I’ve experienced a handful of IDers of snakes who sometimes add a disagreeing broader ID (usually suborder- “snakes”) to an observation they believe cannot be improved further than the ID they provided. This is fine of course, but what they sometimes do is mark the Community Taxon ‘as good as it can be’, which makes the observation casual since it is a broad ID. In going through as many of these as I can find, there have been a few which I have not been able to ID further, but many of them that I could, usually to the subfamily (which is still good enough for RG), and sometimes to species.
So My question is, should this be flagged as misuse of DQA? It’s not malicious or anything, but it seems like this kind of behavior should be stopped, since it is essentially prohibiting an observation from becoming RG and causing it to be hidden as casual, based solely on the opinion (potentially incorrect) of one person. If an observation is of a captive organism, or has a clearly incorrect location etc. it should be marked casual. But it seems to me that using DQA to make an observation casual based on your thoughts on the ID is different, and is comparable to people misusing DQA to push their taxonomic agenda, which I know is against iNat policy. Obviously the intent is well meaning in this case, but still seems like a problem imo. Idk am I making a big deal out of nothing?
I don’t think you are. I think it’s important. Take Burmese Pythons in South Florida, for example. Let’s say that iNat existed in 1979, and the first Burm ever observed in the wild was posted on iNat.
It does seem like a misuse of the DQA, in my opinion, since observations like these can likely be improved further with existing descriptions of so many different snake species. The purpose of that section in the DQA, which is to help semi-precise (up to the family rank) taxa get to RG if and only if there isn’t enough evidence pointing to one super-specific taxon or another. For example, if the evidence provided is of a bird’s nest with eggs and there are two species in the genus that exist in the area that could make the same-looking nest and lay the same-looking eggs, this is the appropriate time to use the gavel and say that the identification can’t be any more specific.
The thing about the DQA, though, is that we can’t see who votes for what (at least on the web version). Seeing who voted for and against certain DQA could help people like us message them to gently remind them of what that DQA row is for and provide them cited descriptions of very likely species.
My first suggestion would be to ask them about their votes. If you want to share specific examples with me via private message I’m happy to take a look.
If you click on the number next to the vote, you see all the users who voted that way:
btw you can see on the website. It shows you the count of votes, and if you click that number it will show a list of voters. I did PM the main guy doing it, which he ignored lol, but he’s since stopped doing it as far as I can tell I think? So it’s not really a current issue, but I did want other’s thought on how to address this in the future.
Oh wow! I’ve never seen this. Maybe this can be used to help guide a discussion on how to use the final DQA row whenever it isn’t used the way it was intended.
This was my understanding of the purpose of that section of DQA, which is which is why using it to make an observation casual at all seemed concerning to me.
In light of this, however, it should probably be addressed on a case by case basis.
For what it’s worth, I’ve definitely used the DQA to make observations casual if there really is not enough data to go further. ‘I can see it’s a green blur, so it’s probably a plant’… or even ‘well, it’s a tree, but it’s impossible to tell whether it’s a conifer or a dicot of some sort’ = vascular plants.
There is no benefit in leaving them in Needs ID when no further ID is possible - it’s a complete waste of identifiers’ time and stops them looking at observations that really can go further. Of course, it can be misused as you’re describing, but it does have legitimate value in removing unidentifiable observations.
