I’ve noticed in the past couple days a series of older House Sparrow observations showing up in my filtered searches for identification. Specifically, on most days I search for bird observations that need identification, such that the resulting geographic queue is usually less than one page. But recently there are older (a year or more, typically; not ones I have seen before) House Sparrow records showing up. I figured the only way that might be happening is a taxon change of some kind, though I know this species hasn’t really had changes (AFAIK). Any ideas on why I’m now seeing these older records?
Best guess is that an identifier deleted their account (and all their IDs with it) so now observations that used to be RG are NI again.
I assume you checked the Uploaded date, compared to the Observation date? When I get into a slide scanning session, I may upload many observations that are decades old but I’m just now getting them onto iNat.
While I haven’t checked each individual observation, I have noticed a few that also have older identifications on them; so at least some aren’t recent uploads.
I hadn’t thought of that. I’m mostly working Kentucky and NE FL records and have seen it in both places.
I’m having the same issue with House Sparrows in Fairfax County. I regularly check the birds posted in the county and suddenly there’s un IDed House Sparrows ranging from 5 months to 6 years ago. Not sure what’s going on
One of my observations was affected. Someone who had IDed it before has deleted their account.. it’s really sad if that happens..why delete all the work invested in the past and burden current and future IDers.. and again proves the point that a 3rd agree might not be the worst thing to do to make this happening more unlikely.
I wonder if it’s possible to revert someone’s identifications to “Former iNatter” or some default label rather than allowing a person to cull all of their IDs from the body of knowledge. Someone might have a legit reason to exit the iNat community and their observations as well, but anonymizing their IDs might be a workable alternative. After all, aren’t I gifting my time to help identify taxa for people? Why would that data be revocable?
James,
You can vote for this feature request: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/change-account-deletion-functionality-to-allow-account-anonymisation-and-prevent-deletion-of-ids/
I can confirm it’s almost certainly due to someone recently deleting their account.
Before I ask how to vote on a feature request, being comparatively new here, isn’t it in bad form to necro-post on an old thread?
Why would that be “bad form”, or “necro posting”. That’s exactly the feature request you should be voting for if you want to see this particular situation change.
In other contexts, posting to an old thread drags it to the top of the feed of everyone who has participated, no matter how tangentially, thus clogging up and irritating their present feed. Even here, threads have a certain shelf life, shutting down once they grow cold. Lots of people don’t appreciate the rehashing of old topics with new notifications. Leaving that aside, I don’t see a vote button; is a thumbs-up equivalent to liking a post, or does voting for something require an actual text response?
The vote button should be to the left of the thread title.
Threads are active until they’re closed. And even then they may be reopened if needed.
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/identifriday-is-the-happiest-day-of-the-week/26908
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