I frequently see instances of people being overconfident in asserting species identifications which are beyond the limits of the evidence presented through the image and/or metadata. Is there any guidance on how to respond in this situation? For example, I work on parasitic lice (Phthiraptera), and…

See #3 and # 9 on the ID etiquette wiki [image] [image]

Many thanks for highlighting these points on the ID etiquette wiki. They are very helpful and much appreciated.

Be aware that if you make a coarser ID, you can specify that you “don’t know” if the finer ID is correct, or if you think it isn’t correct (“No”). You can use this to affect the Community ID. [image] If you select “don’t know”, it won’t affect the finer ID. However, if you select “no”, that counts…

Overconfidence in species determinations

General

Star3 July 13, 2020, 7:21pm 2

Welcome, @vsmithuk!

Usually a comment explaining why it can’t be IDed to species along with an ID to the correct level helps.

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Overconfidence in species determinations

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