Here’s another shot at explaining it (and it’s just an idea… if it truly is only this one genus that’s complex then maybe it makes no sense)…
A complex use case is best for testing a mature software application. Taraxacum provides such a use case. The taxonomy is confusing. The observers often have little relevant background in making observations. Often it’s the very first observation when someone joins iNat. This means that the foremost experts on the genus are least shielded from the most novice users of the software application.
I can understand why the foremost expert on dandelions would have no interest in being active on iNat. There is no filter between the expert and the casual dandelion observer. Creating one would mean changes to the existing User Interface (UI) or creation of a new one. This would not mean changes to underlying taxonomy but the data would be presented in a way that provides a filter between the expert and the casual observer. If done elegantly, it would better entice them both to exist here together. Back of the napkin requirements…
Solution from the casual observer’s perspective…
- Prompt collection of traits associated with the chosen sub-species if the casual observer attempts to id to sub-species.
- Allow those observations to be research grade after the second corroborating id.
- Display those observations as research grade (with a different color… possibly gold instead of green to signify that a higher bar was cleared via the prompting).
Solution from the experts perspective…
- Follow whatever sub-species they are interested in that are presented to them as species (rather than sub-species as the casual observer sees them).
- Optionally confirm the identity of observations where the prompting has resulted in better data collection.
- Optionally contest the identity of observations where the data was collected incorrectly.
The two views of the same data (with the same underlying taxonomy) are presented in different ways and could be toggled between elegantly. The expert could toggle to the novice view of the world. And the novice could toggle to the expert view of the world. If the expert, using the experts view, noted a “research” grade Taraxacum obs that (by luck or skill) captured the traits necessary to warrant “species level gold id”, they could id it as such which might meaningfully encourage the novice. The novice, using the novice view, would see the “gold” id appear as a sub-species… and the expert would see it as a species. Each would feel acknowledged by the other.
Optionally, the expert UI could be developed by an organization other than iNat that is interested in access to the largest team of taxon data observers in the world. It’s possible that taxonomists might be interested in this data if presented to them accurately and correctly. The underlying iNat api’s as well as the underlying taxonomy would be precisely the same for each UI (view).
Problem:
Who decides which genera need to have alternative modeling? Is there even a way to store additional data at the genus/species level that tells iNat when to model the data differently based on the two views? How is data for additional prompting determined and stored for sub-species (possibly could re-use user defined observation fields in some way)? Basically, it would be a huge enhancement.
Interim Solution:
Gold level id for existing sub-species. Introduce the concept, which might encourage sub-species to be explored, discovered and described more often. Might mitigate the need for the large enhancement if it influences taxonomists to be more apt to describe traits at sub-species rather than species level (probably won’t / shouldn’t happen). One downside is… it might entice more casual observers to try (and fail) to id to sub-species.