I’m sure that many of us have done this, and I know for sure that I have on numerous occasions.
But I always seem to think afterwards, why do those of us who get really into our IDs, cringe on the inside when someone misidentifies something that you consider an easy ID? I would love to hear some opinions, because I still don’t have one other than its being, me getting “too into this passion.” Which I think is not realistic.(Mostly)
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Actually, now that I think of it, it could also be because I have gotten so used to identifying one species/genus or another, that I don’t feel a need for an ID key. And then I’m just so focused on the topic at that time, that I don’t even think about how not everyone who’re posting these observations are as used to identifying various species or genera as I am. Since I quite literally keeping live and dead specimens of them in my bedroom, and they’re next to me during my online classes everyday!
Sorry if I misspell something or repeat myself, I am typing this on a small screen, and with a really annoying auto-correction system that I can’t seem to turn off!
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I don’t think it’s about ids at all, it’s a common reaction about knowledge, at the moment when you get new piece of knowledge it becomes a forever part of you, as if you knew it all your life, so if you saw X first time today tomorrow you will question yourself why other people don’t know X, it’s so easy and a common knowledge!
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Very true.
I’ve noticed that I cannot always word things how I want them without it sounding funny. Thank you for the comment @fffffffff Marina, I agree with it.
: )
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I have that reaction, too - when its a taxon I am familiar with! I feel pretty confident with plants, especially trees and wildflowers, but fungi, mosses, and insects can be a challenge. I generally take the first name suggested if I don’t know anything more than “it’s a(n) (blank)”. But I agree, seeing totally incorrect names applied to plants is annoying. As melodi_96 said, once you learn something and make it a part of your knowledge bank, you think everyone should know it. As you get older, you get a perspective that not everyone has had the same experiences you have had, and you can forgive them. Maybe they have experience or knowledge that you haven’t had and you can learn from them.
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meanwhile there is a parallel conversation
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/whats-your-worst-most-embarrassing-id-mistake/21982/49
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I typically only cringe when someone makes an easy mistake and includes a comment pointing to things that don’t work as ID marks. Especially annoying when I do it.
I do get annoyed when I put the correct ID on something, and then somebody comes along later and points out something that doesn’t make sense and identifies it as something else that it clearly isn’t. That’s when I really cringe.
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@neylon YES. Definitely have done that!
Speaking of this topic, my little brother just asked me a question that tells me that he has been reading “Calvin and Hobbes” by Bill Watterson WAY to much lately.
Here is what he asked, “Connor, are bats actually bugs?” and then he didn’t even wait for the answer, and walked out of my room, and back downstairs!
I think this is one of those moments when you either feel A.-like banging your head on your desk. Or B.-Feeling like you have worked really hard to teach someone something, then realizing that it never sunk in, and that there was very little point in that goal.
For me right now, I feel more of an A…
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I tend to cringe with the common “Any snake I see is a rattlesnake or copperhead/cottonmouth” in the Southeastern U.S. and then proceeds to kill it just because of that belief. I understand that it’s mainly just not being educated on the topic and being influenced by “old tales” but it just irks me that some people automatically assume that there are only 3 types of snakes that exist in their yard. I’ve seen some people on here INSIST that a common watersnake is a cottonmouth and they won’t take other I.D.'s as fact.
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I only recently learned about the giant Taraxacum mess, but now I often think “Why did that person identify a dandelion to species? Don’t they know better?!” Forgetting that I myself did that just a month ago.
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Yeah @safron , I’ve heard of that, not very pretty, would not want to be a snake and live over there. There are some people here in Oregon that keep putting these annoying little posters up around my neighborhood telling everyone to kill the boxelder bugs because they’re bad for the environment. Whenever we see the posters, we will take them down, and also because they are usually being put up on random people’s trees with nails, and they have done it to one of the trees in my front yard many times, and there are now several holes in the poor tree from where I took the nails out. And really? The boxelder bugs are native, and they don’t usually do much harm at all.
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I cringe more when I keep running into the exact same argument on multiple observations. I know we’re supposed to assume good motives here, but to me it just looks like someone with something to prove.
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I only cringe if the ID is really not contentious (maybe if it´s contentious I cringe more about the species and its taxonomy then about people having a different opinion) and people don´t react in some way (positive, negative or asking for the reasoning behind my differing ID). Because then I don´t know what they are doing on INATURALIST, which is -as far as I understand it- about an intersubjective approach to taxonomy. If I think I´m always right (which I certainly don´t) why then ask other people about their opinion?.
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Достаточно осознавать простую истину - среди людей слишком много идиотов. Чем меньше человек знает, тем выше его самоуверенность.
I am very aware that differences that are obvious to me are not at all obvious to the casual observer … or even many non-specialized botanists. I cringe at what I consider an obvious mistake on my own part, and roll my eyes when a botanist mixes up species, but when most people mix it up it’s kind of an opportunity to teach someone something new. In every case, so long as the mistake is eventually corrected all is good in my book. I deliberately withdraw but don’t delete even my egregious mistakes for that reason.
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I don’t think there’s any easy way to do this in iNat, but as I do my daily IDs (thanks for that good habit, Blue!), I see lots of observations by new iNatters that make it clear the observers don’t have a clue what to look for. Photos of tree silhouettes with the leaves off, of a tangle of shrubs, of tiny wildflowers a yard or two away - none of those are helpful to someone who’s trying to ID a species, and I think it’s because the observer doesn’t know that, say, if you want to ID a tree, it’s helpful to have photos of a leaf, a bud, the bark, and maybe even the fruit or nut.
I can envision leading field trips where I teach new iNatters how to make good observations (well, once the pandemic is over). Maybe it’s possible to make videos or write journal posts that would help someone new. Are there other ideas out there that I’m not thinking of?
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Well, there was offline meeting about that question on Russian, but starting Vimeo vids of iNat are already good to show some tips, plus there’re many topics about it.
I cringe at my own ID’s I put much earlier when somebody else put an ID on that observation and it comes on my notifications. It is real life too after getting knowledge about something which I before thought something strange or weird about.
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I don’t cringe as much as get annoyed. The one that bothers me the most is the moth Feltia jaculifera. It’s one of four common Feltia spp. in Canada and has two light lines that form a ‘w’ in the terminal area. Yet so many people get it wrong. I’ve even written a journal entry that highlights the feature. I know moths are difficult, and I don’t mind educating folks, but I’ve explained it to a number of people who either can’t be bothered to learn or don’t care, so they make the same mistakes again and again.
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