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Home » Forums » Web Site Problems and Suggestions

Moving images back to "ID Request"

I have noticed some folks move their images from a verified taxon back to "ID Request," apparently in hopes of getting a genus or species ID. I would ask that you please do not do this (unless there is some question about the current taxonomic placement of the image). We consistently have over 30 pages of images in "ID Request," and that is asking quite a bit of (mostly academic) experts who do not have a great deal of time to browse there, looking for examples of their particular taxon of interest. There are, in fact, very few folks who are 'generalist' experts, so it really pays to place your images on the guide page for whatever taxon is agreed upon already. Thank you, I really think you will benefit by that.
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Contributed by Eric R. Eaton on 7 April, 2008 - 6:52pm

Not only that...
By the time they move them back, they've already moved a number of pages from the front of both ID Request and Recent. Even if there are experts looking around in ID Request, they're not as likely to look in areas that would have been looked at already.

A further wrinkle is the blind spot in autocommenting: if an image has been moved to ID Request, there's an autocomment saying "Moved From", but when the image is moved out of ID request, there's no autocomment. This gives the illusion that the image was moved directly from the first place in the guide to the new place in the guide, rather than by way of ID Request, and that it was done by the person who did the first move.

Although a nefarious scenario is unlikely, it could lead to some head-scratching:

·Contributor A, who knows his Coleoptera, moves his image of a Staphylinid back to ID request in hopes of getting a better ID than subfamily.

·Extreme rookie Editor B mistakenly moves it to Dermaptera, without documenting the fact.

·There's no way to tell that Contributor A moved it to ID request rather than to Dermaptera, and no trace of Editor B's handiwork, thus making Contributor A look uncharacteristically ignorant.
… Chuck Entz, 7 April, 2008 - 11:40pm login or register to post comments

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