With various threads here about identifiers optimizing their workflows through keyboard shortcuts, creative use of URLs, and so forth, I wish to offer a different viewpoint. Sometimes, inefficient workflows have their own rewards.
For the past few nights, I have been going through the “Unknown” iconic taxon in ascending order. Sometimes I go whole pages without adding any new or supporting IDs, especially when I come upon someone’s big water sampling project with observation after observation of cyanobacteria. But then, I come upon something like this:
Well, I’m no expert on microbes, but I gave it a shot anyway. After all, it sat untouched for seven years. The very next day, someone completely disagreed, and it led to an interesting conversation that led to an unexpected conclusion. No spoilers!
After more pages of nondescript blobs and unidentifiable micrographs, my last identification that evening was this:
Five years stuck at “Life.” It wasn’t hard to do a search for “pink algae on snow” and find lots of information. It’s Watermelon Snow! Now the only observation in New Hampshire.
We all appreciate the power identifiers who work tirelessly to stay on top of the pile of observations, and their optimized, efficient workflows make that possible. But power identifiers are often specialists who only know a narrow range of taxa, or triage sorters getting things to high-level categories. But there is a place for non-optimized, inefficient workflows by the just-plain-curious, too; one never knows what happy surprises may happen.
I appreciate it a lot when people put in that effort to research an identification. There is a lot of knowledge present in the discussions on observations or accessible by tagging someone, but there’s also a lot of knowledge hidden in papers or databases or obscure websites that take some extra effort to find and bring back to iNat. I think one of the things that makes iNat so powerful is that once someone’s done that research, it’s now accessible on iNat and easier for others to find, so knowledge is shared much faster.
I greatly appreciate the people who take the time rooting through higher taxa or Unknown sending things down. When working on regions after finishing Bombus, I start checking the upper levels. It’s always a little surprising finding Honey Bees or other easy ID’s, sometimes all the was up at Insecta. Most of the stuff I see at higher levels are things I can’t really help with, but sometimes you find something good.
It’s much easier to have an optimized workflow on what I can ID, when there’s people tossing the those down the mountain.
…and an update: it isn’t Watermelon Snow after all. But it is now out of the Needs ID pool, so that’s something anyway. And it goes to show that Fear Of Being Wrong is a problem on this platform. I was wrong about both the examples in my OP, but if I had been afraid of being wrong, they would likely still be stuck at “Life.”
I appreciate ALL the people that are patient with all levels of ID - and the helpfulness of the AI to help me get even CLOSE - I have learned SO MUCH MORE about the species around my place as I have built habitat - then I buy more books on the various types of insects so that I can learn even more - then my husband is learning enough that the other day he said “Is that a Xylocopa” and I about fainted! SO - the point is - even though I am a slow and shy identifier - I am learning enough to get more good at it and eventually when I am sitting in a wheelchair someday and can’t get outside to do the observations - I will be trained enough to be able to help the ID crowd do their thing and contribute to the effort to save our planet’s diversity - before we destroy it. Thank you all for your PATIENCE.
Maybe nobody had suggested anything before because they couldn’t think of anything that made sense – if I haven’t the slightest idea what something is, guessing something that I don’t think is particularly probable doesn’t seem likely to be useful to anyone. It isn’t about “fear of being wrong”; it is about choosing not to say anything because I don’t have anything helpful to add.
Or maybe the observations had missed that window of time in which an observation is most likely to be seen, and therefore nobody had been looking at them until you posted the link here in the forum and got a lot more eyes on them.
I think so. My initial (wrong) ID on that first example was because I looked at several CV suggestions and determined what higher-level taxon they had in common. It seemed plausible based on what limited knowledge I had accumulated. And I chose it prepared to be wrong and to withdraw if necessary.
But that first example was disagreed with before I posted the link – within a day after I suggested the ID.
You have demonstrated that guessing and being prepared to be wrong can pay off.
This is not at all the same thing as demonstrating that the reason these observations were not ID’d before was because other users were afraid to be wrong. You don’t know who looked at them before, or why they did not suggest an ID.
You have not proven that observations not getting ID’d because people are afraid to be wrong is a major problem on iNat.
