Recruiting more identifiers

To be clear the goal is to follow the defined references, not the requirement. Those are not the same thing. The site supports, and there are many examples of accepted deviations from both POWO and other defined references in the iNat database.

The goal is to have those deviations be both scientifically AND iNat community supported and not have the taxonomy subject to one person\s vision, and in particular to avoid the issue of constant swapping back and forth as passionate curators refuse to accept a change.

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I’m not sure how true this is for the large amount (majority?) of cases where it is difficult or impossible to get an observation to species level. The computer vision currently can’t train off of non-species observations as far as I know. So if someone identifies something, using the computer vision, as an easy to identify species that clearly doesn’t match their observation, and I move it back to a higher level (genus or even higher often) and it stays there, then the computer vision won’t be able to learn from that (unless I am missing something).

Sorry–I haven’t had time to read through the whole thread, so if this has been mentioned, just ignore. I know the Cornell site offers courses in birding–which leads me to ask, are there other sites that offer courses? If so, is there a reference list here that someone could go to and consider? I realize that an online course isn’t going to make anyone an expert, but it would help ordinary persons (like me) improve their abilities a little to help with identifications. Plus, it’s just fun to learn more.

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nah we need to figure out if there is a ‘section’ we can make for the two and the hybrid,because it doesn’t really matter which one you are seeing for most purposes anyway, they are both invasive. But putting them at Lonicera lumps in some neat native ones too. But i am drifting off topic.

Disagree with this and the overall great success of iNat (despite its imperfections) is the most emphatic proof that this is a bad idea. People have tried creating what you are suggesting and they have all pretty much failed. Unless you count super specific stuff like bugguide. In fact i think the push for non egalitarianism is a contaminant to science in general and has led to much nastier things such as the racism and sexism that has rooted deeply in academia as well.

I agree strongly that we need more academics, land managers policymakers, ‘professional’ naturalists, and experts of all sources involved in iNat. But as one person who is one of the above i am honestly really bugged by people implying that we would not remain here without special treatment. Life is not egalitarian sure, but it’s not too much to ask that our reputation and social capital come from how we interact within this community. We don’t need some external entity telling us who should get higher weighting for their IDs or whatever. If you are the world’s expert on blowflies, well, you will have better blowfly IDs than anyone else and your reputation will build. I don’t need some institution telling me to give oyu more blowfly points. Earn it like everyone else.

The issue with data quality is 95% or more due to the duress user issue. If we fixed that we’d see an explosion in data quality and more adoption of iNat by experts. I have no doubt.

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I do not have any data on which of those cases is the majority: de-identifiying it into a higher category or identifying it as a different species. Since @aspidoscelis mentioned he has some professional training in identifying plants I assumed for him its the latter.
It is true however that if you put it into a higher category and if the photo would therefore be not used in the training of the AI the information that it is not this particular species to which it has been wrongly identified is lost. However, only as long as someone identifies it to correct species then it is back and corrects the AI.

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2 posts were split to a new topic: Uploading observations

One way of recruiting new IDers is for current IDers to craft and upload images that are marked up with easily digestible ID tips (text, arrows, etc.). Here’s one I made for Calopteron terminale, a secondary upload for this observation. So if I make an ID for a Calopteron spp. and the observer is curious about why, I can quickly provide either a link to the image or even embed the image in a comment. I know of at least one person who then went on to use that information to correct misidentified species in the genus.

I don’t have data, but I think conveying ID tips visually can convert interested users into IDers at a higher rate than just providing ID tips by text. It takes a few minutes to create such graphics but I highly recommend them. I also like making them, in part, because the process teaches me about the organism. And, if it matters, I’m not a Calopteron expert. I just decided one day that it might be fun to learn how to ID them. I think iNaturalist is full of similar folks … people who are genuinely interested in improving their ID skills but don’t know where to start. It’s just hard to pick up ID skills with the current system (the “why” of an ID is rarely communicated).

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One type of email that might get my interest is a plea to ID a particular taxa that I might be interested in. E.g., it might be clear from recent activity that I’ve provided some IDs for species X. Your letter might ask whether I might be willing to start Following that taxa. Once a taxa is Followed a user is much more likely to proof IDs as they come in. The email might provide a URL that does that in a single click. You might also ask me to consider going through past IDs to clean up misidentifications (with perhaps some tips on how to do that). I’m sure there are folks on the forum who will be violently opposed to such outreach but I think you might, still, find some folks who would respond favorably to such suggestions. These pleas might also be displayed on the Dashboard, of course.

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This has been my main motivation for identifying to this point, but I don’t know how to communicate why other people might want to do it for the same reason.

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I’d like to second the idea for some sort of graphical bonus for those who spend time identifying. E.g., if a person’s ratio of IDs to Observations is > 1, the user icon would be modified in some way. Displaying the ratio might be too boring … but perhaps there’s a way. Currently the only way to know whether an ID provider is actually somebody who IDs A LOT (and presumably has the expertise) is to jump over to their profile and snoop. I do that constantly and it would be nice to know that just from user icon.

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This is soooo important, I think. I wish the suggestion could be baked into the instructions somewhere. Apologies if it’s already there.

I’d also really like to see observations on the Identify page be sorted to benefit those who provide IDs. It pains me when I travel to a high-IDer’s page and see hundreds of unidentified observations (out of their are of expertise, obviously), many of them years old. I know that there’s a mandate to provide IDs for all the new users, but a little love for the IDers might go a long way to making active members stay active.

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There is a similar post: Photo annotations that may interest you.

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Regarding egalitarianism: I think you just need to get over being “really bugged” by this. If you want people who’ve already paid their dues, well, it’s not unreasonable for them to not want to have to pay their dues again on iNaturalist.

With data quality–it’s not 95% duress users. It’s really not. We have some veteran, high-volume users who, well, specialize in volume. We have a lot of well-meaning novices who are here because they want to learn, but if you’ve got a lot to learn you’re going to produce a pretty low signal-to-noise ratio while you get up to speed. And all this is fine, until the well-meaning novices exceed the capacity of the selfless experts who volunteer their time here in exchange for no particular tangible reward.

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i don’t think you actually understand what i am advocating for. Meritocracy, not egalitarianism.

Experts who engage the community don’t really have to pay any ‘dues’. People are very excited to have them and they soon becomes as influencial as anyone would really want. People who come here and expect special treatment, or worse, acceptance of inappropriate behavior because they are experts don’t tend to do well or stick around.

I stand by my duress users comment. Some high volume users make a mistake now and then but if you are doing 10,000 IDs and make 100 mistakes, you’re doing as well as any other source of data including the ‘pros’. And duress users are the source of a ton of the wrongly ID’ed observations to start with.

What sort of reward do you think these ‘experts’ want? We aren’t going to pay them, most of them get paid to do this stuff anyhow. The rewards they already can get are community esteem, influence in a growing movement, and close knowledge of and control over the data. What else do you think experts want? pokemon badges? Everyone I know who is here is here because they are excited about their taxa and want to be a part of that knowledge.

Not that it really matters. None of this is really new, and the faction you have advocated for is a small minority and continues to get smaller. So… you could always go join iSpot where your approach was tried. Plenty of room over here, somehow a bunch of the people have left to go …elsewhere… :)

If you “agree strongly that we need more academics, land managers policymakers, ‘professional’ naturalists, and experts of all sources involved in iNat”, at some point you’re going to have to get over this “they’re just a bunch of prima donnas, we don’t need 'em!” spiel. Step back a bit and ask yourself what changes might really recognize & reward expertise rather than just assuming that any suggestion for change in that direction is a request for ego stroking of some kind. “Pokemon badges”? That’s kind of what’s been suggested above with gamifying iNaturalist, and I think it’s just about the worst possible approach. That’s not what I’m suggesting.

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i’m not sure what the disconnect is here, i am not saying we (not they - i am one) are primadonas. I am saying from my experience we don’t want more ID weight (decided by who?) or flashy badges.

Ok, here is what i think we want: A free, powerful communal data management tool. Put some energy into adding the features on iNat that those of us who monitor ecology will use! transect,plot, bucket trap methodologies compatible with the app. Not just the species list, allow some ecological data in with the plots. Negative data and survey tracking functionality. Ability to make secret observations (if that’s a burden, charge people a little bit, whatever). Ability to upload and save data and maps on the app. Basic natural community/ecosystem/wetland mapping functionality. Revele datasheets. And hey… is your taxa full of bad data on iNat? How about better personalized filters to CHOOSE whos data and what taxa to display on the newly upgraded maps? Don’t like Bob’s observations or Sue’s IDs? Turn them off? Most of my ideas come from the botanical world so if your specialty is another taxa i’m sure you will have more ideas too. And none of this is super hard, it just hasn’t been done because the goal was to grow the ‘citizen/community’ aspect of lots of ‘amateurs’. Do what BIOTICS doesn’t do, what Arcmap can’t do without freezing, what you’d do with R if you thought it was worth setting aside enough field time to learn it really well.

Doesn’t that sound better than weighted IDs? You’re a field guy right? Wouldn’t you use that? Or maybe you have another idea that is better. I don’t know. But again i am not arguing for forced equality, just for avoiding having credentials forced on iNat from some external source.

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Well, if you want to know what I feel like are the real problems here, all you’ve got to do is read the post you responded to. :-) And I didn’t recommend badges, so I have no idea where you’re getting that!

For what it’s worth, filtering out uninteresting observations is one of the places where I feel like egalitarianism really comes into play. Wouldn’t want to let people ignore the uninteresting users… of course, we’re still going to do our best to ignore the uninteresting users, it’s just going to be more work and iNaturalist is going to be less rewarding as a result.

sigh. i did read your post, you are assuming if i read it i will automatically agree with you? On that note I think i’m done with this part of this conversation.

People constantly suggest badges.

we emailed about 400 users last week who met certain criteria (mainly English locale & iNat.org site affiliation) and fell into two main categories:
-2000+ observations and fewer than 200 identifications for others
-500-2000 observations and 0 identifications for others

Huh… I have ~2,000 observations on iNaturalist but have provided ~11,000 IDs for others (as viewable on my profile). Is that not the norm? I don’t always have time to go outside and rigorously look for organisms, but identification is always accessible and helps me hone my skills.

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That’s the kind of testimonial that we need for recruiting more of the same! Thanks for all those IDs

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