I have made a number of observations and most have been ID’d. What happens next? Most of my observations have been agreed with, some have been marked as a different species and a few have not been reviewed at all. Do I need to do anything else? Do my observations remain open to be ID’d multiple times - for instance 7 people have agreed that I did in fact see Polar Bears - or is there a a way to remove them from requiring attention?
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It is really up to you.
Your Observations remain open to being reviewed forever. Some are no longer Needs Identification in that they are Research Grade, however polar bears in the wild are exciting so people likely will continue to go look at that one.
Some people like to see as many as possible of their Observations achieve Reseach Grade. If you feel similarly, some of yours such as this one where there is disagreement, you might look to see who has specialized knowledge of Butterflies in that part of the world and tag that person. Or you could comment to ask the person who disagreed with you for some of the markers they considered. And then proceed from there. (Consider, withdraw your ID, refine your ID to a higher level, etc). And do similarly for each of your Observations that is not yet Research Grade.
If you don’t care about that. you could go Observe more. You seem to do quite a lot of traveling, which means you could have a really interesting life list!
And @DianaStuder would be sad if I did not mention that you could decide you really like beetles or birds or mushrooms or whatever and decide to learn what you can about that and help identify. Or just generally identify Unknowns from others down to taxonomic rank to which you feel comfortable. Ask if you need help starting.
PD: Welcome to the forums! :)
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Thank you. That answers my question perfectly.
I assumed Identifying was for experts - I take photos in order to remember what I have seen and have only recently started uploading them. I wouldn’t call myself an expert in anything although we do love birding.
:-)
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Once the observation has at least two “agreeing” IDs at species-level, they are taken out of the “Needs ID” pool and will no longer appear by default when someone goes into the “Identify” tab. That being said, some users look at observations that are already “Research Grade” (ie no longer Needs ID) and go through and click Agree on the ID again. Larger, more charismatic animals like Polar Bears or Muskoxen or Whooping Cranes will sometimes end up with a dozen or more IDs, while smaller and more difficult-to-ID species may spend years in “Needs ID” before someone knowledgeable comes along and sees them.
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Lucy mentioned this, but just to be sure you saw it - you can “withdraw” your initial ID on observations such as this one, if you agree that the new disagreeing ID is more likely correct.
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If you’re interested in identifying, you don’t need to be an expert to contribute! There’s a lot of value in doing identifications for very common species or assigning even a broad classification to observations that have no ID at all. Here’s a how-to guide on refining observations.
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Yes, if someone provides an ID that disagrees with your own, it’s a very good idea to review the observation and reassess your own ID.
Maybe once you review the new ID you decide you agree with it, in which case you can click “Agree” next to the new ID.
Maybe you need more information, in which case you might add a comment, tagging the identifier and asking them politely why they think it’s a particular species.
If you realize that you’re unsure of the right species you might want to remove your original ID. To do that, you can click the pull-down next to that ID and choose “Withdraw”.
I often find that my initial ID was more precise than I can justify. In that case, I might replace it with a new ID for the genus or family that includes both my original ID and the new suggestion.
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Had a go at Identifying Unknowns!! I hadn’t realised it was possible to upload in bulk with no ID’s in the field - I started to do general ID’s on a group all by the same person to then realise they had only just been added. I now realise he was probably going to fix them later. I hope he wasn’t too miffed at my amateur effort!!!
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Just a thought about what could happen next. You could review your options on copyright for your photos. Some of us allow (through our copyright selection) for our photos to be used by other individuals or organizations for purposes that one can control.
I got curious last week and found at least 7 instances of my photos used for a singular purpose and a few other instances of a collection of my photos in a repository for a website. All were educational although I don’t think I’ve restricted it to educational non-profit only. I also had a local artist use one of my photos as a reference for a painting he did in promotion of a local park.
Additionally, you could check out projects you can join that allow your observations to contribute to a particular data collection. Or explore how to add annotations, tags, and/or data fields to observations (your own or others).
When I go into identifying mode, I focus on Unknowns in my state. Adding annotations to an observation or putting it in a project can often help get a finer ID than I’m capable of giving. Especially with galls, leafmines, scat, feathers, and animal tracks.
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If identifying does not suit you yet? - you can try annotating.
You can go thru bird obs - male or female, adult or juvenile, egg or construction (for nests), feather and the project, perhaps dead and bones.
Or, you know, whatever slice or aspect of biodiversity interests you. iNat needs your skills somewhere.
ID or annotate at the level where you feel comfortable and confident.
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One way to handle this is to use the search filters to set the “uploaded on” date a few days in the past (I generally go with a week).
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While uploading something without any identification (and intending to add identifications later) is certainly allowed, other people adding identifications to things is one of the basic default features of iNaturalist.
In other words: While that person did not do anything wrong, neither did you. It is generally more productive to add identifications to things that the observer probably is not going to get to later, but it is not wrong to add a good faith identification to any observation.
The only time it’s wrong to add an identification is if (a) you really have no idea what that thing is and you are wildly guessing and/or (b) you don’t follow up if you find out you made a mistake.
In my personal opinion, people certainly can upload things and then wait until (more than a few minutes) later to identify them, but if they do that, then other people adding identifications in the meantime is a risk they are choosing to take. Most people who do things that way will understand and accept that this can happen. A few people might get cranky about it, but that can happen no matter what you do.
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If this was part of your question, or even if not, you can turn off notifications for agreeing IDs in your profile settings.
I think that should probably be the default for most people, but maybe some love getting hundreds or thousands of notifications depending on how many observations they have.
If you’re wondering what else to do on here, I’d join some projects, maybe search specific terms you’re interested in, or for some local projects in your area.
Learning the various flora and fauna (and fungi, etc) in your area is also a good goal if you’re up for it. You could also ‘adopt a species’ you know well and identify observations of it in your area if you’re confident to do so.
What happens next depends on your interests and how much time you want to put into it. Personally I put a lot of time into making IDs more accurate in my home county, and try to upload observations of a species where they haven’t been well-documented yet.
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If you would like to identify a taxon in particular, for instance birds, without browsing all the unidentified observations:
Identify page for observations without ID that are likely birds.
Identify page for observations with coarse ID “bird”.
Links are from the “About” section of the corresponding phylogenetic projects for “unknown” observations.
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I don’t “love getting hundreds or thousands of notifications”, but I find it useful to see who agreed with what, particularly if my ID was one I was not very confident about. It also helps to get a general sense of the status of observations (which ones get ID’d quickly and which ones still need attention) and, in cases where there are conflicting IDs, whether I need to consider tagging someone to help resolve it.
People’s needs differ. I am glad turning off notifications for agreeing IDs is not a default setting; it should be a conscious choice about how one chooses to manage one’s notifications.
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Something that hasn’t been mentioned yet. Once your observations are research grade (so not captive, with two agreeing ID’s and all the necessary meta data like location and time), they will get part of the data set that is published on GBIF.org and will be beneficial for researchers worldwide trying to understand biodiversity and other aspects of our biosphere.
Gotta mention that as a little motivation to keep observing =)
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I doubt many researchers use GBIF, seeing it’s not really an accurate site. (You said it yourself, you only need 2 agreeing ID’s and it’s already on there.) Whilst that might be alot for something like fungi, it certainly isn’t alot for something like a dragonfly or a bird.
That being said, it’s still a great site for a general feel. But should never be used for precise data.
I wouldn’t underestimate it. 
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/published-papers-that-use-inaturalist-data-wiki-4-2024/47837
I used GBIF data in a project myself and I think people who use the data of specific species (especially when they are not so easily distinguishable) will usually check the records they use.
I honestly feel like I would trust other data a bit less then data that has photographic evidence. For example a lot of bird watch data is based on check lists people make and you have to trust that their data is accurate.
But I’m still new to the field so I might not see the whole picture.
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GBIF is the most widely used source for observation/specimen level biodiversity data in science (tens of thousands of papers if not more). There are of course issues, and researchers will clean/curate the data as they need, but it isn’t reasonable in my opinion to say GBIF
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I might have come off a bit harsh. I meant, it should be used with caution when researching subspecies. Because those (in my experience) are often very wrong, inaccurate, incomplete.