Platform: PC
Browser, if a website issue: Firefox with adblock turned OFF
URLs (aka web addresses) of any relevant observations or pages:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?iconic_taxa=unknown
Using this page, If I click on an observation and then to the suggestions tab I will get 500 taxons in the location. If I open the observation in its own tab, it is perfectly fine. Changing the source/filters just changes the order of the 500 random suggestions.
Screenshots of what you are seeing:
Description of problem:
Step 1: Go here https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?iconic_taxa=unknown
Step 2: Click on any of the observations
Step 3: go to the suggestions tab
But start from what you know, a broad ID. Spider ? Frog ? Or at least use Visually Similar. I don’t know when, or how, 500 taxa which are most often observed here - is useful ?
I think that’s what is supposed to happen for the filters selected.
If you have “Observations” selected as the source, then the intent is that you see species sorted by the number of observations, for the taxon and places selected. If there is no taxon selected, you just get a list of everything.
(I think it would be helpful if it didn’t default to Source: Observations, because I find that the least useful option. But, if that’s what is selected, this is what you get.)
Edit: Does this happen even if you select an observation that already has an ID? If it already has at least one ID, it ought to automatically select the appropriate taxon. Is it not doing that?)
This is not a bug, by default iNaturalist does not sort by visual similiarity, and you need to change the sorting options yourself to do so. That being said, I believe this is because relying on the computer vision to identify other people’s observations is generally discouraged, especially if identifying to species level. As Diana mentioned there is no need to get it down to species right away if you’re not sure, just selecting something like “bird” helps specialists find and ID said observation.
