This is a question concerning the existing feature of observation URLs. My question is: are these URLs static? And will they be so in the future? Background: when starting a serious collection (e.g. insect collection, or something) the collector usually also starts a database where he assigns each …

All my microscope slides are labeled with the iNaturalist number to keep the live photos and specimens connected. So I sure hope it never changes!

Keeping fingers crossed that the answer is yes. Can’t imagine why it wouldn’t/couldn’t be…

I include iNat number on labels for pinned moths, as it links directly to the most complete record, including an ID history. Literally just the iNat number, which is unique and can be extracted/entered into the url quite easily (double click the number for easy highlighting!) What would be cool is …

I really, really hope the URLs are static! I have been through the non-static URL crisis that happened three times on another nature site that shall remain nameless. The admins on that site, in their infinite wisdom, decided to not redirect the two oldest sets of URLs. This means that not only is…

It has been a common thing to refer to other observations in the comments, and to do so with url links. In New Zealand we were under the NatureWatch.org.nz domain, and when that was lost we changed to iNaturalist.nz, a change that was easy to search and replace globally. The reason for that domain c…

there are some issues with the consecutive numbering on the site and they really should change it to randomized numbers or whatever, but that’s a hard one because it’s true changing old ones can cause problems.

OMG, imagine if all the media articles that pointed to Mola tecta observations suddenly pointed to some other random observation instead! It would be a much bigger problem than the observations that get deleted!

This is the infamous link rot problem in the internet age. The renumbering problem has already occured when naturewatch .org .nz merged their database into iNat a few years ago, all the observations had to have new numbers. A record was kept, and even today old observation numbers still crop up, e…

In that example, the obs number was given sans url… kind of like referring to a page in a book and not stating what the book is… When everyone thinks they are reading the same book, then I can see how they would take that shortcut! And who knows, iNat could get imported into some future site!

The alternative for collectors would be to use a combination of observer name and tag (using a manually entered database code as tag). This information is less likely to get lost if iNaturalist ever restructures, right?

Are observations URLs static?

General

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Are observations URLs static?

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