plants I and others have planted: not wild
transplanted as whole plants: not wild
ones we have planted seeds of: not wild
seeds casually thrown down: not wild
volunteer plants that came up totally on their own: wild
This is what descriptions, tags, comments, and observation fields are for.
This makes some sense, but…these distinctions are based on information that in most cases is not observable and in many cases is not even knowable.
This is one reason why I wish there were a field for “unknown” or “unsure”.
Leaving these unknown cases to arbitrary flagging by users who might have different guesses as to what the correct answer might be doesn’t seem like a good option.
And the point I have been trying to make for some time is that these unknown or unknowable cases can be a huge portion of total observations in some areas.
I don’t think this is an adequate solution because, if I were a researcher trying to use the data, I wouldn’t be able to filter or refine it and instead would be manually reading through every record, which would be impractical.
I suggest trying out observation fields with a particular goal in mind and starting a separate topic if you have questions about how to search and filter them.
I’m pretty sure there is not currently any way to report this info the way I want beyond just as extra text, and unless it’s made into an official field, it won’t be reflected in the data. An overwhelming majority of users just leave that field blank anyway (it’s handled as part of the Data Quality Assessment) so there won’t really be any way for me to search it if the data isn’t there.
I was talking about this more in a forward-looking way, like “Here’s how I would ideally like things to be in the future, and here is why I think this is important and would be beneficial to me in the cases where I would be looking to use this for research.”
The Ponderosa pine, it would be a personal judgement call if you don’t know whether or not someone planted it.
The birch trees, again, depends on if they look like they were planted (spaced equidistant apart, etc.) Or if they look like they took sprout naturally (often many trees right next to each other).
The Old blue spruce, if it was planted by a person EVER, is cultivated.
The tree in a median of a parking lot was likely planted by a human, so would be cultivated. If it were an obvious thing that WAS NOT PLANTED, just sprouted up on it’s own, it would be wild. You have to look at things like the other plants in the area, are they all about the same size (indication of cultivated)? Are they native to the area? Was it a native plant that was planted by a human? A native plant put there by a human is still cultivated.
But I agree with the poster that said most all forests are second-growth, and they still count as wild. In many cases it’s obvious that the loggers didn’t “plant” these trees, there’s way too many Cottonwood and Maple (easier to spread) trees. There’s also plenty of fruit trees along the old railroad tracks that are there from people eating fruit and tossing the pit or rind off the train, and they established themselves. I would count those as wild, because they weren’t planted there intentionally.
When it comes right down to it, there are very, very few areas in any country that have not been, at some point, altered by human contact with regards to both plants and animals. Consider: by the purest definition (not anthropogenically introduced) a volunteer corn plant “sown” by a seed dropped by a crow out in the wilderness still could not be called wild because corn itself is an anthropogenic creation. Here in Iowa there are “ditch lilies” (orange daylilies), “ditch weed” (hemp grade cannibis), “wild asparagus”, and “wild cotton” that are all naturalized introduced plant species from historical crops.
Further complications arrise from the research perspective from the fact that anything marked casual is not set forward for the community to confirm identification of. And just because I might be able to determine it was anthropogenically introduced doesn’t mean I know with any certainty WHAT IT IS.
Using animals to “check” the definition of “anthropogenically introduced,” what is a re-introduced population of wolves in Idaho where they were literally dropped off at? Is it truly wild? What about the pack that expanded out of the re-introduction are into Washington or Oregon? Are THEY wild?
I can see a very valid space for “unknown,” AND “introduced: wild.”
established plants of old introduction = archaeophytes. Archeophytes are considered as true aliens by many researchers while, in other contexts, they have been equated to native species but this latter approach can be hardly agreed with.
plants that are well known as native in the whole country or in at least part of it but, at the same time, they are also cultivated and escaped from cultivation = “alien in”. In the case the presence in the wild of a species in a certain area is well known as the result of human activities (reforestations, gardening, etc…), this species is native where its presence is certainly due only to natural processes and alien where it has been introduced by humans.
plants or animals which are doubtfully native (or doubtfully alien) in a given area = cryptogenic.
Anyway, the issue of casual vs non-casual observations is not related to the native vs alien species.
The rules are actually pretty clear. It doesn’t mean it’s easy to know what category something falls into. But the rules are clear. I think what we have here is someone who doesn’t like the rules which is a whole other issue, but one that’s pretty off topic from what this thread is supposed to be about.
The rules may be clear, but the “what ifs” are endless. Many “what ifs” just generate another “what if” so until you can somehow solve the “what if” problem it will continue. Personally I don’t see how you solve the what if problem, and that’s sort of what makes interesting points of view.
I may just be a stupid non-plant person, but I really dont see the value of having an ‘I don’t know’ option here. How does this add value beyond it being left incomplete ?
The default on the site is to assume wild, you are only supposed to mark it as cultivated if you believe there is clear evidence that it has been planted. If someone marks your sighting as cultivated, and you disagree that the evidence is there, vote the opposite.
You will never solve the ‘what if’s’. A long professional history of data management and IT work has taught me nothing if not that ‘my case is unique, and not handled by your rules/system etc’ is ubiquitous as a sentiment.
I hope this doesn’t appear off topic or argumentative, as neither are my intent.
I feel a bit like it is forgotten somewhere in this conversation that a large number of iNat users, especially thanks to the mobile apps, are not scientists. They, themselves are casual observers that are simply wanting to find out, “what is this thing I found/see?” They may not even know there is a forum, or wish to participate in “the community” beyond contributing photos of what they see. And they very probably have NO CLUE if something fits the definition of “cultivated” unless it is in a garden/yard/landscsping or farm field.
To these people, “RG” is, quite literally, “I am confirming this is what you found.” It’s not a “badge,” it is the answer to their question. Because casual observations are not seen/bothered with by others, the community loses both potentially important observations the casual user might make and the user themselves that may, over time, LEARN about the purpose and process and become scientific-minded observers.
I know this because that was me. While I am a sciency person, my area is anthropology; I arrived at iNat wanting to know what the plants in my new yard were. I don’t know a good answer to the situation, but I do know that the way the system treats casual observations is the root of much of the grief over casual vs not.
Well said.
I frequently get notifications of refining IDs on casual observations. People who want to see and help identify these types of observations have tools to do so. The tools could be improved, but captive/cultivated, medialess, and other observations labeled as casual are easily accessible.
I think there are valid issues there I just think it’s hard to address the questions in the initial thread when this keeps drifting to that topic. I believe there’s already a feature request for that.
I made a feature request for this most recent topic in this thread. It was closed with the (between-the-lines) explanation that the renaming of “Research Grade” should come first, and would perhaps solve the problem of non-wild observations mostly languishing in obscurity. I still think that “captive” should be turned on in a default ID session.
As big as iNat is, it can’t be all things to all people. There are a lot of fascinating and useful inquiries which iNat probably can’t help answer, but we try to keep things simple to engage anyone curious about nature, regardless of expertise, and this has generated a ton of data, a lot of which has been used, sometimes in creative ways. So I think there are a lot of uses for iNat data which we can’t even envision yet, which I think is pretty exciting. But none of that data can be used if it’s not reported in the first place, and I think it’s important to make the observation flow as easy as possible to facilitate that. Certainly it can be improved (hopefully something we’ll tackle after notifications) but it’s working pretty well now.
As @bouteloua said, Observation Fields are there for those who want to use them, and they can be beneficial but you will have to do some real outreach because (in my experience) the majority of people don’t want to fill out a ton of fields. Groups like the southern African CREW project are organized, provide trainings, and do fill out some intense observation fields. Perhaps your restoration group(s) can use the site in this way.
Ummmm… What’s “DQA”? Thanks
Ah! Thank you so much.
