The benefits and drawbacks of adding coarse identifications

[arboretum_amy]

@tiwane

The term “placeholder” was chosen because its existence is ephemeral. People can always use the description field if they want to write something more permanent.

I really cannot understand staff logic here. First of all the person entering the placeholder text most likely has no idea it is called placeholder text; the word placeholder is only visible after the observation is published. (EDIT: I was not exactly correct about this. The word placeholder is not used at all on the Android app, neither before nor after the observation is uploaded. On the website and the iphone app, the word placeholder is visible both before and after upload.) Second I don’t feel simply naming this text “placeholder” gave the programmers permission to erase it unexpectedly. And yes it really is unexpectedly because why on earth would an observer think anything they wrote on an observation would be deletable* by anyone other than themselves?

*I’m aware that the placeholder is stored in the observation file and there are unintuitive ways to fine it again, but I use the word “deletable” because to me removing it from display is the same as deleting it. And if iNat is going to continue to store it in the observation file why not just continue to display it? (EDIT: If an identifier who is not the observer enters an ID, the placeholder is hidden but still stored, however Diana tells me it’s actually not stored after the observer enters or agrees to any other ID.)

(I do feel the placeholder issue is a separate issue than the title topic of this thread, but I can’t exactly post this reply to the closed feature request. I’m mostly hoping Tony will get more notifications that he has been quoted.)

[danly]

@arboretum_amy

First of all the person entering the placeholder text most likely has no idea it is called placeholder text (the word placeholder is only visible after the observation is published

Perhaps this is different depending on whether one makes observations through the website vs. an app? I generally use the iOS app on my tablet to make obs, and I can clearly see if I am accidentally (or deliberately) making a “placeholder.”

For example, if I “accidentally” start misspelling the genus Erigeron as “erigeion,” as soon as I type the first wrong letter I see this :

But if I start spelling it correctly I see this, and then I can choose the correctly spelled taxon:

I always do it this way, because scientific names are difficult to spell, and common names have so many variations of spelling and capitalization and punctuation.

[arboretum_amy]

Here’s the Android app, where the word placeholder does not appear at all, neither before nor after the observation is uploaded.

[danly]

Very interesting! I wonder why the apps are so different? Plus the website is entirely different from the apps.

Of course, by now we’ve gotten totally off-topic from the original thread. And we should all be out Observing or IDing, anyway!

[oksanaetal]

The level of replies here is terrifying.

[DianaStuder]

@arboretum_amy

I’m aware that the placeholder is stored in the observation file and there are unintuitive ways to fine it again

Sob. That was my plan A. I was told the placeholder is hidden, click click click and you can retrieve it.
I asked JP since he can work with the API. We tried. We made fake obs, with placeholder, then added IDs. The placeholder is no longer there to retrieve. There is another forum thread with that conversation. My missing species which need to be flagged for curation, are lost in plants.

Plan B is to catch new obs, before IDs roll in, and secure the placeholder.

@oksanaetal over 100 forum posts including one back to 2019 from kind Ian Toal. As well as nearly 150 comments on this thread - the struggle is real.

PS click Top Replies at the top. That knocks it back to only 30 which is a quick read concluding with

@eyekosaeder

even though much of the stuff I have learned that way might appear trivial to many here, including myself

[arboretum_amy]

Eep! I’m sorry to learn it isn’t saved anywhere.

[pisum]

@arboretum_amy

it isn’t saved anywhere.

not true. the observer’s original text is retained until they make an ID. this has been the case as far back as i am aware, and still appears to be the case.

@DianaStuder

Plan B is to catch new obs, before IDs roll in, and secure the placeholder.

i don’t know what you all are planning here, but don’t make it annoying. the unidentified project and pre-maverick project stuff already sort of annoys me whenever i get a notification related to one of these on one of my observations.

[jeanphilippeb]

(1) I agree with both statements.

It is saved (not secured) in species_guess, until it is overwritten by the common name (in whatever language) of the Community ID, after the observer adds an ID (unfortunately a much coarser ID than their initial placeholder, in support of the coarse ID just added by someone else).

In short: it gets lost, anyway. From this the issue originates.

(2) Retrieving the species_guess (even in the case there is no [more] IDs in the observation record) does not tell you if it is about the observer’s placeholder, or about some [former] Community ID common name. The placeholder need be secured fast.

[pisum]

@jeanphilippeb

after the observer adds an ID

who cares if it gets lost after the observer makes an ID? that’s the ID that they’re going with at that point.

[jeanphilippeb]

@pisum

who cares if it gets lost after the observer makes an ID? that’s the ID that they’re going with at that point

(1) Because at that point the observer’s ID is [much] coarser than the initial placeholder. In other words, even the observer got lost information.

The identifier hides the placeholder (by adding an ID).
The observer detroys it (by supporting the ID).

(2) Who’s going to retrieve the species_guess (as you have shown how to do, thanks for clarification and details)?

The identifier that put the coarse ID?
The “inexperienced” observer?
None of them.

[pisum]

if they support an ID other than their placeholder, that’s their own fault. they had two chances to put in a proper ID, and they didn’t. so who cares at that point?

anyway, i don’t really care about placeholders. but i do care if whatever you’re planning to do turns out to be annoying in its implementation.

[jeanphilippeb]

@pisum

if they support an ID other than their placeholder, that’s their own fault. they had two chances to put in a proper ID, and they didn’t. so who cares at that point?

I agree with your statements, it’s [somehow] true, I would just say “responsibility” instead of “fault”, because they are likely not aware of all the consequences.

Who cares? I do care. I would like to help.

[DianaStuder]

@pisum

i don’t really care

but we have 953 views.
Perhaps the annoyance all round will be resolved within iNat one day.

I wonder if any of you ID where there are missing sp to add?

[eyekosaeder]

@jeanphilippeb

I would like to learn more, so I identify “that tree on the left” as Dicot (just as a way to follow that observation) and wait for a clearer ID to come. Later an identifier (with expertise on “that tree on the left”) comes, but falls into this situation:

@environ

In some cases, even where a very broad ID has already been given, the first step to ID’ing an Unknown is asking the observer “which of the 20 things that I could ID in this photo are the one you want an ID for?”.

Then?

Well, it is any identifier’s responsibility to ask what the observer wants to ID if there is uncertainty (technically it’s the observer’s job to be clear about that in the first place, but that’s a different topic) no matter whether they do specific IDs or coarse ones.
It’s also any IDer’s responsibility to document any placeholder information which would get lost by their ID. That means if the placeholder is a clarification or giving more information/context on the observation, or if it is an ID more specific or disagreeing, then it should be added as a comment under the ID. (If the placeholder is “bird” and it is obvious the observation is a bird and ID it as such, the placeholder can be sent to limbo, IMO)
I personally have never encountered so many placeholders that it would take a lot of extra time copy and pasting it into the textbox, so I don’t think it is an unreasonable ask of identifiers. But of course they have to be educated. Which is the core of solving many problems on iNat.

IMO there is a simple 3-part solution to the Placeholder problem (though I don’t know how easy the coding side of this may be)

1. To educate the observer about placeholders, add a questionmark-icon next to the placeholder-ID-option, which when clicked says: "Placeholders are temporary and get deleted as soon as an ID is made. Are you sure you want to add an identification as a placeholder?
2. To enhance visibility for the identifiers, just switch the “Unknown” heading and “Placeholder: xyz” subheading, so that the placeholder is the most prominent
3. When making an ID on an unknown with placeholder a popup which says something like “This observation has a placeholder. Do you want to save it?”

[eyekosaeder]

@DianaStuder

Plan B is to catch new obs, before IDs roll in, and secure the placeholder.

I don’t know if this would be good. Iirc, @tiwane has been pretty clear about [iNat] wanting placeholders to be and remain temporary. Working around that like this that would kinda defeat the purpose of having them in the first place.

I agree that education about the feature should be better and clearer for new users, and maybe also that the feature should get less prominence in the UI so it won’t be used unless it specifically meant to be used by the observer. But generally I agree with having a non-permanent option like them. Especially as fully deleting IDs or comments is frowned upon on here.

[environ]

@arboretum_amy

@tiwane

The term “placeholder” was chosen because its existence is ephemeral. People can always use the description field if they want to write something more permanent.

I really cannot understand staff logic here. First of all the person entering the placeholder text most likely has no idea it is called placeholder text (the word placeholder is only visible after the observation is published). Second I don’t feel simply naming this text “placeholder” gave the programmers permission to erase it unexpectedly. And yes it really is unexpectedly because why on earth would an observer think anything they wrote on an observation would be deletable* by anyone other than themselves?

In the web interface, if you enter a name that is isn’t a recognised taxon, the first thing it does is give you an option to “Search external providers”, and if that turns up nothing it then asks if you want to “Use what you entered as a placeholder”.

If you do that when suggesting an ID for an existing observation it only offers the first step. If you want to describe the observation with a “placeholder name” you can only add that in a comment.

Maybe there is a need for that to include a little “what is a placeholder name” help button with a brief explainer (and I won’t rehash what people have already pointed out may be shortcomings in the apps re this) - but “Placeholder names” are a fairly widely used term of art, that unlike some species common names, fairly unambiguously always mean the same thing.

We have placeholder names that we use for discussing species that have not yet been formally described but are well known enough to be commonly discussed. We have placeholder names for proposed new species when research is presented that suggests an existing species should be split but that new name has not yet been ratified.

We have placeholder names in common use “John Doe” for a body we don’t yet know the real name of.

The ncbi.nlm.nih.gov taxonomy faq says:

“Unpublished taxonomic names are not allowed in NCBI records. Consequently, placeholder names are substituted until such time as associated proposed novel names have been published. It is made clear to submitters that it is their responsibility to notify NCBI when a new name associated with their sequence submission(s) has been published.”

The gtdb.ecogenomic.org faq says:

A strain identifier is used as a placeholder for the genus name when there is no existing genus name and no binomially named representative genome.

etc. etc. and many other fields use this term the same way.

So I appreciate the problem of this being jargon that may need explaining to people not familiar with the idea, and all the problems that flow on from that - but this isn’t something that inat staff or programmers have made up from whole cloth with their own special interpretation, it is a recognised term of art, and necessary transient situation anywhere a living but strict taxonomy is used.

@arboretum_amy

(I do feel the placeholder issue is a sperate issue than the title topic of this thread, but I can’t exactly post this reply to the closed feature request. I’m mostly hoping Tony will get more notifications that he has been quoted.)

Yes, I’m nowhere saying “placeholders are perfect, don’t mess with them” - just that they are an entirely separate problem to the question of whether having users add coarse IDs is a Good Thing. If there’s a bad interaction between the two, that’s an implementation detail (which may need improving), not a reason why ‘coarse IDs are bad’.

[tiwane]

@arboretum_amy

I’m mostly hoping Tony will get more notifications that he has been quoted.

I guess I’ve been summoned three times so I have appeared. I agree with others that placeholders aren’t particularly relevant to the original question. To answer the original question, I think that adding coarse IDs has significantly more benefits than it does drawbacks. I do it all the time and see observations get refined very often. And even if that ID doesn’t get refined, the observer may have at least learned something, even if it’s that there’s a separate category for vascular plants, or that harvestmen and spiders are two different but related orders.

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As for placeholders, I don’t think the way placeholders are treated will be changed. The term “placeholder” does point to something fairly ephemeral. The observer can add something to the obsevation notes/description if they want to make something permanent. The upcoming mobile app will also have offline suggestion options, so people will be able to add an actual identification of some kind to their observation if they’re in the field and lack connection to iNat’s database, and personally I most often see placeholders used in that situation. Hopefully these changes will reduce the need for them, and reduce people using them by mistake. We’ll have to see. But even if the placeholder is removed, the observer added it and should be able to remember what it was if it was that important. I usually see things like “plant” or “bee” (in various languages) and I don’t see much value in those for the observer.

I read thousands and thousands of emails sent to iNaturalist every year, and placeholders are basically never mentioned, so I doubt they way they’re handled bothers most people. If it was, we’d be getting more complaints, because plenty of people send us criticism and suggestions about all manner of things.

[DianaStuder]

@environ

We have placeholder names that we use for discussing species that have not yet been formally described but are well known enough to be commonly discussed

The concept is fine. It is the silent deletion which is … odd. Imagine your discussion about a new species, with invisible gaps in the conversation.

Imagine if iNat picked thru your photos. 2 is blurry - out! 5 is too much dog for the orchid obs

[DianaStuder]

Thank you for your reply.
You can close this.