The amount of comments this topic has generated in such a short time shows that this is a controversial topic with strong opinions on both sides.
Personally, I would not upload such pictures, but I think it would be great if someone does, as these old observations can have great scientific value (and personally, for me, as an identifier, great fun).
I would also argue that it is often a very personal interaction with nature: Reliving nature through the eyes of a relative who has passed on - isnāt that also interacting with nature?
Lastly, I think an important question is the question of scale: I think compared to the daily recorded observations, these more historical pictures would be a tiny fraction.
Summarised, I would maybe not encourage uploading such observations but tolerate them in a grey area in case they show up
This really interesting, good points on both sides. Personally I think this would be a great way to use iNat. As others have pointed out thereās no other way to get the data out especially if the OP canāt identify the images themselves. The encounters are āvicariously personalā, (not institutional, at least). So long as the date and location data are good I think itās an excellent use of the platform. It is citizen science in the sense of citizens making available the data that is personally available to them. I would even say that setting up a separate account for it (making it clear in the profile) would make best sense - (not sockpuppetting of course).
These are just my own feelings though. I do understand that it fits slightly awkwardly with the way certain guidelines are expressed at the moment. If the feeling is that the dataset is too large to fit in this āgrey areaā it would be worth saying what the best alternative is.
I think that we should leap at the chance to post older photos like these, if they have a reasonably accurate location and date! We donāt want this data lost!
To me, posting these photos is different than posting museum specimens, in two ways. First, the museum is at least theoretically in the position to post their data in some other way and link that data to GBIF. Lots of museums, herbaria, etc., are doing that now and it isnāt hard to get contacts to people who can give advice about how to set up such an account.
Second, if an iNaturalist account is set up in the name of these relatives, the observations do represent the relativesā personal experience with the organisms posted. The relatives just didnāt happen to post to iNaturalist, in many cases because iNaturalist didnāt exist then. One might get fussy about āthe relatives arenāt setting up the accountā but the heirs have copyright and can legally do what they want with the items.
to people posting old photos that donāt represent their experiences as a general situation. Many of the potential downsides have been covered in other threads, and a few off the top of my head:
For observations where the observer was not present/the observation wasnāt their experience, they are more likely to enter incorrect data. The date/location data will be based on hearsay, notes, or inference, all of which have a greater potential to be incorrect than for observations that an observer makes based on their own experience. Broadly, itās often the case that an incorrect data point has a larger negative impact than a positive one has a positive impact.
Additionally, since the āobserverā (uploader?, can we even call them āobserverā) was not present, they are less likely to be able to respond meaningfully to some types of questions or feedback from the community about the observation.
Copyright/licensing becomes complicated when concerning images taken by others. Most iNat users donāt fully understand how they are often claiming rights/providing a license to photos that they post. Allowing/encouraging the use of photos taken by others and that arenāt of the observerās experience opens the door to allowing posting of images taken by others in situations that cause even more of an issue (ie, āmy friend took this photoā, āI found this photo in a library with a year and location on the backā) by complicating the rules/guidelines around this.
A more minor point, but one that has come up before, is that old photos, including family photos, also fall afoul of iNatās requirement that observations have recent evidence (see the DQA field). This DQA field is available at least in part to provide an easy way to downvote observations with evidence outside the lifespan of individual humans, as this isnāt primarily what iNat is for.
Adding these complicating factors means that dealing with observations like this could consume a disproportionate amount of staff/volunteer time, making the cost of dealing with the issues that they raise not worth the potential benefit.
Now, there is certainly a reasonable discussion as to whether those downsides (and any others I didnāt remember to mention) outweigh the benefits, but the costs are definitely present.
I think the current approach is a reasonable one - to essentially allow, but not promote, very limited posting of observations like this, but discourage large scale additions. This is more or less akin to how many laws that are āon the booksā are used. For instance, in the US, it is illegal to possess feathers of native birds in most circumstances. There are good reasons for this law to exist. But I am sure USFWS (though Iām not an employee) knows that tons of people collect feathers they find on the ground while out in the world and possess them for longer or shorter periods. Yet they donāt have staff going around trying to find/arrest these people and enforce the law. Itās not worth it to enforce the law against someone with a few feathers, where the cost of enforcement would not outweigh its benefit (thereās little harm to an ecosystem that would be stopped, etc.) Enforcement happens fairly rarely and in situations where someone is killing/harming birds to harvest feathers or contributing to that trade. In a similar way, iNat can say ādonāt upload observations that arenāt your ownā but not enforce any action against small amounts of observations that go against this in cases where the downsides arenāt serious.
I also donāt think itās accurate to say that
As GBIF notes in the quote you provided, users can
There are clearly other options outside of iNat where these observations could be published (observation.org would take these I think, etc).
How about if iNaturalist creates Legacy Accounts for this kind of situation? Accounts that look like regular ones but canāt identify for others, canāt comment on othersā posts, canāt get to the Forum. In other words, that canāt become sockpuppets.
Weāve been asked before about posting photos like this and weāll be asked again, and I think we should find a way to welcome this data and the heirs trying to respect their relatives by making their photos available for use in science.
Can I suggest, if itās not already stated in the help article that addresses this topic, to include a mention of other global and local repositories for biodiversity observations? Listing a few major ones (like the one above) with brief descriptions could be helpful. This way, instead of users feeling stuck in what is often a grey area, they would have a bit more direction on alternative platforms to explore or contribute to if it doesnāt fit the theme with iNat (at least until there is a clear guidline). eg for global iSpotnature.org and ebird or for local Atlas of Living Australia and iRecord (UK).
Iāve been thinking more about these types of potential accounts. Iād even suggest creating a slightly new category for them such as āLegacy Accountsā or some other respectful way to indicate an original observer/contributor who perhaps predated iNaturalist (e.g. pre-2008?).
Do you have a record of when and where you saw them? You can use casual observations (without photo/audio) for things like this if needed. For example Iāve only seen Amazon River Dolphin once in my life and I didnāt get any photos, but I know the date and location so I have an observation for it. Technically I guess you can even submit an observation with just species and no date/location.
iNat also allows field sketches as media evidence for verifiable observations; another option if you donāt want observations to be ārelegated to the casual binā (although even casual obs are worth making I think if someone trusts your IDs).
@TheJungleExplorer@upupa-epops Your discussion of your own old records is important and those should definitely be uploaded as available and with suitable details. But I want to gently remind you that the discussion is a bit off-topic for the present post, which is trying to stay focused on the uploading of third-party data from the past in some form/context.
Perhaps itās time for an amendment to the current rules - surely the photos of relatives from a previous generation are valuable to science as a record to compare changes over time??? So shortsighted to discourage the posting of these photos.
Iāve pondered this myself, as my dad was an avid photographer in his 20s, and somewhere has a whole booklet of slides from his trip to Finland in the 1970s. While we havenāt unearthed it, if we do, and those slides have dates and locations, in addition to them having anything useful for iNat, Iād love to add some on.
(While Iāve asked him if heād be interested in doing it himself, heās just said ānah, you do it, Iām too busyā, so likely the only way those things will make it on is if I do it for him either way, hahaha.)
Looking at the whole process of getting an account can seem overwhelming. How about you talk to your dad about getting an iNaturalist account with your help. You set it up. Basically, you administer it, consulting with him so that itās clear what you do is consistent with what he wants. Iāve done this for a friend. He doesnāt have a lot he wants posted, but from time to time heāll send me a photo to add to the account. He likes seeing activity on the observations (when I point it out). Maybe your dad will want to get a bit more involved after seeing his pictures posted and some getting identifications or comments. Or maybe heāll simply enjoy feeling his work is still being seen.
I may do this if the amount of slides that are useable are more than just a scant few. If something like legacy accounts become a thing, I may jump on that too, just so that any questions or concerns get handled immediately.
I only use a photo taken by another person if it was my camera and I was present at the time. For example, in this photo those ae my hands and the photo was taken by a companion.
