Diario del proyecto 2021 Jan-Feb ID-a-thon

https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/id-athon-may-2021-and-mentorship-program/22878

Go sign up! Your feedback helped us make a bunch of changes and upgrades.

Hello everyone!

@trh_blue and I are starting preparation for the next ID-a-thon. We hope that the event will take place some time in May, and it will last approximately 6-10 days including one or two weekends.

Thank you everyone for the feedback on our first go. This next one is going to be even better as we take everything we learned into account, and try out some of the most-requested suggestions. More will be revealed as we get closer to the next event, but in general terms, there will be a main category focusing on Unknowns, as well as several optional categories which will be more experimental in nature, including a return of the popular “mystery” category.

One of the biggest and more difficult experiments will be setting up some form of guided newbie “boot camp” and/or workshop-based miniature events which will run in parallel to everything else. I will be one of the mentors, but we will need more.
This is where you come in. We recognize everyone has different teaching styles and different schedules, and we want to work with you to make this event as rewarding as possible for you :) If you can commit to be in touch / responsive during the planning phase, and to at least two hours of availability over the course of the ID-a-thon, please sign up at the “Mentors” link and we will be in touch with you.
There is a minimum requirement of 500 IDs and four months iNat ID experience to mentor.

If you want to mentor, or want to learn more before committing, please fill out this basic information form.

We also would like additional assistance in behind-the-scenes administrative/logistical work. This includes writing journal posts, debugging API issues, making and distributing (silly) prizes, and so on. If you can commit to even one hour of work before, during, or in the immediate aftermath of such an event, please sign up using the following link.
helpers, please sign up using this form

Prizes for helping include:

spreading knowledge
my eternal gratitude
get others to ID so you can sit back and relax some more /s
you get to join our secret club

The only downside is that mentors and assistants may be ineligible to participate in some categories. You will know too much… D8

Any questions and comments are welcome. You can also discuss on the related forum thread.

Hey guys!

Here's my summary of the results. At the end I've got a link to a followup form with fewer, more targeted questions which will help us create our next events :)

Almost all of you are considering attending future events. That's great to hear :)

People disliked the idea of a one-day event, but there were deeply divided opinions on short/concentrated events of a few hours. The ideal window seems to be between 2 days and 2 weeks, so I've added a question to narrow down the sweet spot.
I think a multi-day event with optional events (e.g. a Discord-based group ID session, or a workshop) would be best based on this information.

You mostly liked the prizes, which is a huge relief, because they were incredibly silly.

Most of you supported the idea of separating out newbies so as to give them more help and/or encouragement. Some power-identifiers wanted it to be easier to get prizes since the main category was basically impossible for power-identifiers to do.
I've added some questions on methods for doing so which should still keep everyone engaged.

Most of you liked the idea of an event focused specifically on consistency -- trying to ID on a daily basis, or at least most days, in small amounts. Some of you pointed out that your schedule doesn't really permit this, but I think it would still be an engaging mini-event for most. It would require us admins to think of a good way to track this.

More than half of you were interested in mentoring new identifiers, and about a third were definitely interested in being mentored with another third answering maybe. I've added some questions related to what sort of mentoring you may wish to give and/or receive.

Most of you were either a little worried, or a little curious, about working in teams. If we ever do this, we will make it optional and fair.

Responses to whether we ought to stop counting Agreeing IDs were ambivalent. New question, should we require at least half of IDs for any prize winner to be something other than Agreeing (supporting)? Or just not worry about it? I asked because some people were, in my opinion, abusing the Agree button by e.g. agreeing to obvious Kingdom-level IDs en masse. Doing such "policing" would be un-fun for admins, and probably not fun for participants, so we're only going to make this kind of change if there is real support for it.

Responses on the question about CNC were on the large ambivalent or confused, so we'll just forget about that lol

By far the most liked themes were:

• clearing Unknowns
• following up Kingdom and/or Phylum IDs

• old or long-untouched observations
  And the least-liked were:

• cleaning up Life
• new user onboarding

There's a new question on themes with updated options.

Here's the link to the followup questionnaire!

I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who helped. I tried my best to keep track of who did something to assist, whether behind the scenes or publicly, in even the smallest way.

@alex_abair , @arboretum_amy , @bobmcd , @dianastuder , @edanko , @fluffyinca , @haemocyanin11 , @jasonhernandez74 , @jnstuart , @natemarchessault , @pisum , @radak , @sbushes , @tiwane : thank you!

Here's a fun little tool by @pisum which will tell you your average number of IDs per day. Cool!

edit: I made a mistake that caused most of the first 6 submitters to see only a few of the questions, please take another look if you submitted the form and there were fewer than 14 questions.

Hi. Here is a form where you can share your ideas re future events and let me know what you think of the ideas I've come up with. There will be more forms probably and a later post with thank-yous and such.

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=DQSIkWdsW0yxEjajBLZtrQAAAAAAAAAAAAN__jlmwZZUMTdEU0w5VVQzNkVJMVROVzRNMVpKNkREUS4u

Think of it as a brainstorm. The more ideas, even silly ideas, the more creative we can make future events. And the best way to learn what works and what doesn't is to try -- so look forward to some shorter, more experimental events as we learn what is both fun for the participants and manageable for the admins.

you can submit the form as many times as you want if you come up with more ideas. it closes on the 20th because by that point I hope to have enough feedback to refine my ideas further and make a new form.

Blue

We made it. Welcome to your new life as an iNat Identifier. That's right, you. You're in the small fraction of users who add IDs. Nice!

First off.... I want to thank the staff of iNat for making this whole experience possible. Without them, this website could not exist. All of y'all, please thank them -- if you can, with a personal anecdote or message. Maybe even buy them a drink (metaphorically speaking).

Have you made any IDs on iNat staff observations? Check by looking for your name on this list. This will display IDs you've made in the lifetime of your account, not just during this competition.

Okay on to the winners! I'm waiving the prize cap for this update, so you all can have prizes even if you've already had 4.

Improve%
Average (mean) improvement: 134%
Median improvement: 105%

1st @natashataylor (5,120 IDs added) 645.8422
2nd @philodendronjoe (16,195) 384.7723
3rd @matthewvosper (9,679) 326.9934
4th @zdanko (7,333) 214.2212
5th @troisha (240) 203.8961
6th @xpda (2,285) 203.0672
7th @abigstone (385) 198.4655
8th @tachysphex (4,002) 196.6433
9th @n_russell (2,858) 179.3668
10th @gillydilly (4,691) 178.4973

Old%
1st @sedgequeen 2,684
2nd @ddubois2 2425
3rd @graysquirrel 307
4th @xpda 250
5th @melodi_96 228
6th @alex_abair 207
7th @bobmcd 180
8th @navaneethsinigeorge 157
9th @zdanko 144
10th @naturalist_aditya 143

Great job! Each winner gets:
A meme, coming to your inbox soon
And permission to tag @trh_blue or @arboretum_amy for help on IDs, questions, etc., as much as you want until the end of 2021.

And, last of all: Total%

All of us together, 78 people, have added
172,451 IDs in just 58 days!
That's amazing. For perspective, if all of the users of iNaturalist were included in this competition, there would be 13,318 identifiers who made 1,544,447 qualifying IDs. So, our identifiers are 0.586% of total identifiers, but our IDs are 11.166% of the total IDs! Woo hoo!

As usual the full rankings are here. Thanks everyone for participating. Please leave feedback in the comments below. Even though the competition has ended, you are welcome to stay in the project in case we have any announcements of future events. Cheers and keep up those IDs!

Hi everyone!

This post is for progress made this week -- overall rankings and final prize announcements are still to come.

I hope you have had a good time. It's been good to see our community get together to do good and learn new things. You did it!

First of all, Total% ... what have we done together, in this short span of time?

58 people have made a total of 18,375 IDs!

Improve%

[1st matthewvosper (4,264 IDs added this week) 135.58--prizes maxed out]
[2nd xpda (2,217) 131.08--prizes maxed out]
3rd @navaneethsinigeorge (5,364) 124.4
4th @n_russell (3,601) 115.22
5th @melodi_96 (28,797) 112.24
6th @lynnharper (9,107) 109.51

10th @naturalist_aditya, 107.06
20th @edelaquis 100.79
30th @oxalismtp 100.3

40th 100.08
50th 100.03%

Old%

[1st sedgequeen 449--prizes maxed out]
2nd @melodi_96 181
3rd @navaneethsinigeorge 115
4th @naturalist_aditya 67
[5th alex_abair 62--prizes maxed out]
6th @paulexcoff 31

And now, the grand reveal... what is Mystery% this week??
IDs on popular organisms: "Popular organisms" are the most-observed species of each of the 12 iconic taxa.
Anas platyrhynchos/Mallard/6930
Anaxyrus americanus/American Toad/64968
Sceloporus occidentalis/Western Fence Lizard/36204
Odocoileus virginianus/White-tailed Deer/42223
Lepomis macrochirus/Bluegill/49591
Cornu aspersum/Garden Snail/480298
Argiope aurantia/Yellow Garden Spider/67707
Apis mellifera/Western Honey Bee/47219
Achillea millefolium/Common Yarrow/52821
Trametes versicolor/Turkey-Tail/54134
Fuligo septica/Dog Vomit Slime Mold/55483
Nostoc commune/Star Jelly/319815

[1st ddubois2, 6--prizes maxed out]
2nd @oxalismtp 5
3rd @austinrkelly 4
[4th sedgequeen 4 --prizes maxed out]
5th @justyna_kierat 3
6th so many ties! @n_russell, tachysphex, @gheaton 2--prizes maxed out for trachysphex

If you are one of the winners, you win one custom-made meme. Choose any template, and I will do my best to make a funny, iNat-related joke with it. You must contact @arboretum_amy with your choice of template.

As usual the full rankings are here.

All that is left now is:
Overall winners
Overall prizes
Feedback (pretty please)
... and for each of you to be happy with yourself that you joined. Keep drinking plenty of water and taking periodic breaks. Maybe you even want to keep identifying things now that it's all over... if so, our devious plans have borne fruit.

And that's it folks, the 2021 Jan-Feb ID-a-thon is over! In a few minutes here I will publish the week 8 rankings, and then start work on the final rankings for the competition as a whole.

Today is the day--the last day of 2021 Jan-Feb ID-a-thon! We have slightly under 8 hours left before the cutoff of midnight UTC. Go, go, go!

Hi everyone!

We're so close to the end. Seven weeks of hard work... who will be the winner...

Remember, slow and steady -- this is a marathon, not a sprint. Take breaks, drink plenty of water, and stand up and stretch periodically. You can do it!

First of all, Total% ... what have we done together, in this short span of time?

59 people have made a total of 15,413 IDs!
Over the span of the entire competition, that's 140,701* IDs! Wow!
*real number is actually higher due to our previously mentioned Saturday counting error. We'll probably calculate the real total at the end of the competition.

Improve%
[1st matthewvosper (1,815 IDs made this week) 142.5657--prizes maxed out]
2nd @xpda (411) 118.5386
[3rd natashataylor (128) 113.6315--prizes maxed out]
[4th philodendronjoe (720) 112.6493--prizes maxed out]
5th @zdanko (794) 112.3618--fourth and final win
6th @tachysphex (479) 111.6234--fourth and final win
7th @paulexcoff (492) 111.601

10th @gillydilly (605) 110.1187
20th @fluffyinca (9) 101.1613
30th @janetwright (72) 100.2592
40th 100.0861
50th 100.0238

Old%

[1st sedgequeen, 175--prizes maxed out]
2nd @xpda, 149--fourth and final win
3rd @melodi_96, 47
[4thmatthewvosper, 47--prizes maxed out]
5th @graysquirrel, 26
6th @alex_abair, 18--fourth and final win

And now, the grand reveal... what is Mystery% this week??
iNaturalist was created in 2008, so for "before iNaturalist was born" I am counting observations whose date observed is 2007 or earlier. Now this is kind of tricky--recall that the ID-a-thon rules said eligible observations had to be created on or before Sept 30th, 2020. So for this category observations must be both created (photo was uploaded) September or earlier AND observed (photo was taken) 2007 or earlier. I know the Identify page can only filter for date observed, so I apologize for that.

1st @gillydilly, 24
2nd @ellendale, 18--fourth and final win
3rd @mike_h, 10
4th @fluffyinca, 7

If you are a winner in a category, I'll tell you my middle name. Oooooh, secrets.
As usual the full rankings are here.

This next week is the last week!
Contrary to popular trends, I do not recommend you push yourself past your limit as we approach the finish line. Do what is comfortable for you -- real personal growth is sustainable, steady growth. I'm proud of all of you.

The hint for next week's Mystery% is:
Popular organisms