Flag a user

[tiwane]

I’m not for adding the ability to flag a user, their content should be flagged. Site curators can already search for a user’s flags and quickly see if there’s a pattern. I’m hoping this functionality can be added to make it easier to do that.

@jwidness

I don’t always feel comfortable calling out other users

I totally hear you, it’s not something everyone wants to do, nor should they be required to do it. You can always email help@inaturalist.org if you notice a pattern. I’d like to take another look at splitting curator roles, for which I wrote a functional spec a while ago. We could then have a list of site (not forum) moderators that can be contacted.

Throwing out another idea, not sure if it’s a good one, but what if X number of user’s contributions are flagged as inappropriate, or copyright violation, some sort of “merits investigation” alert can be made on the /flags page, or sent to help@inat.

@jdmore

I would be curious to know from @tiwane how much this might alleviate the current help email workload for user issues by spreading it to the larger curator community?

I’m not sure this would make an impact one way or another. Most emails to help@inat are about technical issues, taxonomy, etc.

@vynbos

I’ve been noticing more and more flags by users who have flagged without making any effort to draw the issue to the flagged user’s attention. Perhaps it isn’t the job of each and every user to help other users or correct other user’s mistakes, but I feel that we all need to engage with other users to some degree if we want the site to ‘work’ .

Agreed, although as @bouteloua says this takes up a lot of time. BTW, I love the Frequently Used Responses wiki that @bouteloua, @charlie, @carriseltzer and others have created, I keep it as a pinned tab on my browser. :-) Any curator can add to it.

@kestrelhaven

Now horrible cell phone photos should be disallowed as identification is most often impossible and thus just taking up valuable space…

I think it’s important to remember that no one is obligated to upload an identifiable photo, and I believe the vast majority of those who do this are likely just making a mistake. Observations are not just uploaded solely so they can provide identifiers with something to identify, they’re often someone’s first steps venturing into the world of nature documentation and engagement. Skip these if you want, but you can also write an encouraging or helpful comment telling them how to take a better photo next time. As far as I know, the amount of storage these photos take up is pretty minimal.

[scharf]

Someone is posting images of plastic flowers. I commented on 4 of them that they were plastic and tagged them as “no evidence of organism” before flagging a fifth. The plastic flowers are maybe about 10% or less of the person’s observations. Any ideas about what to do in this case?

[bouteloua]

I left a comment on the flag.

[tiwane]

I’m going to close this request, I think a moderation notes functionality would be more useful in the long run, and flags should be limited to taxa and content produced by users.