An observer posts an observation with the identification A b var. c.
I’m sure the specific ID is correct, but I don’t know about the variety, so I post an ID of A b. The Potential Disagreement pop-up asks “Is this enough to confirm this is A b var. c?” and I click on the choice “I don’t know but I am sure this is A b.”
My ID is enough to make A b the CID, but will it count as an Ancestor disagreement, if an additional ID at the variety level is entered? That was certainly not my intent, but the What is the Community Taxon? Help page doesn’t mention subspecific IDs. My intent was to select the pop-up option implying an agnostic “I don’t know” response, but perhaps the only two options being offered were “I agree” or “I disagree” about the variety.
To be clear, a third ID has not been offered yet, so I don’t have any evidence of what the algorithm will do, but the observer has complained about my ID watering down his own. If I can support my interpretation of the algorithm, I’d like to point to some official text explaining that. If my interpretation is wrong, I’ll withdraw my ID.
You are not disagreeing, so I don’t see it as a problem. This is something I do frequently when someone has offered a sub-species as their initial ID. I don’t know enough to know if the subspecies is correct or not, but if the species is correct I add that ID and choose the “I don’t know” option. That will make the observation RG at species level. I don’t think the observer can complain about that - their subspecies ID is still there and uncontested.
If you are unsure whether your ID is considered a disagreement, the detailed information in the community taxon box on the right sidebar can be helpful. (By “detailed information” I mean the taxonomic breakdown displayed when you click the large"i" symbol, not the schematic image of red or green boxes, as this is sometimes misleading.)
Some users assume that any broader ID somehow counts against finer IDs, even if it is not entered as a disagreement. This is not the case, but it is a common misconception. I have found that when using the android app it is often difficult to tell whether an ID is a disagreement or not or what the community ID is, so this may be a contributing factor, along with the complexity of the community ID system and the way disagreements are calculated.
Click What’s this? at the Community Taxon.
Study the Ancestor Disagreement column - that is the one that defies mere human logic.
If it is YOUR ID which that algorithm uses to trigger Ancestor Disagreement - then it is your (UNintenional) fault, yes. Sadly.
var adds an extra level of complication.
There is no Needs ID at var.
iNat jumps straight to RG at var when there are enough IDs to convince the algorithm. Before that it sits at RG for sp and ignores var.
And then the display ID up top and the Community Taxon do not agree.
(Keep up at the back (took me years to wade thru that!) ;~))
Everyone is basically agreeing to what my own understanding was, but reading the Help file had given me doubts.
OK, this clearly shows that I did not add an Ancestor Disagreement.
And this link is the detailed explanation that I can cite to the observer. (From an iNatBlog post, not a Help file–that’s why I couldn’t find this from my own search.) The one confusing part is in the first illustrated example under the heading “What are Explicit Disagreements?”. That example uses the phrase “No, I’m not disagreeing” when that wasn’t one of my choices. I was only able to click “I don’t know”. It looks like that example text came from the end of the blog post, under “Planned changes to distinguishing the two ways to disagree”.
A planned change that still hasn’t been implemented, five and a half years later. No wonder you get frustrated, Diana!
This is one point that might be a legitimate complaint for the observer. If I’ve made the observation RG, and if future identifiers are only reviewing observations that are at Needs ID, then they might never see this one. It might be better to leave a subspecies/variety observation at Needs ID until such a time as an expert can offer an explicit confirmation or disagreement.
My answer to that is that there were a number of observations that were stuck at Needs ID for several months or longer, so I thought it was useful to move this out of the Needs ID pile. (This particular taxon is in what I’d consider a charismatic plant genus, so it surprised me that nobody else had offered an ID. It’s not like the countless, obscure species that just don’t have enough experts in the world–either professionally-trained taxonomists or motivated amateurs–to get the attention they need.)