i agree with @tiwane about the identifier motivations - i don’t think you can flatten those into one idea of expertise. (i am not a trained expert in the contexts listed here but do rank pretty high up the leaderboard.) i respect both rationales he provided for myself. i’ll add two things in addition:
-
trained experts are in limited supply and i don’t think it’s sustainable to expect either long-term interaction or broad interaction here. and that’s considering other more specific projects, like bugguide, where those experts might participate. (as an aside, the species (any level) pages and curation are no different from field guides, etc, as references to expertise and more accessible to non-experts so it’s wild to me that those aren’t used more often to clarify an id with an in situ image more like what an observer has shared.) it highlights the need for that intermediate level of identifier that can get you to beardtongues which a) gives the observer a name to research if they’re inclined and b) better filtering for an expert/researcher to add more. it’s a complicated rubric where (again as a not-expert) i’d like to improve my own skills for when i’m out in the world but nudge the other observer to take that next step for their own id and knowledge while also being conservative knowing that either some things aren’t really identifiable from photos alone or have small differences i am not comfortable putting at a species level because folks are quick to accept and especially quick to accept if you’re on the little leaderboard.
-
sticking with the idea that one of the main reasons for inaturalist is connecting people to nature as an educational tool, i feel like the identification side is overlooked in that. it’s come up for me with the bioblitzes where, at least in my experiences, the feel i got was identification needed to be from a credentialed expert and i found it disempowering as someone interested in learning more deeply about my local area. like i could be told what it was but i couldn’t truly know myself. i also think that hurts when recruiting identifiers and there’s so. much. stuff. and not enough identfiers. ymmv but i think there’s a pretty good case to be made for identifying as a gateway into observing more kinds of things and that seems good for inaturalist.
anyway, i think the “follow->this observation” is not used enough and could benefit from putting those updates under “following” or flagging them in the notification stream as a starter step to new identifiers. have a hunch that some of the likes and some of the identifications are more about wanting to keep track of an observation when maybe you’d rather not have a public opinion. i also don’t mind being wrong in part because there is that “misidentifications” section so i figure something is learning from that mistake . (do people use that?)
i’m also not sure expertise really hedges against some of the less-than-good-faith issues on ids. there’s an uncommon but persistent pattern where someone will start their observation off with an impossible id and, when that’s contested, the poster will switch to a different rare possibility. like id’ing a butterfly in kansas as some british species and switching to something limited to the sierra nevadas after a more likely id is added. that’s something about the original poster that i doubt will respond to an expert. so if there’s some technical change to the system, id hope it addresses the underlying issue if possible. as an example.
cheers.