Why is this Observation Casual/Needs ID/Research Grade? - "Official" Topic

[gjn]

Simple, thanks.

[squidtk]

Can someone tell me why this is RG?

I found a few more like it (like this one), but I added an ID prematurely and knocked it to “Needs ID” before I checked why it might’ve been RG. I thought that maybe users were nefariously ticking “Can the ID be improved” in order to force their observation to RG, but that doesn’t seem to be the case for at least some of them

[swampster]

@squidtk

Can someone tell me why this is RG?

I think this is what happened:

@tiwane

If the Data Quality Assessment section looks good, then it’s possible the observation was not “reindexed” properly, and the system has not registered its true current data quality state. When a part of an observation changes, like its ID, a DQA vote, someone faving it, iNaturalist reindexes the observation to reflect the change. However, this sometimes doesn’t happen due to a glitch or a bug. You can force an observation to be reindexed by voting in the DQA or faving the observation. Give it a few seconds and the observation’s data quality grade might change to an accurate one.

I added an ID, then deleted that same ID, and the observation is now displaying as expected.

[squidtk]

I checked and unchecked “Yes, ID can be improved” for a few similar observations and it worked for most, but this one, this one, and this one are still RG.

[squidtk]

I found more; they all look like this

with exactly three active IDs: two concurring to species and one “maverick.” the community taxon shows the species, but the observation shows and is treated (at least by the search filters) as a higher taxa


Favs and DQA votes don’t fix them, but IDs do, so I think it’s separate from the “reindex” issue, but still fixable.

[swampster]

I think it’s still the reindexing issue. The IDs are forcing the reindex; for some reason, the other actions are not.

[graysquirrel]

This observation was DQA-downvoted for having photos of multiple organisms, but the user seems to have deleted the other images - problem is, the option to countervote in the DQA is greyed out for me. Is there some reason I’m missing for this?
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/237700422

[tiwane]

I can’t either, seems like a bug. I made a report on our end, but today’s Sunday so a reply is unlikely until the work week.

[jwidness]

That was done intentionally

[tiwane]

Ah, didn’t know that was implemented. Seems like it needs some tweaking.

[jdmore]

@tiwane

Seems like it needs some tweaking.

Yes, for any DQA, I would think any and all votes should be cleared if the conditions on which the voting was based either change or no longer exist.

[amr_mn]

In the thread where the original change was suggested, someone said that clearing those votes when the conditions change could be abused by someone wanting to remove DQA votes.

I’d suggest rather:
If there’s an existing DQA vote and the conditions change then that category is not turned off.
or
If there’s an existing DQA vote and the conditions change, the vote is kept but not applied. (So that if the condition returns, so does the vote.)

[chauncey]

Unless an observation is clearly not wild, e.g., obviously in a garden or landscape plot or way out of range (e.g., Rocky Mountain juniper in Germany), I ask if they are sure it is a wild native specimen or possibly cultivated/planted.

[DianaStuder]

@tiwane

not much news

That was October 2020.
Any progress ?

[arboretum_amy]

Earlier this week @kueda told me they are not working on it.

[DianaStuder]

Not? So we are trapped with lots of iNatters who ignore Too Many Notifications, and more who are Swamped in notifications. Aargh!

[tiwane]

I’m pretty sure Ken-ichi meant “not currently working on it,” which is true. Note that @arboretum_amy didn’t say “told me they are never going to work on it” or something like that.

[DianaStuder]

So we still have hope? I can keep up with mine. But yesterday I was asked, again, not to @mention if the identifier is already engaged with that obs. Because notifications.

[arboretum_amy]

On the one hand, he didn’t say they were never going to work on it. On the other hand, he also didn’t say they have plans to work on it.

My unsolicited two cents: don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. If you don’t have the resources for the revamp of your dreams, then do the bare minimum you think you can handle. Recode the notifications dropdown so that they stay unread unless clicked on individually. Or make notifcations exportable as a CSV so that the user can save/sort them as they like. Or redesign dashboard to be more compact of a list, with read/unread distinguished, like it is on the app. Or take different types of currently existing notications and put them on their own tabs–dashboard already has a tab for “your content” so just make a few more for “your mentions” etc.

[DianaStuder]

Or give us ONE notification for a busy obs. Now we get notified of each
ID
Comment
@mention
Added …

which makes the list unnecessarily long. And confusing - I have looked at that obs twice already!

If we could have little improvements, step by step - that would be wonderful!