Platform(s): website, I think URLs: mostly https://www.inaturalist.org/flags , but also any place where content can be flagged Description of need: As of now, content (in various contexts) can be flagged as spam copyright infringement inappropriate other Also, some people upload the same conten…

I agree with @marina_gorbunova that there’s more than 1 type of duplicate observation… and while you may only get flags for the duplicate PHOTO type (IDed as same organism), other curators may also see flags for both types/definitions.

This really would solve every problem about this. Adding another Data Quality Assessment of something like “Is this a duplicate of other observation?” with a short explanation of what duplicate means would fix this issue.

DQA vote was requested for a long time, it seems staff is more into a flag than it, though I’m all for it.

I think iNat is against deleting anything without user’s will, of course if I would decide I would like to see duplicates deleted as well as fully blank records, I would like to see number of observations being true and now it seems it’s just a way to get them higher.

When I asked to offer an annotation for both sexes or for multiple species, I was told to just duplicate the observation with a different ID or annotation Now they’re requesting for such a thing to be flagged and removed?

No, different specimens are not duplicates.

Let’s say that I took a photograph of two plovers and a curlew, so I uploaded the plover’s observation twice, once for the male and one for the female and then I uploaded the same observation, for the curlew. Would that not be seen as flaggable by him? I also saw another observation posted multiple …

Each specimen by default should be in a different observation, it doesn’t always happen, but that’s how iNat expects users to upload, in all cases with multiple specimens/species observer for clarity it’s better to write in the description which specimen is ided (or add markers to the photo), there’…

I see, that can be a problem especially that there’s already a feature allowing several images of the same specimen in the observation I am relating it to what I’ve been told when I requested ID for more than one species or if both genders were present in the observation, which is why I see it not …

That’s a different type of duplicate, you describe what can be done with a special button, so your valid observations shouldn’t be affected by all of this, different species can’t be duplicates in a “unwanted” sense.

Create a flag category for duplicate observations

Feature Requests

Topic		Replies	Views
Curator Guide, Policy on "Duplicate" Flags: Let's Change It? Curators	28	972	June 20, 2025
What is the appropriate response/action for a user uploading multiple duplicate images, organisms? General question	25	3438	September 17, 2021
Create a way to flag duplicate observations and remove RG status from the extras Feature Requests	53	7186	July 11, 2019
How to deal with a user with numerous duplicate observations? General question	49	1361	November 3, 2025
How can you treat multiple observations that depict the same individual? General	31	1255	September 28, 2024

Create a flag category for duplicate observations

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