When uploading observations, doing identifications is by far the most time consuming task. Half to two thirds of time on the Upload page is spent putting in identifications, and that is with all the photographs georeferenced.
When one uploads in batches of 30-100 observations at a time, this can take several hours. During which time the connection or electricity or computer can fail. So minimizing this time is critical.
Consequently I usually upload and identify as separate processes. For a busy trip, I may spend two or three evenings uploading, and then two or three weeks identifying them.
There is nothing more annoying than having this removed from “unknown” to some arbitrary ID (like “plants” or “birds”) and interfering with the workflow. Not only does it clog the dashboard and notifications, effectively hiding detailed identifications that are invaluable, but it removes it from the Identification tool standard settings. When one is talking of hundreds of observations it can be infuriating, especially if one does not catch the identifier in time to ask them to leave those observations alone.
By contrast, identifications to family or genus are incredibly useful, speeding up the workflow (if correct).
My personal request (for my data) is for identifiers who cannot get below family to leave it alone for a month after uploaded, after which it is fair game.
I realize that different strategies may be appropriate for poorer regions of the world. But for us with 9000 higher plant species in an area quarter the size of of California, identification is far more complicated than in areas like Canada (4500 spp).
So perhaps in these areas it makes sense to categorize observations into the plant|bird|fish bins, but not mine please!
But does an ID to these course bins really help anyone much? if there is a huge backlog, might it not make most sense for those helping out to start with the oldest observations and work forward, leaving youngest-to-oldest IDs for those who can ID to family-genus levels? Of course, there would be exceptions such as local bioblitzes or City Nature Challenge where special conditions apply.