City Nature Challenge 2020: Greater Adelaide - New User Tips

When uploading observations...

• Each observation should represent a single organism
• If you have multiple photos of the same organism, they should be combined into the one record
• If you have photos of different organisms, they each should have a separate record
• If you have a photo showing multiple species, you can upload the same photo multiple times, once for each species in the photo
• Each observation must have a date/time, a location and media (photo or audio) to be 'verifiable'

What should you record?

Every wild organism. Don't limit yourself to the species you know and feel you can successfully identify. Branch out. Record that weird looking bug, that flying thing that just landed on your arm, that tiny flower and that washed up seashell.

Avoid Casual observations if at all possible. These are either "Cultivated" or "Captive" organisms, i.e. garden plants and street trees, and pets. They still count toward the City Nature Challenge observation totals, but are not in the spirit of iNaturalist whose focus is on recording "wild" species. If you do record these, please ensure you tick the "Captive / Cultivated" box when uploading.

When adding Identifications to your Observations...

• Don't feel obliged to add a species level ID. The iNat community is here to help with that.
• Unless you are knowledgeable in the area, you may be better off simply adding the ID of Plant or Animal or Fungi, and letting knowledgeable users add a refined ID.
• Don't guess. All verifiable observations are synced with the Atlas of Living Australia, so identifications need to be as accurate as possible.
• If you are unsure of the ID, but wish to make a suggestion, add it as a "Comment"
• Do not rely on the AI system to suggest identifications. It is still learning and is rarely accurate at a species level. Better to use it as a guide to further research.
• Try to avoid uploading observations without any ID. These are labelled as "Unknown" and may not be seen by the users who may be able to assist with identification.
• If a user provides your observation with an ID, do not automatically "confirm" the ID unless you can confidentally ID that species yourself.

Posted on April 21, 2020 04:12 AM by cobaltducks