I feel like requiring three IDs for research level would be an absolute nightmare when it comes to fungi. Often times I struggle to get even one extra confirmation even for species that are relatively easy to ID with clear pictures - its mostly just a gamble on whether the two or three other people IDing mushrooms in the area happen to stumble across the post before it falls off the front page. I’ve got multiple observations of species that are almost impossible to misidentify in the area that just… never get noticed.
And that’s okay, mushrooms are a pain and there are a ton of species that are difficult to ID, but I surely wouldn’t want to see it get even more difficult.
…how on earth do you find so many chicken of the woods, and why were they not ID’d dang
there must be no one looking at mushrooms in your area, i worked through a few i’ll do more later
Friend, thank you so much LOL. And I don’t know, there really don’t seem to be that many people even paying attention to mushrooms - we’ve come across giant, obvious logs of completely desiccated chicken that no one even touched. Less so this year since its been so dry, but still, its absolutely baffling to me.
Other stuff like random white clitocybe-ish mushrooms, russulas, indistinct milk caps… sure, those I get. But seeing stuff like chicken, chantarelles, shrimps, oysters not get IDed makes me scratch my head.
Hell, there’s one observation of a Boletus separans that could not be more of a textbook picture that’s just been crickets, and another of Sutorius eximius that is pretty obvious (dark pores + purple scabers makes that one really easy to ID) which confuses me because S. eximius has a very distinct pore surface - but I acknowledge that boletes can be a bit weirder to ID.
With all due respect to your ID skills - the observer shouldn’t just click - I agree. Most especially for something interesting and unusual.
Currently following @ajott 's ID of a zebra velvet spider in Kenya. It will be the first ever obs on iNat. So tempting to autoclick - oh I do agree! We have 2 skilled identifiers to the new species, but it is trapped by the initial wrong ID from a shiny new gsb22 observer.
So enticing, just one click, can’t hurt? But I absolutely don’t want to be on that 3 identifiers leaderboard, for no reason but my goodwill. We have tagged in all the spider people. Now. We wait.
There is a degree of discrepancy when reliant on visual comparison in both physical details and genetalia dissection (also reliant on visual comparison), I know of no one who has the equipment and technology of DNA barcoding in their basement workroom, but it is my experience with iNat that we are curious lot and thirst for knowledge. For those of us who are not keeping score by the parameters iNat assigns -how many species and identifications one makes- there is a sincere interest in providing a reasonably accurate record of observations. I personally do not have the stomach to destroy each subject I photograph so I rely on and accept affirmation by the community of naturalists at iNat and Bug Guide based on visual comparison, agreement that the identification is reasonably accurate. For encounters of unknown species to which I can only identify to tribe or even family or superfamily, I am searching for direction for my own research, a direction of where to look. It is my experience with iNat that is the norm, that when a genus or species is suggested, I am able to compare and discern the probability for myself before accepting, just as you do. With that said, I have made mistakes over the years and are aware of that because other users have communicated the mistake with helpful dialog and knowledge to help me grow. I accept that this is a community dedicated to learning and sharing, perfection is not requisite.
On the other hand as a user, if I upload something and don’t know exactly what it is, and someone who is reliable, like a number of people I recognize on this list, IDs my observation I am willing to agree with their identification. Not because I know it by my skill but I recognize their skill and agree that they are usually correct. If I do not know who they are though, I will check out who they are and don’t always agree if they don’t look trustworthy.
You shouldn’t do it whoever ider is, tag other experts or check keys by yourself, but don’t just agree because an expert ids it, too many times experts are wrong, and it’s against iNat guidelines to do that.
If you don’t follow through the keys and come to the same answer yourself, a better method that will still allow it to RG like in the case being discussed, is to simply withdraw your ID. This acknowledges that you are unsure, and then will default to their skill.
It may not seem like much of a difference but for example some mushrooms I’m fixing - usually it is violet toothed polypore - and someone put it as shelf fungi (which, it actually isn’t), and someone put a trametes ID on top of it, and sometimes even to species (like turkey tail), and then people - some who even look like good ID’ers - piled on to that without checking all the photos or looking closely enough. Like my mavericks have been mostly VTP, put onto RG trametes or stereums. I eventually tagged another user to help clear out my maverick as I hate seeing that, but if you have 3 at species level agreeing trametes after a general “polypore” and I come along and it isn’t even polypore…Im a maverick! These then stay at the incorrect species as RG, and were there for months when I finally decided to tag some other mushroom ID’ers to weigh in to bump it out of RG since having mavericks bothers me xD
I hope it makes sense what that ramble is trying to say xD If you put especially like a 3rd ID to species on it without knowing yourself, and someone even more knowledgeable or with new data (because things do change especially in these days of doing genomes!) if they fix it to the newer better knowledge, they’ll be mavericked, and then it sits there for a long time since it wasn’t bumped out of RG.
No problem, feel free to tag me if you want help again - but I may not know. I tend to know a few really well and even be able to spot the oddities some can present like, but then be totally clueless on others xD
One thing to keep in mind here or with any citizen science based program is that errors happen. If you are IDing, keep in mind that some pictures may not be accurate but hopefully most are and adjust accordingly. Also, if using one particular example as a basis for an ID, you can check to see how many people agreed and if there were any dissenting opinions. Probably the only way to really improve is if more experts or really good hobbyists ID and more observations get multiple confirmations and even then, there is potential agreement bias. And realistically, there are only so many good IDers for any particular taxon/region. Another thing I do is pay close attention to those that refine my IDs. If they are experts in the specific field, I tend to agree with their recommendation. If the person doesn’t have a bio or just calls themself a hobbyist or naturalist, then often I will wait for another opinion if I can’t be sure myself. No identification is guaranteed but it reduces potential errors.
I would only like to point out a couple of features of some groups of organisms that remain poorly known, related to this issue:
Increasing the number of identifications required to reach RG is likely to lead to an inability to reach that level in many groups of organisms. For example, focusing on true bugs, I see that we often barely have enough experts to correct at least obviously incorrect identifications (3 vs. 1). If 6 votes are needed (6 vs. 2), we often just don’t have them :-(. So it seems to me that such a change will lead to a decrease in data quality (inability to correct errors) rather than an improvement. At least in “unpopular” groups.
As for the question of whether to agree with the opinion on species identification, I would be cautious about it. Of course, there are very simple cases. For example, I tag all my observations of beeches in the Caucasus first as Fagus (since I am not an expert in botany), and I readily agree with the identification “F. orientalis” (I know that it probably is). But on the other hand, I realize that often “taxonomy is dark and full of terrors” :-) So accepting any species-level identification without understanding its validity seems like a bad idea to me. I would like to remind that all RG observations (subject to some other requirements) are also published in GBIF. To which there is traditionally a higher level of credibility. Sometimes this leads to rather unfortunate misrepresentations in applied research based on such data. So, I would only ask you to think for at least a second before clicking “agree” if you are not completely sure that this is correct.
A good example of the latter point are red Russula sp. of mushrooms - there are hundreds of species that are functionally impossible to tell apart just by photographs. Personally with these I’ve mostly defaulted to clicking that community taxon can’t be improved for those, since realistically they can’t without going seriously into the weeds on IDing that genus.
Although I am not an expert in fungi, I know that their “folk taxonomy” is greatly simplified, and many species cannot be identified without microscopy. Although it’s sometimes hard to explain - you know, of course.
As for clicking “disagree” - there are features to that as well. Some of them I only realized today - thanks Fabien: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/141449550. Perhaps we need an additional “yellow button” - “this may be true, but there is insufficient evidence.”
You’re welcome! I, too, am grateful to you and many other iNaters for the opportunity to improve my knowledge and skills. This experience has really improved my understanding of many groups of the true bugs. In fact, the iNaturalist is a great open collection. Working with it is fascinating!
Some species of fungi are extremely easy to id and others are basically impossible to identify to a species level without genetic testing. There are species considered choice edible mushrooms, even, that have unresearched or unknown taxonomy and could probably afford to have a species complex addendum here in America; a good example being chantarelles, especially in eastern NA https://www.mushroomexpert.com/cantharellus_cibarius.html
I would adore a tag that says ‘this may be true, but there is insufficient evidence.’ - it would definitely be helpful, at least as far as fungi go
there is a feature request to clarify the wording, because if you look at the wording for the red, it says basically this, but then the subtext shown once clicked is simply “disagrees”. This bothers a lot of us, but still the red works for it even if what shows to the end user doesn’t see that. This is why I typically leave a note stating that though :)