[Taxacom] iNaturalist and the dangers of community ID sites!

[Stephen Thorpe]

 Hi Geoff,
Yes, that thread illustrates rather well some of the problems here. One problem is taxonomic, in that, surprise, surprise (not!), the taxonomy of this group of roaches in Australia is not particularly well known, so nobody seems to be confident about what the real Balta bicolor actually is, except perhaps for MPI, who would have followed certain standard identification protocols and clearly ended up with a result that they were confident enough to publish. They tend not to release too many details into the public domain, however, so we are just in a position of having to trust that they haven't screwed up massively!
The taxonomic problem is, however, only one problem. Another problem is data management. In that regard, I maintain that for me to follow MPI's identification was not only a perfectly justifiable thing to do, but also arguably the best thing to do, so as to be able to straightforwardly compile and retrieve data on this invasive species in N.Z., especially on iNaturalist. So, Geoff, the following comment, from the page you posted the link to, is the killer:
danilo_hegg commented: I think it should be identified as Ellipsidion, until the correct species can be resolved. As far as MPI goes, well, they got it wrong!

The comment itself is fine. Danilo is just reporting what he thinks. I'm hearing you Danilo! You are perfectly entitled to think that. What you are not entitled to do is to steam ahead without further warning or discussion and roll back all 50 or so of my IDs of Balta bicolor observations, thereby ruining about 1 week's worth of unpaid work by me, carefully trying to compile and curate a portfolio of solid observations which can be used to document the distribution and spread of this invasive species in N.Z.!
Danilo doesn't know if MPI got it wrong. He went on to call the ID "lazy", "dubious" and "lacking any evidence"! 
Unfortunately, I'm still not convinced that iNat staff, either here in N.Z., or in California, quite grasp the seriousness of what Danilo has done. Instead they seem more concerned with me having said the dreaded f-word and other "sins" like resolving a flag against myself, etc. I was scrambling to deal with Danilo's rogue approach to identifications and I had no idea what he was going to do next. Sure, in retrospect, I could have handled things better, but hindsight is a great thing! Now I'm the one facing a possible 1 year long suspension from iNaturalist!
Cheers, Stephen
    On Wednesday, 22 December 2021, 10:50:37 am NZDT, Geoff Read via Taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> wrote:  
 
 
Hi,

There's some possibly enlightening taxonomic discussion around the
at-issue insect identification for New Zealand as Balta bicolor here:

https://inaturalist.nz/observations/1256347

For me it's a glimpse confirming how iNaturalist can be a useful forum for
professional biologists to participate in and share information and
discuss.  We are always combating incomplete information about what is out
there, but the public don't know this until we tell them. iNaturalist is
one place we can do that.

Cheers,
Geoff Read

On Wed, December 22, 2021 9:41 am, Stephen Thorpe via Taxacom wrote:
>  Hi Les,
> In my current predicament and frame of mind, it would be very easy for me
> to agree with your poor estimation of iNaturalist. However, it isn't
> entirely accurate. This particular case is complicated.

[... deleted...]


--
Geoffrey B. Read, Ph.D.
Wellington, NEW ZEALAND
gread at actrix.gen.nz

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