Well, not necessarily. I’m one of those who searches through older records from time to time. Scanning older observations is frustrating because the percent of “Needs ID” that are truly not identifiable rises the further back I look, but it’s rewarding to move any of them forward. Others do this, too, so don’t give up hope for your observation.
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No, specially new experts in the group on iNat, they often start “old first”.
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If they are truly not identifiable, please DQA them as such.
Well, either way, it depends on their degree of persistence. If my observation is near the middle of 200 or so pages, it’s going to take a while in either direction. This is why, as a kindness, I often do IDs ordered by random.
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I love to filter random. I find that a lot of older observations have easily identifiable photos but went unnoticed at the time of upload due to a lack of identifiers. Observations with private locations are especially overlooked because they don’t appear in location filters.
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I have read that before that this is possible but did not figure out yet how. Can you point me in the right direction please?
I know exactly what you mean. I’m still like that when it my comes to my coin photography on the business side. It’s so bad that I’m
now scanning and rescanning coin photos I took going back into the 1990s since the technology/software is so much better now not to mention many were originally used in printed media before the days of scanners). So ya! I’m with ya cause I’m still there on that end of my photography. But for me iNat is an escape from a need for me to feel that compulsion. But I sure can identify with what you’re saying.
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The same way you choose order by date uploaded or updated, the third (of five) option is “random”.
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In Filters, under the little icons, there’s a heading “Sort By” and it’s under there. (I add this because until relatively recently I didn’t know about this and used the computer’s default.)
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Sometimes I like looking at my dynamic life list to see the diversity I have recorded. When I see that circled green number at a high-level taxon, that bothers me, because it tells me that I may have observed more diversity than I realized. This one was stuck at “Dicots” for seven months:
from Angola Bay Game Land, Pender County, NC. This area was so thick that I could barely penetrate off the road.
No one ventured anything in more than half a year. Finally, I just couldn’t stand it, and decided to take a crack at it myself – and, well, the notes tell the story. I’m pretty confident as to the genus, and the notes even mention a species, although I wasn’t quite confident enough to suggest it as an ID.
My point is that even if, as in this case, it looks like there’s hardly anything to work with, you may be surprised what you can do with the right tools.
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Good on you for taking initiative. I find that being able to identify my own observations, helps me ID others’ involving the same species.
I did something similar here:
https://inaturalist.ca/observations/139472140
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Good that you specified! I wanted to use it and didn´t find it again, but your explanation helped :-)
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I upload an observation, try to place it, and then follow notifications on it. I rarely tag others because I worry about taking up experts’ time with, perhaps, less-than-great photos of something. I look back on my observations from time to time because, like you, I learn from them. I can check a new observation against an old one that has been identified. Sometimes I just get curious about how many of something I’ve seen, so I’ll look back then too. (That’s how I noticed when an expert identifying my observations disappeared. I had observations with very specific IDs that were now non-research grade.) I also look back because I can sometimes remember someone offering me feedback on an observation, and I’m trying to find and use that info. again. Sometimes, it’s just a trip down memory lane to calm myself during bad times and remember a better moment encapsulated in an observation.
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I’ve done that. Maybe not a very good photo but it was a great field trip.
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Yes, it’s amazing how a day can come back to you when you see a photo. I’m glad I’m not alone in using iNat. that way sometimes. :)
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That’s what I want my photography to be :evocative “bringing strong images, memories, or feelings to mind.”
Of course that’s easy for me, looking at my own photos, but I want them to be evocative for the viewers. ( not so much my observation posts for iNat, that’s rather straightforward recording, but for my “ personal “ work.
As for my attending to my observations… I check my dashboard regularly, as I check in with the forum… gets a little ocd in the winter….(edit) my friends say it’s a little ocd all the time. Yeah. But I’m not changing that one….
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I have recently been reviewing “casuals” for potential “verifiable” observations. I have noticed that sometimes people (even experienced iNatters) are unaware of missing dates and DQAs.
You may want to check your casuals from time to time. Replace “whitneybrook” with your username: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?reviewed=any&quality_grade=casual&user_id=whitneybrook
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I checked, mine are justly captive/cultivated. Partly because of deceptive dog poop.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?reviewed=any&quality_grade=casual&user_id=that_bug_guy
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Thanks. All but one of my “casual” observations were correct, and I fixed that one.
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And mine. All planted in my garden. With Kirstenbosch’s ginkgo.
I do this regularly since someone on the forums made me aware of this… but apparently not regularly enough… one was set to casual (unjustified “not wild” vote) and I was able to fix it. Thanks for the reminder
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