[image] What is even the point of the 'opt out of the community ID' function? edit: *even though sockpuppetry is still largely possible - by having any kind family member or student or colleague to act on your behalf ;) I didn’t actually know that this is not allowed. I maintain a sort of “re…

[image] rcavasin: I’ve considered creating an Aux. account just to test out how certain things work in iNat (eg. when certain notifications are generated and when they are not). Good to know that this is expressly forbidden. You’re fine - I myself have multiple accounts to test things like th…

My recollection is that when this has come up in past forum discussions, users have been strongly discouraged by staff from creating multiple accounts in cases that some might feel fall under “personal” vs. “professional” uses of iNat. These were things such as a taxon specialist wanting to separat…

Yeah this example of professional accounts used as individuals, and not one account representing the institution as a whole, comes to mind: https://www.inaturalist.org/search?utf8=✓&q=smpbiologist&commit=Go&source[]=users - it’s a scenario where data governance is important not only from an organiza…

[image] bouteloua: Yeah this example of professional accounts used as individuals, and not one account representing the institution as a whole That’s not what I was asking about though. I don’t think there is a question whether this sort of thing is covered by “professional vs. personal”. Ho…

[image] spiphany: To my understanding people who have wanted to do this in the past have been told that this is not allowed. If you can point to where staff said people shouldn’t use a separate account for work activities, that would be helpful. Otherwise I’m confused where the issue is as lo…

I believe I was thinking of these discussions, where unless I misinterpreted something it was said that a separate professional account is permitted only if it is necessary as part of an official role: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/are-two-accounts-allowed-for-the-same-person/27028/ https://foru…

I have also gotten the impression from reading past forum threads that there are pretty much no circumstances under which you can have multiple accounts. If bouteloua hadn’t replied to ravasin already, I would have agreed with rcavasin’s assessment [image] rcavasin: this is expressly forbidden. …

There is no legal issue or “game” advantage from using alt accounts on the main site. As so iNaturalist is able to avoid a formal blanket ban on having multiple (alt) accounts, but it’s not necessarily encouraged. If anything consider your own sanity with having to log into each one and keep up with…

I got a notification about this topic because @spiphany cited my old post (thanks!). So, do I understand correctly that now the rules changed and I can create a second account and not have to be afraid that one or both of them will be banned? Since my post in 2022 I had many observations which I wou…

I don’t know that the rules have changed; I think it is unclear exactly what the rules mean and it seems people have been interpreting them in different ways. Perhaps staff could weigh in? I believe @tiwane was the one who had commented in the previous threads?

Are multiple accounts permitted?

General

jwidness December 8, 2025, 6:35pm 17

You can use the Universal Metadata Tool to add IDs without following observations.

3 Likes

Topic		Replies	Views
Two accounts for the same user General	8	988	November 1, 2022
Are two accounts allowed? for the same person General	31	2672	December 13, 2021
Making more than one account for observations General question	10	270	December 13, 2024
Separate account for observations technically observed by someone/-thing else? General	7	355	August 2, 2025
Is it acceptable to create a second account for things that I did not observe myself? General question	55	4948	October 10, 2019

Are multiple accounts permitted?

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