ID-athon May 2021's Boletim

Eligibility:

• Any user with below 400 identifications before the start date will be assigned a mentor. List of mentors.
• Anyone may join the project if they want updates on our progress.
• Joining the project does not enter you into the competition. To enter, you must have completed the sign-up form during the sign-up period. The sign-up period is now over, and no more users will be admitted to the competition.

Qualifying identifications:

• Identifications must be made May 22nd 2021 through May 30th 2021, including those days -- London Time (UTC+0).
• IDs do not have to be to species! Any new ID from Kingdom down is good.
• IDs will be tallied in specific categories.
• There will be a separate count and separate rankings for each category. Since each category is different, the counting method may differ for each one. If there is demand, we will share the exact parameters in a separate post.
• Custom identification URLs will be provided, or you can just do your regular thing.

Categories:

• Improvement: During the competition, try to beat your own daily average – the more you ID relative to your average, the higher your score! (to avoid this being too easy for beginners, the minimum to get a score is 20 IDs/day). We will post a list of each person's average (and baseline/goal) around the start of the event.
• Mystery: It’s a mystery! You’ll get three hints. This is technically three categories at once, so one hint per sub-category. At the end of the competition, the categories will be revealed and you’ll find out if you guessed correctly – or spent the whole time identifying something for no prize at all! (except the prize of knowledge…)
• Consistency: Try to identify every day of the event. If you miss one or two, that’s OK, but the more days you make an ID the better your prize!
• Old Observations: Identify observations which were added more than five years before the start of the competition. Find them here.
• Beginners’ Challenge: An exclusive event for the Beginner class. You’ll get prizes for various achievements, such as reaching your hundredth ID during the event, or making a high percentage of Improving IDs. The exact list will be added later.

Participation rules:

• If we think you’re trying to rig the system by e.g. just hitting Agree on Research Grade observations 10,000 times (why would you even?), we’ll send you one and only one warning before booting you from the list of participants.
• No spamming or harassment of any kind will be tolerated, including but not limited to: comments made on forum threads, project journal posts, observations, or in direct user-to-user communications.
• No wagering

Prizes:

• Prizes will be given out in the week following the event, but we will announce some winners/prizes in update posts as the event goes on.

If you have extra questions about the rules, leave a comment and I (Zachary) or one of the admins (Blue, Amy) will answer and update the rules.

And finally:

Be nice, and try to have fun!

Photographs used in the banner are all CC-BY-NC.

Icterus galbula by dalien here.
Pheuticus ludovicianus by susanna_h here.
Cerioporus squamosus by sarahduhon here.
Trillium grandiflorum by esoehren here.

These species are all observed most in May. Check out the phenology graphs for each species here:
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/9346-Icterus-galbula
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/10271-Pheucticus-ludovicianus
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/940028-Cerioporus-squamosus
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/55402-Trillium-grandiflorum

Yes, the banner could be way nicer, but I think it's OK enough... :/

Q: How will my identifications be counted?
A: Automatically, with help from the iNat API! The project does not count your IDs, it's just for information and journal posts.

Q: Why are the project's observations people's pets?
A: The purpose of the project is for you to get journals relevant to the project. The observations within it are irrelevant, so we've decided to make it a showcase of our project member's lovable fluffs (and non-fluffs)!
Q: How do I add MY pet?
A: Add your pet as an observation (this is allowed so long as you don't spam). Then, a few things are necessary. One, is your pet one of the species listed in the project requirements? If not, an admin can fix that. Two, you must currently be a member of the project. Three, you must mark your pet Captive and also annotate it as Alive.
Next time we'll likely make the project a traditional project, so that observations can be added manually. Sorry to those of you whose pets are yeasts or plants.

Q: Who are the admins, and what do they do?
A: @trh_blue is coordinating the event, and @arboretum_amy is the co-admin. @zdanko is also assisting with the project. We're here to keep the project running and answer any questions you might have!
There are also a small team of other assistants, whom you may see from time to time as well.

Q: Can you give me a hat/stickers/etc if I win?
A: Prizes are going to be virtual only. Prizes with actual value would create incentives for poor behaviour.

Q: Can you help me learn more about identifying?
A: Yes! Check the Forum for information on ID workshops, or you can send one of the admins a message.
Also, you can ask one of our mentors for help -- but please, do not spam them!
About our mentors.

Q: Why did you choose not to use the project to count IDs?
A: There are a few reasons I didn't make the project's observations the ones you'd identify for the competition:
One, there are multiple categories, so we'd have to make several projects, splitting attention. Two, the project cannot differentiate the date IDs were added, only the observation date. Three, we don't want to put focus on volume of IDs, rather on individual self-improvement and collaboration, and having a leaderboard where people are ranked by number of IDs is counter to that ethos.

Q: Why X country, why not Y country?
A: We went through the list of the countries with the most observations, ignored the top 15, then counted how many unknowns each had until we reached our target.
The country restriction is ONLY for the unknowns, all other IDs can be anywhere.

Q: Can I mentor?
A: Informally, yes, please help your fellow iNatters. We can't add more formal mentors at this point, but we will recruit more for next time after this event has ended.
Q: Can I have a mentor?
A: All of our mentors currently have as many students as they can handle, but in the future we will have another round of sign-ups.

Q: Can I change what category I'm in?
A: No, you had to do that before registration. Anyone who wishes to leave can do so, simply notify us and we will remove you from all of the categories at once.

if you have more questions, please add them here.

Hello everyone and welcome to the 2021 May ID-athon. If you participated in the Jan-Feb ID-athon, it is great to see you again! If you are new, we are happy you can join us! Please review the rules. Are you ready? Let's go!

The Main Event: Unknowns

By popular demand, our main target for these nine days is to identify as many unknown observations as possible. As an initial goal, we will try to clear approximately 10,000 unknowns, and we're providing you with a link to find those. The link sorts by random, so that you won't all be identifying the same observations at once.

The 10,000 unknowns in this link represent our starting goal. If we meet this goal (which should be easy!) we will continue on to our "stretch goals" of 12,000 unknowns, then 15,000, and so on.

We met the 10,000 goal! Great! On to the 12,000 goal--Belgium has now been added.

We met the 12,000 goal! Costa Rica and Czechia have been added. The next goal is 15,000.

We met the 15,000 goal! China, Portugal and Peru are added. Our next goal is 20,000.

Each time the goal goes up, more countries are added to the list. The additional countries have already been chosen, so no requests. For each goal and stretch goal we hit, there will be a better (communal) prize.

The link uses a set list of countries each of which have a medium number of observations and IDs. They are not the most popular places on iNaturalist, but also not places with very few users. Some of these places have only 5 unknowns, others have over a thousand -- the sum of their unknowns is a little over 10,000 as of now.

The countries are:

Albania, Algeria, Armenia, Austria, Belarus, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Botswana, Bulgaria, Chile, Croatia, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominican Republic, Eswatini, Fiji, Georgia, Greece, Guam, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Norway, Pakistan, Puerto Rico, Romania, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

UPDATE 25 May 2:12 AM UTC: Belgium added
UPDATE 25 May 7:30 PM UTC: Costa Rica and Czechia added

Categories

Besides the main target of identifying unknowns, many of you have signed up for additional categories, which were summarized in the rules post. Any of the IDs you make during the dates of the event count for these categories, even if they are not made on unknowns.

Improvement

TL;DR: The goal is to identify more per day than you normally have before the ID-a-thon

Here is a link to your individual baselines -- (your average IDs per day).

How scoring works: If your baseline is 100, and you maintain 105 a day for the event, your score is 105(%). If your baseline is 50, and you maintain 55 a day for the event, your score is 110(%).

If you identify fewer than your average you’re probably not going to be a top scorer, but, for example, if your baseline is 100 and you manage 90 per day if the event, your score would be 90(%). Which, by the way, is still great.

As noted, if your baseline would have been below 20, it was set to 20. Otherwise it’s too easy for newbies – for example, if your baseline were 1, and you maintained 6 a day, your score would be 600(%) which is not exactly fair.

Mystery

If you signed up to participate in the Mystery challenge, here are the hints to the three Mystery categories:

• Searching for Amy and Blue
• The known unknowns
• A few of our favorite things

Note these are three separate mystery categories, one hint for each. We will be revealing the exact parameters at the end of the event.

Have fun! There is a separate prize pool for power-identifiers so have no fear and do your best.

Old Observations

The most straightforward of them all. Has this been on iNaturalist more than five years? Put an ID on it. Same as the Mystery category, power-identifiers have a separate prize pool. Link to qualifying observations.

Consistency

Identify every day, if you can. Remember that days are counted according to UTC+0.
If you miss one day, you still get a prize, but a less awesome one. If you miss two, you get a mini prize. More than that, well… good luck next time.

Beginners’ Challenge.

Prizes will be given to each of the 'beginners' participating in the project who complete challenges. At least two challenges must be met to get a prize -- thereafter, the more challenges you complete, the better the prize(s).
Challenges are:

• Reaches 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, or 600 total IDs. (IDs from before the event don't count as completing the challenge)
• Has more than 50% Improving IDs during the event.
• Makes an ID on observations in five separate continents.
• Makes an ID on an observation of a vertebrate animal, an invertebrate animal, a plant, and a fungus.

Good luck everyone. Get identifying!

If you want to chat with your fellow ID-athon competitors, whether to collaborate or ask questions etc., use the following link to join our Discord. First thing you should do is say hi on #greetings and link to your iNat profile so we know you're not a rando.
https://discord.gg/xJZnpVtrwf

It's been about 14 hours and we've already made impressive progress.

the count is down to about 8,500. keep going!

If you have forgotten which categories you signed up for, here they are:

BEGINNER'S CHALLENGE
cloudsmile,davidclarance,fseichter,glyptostrob0ides,Mirts,Wendy663,wildnettl

CONSISTENCY
als93,AntrozousAmelia,Artemis,artemis224,beetle_mch,blastcat,bouteloua,cloudsmile,davidclarance,dbarber,driftlessroots,Ellendale,fluffyinca, fseichter,fuzzyspider,glyptostrob0ides,haemocyanin11,harshith-nambiar,Hedgehog111,heidi_eaton,ianmanning,jasonhernandez74,jbecky,jennywest1,joaolemoslima,juan_sphex,kitbeard, leahfulton1,lera,liamhutcheson,liamthornebirderboy,liesvanrompaey,liquidambar,lisa_bennett,lynnharper,madisong,mathieu_h, matthewvosper,melissadilara,michaelbakkerpaiva,michaelpirrello,Mirts,mmmmbugs,muddytortoise,mydadguyfieri,naturalist_aditya, naturejeanne,navaneethsinigeorge,ncb1221,norwichtim,ocean_beach_goth,oliverc29,pinkspoonbill,RangerMyles,richyfourtytwo,roshan2010, squirrelbait,srall,teratornis,Wendy663,wildnettle,xpda,zdanko,zneedham1

IMPROVEMENT
als93,AntrozousAmelia,Artemis,artemis224,astrobirder,blastcat,bouteloua,cloudsmile,davidclarance,dbarber,driftlessroots,Ellendale,fluffyinca, fseichter,fuzzyspider,glyptostrob0ides,harshith-nambiar,Hedgehog111,heidi_eaton,ianmanning,jbecky,juan_sphex,kitbeard, leahfulton1,lera,liamhutcheson,liamthornebirderboy,liesvanrompaey,lynnharper,mathieu_h, matthewvosper,melissadilara,michaelbakkerpaiva,Mirts,mlroush,mmmmbugs,muddytortoise,mydadguyfieri,naturalist_aditya, naturejeanne,navaneethsinigeorge,ncb1221,norwichtim,pinkspoonbill,RangerMyles,Rccarl,richyfourtytwo,roshan2010, srall,teratornis,thegeckogirl,tpollard,xpda,zdanko,zneedham1

MYSTERY
als93,Artemis,artemis224,beetle_mch,blastcat,bouteloua,cloudsmile,davidclarance,dbarber,driftlessroots,Ellendale,fluffyinca, fseichter,fuzzyspider,gillydilly,haemocyanin11,harshith-nambiar,heidi_eaton,ianmanning,jbecky,jennywest1,joaolemoslima,juan_sphex,kitbeard, leahfulton1,lera,liesvanrompaey,liquidambar,lisa_bennett,lynnharper,mathieu_h, matthewvosper,melissadilara,Mirts,mmmmbugs,muddytortoise,naturalist_aditya, navaneethsinigeorge,ncb1221,norwichtim,ocean_beach_goth,oliverc29,pinkspoonbill,pranavchandrabose,RangerMyles,richyfourtytwo,roshan2010, squirrelbait,srall,teratornis,thegeckogirl,Wendy663,wildnettle,xpda,zdanko,zneedham1

OLD
als93,AntrozousAmelia,Artemis,artemis224,astrobirder,avocat,beetle_mch,blastcat,bouteloua,dbarber,driftlessroots,Ellendale,fluffyinca, fuzzyspider,gillydilly,harshith-nambiar,Hedgehog111,ianmanning,jasonhernandez74,jbecky,joaolemoslima,juan_sphex,kitbeard, leahfulton1,lera,liamhutcheson,liesvanrompaey,liquidambar,lisa_bennett,lynnharper,madisong,mathieu_h, matthewvosper,melissadilara,michaelbakkerpaiva,michaelpirrello,mmmmbugs,muddytortoise,mydadguyfieri,naturalist_aditya, naturejeanne,navaneethsinigeorge,ncb1221,pinkspoonbill,Rccarl,richyfourtytwo,sedgequeen,squirrelbait,srall,thegeckogirl,xpda,zdanko,zneedham1

And remember than anyone can participate in clearing unknowns, because there is no way to track your individual performance on that task.

We will at some point tomorrow change the URL to remove observations previously identified as bacteria or viruses. We will still consider those removed in such a way to count towards the 10,000.

However, should we include observations of "Life"?
This would include the following:

• Conflicting IDs in different Kingdoms (can range from easy mistake to very difficult).
• A person left an ID of Life, usually because it was difficult for them to tell what Kingdom the organism is in.
• The observer has refused to accept Community ID.

Click here to vote.

One question, three options:

• Yes, include
• No, exclude
• Don't care

We have changed the main link to exclude all observations which had previously been identified, because we messed up the parameters.

They are getting more difficult, but there are still thousands of easier observations left.

When you reach 9,000/10,000 we will reveal what the 10k prize will be if you get there. Once you get to 9,500 we will reveal the countries for the next stretch goal and update the link to include them!

Please note the geographic limitation on IDs is for Unknowns ONLY.

IDs for any other category can be made in any place in the world.

Also, IDs can be made on any observation, not only those which were unknown when the project started.

For example if you're trying to trying to complete the improvement challenge, you can ID anything, anywhere!

I hope that clears up any confusion, and as always feel free to ask additional questions. Thank you, you're doing great!

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?order_by=random&place_id=7513%2C7122%2C6903%2C7332%2C7076%2C7145%2C7316%2C7054%2C8433%2C7077%2C6944%2C7335%2C8241%2C7707%2C6953%2C8505%2C7140%2C7143%2C7147%2C7134%2C7146%2C7105%2C6940%2C7278%2C8196%2C8147%2C7342%2C6967%2C7144%2C7359%2C8228%2C7375%2C8858%2C8267%2C6996%2C6718%2C6968%2C7399%2C6847%2C7016%2C6891%2C6734%2C7300%2C8860%2C8857%2C6848%2C6929%2C8266%2C6815%2C7578%2C8509%2C7783%2C6737%2C7236%2C7182%2C7599%2C8057%2C7094%2C7042%2C6931%2C6925%2C7183%2C7008%2C6924%2C8264&identified=false

is now the official link. we won't change it* again. so sorry!

Blue

also, great job you guys...

*except when countries are added as stretch goals are met