I’ll soon overcome my Identifications with observations once I start my field technician position. I need to do more identifications and learn to ID the local species better. I’m always paralyzed by my hesitation to confidently identify without a thick stack of reference material next to me.
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I would say that the most frustrating thing about the ID tool is that you can’t blow the photos up as big as you can when it’s just an observation. I have characters like tiny roughness on the edge of the leaf that I look for, and often I have to back out of the tool and go to the original observation. It’s well designed other than that.
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I am primarily an observer, as i love underwater photography and sharing what i see while i dive. I am currently learning how to identify primarily marine species right now in order to be able to contribute with some IDs of local species.
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Thanks!
I figured the zoom function was based on the upload image quality. I agree that the details in photos are critical for IDs - I often click on the photo to blow it up, use the one zoom in click, and then force it to zoom in even more. It’s kind of a pain, but you get used to it. To compensate, I try to post closely zoomed in photos with my observations if I think it will be necessary for the ID.
I miss the quick review function, where you could click on an obs and it would pop up in the same window. Now I end up opening a zillion new tabs as I go through the grid-view obs and choose the ones I think I can help ID.
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Above the brightness controls is an “open in new browser window” button, and from there you can click the image to zoom in further. You also can use the browser zoom (ctrl + or ctrl -) to step zoom more finely.
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Agree. There are a small, but significant number of users who seen to identify observations after 3 or 4 ID’s. More power to them, but if I see and observation is at research grade, I leave it alone (after a quick glance to make sure it is correct!).
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Currently, I’ve ID’d a lot more observations than I’ve made, but I’ve only been contributing observations actively for about 6 months. I expect that, when I work back through >10 years of photographs that ratio will approach more like 1:1.
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I never noticed that control! Thanks, that helped a lot.
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I have a lot more identifications then observations but that is only because doing ID’s is easier and I have a lot of time at home that I don’t have out in the field. If I could go out more often and see more stuff, that would change. A lot of them are basic ID’s as well such as “spider” or “beetle” that were in the unknowns.
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I tend to ID for people I know regardless of the number already there, and also for new people as they can sometimes misunderstand how to use the site and add a courser ID then is already there, or add the first ID suggested. I have wondered if adding an ID after research grade is something that is useful or desired on the site. It has proven helpful in cases of disagreement in observations I have identified in the past, but I have no idea what iNaturalist thinks about this issue.
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I know what you mean. I have only one provider using cell phone data. Very expensive.
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Most agreeing ids are done without much thinking, the more ids were done before the easier it is to agree with them. It’s not helpful when you find an observation with a big count of wrong ids, your new id doesn’t even change RG, you need to click “can be improved” to involve more men. New people =/= 10th id. For most birds it’s obvious, so no reason to see 10 “great tit” ids or something similar. Many of such ids are done by people who check all obs, it’s a good job to do, but it’s sometimes better to mark them “checked” if you agree with id.
Better check those that lack id, numerous sparrows and pigeons e.g., they need the attention of identifiers more.
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I am not sure what you are saying? Could you clarify for me? Thanks!
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What exactly?
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I’ve got about 4 times as many observations as IDs. But I imagine that the results here are perhaps slightly skewed towards ID’ers, as many “pure” Obsers (is an “Obser” a thing?) maybe never visit inaturalist website nor forum…
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I spend so much time trying to come up with a reasonable id of what I submit especially plants and arthropods that i rarely find time to ID other observations - I often find it difficult to id things I should easily be able to id in hand because some of the photographs arent detailed enough but I go through some pages now and again when I just need a break from what Im doing. Honestly I have whole backlog of observations this past growing season that still need to be gone through and posted that i doubt Ill be iding much anytime soon.
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Not if you’re in the Neotropics or a less birded place!
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I work to keep my observation to ID ratio about 1:10, for the simple reason that I like the idea of a nice ratio. I’m a bit behind on IDs right now because of winter slow down, and I’ve grabbed the low hanging fruit for old observations I can identify.
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Definitely an observer. I tried my hand at identifying briefly but I realized very quickly that I simply am not knowledgeable in terms of binomial nomenclature and distinguishing similar species and whatnot, so now I stick to contributing specimens for others to identify.
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