QuestaGame’s New Pays-to-Know Program Seeks to Reward Your Expertise

[QuestaGame]

Hey Everyone, 

We’re excited to be launching a new “Pays-to-Know” program - and extending it to iNaturalist users who give correct IDs to QuestaGame sightings (via iNaturalist).

You can see the program here: 

http://questagame.com/paystoknow

Users select a non-profit organisation. For every correct identification of a sighting, QuestaGame makes a donation to the organisation on the user’s behalf. 

Given the many great IDs QuestaGame has received from iNaturalist users, we wanted to make sure you were included in the program, even if you’re not using QuestaGame. 

By default, we’ve made your nominated organisation iNaturalist. 

We’ve also gone back in time to reward your previous IDs, using the best confirmation algorithm we could construct. We estimate it’s about 80-90% accurate. Not perfect, but better than nothing.

Going forward, however, we’re using a much more accurate method.

Please note that the system is designed to give a higher reward for more challenging IDs, and lower rewards for easier ones. Also, it only rewards IDs that reach a required level - usually family and below. It depends on the image. 

Overall, the purpose of the “Pays-to-Know” program is to reward biodiversity expertise - which, in turn, we hope will encourage people to learn more about wildlife and help raise the value of environmental knowledge in general.

We’d love to hear any feedback you have - comments, questions, concerns, new ideas. The program is still early days, still experimental, growing, evolving, and we’re keen to explore any opportunities to increase the reward values and how it operates. 

No doubt there's lots of room for improvement going forward.

We look forward to working with you on this exciting initiative.

Kind regards,

Andrew

QuestaGame.com

[Ry Beaver]

Hi Andrew

I saw this - I have been doing quite a few ID for Questagame observations - do I need to do anything to make sure iNat gets the credit.  Also is there anyway of assessing how much of a contribution you have made.

Great idea - so nice to see so many extra Aussie obs coming through!

Cheers Ry

[James Bailey]

Hi Ry,

To my knowledge you can use this form: https://questagame.com/expert

Then you need an account on Questagame. Use the same email address that you submitted on that form.

Once you have done those 2 things you can start identifying here: http://bee.questagame.com/

That should get you started.

Cheers,

James

[QuestaGame]

Hi Ry, 

Thanks for this.

The system automatically rewards iNat users, so no need to register on QGame.

If you go to http://questagame.com/paystoknow you can see your earnings. I see your name there.

As for your past IDs, we ran a "matching" script to reward iNat users for past IDs. We estimate it's about 80% accurate (better than nothing :-) ).

Going forward, the reward mechanism is quite accurate.

Please note: Some QG sightings may require family, genus or species level IDs. If so, and an iNat user only provides, say, an Order level ID (while another user provides a more precise ID) the system will not reward the iNat user. 

We'll see if there's a way to display the "required level of ID" to iNat users.

Kind regards,

-A

[James Bailey]

Even better!

[Mark McGrouther]

Hi Andrew,

This sounds like a great idea but I must confess to confusion.

I've made over 2800 iNaturalist identifications in the last 3 months as user markmcg.

I just registered with QuestaGame but can't see my name listed.

Do QuestaGame members have a dashboard on which you can see progress and update your supported institution etc?

Thank you,

Mark

On Tuesday, 27 December 2016 07:20:10 UTC+11, James Bailey wrote:

Even better!

[Ry]

Hi Mark

Look at the following link https://questagame.com/paystoknow. While you have made lots of id possibly not so many on questagame ones. Possibly as the game is mainly smartphone based and your expertise is of fish. We need more waterproof smartphones!  I can see your name if you scroll through as having 4 ids. 

I am in there twice for some reason!

Cheers

Ry

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[Charlie Hohn]

Can you create a way to search our names or link from our iNat accounts to see how much we have done? I doubt i have much if anything since I do plants in north America and I haven't seen much Questagame for those... but it would be neat to easily check

On Wednesday, January 4, 2017 at 7:14:37 AM UTC-5, Ry Beaver wrote:

Hi Mark

Look at the following link https://questagame.com/paystoknow. While you have made lots of id possibly not so many on questagame ones. Possibly as the game is mainly smartphone based and your expertise is of fish. We need more waterproof smartphones!  I can see your name if you scroll through as having 4 ids. 

I am in there twice for some reason!

Cheers

Ry

On 30 Dec 2016 12:00 PM, "Mark McGrouther" <mar...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Andrew,

This sounds like a great idea but I must confess to confusion.

I've made over 2800 iNaturalist identifications in the last 3 months as user markmcg.

I just registered with QuestaGame but can't see my name listed.

Do QuestaGame members have a dashboard on which you can see progress and update your supported institution etc?

Thank you,

Mark

On Tuesday, 27 December 2016 07:20:10 UTC+11, James Bailey wrote:

Even better!

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[megatherium]

This is a cool idea!  I am curious about something: I found myself (sea-kangaroo) way down on the list with only 13 IDs, which seems pretty impossible since I know I've been first IDer to species on more than 13 Aussie birds and mammals.  Any idea what's up with that?  I did use a QuestaGame account for a couple days, so maybe it's only counting those?

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[QuestaGame]

Hey everyone! Happy new year! 

Just read your comments. (Here in Oz the holidays align with summer break, so a longer holiday period. But we're back now!).

For iNat users, the PaysToKnow program is looking at the user name.

For our BioExpertise Engine (BEE) users - http://bee.questagame.com - it's looking at your email address.

QuestaGame doesn't have access to your iNat email address, so if you correctly ID a specimen on iNat and correctly ID the same specimen on BEE, you end up diluting the reward between two accounts (i.e. if the reward is 20 cents, it will now be 10 cents for each account).

For this reason, we recommend sticking with iNat if you're an iNat user. However, you won't be able to view some things:

For example, on iNat you won't be able to see your individual earnings - per sighting and overall (we display this data on BEE). You won't be able to see the sort of feedback required to get a "correct ID," so you may give an Order ID when a Family ID is required. Or visa-versa. And there are several other things that BEE uses to optimise activity that won't be visible to iNat users.

For this reason, yes, I agree - let's see if we can share more info between the two systems (through QG's APIs and iNat APIs). It's also a great opportunity to experiment with the sort of expertise solutions (which BEE has already built-in) that we've discussed in other posts on this forum. 

Please feel free to contact us at info [at] questagame.com - or via http://questagame.com - if you want us to look at your specific account or have specific questions about PaysToKnow.

Kind regards,

-Andrew

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[QuestaGame]

A quick note - an iNat user contacted us and pointed out that some IDs of QGame sightings on iNat were not receiving PaystoKnow credit ( http://questagame.com/paystoknow ) 

This opened our eyes to something - namely that iNat users won't earn rewards for IDs that have closed on QGame but remain open on iNat. 

We'll look into this more closely and see if we can find a way to express this more clearly on iNat (e.g. which sightings are still offering rerward and how much). 

In the meantime, please keep in mind that the rewards are time-based. Most QG sightings stop giving reward after 5 days. No QG sighting will give rewards after 9 days. 

Thanks for notifying us about the issue. Will keep you posted going forward.

[QuestaGame]

Hi Everyone, 

Okay, to address the issue below, we've added a function that posts a comment on the observation the moment it closes on QuestaGame and the Pays to Know system.

Let us know if there are any concerns about this. We'll trial it for a few days, and if it seems okay, we can leave it.  

The comment will say:

"Sighting now closed on QuestaGame and Pays to Know"

It should also include the final ID that QGame gave it.

The sighting, of course, remains open on iNat, but any subsequent correct IDs for the sighting will not receive Pays-to-Know rewards. 

This will start from today. We're a bit unsure what to do for past iNat sightings that have closed on QGame. Perhaps we should post the comment on them too? It's easy to do, but it might confuse some iNat users who have posted correct IDs after the observation closed on QGame. 

Suggestions and feedback welcome as always. 

Cheers,

-A

[Scott Loarie]

Hi Andrew - 

Apologies for missing this. I'm strongly opposed to this. Both from the philosophical standpoint of introducing talking-bot-people and from a practical standpoint of having to wade through 111 bot comments you generated which makes it impossible to keep up on the real conversations I'm having with real people on iNaturalist. 

Using an observation field specific to your questagame project. Something like closed: true/false would be much more appropriate

Best,

Scott

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Scott R. Loarie, Ph.D.
Co-director, iNaturalist.org
California Academy of Sciences
55 Music Concourse Dr
San Francisco, CA 94118
--------------------------------------------------

[James Bailey]

My problem here is that you don't add the ID of the accepted species that it was determined to be. Several insects, which I recognized as having identified through the BEE and accepted as that species, still remaining as "Insects" or "Animals" on iNaturalist. Please add the respective ID after you "close" the identification period.

I was going to say, using tags or fields sounds better. Here is one I made for this sighting: http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/4486023

Under the observation is a section called "Add/edit more fields". That's where this is accessed.

[James Bailey]

Link to the field itself: http://www.inaturalist.org/observation_fields/5851

[QuestaGame]

Hey everyone, 

Apologies for what must look and smell like spam. We certainly didn't want these "now closed" comments going out as notification emails.

We even took an extra back-up step of saving all the comment IDs in case we decided it was a bad idea and needed to remove all the comments. We thought we were being extra cautious, but turns out we failed to consider the notification emails.  Apologies for that.

Thanks for the "tag or fields" suggestion. Sound good. We'll try to fix that first thing tomorrow.

Lesson learned! 

Scott - would it help if we removed all the comments? 

-Andrew

[g_go...@yahoo.com]

On Saturday, January 14, 2017 at 4:52:04 PM UTC-6, QuestaGame wrote:

 

... would it help if we removed all the comments? 

Yes.  MAJOR annoyance. 

Wolfgang

[Sam Kieschnick]

Agreed -- I sure don't mind helping out with ID's, but those comments majorly clogged up the notifications and dashboard. 

Granted, I'm sure that I spam up other folks' observations with 'Great shot' or "great observation," but I hope it wasn't a major annoyance. 

~Sam

[g_go...@yahoo.com]

On Saturday, January 14, 2017 at 6:21:16 PM UTC-6, Sam Kieschnick wrote:

Agreed -- I sure don't mind helping out with ID's, but those comments majorly clogged up the notifications and dashboard. 

Granted, I'm sure that I spam up other folks' observations with 'Great shot' or "great observation," but I hope it wasn't a major annoyance. 

~Sam

"Great shot" and "great observation" are inarguably legitimate feedback ON iNat.  It's OUR game!

Wolfgang

lifelong tool......who, nevertheless, reserves the right to chose WHOSE tool. 

[QuestaGame]

Thanks Sam and Wolfgang. Agreed. Will sort this out first thing tomorrow morning (Monday our time).

James - regarding the ID issue, will fix that too. Thanks for pointing it out. We see the problem. 

[QuestaGame]

An update:

1) The "Closed on QuestaGame" comments were turned off this morning.  

2) We can remove all the past "Closed on QuestaGame" comments using delete-comments-id endpoint of the API. 

However, can you please confirm that this is safe to do? It won't trigger any alerts? We'd run a delayed script so as not to put too much load on the server. Or would you prefer that we just leave the past comments there - now that they're out? 

3) As suggested, we'll be creating the custom fields that will indicate (a) Closed y/n  (b) Accepted as [ID]  and (c) Time closed - and later we'll add at least one more field about the Pays to Know status. 

4) Finally, as the Pays to Know program expands, we'd like to invest more resource in liaising between QG and iNat to ensure we make sound, mutually beneficial development decisions - to avoid any missteps in the future. 

Again, apologies for any inconvenience we might have caused. Appreciate your understanding.

-A

[QuestaGame]

Quick update:

We're now showing how much reward is available for sightings which are pending (it's entered as a custom field, as discussed). 

The reward amount is split amongst the users who got the correct ID.

It also shows "Open" or "Closed." If the sighting is "closed" that means the reward has been distributed and no one else can receive reward for that sighting. (But, of course, you can still identify/verify).

As for showing the correct IDs, we'll be adding that soon.

To see the leaderboard, you can go here - http://questagame.com/paystoknow

Very interested to hear any feedback.

Thanks!

-Andrew

QuestaGame.com

On Saturday, November 19, 2016 at 12:01:51 PM UTC+11, QuestaGame wrote: