what level of observation might be the limits of reasonable usefulness? examples: every species in a 100 square meter area every individual in a 100 square meter area every ant hill in a backyard. every ant in a hill what is actually useful, not necessarily in these specific examples, but in gen…

I did not see the pre-edited comment so I cannot comment on that. However, I will say that I agree with your comment. That level of duplication in observations for one particular area is huge waste of identifier’s time, a massive waste of storage, makes using iNat data a pain in the butt for anyone …

Useful for whom? I’ve been involved in projects where every species and individual organism (within reason… microorganisms are usually left out) in a small area (usually a couple of meters) is identified, and others where a random sample of organisms is taken from an area a few square kilometers or…

For data that is intended as your own personal record, one possibility might be to create observations without media. Observations without photos or audio are automatically “casual” (because they lack evidence that would allow the ID to be verified), so they won’t be displayed in searches for verifi…

The multiple moose posts may be a waste of time, but it is mainly a waste of his time. There is no obligation to put an agreement on all 1278. I would just let him get on with it and look forward to the insight into moose ecology that his data analysis will produce.

remember not every track is identical, not every track is from the same animal, every pile of dung is different, every scrape on a tree is still data… to you it may look like useless repetition, but somebody who is studying these things will probably see it as a gold mine of data that would otherwis…

There’s no right or wrong in this regard unless you adding misleading info, or like 20 pictures of the same the thing taken exactly after each other as 20 observations… but with date, the more, the merrier… when people do research they know how to interpret the data from the pictures so they will pi…

every species in a 100 square meter area is very enough for distributional records of ants, multiple individuals could be put in one obs. regarding ants

As others have touched on, anything can be “useful” for the right project. However, if you’re not running your own project/study and are instead focusing on uploading data that you hope will be useful to others, I’d suggest that your #1 is the most broadly useful for several reasons: It probably …

I think #1 is more than reasonable, it’s pretty similar to what I strive for when I iNat in a small location. #2 is a bit more case-specific. If a flock of 200 starlings were to fly over your house, you could make 1, 2, heck, I could even understand the reasoning behind up to 5 observations for mem…

Excessive observing?

General

deboas November 12, 2023, 9:49am 22

Just in case you aren’t aware of this, you can choose to mute a particular user, which might be a helpful option in a case like this.

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Excessive observing?

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