There is an existing feature request with 15 votes … and counting? 21 …
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I had voted for it but forgot!
That is not always correct. The one time I (temporarily) opted out was out of frustration at unresponsive IDers who wouldn’t answer my questions.
Another use case I can think of is when the observer wants to see if a consensus ID emerges, without it getting bounced around to “Life” or “Animals” or whatever. When there seems to be a clear consensus, the observer can opt back in and, if necessary, remove their initial ID.
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I opt out of community ID because I don’t need it. It may sound selfish but for me Inaturalist is my way of recording sightings on my farm. I use many ID resources, mostly I have some knowledge about my sightings. Usually the information I use is much more than just a photo, such as the “jizz” of a bird, tracks, scats, calls, environment etc. I have had a couple of experiences with bad ID suggestions, I still get suggestions, I just get the choice of whether I agree or not.
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That is why I would like iNat to have a banner up top
Opted Out
so identifiers can choose whether to engage or next. My autopilot is getting trained to look for opted out first.
PS try doing some identifying so you see the other side? You clearly have ID skills to pay it forward on iNat.
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I don’t think there are currently any observations where I’ve opted out of the Community ID (CID) – though I may be mistaken here – but it’s something I’ve thought about in the past due to how some of my observations have been identified.
There are often times when I upload something at a higher taxonomic level like genus because I’m not sure if it’s a native Korean species or a locally-present look-like from China or Japan. However, I then occasionally have users come and add an identification of a North American species and when I ask what features they’re using to distinguish it from the multiple Asian species I get told, “Oh, I didn’t check the location”. That’s fine, mistakes happen after all and I’ve made my fair share, but sometimes I never hear back from the identifier(s).
In one case I recall two users making a species-level ID of a North American species, making my observation research grade for that species. I asked how the North American species could be distinguished from the Asian species but never heard back from either. I eventually marked the Data Quality Assessment (DQA) for the observation as ‘ID can still be improved’ so it’s no longer research grade but my understanding is that it still shows up as a local record for Korea on the relevant taxon pages. (It may not be the biggest issue but it does start a feedback loop of people seeing it registered as ‘present in Korea’ and potentially using that as a reason to add further identifications of that species.) If I later learned how to distinguish between those species that would be a situation where I might consider opting out of the CID.
I greatly appreciate the time and effort that others put into adding identifications across iNaturalist but the North American bias can be problematic when identifiers add North American species IDs and don’t respond to follow-up questions. I think that might be an experience that’s different for users in heavy-use regions compared to those in low-use regions and may result in some instances of people opting out of the CID.
11 Likes
This is one of the reasons why I always filter by location when doing IDs: so that 1) I will not see species in places I don’t know, and 2) so that I always know which subset of species to choose from.
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That’s a frustrating situation, but you should be able to “hold off” two bad IDs with an explicit disagreement of your own with that bad ID to keep the identification from becoming Research Grade at that level and not listed (I think). Ticking “can still be improved” in that situation is a good idea to help other identifiers find it.
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One of my ID approaches is to look at the Western US species I am familiar with that are far out of range, such as your example. I’ve helped to “fix” quite a few of those. My hypothesis is that your example happens when IDers use the “Identify” feature instead of the “Needs ID” filter, it’s too easy just to agree with a small version of the photo that doesn’t display the location. To get around that, I usually limit the location as well as the taxon when using the “Identify” feature. Even though it’s more hassle and slows my ID rate down, I prefer to use the “Needs ID” filter because it forces me to be a bit more careful.
Also, in your case I think an actual message to the folks making the out of range ID might have better results (perhaps you did that). I know I miss some of the tags in comments because my Dashboard feed is sometimes like a fire hose.
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then also missing placeholder text (which then vanishes, thanks iNat) and any notes from the observer.
I’m not sure what you mean? By “doesn’t display the location” I meant that there are only the images and an “Agree” button (see attached screenshot), which is very convenient and I’m glad it’s a feature in many situations. But you’d actually have to click on the observation to see the location.
I assume this practice would apply to this observation?
https://inaturalist.ca/observations/134356210
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That is what I mean. In that view, you cannot see the observer’s notes. This is for the tiny bee on the flower, flower is at obs …
(Placeholder would be for Unknowns)
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Got it. Thank you!
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I usually resent this feature but I started doing it when people would put very wrong identifications on my observations or refuse to rescind identification of the organism that wasn’t the target. I’ve encountered this kind of treatment from users that are NOT inactive and I’m not sure what to do with it. I really do appreciate and believe in the community id but a few bad experiences have led me to this.
It’s obviously not ideal because if I die or am unable to check my notifications and something is wrong then it’ll be wrong forever.
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What has worked for me in such cases is to do a very tight crop around the target organism and add that photo to be the first on the observation before asking the person to please reconsider their ID. Of course, there are people who will bump things back because “the second picture also shows this other species” but for the most part it works to clarify intent even for those who don’t read notes or comments.
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Another reason can be due to updated taxonomy or range information for species. These cases are rare because of the way iNat typically handles taxon changes, but they do occasionally occur.
For this observation, myself and others correctly identified Desmognathus quadramaculatus given the accepted taxonomy at the time. However, once the species was split, some identifiers, who are either no longer active or don’t check their notifications, have not yet corrected their IDs. I wanted the species to display properly in my indented tree of observed taxa, but will opt back in if/when the community ID reflects the actual ID.
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Not to get too far off track, but in cases like this it could be that the other observers disagree with the new proposed taxonomy or other reasons - one of them is a noted expert in the field. Not changing an ID doesn’t necessarily mean ignoring/missing a notification (though of course it can be that). I’d suggest adding a comment to an observation like this and tagging observers with the “older” taxon IDs to ask them if they could update, or, if not, to explain their rationale. Identifiers with lots of observations may respond more to mentions than id notifications.
On a side note, the new species doesn’t appear distinguishable by morphology, only genetics, and potentially range, so this may be a reason other identifiers are being conservative (I’m not familiar enough to know myself). If range is being used as the sole characteristic for species ID, and it is reliable as such, then those ranges probably could have been atlased when the taxon split was committed which would prevent this issue (I think).
So in some case like this one, I think that there are more proactive, existing mechanisms on iNat to address issues than observation by observation opt outs of Community ID.
3 Likes
In my case, my most recent example isn’t responding to @s. I made the mistake of not saying what the focus was but putting it as life and even after clarification and asking they haven’t rescinded their identification.
My viewpoint is basically that iNaturalist’s handling of taxonomy and identifications is broken, and opting out helps to alleviate some of the problems.
For instance, suppose I want to look at the set of my observations that I identified as Bidens tenuisecta. If I’m opted out of community ID, I just go to https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/aspidoscelis and type “Bidens tenuisecta” into the Taxon search field. If I’m opted in… yeah, I could still do it through https://www.inaturalist.org/identifications but it’s just an awful UI.