iNat is a photography-based activity. Knowing how to take a decent photo of an organism is actually more important than being able to ID it. A bad unIDable photo is a waste of the observer’s and reviewer’s time. That’s an issue I have with the app … the ability to take and upload a photo without even checking to make sure it’s in focus and cropped to show the subject. A lot of newbies seem to not know how to take a decent pic with whatever device they’re using.
I think an ai assistant built into the app can help with this. A modern Clippy.
“It looks like your photo is a bit out of focus, and it doesn’t have the organism filling the frame. These simple improvements will make it much more likely for you to get your photo identified. Would you like to try again?”
I note that James and I are getting a little off-topic, since Aarav’s original problem with CNC was:
- Not enough species diversity
- Not enough focus on rare species
- Not enough focus on exotic locations
While it is important to discuss:
- Ways to improve plant ID
- Ways to improve the app
- Ways to improve photography practices
- Etc.
These are all different topics, which already have pre-existing threads that can be re-opened. Just a reminder to everyone (including myself!) to stay focused on the original topic.
To be honest very blurry photos should be marked casual and this should be added to the DQA.
I’ve seen (and taken) blurry photos that are perfectly identifiable.
I’ve seen amazing professional-quality photos that are unlikely to ever be ID’d further than family because they don’t show features that are relevant for ID.
Obviously I’d prefer photos where the subject is in focus and is large enough in the frame that I don’t have to hunt for it, but introducing a DQA related to photo quality per se would be problematic for all sorts of reasons. Quality isn’t an either/or thing (it is blurry or it is not) – it is a continuum, which means that judging what is “too blurry” is somewhat subjective; it is likely that over time there will be a tendency to become ever stricter about what is “good enough” and thus exclude many users who have only limited access to photography equipment. This is directly counter to the spirit of iNat, which is helping people engage with nature, not putting up more barriers to participation.
The solution needs to be helping people learn to use the equipment they have effectively, not punishing them for failing to meet an arbitrary and vaguely-defined standard.
I think the problem arises really in referring to City in the title. I know that I have been responding specifically to a request relating to one city in the United Kingdom in terms of identifications: but generally the areas that have been proposed by others and the observations that I have made have not been city-based ~ they are rural, coastal or just general countryside regions
On a slightly different note, CNC 2026 currently has nearly 230,000 unknown observations.
I think users should be shown a “tutorial” of sorts after they join iNat so that they know how to put IDs on observations, how to make good quality observations and most importantly to only use their own photos.
I agree with this new DQA. As with the others, we each get one vote, so it is easily countered. But a blur of green, or grey, or black - with nothing identifiable - should never have been uploaded. DQA to Casual is a good solution for those. If an identifier can see a hint of something biodiversity - add a broad ID.
Of course. generally we have that an option to say that the id is “as good as can be” but that makes it RG. Blurry observation which are too blurry to be identified beyond a certain higher level taxon - e.g. not beyond plants, can be made casual. Perhaps it can be named Does the iImage has enough details to be identified?"
PS: I made a feature request (pending approval). There I also added that “We can also add a shortcut for marking an observation as such on the identify page - b”
As noted by @AdamWargon above, the conversation is drifting pretty substantially from the original post and question. Please keep comments focused on that original question and avoid tangential topics (blurry pics, etc.). If the conversation has run its course, mods can set the topic timer to close soon.
Here, I examined observers and observations for a series of 35 weeks.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BI148ktWuLbOJhfbBaF3JOeqj299Y6UwYMr3D70024k/edit?usp=sharing
Based on data from the 25 weekends preceding the 2025 CNC, I created a correlation curve so I could then hypothesize what the observable values would have been according to that curve for the following ten weeks (the CNC weekend plus the nine subsequent weekends) in the absence of the CNC.
As you can see from the graphs, the anomalous trend after the CNC is fully confirmed; in fact, the sum of the real data for observer and observations is lower than the sum of the two with the projected data.
Regarding the interpretation of the data, there are a few things to clarify:
-
When we talk about “observers,” we don’t mean “new observers,” but the number of people who made at least one observation on iNaturalist during that weekend. This is a figure that certainly correlates with the overall number of people subscribed to iNaturalist, but it is also influenced by other factors.
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In particular, from observing the curves, there is clearly a seasonal wave pattern, with a minimum number of observations/observers in the winter season (the last weekend of December) that then begins to increase steadily. If we look at the June data, which has not been included in the graph for simplicity, we then see a decline, albeit much less marked, which is presumably related to the same period in the Southern Hemisphere (where, due to human distribution differences, there is presumably a proportionally smaller number of iNaturalist subscribers).
This being said, to put into perspective the comparison between the pairs of graphs, in my opinion the anomaly remains. That is, even assuming that the CNC period was originally chosen at the time of year when there are already more “active observers” on iNaturalist, the growth in the number of observations/observers after the peak could have gradually decreased after that date, but not exhibited such a sudden and abrupt change.
My local CNC covered three counties which include two cities, several satellite towns, and a lot of open space including an entire mountain range. Many opportunities to get out of the city and into rural areas without having to travel too far. But not all CNC “cities” are configured that way and I could see that some participants might not be able to get beyond an urban area.
Yes, very interesting graphs, thanks. Having just spent a half hour looking at UK Arthropods in CNC, I can see why CNC would put people off using iNaturalist for a while.
It was a hypothetical for IF we were to have badges. Since we don’t, of course it doesn’t happen yet.
I don’t understand the question.
If you mean “here” as in the forum, I’m pretty sure Gerald’s popularity was created by forum activity , (don’t worry, this link goes to the forum, not to Gerald himself) and of course he is still referenced in the forum & discord. If you mean “here” as in this topic, I was saying leaderboards can be helpful for finding people who can help resolve a Gerald.
Or Audio. Or Nature Journaling.
So not always reliant on photos at all.
If the observer does not feel their time was wasted, and the IDer appreciates the challenge, I don’t think it’s a waste of either’s time. I know I and other appreciate getting IDs on even our worst pics.
EDIT: Oops. Sorry, @Cthawley; I was off the forums for a day or so and focused on replies I missed instead of where we are now
I completely agree here.
I have made my speciality to observe in ditches, verges and edges, and the slower you go, the more you realise how much life is just there, waitin to be seen…
Sometimes I tell people about what I’ve seen and how many species I’ve seen, and they say, “Really? That many species? Right here?”
We were also part of nature at some point. We have not managed to eradicate wildlife from our surroundings, and we never will.
Also one issue I have is that people will be ready to support conservation causes of animals like the tiger, the panda, etc. but most of the endangered species in the world are much smaller creatures, which can have a much bigger impact on the environment.
The chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis is spreading across the world, causing up to 100% mortality in some frog species which it affects. And yet people will be much more willing to support the environmental cause if they feel that their efforts are “helping save the tiger” rather than “removing an invasive fungus”.
We might not be able to treat all nature as our equals, but we might as well treat all nature as equals.
The problem with CNC is that we are recording the same species over and over again. Conservation does not get benefitted. Neither does data. The amount of extant species described by 2024 is about 3.4 times the amount of species on iNat in 2026. By now the number has already increased. iNat kinda just records same species over and over again. It has almost started to bore me as an identifier. lol.
I’d really encourage you to consider things beyond what appears to be a very narrow frame of view. Yeah, it can be annoying to ID the same things over and over again, and it’s a lot for CNC, but big data of common species can be really helpful to track growth, phenology, etc. For example, the more data we have on when/where joshua trees (quite common in their range) are blooming and fruiting, the more we can understand climate change’s effects on them, and their very specific pollinators.