I have noticed quite a few observations that have photos of more than one species, and people are identifying them as “Life” even though the species all have something in common. The latest example I saw was of three flowering plants. I don’t understand why people aren’t identifying them as flowerin…

[image] saturnring: knowing that some people prefer them to remain in Unknown I will just move on to the next observation rather than add a broad ID like Plants, Flowering Plants, or Dicots. I don’t think this is the lesson to take from this discussion. Please add the ID you think is appropr…

[image] teellbee: [image] DianaStuder: mean that moving an obs to Plantae where no identifier picks it up, I wonder if that’s a regional preference? In my area, it doesn’t seem all unusual for ”Plants” to get refined by IDers later. I agree that this is a regional preference. I feel t…

What I got from this discussion is that it’s not only African identifiers, but California ones as well, who feel adversely affected: [image] graysquirrel: I’ve noticed many of the users who add multi-species observations continue to add photos after the ID. I’ve identified for “plants” only to …

Sorry I thought we had drifted into the topic of general unknowns where some areas of Africa do have a different preference. I agree with @greysquirrel’s comment about why it is beneficial to have the first ID on a multiple species observation be at Life. I’m not sure it matters on the subsequent I…

[image] whitneybrook: I’m not sure it matters on the subsequent IDs if “as good as it can be” is selected. Some of us are more literal than others, I guess. To me, it’s a false statement to say “it’s as good as it can be” if it isn’t. I don’t care what others do, but I care what I do. So I wi…

What is the difference, practically, between “State of Matter: Life” and “Unknown”?

“Life” makes it clear that someone tried to identify it, but couldn’t get any further than that, while “Unknown” is a much more vague category that mostly includes observations from people who don’t understand that they need to add an ID.

If given the choice between IDing Unknowns and Lifes, I think most users would pick Unknowns, as there are some good observations in there (among the chaff) that users have just forgotten to an ID to or didn’t know to. Life usually means it is either a low quality observation, an observation of mult…

Life can also be Kingdom Disagreements (11K waiting. Filter to your chosen location? Every little helps) that tripped over homonyms. Crassula? Erica? I seem to find a NEW one every day!

I regularly go through unknowns of southern Spain. I pick “Life” when I really can’t tell what the organism is. I often add rough identification such as Plantae or Insecta . My thinking on that is that this allows me to clear the Unknowns relatively quickly and that a rough ID will increase the ch…

Why ID as Life When More Narrow Category Applies to All Photos?

General

Topic		Replies	Views
Does anyone else get bothered by how many observations are marked as "unknown species"? General question	231	9454	December 27, 2022
Thoughts on unknown ID level? General	59	1402	October 9, 2025
State of matter Life limbo General	66	10243	June 24, 2019
Musings on the ID-a-Thon and observations tagged "Unknown" General	30	911	December 22, 2025
Heavy sigh. Comments regarding the UNKNOWN option of identifying the observation General	140	3557	September 22, 2024

Why ID as Life When More Narrow Category Applies to All Photos?

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