I’ve mentioned from time to time that scientists shouldn’t blindly use databases like GBIF (or even specific scientific museum databases like the Smithsonian) or iNaturalist data for research purposes. By blindly, I mean not verifying the accuracy of the identifications and not following up on outli…

So long as iNat tips - this is not wild - out of needs ID, many people are reluctant. iNat needs a gracious way to split Is it Wild from Needs ID Paired with an easy way for power users to avoid casual (which they can’t now, because it isn’t marked as casual, because we want an ID) Vicious circle. …

I don’t disagree. That doesn’t absolve the users of data from understanding the nature of 3rd party information and curating it properly before using it in (meta)analyses.

It was, but can’t find it again. @tiwane ?

Maybe referring to this? https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/loarie/10016-identification-quality-experiment-update

[image] thebeachcomber: as opposed to finding a pinned specimen that’s been in a drawer for 50 years, among million of other specimens, where most people wouldn’t even be aware of its existence, let alone the fact it may be misidentified Interesting you bring that up. Now that there are museu…

I agree with this completely. I have worked with a lot of scientifically rigorous data that also had plenty of issues. How we choose to use data and the assumptions we make is an important part of using any data. It is also important to point out that sometimes you just have to use data that you kn…

That paper itself appears to be deeply flawed. As noted by Rod Page , they count synonyms and specimens undetermined beyond genus as “incorrectly named”, don’t state clearly what “wrong” means beyond that, and most fundamentally, don’t provide the data so anyone else can check. They also cite the r…

Thanks! The discussion comments under Rod Page’s blogpost are interesting too. Still looking for an apples-to-apples comparison to some of the ID quality metrics that kueda posted back in 2019…

I saw some data from iNat that said the ID’s were decent (70%?). I looked for it after reading this, but I could not find it. I remember using the link to counter someone who said iNat data were poor.

The problem with blindly using biodiversity databases

Nature Talk

kiwifergus February 12, 2021, 3:32am 29

and this (I think based on that):
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/identification-quality-on-inaturalist/7507

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The problem with blindly using biodiversity databases

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