Several topics recently have touched on the idea that we need more people doing IDs. It’s been said that the number of observations is overwhelming the ID process, that expert taxonomists are hard to recruit, and that identifying can be a burdensome chore (a perspective that isn’t likely to help wi…

Following up on the comments by @markhagg , I think it would be good to consider ways to encourage higher quality observations. Maybe something as simple as letting viewers give a “gold star” or “thumbs up” to observations that have sharp photos, clearly show diagnostic characters, have multiple phot…

[image] twr61: as simple as letting viewers give a “gold star” or “thumbs up” to observations that have sharp photos, clearly show diagnostic characters, have multiple photos showing all parts of an organism, have photos showing the organism in context, helpful notes, etc, etc. Or hey, just a…

Anything that lends itself to generating a leaderboard of some kind (“I have more useful/pretty/scientifically accurate observations than you”) will be gamed and exploited. Maybe that is wanted, I don’t know. I’d love to see the existing leaderboards go. More helpful for the purpose of actually sp…

One of the advantages I see to flagging observations is the ability to find useful information. Say hypothetically there is a plant with big showy eye-catching flowers, but to confidently ID to species you need to see the fruit or leaves or stems. I would like to be able to efficiently find observat…

I second the importance of adding ways to assess observation quality. For me, my main motivation for doing IDs is to learn more about the taxa I am identifying instead of curating species range maps or helping other people learn how to do IDs. Only high quality observations showing key characteristi…

[image] zookanthos: Right now, there is a notion that you should generally avoid adding coarser non-disagreeing IDs to observations, such as #3 in Identification Etiquette on iNaturalist - Wiki . I think that guideline should be chucked out the window because adding a coarser ID would at least c…

I think it might be useful for a bot which is evaluating picture quality to send a message to users (particularly new users) with feedback on how to improve picture quality, saying, e.g. ‘‘I see you’ve observed some trees! I note that you have not included additional pictures showing the leaves/bark…

That would be pretty complex for a bot. And each taxa is so different. Some trees, just one picture, even a blurry one from a car, is fine. Others you need specific diagnostic characters such as bud scales or fruit. It all depends on the species

[image] charlie: If the species can be identified, it’s a data point we wouldn’t have otherwise. Even if the species can’t be identified, it could be useful data. I have one “observation” that has no associated media. I saw and heard what could only have been a pair of golden-cheeked warblers…

I think by simply helping others id things on their own can help a lot. For example, I noticed there’s not many plant identifiers on iNat. And because of how daunting plants may be, it may discourage someone from helping another. Yet in my area, WA and OR, there’s a field guide on the web called “Wi…

Recruiting more identifiers

General

jdmore June 6, 2019, 3:45am 273

If we can ever get to a clearer system of disagreeing versus non-disagreeing higher-level IDs, I think I would agree with you here.

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Recruiting more identifiers

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