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…

[image] quillipede: but I don’t feel like I have a leg to stand on when confronted with this hostility I am sure you have plenty of legs to stand on and much moral support from other iNaturalist users. If people don’t appreciate what you are doing, just point them at the Getting Started secti…

I started copy pasting something like: “I don’t know what this is, but I’m putting it in this broad category so that people who can ID it can find it when they search that category for things that need ID” and my typical reactions to identifying unknowns have gone from “no s*** it’s a plant, what pl…

For me, iNat is a form of healthy escapism from unpleasant things. If my interactions with other users ever become aggravating, then I’d step away from doing things like broad IDs or adding helpful comments. There is a lot of encouragement in this thread to keep doing IDs even when you get negativ…

[image] clockwood: I personally am very sensitive to other people telling me what to do, so I try to be as non-demanding as possible when trying to get others to change their behavior – I don’t explicitly tell them “you should put coarse IDs on things,” I will edit my copypasta in keeping wit…

Same, the guy has infinite time to write rude comments but doesn’t add ids to thousands of his own observations. I muted his account and continued to id away. It feels good, I recommend it.

I’m always a little worried about getting negative reactions, and I have gotten a few “ha ha, I know it’s a mushroom, which one?” comments (which makes me hesitant to look at fungi.) I typically look at the user’s profile, to see if they are still active. Often it’s obvious that they were just do…

[image] danly: “ha ha, I know it’s a mushroom, which one?” I ID as Fungi. Have had one snark? And plenty of mushroom people who take the basket and sort thru the contents. Works for us.

I just skimmed the thread so this might’ve been already mentioned, but I think this is an important note: When you get comments such as: Obviously this is a flowering plant, I can see the flowers. Please don’t add such an irrelevant comment. Try to explain why this is useful and how it attracts…

Please flag the abusive ones. No one is entitled to use derogatory language to another.

:grin: I was editing my comment to include my thoughts on that as you finished that message.

Should I give up identifying unknowns?

General

lynkos March 11, 2025, 5:45am 117

Or you can use Megachile’s excellent iNaturalist Metadata Tool browser extension to add a comment, even at the same time as you add the broad ID.

Topic		Replies	Views
Thoughts on unknown ID level? General	60	1284	December 8, 2025
Heavy sigh. Comments regarding the UNKNOWN option of identifying the observation General	141	3330	November 21, 2024
Why are some accounts adding super high level ids to my unknown observations General question	81	3756	September 22, 2022
Does anyone else get bothered by how many observations are marked as "unknown species"? General question	233	9137	February 25, 2023
Amount of "Unknown" records is decreasing General	557	37952	September 6, 2021

Should I give up identifying unknowns?

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