I do more ID-ing than observations. Not a vast amount more, but somewhat more than roughly equal.
However, I was first attracted to work on iNat in order to make identifications of mollusks for other people, mollusks from the parts of the world where I know the mollusk fauna well. I still very much enjoy ID-ing. ID-ing is the best way to learn, at least that is what I find.
But when I go on a big trip, I do a lot more observing than I do identifying. And to be fair, when I go to a small island in the West Indies for four weeks, the internet connection is often really poor, so I simply can’t use the site as much as I would like to, and it can be a struggle just to get my own observations uploaded.
I’m am 5:1 ID to obs. I started IDing in order to give back but have found IDing helps me learn what’s in my geographic area better. Going through the day’s uploads in the evening (or when I’m on public transport-yes, I’m one of those zombies) also highlights what to expect when out. It also gives me ideas where I may want to hike that week.
Keep in mind that the users of the forum are a (very) biased sample of all the users on iNaturalist. There are many, many user accounts which only have observations, and no other interaction with the site, so you won’t see those on this poll because they don’t visit the forum. So I suspect the poll will be heavily biased towards identifiers.
You also need to give a guideline for what counts as “A roughly equal amount of both”. Say, anywhere between 1:2 and 2:1? Otherwise I suspect a lot of people will have different guesses about how tight or loose that boundary should be.
The staff might be able to run a query on the database to generate a histogram with ratio of observations to identifications on the X axis and number of users on the Y axis. I suspect it would look like a long-tail diagram, with a spike at 0 identifications, and another smaller spike at 0 observations.
Interesting poll! For a long time now, I’d kind of guessed that iNatters could be loosely lumped into IDers and Observers. I’m definitely more the latter. For me the fun is in being outside, taking pictures and getting to experience the organisms in the moment.
It looks like the early results show that @JeremyHussell is correct in his analysis: the poll is very biased towards identifiers. That actually makes a lot of sense because the same people who are at their computer for long periods of time doing IDs will be the ones chatting in the Forum. Not good for an accurate statistical survey, but fascinating nonetheless!
You’re very right that “a roughly equal amount of both” isn’t very precise. However, I don’t know where a good cutoff would be. And since this isn’t intended to be a super accurate survey, I trust the iNatters to pick whatever option they feel best describes them.
5 IDs per observation. I really enjoy uploading observations and making IDs. Both help me to learn about species and to meet and correspond with other users. When I began using iNat (2015), the IDs that I made helped me to learn what made a good observation and what did not.
I’d say I was primarily an identifier for coarse IDs, but I only have a Obs:IDs ratio of 1:4.7, which I thought would be a lot more. I do more in the identifications than just IDs though, pointing out duplicates, pictures that should be separate observations and the like.
Right now, it’s mostly being an observer (mainly cause I’m continuing to upload a backlog of photos since September) - though I hope to become better at identifying plants/animals in the near future.
I have a ton more observations but that’s more because I’m an observation powerhouse than me not doing IDs. I still have around 17000 IDs, but that’s dwarfed by my nearly 45000 observations
I’m not a particularly skilled IDer, but I like IDing birds for a couple of reasons. First, I figure if I spend the time to ID and Research Grade newly uploaded birds on the Identify tab, then people more skilled than I am will have to wade through fewer easy IDs to get to more challenging ones that need their help–it helps to keep things from getting buried. Also, certain parts of the world are much slower to get IDs on even very easy to identify species, so restricting to a country can mean finding a lot of data that can use the extra eyes. There are also certain taxa that are easy to get mixed up so it’s worth a look to see if anything needs correcting (red-tailed vs red-shouldered hawks I correct IDs on a lot). And finally I just find it fun to challenge myself to see if I can come up with an ID, even if I know ten other people will follow me.
Identifier. Ratio of obs:ID’s, 1:12 . The bulk of my ID’s are with Noctuid moths, and I try to get down to species (some are not possible with just photos). I just like identifying Canadian moths!
Although my observation to identification ratio is 91.1 to 100.0 , I would say that I am primarily an observer - the reason for this is that far more of my effort, energy, and time (and funds) have been put into observations. A recent trip resulted in more than 7,000 images to sort but they only resulted in about 2,000 observations. Of those observation images, I had to glean for primarily identifiable observations, crop them, adjust contrast and brightness, change the file size to one that I generally use for upload purposes, try to identify subjects from a continent of which I was not familiar, try to justify to locals (RSA) why some of my observations only have an accuracy of more than 2km to 50km, and then try to follow as my observations are raised to subspecies and try to understand why when there is no information available to me to justify it. Moving something from State of matter Life to Fungi and Lichen does not take quite as much effort. ;)
I have about 9x as many IDs as obs. Mostly because I’m a plant person in an urban area, so I’m surrounded by plants that “don’t count.” Identifying doesn’t require so much driving.
I got it, but I’m quite good at it and I don’t care that much about other identifiers, ofc I add ids if I see an obs that needs it, though if it’s from “research tab” I usually ignore it to not get 10 notifications about someone agreeing. I prefer adding annotations and tags to a certain taxon, but now iNat is lagging with it and I left this work for someone else with more nerves than I have.
Making observations is much better from my point of view, that’s the life and you have to find as many things as you can, if you spend too much time on something someone else saw you clearly miss it. And I say it as someone who spent too mch time finding good photos for my hobby, again, I saw so many things on photos, thousands of species, but it’s nothing like seeing them in life, nothing like getting own photos.
Glad to see this poll! I was feeling guilty for having so many observations, yet contributing less for IDs, although I do ID, too. I feel unqualified to ID and only do so when I am pretty darn sure I am correct. Would hate to get someone else’s observation wrong! So, I can usually only ID the stuff that most people can also ID and wish I could contribute more to the ones that need ID the most. I hope to get better at identifications and do more of them in the future.
I use the ratio of observations to identifications as a way of measuring how much I “need to get out more”. When I first started it was all observations and no IDs, but I started giving it a go, and have learnt heaps since. I figured it takes two IDs to make an RG obs, so I used to try and get to 2:1 IDs to obs at least, and preferably 3:1 to make up a little for those who were mainly obs. A quick check and I’m nearly 7:1, so I need to get out more :)
I think the survey will be a little skewed toward IDers, because I think IDers are more likely to be active forum participants. No data on that, just a feeling :)