We need - a new DQA - Duplicate - which automatically goes to Casual and takes it out of the Needs ID queue. Until the issue is resolved by the observers.
If we had an appropriate DQA, we would target the ‘stolen’ photo (which would anyway be Flag for Copyright Infringement).
We have a residue of the workarounds at Life plus good as can be - where we can now apply the DQA for Single Subject NOT. Which can be found via https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/the-community-taxon-is-as-good-as-it-can-be
I hope for a similar DQA for Duplicates solution from iNat. Some identifiers just ID all the duplicates and triplicates - but that is a wasted effort for our very limited pool of active identifiers.
Some of the multiple uploads will be due to poor internet connection. Some are newbies finding their way.
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/duplicate-prevention-notify-observers-if-their-image-checksums-match-others-on-the-site/258
Open Feature Request with 95 votes
PS if iNat would make it possible to move ‘Duplicate Flag’ to ‘New Duplicate DQA’ - that would make it work better going forward.
PPS if you have found the duplicate, please leave that Other Obs link in a comment, while you are working on those obs.