The lack of observations minus my own makes me wonder if it’s really ok to post a koala with clear and confirmed signs of chlamydia as chlamydia, if it is ok then you’d think there would be more with how common it is in Koalas.
https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/observations/183812776 (example)
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I would think that it could be informative, particularly for disease monitoring. What is the story with chlamydia and koalas - is it prevalent, is it spreading? And how commonly seen are koalas closeup?
I imagine most people are quite excited to see koalas and reluctant to think about ‘gross’ aspects of them, such as chlamydia.
There are projects based around collecting observations of disease, some are more successful, other less so. Here are som eexamples -
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/myxomatosis-cases-and-possible-spread-to-lepus-species
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/rabbit-and-hare-deaths-in-southern-africa-2022-3
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Definitely no issue posting it - observe away! I think for some things like that, people just don’t even think to post, or maybe some think it’s too gross. There are definitely some observations of human diseases as well, sometimes with people posting their test results. I doubt most people would like to publish sensitive medical history like for STI’s though.
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I have seen this with covid obs
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Posting observations of animal diseases is completely fine, I’ve done it https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/56415272 It’s just somthing that less people think of or have interest in posting
Why would one do that?
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One reason could be to get another species on their life list
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that’s what I imagine they are doing. Otherwise it is hard to get something as small as a virus photographed. I suppose also uploading covid obs could be helpful for researchers to see where people tested positive could be helpful, although that sort of veers off of the intended purpose of iNaturalist.
I mean documenting species range is the intended purpose, but I don’t think this is actually useful given all the other data there is on covid
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it’s pointless, but also harmless IMO as long as it’s kept to reasonable limits.
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Plant and animal diseases I can understand but human diseases like Covid-19 is where it gets a tad iffy for me, since you are revealing to the world that you have this disease, which could be a privacy concern. But, as long as the person observing it is fine posting that on the internet then it is OK i guess.
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If I’d caught chlamydia from hugging a koala, I’d definitely be fine with the world knowing 
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I would ask the people posting it, otherwise we’re all just speculating about their motives. It’s not really a big deal in iNat terms and at the current scale - the virus is wild, and the test is evidence of the presence of the virus.
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I think I’m the top observer for COVID-19, though I haven’t really looked in a while. I was at one point, anyway. I upload observations to reflect what I encounter, which includes COVID and everything else. That’s really my reason for doing it. I look back at my observations and see things I’ve encountered and experienced in a day or a month or whatever timeframe. COVID has come up quite a bit for me and those around me (unfortunately) so that’s all it really represents to me and that’s why I do such things.
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If the posts were uploaded consistently, I would be cool to see the distribution (where in the world the hotspots are) and the seasonality of it. Like how there’s a flu season. Idk, might just hit the medical journals for that. Only difference is iNat has everything graphed out with decent visuals
Same with animal pathologies such as this Chlamydia. Where are the outbreaks – is there a correlation between seasons – is it spreading/ is it contained.
Never really thought about microbiology on iNat 
that’s gonna be a game changer for me now lol here come amoebas, tardigrade. Maybe I’ll put my hours of staining slides to use and post some staphylococci or enterobacteriaceae. There’s a whole world out there
I would say pathogens are challenging area. In many diseases the symptoms are non-specific and cannot be used for accurate identification. In such cases, test results are necessary.
However, in some diseases the signs are very characteristic and can be used for more or less accurate identification. For example, avian trichomoniasis and avian pox can be identified relatively accurately based on signs only (if they are developed to a certain degree).
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Depends whether they are seen as scientific images or dick pix. A staph infection on a finger would pass the ‘public decency’ test, a drip on a penis probably wouldn’t, although scientifically and informationally it’s the same.
In discourse around indigenous peoples and their relationship with the dominant invasive culture, self censoring in order to remain acceptable by the dominant culture is common. I wonder if this is a sort of corollary.
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Human sexual content is specifically listed as a suspendable offense by the community guidelines, so someone posting a penis would have their account suspended, I imagine (as they should )
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I posted my positive covid test because it was one mildly amusing thing that I could do while stuck quarantining in my room with nothing to do for like 4 days and I was bored:)
(also I promised some friends that I would if I got covid and I’m a woman of my word)
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I posted my positive covid test because it was no fun to have covid but why not at least have it on my life list. Since nearly everyone got covid i don’t see it as a privacy issue for me. No it isn’t the best way out there to track covid, but it isn’t harming anything.
I posted Lyme disease because, well first of all same logic as above, secondly, it’s important for people to understand how prevalent Lyme is in my area, and iNat users tend to be at high risk since we are out in nature. In that case, no rash, i just posted an unverifiable observation.
People should be aware they should not post photos of medical results with personal information on them. A covid test is fine but a doctor’s test printout may have personal information.
Given the stigma i doubt many if any peopel would post STI observations of themselves. Human genitals are not really different from other mammal ones scientifically, but given how culture is and for other reasons, they clearly shouldn’t be posted here. There are plenty of online resources to see what human STIs look like and if you suspect that you need to be going to the doctor as most of them are treatable.
Koala chlamydia seems a valuable thing to post, but probably is rarely documented by citizen scientists in a way that can get verified.
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I get that, at this point I don’t see covid as a medical privacy issue given that most people have had it, and it’s not anything I would be afraid to tell a friend or relative, but it’s not something I would want to announce to thousands of strangers because of the political controversy surrounding it. I see you are in Vermont, where this may be less of an issue, but in northern NY covid is pretty controversial, and I don’t want anyone thinking I’m “helping the government fearmonger” by posting my result publicly, or that I “must not have been careful enough” if I got covid (though I don’t really expect the latter in 2023)