State of matter Life clean up

For more recent ones itā€™s probably best to wait some intervening period after giving advice- observer could still be actively on a learning curve here. But the ones Iā€™ve been just going right through the steps at once at this point are 2-3+ years old, likely safe to file away for now.

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Oh, thank you so much for that. Iā€™ve been on this topic for some time now. When I change an ID, I always supply an explanation or a reference, even if itā€™s just a link to look at (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/25673513)
Iā€™ve had many identifications changed with no reasoning. Itā€™s up to the ā€˜changerā€™ to supply their reasoning. If there are no reasons given, why should I trust the personā€™s judgement?
I know many of us are very busy, but courtesy counts. At least supply some sort of reason for the disagreement.

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Went away for some off-grid back country canoeing for about a week or so and came back to find there seems to be a significant change here.
Original numbers with first post compared to today:
Fungi and Lichens (2,598) (1,409)
Slime Moulds (405) (287)
Cyanobacteria (235) (217)
Green Algae (559) (516)
Brown Algae (692) (669)
Sac Fungi (955) (458)
Animal (3,726) (2,040)
Plant (5,351) (2,954)

Fantastic!

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Just back again from some off-grid naturalisting - definitely wonā€™t get that Aficionado or Devotee badge
Still seeing a lot of work being done on State of matter Life. Also realizing that people are working on unknowns which can increase State of matter Life.

Original numbers with first post compared to today:
Fungi and Lichens (2,598) (1,202)
Slime Moulds (405) (238)
Cyanobacteria (235) (220)
Green Algae (559) (517)
Brown Algae (692) (686)
Sac Fungi (955) (386)
Animal (3,726) (1,603)
Plant (5,351) (2,555)

Iā€™m so impressed!
Looks like we need some help from some Algae (in the polyphyletic sense) experts.

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It has been about a month since Iā€™ve looked at these numbers. Looks like the inertia of the initial enthusiasm has dwindled somewhat but it is summer in the north and lots of observations to make and upload and id. I know Iā€™ve been out and about without the resources to spend time on these - pretty sure this is true of others.

Original numbers with first post compared to today:
Fungi and Lichens (2,598) (1,120)
Slime Moulds (405) (219)
Cyanobacteria (235) (223)
Green Algae (559) (522)
Brown Algae (692) (726)
Sac Fungi (955) (371)
Animal (3,726) (1,457)
Plant (5,351) (2,428)

Still by far better than it was.

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Nice to see this topic has been reopened and has been modified to looking for a solution :grinning: -thanks!. I had been away at the time I could have made another entry.
@lotteryd has opened a topic related to this today: Amount of ā€œUnknownā€ records is decreasing

As of today at around 3pm PST, original numbers with first post May 23rd (203 days) compared to today followed by percent change:
Fungi and Lichens (2,598) (1,179) 45%
Slime Moulds (405) (234) 58%
Cyanobacteria (235) (243) 103%
Green Algae (559) (556) 99%
Red Algae (?) (745)
Brown Algae (692) (756) 109%
Sac Fungi (955) (756) 79%
Animal (3,726) (1,528) 41%
Plant (5,351) (2,482) 46%

This remains fantastic. Some numbers remain relatively the same and some slightly higher but the dynamic of observations being continually added plus how intertwined and confusing some of the bluegreen, green, and brown algae can get.

I have also now added Red Algae link to my original post as I had not originally included and feel at 745 needs to be added.

Darn, just realized my original post cannot be edited (powers that be help?) . Link to
Red Algae (745 (dec 12, 2019))
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?lrank=stateofmatter&ident_taxon_id=57774

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I made the first post in this topic a wiki, so it should now be editable indefinitely.

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Added now in the original post. Thanks for the rapid change.

Question about such a case:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/36492172

Do you agree that I flag the DQA ā€œEvidence for an organismā€, and advise other people to do so?
It is in the ā€œState of matter Lifeā€ pool because some identifiers put this ID.

Isnā€™t it inconsistent to have the ability to put ā€œState of matter Lifeā€ as an ID, and besides this to call for help to fix the ā€œState of matter Lifeā€ cases?

Suggestion: as an exception (compared to other taxons), forbid to ID with the ā€œState of matter Lifeā€ taxon. (And/Or add a popup suggesting to use DQA instead, with a link to guidelines).

ā€œState of matter Lifeā€ is not the most appetizing. You have courage!

I think the problem is with the wording of the DQA item, because there are organisms in the photo. If it said ā€œEvidence of Observerā€™s Identificationā€ I would give it a thumbs-down.

Do you mean as follows: the observer didnā€™t give an evidence about what is supposed to be identified? (The grass, the turtle, the bird,ā€¦?)

If the two identifiers had not put State of matter Life as an ID, this observation would remain State of matter Life (SomL) because of the conflicting Animal Kingdom and Plant Kingdom and the way the 2/3 weight works.

The image does appear to support the finer identification of Western Pond Turtle but does support the identification of Poales. I have agreed and the observation is no longer SomL - I adjusted it to 3/4.

There is evidence of life, just not a turtle.

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In this case, I mean the observer said it was a turtle and there is no evidence of a turtle.

But I would also like a DQA box for cases where there is more than one possibility of a subject but the observer didnā€™t specify, instead of the way it is now where people add IDs for different organisms.

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Even worse, the observer can be inconsistent with his own specification:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/192069

The observer put ā€œHost: lettuceā€ as a description. (Meaning he does not focus on the lettuce).
Later, someone else + the observer put an ID about the lettuce. (Inconsistent with the initial description).
Later someone else focused on a fungi parasiting the host plant. (Consistent).
And now we are left with ā€œState of matter Lifeā€.

In this case, the solution is to ask the identifiers to remove their lettuce ID?

Update: I was wrong, see below.

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It is consistent to be able to ID something State of matter Life if an Observer submits an image with multiple Phyla but failed to Identify the focus of the image and left it Unknown. This could occur in an image taken in the littoral zone of the seashore or at a densely vegetated well attended watering hole.

However, my preference would be to either contact the Observer to ask for refinement of the observation or failing that, select the most obvious. Putting the observation as State of matter Life, to me, relegates the observation to the back as discussed here https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/state-of-matter-life-limbo/2870

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This observation is State of matter Life because of conflicting Kingdoms - Chromista (the water mold Bremia lactucae ) vs Fungi (Fungi Including Lichens).

I think this is still an exploration of what organism is ā€œinfectingā€ the lettuce. Currently it would seem both identifications are valid. Time will tell which ID becomes correct. Unfortunately it is quite possible that those filtering for Chromista and/or Fungi will not see this unless they are also scouring State of matter Life.

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Just a little graph to show comparisons visually. Apologies if I have broken statistical/presentational cardinal rules:

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Thanks for clarifying!

In such a case, I canā€™t help identifying (not knowledgeable). But someone understanding that this is still an exploration, could flag with a ā€œConflicting Kingdomsā€ DQA, so that all experts in search for Chromista or Fungi observations would find it? The flag would be automatically cleared once the community taxon goes below a reasonable level.

(Iā€™m always in search for ways to automate/assist the processes, I believe it could speed up things, and as a consequence reduce the volume of the pool).

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When Iā€™m looking at Unknowns, I try to consider the value of each observation. If itā€™s a clear, detailed photo of something that seems remarkable for some reason, I will go ahead and add ā€œLife,ā€ just to get it in the smaller pool. But if itā€™s a photo of multiple organisms at a distance and none of them seem either unusual or detailed enough to get to much of a refined ID, I usually just leave it, simply because I think having too much in State of Matter Life would discourage experts from browsing through there very much.

I think it would be great if taxon search feature results could include observations in State of Matter Life with IDs of that taxon.

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Going through the numbers again to see changes in observations in State of matter Life
There are three numbers in brackets: the first is the number of observations including that taxon that are in State of matter Life from the original post as of May 23, 2019 ; the second is as of December 12, 2019; the third is as of January 29, 2020. Considering that many new observations are being added all the time, it appears that there is lots of work being done to move these observations further up the tree of life.

Fungi and Lichens (2,598); (1,179); (1,106)
Slime Moulds (405); (234); (202)
Cyanobacteria (235); (243); (291)
Green Algae (559); (556); (535)
Red Algae (?); (745); (676)
Brown Algae (692); (756); (697)
Sac Fungi (955); (756); (410)
Animal (3,726); (1,528); (1,492)
Plant (5,351); (2,482); (2,330)

Many thanks to everyone.

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