Issue I'd like to mention

Ok. Il have a look through

Not meaning to under-value the large amount of expertise contributed by one or two members who do a lot of work on this - just making the point that the workload falls quite heavily on a limited number!

1 Like

Itā€™s noticeable that a high proportion of unidentified organisms are fungi.

Duplicates are removed by the Curator. You need to notify him via the usual channel
I would be happy to look over them with you or Zo and help the curator with a decision. It is usually straightforward but not always.
Note them in a comment in the project

Usual channel? I donā€™t know what that is!

It is indeed. I have run several projects for UN IDd Fungi in this context and tried all manner of solutions.
I can exclude them from the project easily
Here is the project without Fungals, Lichen and Other Organisms
https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/project/793040/

at the front of almost every iSpot Page, including this one, ā€˜Contactā€™
i see that one has already gone.
I send plenty of these to the Curator but it is important to choose carefully which one to sendā€¦
Best perhaps to choose the one with few or no agreements or less comments.

Where are the duplicates on i spot?

https://www.bwars.com/ has some useful identification resources. I just donā€™t seem to be able to get on with identifying them, you get to an identification that you think is right then find there are actually 3 very similar species. But some people can identify them, suppose it is the amount of time you spend and looking at the right id guides.

One of the issues with fungi is that they are more difficult to identify than most other things we get on ispot and there are fewer people who are able to tackle them. By more difficult I mean there are perhaps 3x as many species of fungi in uk as there are wild plants but most are only visible for a short time and they often have few readily visible characters and almost always need more than one photo to see even these few characters.
The fungi group also contains lichens which also contain a large number of species in UK and again very few people who can identify them.

FYI:
The Likely ID flag is re-calculated every time someone adds an agreement, removes an agreement or makes an additional identification, and is stored in the identification record. Such actions also affect the userā€™s reputation.

The number of icons in the Reputation column of your user profile page (https://www.ispotnature.org/your-ispot) are re-calculated on-the-fly based on the historical database record of relevant actions.

So does this mean that if I agree a bird MY reputation in birds is amended OR the reputation of the original poster is amended? .

And what happens if you wrongly identify something - does it negatively affect your ā€˜reputationā€™?
I feel a bit of a fraud having a five-star invertebrate rating considering how much I donā€™t know about insects and other arthropods - I look upon it more as a sort of ā€˜long-service medalā€™. (Iā€™m more of a general naturalist with a modest amount of knowledge in several areas than an expert in any particular area, although Iā€™ve been around so long that I have learned quite a bit about moths.)

Firstly, Iā€™m pretty sure you canā€™t agree with your own identifications.

Secondly, if you agree on someone elseā€™s identification, their reputation increases but Iā€™m not sure yours does - Mike will know.

No, there is no process for reducing reputation at the moment.

You canā€™t agree with your own identifications, perhaps a shame really if you have spent hours getting to the ID and want to show it off!

The help page somewhere explains how reputation works, basically it as Chris says, to gain reputation you need to make an identification and people need to agree with it. You get a certain amount of reputation up to a maximum depending on the reputation of those who agree e.g. if someone with very little reputation agrees then you gain little but if people with more reputation agree then you gain more.

In general Zo it is a good idea to choose one group of organisms to specialise in and focus mainly on these and find all the identification resources, books, websites, scientific papers etc just on that group.

This helps with all other types of organisms because it helps you to understand what you donā€™t know and what is left out of the relatively simple guidebooks.

For example if you spend a lot of time studying bees you will realise there are a lot of species but if you pick up a general book of UK insects which describes itself as ā€˜completeā€™ you can then compare what you know about bees with what is shown in the book and quickly realise that the book is not complete at all!

Thanks, Derek.
Thanks, Derek.

They are displayed in gallery view and look identical (use the same lead photo)
They are usually created by mistake, that is forgetting that we have done them long or shortly before. I did that last week and kept it because it was lovely, honest! They sometimes appear close to each other in Gallery view because we are impatient with uploading, so try again
BUT many are not duplicates, as some use the same lead photo but ID something else in the photo or are used to create associations

as always. THEY are difficult to find
Someone has created a really nice link to such things here
https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/project/862834/ in which you might find :eight_pointed_black_star:A few Community GUIDES
I know he still wonders why so few people say anything about them or even references them.