iNaturalist requires users to provide evidence of the organisms they observe to ensure that they are eligible for research grade status. Photographs and audio recordings are the most commonly accepted forms of evidence because they are direct, verifiable, and accurate. A photograph, for example, captures the physical details of an organism, while an audio recording of an animal allows others to verify the species based on sound.
However, drawings are considered an “acceptable” form of evidence on iNaturalist as well, though I believe this is highly problematic. Drawings are inherently subjective, relying heavily on the artist’s memory, interpretation, and skill. Unlike a photograph, which directly represents the organism as it exists in the world, a drawing can be influenced by the artist’s biases, art style, or ability to capture detail. This can lead to inaccuracies, which undermine the reliability of drawings as evidence for species level identification.
Only the other day I encountered a problematic observation. It was a doodle of an amphipod, which barely resembled the actual organism. The drawing was so abstract, a simple circle with four lines. It provided little to no useful information about the species. While I marked this observation as casual, the poster disagreed and unmarked it, claiming that sketches are acceptable evidence on iNaturalist. I’d understand if the drawing was showing amphipod features, but it just wasn’t. The drawing they made and decided to photograph just didn’t capture any identifiable features at all.
This raises an important question: If users can take the time to draw an organism, why not use the same time and effort to photograph it? A photograph is far more reliable in documenting the species, and in cases where a photograph isn’t possible, surely they fail the fundamental requirement to be eligible for research grade… Accurate evidence. If they fail to photograph an organism for whatever reason their observation should just be marked as casual, they shouldn’t be able to draw a quick doodle to circumvent this.
While some may argue that sketches have value, especially when a photo isn’t possible, I believe the current authorization of drawings as valid evidence creates ambiguity and opens the door to unreliable observations and therefore unreliable identifications. This is especially concerning in research grade observations, where accuracy should be important. If you think about it almost anything can be treated as “evidence”, but not all evidence is good evidence. Someone could for instance upload an image file of a paragraph describing something they saw. I have no doubt in my mind most who would encounter something like that would mark the observation as failing to provide evidence of the organism on the data quality assessment. However if you think about it just like with the drawings the observer is still providing “evidence”, it’s just not a precise or reliable form of evidence and instead it’s based off their own perception of the organism.
I understand while drawings may have a place in personal records, they fall short when compared to photographs or audio files when it comes to providing reliable evidence for species identification. I think it should be essential to maintain high standards of evidence quality so that accuracy and reliability of observations on iNaturalist are the very best they can be.
I also would like to mentioned the impact drawings could have on the AI’s training model… Low quality drawings could potentially pollute the AI and interfere with identification accuracy if enough people decided they wanted to start drawing pictures instead of using photographs.