How long to leave an image in ID Request before moving?

Some general challenges for ID Request are it fills up quickly, which also makes even recent photos of any Order get buried. Also currently, photos of many certain Orders seem moved/identified less often, and contribute to Request overflow. This is particularly true of larvae/eggs/etc. (although which can be multiple Orders).

People mentioned two strategies for after photos have been in Request long enough: (1) move to finest taxon known, or (2) sometimes move many to family taxon first. I generally favor (1), for Orders being "kept up with" fast enough. But given that many Orders currently aren't, method (2) also seems reasonable at times (plus, sometimes family is the only ID an identifying editor knows).

Overall, there are some inherent difficulties with the structure of the photo and taxonomy system and ID Request page, so I don't expect solutions to be perfect. And this may explain why some Request/certain Orders aren't as well-kept up with. I also notice many users commenting-identifications without moving the photos (e.g. BG-experts, also some editors). It would seem best for editors to actually make those moves, and BG-experts consider discussing with BG the potential for them to make moves (although some prefer not to).

I'd draw a few comparisons to iNaturalist, despite that the websites aren't intended to be identical. iNat. allows all users to ID to get the sorting process started. This in turn greatly helps identifiers. Despite that BG probably won't add an open ID system, it would help if the taxonomic system used more initial or automated means of "pre-sorting" taxa. Including if Request could be changed to be made up of multiple pages and with more search filter options. It would also accelerate ease of IDs if direct IDs could be made on photos vs. requiring them to be moved "manually." Finally it would help to be able to more easily search new photos of no or a specific taxon, which would allow photos be moved to finer taxonomic ranks faster, with no need for them to remain in Request or Family (although moves to Family are sometimes justified).

I understand some things may change with BG 2.0. Potentially or ideally, some of the present matters or other things will change, and so may self-resolve with 2.0 or later subsequent updates.

... and for images of that group, if I don't have a good idea of what it is, I will leave the images in the ID request forum for ~48 hours. Typically, this means they'll reach pages 8-12 in ID request before I take action. If I can make a decent ID, I'll leave the image(s) in ID Request for only 24 hours, and then move it.

when 2.0 comes online. It would be a Challenge for the Experts page and would be a place where we could move images that are languishing in ID Request. We would hope to move the entire "Unidentified Tracks, Sign, and Other Mysteries" pages under it, along with all the images currently sitting at Arthropods or Insects, so that all the images in need of Id are in one place.
We would not move anything at this time from ID Request unless you can move it at least to Order. Moving them anywhere other than Order or Family or Genus or whatever is like dumping them in a dead letter box. Some place identifications go to die.
You can move larvae or eggs or such to the folders under "Unidentified Tracks, Sign, and Other Mysteries" if they are past page 50 or so in ID Request. We would assume everyone has had a chance to look at them and couldn't get them to order, so Unidentified eggs, for example, is a good place temporarily until we can find an egg expert to look through them.

Based on this I'd like to open this discussion back up for any additional strategies or status updates. One thing I'll ask which is probably already known, is typical strategies for larvae, eggs, etc. which may be initially difficult to identify. Those seem to make up about half of the total images, and be the ones that rarely move. For example they mostly make up all the oldest pages.

Thanks for the guidelines for specific images - very helpful!

Out of curiosity, what about images where a knowledgeable person has commented and given an ID to, say, genus, or even species? (e.g. someone posted a "large syrphid" to ID Request yesterday and I ID'd it to species fairly quickly and quite confidently. Should I move it immediately, or let it sit in ID request until it gets a page back and then move it (my previous strategy)?

I know some folks put images in ID request with species already stated - I assume that those are looking for confirmation of ID (when I do this I add a ? and text explaining that I'd like confirmation, but this seems less common). What should one do with those images?

Thanks!

After looking at ID Request over the past week I realized I was wasting too much of my time looking at the same images over and over.

So I moved all (or nearly all) of the beetles and moths and Orthoptera more than 3 days old to their order pages. They were already dozens of pages deep.

What is left is relatively exotic or mysterious, which is what ID Request should look like.

Here is my proposed guideline for cleaning ID Request. By cleaning I mean moving things out to a temporary home on high level pages where group experts will pay attention to them later.

1. Quick moves. These are groups where specialists don't seem to watch ID Request:
Crane flies to Tipulomorpha
Robber flies to Asilidae
Mites to Acari
Myriapoda to the appropriate class

(The first two are established practice.)

2. If it is more than a day old, move
Psocoptera to Psocoptera
Hoverflies to Syrphidae
Other flies to Flies

3. If it is more than three days old, move anything else if you recognize the page that should hold it, such as
Beetles
Moths
Butterflies
Skippers
Caterpillars
Orthoptera
Spiders
Dragonflies
Damselflies
Galls
Leaf mines

If an image has a knowledgeable comment, it can move out earlier. Not necessarily to species, but the submitter got a possible ID and a specialist can think about it later. For example, "looks like a screwworm" means move it to Flies, Blow Flies, or C. macellaria in your discretion depending on how much time you have and whether you believe the ID. "Probably Rambur's" means Damselfies, Coenagrionidae, Ischnura, or I. ramburii. And so forth.

My policy is nothing that clearly belongs to some high level group should remain in ID request longer than about a week. Maybe 8 or 9 days rather than 7 in case some people only show up on weekends, and not necessarily the same day every week.

We usually don't move things till they get to about 50 pages deep, which now is about two weeks old. We doubt any expert visiting ID Request will get that deep before giving up, so it is better for the IDs that the images get moved to the moth page or to a family page. During winter when things are slower, ID Request usually gets reduced down to only 20 pages or so. Don't know if that helps, but we would say if you leave things for two weeks, no one should get upset. Unless you are moving to the species page, which can happen on the first day it gets posted. The sooner the better.