State of matter Life limbo

[bobmcd]

@bobmcd

This observation now has the rank of Life and I think will be less likely be identified by users interested in bees.

This has been resolved now. With minor hiccups.

[bobmcd]

Just to be clear, I loooooooooooooove the computer vision (AI). Absolutely love it. Best thing since maple syrup…or maybe chocolate…

[sgene]

The “suggestions” way can start with the observer’s ID in the wrong kingdom and then an identifier putting it into another kingdom, which puts it immediately into State of Matter Life, then someone else agreeing with the observer, then refinements of the new kingdom until there are enough to get it out of State of Matter Life. So what I was assuming was happening was that someone was suggesting a name in person to the observer and the observer was going the “suggestions” route, especially since I kept noticing the similarities in the first few letters of the observer’s identification and the ultimate genus name in the other kingdom. But of course I don’t know.

[danaleeling]

@bobmcd

Unfortunately, when something becomes State of matter Life, I believe it falls off the radar for most IDing. As well, it takes some effort to move it back to a watched level of taxon.

This one reminded me of how long an observation can remain in “exile”: almost eleven years off the radar: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/25605634 or was until I misidentified the subject. I am showing 11,413 sitting in limbo.Some can never come out: images that are not of any living organism (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/25560942) DQA goes to “no evidence of organism” and observation is flagged “this is as good as it gets.” Seems like observations in State of matter Life with DQA no organism present and flagged as not being improvable ought to be automatically purged after a couple of years.

[JeremyHussell]

It’s a good thing you posted that second link. I’ve voted it back to “Needs ID” and ID’d to family. By the way, marking both “Organism is wild: No” and “Evidence of organism: No” doesn’t seem right. If the latter is true then the former can’t be determined. Marking “No, it’s as good as it can be” is just overkill. That’s meant for situations where none of the other DQA items can be truthfully checked, e.g. if it’s impossible to ID to species even with a photograph of a wild organism with accurate location and date.

[sgene]

Are there special rules or etiquette for “habitat photos”? People post observations of scenery, etc., and they end up in State of matter Life. My approach has been to identify some organism in the photo, if possible–in this case “Plants”: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2911994

[lotteryd]

It so happens I dug out a guideline in another thread that included the landscape guidance along with the other element I was looking for!
https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/help#quality

Specifically, “Observations will revert to “Casual” if the conditions for Verifiable aren’t met or… the community agrees the observation doesn’t present evidence of an organism , e.g. images of landscapes, water features, rocks, etc.”

So I have been doing as you and if a landscape/nonspecific shot pretty much has plants in it, would make it plants or whatever. But now if I interpret this guidance, as well as the feedback on that observation, as “observation doesn’t present specific, intended-to-identify evidence of an organism” then I should just go checkmark “No evidence” on any general shots and have done.

[bobmcd]

My take on this is a landscape with plants has many organisms present, just not specific and therefore becomes undefinable as far as a definitive organism is concerned. A landscape of an seemingly abiotic mountain face does not present evidence of an organism (even though there is likely life present just not defined within the limit of optics). The question remains though is how do you move the biotic observation to casual or should it remain State of matter Life.

[lotteryd]

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! :)

[cmcheatle]

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)

[sgene]

@lotteryd

It so happens I dug out a guideline in another thread that included the landscape guidance along with the other element I was looking for!
https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/help#quality

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.

[danaleeling]

@JeremyHussell

It’s a good thing you posted that second link.

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.

[bobmcd]

@danaleeling

It’s a good thing you posted that second link.

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 :

@lotteryd

assorted um, non-normal people will whittle away the pile over time.

@lotteryd

Go Crate Diggers!

[sgene]

@lotteryd

But now if I interpret this guidance, as well as the feedback on that observation, as “observation doesn’t present specific, intended-to-identify evidence of an organism” then I should just go checkmark “No evidence” on any general shots and have done.

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

[lotteryd]

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

[scubabruin]

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.

[cmcheatle]

@scubabruin

but I’m curious if there is way to focus a state of life observation into something like, marine organism

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.

[kiwifergus]

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.

[scubabruin]

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.

[scubabruin]

Good idea, I’ll look around, thanks.