Should I give up identifying unknowns?

I thought identifying unknowns was helpful to the site, and I’ve been doing it for about a year, but I keep getting complaints and critical feedback, all the way from “why didn’t you identify this to species” when I identify things to family or order, to “you shouldn’t try to identify this if you’re not an expert” when I identify things to family or genus (which are contradicting btw).

I was only trying to identify unknowns because I thought it was helpful. If it is not helpful, I will stop doing it! But everything I’ve read on the forum says it should be helpful. I’m confused. What do I do?

PS. I always immediately correct any mistakes I have made, or withdraw identifications when they are no longer useful. I check for updates twice a day.

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@DianaStuder ? I’ve also had some observers objecting to my identification of unknowns to only family level. They seem to want only IDs to species level and not coarser. I just ignore them and ID to any level I feel confident to do so.

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It’s definitely useful, thanks for your ID work!

You might want to try working on older observations, where you are less likely to get these reactions. In identify, instead of starting on page 1, start on page 100 (or wherever). Or sort with the oldest first. Sometimes users upload a batch and then add their own IDs, so it can be a good idea to stay away from observations uploaded that day.

You can also use some copypasta to explain that you’re adding a higher-level ID, which will help get the observation in front of specialists, and encouraging observers to add their own higher-level ID. This helps explain what you’re doing to new users who don’t understand the ID process.

If you’re getting a lot of corrections to finer IDs, such as genus, try rolling back to a level you’re more confident about, such as family or order.

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This has been discussed many times on the forum. Here is one helpful post by @matthewvosper:

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I generally do this, but I slip up periodically. I thought it was okay if I just correct it immediately. I’m not a maverick on any observations.

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Yeah I read this post a while back and it encouraged me to keep going. I generally ID things from months ago (like yesterday I was identifying unknowns posted in August 2024), but I still get these comments periodically and they make me doubt whether this is productive.

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It’s fine! But humans being humans you might get some reactions every now and then. To the extent that those reactions bother you, it’s worth finding ways to make them less likely.

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Do not doubt! Continue your mission. Identifying unknowns is undoubtedly perhaps the most important activity on iNaturalist. How else do those observations get in front of the specialist who filters for their own interest only.

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Don’t give up. You are being helpful. When I get those types of comments you mention, I respond with something along the lines of: “Many identifiers on iNaturalist find things to identify by means of high-level search filters, like “plants” or “bees”. I didn’t know what species this is, but I know it’s in the [insert rank and taxon here] so I’ve added that as an ID in the hopes that it will help someone who can identify it more specifically to find it quicker”.

I’ve observed that many of the folks providing comments like these are new users who aren’t being malicious, they just don’t quite understand how the site works yet. You do though, and you can help them to too.

Also, no need to withdraw high-level IDs if they’re not wrong. Like, if you ID as plant and eventually it gets to “dandelion”, your ID is fine. But if you ID as plant and eventually it gets to “tiger”, then yeah, withdraw your ID (assuming it’s genuinely a tiger or else a non-plant).

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That goes against iNat guidelines.
Be kind.
Identify only at the taxon level where you are confident.

I presume you ID at Family or Order because they uploaded with no ID?
You can use a (text expander) copypasta to explain that a broad ID means the obs has a hope of being seen by a taxon specialist.

Persevere. You are being helpful, and are appreciated.

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Please do keep identifying Unknowns. I don’t know how many Unknowns I’ve IDed - thousands? - and I think only two or three times did I get some sort of snarky response (“well, duh, it’s a fungus” or “can’t you tell this photo [of a tree and an antelope] is for the tree, not the antelope?!?”). My feelings are hurt for an hour or two and then I remember all the notifications I get taking those former Unknowns to a finer ID. I figure that if it’s OK for the original observer to ID something just as Fungi, it is certainly OK for an identifier to take an Unknown to Fungi (or whatever). Progress is progress.

I make IDs on Unknowns everywhere from Kingdom to Species level, Fungus to Rosy Maple Moth. I almost always look at Unknowns that are at least a week old. I make LOTS of IDs, not just of Unknowns, and yes, I was a professional biologist before I retired, but I am very definitely not an expert in anything. I do try to remember my limits and I usually remember to check for similar species if I’m working outside of my own region. Do I make mistakes? Yes, but not very many, really. So, please keeping IDing Unknowns - we need all the identifiers we can get!

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Same here, I have been told by a well known member of iNat that anything coarser than family is useless when IDing unknowns, even when the picture of the observation is basically only a landscape shot, when I said I’m just IDing to move it into a category I was told I am wasting everyone’s time with those coarse IDs… I have stopped IDing that users unknowns because of this reason since his observations are vague, even difficult to get to species level (you can literally only see it’s a tree from that distance) and he doesn’t seem to want to accept anything coarser

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I try to remember that one person’s opinions are just one person’s opinions and that many other people on iNat have a different opinion of the situation.

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Don’t stop; what you’re doing is very helpful!

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I joined iNat in 2018. I have only made 802 ids for others. Not many. My confidence is smaller than my skills. That’s ok.
I do as others have said, make a broader id, sometimes I add it to a project and leave a comment saying I’m trying to get it in front of more eyes.
I do more adding of annotations than ids. That does help the sorters.
My take on it is iNat has room for everyone. Those of us here do our best to meet each person where they are and give a hand up when possible. Don’t take what May feel like backlash at your effort personally. I do know that can be difficult depending on my mood. That goes for them too. It might be their mood.
Don’t give up.

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It’s important! I specialize in conifers and if it weren’t for users simply ID’ing an unknown to “Conifers” it wouldn’t pop up under my filters and I would never see it to identify it.

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I get this kind of response a lot from new users who don’t fully understand how the site works. If a user has less than 100 observations, I typically add “general ID to get the ball rolling” in the notes of identification to preempt this kind of response. If I still get a weird response, I link to the iNat help: Why do people keep adding “obvious” IDs like “Plants” or “Fungi”?.

Certain experienced users are sometimes disgruntled about higher IDs because they have a different preferred workflow. However, I think, where anyone chooses to deviate from a normal workflow, the burden is on the user to figure out how to get it working with iNat and not the other way around.

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I typically just ignore those comments. If an observer gets really naughty, I exclude them by a parameter in the URL (something like &not_user_id=john_doe,jane_doe).

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https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/responses#addid

Add an Identification

It’s preferable only to use these comments on observations by new users, as there are many reasons why an experienced user may not add an ID to their observations. Here’s a link to unidentified observations by people who joined iNaturalist in the past 3 weeks.

Option 1:
Hi, welcome to iNaturalist! Even if you don’t know the exact species of what you have observed, you can search for and select a higher level identification, such as “plants (kingdom Plantae)” or “insects (class Insecta)”. Many people helping identify observations on iNaturalist filter the observations by the group of species they know how to ID (like plants or insects), so observations with a blank ID like this one will be excluded from those filtered searches. Selecting general ID, and adding it under “Suggest an Identification” helps funnel your observation to someone who may know what they’re looking at, and that way it can get identified sooner. Here is a video tutorial for the mobile app: https://vimeo.com/162581545

Option 2 (general/coarse ID added):
I’m not quite sure which species this is, but this general identification will help other people who might know the species find your observation. Many people helping identify observations on iNaturalist filter the observations by the group of species they know how to identify, like “plants” or “insects”, and this general ID will help them find it more quickly. If you’re interested in learning more about how identifications progress on iNaturalist, you can read more here: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/getting+started#identify

Option 3 (subject unclear):
Hi, welcome to iNaturalist! I’ve been helping identify observations that aren’t yet identified as any organism at all. Which organism are you focusing on in this observation? I’ve added this identification for now, but let me know if you were focusing on a different organism here. Thanks!

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Absolutely DO NOT stop identifying unknowns! It is a great and very useful job. Just to avoid the situations you described, keep to two things: 1. Keep handy a phrase for copy/paste „This is to get your observation from Unknowns , into which organism experts almost never look". 2. When identifying, check the users profile. If they have many observations and largely with their own primary IDs, it may happen they have been uploading in batches and will be IDing later themselves. This is no reason for the users to grumble when you have added higher taxonomic level than they later did, but human beings are human beings. iNat community has them all. Ignore and just give a pass for observations of such users next time.

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