Description of problem:
When a species-level ID is added after an infraspecific ID (subspecies, form, etc.), the observation stays at “Needs ID” due to “Observation Taxon must match Community Taxon”. This stays the same no matter how many subsequent non-disagreeing species level IDs the observation gets.
Voting “Community ID is as good as it can be” makes it go casual.
This is not ideal because there are very few identifiers who have the knowledge to ID infraspecific taxa, so these observation stay at “needs ID” for ages despite having more than two people agree on species.
Is it really a problem if observations ‘stay’ at “needs [more] ID[s]” longer (or forever), until it gathers enough reviewers to confirm or infirm the suggestion of a precise ID? Is there a hurry to display a green icon? (speed, score, gamification?)
Perhaps this could be a user-definable setting, just like licensing or opting-out of CID? Choose between “I want my obs to get a green icon as fast as possible, even if only at [genus/species] rank” vs. “I want my obs to get the most reviewed ID as possible, even at the cost of a long-term yellow icon”. Optionally it would also toggle the function of the ‘Yes it can still be improved/No it’s as precise as possible’ checkbox, between the old and new way.
My concerns about observations getting stuck at “Needs ID” eternally are much more about wasting identifiers time than anything to do with gamification or displaying a green icon…
If everyone who decides to identify a taxon has to wade through the same growing pile of observations with one random subspecies ID I think that’s really going to start adding up, especially in cases where the subspecies documentation is hard to find for non-experts, so they can neither confidently agree or disagree.
Are you sure the subspecies IDs are ‘random’?
Is it such a problem if ‘non-experts’ cannot weigh in on various observations?
Why can’t identifiers not ‘expert’ enough to confirm/infirm an ID just check ‘reviewed’ (or add a non-disagreeing ID, which also reviews the obs IIRC) to get rid of their dreaded ‘Needs ID’ pile?
I believed, naively maybe, that iNaturalist was about (a) having the masses engage with nature and (b) producing hi-quality data for science as a byproduct, more than (c) helping categories of users of the platform process their/others’ data in a way that pleases them.
that people might be annoyed at this change. My guess would be when most people go to, say, identify Agelaius blackbirds in California they are expecting to be asked to determine if photos are of Red-Winged or tricolored blackbirds, not to determine exactly where A. p. californicus ends and A. p. mailliardorum begins (and those who do want to figure out exactly this were completely welcome to in the old system!). And yes, they can just “mark it as reviewed”, but others are testifying that there seem to be many of these observations appearing in certain places, so in the long term this may end up redirecting a lot of collective identifier time away from actual identifying, which could negatively impact:
Again, I’m not saying this change is outrageous and all negative or anything. I just think it’s a bit unfair to make it sound like the only reason might object to it is because of gamification or their desire for a green badge or something.
The problem is that people who ID to infraspecific levels now need to decide whether they should or not. If they are the only identifier in a taxon able to ID this far, this may now lead to a bunch of valuable observations never making it to RG and thus not really being available as data for researchers. (So in that sense, yes, there is definitely value to “display a green icon”, as you put it). Not adding IDs at that level would also not be great.
Another issue is that once that initial infraspecific ID has been made NO amount of subsequent species level IDs will get the observation to RG, which would just be a waste of identifier time, as the observation will show up in everybody’s “to ID list”.
The only way to solve this would be to erroneously add a disagreeing ID or vote “cannot be improved” in the DQA (which would then make the observation casual…) Also not great.