I rest my case … annual or perennial is gardening, not taxonomy.
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It is distressing when we get these comments. It is the unpredictability of how the observer takes offense that can throw me off.
My first one was “Definitely not this!!!” It certainly was 
. After thinking about responding, I decided the tone of the observer did not suggest openness to learning. So I ignored it and then I had a little chuckle to myself with each new ID as it progressed to RG over the next few months. If someone seems confused but receptive, I provide education. But every situation is different and hence our frustration.
I use a comment for all unknown IDs and I think it prevents most negative interactions. Inspired by Frequently Used Reponses, I have combined some and made them less focused on new users (which is helpful when dealing with the backlog). Even long time users can be confused about some things.
I think most comments I get in response are positive. Having received plenty of those makes it easier for me to let go of the negative ones.
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Yes, so true. I read a statistic some years ago that indicated that 70% of communication is non-verbal (facial expression, tone of voice, body language, etc.). So I do try to be careful how I express myself online and if someone seems to randomly take offense, I tend to chalk it up to trying to communicate without the non-verbs.
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Some users get confused by broad IDs because the thumbnail doesn’t look like the organism they saw. That may well be what happened here – the “angiosperm” thumbnail shows phlox, a common herbaceous plant in flower beds, which does indeed have little superficial resemblance to a broad-leaved evergreen tree. (As Diana noted, a gardener may think about plants in categories that differ from botanical taxonomy.) So they think the ID is wrong because they don’t see how it relates to “their” plant.
I sometimes think that for the thumbnails of some of the higher taxonomic levels which include a very visually diverse range of organisms, it might make more sense to either use a stylized drawing as for the iconic taxa or a picture that isn’t readily recognizable as a particular species (i.e., “green planty stuff” instead of a distinctive flower). And “dicots” and “monocots” could be represented by their seedling forms.
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But, mine has PINK flowers, not white. When I find a taxon photo confusing, or unhelpful - I tweak. Remove the ‘dubious’ IDs that came from Flickr. Rearrange the order so the first few helpfully show diversity.
For homonyms it is even MORE important to make the taxon picture obvious to prevent Kingdom Disagreement. Filter to your location (I check Africa each day)
At least if the observer snarks back, they are here and responsive. Then it can be worth replying. I always reread my social media comments before clicking enter - trying to get the ‘tone’ where I thought I had it.
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Happy ending!
This is what I last said to her:
I am one of the people who, at the request of iNat staff, look at unknowns and put them in higher level (kingdom, phylum) categories. Identifiers with with special expertise in a particular taxon do not usually search through unknowns for observations to identify, so an indentification at a higher level, although it is certainly a very broad category, allows a previously “unknown” observation to come to the attention of identifiers with expertise in that areas. If you visit the forum, you will often see requests for people to identify observations in the unknown category. There is one under the category of Tutorials that was the impetus for me to do that myself.
This is what she replied:
I see. Good point.
This is what my husband the college professor (in music) calls a learning moment, and what I call a happy ending because I was able to express myself without offending someone
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I may have another task to throw under the ‘Species that shouldn’t be at species level’ tab: obviously cultivated daffodils.
They keep getting added as wild daffodils because a new user wants to pick what seems like the correct choice from the AI’s perspective, so every spring, you get garden plants added as wild daffodils.
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It applies to more than those that are obviously in cultivation. There are 60-some pages of “Narcissus pseudonarcissus” in North America in iNat for what are almost certainly always hybrid Narcissus cultivars, those planted by the countless millions through time and escaping and naturalizing wherever the climate and conditions allow. The common name used at iNat for N. pseudonarcissus, “Wild Narcissus”, is probably part of the confusion - people see these cultivars in the wild (and in cultivation) and don’t realize that it actually refers to a particular species that almost no one, save a few enthusiasts, bothers to seek out and grow… rather than just a daffodil “in the wild”. For a comment on this in a specific area, see Notes under Species Description in this account: https://linnet.geog.ubc.ca/Atlas/Atlas.aspx?sciname=Narcissus%20pseudonarcissus&redblue=Both&lifeform=7
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Good to know! I wasn’t sure outside of escaped populations. And definitely, the name is part of the confusion.
I sometimes wonder if there should be a blanket complex for hybrids like garden roses and daffodils, in order to make it easier for actusl wild species to stand out and make it to ID, but I suppose in the former the cultivated marker sorts them out, and in the latter, location, maybe.
We use Rosa. A comment about cultivar. Then good as it can be.
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For some genera there are IDs like Pelargonium × hybridum (garden geranium), Arctotis × hybrida (garden African daisy), etc, that make the observer more happy than just the comment “This must be left at genus.” But I don’t get the impression iNat wants to add hybrids for all garden plants. Hemerocallis used to have a catch-all hybrid and then someone deleted it, much to the annoyance of the identifiers using it.
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Taxa are, for better or for worse, described monophyletic entities. The Hemerocallis “taxon” was neither a described name nor monophyletic, and therefore definitely not a taxon. I do empathize with wanting to group them together, but IDs are meant to be nomenclatural, following taxonomy (also, the “Hemerocallis × hybrids” taxon was not deleted, it was swapped. The taxon still exists here, just inactivated: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/331099-Hemerocallis---hybrids).
Unfortunately, iNat isn’t built to handle or categorize non-wild entities, and is exceedingly unlikely to adopt such a system any time in the foreseeable future. Human-generated taxa are simply too complex for the current system to be able to accurately group and categorize, and a comprehensive list including wild and non-wild taxa would be needed.
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I get it. The flag for Hemerocallis led me to another thread, also interesting:https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/suggestion-allow-hybrids-that-specify-a-genus-only/9739/7
I’m surprised to find both
https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:376335-1
and
https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:77219767-1
actually in POWO, I guess because a publisher was able to specify two species as parents of the cross. Both look to have been published in horticultural settings, the Pelargonium all the way back in 1789 and the Arctotis in 1932.
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Apologies if you know some of this already, I have no way of knowing what you know but I hope you find this useful. I also think it’s a good idea for those reading this after I post to have context.
The first name was originally published by Linnaeus, as specified by “L.” at the end of the name (in parentheses because the taxon was moved to Pelargonium from Geranium by Charles Louis L’Héritier de Brutelle (L’Hér)), by intentionally crossing Pelargonium inquinans with Pelargonium zonale. This is, at least, the treatment Plants of the World Online accepts, which was developed by LH Bailey. The genus stands as an outstanding example of why artificial hybrid taxonomy is essentially impossible to reach satisfactory accuracy on a platform such as iNat, so thank you for bringing up this example. If you haven’t already, please read the ‘Cultivation’ section of Wikipedia, which gives a good run-down of the hybrids and cultivars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelargonium#Cultivation
There are some fertile Pelargonium crosses, but I’m not sure how many of them occur naturally or have escaped captivity, or even if these crosses are of the parent species attributed to them, due to the confusion surrounding the genus. Many crosses produce infertile males, so they are not capable of spreading much further than where they are planted.
Also, if you did not know already, the statement “This is an artifical hybrid” under a cross in POWO implies a name is published and valid, but not accepted. See the list of accepted names for Pelargonium: https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:30302759-2#children
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We have a few Pelargonium identifiers who methodically check obs from genus every day.
@elena_ioganson
@mattmatt
and
@damionjp
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Hi, I have a question! I am a non-expert and I really enjoy adding the high-level IDs where I can. However I’ve noticed that a lot of “unknowns” are already part of a Project, for example Unknown / Magnoliopsida. In this case does it make sense for me to add the high-level ID Magnoliopsida, or does that not add any value?
Thanks for any guidance you can give!
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Those projects were created by @jeanphilippeb to help people work through “unknowns”, so yes add an ID!
@jeanphilippeb’s explanation: https://www.inaturalist.org/posts/73398-phylogenetic-projects-for-unknown-observations
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Well, those Unknown/Magnoliopsida and similar projects are based on the computer vision suggestions. Sometimes-to-often those suggestions are wrong, depending on the taxon and place, I think. So don’t just add the suggested ID unthinkingly, but do think first about whether it makes sense.
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Maybe start from unknowns, limited to your chosen location.
Use the yellow projects as suggestions, but think twice before agreeing.
Often right, but sometimes surprising.
Your ID appears under your name, as in - you think it is this taxon.
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