Description of need:
There have been continuing discussions on the iNat Forum on the appropriateness of adding old (non-museum) records from, say, family members who are no longer with us and whose observations pre-date iNaturalist–often by many years. An argument for such records, if of sufficient detail, is that they can be an important source of historical first-hand records. If they represented an interaction of an observer with nature in some (distant) past year, it is only the chronology of the arrival of iNaturalist which might be argued to set them in a different context than those of current observers. The sum total of such legacy observations is likely to be modest in comparision to contemporary uploads, but such contributions to the historical record might be proportioinally valuable.
Such a personal legacy account would be created in the name(s) of the original observer(s) and would be managed by a relevant interested party (e.g. living family member/friend) who would be responsible for its content and responses. Such accounts would be created separate from any personal account held by the present-day uploader.
Feature request details:
I suggest that such “Legacy Accounts” be allowed to be created and maintained by current iNat users as important data sets are found. The account would be in the name of (or a username appropriate to) the past observer; the management and contact info would be that of the present-day creator of the account. It will be important to have a banner or other header to clearly separate such accounts from those of current users, and it will be important to have an observer profile which provides further context (required, instead of optional). But otherwise the observation records would be treated just as any other records for purposes of IDs, confirmations, DQAs, data roll-ups, etc.
Other details for such Legacy Accounts would have to be worked out. For instance, the owner of the account would need to offer assurances that they have appropriate ownership/control of the original materials. An appropriate copyright level (hopefully, CC) would need to be established within any constraints of the estate, etc.
These would be a different type of account from those of iNaturalists who have passed since joining and uploading some observations. The latter accounts are maintained by iNat but there is usually no active management by a current user. At some point, perhaps it would be appropriate for these latter accounts (of iNatters who we have lost recently) to summarily become “Legacy Accounts” but they would need to be assured of having an active user for management (e.g. surviving family member, descendant, etc.).
For creating legacy accounts in another’s name it’s an interesting concept but I think that there would be ways to do this already without essentially creating a new account. For instance, tags or journal posts with links to observations- even projects if there’s a large dataset.
The concept would be rather interesting to see though as I mentioned. You could have as you’ve said, a special kind of account managed by somebody, but with limited features (e.g. no journal, no lists, no favourites, no ability to ID on other’s observations, purely to upload observations).
Some of the limitations you mention seem appropriate, but I can imagine that having journal posts available to the current account manager would allow for notes on the variety of datasets, itineraries, etc., etc., to provide more context for sets of the legacy observations. E.g.,
“Trip to Florida, 1954”
“My grandfather Frederick Birder made a visit to southern Florida from June 3-15, 1954, in part to examine potential retirement locations. He took the opportunity to photograph some birds in Everglades before returning home to Illinois.”
I generally like the concept. I think there might also need to be coding to prevent the manager’s personal account and the Legacy account from both adding IDs to any observation, to prevent sock-puppet behavior.
This is analogous to situations where an individual with a personal account also manages a separate organizational account, which iNaturalist currently allows. Such accounts are currently on the honor system to refrain from sock-puppet behavior, but maybe such dual accounts need to be more formally linked so that the system can detect and prevent such behavior.
The problem with having the “legacy” observations in the “manager’s” iNaturalist account is that they all get displayed as having been observed and copyrighted by the manager, and not by the actual legacy observer.
Thomas, although iNat exists to encourage people to get out and interact with nature, it is, by its very existence and structure, a de facto repository for the documentation of those interactions. I regard the distinction of past, present, and future records as secondary to the accumulation of this natural history database in its entirety.
Counter-argument: Where is there an integrated, all-encompassing, public repository for those valuable older records? iNat would seem to be the best and most logical repository to make such records available for future researchers.
I’m fairly sure iNaturalist doesn’t want to get in the business of determining whether the person in charge of the account has the right to use the photos. However, I don’t think that’s necessary. Require that the relationship be explained – how the person doing the posting got the photos and the rights to use them. Then leave it alone unless somebody fusses. Then delete the account.
To prevent sockpuppets, I think it’s important that the legacy account be prohibited from identifying or commenting on any accounts but the one legacy account itself. Also, the legacy account can’t comment on the forum – can’t even get there.
I’m only familiar with GBIF tangentially through iNat’s collaboration with that entity as a member organization. I’m not seeing a direct data input portal to GBIF for non-institutional datasets (e.g. from common folk). Their page “Become a member” indicates:
"The GBIF Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) defines members’ formal relationships with the network. Under the terms of the MOU, Participants can be
a country
an economy
an intergovernmental or international organization
an organization with an international scope"
And this structure brings us back to iNaturalist as an appropriate entry point for a diversity of contributors of data to GBIF.
I think there should be ways to do this, as well as post data from other forms of datasets. I know inaturalist ‘isn’t a data repository’ but it’s also the best data respository out there, as mentioned in that past blog post about all the observations. If we’ve got the best biodiversity database in the world (albeit with awful taxonomic issues) why not continue to advance that? In my mind this is another issue of iNat not really being able to decide what it is. In terms of taxonomy you are basically forced to use fringe classifications that don’t match what most people use to ‘match the science’ but when an opportunity comes to gather wonderful scientific data, the site goes back to ‘it’s not for data, it’s for connecting people with nature’. At least make up your mind one way or another. A site that’s obsessed with up to the minute taxonomic changes should also be a place that wants as much good data as possible.
While I, of course, agree that historical observations can be both interesting and valuable, I’m not in favor of legacy accounts (or other mechanisms that allow users to have >1 account outside of the already established situations).
I won’t repeat those aspects but will note some additional issues:
Providing something like a legacy account would require an additional set of guidelines and complexity to moderate. At a minimum, the following questions would need to be answered (and then handled by curators):
What level of relation to a person would be needed to qualify for eligibility for this account? Relative, friend, random person?
What type of evidence is required (or not) for this relationship, and how is this assessed and/or enforced?
Is evidence of permission to post photos or sounds required, and, if so, how is it documented?
Would iNat’s licensing system need to be changed to accommodate these types of accounts, and, if so, how?
How many legacy accounts are allowed for a single user?
I think these types of accounts would attract a lot of interest from some users who would upload large quantities of observations like this that would be a lot of work for curators/moderators to deal with. It’s likely that some users would be so interested in the historical aspects, that they’d enter their “best guesses” for location and date without accounting for uncertainty well, leading to inaccurate historical observations. iNat’s current system doesn’t really allow for observations with dates over a range of years and the mechanisms for correctly entering uncertain locations are obscure. This type of account would also be open to all sorts of other abuse (posting photos that aren’t one’s own or that one doesn’t have permission to post), all of which curators/moderators would need to handle.
More specifically, if these accounts could add IDs or comment, they could cause serious issues with sockpuppetry or even well-meaning mistakes/double votes (user is logged into one account when they thought they were logged into another, etc) where 1 user appears to be >1. If these accounts are allowed, I think that they would need to be restricted to only interacting with their own observations - no other functionality at all. Dealing with sockpuppets and multiple accounts is already a serious problem that is very difficult for curators (and even staff) to handle, and this type of account has the potential to magnify the issue.
I think the sockpuppetry could be deal with in the programing – simply prohibit commenting and ID’s on any observations not part of the legacy account.
For the legitimacy of the heirs (or whoever) setting up the accounts, I think iNaturalist’s liability would be limited by requiring the heirs to answer some questions about their relationship and if there’s a question taking the account down (or at least hiding it pending resolution) if there is conflict. Doesn’t seem too bad a problem.
I would add that legacy accounts should categorically not be able to opt out of community ID, since there easily might be nobody watching them to update the content when a taxonomy update happens.
yes, and if they are legacy accounts, they shouldn’t be allowed to ID or do data quality assessment on others’ accounts either. Those should be linked to an actual person. There’s no case of someone’s deceased relative adding an ID to someone else’s observations, unless someone enables them with an ouigi board or something :D
You are confusing membership of GBIF and data contributers to GBIF. They are different things. Members (Participants) of GBIF are part of the governance structure. iNaturalist is not a member of GBIF, it is a contributer. Theoretically anybody can directly contribute data to GBIF, although iit is easier for individuals to do that via an existing contibuter, like iNaturalist
Totally agree, @charlie. If there is a desire or need to cross-reference legacy observations with more recent offerings, that could always be done under the contemporary account of the person managing that legacy account.
Say, for instance, someone rediscovers and uploads a new observation of an Eskimo Curlew. A useful note that I might add (as @gcwarbler) might be something to the effect of “The only other record of this species in South Dakota appears to be my grandfather’s observation of this species in the same location back in 1954. See [this observation] from [MyGrandfather’s legacy account].”