Why do some serious "power users" add so many unknown observations?

I agree, they were just asking for more time and expressing frustration. I originally started that way, but anytime I left the app and came back it would still be showing me observations that I already clicked “skip and review” on …like, a lot of them, so I tried going in the other direction…then I skipped some of the very new ones, but I guess even 24 hours is not enough. We have resolved the issue and seems like we understand each other a little more now. :grin::+1:t4:

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When you say “the app,” what are you referring to? I can’t make sense of what you say when I’m looking at the iNaturalist app, but I have only experience with the android version. I don’t know what clicking “skip and review” means within the inaturalist app.

i just looked around because I also had no idea, @schoenitz. I think it is @jtklein’s test app maybe? iNat Toolkit is NOT the regular app if I understand correctly.

Some people here will be glad to hear that in recent months I have been taking photos in the field, then adding rough IDs on the way home, and then uploading every ob after they have rough IDs, then refining the IDs a bit later on.

But sometimes a number of observations do get uploaded without IDs by accident, because I have “butt-dialed” one of the upload buttons when putting the phone back in my carrying bag.

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When I upload unknowns this is this is usually the reason.

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Sorry, thought I’d already mentioned it: iNat Toolkit, yes it is @jtklein’s test app.

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That was clever of you to reference the forum conversation about this topic. The user read it, understood what you were up to, and all was forgiven. Good job.

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Thank you Janet. I am pleased with the way it worked out. Hopefully I didn’t alienate anyone.

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I just uploaded many hundreds of unknowns that I wish I could keep from CID (need space on my phone but want to have the first ID challenge!) but I can’t figure out a way to batch edit them to opt out…

Suggestions?

Also, I guess if you’re someone who IDs for me a lot, please hold off on unknowns for a hot minute :grimacing:

Ahhh, as the original poster, I guess I’ve come full circle. I’ll call that a forum success story!

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The only way I can think of is to temporarily change your account setting to opt out of CID for your entire account. Then change it back once you have a chance to ID. (Maybe I’m missing something, but I’m not seeing where just an individual observation can be opted out of CID, only the whole account.)

Not sure this would address your need though, since people can still add IDs to observations of opted-out users. I think what you may be getting at is the “draft mode” that has been requested and discussed in another thread?

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To the right, above the Community Taxon box when you are looking at your observation view, there will be a pair of “links” labelled “Reject? * What’s this?”. Clicking “Reject?” brings up a confirmation and description for the opt out.

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Ah, thanks, it wasn’t there because I was looking at an observation where my ID is the same as the community ID. The reject option is only available when the CID differs from my current ID, sensibly enough. This being the case, I don’t think it would help @mira_l_b’s situation, because nothing would be there yet to reject.

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I don’t think opting out would help anyway, because others still could ID, it just wouldn’t affect CID. I think she wants to “block” IDs, so that she can have an attempt at putting IDs without being influenced by what others put?

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I ended up tagging those that were quickly IDing and explaining I had a storage issue…blah blah blah… people were nice about it and I felt silly. I also added a line to the top of my profile asking people not to ID my stuff. I gave up though eventually, and decided I need a better system for setting aside my leps and generally, for dealing with backlogs in all areas.

I really did a learn a lot here though from asking my original question to being on the other side of my speculation.

Thanks everyone, I am going to go double check that my vote for the “draft mode” (like @jdmore referenced) is still there.

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Maybe the app should be updated so all those problems with uploading would disappear? It’s not hard to post observations fast with photos from storage but it leads to many doubled obs, missing obs, etc. And those problems are always there.
Cursing IDs that involves high level taxes do only good for your observation, and if experts Id it at species level it’s even better.

Love this!. Is there any place you can download this template or - do you mind sharing it?

Message me in iNat with your email address, I’ll send a PDF…

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I would love this.

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@tonyrebelo, did you ever submit a feature request for “Not Life”?
I’ll definitely upvote it!

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Is there a “what the heck?” project that we could add weird observations to? I’ve run across some interesting unknowns where I have no idea what they are but seem identifiable if they could be seen by the right set of eyes! Like this https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/27262103 (fungi? insect eggs?) Or this https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/8712578 (chocolate-covered pretzel snack?)

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