I have some questions:
Why does the Data Quality Assessment “Based on the evidence, can the Community Taxon still be confirmed or improved?” exist?
Why when you tick “no” (if the observation is identified to family or higher) does the observation automatically become casual?
When is the appropriate time to tick “no” for an observation?
I believe I know the answers for all these questions, I’d just like to get clarification to know if I’m using this feature correctly.
I leave that usage to taxon specialists.
Who know - this cannot go to sp without … on the basis of photos.
Spider needs dissection - for example.
Microscopic examination for lichen.
Cannot see the diagnostic field marks in these photos.
But even when they leave those comments - they seldom use the DQA. Leaving room for a future identifier to take the ID further.
It can be RG at Genus, I think?
The purpose of the box is to remove the observation from the “needs ID” pool, so that identifiers won’t see it any more. By clicking the box you are saying the observation is impossible to ID further. If the observation has a community ID to a level below family (such as genus) then ticking the box actually makes it go to research grade despite not having a species ID. If the community ID is higher, the observation goes to casual.
I typically only use this question on
–my own observations
–when I think it is appropriate for someone’s observation to become research grade at genus
–Old landscape shots with no identifiable focus where the user is no longer active: usually there’s at least some plants in the shot so I give it an ID like “vascular plants” and check the box. In theory I should wait for a second person to agree with my ID before checking the box, but that seems too difficult to track.
Edit: Since this is now marked as the solution, I would like to add what @graysquirrel said:
To address:
This statement is incorrect. The observation would only become causal if the CID is not at a rank below family or lower. If the CID is at a rank below family, the observation will reach RG at that level.
Sorry I meant why does the observation become casual if it was identified to family or higher. I’ve edited my question now.
This does seem questionable. I can why family or higher shouldn’t become RG, but one vote making it casual doesn’t seem entirely right either. There’s a feature request relating to this here:
i use it quite often. you know, all those out of focus something when you can squint and see a bird. otherwise, it would need id forever.
I think the problem is that iNat doesn’t have any other status besides “casual” for observations that are neither “needs ID” nor “RG”.
So “casual” is a catch-all for everything else – observations with missing or defective data, observations of humans and human-made objects, captive/cultivated observations, and observations that have been taken out of needs ID but do not have an ID that is specific enough to become RG.
I agree that this is a problem. I understand the need for simplicity and not having too many different statuses that would just confuse people, but at the very least there is a need to separate defective observations from ones that have been verified but are not eligible for becoming RG.
It is also useful when something is erroneously research-grade (usually a school project where students are blindly confirming each other’s IDs) and my disagreeing ID is not enough to knock it back to “needs ID” - I’ll check “yes” so that it goes back into the needs ID pool and more people can review it.
@jezzecek I would caution you against using this particular DQA “frequently”. The implication of a “No” is that you know for sure that no one else in the community now or in the future would be able to move the ID to a lower level. That is presumptuous. In the case of blurry distant bird photos or a far off tree, for example, it is more appropriate to just leave an ID at “Bird”, “Passerines”, “Accipitridae”, “Dicots”, “Pinaceae”, or the like. Most of the discussion on this particular DQA seems to come down on the side of leaving that particular DQA to taxonomic experts on difficult to ID groups such as midges, lichens, etc., etc. That is, those taxa which truly do need microscopic, chemical, or DNA examination to sort out…not just blurry or distant photos.
Occasionally… a very few times… I have ticked No on my own observations when I know ( from previous discussion on other obs with experts) I am unable to provide any more data, better photos, etc, and I want to maintain an accurate record of the family or genus observation, but another observer has suggested a species or even an alternate genus that I know can’t be confirmed or is incorrect, (usually re wild plants in a site I know well), and does not respond to comments.
Often I search my observations for the location area for earlier signs of first occurrences of a species establishment, and those high-level records can be very helpful in following up for better IDs, and assessment of changes.
I think I have also used it once, or thought about it, where a confirmed species ID I believe is correct has been upset by an incorrect later ID by an unresponsive user. I dont like doing this, sometimes calling in other users to add weight to whatever level of correct ID they can on the evidence including my links to other observations of the same specimen (eg when flowering), and try very hard to get a true community ID. I don’t know if its intended to be used that way and would prefer not to.
I’ve seen this “No” used like once or twice on my observations, but I have never had a reason to use it myself.
I feel like I’d rather not touch this unless I have to, and so far I have had no need to.
As others have mentioned, the main reason to check that box is because you are positive that the current community ID is the best that can be achieved. For blurry cell phone shots (for example) of a bird on the other side of a field, that ID might just be bird. In many cases you don’t need to be an expert, most identifiers can probably check the box when the focal organism only takes up a few pixels of the photo. If you ever see a photo that can’t be identified further, either because it too distant, too blurry or just doesn’t show the enough of the organism to ID it, then you can check that box.
yep, i leave it at bird and then check “no, it cannot be improved”. obviously, i cannot do that on my own, i just remove these from further needs ids that way.
believe me, i do it when i am very sure that it cannot be better. some of these photos, i see better with no glasses on (which is not a lot)
I do agree that this special DQA is in most cases better left to be used by the specialists of their field or by the observer if they feel they do not need extra input by anyone else.
I do not agree to this (bold) part, actually. I am totally fine to use this DQA when I am sure the current literature does not allow a species ID, but however am not sure if that will be the case forever in future. In the spider world, a lot of focus is on genital examination, even in species that do seem to have other morphological traits that could be used.
I came to the conclusion that if there is no systematic knowledge of those possible traits now, it is fine to use the “as good as it can be” DQA, as this is true now. If this ever changes in the future, it is easy to surface those observations again that now went to RG on genus level, and push them further. In the meantime they do not eat the valueable time of identifiers over and over again so IDers can focus on observations that really do need their attention. There is a bunch of spider IDers now that agreed to follow this approach to make each others life easier and I appreciate it a lot.
That is how I use it as well. Occasionally I’ll find an observation with three or more people who’ve added the same (wrong) ID, and my single different ID will just be marked ‘maverick’, while the observation stays RG.
By checking ‘yes’, the observation will go back to ‘needs ID’ until someone else checks ‘no’ or I remove my ‘yes’, meaning that even if further wrong IDs are added, it will never reach RG, unless someone deliberately adds a wrong ID and checks the ‘no’ box.
Whether one agrees with this implication or not, I think it’s a commonly accepted reason why this checkbox isn’t used more often. We don’t want to make such a sweeping judgement for all people and all time.
Is there a way to filter for observations with this DQA? I’ve looked through the the tutorials on using the search URLs and can’t find anything. Should I make a Feature Request for this or is one already existing?
If we could filter for this, we would find greater value in using the checkbox to clear more observations from the “Needs ID” pool. And at the same time, if an expert comes along who is confident of their gestalt ability to identify birds from only five pixels, or to pick out tree species from landscape photos of a forest, there would be no impediment for them to find these.
An indirect, partial way is to search for observations that are “Research Grade” and “Rank (low): Complex”. Will return all the Genus-level, Complex-level, Section-level, Subsection-level (…) observations that have been made research-grade with the help of the ‘Can’t be improved’ DQA.
Family-level obs and above can’t be made RG, but I doubt many observations would get DQA-Can’t-be-improved at such a broad rank.
Sorry, doesn’t work, see below
I disagree. I know of many observations DQAed at family or higher (and this is actually my primary usage for this DQA). I DQA (by ticking no, can’t be improved) for many observations at “Lizards” where the pic is either so far away or blurry that only the general body plan can be seen. So an IDer can say “Yes, that is definitely a lizard”, but there’s no way to be sure which of any of the 5-50 darkish colored lizard species are present in that location the observation actually shows…
Hmmm, had not realized it could be so frequent - it may be that my area is gifted with good photographers (or better autofocus?). As staff, do you have more insights into the breakdown of this DQA, by rank?