Platform: Web
URLs (aka web addresses) of any relevant observations or pages: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/318281393, https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/318298896, https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/318300698, https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/318301637
Screenshots of what you are seeing:
Description of problem: The observation stays at “needs ID” even when the poster is opted into the community taxon and the observation has more than 2 IDs at the species level.
It seems to stem from Person A identifying at the subspecies level, then Person B identifies at the species level (see pic 1). It will become “Research Grade” if someone IDs at the subspecific level (see pic 2), but it shouldn’t matter since it has 2 identifications at the species level (or lower). In the past, as long as the identification wasn’t an outright disagreement, an observation would still become “Research Grade” even if someone identified at the subspecific level (whether that be the observer or an identifier), then someone else identified at the species level.
I even messed with the DQA to see if there was an issue with it there, but nothing I did would put it in “Research Grade.” It would toss it into “Casual” or keep it in “Needs ID.”
This is a deliberate change introduced yesterday
Mhh. I don’t really like that too much. I don’t ID at the subspecific level, but I know others do.
IMO, it’ll just leave valid observations out of “Research Grade” for a longer time than what it was before. There are valid reasons not to ID at the subspecific (e.g., not knowing enough about the subspecies, or one doesn’t think subspecies are a valid taxon), and I don’t think the observation should be “punished” by Person B not IDing at the subspecific level as Person A.
? as I said on the other thread. All 4 of your ‘problem’ examples are already RG. 3 at ssp, and the fourth at sp.
It is probably because the 4 examples have been posted on the forum, receiving extra attention as a result. Is it expected that people who add a subspecific ID also post on the Bug Reports forum in order to get additional confirmation?
As much as I welcome this change as a step towards more consistency, I fear the lack of communication around it will puzzle many users, and could sometimes discourage an identifier to add a subspecific ID.
It is difficult on iNat to keep everyone happy, across geography and biodiversity. I am glad we have - ssp as Needs ID - that works for the way I use iNat. loarie said that is how it used to work, something broke along the way, and now they have fixed it …
Yes - I suppose these 4 examples are sorted because of forum attention. Time will show if obs resolve better, or more problems show up (for others?)
Cape Peninsula has 72K obs at ssp / var / form with 70.5K at RG. We have 1.8K at Needs ID for taxon specialists (and with the new Disagreements filter I found ONE problem obs there). Perhaps that explains my preference on iNat.
6 million across iNat of which 5.7 million are RG so 95%
