I don’t think so.
But - are you agreeing to common sp. Another ribwort plantain - fine.
Or are you muddying the waters for a taxon specialist?? Only a few obs, with a very short leaderboard - then I would follow or fave the obs, or leave a relevant comment - but definitely not Agree to push it to RG. Way above my pay grade (if I were paid here)
Some types of observations, like mammalian scat or tracks, are particularly hard to ID correctly, and many competent identifiers don’t even try. I haven’t looked at what you’ve IDed, but take a look at Research Grade examples of what you’re trying to ID and see what you can conclude.
May we assume you meant that those were accidental clicks of agreement? Fundamentally, we should never Agree to an ID that we can’t independently identify or confirm. That’s the foundation of the validity for observations reaching Research Grade.
To answer the specific question of the topic, adding agreeing IDs on one’s own observations, when they don’t have the specific knowledge to do so, is unlikely to get someone’s account suspended. However, it is frowned upon and please do not do it.
From the iNat FAQ: https://help.inaturalist.org/en/support/solutions/articles/151000170242-when-should-i-agree-with-someone-else-s-identification-
An identification confirms that you can confidently identify it yourself compared to any possible lookalikes. Please do not simply “Agree” with an ID that someone else has made without confirming that you understand how to identify that taxon and can rule out similar taxa. Don’t rely solely on AI tools like iNaturalist’s Computer Vision suggestions or Merlin Bird ID.
If you agree with the ID without actually knowing the taxon, it may reach Research Grade erroneously, which is detrimental to iNaturalist’s overall data quality.
Don’t use the Agree button as a form of acknowledgement or gratitude, you can write a comment for that if you like.
That said, if someone is blindly agree with IDs on other people’s observations, that is going to raise more eyebrows and their account will be under greater scrutiny. If the volume of IDs is high, a warning is probably merited.
You do not need to agree with an ID to find it useful. It’s better to not add another ID at all, and as people have said above, you can just withdraw your previous ID if you believe it to be incorrect.
It bears repeating: “Knowing how to identify it” doesn’t mean that you could have written the key or field guide; it can mean that you know how to use a key or field guide.
Please do. That’s how the “experts” learned.
Reading the literature can certainly help! However, I’ve also learned how to identify some things simply by using iNaturalist, watching what names are put on things, paying attention to comments. If you pay attention, you can’t help but learn some things.
I second this. Usually, I use a combination of literature and the comments of others when learning how to ID. Leaving your own comments based off of literature is also great, as it not only helps yourself but others. It’s much better than just blindly agreeing to ID’s.
Thanks for the advice everyone. As of last night, I’ve been reviewing my posts and withdrawing my IDs for those that I’m not confident about myself. I apologize for the headaches and if anyone wants to say something about my posts. please let me know.
No apologies necessary! Many others learn and improve from conversations like this. Thank you for stepping up and starting the discussion.
I don’t believe so, they will still appear in order of most recently uploaded when IDing. But I do believe the observations with the most favorites have their photos appear first when looking at the photos of the species?
Taxon photos? We can reorder them. Anyone can. But aiming at useful photos that clearly show field marks. (There is History so we know who did what, but not why)
What about initial IDs where I made them only based on what the AI suggested for the time and region? For instance, I’m not a plant expert, so I wouldn’t suggested burdock for those posts unless it was pulled up from the suggestion list.
In my opinion, that’s fine as long as it does look like the suggested taxon. Getting some kind of ID on an observation as a starting point is important. When I’m IDing other people’s observations, I usually just put “Dicots” for most plants, since I don’t want to go too far. For my own observations, I use the CV suggestions, with the caveat that if I don’t know the taxon myself, I identify to genus rather than species. This eliminates the potential problem of people Agreeing to my tentative ID and making it incorrectly Research Grade. I also watch my notifications and if someone disagrees with the CV suggestion I used, I withdraw it and let theirs lead the identifications instead.
Makes sense. But what about suggestions that don’t include “We’re pretty sure it’s _”?
I use this browser extension, which shows the approximate level of confidence the CV has in each of its suggestions. I recommend it. If you only use the suggestions shown in green, you’re fairly safe. If there aren’t any green ones, use your own knowledge to make a higher-level identification instead. Check out this Forum topic for more information on the extension: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/chrome-extension-showing-computer-vision-confidence/35171
Everyone should keep in mind, though, that CV will almost always give you a suggestion (maybe even a very confident one), even if the species you have is not in the CV model. Currently the model covers a little less than 100,000 species, which is roughly 5% of all named species, and perhaps 1% of all living species.
So the results of the approach suggested above will vary widely by geography (i.e. density of iNaturalist observers and observations feeding into the model). And even in the best covered areas, you could still have a look-alike not represented in CV, or even something not yet named.
This is a good general approach for all uses of CV as an initial ID, though in many cases something coarser than genus may be more advisable.
I use genus because it’s easy to do on the Upload Observations page. There may be a genus suggestion at the top that looks right, or you can just type in the one from the top few species. In order to suggest something higher than genus, you have to navigate to the taxon pages for the suggestions you think are likely, then the Taxonomy tabs, and determine the lowest common taxon.
If the green suggestions don’t agree on a genus, I usually just add my own ID, like “Dicots”. It’s faster. However, if I do use the CV to identify other people’s observations, I use the Dronefly bot on the iNat Discord server to speed up the process mentioned above. I don’t know why I never thought to use it for my own observations.
I do go to the taxonomy tabs for the either or choices - then I can see at what level my knowledge sits. What I thought was MantIdae (it is a mantis, yes?) fits better at MantOdea.
I definitely made this same mistake for a while.
It doesn’t necessarily draw more traffic, but it serves as a tag so that (on the website at least) it will show up on my dashboard whenever someone else makes an ID or a comment. So, it’s a great way to learn from others’ identification expertise without worrying about disrupting the process.