"Identifications" and "Top Identifiers" should include indentifications on personal observations, not just IDs made for others

[bouteloua]

thoughts?

[Carrie Seltzer]

Hi Cassi,

I personally like having the ID count showing what has been done for others rather than including ones own observations. For example, it would make it harder to tell at a glance the difference between a person who has tons of observations that they have ID'd and someone who has lots of observations but also added lots of IDs for other people. Why do you think they should be counted together on those pages?

If you want to poke around some of the different identification metrics, you can check out these links and modify the URL for the different queries. 

https://www.inaturalist.org/identifications?for=others

https://www.inaturalist.org/identifications?for=self

https://www.inaturalist.org/identifications?user_id=carrieseltzer&for=others (I'm just volunteering my username as an example here.)

Carrie

On Tuesday, July 4, 2017 at 10:33:30 AM UTC-4, bouteloua wrote:

thoughts?

[Ken-ichi]

I personally like showing stats for IDs made for others. It helps
highlight people who don't add a lot of observations but do help other
people out a bunch. I feel like it might make sense to show stats for
identifications added on your own observations if we only showed
*improving* identifications. That might separate out the people who
are good at adding identifications that the community supports from
people who just observe a lot and people who confirm a lot. Those are
important too, but we already have stats for observers.

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[bouteloua]

True--I'm both an Observer and an Identifier, but I understand the utility it has to compare those who swing widely one way or the other. 

It seemed strange once I thought about what the Top Identifiers box means in practice - an expert in that taxa to tag in for help with ID/confirming ID. If someone has observed Species X 100 times and I confirm one of their Species X IDs 1 time, I show up in Top Identifer and they do not. 

The "improving IDs only" option intrigues me, or just making this info more accessible to users. Is the User's Identifications link going to be updated on the profile page? (From https://www.inaturalist.org/identifications/kueda to https://www.inaturalist.org/identifications?user_id=kueda ?)

cassi

[lelliott]

Is there a guide to syntax for these kinds of queries? I assume there must be lots of ways to examine the data.

Lee

[Carrie Seltzer]

Hi Lee,

If you follow one of the /identifications urls, the parameters are shown on the lower right. Here's a haphazardly constructed URL query as an example:

https://www.inaturalist.org/identifications?for=others&taxon_id=2&user_id=kueda&category=improving&current=true

This shows where Ken-ichi has current IDs of Chordates for other people's observations that advanced the community ID (aka "improving" ids). You can see all of the ID category type in the pie chart if you remove that parameter.

Hope that helps!

Carrie

[cassi saari]

I added this to http://www.inaturalist.org/pages/help#identification at your suggestion!

cassi

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[Chris Vynbos]

"It help highlight people who don't add a lot of observations but do help other 
people out a bunch"

I don't get that, in what way does excluding users own obs from their ID count highlight those with few obs but who ID a lot?

Perhaps it was an issue in early iNat but now we have people with hundreds of thousands of IDs, vs top observers have at most 60k obs.It would seem that IDers have the numbers advantage and don't need this benefit to make them stand out.

top IDers

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&subview=table&view=identifiers: 

top observers.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&subview=table&view=observers

An ID is an ID, the same time and effort/experience goes into each ID whether it's one's own obs or someone else's. It seems odd not to add it to one's ID count. 

But more importantly: when viewing one's own list of IDs, it is counterproductive to have our own obs IDs excluded. 

I want to review *all* of my IDs here, but currently I cannot: https://www.inaturalist.org/identifications/vynbos

[Mirko Schoenitz]

Why do you take the ID count as an indication of expertise?  From experience I can assure you that it takes no particular level of insight to judge "this is a plant," or to agree with seven previous ID's of anas platyrhynchos. 

Inaturalist is a social site, and to the very limited extent that those tallies are useful at all, the ID count simply shows how much time you've spent looking at other people's observations.

Wanting to see all your own ID's, including on your own observations, is an entirely different topic.  It'd be nice to be able to do that.

[cassi saari]

Hi, can it be clarified what identification stats are tallied for these pages?

User Page

Taxon Page - Top Identifier

/Observations - Identifiers tab

Individual Observation page - Top Identifiers section

other?

Examples:

1) I have made a total of 6 IDs of this taxon: 4 on my on obs and 2 for others: https://www.inaturalist.org/identifications?user_id=bouteloua&taxon_id=635329

https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/635329 says I have 2 IDs

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?taxon_id=635329&view=identifiers says I have 6 IDs

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/14652001 ("Top Identifiers") says I have 4 IDs 

2) I have made a total of 4 IDs of this taxon: 3 on my own and 1 for others: https://www.inaturalist.org/identifications?user_id=bouteloua&taxon_id=167016

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?taxon_id=167016&view=identifiers says I only have 1 ID

3) I have made 59 IDs of this taxon https://www.inaturalist.org/identifications?user_id=bouteloua&taxon_id=324677

https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/324677 says I have 48 IDs

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?taxon_id=324677&view=identifiers says I have 30 IDs

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/13298590 ("Top Identifiers") says I have 56 IDs

thanks!

cassi

[Chris Vynbos]

@Mirko

"Why do you take the ID count as an indication of expertise? " 

I never said that ID should be an indication of expertise, on the contrary, it is a poor measure of expertise. What I’m asking for is for iNat to stop distorting the stats.

Here’s an example of the oddness of the current system:  https://www.inaturalist.org/people/751445

I look at the user’s profile and think, weird the person has over 1000 obs but hasn’t made a single ID. This is not true. The user has made thousands of ID. For whatever reason, the user chooses not to ID other people obs. Perhaps they are shy. The ID count of zero is bad stats and does not reflect the true situation.

 

You say here: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/inaturalist/hH6_REjxIEM/mzhjMudcCAAJ

"it's expected to give your own observation an initial ID. It'd be redundant to count this activity twice.” I don’t know why you regard it as redundant. If posting an obs gave you an ID count of 1, and then you got another ID count of 1 for making an ID on that obs, now that would be redundant.

[Nancy Asquith]

Keep them separate. 

First, some observers probably click on the auto-ID tool's first suggestion, while others run the ID tool to save typing. 

Second, some of us rely on quasi-intelligent guesses when ID'ing our own observations, but certainty is necessary when making IDs for others. If I am only 90% certain, I (as others have done) will mention the likely ID in a comment rather than making an "identification."

Perhaps changing the label "Identifications" to "IDs for others" would clarify what is counted. 

[tony rebelo]

I had no idea that this statistic was so not what it says.    Only people who have read this thread would know this!!

Can the title please be changed to "IDs for others" and not just "Identifications".  

If it is to be called "Identifications" then it should be the total.  

In fact, in the Observers tab there is a tally for observations and species.  Why not have two columns on https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&verifiable=any&view=identifiers

* Identifications

* Identifications for others

Then everyone can have their cake and eat it!

On Tuesday, 4 July 2017 16:33:30 UTC+2, bouteloua wrote:

thoughts?

[Paul]

Tony technically it’s already like that 

I have 10,000 plus observations of saguaros 

But under identifications while I was checking other folks observations and IDing them it’s says I have only 1500 identifications 

Sent from my iPhone

--

[cassi saari]

Yes, +1 for showing us all our IDs in some way on that page. Two columns sounds good to me.

cassi

[Chris Vynbos]

ditto +1 

[Chris Vynbos]

and I'd like IDs i've made on my own obs to be included in my ID list (perhaps a toggle?)

[Paul]

+1

Sent from my iPhone

--

[Tony Iwane]

I understand the case for making the "Identifications" label more clear, for own-obs-IDs be included in the Top Identifiers list (although I still prefer that it show IDs made for others), and being able to look up one's own IDs for one's own observations (as Chris noted in an earlier message) but I'm not sure I understand the case for displaying how many IDs one has made for one's own observations on https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&view=identifiers and similar pages.

Tony Iwane

On Wednesday, February 6, 2019 at 7:05:03 PM UTC-8, Paul Kelly wrote:

+1

Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 6, 2019, at 7:50 PM, Chris Vynbos <vyn...@gmail.com> wrote:

and I'd like IDs i've made on my own obs to be included in my ID list (perhaps a toggle?)

On Thursday, 7 February 2019 04:49:48 UTC+2, Chris Vynbos wrote:

ditto +1 

On Tuesday, 5 February 2019 19:08:02 UTC+2, bouteloua wrote:

Yes, +1 for showing us all our IDs in some way on that page. Two columns sounds good to me.

cassi

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[Charlie Hohn]

yeah, i would vote for not showing it in top identifiers. That should (imho) be reserved for people who do ID help which is a totally different task than adding observations. Only a small subset of users do lots of ID help, and it's important to recognize them. However, in the taxon page and such, i think it's better for own-observation IDs to be included, if that's not too hard to do.

On Thu, Feb 7, 2019 at 1:17 AM Tony Iwane <tiw...@gmail.com> wrote:

I understand the case for making the "Identifications" label more clear, for own-obs-IDs be included in the Top Identifiers list (although I still prefer that it show IDs made for others), and being able to look up one's own IDs for one's own observations (as Chris noted in an earlier message) but I'm not sure I understand the case for displaying how many IDs one has made for one's own observations on https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&view=identifiers and similar pages.

Tony Iwane

On Wednesday, February 6, 2019 at 7:05:03 PM UTC-8, Paul Kelly wrote:

+1

Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 6, 2019, at 7:50 PM, Chris Vynbos <vyn...@gmail.com> wrote:

and I'd like IDs i've made on my own obs to be included in my ID list (perhaps a toggle?)

On Thursday, 7 February 2019 04:49:48 UTC+2, Chris Vynbos wrote:

ditto +1 

On Tuesday, 5 February 2019 19:08:02 UTC+2, bouteloua wrote:

Yes, +1 for showing us all our IDs in some way on that page. Two columns sounds good to me.

cassi

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Charlie Hohn
Montpelier, Vermont

[bouteloua]

Excluding forselfIDs under Top Identifiers for very commonly observed taxa makes some sense, but does not, to me, for taxa where just a handful of people have ever observed it in the first place (i.e. my most frequent use case for looking at Top Identifiers in the first place).

I don't understand the case for wanting to completely hide forselfIDs on https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&view=identifiers and similar pages rather than add a second column showing all IDs.

It's been a couple years now, and https://www.inaturalist.org/identifications/bouteloua (excludes forselfIDs) still needs to be replaced with https://www.inaturalist.org/identifications?user_id=bouteloua (shows all IDs)

cassi

[Charlie Hohn]

I think a second column is fine. I just thought somewhere on the site we should retain a 'leaderboard' for IDs just for others. I don't feel that strongly about it, though.

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[tony rebelo]

I am not sure I understand the logic of not displaying total IDs.  I agree that showing "IDs for others" is a useful feature.  But only in the "Identifiers" tab of the Explore view: e..g.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=113055&subview=grid&taxon_id=64517&view=identifiers

where it should be shown in two columns one with total.

The above link shows the absurdity of the current display.  It (now) shows: 

Tony Rebelo  10,445 IDs (which anyone (and almost everyone) will interpret as the total)

But in fact I have done 15,123  identification (i.e. every observation in the family in the community has been identified by me).

So it appears that i have only identified 2/3 of the observations, instead of 100%  - the difference is that 33% of observations in the family in the region have been made by me and identified by me.  But all those identifications to the iNat community are seen as irrelevant because I made them to my own observations.  So I am being penalized for having gone out and gotten observations for iNaturalist and made the IDs.  Instead of getting double credits for first going and getting the observations and then identifying them, I am getting the message that iNat does not want my observations if I identify them, or alternatively does not want me to identify my observations if I do make them.  This is totally wrong!  Yes, we need to acknowledge that users who make IDs for others are contributing to the community.  But so are those who add observations and identify them: in fact, they are making more of a contribution: both adding and identifying them.

To credit me for only 2/3 of my identifications is simply devaluing my contribution  to the site.  It needs to be acknoweldged and separated from the "contributions to other users' observations).

Note: I am advocating a "total" and an "other" - and not a "self" and "other" total - that would be equally misleading IMHO. 

Similarly i would expect the leaderboards for the identifications for any taxon page, or on the observation page, to reflect the total iDs, and not ony the IDs for others - that is not the place to make the distinction of contributions to others.  Those leaderboards should be to show who are the local experts or major identifiers, and should not be limited to "ids to others only".  (unless the entire page is limited to only observations for the species/taxon that have been done by others as well).  Otherwise we will have the ridiculous state that I as a Protea fundi may have collected all the observations for a species, and identified them, but not appear on the leaderboards at all for that species - absurd!!

So I guess I am requesting that the totals are shown on the observations and taxon pages, but if you click on the leaderboards on these pages, the resulted page for identifiers will display both columns. .

Just for the record - for the genus Protea: 

observation (community ID protea): https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/20276346 - says I have identified 5025 (units?)  ***this may change if I get agreements and the community ID changes, so appended below: 

filter on protea: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?locale=en&place_id=any&preferred_place_id=113055&subview=grid&taxon_id=129714&view=identifiers - says I have identified 3 932 (units?)

taxon page; https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/129714-Protea - says I have identified 4145 (units?)

I am sure that someone will be able to explain these differences to me "post facto", but the fact is that according to the headings these are all exactly the same thing and thus should be the same totals (i.e the total of all IDs, irrespective of self/other, and irrespective of ID to species or subspecies, and irrespective of it being the community ID or not).

Ta

Tony