State of matter Life limbo

Also, here is a hack that returns both Unknown and Life statuses in a mix (often functionally the same as far as normal people’s finding them), but not the already-id’ed Cyanobacteria and such that for some reason come along with the Unknowns:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?per_page=100&iconic_taxa=unknown&without_taxon_id=67333%2C131236%2C151817

BTW I like to think that assorted um, non-normal people will whittle away the pile over time. Go Crate Diggers! :)

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My sense is it is better to leave as State of Matter Life than identify as Plants, unless you are positive an identification can be made. That way any folks specifically trying to deal with the backlog of unconfirmed plants dont have to see it (yes I know some folks try to go through the Life records and classify them, but I suspect that number is fewer than folks trying to do plants specifically)

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That works for me. I just didn’t know before that it was okay to check “no evidence of organism” when there are lots of plants in there. But the DQA only solution is practical–then they are not in any Needs ID feed. Thanks for finding that.

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Thanks! I was in error. I took those to be some sort of silhouette art on the side of a building. No longer in limbo.

And this is why :

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Seems like this is going to be changed: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/suggestion-on-how-to-include-habitat-images/3553

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Cool, even though my feature req went away the issue may get handled eventually. :)

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Hi all,
This might be a tad off topic, but I’m curious if there is way to focus a state of life observation into something like, marine organism. I have a handful of these that lie in limbo because there are little gems in the tide pools that are hard to ID (and photograph) at times and end up in the life category. I can’t help but wonder that if these can be placed in a general marine/desert/alpine/jungle grassland or some such sub category, it might help experts in those areas see them.

Any thoughts?
Thanks.

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This is not possible, the iNat taxonomic database that observations are linked to is just that, a taxonomic database. ‘Marine organism’ is not a taxonomic object, it is a property of an organism.

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You can add it to projects with a marine focus. Here in NZ we have a project for unusual intertidal organisms, where an informal rule is that there must be no more than 5 occurrences or 2 locations.

https://inaturalist.nz/projects/sea-hunt-nz

It’s not really what you are looking for though, because typically what gets added we already have worked out what it is. However, the members of this project are highly active and generally likely to have encountered your unknowns, so would be good candidates to @tag. This project is NZ based, so may not be relevant to your organisms. I would suggest browsing the projects pages to see if you can find a relevant project.

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Thank you @cmcheatle, I knew that, but should have worded it a bit differently. For example, a tag or something that could be filtered in searches, or even a way to search placeholders and comments as that might help in connecting potential experts with this long, varied category of unknown and state of life/matter.

Good idea, I’ll look around, thanks.

Tags can only be added by the owner of the observation.

Records can only be added to old style projects if the user has enabled it in their account settings.

All users can add an observation field to any record, but the challenge here is there is so much overlap and duplication of observation fields that getting any standardization of use of a particular one is effectively impossible.

Comments can be searched, however placeholders can not.

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I was thinking of using tags added by identifiers or ID comments as a way of filtering for things such as marine organisms or “seaweedy” type organisms.

My thought now is that it might be a little futile because in order for it to be helpful, a select group only would likely be adding those common grouping and/or polyphyletic tags and comments … and … a likely even smaller group of such inclined users would be filtering for those tags and/or comments.

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tags definitely not, fields maybe but with all the problems you cite…

A project, even if you have to create a new one to more specifically achieve the goal, is likely the way to go. It becomes a “meeting place” for like minded people, and if the benefit is realised, then the membership and participation will increase. As a tangible “thing” rather than just a process, it becomes easier to promote as well… you can add the project url to your signature, and you can link it in comments whenever you see relevant observations…

It is rare to find observations where the observer has opted for not allowing them to be added to projects, or for that matter opting out of allowing fields to be added. Because you don’t want ALL marine observations, just the ones not identified, a traditional project is likely to be the best option anyway.

just as an afterthought, I wonder if it would be possible to create a collection project to pick up “State of Matter Life” only (ie no descendant taxa) from marine locations. Then when they get identified they would automatically drop out of the project! It would be difficult to include all marine environments accurately though, so I doubt this is feasible.

Continuing that thought… another possibility would be to add a field “Marine unknown” to observations, and have the collection project pick up obs with that field and “state of matter life” exclusively. They would drop out as they get identified, and then perhaps have a seperate private project picking up that field and NOT “state of matter life” so that the field can be cleared (just for tidiness).

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re the afterthoughts… nope… can’t pickup on fields :(

I guess I’ll use the comments field and hope this helps interested experts find my unknowns/state of matter/life.

I do like the idea of a collection project, it’s an interesting possibility.

I like the sounds of using a project as a collecting hub.

One could set a Project up for “Marine LIfe” , Diseased Plants, “Seaweedy” and etc.

Those inclined could add from unknown and State of matter Life observations that they felt fit into the Project of interest.

Then experts and novices with such inclinations could be invited to subscribe to those Projects for the purposes of refining the identifications. They could identify unknowns and State of matter Life at a narrower level.

Is this along the lines of what you were saying @kiwifergus ?

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yes. There is an Australasian Fishes project, I think, specifically for … well … Australasian Fish!

https://inaturalist.nz/projects/australasian-fishes

It gives a good example of the scope that such a project could get to. Notice the level of organisational support that this project now has…

It would be highly recommended to browse the existing projects to see if there is anything that meets your needs :)

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