I tend to not post pictures of my collected insects, but sometimes I forget to take a picture before I catch it in the field. I have noticed that the location is marked inaccurate, even though I marked the location as the place where I collected said insect. On the other hand, I have noticed that other collectors–often those who are doing the collecting for a school project–will mark the location as their own home (One time someone uploaded a water bug in a location that has no water).
Is there a correct way iNat users should post collection photos and/or iNat users should deal with the research quality of collected observations?
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If the date and location reflect where the organism was collected (as opposed to the captive date/location where it was photographed) then the “Date is accurate” and “Location is accurate” quality metrics should be given a thumbs up.
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So do you also advocate the converse, that if date and location reflect where the photograph was taken (and it is a collected specimen), then “Date is accurate” and “Location is accurate” should be thumbs down? Only the first, live encounter with the organism “counts”?
Not always possible to tell, since they might have collected it in the area just outside the building…or inside.
For unlikely-to-have-been-collected-at-the-location/date specimens—e.g. organisms with specific habitat affinities with a GPS pinpoint inside of a large university building or a specimen that looks like it was collected years ago—yep, we should vote down location and/or date in the Data Quality Assessment area.
Since at this point users aren’t notified when those items are voted down, always best to leave a comment too.
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Thanks. I wonder if that needs to be spelled out more clearly as a policy somewhere in the user guidance information? Or have I just missed it before? The general “encounter between observer and organism” could apply to both the live and preserved scenarios of a specimen organism.
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It sort of is here, with “butterfly mounted in a display case” [unsaid “marked with date/location of the photo taken”] vs. “your museum/herbarium specimens that are appropriately marked with date and location of original collection”.
https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/help#captive
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Yeah, that addresses the Captive/Wild DQA, but not the Location and Date DQAs.
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