I feel sure it has been mentioned but I cannot find if it has or what the reply was. An indication of whether someone’s suggestion was personal or Google or iNat generated would be of use. I feel slightly awkward when disagreeing with an id if it is someone’s best effort but if I knew it was Google or iNat generated it would be less of a problem.
You cannot see, but probably you refer to the ‘Çomputer Vision Suggestion’-badge near the ID. Screenshot in the page below.
You are not doing anything wrong by disagreeing with an identification if you are sure about it, be it from the iNat CV or from a user. It doesn’t make any difference to me while I’m ID’ing, but there is that CV icon on the identification.
As for Google IDs, do you mean IDs that the user derived by putting them through the Google Lens first?
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When iNat shows you CV suggestion was used
Be aware - from many previous threads - lots of identifiers use that as a quick and efficient way to get to the ID they know. Without asking them for each obs, you cannot know how confident and knowledgeable they are for that one.
Your disagreement comes from your own knowledge. If you know they are working on the taxonomy of … then their ID carries (slightly) greater weight. Awkward vs best effort is not relevant (if awkward is a problem, you could agree at a broader taxon, perhaps with a comment if you have info to add - species B not A because …) And anyone can mis-click - typo - Homonyms R us - taxonomy update orphans. That is why 2 agree is a low barrier to CID at RG.
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Welcome to the forum!
I agree that you really need to consider only your own expertise when IDing, even when disagreeing. If you are unsure of your ID, it is probably best to ID to a higher level or leave a comment asking the observer/previous IDer about the reason for your ID. If you are confident enough to disagree, then it’s good form to leave a comment explaining your disagreement. You can also ask the user about their reason for IDing.
In general, there’s no real way to know if someone’s ID was derived from their own expertise or iNat’s CV (or a google image search, etc.) unless they state it on their own or in response to a question. An exception is an observation from Seek. For these, I generally don’t take the time to write a comment explaining a disagreement for these, as I’ve hardly ever had Seek users come back to engage with their observations on iNat. Of course, if they did ask for my rationale I would give it!
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There is a little badge on user’s identifications to indicate if an identification was selected using the CV or not. If the badge is there, you can be sure that the ID was selected using the CV.
However, that doesn’t mean the user didn’t put in their best effort. I often select from the CV when I know confidently which species it is, but only because clicking the CV option is faster than typing out the species name, or sometimes because I can’t quite remember the scientific name.
It is also possible to select an option from the CV without it showing the badge. I won’t share the details because I’m not sure it should be encouraged, but if an ID does not have the CV badge, it could still have been selected from the CV.
So I would suggest that you always assume best effort from the identifier, but also put in your own best effort. And if, based on your best efforts, you think your identification is a better fit than their identification, don’t be shy about disagreeing. Even experts make mistakes.
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I agree, the source of information for a particular ID is important since an ID essentially transfers that info to the iNat platform. However, even if an identifier knew for certain the provenance of a previous ID, I don’t think that’s sufficient basis for issuing a disagreeing ID. The latter should be based on an authoritative source as well.
If I’m wrong, suggest a more accurate identification! (I do make mistakes.) Doesn’t matter if I did it myself for followed the CV into error. Just try to be polite. We’re trying to build a huge accurate database.
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Yes just that
Thanks for all the feedback
I guess there is no way to know that…