I only have the front… and then I complain anyway. It’s amazing how easy some daisy identifications become when I can see the back of the flower though. Legit magical.