I think it was me, but maybe others also, who mentioned that a reviewer often devotes just a few seconds to reviewing a record before moving on. I’m sure that’s not true of all, but I generally don’t spend more than a few seconds per record. Yes, mistakes can happen that way but I usually review quickly if the subject is obvious and I’m familiar with the species.
In terms of responding to comments, I know at least one iNat user who never looks at the notifications. I suspect that unless you’re diligent about doing so, comments can slip by and a reviewer might be totally unaware that they created a problem with an ID they provided. Not everyone uses iNat in the same way or pays attention to responses within a record they reviewed.
I think it probably applies to most of us, because you either immediately recognize the species or not. If you don’t recognize it, but it interests you, you probably then spend more time trying to figure it out… at least that is what I do.
I still look at the ones I recognize for a while. Not every member of a species looks exactly the same, and they aren’t always in similar locations or doing similar things or pictured in the same time of year. There’s a lot of detail to see even if for example, you know 100% it’s Danaus plexippus. Is it feeding? Flying? Mating? Dead? Positioned just so that a leaf obscures only the lower wings and you can’t see if it’s male or female(lol)? Etc. Of course, like you say everyone uses the site differently, I just never imagined a significant amount of people would spend so little time actually looking at the observations.
keep in mind that some IDs for some people will be “very easy”… especially if they have worked with that species in the field or lab to any extent.
Also keep in mind that it is community ID, and they are not the only ones looking at the observations. I have made mistakes and been corrected by others, and have caught mistakes by others and tapped them on the shoulder. We have each others backs in terms of catching the (few) mistakes we make, we are a team!
Some will “drive-by” ID, others will scrutinise and put the annotations, others again will QC and check for “correctness” of the observation in terms of iNat policy. We all add value in different ways.
For some IDers, they will simply be using the site as a form of flashcarding. For them it is more about seeing and applying the name for as many observations of a singles species at a time as they can, to reinforce their recognition skills on that species, and they might be relying largely on the current Community ID (even if it is not RG yet) to be correct as they flashcard.
As has been pointed out, so many ways to use and engage with iNat, and the challenge is to not be blinkered into thinking there is one “right way”.
When I have a photo(s) of more than one species, I often will include the URL for the observation identifying the other organism in the note section. That is much easier to do on the website versus the mobile app, but it has cut down on people pointing out that more than one species is in my photo.
Sorry if this was already mentioned. I went through a lot of the comments on this thread, and didn’t see this idea posted, but it may have already been mentioned.
In my experience the vast majority of mistakes are honest ones, like the first one@brennafarrell posted. Sometimes the identifier will follow up on any comments, sometimes they don’t. The latter is a bummer, of course, but it happens.
The continued behavior by depdave is not great. I’d be happy to reach out to them if you haven’t heard back, @brennafarrell.
I know iNat doesn’t want discouraging comments and that the main purpose is not the photography aspect BUT, without a clear, focused photo a definitive ID may not be possible either. depdave’s comment is a factual one, so why should that be assumed as derogatory in some way?
No one should be so sensitive, that they can’t look at their own photo and say “eek, I wish I had gotten a better picture”.
@karen33317 It’s a big difference between someone saying “shoot, I wish the image were better, I’m not able to confirm the ID myself” and saying “the photo quality is bad, you should delete this,” which clearly stems from a misunderstanding of what iNaturalist is–it’s not BugGuide, it’s not MPG, or whatever other similar websites require high quality images for their narrow purposes. iNaturalist is a place where you can upload your nature observations. That’s pretty much it.
Unless it is offensive, or a violation of the terms of use, no user should be telling another user to delete their content or not use the site.
Users are perfectly free to choose to not attempt to identify something if they feel it can’t be done, or does not meet their ‘standard’ and leave it for others who may wish to try.
I am quite aware that some of my pictures aren’t “pretty,” and even had another user complain about that, but they’re the best I can do while a passenger in a car. I wish I could get better pictures while in a car, but I can’t.
it’s not actually an issue, as others have stated there’s no photo criteria, we aren’t bugguide and don’t want to be bugguide as they already have that covered. If one is truly convinced no one can make an ID from a difficult photo they can mark it as ‘no further ID needed’ and give it a non-disagreeing coarse ID. Otherwise, people should not comment about photo ‘quality’ or aesthetics. I don’t know why this has become such an issue lately. Maybe there needs to be a message about this somewhere when people join the site.
Also of note: for a photo that comes out as a total ‘dud’, you can delete the photo and keep the observation. It won’t get research grade but it wouldn’t anyway… and photoless observations are also totally acceptable.
That record is a good example for a different discussion topic some other time: When a user would seemingly like a record that is probably meant to be, “I saw it here but it ran away before photo”, and would properly be filed “evidence= no” with just the initial id preserved as the “memento”. But confusion occurs from lack of communication and cross-purpose ids, and the simple memento effect is lost.
Just driving along one can see lots of interesting plants that would otherwise be unavailable. My colleagues and I have mapped plants along Oregon roadsides, amassing over 75,000 dots of the Oregon Flora Project’s atlas. It’s interesting to see the gradual, species-by-species transition from one plant community to the next. Also interesting to document the range of some plants that are expanding their ranges along roads and are more widespread than is usually recognized. I’m tempted to try some photography from the car. Locations can be an issue (my camera doesn’t add latilongs), but recording data by mile markers works well, if the road has mile markers. Stopping for better photos is good, but not always practical (in terms of time), or safe, or legal. If I do start photographing from the car, poor iNaturalist will get lots of poor but (barely) identifiable photos. Woo hoo!