I know similar things have been mentioned before but I wondered if there was any way of encouraging more experts to the site who could check/interact with some of the invert observations. There are lots of hugely knowledgeable iSpotters who are very generous with their time and expertise but they can’t look at all of them and many obs go by with no interaction. This is particularly the case at busy times like now when there seems to be lots of new people posting, which is great. I absolutely appreciate that sometimes posts don’t give enough info for a definite ID, and I’m sure I’m guilty of that myself, but if there was someone available with some knowledge who could make a comment that would be great. I do try myself but it often amounts to me just saying I hope someone will come along and offer more advice, but that doesn’t always happen sadly. It’s likely that most first time posters do so in the hope of getting help with ID and many will be lost by the lack of interaction. Indeed, help with ID is for me one of the real strengths of the site, along with general sharing of sightings, common or otherwise, which I feel is also very valuable. The other issue with lack of experts is that not as much learning takes place, I can now help with some IDs because of what I have learned through the site but that still very much has its limits in my case. Not sure what, if anything, can be done but inverts in particular seems to be an area where this is most noticeable as an issue.
This is an issue that everyone can try to help with both the identification but also asking experts to help on ispot. There are now so many systems demanding their time, besides ispot there is inat, irecord local naturalist sites, facebook and many other social media sites and so many more images coming in. One of the reasons AI is suggested is that there are not enough human experts but AI for many invertebrates is still not very good and may take years before it improves.
Few people are opening this (it’s in the Project INDEX)
https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/project/770782/
.
Running a few recent ones through AI has probably solved a few - I will add IDs today
Some ore pretty impossible and from LONG GONE users
WHO can be bothered to try a few more because I am running quite cold?
.
PS…See my comments in https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/observation/877334/ and
https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/observation/22618/
And WE need to be much more responsive (supportive) to Experts, otherwise they will lose interest
See https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/observation/105606/
Thanks both for your responses. I appreciate there’s no easy solution.