Why does my observation show up as "casual" instead of "needs ID"?

[p...@philipt.com]

Why does my observation show up as "casual" instead of "needs ID"?

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/8345585

I thought "casual" was assigned only for sub-species-level IDs.... "???"

Aloha,

-pt

[p...@philipt.com]

P.S. - It's especially bizarre because my next post--https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/8345625--was created by using the "edit|duplicate" function (based on the Bos taurus observation), and THAT one is marked "Needs ID"!  

"????"

Aloha,

-pt

[krancmm]

Hi,

You marked the first observation "not wild" so that's automatically always "casual".  When you copied the observation you didn't mark it "not wild" so it stays "needs ID" until you or another user clicks No on the "Is organism wild?" field.

Hope that answers the question.

Monica

[bouteloua]

It should always say why something is marked as casual on the bottom right side of the page where it says:

"The below items are needed to achieve Research Grade:"---For instance yours says: "Has ID supported by two or more" (it only has 1 ID) and "Organism is wild" (you marked it as not wild as Monica mentioned). 

If you click the blue link under Quality Grade where it says Data Quality Assessment, the following information appears:

The data quality assessment is a summary of an observation's accuracy. All observations start as "casual" grade, and become "needs ID" when

• the observation has a date

• the observation is georeferenced (i.e. has lat/lon coordinates)

• the observation has photos or sounds

• the observation isn't of a human

Observations become "research grade" when

• the iNat community agrees on species-level ID or lower, i.e. when more than 2/3 of identifiers agree on a taxon

Observations will revert to "casual" if the above conditions aren't met or the community agrees

• the location doesn't look accurate (e.g. monkeys in the middle of the ocean, hippos in office buildings, etc.)

• the organism isn't wild/naturalized (e.g. captive or cultivated by humans or intelligent space aliens)

• the observation doesn't present evidence of an organism, e.g. images of landscapes, water features, rocks, etc.

• the observation doesn't present recent (~100 years) evidence of the organism (e.g. fossils, but tracks, scat, and dead leaves are ok)

• the observation no longer needs an ID and the community ID is above family

• the observer has opted out of the community ID and the community ID taxon is not an ancestor or descendant of the taxon associated with the observer's ID

And if that wasn't complicated enough, there are also situations where the system gets a vote:

• The system will vote that the observation is not wild/naturalized if there are at least 10 other observations of a genus or lower in the smallest county-, state-, or country-equivalent place that contains this observation and 80% or more of those observations have been marked as not wild/naturalized.

[mwk...@ameritech.net]

I will observe that *very rarely* that field seems to select "No" under Organism is wild, but I've never figured out why that happens - that's not a field I use much.  I notice it only when I look at the day's observations after uploading a batch. By rarely, I'd say it happened two or three times this year in 3000 observations.

[Philip Thomas]

Monica,

Thanks; you did answer my question.

But now I have another: what's the rationale for forcing the ID to
always be "casual" if it's "not wild"?

Whatever the rationale for that, he iNat HELP text is apparently incorrect:

"How can I get help identifying what I saw?
Just make observations that have photos, coordinates, and dates. Every
observation with those three things gets automatically placed in the
"Needs ID" category so people who are looking for observations to
identify will find them. Observations without those three things are not
eligible for "Research Grade" status and thus get placed in the "Casual"
category...."

The statement "Every observation with those three things gets
automatically placed in the 'Needs ID' category" is obviously incorrect.
It would be nice if whoever it is that can fix the help text could
clarify/correct this statement.

Thanks again!

Aloha,
-pt

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[Philip Thomas]

...and this (help text) isn't accurate, either:

"What is the quality assessment and how do observations qualify to
become "Research Grade"?
The Data Quality Assessment is a summary of an observation's accuracy,
completeness, and suitability for sharing with data partners. All
observations start as "Casual" grade, and become "Needs ID" when the
observation

has a date

is georeferenced (i.e. has lat/lon coordinates)

has photos or sounds

isn't of a human"

-pt

[Philip Thomas]

On 10/10/2017 5:07 PM, bouteloua wrote:
> It should always say why something is marked as casual on the bottom
> right side of the page where it says:
> "The below items are needed to achieve Research Grade:"---For instance
> yours says: "Has ID supported by two or more" (it only has 1 ID) and
> "Organism is wild" (you marked it as not wild as Monica mentioned).

Agreed! (Developers, whaddya say...??)

> If you click the blue link under Quality Grade where it says Data
> Quality Assessment, the following information appears:
>
> The data quality assessment is a summary of an observation's

> accuracy. All observations start as *"casual"* grade, and become
> *"needs ID"* when
>
> * the observation *has a date*
>
> * the observation *is georeferenced* (i.e. has lat/lon coordinates)
>
> * the observation *has photos or sounds*
>
> * the observation *isn't of a human*
>

Yes, but that isn't correct; "the observation isn't marked [by the
observer] as 'captive/cultivated' must be in that list before it's
correct. (Folks who can update this text, whaddya say...?)

Oh, yeah, and that statement needs to include the part about where the
system gets the vote (BEFORE it starts talking about when it "reverts"
to casual).

Aloha,
-pt





> Observations become *"research grade"* when
>
> * the iNat *community agrees on species-level ID or lower*, i.e.

> when more than 2/3 of identifiers agree on a taxon
>

> Observations will revert to *"casual"* if the above conditions

> aren't met or the community agrees
>

> * the *location doesn't look accurate* (e.g. monkeys in the middle

> of the ocean, hippos in office buildings, etc.)
>

> * the *organism isn't wild/naturalized* (e.g. captive or

> cultivated by humans or intelligent space aliens)
>

> * the observation *doesn't present evidence of an organism*, e.g.

> images of landscapes, water features, rocks, etc.
>

> * the observation *doesn't present recent (~100 years) evidence of
> the organism* (e.g. fossils, but tracks, scat, and dead leaves
> are ok)
>
> * the observation no longer needs an ID /and/ the community ID is
> above family
>
> * the observer has opted out of the community ID and the community

> ID taxon is not an ancestor or descendant of the taxon
> associated with the observer's ID
>
> And if that wasn't complicated enough, there are also situations
> where the system gets a vote:
>

> * The system will vote that the observation is not

> wild/naturalized if there are at least 10 other observations of
> a genus or lower in the smallest county-, state-, or
> country-equivalent place that contains this observation and 80%
> or more of those observations have been marked as not
> wild/naturalized.
>
>
> On Tuesday, October 10, 2017 at 3:09:29 PM UTC-5, p...@philipt.com wrote:
>
> Why does my observation show up as "casual" instead of "needs ID"?
>
> https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/8345585
> <https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/8345585>
>
> I thought "casual" was assigned only for sub-species-level IDs.... "???"
>
> Aloha,
> -pt
>

[Philip Thomas]

On 10/10/2017 5:16 PM, mwk...@ameritech.net wrote:
> I will observe that *very rarely* that field seems to select "No" under
> Organism is wild, but I've never figured out why that happens - that's
> not a field I use much. I notice it only when I look at the day's
> observations after uploading a batch. By rarely, I'd say it happened two
> or three times this year in 3000 observations.

mwk...@ameritech.net,

See the part below where bouteloua talks about "And if that wasn't

complicated enough, there are also situations where the system gets a

vote"; does that explain the situations you saw?

Aloha,
-pt

>
> On Tuesday, October 10, 2017 at 4:07:41 PM UTC-5, bouteloua wrote:
>
> It should always say why something is marked as casual on the bottom
> right side of the page where it says:
> "The below items are needed to achieve Research Grade:"---For
> instance yours says: "Has ID supported by two or more" (it only has
> 1 ID) and "Organism is wild" (you marked it as not wild as Monica
> mentioned).
>
> If you click the blue link under Quality Grade where it says Data
> Quality Assessment, the following information appears:
>
> The data quality assessment is a summary of an observation's

> accuracy. All observations start as *"casual"* grade, and become
> *"needs ID"* when
>
> * the observation *has a date*
>
> * the observation *is georeferenced* (i.e. has lat/lon
> coordinates)
>
> * the observation *has photos or sounds*
>
> * the observation *isn't of a human*
>

> Observations become *"research grade"* when
>

> * the iNat *community agrees on species-level ID or lower*,

> i.e. when more than 2/3 of identifiers agree on a taxon
>

> Observations will revert to *"casual"* if the above conditions

> aren't met or the community agrees
>

> * the *location doesn't look accurate* (e.g. monkeys in the

> middle of the ocean, hippos in office buildings, etc.)
>

> * the *organism isn't wild/naturalized* (e.g. captive or

> cultivated by humans or intelligent space aliens)
>

> * the observation *doesn't present evidence of an organism*,

> e.g. images of landscapes, water features, rocks, etc.
>

> * the observation *doesn't present recent (~100 years)
> evidence of the organism* (e.g. fossils, but tracks, scat,

> and dead leaves are ok)
>

> * the observation no longer needs an ID /and/ the community ID
> is above family
>
> * the observer has opted out of the community ID and the

> community ID taxon is not an ancestor or descendant of the
> taxon associated with the observer's ID
>
> And if that wasn't complicated enough, there are also situations
> where the system gets a vote:
>

> * The system will vote that the observation is not

> wild/naturalized if there are at least 10 other observations
> of a genus or lower in the smallest county-, state-, or
> country-equivalent place that contains this observation and
> 80% or more of those observations have been marked as not
> wild/naturalized.
>
>
> On Tuesday, October 10, 2017 at 3:09:29 PM UTC-5, p...@philipt.com
> wrote:
>
> Why does my observation show up as "casual" instead of "needs ID"?
>
> https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/8345585
> <https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/8345585>
>
> I thought "casual" was assigned only for sub-species-level
> IDs.... "???"
>
> Aloha,
> -pt
>

[Scott Loarie]

Hi Phillip,

I updated the help section you referenced.

re: rational for making captive organisms casual, there are several reasons:

The original reason is that, the initial scientific use of iNat data
was for environmental science, conservation, ecology and biogeographic
studies mostly made available to scientists via the Global
Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). Early on GBIF asked us to
exclude captive/cultivated organisms from this feed (since these
scientific applications for iNat data weren't interested in captive
obs). For this reason we initially made wild a criteria for 'Research
Grade' which originally just meant the subset of observations that
GBIF harvested.

I admit that there are now scientific applications of the iNat data
that do use captive obs, training the computer vision models being one
of them (at iNat, we do use captive obs to train our CV models)

But there are other reasons we've found it useful to keep captive obs
in the casual bin. One is that as part of our mission to connect
people with nature, we're trying to encourage people to get outside
and interact with ecosystems rather than just their house cat or house
plant. Making captive obs 'casual' is one way to incentivize that
behavior. Second, we've found that identifiers tend to ignore captive
observations, perhaps because they're harder to ID ("its in a garden,
that means it could be anything") or perhaps because they're not as
exciting from a natural history perspective. Either way making them
casual allows us to surface observations that identifiers on average
seem to be more interested in by default.

But I should note, that you or any other individual shouldn't take the
observation categories seriously. You're of course welcome to post, ID
or export casual observations for whatever use you choose. In fact
many projects choose to count and even encourage their communities to
post captive obs (planted trees from bioblitzes taking places in
landscaped/garden locations are a good example). So just because iNat
is choosing not to include captive obs in what we're calling 'needs
id' or 'research grade' observations, doesn't mean that you shouldn't
post, ID, or export these observations as you like.

Scott

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--------------------------------------------------
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California Academy of Sciences
55 Music Concourse Dr
San Francisco, CA 94118
--------------------------------------------------

[bouteloua]

But I should note, that you or any other individual shouldn't take the 
observation categories seriously. You're of course welcome to post, ID 
or export casual observations for whatever use you choose.

How does someone search for cultivated/captive/not wild observations that need ID?

Is there a way to find the observations that "iNaturalist" auto-marked as captive/cultivated/not wild? To QA the QAer? :)

cassi

>> <mailto:inaturalist+unsub...@googlegroups.com>.

[mwk...@ameritech.net]

Philip, I don't believe any of the few observations I noted should have been marked as cultivated - all were native species within their range as far as I recall.  However I can't go back and check that easily because I simply changed the classification under Organism is wild to Yes and the observations became Research Grade.  I'll keep a closer watch and if this happens again make some screenshots.

[Philip Thomas]

mwk,

Thanks! Will do.

Aloha,
-pt

On 10/12/2017 2:06 PM, mwk...@ameritech.net wrote:
> Philip, I don't believe any of the few observations I noted should have
> been marked as cultivated - all were native species within their range
> as far as I recall. However I can't go back and check that easily
> because I simply changed the classification under Organism is wild to
> Yes and the observations became Research Grade. I'll keep a closer
> watch and if this happens again make some screenshots.
>
> On Tuesday, October 10, 2017 at 9:13:01 PM UTC-5, Philip Thomas wrote:
>

> On 10/10/2017 5:16 PM, mwk...@ameritech.net <javascript:> wrote:
> > I will observe that *very rarely* that field seems to select "No"
> under
> > Organism is wild, but I've never figured out why that happens -
> that's
> > not a field I use much. I notice it only when I look at the day's
> > observations after uploading a batch. By rarely, I'd say it
> happened two
> > or three times this year in 3000 observations.
>

> mwk...@ameritech.net <javascript:>,

>
> See the part below where bouteloua talks about "And if that wasn't
> complicated enough, there are also situations where the system gets a
> vote"; does that explain the situations you saw?
>
> Aloha,
> -pt
>
>
>