Is there any chance that we can please have a way that curators can mark observers that have died, so that it shows on their profile (a simple cross would be OK)?
We have quite a few in our southern African community, and I suspect that they are getting messages, in addition to the requests on their observations as comments. (I have inadvertently added questions to some users that I should have known were deceased, but was kindly reminded by other users).
As time progresses, there are going to be more and more āghostsā on iNaturalist.
Ideally a date (year only) of deceased would be nice too on the profile, and just a cross on their icon on the observations.
I like this idea but weāll have to figure out a protocol for how to determine the user has passed. Iāll look into how other social networks handle it (if they do).
Yes, I agree that this feature is needed, and I also agree that there should at least be dual confirmation by curators, if not stronger vetting.
I also think there should be a short waiting period before it goes into effect. (Not too many communications should accumulate after a week or twoā¦) Over the years Iāve received a few āfalse alarmsā in my email, and a short waiting period would avoid disturbing folks whose reported deaths have been greatly exaggerated.
You will probably also need to figure out where you stand if an heir should come along and assert ownership over the old account.
I support this (but would rather not use a cross, unless we specifically know that person wanted it). One of my friends from grad school had unfortunately passed away and iād been hoping to get something on her account saying that she was deceased, but thereās no way to do so now. It could just say ādeceasedā though weād need to make sure any translations are very careful.
We also have a case where fans and followers create an account in honour of someone. (https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/roddy-ward)
So a ādeadā account is not necessarily closed - it might still be in use for various reasons (e.g. uploading unfinished observations).
If someone wants to continue an ancestorās account and has the password, it should be their choice to remove the ādagger of deathā. Or explain their use in the profile. If they have access to the account via the password.
That article also says āThe dagger should not be confused with the Unicode characters āLatin crossā (, U+271D), ā¦ā if that makes any difference to this discussion.
I donāt see an issue with having (deceased) or something like that instead though, except that it would be something more that needs translating.
Sometimes people give a list of their social media and other passwords to the person designated to take care of their affairs after death, with instructions to end their online presence at that time to keep their accounts from being misused. Iām just bringing this up because it would seem to tie in to the whole ādeleted accountsā discussion and the disappearance of all of their previous observations and IDs, and those may be unintended consequences. I donāt have any suggestions, just thinking that an option of making previous observations and IDs anonymous may become more important as people age and die.
Donāt know if this has come up on previous threads, but would it be possible to give people the choice of whether they want their obs to be deleted, set to anonymous, or left attributed to them? And whether they want their obs to continue to be updated and improved? Both for people who arrange their affairs prior to deceasing or those who choose to leave?
It seems like a terrible waste of precious data to make it all unavailable, and over time we will all die or leave, meaning that the database would continually lose its historyā¦
Iād test it to see what it currently does but donāt want to delete my account by mistake.
