edolis's Journal

goal of this post is adding commentary to the structure of the workflow.
(still work in progress)

foreword

This workflow is my personal guideline. I'll try to stick to it when proceeding to an individual identification activity. I consider correct sharing as I believe consistency is an important aspect to guarantee the quality of iNat IDs

applicability

This section applies to individual ientifications. If you want to engage in a taxa wide revision activity, read the Revision campaigns section first

commentary and comments

Commentary for this workflow are gathered in this journal entry:https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/edolis/30257-commentary-to-workflow. Please add comments there or in the forum discussion mentioned in the same commentary.

Individual identifications

Flow

10. pictures in the observation allow to identify every key feature of the taxa whose ID you want to add: Yes->20 No->40
20. you are aware of other species who cannot be visually distinguished from the above taxa Yes->21 No->25
21.the information about visual identity apply to the same Country as the obs Yes->32No->25
25. you are aware of exceptions in visual appearance which could bring with confusion with a different species Yes->32No->39
32. the estimated incidence of error is greater than 10% OR percentage unknown Yes->33No->39
33. note the ambiguity through a Holding Bin

1. add an ID upper level (genus/upwards as appropriate)
2. select No as answer to the dialogue "allows etc"
3. add Holding bin field
4. add comment linking to journal entry detailing the ambiguity

continue ->50
38. Add taxa as ID, mention in comment the key feature and add link to literature ->50
39. Add taxa as ID mention in comment the key feature and add link to literature in ID warning about potential alternative ->50

40. the picture, as viewed in the original version, has at least one key featurewhich could be seen in the picture but is not visible instead? Yes->41No->42
41. abstain from ID ♦
42. Add taxa as ID, mention in comment the key feature and add link to literature ->50
50. can you detect at least one key features which of the current Community ID not compatible with the picture set of the observation? Yes->51 No->♦
51. Trigger review

• in comment, mention the conflicting key feature and add link to literature
• Reject with No option
• in case the Community ID is still Research Grade, flag obs for community review ("Yes can be improved")

possibly mention in comment the potential taxa for an ID ♦

Revision campaigns

'revision campaigns', when several observations of the same taxa are reviewed in block to improve consistency

Preparation

In order to properly organize the set of information used to identify a taxa or several taxa during a revision campaign, a journal page should be created to support the activity
The use of this page is

1. allows to properly store the literature used to provide a complete view of the material to people interested in examining the sources and the contacts
2. represents a meeting point to discuss some aspects of identification of the species avoiding to have that information lost in the individual observations
3. allows to record the observation with useful information, pictures or discussion in support to identfication
4. allows to list the people that, in course of the review, has shown to be able to support in troubleshooting the identification activity
5. allows to log the activities taken for maintanence of the integrity of the identification set (e.g. requests to curators)

the following setcions are recommended:

Section name	Contents
references to literature	list of internet link to resources, such as web pages or pdf documents, of reputable sources of information used in the identification process. In case it is feasible, subdivide by Taxa (e.g. species)
links to observations	links to individual observation considered valuable and informative both for the pictures of the observation and the contents of the comments section
references to iNat users	list of users who might support in troubleshooting an ID. Obviously partial, but a starting point anyway

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Legend

item	description
♦	End of flow.
key feature	a visible feature which is not shared by different species when associated to other key features or visual clues

Flow

same as the previous one, with the following variation:

1. link should be added in the comment section of the revised ID pointing to the relevant journal page
2. in case an ambiguity has been detected where literature indicates visual identification is not possible based on macro pictures, the matter should be brought to attention (with relevant documentation) flagging the taxa and logging such action in the journal post for tracking

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/19191631#activity_comment_3894129