Hello iNatters! I’m curious if other people have experienced colleagues and experts “snubbing” iNaturalist data? In my case what I mean is scientists who automatically think iNaturalist data is worthless, because it can be collected by anyone, not collected and ID-ed in a “traditional” way. Meaning…

I have not experienced it and glad. That is not the point of iNaturalist. It is be definition citizen science and everyone can learn. That’s the beauty of it.

…or you could use both! Sure, accept the 300k dataset, but also mine the 50k iNat data. At the very least, a quick scan for spp that are not in the 300k data, and some vetting of those, might turn up some great records. That takes time, but you can decide how far down the “diminishing returns” path …

Thanks very much for your lengthy answer. I did contact the herbaria and Botanists and, yes, they are very interested in receiving pressed specimens of the plant and some others that may be new to Science and very local in distribution. Again, thank you. I hope this shall encourage an interest in i…

A little side note: Does anyone know a way to search ones observations to see which are marked, “ID cannot be improved”

Great! I’m glad you’re making contacts! With good specimens in herbaria, this plant will eventually come to the attention of botanists who will work with them. By the way, I have started putting a line in my plant labels that says, “iNaturalist observation #_________.” Whatever the number is. I…

[image] gpohl: A group of fellow moth experts are in the process of doing this in Alberta; we’ve extracted a list of about 100 potential new provincial iNat records, and are currently vetting them. Admittedly many are incorrect, but a few are gems. Out of curiousity, does your group of moth e…

Yes, several of us do curate obs on iNat, and make corrections as we’re able. Our group (Alberta Lepidopterists Guild) has monthly zoom calls where we collectively work on iNat IDs (it makes for great friendly debates, and many shared tips and tricks). We don’t have enough expert eyes/ expert time t…

[image] gpohl: has monthly zoom calls where we collectively work on iNat IDs Wow, that’s an interesting approach. Wish I had the luxury of doing something like that. [image] gpohl: We don’t have enough expert eyes/ expert time to systematically go through every incoming Alberta Lepidopt…

As a taxon group expert, I’ve always taken the view that the data will be as good as the effort I put in to check and identify the observations that I am interested in. Photo based data is never as good as having voucher specimens that can be checked under a microscope and then redetermined when the…

[image] chrisrap: I’ve always taken the view that the data will be as good as the effort I put in to check and identify the observations that I am interested in My thoughts exactly. But then that entails a major commitment (hence, my comments about barely being able to keep my head above wat…

Snubbing iNat data

General

rcavasin January 31, 2026, 12:23pm 72

Out of curiousity, does your group of moth experts curate the observations on iNat ?

Do you go back and make corrections to incorrect IDs, or flag observations with invalid date/location?

Topic		Replies	Views
What iNaturalist is for General	50	6437	November 6, 2019
Strengths and Weaknesses of iNaturalist Data General	59	10185	February 21, 2021
The problem with blindly using biodiversity databases Nature Talk	68	5125	April 23, 2021
Provide a list of things researcher should think about when downloading iNaturalist data Feature Requests	62	775	January 15, 2026
Improving Data Quality General	34	1353	August 12, 2022

Snubbing iNat data

Related topics