Hidden IDs Reemerge After Taxon Swap

Bug Reports
1

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Description of problem (please provide a set of steps we can use to replicate the issue, and make as many as you need.):

I stumbled across an observation where a previously hidden ID “reemerged” after a taxon swap. The initially hidden ID was one of several intentionally incorrect IDs left by a user, likely to harass. The taxon chosen for the incorrect ID was involved in a recent taxon swap. This caused a new incorrect ID to be added to the observation due to the automatic update feature of the swap, essentially allowing the previously hidden ID to “escape.”

HidingTaxonSwapBug
HidingTaxonSwapBug1472Ă—1754 276 KB

I hid the “escaped” new incorrect ID, but was only notified because I had previously left a comment.

It would be better if the system were designed in such a way that hidden IDs couldn’t “reemerge” in situations like this. I’m not sure the best way to accomplish that, but there are at least two possibilities:

  1. The IDs could still be swapped, but the new system-generated IDs would be hidden automatically. This probably isn’t perfect, because it might look like the user continued to harass by adding another hidden ID when they did not.
  2. Hidden IDs could not update at all/be exempted, though there might be problems with this too (I can’t think of any specific ones myself).
3 Likes
2

Once a curator has hidden an ID - for good reason - it should STAY hidden.

3

I think I prefer fix #2

I tried to imagine any potential problems with that approach and the best I could come up with was a scenario along the following lines.

  1. User 1 adds an ID in good faith.
  2. Curator A hides the ID because they believe it meets criteria.
  3. Curator B commits a taxon swap affecting the hidden ID, which is not updated or replaced and stays hidden.
  4. Curator A, B or C realizes that hiding the ID was a mistake and unhides it, but it remains for the pre-swap taxon.

This seems very much an edge case (and something User 1 could fix by withdrawing the old ID and adding the new one). If an automated fix was needed, it could be implemented as a check within the “unhide” functionality. I doubt this is really needed though.

1 Like
4

I agree that this could be an issue with option #2, though that it would be very rare. I think I only have seen 2-3 hidden IDs reversed.

1 Like
7

I made a github issue here: https://github.com/inaturalist/inaturalist/issues/4276

2 Likes
8

It’s not a big deal even then, just like if someone has opted out of taxon swaps, right? So they’d have to be tagged/manually fix it.

Anyway it’s hopefully a really niche edge case, when a decision to hide is reversed it’s usually probably reversed relatively quickly, and hopefully taxon swaps aren’t happening often enough for it to get caught in the middle.

1 Like