I’ve had this question for a while. And I believe some other curators share this uncertainty as well.
Regarding inappropriate human observations, there are certain violations that are unambiguous. I’m specifically asking about those with hand gestures, the finger to be even more specific. I know it’s up to interpretation to an extent, whether the gesture seems to be targeting someone in the frame (like a recent one where some young users seemed to be aiming it at a police officer), or if it is just a ‘joke’. I’ve seen different approaches to this from different curators. There are instances when we just hide; there are those when we ID as Human and ask users to ignore when it seems to be ‘harmless’ or one of the first observations of a new user (that’s what I’ve tended to do lately), and leave a comment to the observer. There’s also the norm of hiding human observations that are flagged.
I know the gesture can be inappropriate to some while not so for others, culturally as well. I personally don’t see it as offensive when not targeting anyone but I still feel obligated to value how the flagger felt. At times, it feels like it might just be easiest to hide but that can be a slippery slope.
I’m asking others’ opinion here to be consistent in my own moderation on the site.
I have been taking the Curator Guide at face value and hiding any flagged observation of a human.
August 29, 2023: Because observations of humans are tolerated on iNaturalist but are not important to the site, flagged photos depicting humans should be hidden. We will re-evaluate this policy moving forward, if it results in abuse of the flagging/hiding system or becomes overwhelming for curators.
Since they are (if correctly identified) automatically Casual with obscured location, I tend to ignore them unless they violate a specific iNaturalist policy, such as those noted in that same “Hiding Photos” section of the Curator Guide.
I’ve expressed my views on specific matters elsewhere, but I’ll just note here that the inconsistency between curators in dealing with flagged human observations has been quite frustrating for me and is why I’ve largely stopped moderating such content.
On the previous thread - when tiwane began to deliberately hide offensive human pictures, IDs and comments - he leant towards hiding when in doubt. Someone can find that thread with his content ? I had one poor teacher trying to eat her lunch in peace, candid photo stuffing her face - not for iNat thanks. And nasty pictures of kids looking angry, or sad, or trying to hid their face.
Chris, I understand the frustration fully. Not least because I’ve read through several other threads (over the years and recently while looking for answers to this specific question), and staff’s response as well. I’ve seen how complicated it can get.
We get more new users this time of year, and more of these ‘jokey’ observations. Hiding when in doubt is probably the (near-term) way to go.
For me, I would add more generally that inconsistency in following the Curator Guide is continually frustrating. I hope staff will eventually put their feet down harder on that. As a curator, if I don’t like something the Curator Guide is saying I should do (or not do), it’s not my place to substitute my own personal policy. My options are to follow guidelines, to raise the issue in an appropriate forum and try to get the policy changed, or to not curate in that area.
The written guidelines ideally protect all of us from accusations of arbitrary or capricious action, but only if we stick to them, including for moderating observations of humans.
I do not recall where I saw it, but I thought someone (@tiwane maybe? Sorry if it wasn’t you) raised concerned about so called “joke” photos where people post photos of their friends or random people on the site, and the photo subjects have no idea they are on the site. Sometimes the observations notes may be bullying-ish as well, but not always. I have flagged a few observations for this, and the photo’s been hidden by the curator and the observation isn’t needed to be labeled merely as “human.” I think this is particularly a concern if there are minors in the photos.
The curator guide differentiates between “Curse words used as an insult (eg “You little shit.”),” which are not okay, and curse words “not used in an insulting or obscene manner (eg “Holy shit, that’s cool!”),” which are okay.
Is it reasonable to employ a similar approach with hand gestures? Not an exact parallel, but I’m thinking along the lines of:
an inappropriate gesture directed at a seagull in the midst of stealing someones lunch, or a patch of a frustratingly invasive plant (maybe more okay?),
vs
the same gesture seemingly directed at a person (not okay)
There’s precedent for doing it exactly this way even if the curator guide doesn’t spell it out explicitly. I recall several observations where a plant gets flipped off that get flagged again and again, but then resolved.
When we can figure out from the images that it was directed at someone (like the example in my post which you know of too), I think we should go ahead and flag (even if not flagged) and hide. When these are selfies or photos of friends who respond with the gesture more as a joke and not because they don’t want to be photographed, it gets a bit unclear what to do. And that in essence is my question.
Again, when someone flags even these images, we should hide based on policy that flagged human observations ought to be hidden. When they aren’t flagged, should we ID as human and move on, or do we flag these ourselves. Do we read these as a plant being flipped off or as something '“that is potentially offensive to someone”, and I’ve seen that being cited as a reason.
I don’t mean to be splitting hairs about this but we see enough of these instances.
There was some debate on this flag (link removed by moderator) about where the line is for hiding potentially offensive photos. While the nature of the photo wasn’t the same — there was apparently a sign with some sort of sexual language — I’m wondering if tiwane’s rationale for hiding may apply to hand gestures as well?
In general, public content (and especially a photo, which shows up in search results, unlike a comment, for example) should be at around the appropriateness level of a public museum talk.
Unsure about other parts of the world, but in the United States, “the finger” very much fails that test of appropriateness.
Hi, we don’t post links to specific content people think may be inappropriate or otherwise wrong. I removed the link in your post. On the forum, please use general rather than specific examples.