Tip Identify records using the interactive view.

Hi iNat Mosquitoes in Hawaii contributors,

As we approach 400 observations (!) it is a good time to review what makes a good observation and how to ensure as a community that the database of mosquitoes in Hawai'i has the highest quality possible.

First a quick review, to be useful, an observation will have several characteristics: a known user will gather evidence (usually photographic) of the presence of a particular species at a particular location at a known data and time.

This is summarized as the who, what, where & when of an observation. See:

http://www.inaturalist.org/pages/getting+started#what

With all of these attributes the observation becomes 'verifiable', and if more than two observers (of three if three have commented agree on an identification) agree then it becomes 'research grade'! For more information see:

http://www.inaturalist.org/pages/help#quality

We could really use the community to work to identify and comment on each other's observations. This can be handled from almost any way an observation is displayed on the site, but the most efficient way to do this is to follow this link to the interactive view and find the observations that need identification and get them filtered by the locale and taxon (in this case mosquitoes).

Here are the steps and the final result, first the general way:

1) Click on the "Observations" drop down menu
2) Select "Identify"
3) Select under the word Identify the box that says "Species" & type in "Mosquitoes" or the family name "Culicidae" then select this choice
4) Clear the next box over "Place" and type in Hawaii, selecting "Hawaii, US State" in the pop up
5) Click on the filter, and select the check-boxes "Verifiable" (have a date, time, location and at least one photo) and "Needs ID" (not yet considered research grade).
6) You will get an interactive list of records and the url at the top of your browser window will say this:

http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?taxon_id=52134&place_id=11

You could alternatively follow 1 & 2 and then change step three to "click on the filter" and then following step 5 and also expanding the selection for "More filters" and typing the project name "Mosquitoes in Hawaii" leading to this browser string:

http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?reviewed=true&taxon_id=52134&project_id=4357&place_id=any

It is a lot of fun to identify records, furthermore, if you 'unclick' verifiable you may find some records that are oddly not considered "research grade" even though two or more people agree on the identification. These records might either be missing the date & time &/or location. You can direct message the iNat user to remind them to fix a record missing these key components and then the record can become 'Research Grade."

Note, the database also keeps track of records you have reviewed, so for instance if you are not happy to give something a species ID but you don't want to continually look at a particular record in this interactive mode then un-clicking reviewed will show you only new records you haven't reviewed!

Please use the comment box to ask any questions if this write-up needs to be clarified!

Have fun identifying mosquitoes!

All the best,

@cydno
(Durrell)

Posted on 17 de outubro de 2016, 03:54 PM by cydno