Personal Milestone Today regarding Identifications

During COVID times, I have gotten more serious about my share of responsibility to iNaturalist in the form of helping with identifications. I have developed a daily practice of aiming for at least fifty IDs each day. I try to check material in the San Mateo County BioBlitz, then in the wider Bay Area, and in a few taxa in which I feel confident.

I have been an active member of iNaturalist since 2012, and have always been willing to do some identifications. But this regular habit, which I started tracking in May of 2021, now accounts for fully 1/3 of all the identifications I have made.

I have made a total of 37350 identification, of which 12504 have been done since mid-May of 2021. The math is clear (33.478%) yet astounds me still. And I've improved over this time; I've come to better know my limits, to learn more about the range of diversity within species, and to see the need to help new participants. When I am feeling strong, I even target utterly unmarked entries, the "?" "Unknown" entries.

This practice is one I would recommend to every user. The search tools under the "Identify" tab have improved over the years. You will benefit, iNaturalist will benefit, and Community-Science will benefit.

Posted on 02 December, 2021 05:38 by gyrrlfalcon gyrrlfalcon

Comments

Totally agree, Jennifer! Thanks for adding on lots of ID's!!! It's a big deal, and it's genuinely welcoming to new naturalists to the community. :)

I wrote a little journal entry about the positive feedback loop that ID's spark :
https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/sambiology/54784-positive-feedback-loop-of-identifications-it-s-a-big-deal

Posted by sambiology over 2 years ago

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