There are many common creatures where “average” photos will only lead to an ID at the genus level. Remarkable photos are needed to ID down to species. This isn’t just nerds being nerds. Take, for example, the distribution of Lasius emarginatus which has changed in the past 5 years substantially. Just brushing off every little brown ant in Queens as “Lasius neoniger” may obscure interesting developments.
I’ve noticed that some more experienced users who work on the same ants that I follow will give what I call a “hard no” when reclassifying to subgenus. We all agree that the ant in the photo could be Lasius niger, but we don’t know. Other ants are possible. So put it in “Subgenus Lasius” no problem, right? That’s what I do. But, other than giving the user a notification this has no impact on the record still being labeled “Lasius niger” Even if five people do it… no change.
You need to say you “disagree that this is Lasius niger”
But that isn’t true. I don’t disagree that it could be Lasius niger. I disagree that there is enough information available to me to say it’s Lasius niger (the observer may have seen the nest or know things that make a difference, and we don’t all make these calls in the same way.)
So, to me it feels like I’m kind of bending the system to get the bad IDs out of the search results. And I do think they shouldn’t be in the search results. Not if 2/3 or more say it’s at the genus level.
However I think that the system is making room for the case where you ID to genus but do still feel, or don’t know if it’s possible to have a better ID. For example if I see something tagged as an ant … but it’s a beetle. I’ll tag it as beetle but stop there since I don’t know what I’m doing with beetles. I just hope someone will refine it.
This could be fixed by making the wording "user disagrees there is enough evidence for the ID Lasius niger"
One approach is to tick the box at the bottom that prevents it going to RG status, and leave some comment about ambiguities and the best candidates. It all depends if an observation is most useful to be at best or near candidacy level or knocked back to genus. The user can also restore it to candidacy level by opting out of the community ID and leaving a note of the reason.
That is exactly what the orange box, the “hard no”, is saying. By clicking it you aren’t saying the observation is definitely not species X. As far as I remember from the last time I used it, clicking on the orange box says there isn’t enough evidence to show it is species X.
When you go to submit a higher level ID and the system asks you whether it’s a disagreement, the wording is actually:
“Is the evidence provided enough to confirm this is Species X?” So that’s the question we’re answering when we click the orange button. We’re not denying the possibility, or claiming the evidence rules out that species. Just that it isn’t enough to confirm.
Since the text that shows beneath our ID makes it look like we’re denying the possibility, I like to take the time to explain myself to new users, for example: “This could be X, but could also be Y or Z, it’s impossible to tell them apart when not in bloom.”
But if it’s someone very active, I assume they understand how the system works and what question I was really answering by disagreeing, so don’t take the time to explain.
Genus X (added by me with a comment it might be Species X Z; I’d place the odds at about 60:40 between Species X Z and Species X Y, so I didn’t select the box that says that I disagree that it is species X Y).
This observation is currently a Research Grade observation of Species X Y.
Not enough evidence to confirm species X may be either if it’s not species X, or if we can’t tell if it’s X, Y or Z based on the information in the observation. I use disagreements for both these cases.
I do think that the wording generates problems. I’ve had a quite experienced IDer refuse flat out to provide disagreements because they read the wording provided after disagreement as implying that there is evidence for the ID being wrong, as opposed to a lack of evidence for it being right.
While I understand I am also learning to mark it as “unable to determine” and move on. I’ll get notifications, assuming I am paying attention to them, when someone else IDs. I have also been working on some responses like, "I’m not sure I can see anything that identifies past Genus etc.
I’ve been working on the moss photos in my area, to blurry, then moss is the best we can get, Datura… don’t even get me started. I wish there was a big warning on Datura- DNA required to ID correctly. I fell down that rabbit hole last year. (There are a few almost impossible things to catch that actually ID them but 99% of the obs don’t have them.)
It doesn’t actually prevent it going to RG - in fact, as long as the CID is below ?family? level, it pushes it to RG at that level, so that instead of an infinitely growing pile of Needs ID, we have research grade data. Above that it’s Casual because if that’s the best it can be, it’s presumably considered not very research-useful? (Or I assume that’s the logic.)
Ticking Yes for “Based on the evidence, can the Community Taxon be improved?” will always in my experience un-RG something without altering its titular ID (obviously choosing “No, it’s as good as it can be” would have the opposite effect, which is perhaps what you are thinking of).
Ah yes, sorry, I misunderstood which way you were ticking - which was stupid of me. I guess I’ve come across too many people who don’t understand how it works so that’s my expectation? (Oops!) Or maybe it’s that I almost never use it the way you’re talking about (and when I have, it’s normally been because I’m mavericked on a correction)?
I’d have to say, though, I can well understand pushing something to RG at a higher taxon with the use of ‘no’, but I can’t really see the point of using ‘yes’ to keep something perpetually in Needs ID at a lower taxon if there’s no evidence it belongs there.
I just use it whenever something’s at a reasonable or near-enough ID but not 100% certain, and would otherwise be at RG, or might get pushed there by someone, since I operate in an area where there’s very little inaturalist expertise and things easily get put to RG that shouldn’t be. Being a plant person I only use it at species or finer level but I can imagine for insects or other branches difficult to get even to genus it might be useful at a coarser level than species.
just to keep observations from being RG/revert to Needs ID when you think that they are incorrect and should be at a higher level?
I don’t think this is a good use of this feature, and this could be considered abuse of the DQA. In this context, “improved” means the ID could go to a finer level. If a user disagrees that there is support for an ID at the current level (and only support at a higher level), they should add a disagreeing ID. Using the “Yes” box would give an incorrect reason for why they think the current CID is incorrect.
Here’s the ad absurdum always use in response to this: if “it could be what they’re claiming” were grounds to not use the hard disagree button, then I could upload 1500 blurry brown dots and call them each a different species of ant, topping the ant leaderboard, and there’s nothing anyone could do about it. Because I “could be” right based on what I posted. If “it’s possible” meant you don’t hard disagree, then the worse the photo, the more things I get to claim it is without anyone disagreeing with me.
“Disagree” doesn’t mean “it couldn’t possibly be X”, it means “there’s not enough here to prove that it’s X”. And it has to mean that, or else ambiguous photos will be stuck at the species level forever. It’s asking you to agree or disagree with the assertion that species Lasius niger can be confirmed from the evidence shown. If you disagree with that assertion, click the orange button.
Where in the guidelines/ToS does it state that “improve” means “go to a finer level” (I assume “finer” means lower-rank taxon)?
In my book an ‘improvement’ is not strictly synonym to a ‘refinement’: a wrongly-RG obs will be improved (either corrected, or gaining greater support) by being sent back to the NeedsID pool for specialists to assess further. Simultaneously, if an exportable obs, the GBIF dataset will be improved by being freed of an extra piece of bad data.
If it meant “can go to a finer level” it wouldn’t de-RG the observation. The fact that it de-RGs the observation indicates to me its purpose should be the sort of thing I’m using it for, I’m sure there are several similar uses with fine distinctions but all would presumably revolve around de-RGing the observation.
is incorrect. If it can go to a finer level, it will be “Needs ID”. “Needs ID” and “Research Grade” are exclusive - an observation can’t be both (though I would personally prefer if an observation could be exported to GBIF as Research Grade and still be Needs ID). Any option that makes an observation “Needs ID” will, by definition, “de-RG” the observation.
Sometimes one has disagreed with the current IDs and is still outnumbered, leaving the observation at RG even though the ID is the wrong taxon or overly specific. It seems to me that it would be legitimate to tick “yes” for “can the community taxon be improved” in such a situation, because an RG observation is less likely to get additional review than a Needs ID one. (Of course, one can also mention other users to help overturn the ID, which seems preferable in most cases, but it may not always be feasible or the other users may not see their notifications and respond.) One of the few positive outcomes of the recent changes to this DQA is that the vote will be removed once more people have disagreed and the community ID changes.
I agree that this is not an appropriate solution as an alternative to a hard disagree if one thinks the ID is not justified. Users can hardly be expected to interpret a “yes” vote on this DQA as indicating “I don’t think the observation should have a species-level ID”; more likely they will just be confused about why the observation is not RG and they will not reconsider their IDs. It is also not a good choice if one merely wants additional confirmation because one doubts the reliability of one or more IDs, because unless subsequent IDs change the community ID, the DQA will remain active and the observation will continue to be Needs ID indefinitely until someone happens to notice and add a countervote. This wastes everyone’s time.
I’ve ticked “yes” when an observation already has 3 incorrect IDs and I add a correct maverick ID to get it back into the Needs ID pool. I figured this was legitimate use of this item (yes, the CID certainly can be improved, as it’s currently incorrect!). Do you have a source for this not being an intended use of that box?
