https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/placeholder-backup
We have nearly 75K obs in the project. You are very welcome to explain to all those iNatters - how to retrieve their placeholder. Have fun …
2 Likes
more than half of these observations were made in the Android app: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?oauth_application_id=2&project_id=placeholder-backup&subview=table.
in the Android app, you can’t even view observation fields, as far as i can tell. so if their observation has already been identified by someone else, it’s not going to be possible for these observers to see their placeholder using that “placeholder backup” in the app. you might say that, well, they could just go to the web observation detail page to see the observation field, but how is directing someone out of their usual interface any different than directing them to the API?
if you were trying to solve a problem for these observers, i don’t think you really solved the problem for these users.
instead, it seems like your project was always really targeted towards identifiers. i’m not sure it really solved the problem for them either because of inconsistent coverage.
Again, I am not criticizing your project.
But in this thread, where a user is asking about placeholders, it is surely useful to provide them with full information about how placeholders work, instead of implying that the only thing that can help them in such a situation is the placeholder backup project.
I think it is also worth asking what percentage of placeholders actually contain information that the observer would otherwise not have access to? In many cases, placeholders are a) a description such as “egg” or “tree” that iNat is not able to enter because this is not a taxon or b) a species that was not found in the taxonomic database because the user mistyped the name or because it has not yet been added. Now, in some cases the user may have identified it in the field or been told the name by someone else in the field and the placeholder is the only way they have of remembering it, but I suspect in most cases – certainly in all cases that I have seen – the user is referring to notes of some kind (e.g., correspondence with a specialist who examined the photos/specimen).
In situations like this, if they are regularly adding IDs that end up as placeholders, I agree that this is inefficient. But the placeholder backup won’t necessarily fix that. What will prevent make the process more efficient is helping the user to prevent this from happening in the future – i.e. informing the user what is happening, why their ID isn’t recognized by the system, and what they need to do differently (flagging the taxon etc.). And this is something that there currently isn’t a shortcut for or any way to automate.
As an identifier, I use placeholder info and the placeholder backup to understand a user’s intention (What is the focus of the observation? What did the observer think they saw?) Having the placeholder backup is very helpful for observations where the observer didn’t give an ID, but a later identifier has added a high-level ID. This actually happens quite often.
I do understand that this may be somewhat confusing for newer users, as @astrebla’s post highlights, but it’s clear that most of the confusion comes from iNat’s choice of how to handle inputs that don’t match the taxonomy (and from the unavoidable need for a single taxonomy that is incomplete for less common taxa).
If someone has a suggestion for a better way to work the “placeholder backup” text, that could be helpful.
3 Likes
Could use a text expander. I hope that iNat will resolve this mess soon.
1 Like
Yes, you are right: I tried to solve the problem only downstream (identifiers side) not upstream (observers side or iNat’s side). Indeed, I have the means to solve it that way, not the other way.
If you think your are able to solve it upstream, or more efficiently in whatever way, then do it.
I would be glad to delete the Placeholder Backup project and use all my bandwidth for other projects. Let’s see what will be done.
I already have a fulltime job and hobbies, I don’t need more work. I have nothing to prove here. Thank you for your efforts.
3 Likes