Useful casual observations being hidden by other low-grade casual observations

General
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22

There’s a problm with no knowledge of where the photos were taken.

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You mean with the multiple organisms observations?

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Yup, even if we could split them, they could be from different places and who knows if original place is correct too.

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I would like to do that too. But then, what about the location? We, don’t know where each obs was - so how could we split it. (Sorry - for repeating Marina)

Also wary of saying can’t improve the ID. Had one yesterday where a respected botanist said - ditch the photo. Then. Watched. Patiently. As 2 respected identifiers took that blurry inadequate photo to Research Grade! Another gem rescued from Unknown limbo.

Hive mind, crowd sourcing on iNat can be spectacular. And also reassuring when my very cautious broad ID, is supported at that level by respected identifiers. If they can’t / won’t take it further, then I don’t need to stress, try harder, can do better.

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You could just underline that those observations are badly made, providing also suggestions on how to make a “good observation”. It is possible that some of these “inaccurate” users would just stop posting because they do not like that someone else tells them how to use the app.
For the rest, even though I understand that some of these user could lead you to exasperation, I think that we should always give someone a chance to improve.

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It seems to me that often the photos are all from one place and time. Especially if they’re student photos. I suppose sometimes that wouldn’t be true.

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I believe that the Captive/Cultivated observations are not used to train the AI behind ID suggestions. Making a project of them won’t change that.

I personally would like verifiable Captive/Cultivated observations at least shown to identifiers by default so new users who don’t know how to differentiate cutivated from wild have a fighting chance to get their observations identified while they learn. Cultivated plant observations can sit for a long time without any action, so new users often give up.

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I agree. Vote for this feature request… " Make captive/cultivated not automatically “no ID needed”](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/make-captive-cultivated-not-automatically-no-id-needed/112)

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Sadly, they won’t let me vote again :-(

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103 of us …

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So how many votes does it take to get a feature added? Or is it a case of the votes are just a gauge of public opinion, but the staff still decide for themselves?

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I think the votes are just an expression of interest, or a way to gauge interest, for the staff. I think the staff does what they think is best regardless of votes garnered. While votes may sway staff decision makers, I do not think they directly affect the decision making process. I could be wrong, but that’s my impression from reading Forum posts a couple years.

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The staff does what is best for iNat, from their side … what is possible, what they have human resources for, what is next / currently on their list … we can, hustle, while we wait.

Very happy that CV now updates a chunk of new species every month - makes a difference for our broad and wide Cape biodiversity, and for the Missing species from neglected Rest of Africa. It has been impressively effective for our current #GSB22

Leaving the interesting ones to discuss among scientists.

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I think they are - they can be included if they have a community taxon. Which makes having them excluded from the Needs ID flow even more of a head-scratcher. I may be wrong though - what goes into CV training these days seems complicated.

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The distinction you make is itself difficult to judge. In my process of moving, I bare-rooted my potted plants so that they could travel with me. In the process of bare-rooting the Mandevilla, I discovered that it has tubers! A whole lot of them! I don’t recall seeing that mentioned in the Wikipedia article, and I know that I have never seen that in the pages and pages of pretty Mandevilla pictures on iNaturalist.

But:
It’s a cultivated plant, therefore not considered suitable for iNaturalist, even though this was a discovery about the species’ biology which has relevance to how it lives.

And:
The way community ID works, it wouldn’t get any agreement, and might even get bumped back to “Flowering Plants” because the cluster of tubers doesn’t include the identifying characteristics (wrong season for flowers).

Hence, I would likely post such a data point to a different platform, where it would be respected.

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Sigh… Head-scratcher, all right.

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