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…

One thing I try to do is for every ID that is confirmed by another user, I head over to their page and do the same for a few of theirs. Might be a good practice for all of us and would put a little dent in the lack of IDers posted by the OP.

It’s much more rewarding clicking ‘Agree’ for easy observations rather than spending 20minutes keying out a plant species by reading descriptions. Reward for Effort; I’m not sure if I would agree to it, but it’s a suggestion that has proven to work. Some suggestions of reward may be: • Titles for…

The only problem with a point system/gamifying things is that people may then ignore observations of common things, thinking that it’s not worth their time IDing to get the 1 point. Say it takes 5 seconds to ID a common bird (look at pic, think a little, click agree/type in name). For 100 common bir…

Also, the boundaries/definitions of what is and isn’t a ‘rare’ species can be very blurry/arbitrary. Is a Sulphur-crested Cockatoo more or less rare than an Australian King Parrot?

While I like the idea of a point system, this may cause bias for identifiers to disproportionately identify organisms as rare organisms when in reality they are a common organism that just looks similar. I know this is true for myself because I love when my own observations are ID’d as something rar…

When I first started, I knew very little. The more that was identified for me, more I determined to be able to “pay it forward”, so I have actively pursued literature, sources and connections that help me learn. Because it takes two IDs to make RG (typically) I came up with the idea that I would be …

I’ve been trying to do some more identifying the past couple of days since I haven’t done a whole lot in a while. I’ve found what’s easiest for me as a non-expert is to just work on one species at a time. One that has unique markings and is easily identifiable when they are visible, but isn’t being …

here are some stats, just to help inform the conversation (note that some of the numbers might not tie exactly because i pulled them one by one): life type verifiable r grade % (of v) needs ID % (of v) all diff (all-v) bird 2958507 2817798 95.2 140711 4.8 3706099 747592 amphib 312756 2570…

The local Society for Nature Conservation site of my country has a forum where users can ask for identification. The acceptance is really good. I think that this could help with problematic identifications by having an additional channel to ask for help identifying an observation. This way hard to …

[image] iPhil: The local Society for Nature Conservation site of my country has a forum where users can ask for identification. I have to imagine that the sheer volume of ID requests that would ensue on iNaturalist would make a Forum approach pretty unworkable here. But maybe if there was a …

Recruiting more identifiers

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Recruiting more identifiers

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