Sometimes, an observer will upload one or more landscape photos, and clearly states that the photo(s) are there to document a particular landscape (landscape or vegetation type). In other words, they have no intent that the photo be identified for any particular organism. I’m strongly hesitant to …

We have many discussions across the forum. Before, during and after the DQA for Not A Single Subject. Your obs has 3 pictures - bunny, badger and bat = Not a single subject. Bunny, badger and bat are posing for a family photo - presuming they chose the best photo, the DQA is greyed out. Any iNat pho…

[image] yongestation: But if they explicitly tell you they don’t want any species IDed it seems reasonable to respect that wish and leave your ID at kingdom or what have you. I am reading it more like this: Observer states “photo showing bog habitat” or “photo showing mesic woods” in the not…

[image] roadside_rambler: going against the observer by identifying something in it first This feels like a non-issue to me, though. Why would it be preferable to the observer for the observation’s ID to be “Unknown” rather than, say, “Vascular Plants”, if it’s a landscape photo that they are…

You may be right. I was just sort of restating what I believed the OP’s hesitation to be about. (I may or may not be correct.) I actually have no opinion one way or the other on whether that’s “okay” to do or not. It seems mildly against guidelines, but also harmless and probably the best way to…

I would distinguish between ‘beautiful scenery’ landscape - not the focus of iNat = Casual and no thank you. And various scientists who are deliberately using iNat for vegetation mapping. A broader focus than iNat’s What sp ? But reasonable to want a way to record that info. With a (new) landscape …

Would it be helpful if inaturalist made it easier for people to upload habitat / landscape photos into the project journal and that could then be promoted as a place for people to put none id pictures ?

If we can upload cats, dogs and potted plants as Casual. I don’t see why a wide view of vegetation / habitat should not be a valid obs. Not RG to sp, but still useful info to that circle of observers. They need the date and location data, not ‘pretty picture’ storage. https://www.inaturalist.org/pr…

ah , so you can use an inaturalist project to record habitat types / condition and not need identifiers . altho maybe i guess not how inaturalist intended it to be used. would having a separate search box for habitat / landscape pictures { as with species } be going too far .

[image] templebalsall: ah , so you can use an inaturalist project to record habitat types / condition and not need identifiers . altho maybe i guess not how inaturalist intended it to be used. No, please do not use iNaturalist for this. See: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/about [image] A…

I’ve come across it enough in dealing with Unknowns that I posted about it here.

Dealing with “landscape” photos when the observer clearly intended it as a landscape photo

General

spiphany January 29, 2026, 7:51am 29

Can surely be ID’d as an Angiosperm

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Dealing with “landscape” photos when the observer clearly intended it as a landscape photo

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