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 plant is it!!! if you can’t ID it then leave it alone!!!” to “thank you for your help”
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 just let them know why I am doing it, and let them come on their own to the conclusion that they should be doing it too.
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 negative feedback by finding ways to better present and explain your coarse IDs. If you have the patience and desire to go that extra step, fine. But I don’t feel the burden is on me rather than on the impolite and inexperienced user. No one should feel pressured to do more than they’re comfortable with.
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 doing an assignment, active for a few days at the start or end of a school year, and took a bunch of pictures on the school grounds or in their yard. For those, I don’t hesitate to make a coarse ID, with no comment, because they wouldn’t see it anyway.
For active users, I usually comment something to the effect of “I’m identifying this as “Bees” so the bee identifiers will see it.”
If they have lots of Unknowns, I assume that they don’t really understand the process, so I might make a longer comment like “It’s helpful to give an ID, even if it’s just Plants or Flowering plants, because not all identifiers look at things that are in the Unknown category. I know this is genus x, but I’m not sure which species.”
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 experts. Simply ignoring them which is the natural reaction is uncharitable towards the users (even if they are being rude) and encourages the behavior. Furthermore, I’ve been called stupid, idiot, ID Farmer, and the other run of the mill things. When this happens please don’t immediately report it to staff it was just a small infringement and all they are going to do is give them a warning you could’ve given them and cause our wonderful staff more work. Just keep your way of explaining charitable and explain the situation to them. If it continues or they use excessive profanities and name calling right of the bat, of course, let the staff know. Everything with moderation.
The staff don’t usually take care of flags, curators do. One of the things curators are there for is to hide offensive and insulting comments and warn users, so I would say definitely flag those kinds of comments so they can be dealt with.
Most all of my 425 identifications are from “Unknowns”, most IDed to Genus level. Have only had to withdraw 2(I think) because I was incorrect.
I have only had one comment from an “unknown” I IDed. The observer used the “notes” section as a personal diary to say how their day went and posted a photo of a handbag, I IDed it as Human. Another user agreed with my ID.
A couple of days later the observer posted a comment, “Who are you people and why are you IDing my post?”. I told them that is what we do here, and posted a link to the Help section “What is iNaturalist”.
I guess that worked because I haven’t seen a handbag photo since.
That reminds me of the person who commented something like, “I didn’t realise other people would see it” when I either IDed or commented on their observation.
I was editing my comment to include my thoughts on that as you finished that message.