I’m going to branch out with the minority view here:
I’m not sure what we’re worried about with a peer-review process or people deleting disagreements. The feature request is not to remove community IDs (which users can already opt out of!) but to delete unwanted comments on their observations. We’ve seen dozens of cases where observations become the thread of some tangential or personal intramural dispute, and it’s the user’s prerogative to shut that down whether they are invested in the discussion or not. This policy disenfranchises users from moderating content on observations within their own authorship, posted under their own name.
User A Post: Blue Whale
User B Comment: “That appears to be a pet canid.”
User A Deletes User B’s Comment Out Of Spite
User B Identification: Domestic Dog
User A Comment: “RETRACT YOUR IDETNIFICATION”
User B: …
User C Identification: Domestic Dog
User D Identification: Domestic Dog
I think malicious comment deletions would be rare and inconsequential, and far outweighed by the responsibility and consequence of having undesirable content on one’s own observation. This is similar to previous discussions about account deletions, regarding which iNat had decided to allow users to delete their content if they want. With the policy being proposed, users can delete their whole content or nothing, aside from creating extra bureaucratic work for our hard-working volunteer curators.