Maybe I’m overthinking this, but does agreeing with someone’s ID to make it research grade count as grounds for my account being banned? I’ve done so when I don’t know what the organisms in these posts are and have used said IDs help become more knowledgeable about what lives in the area. Is there a way to rectify this?
It’s against policy but don’t beat yourself up about it! I imagine that most of the productive and helpful identifiers on the site who started out (like me) without formal training have been overconfident in giving ID’s at some stage (as I have).
Alternatives to agreeing with a species-level ID: to either “favorite” it or to add an ID at genus level or higher. (If you write “supportive” along with your ID, then it will be clear that you aren’t casting doubt on the species-level ID that was given.) Either way you should get notifications about further ID’s and it will help you learn.
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I was/am definitely guilty of this back when I was first starting to use iNat 
I wouldn’t be too harsh on yourself about it, especially because I’d be willing to bet you’ve since gone on to properly ID many more observations. I’m unsure of any guaranteed solution short of going through all of your past IDs but if anyone has a search string to view observations you’ve already reviewed but only within a certain time frame (e.g. a few months of starting to use iNat), I would appreciate that as would others I’d imagine.
One solution to help others I’ve found is to go through older observations and look them over again. For instance, I’ve been going through as many salmoninae observations as I can, many of which haven’t been touched for over a year. To my understanding (and depending on your notification settings I think) you will get a notification on your dashboard/inbox thingy any time someone submits an ID that isn’t yours, even if it is a broader ID. You can also tag someone and gently ask them to double check their ID, but I would be a little cautious about this as some people might not take it too well. I’d probably only do so on grainier/blurrier photos and phrase it like
“Hey username what made you go with X species here? Do you think it could be Y species also? I’m having a hard time saying for sure from this photo”
instead of
“Hey username are you sure about that?”
Hope that helps :)
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Yes - many newer users don’t yet know that they can click the down arrow next to their identification and choose the “withdraw” option (in the web interface, at least, I don’t know about the phone apps).
If you feel like you “agreed” beyond your ability to independently confirm the identify of an observation, you can simply go back and withdraw. Or, you can add a coarser ID in which you are confident, and that will replace your earlier agreement.
As for finding your older IDs, that’s a bit clunky with current iNat functionality. You can find all of your active agreeing IDs using the URL
https://www.inaturalist.org/identifications?user_id=jdmore&category=supporting
(and substituting your own user_id) but the results are sorted from most recent to oldest, so you’d have to click on the last “pages” of IDs to find your oldest ones.
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Just the fact you’re thinking about this puts you in good shape! And it looks like you only have 68 identifications for others so far - some of which are pretty straight-forward, and many that are the same species.
If I were you, I’d momentarily stop ID’ing other folk’s new observations, check the ones I’ve already done, withdraw the identifications I wasn’t comfortable with in retrospect, and then get right back to it!
Then as time allows, go back through your own observations, which you have more of, and think those through.
In my opinion, the best way to learn is to fret about correctly ID’ing/confirming observations! 
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The problem I’ve had is that I’m inclined to agree with those who have more experience when I have few ways of confidently identifying species myself. This is especially an issue where the AI can’t be reasonably sure of something like scat.
Honestly, my issue was more that I was unsure of what certain species were so I assigned what was essentially a placeholder ID to at least get some people looking instead of no one with an unknown ID. Is this where the reviewed function comes into play?
I totally get that, and it can be a really strong bias that’s hard to fight at times. It is always ok to ask why someone gave an ID, and always always always feel free to ask for ID tips/guides. Pretty much every single guide I use I have learned about from other iNat users.
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Sometimes I’m lazy and only put genus level, then later look up the species when someone gives an ID. I do this sometimes with birds. If that’s what you’re doing, I don’t really see an issue. If you don’t know at all, I’d avoid doing it.
Does the favorite function draw more traffic to observations?
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If nothing else, it seems that the vast majority of the time, it’s safe to agree with the observer when no one else offers a counterargument. I can’t think of a time when learning from past IDs I’ve agreed on has backfired on me.
I’m assuming you are talking about your own observations or observations you are IDing that previously had no ID or a super vague one like “insects” or “vertebrates”?
In that case, you are doing the right thing. You can also ping more experienced IDers if you like, but I would caution against that to a degree as some people don’t like being pinged for a bunch of observations constantly (though I personally do not mind, I’m always happy to help with your fish IDs).
I usually only ping experts when their IDs are needed to correct an obviously incorrect (though likely accidental) ID. For instance the other day I saw a butterfly that was ID’d as a fish species that I later found out has a similar name as it. If I just ID’d it as a butterfly, pinged the observer and moved on, there was a chance they may not see the ID and it would be stuck at kingdom anamalia until 2 other people ID’d it as a butterfly. Only then would someone sorting by butterflies see it. So instead I went to the explore tab, sorted by butterflies and Maryland and clicked through a few of the top profiles until I found 2-3 who looked to specialize in Maryland butterflies specifically. I’ve found this last step to be especially helpful when trying to correct an insect, bird, or plant ID as there are so many more species to learn than fish, and as a result more identifiers tend to specialize in specific regions. Then tag the 2-3 of them and the original poster and say something along the lines of “Hey observer’s name you might want to double check this ID. Specialists’ usernames Y’all look to be pretty familiar with butterflies/birds/whatever in the area, do you have any idea what species this might be?”
Hope this helps, sorry for kinda yapping a bit :)
Please do not apply this approach. You should only add an ID to an observation if you actually know how to identify that organism.
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When someone disagrees with an id of mine, I use “Usename, can you pleas explain why you… i am not questioning your id, I just want to understand why. Thanks.”
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Yes, that is another really good response, probably a better one lol
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The observer says leopard, to my eyes it could be.
ID as mammalia. Leave a comment - leopard ? Annotate as scat.
Wait for an informed ID. (And scat needs something in the picture for scale - does not help me, but the taxon specialists need that info)
If you ID as leopard, then you are the one who must be able to explain why this is leopard scat … to us 
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That is a problem, and one you should endeavor to avoid. The Agree button is simply a convenient shortcut for adding your own ID to an observation when it happens to match someone’s existing ID. If you wouldn’t feel comfortable being the first one to add that ID, or explaining why that ID is correct, then you are “out ahead of your skis” as the saying goes, and should consider a coarser ID with which you would be comfortable (or just wait for others to add IDs).
This was very well said by
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I really do not think so but, nota bene, identification must always be a very reasoned process.
A large mass of IDs, especially if confirmations, made without verifying if the previous ID is wrong and/or if the organism is not wild are really detrimental and can easily annoy some users.
Anyway, I think that no one here should be allowed to ban other users just because they are making wrong IDs. On the other hand, if someone advises you to reason before making IDs or to evaluate carefully what you are actually able to ID, you should follow this suggestion.
No, the absence of a disagreement is no grounds for assuming the observer got it right. You should only agree if you have knowledge of the organism sufficient for you to come to that identification independently.
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I do this with plants. Although I believe I could give better IDs by reading literature, I usually do not do it.