I enjoy searching for species, especially birds, in places I plan to visit or would like to visit. However, I’ve noticed more and more often that multiple observations show not only the same species (which is completely fair) but the same individual (sometimes it is uploaded also with a different location).
Sometimes, it can be disheartening because these observers rank higher in the stats of best observers of the species, even though they might have seen the individual a couple of times in the same location. This results in that location being marked as a “hotspot” for that species on iNaturalist.
Is there anything we can do to change this?
For now, the best solution from my point of view is to ask the observer to delete one of the duplicate observations. However, this is a lengthy process for both me and the person who has to review their observations, combine the photos, and delete the excess observation.
Other than this, perhaps a new feature could be added. By pressing a button near the picture, iNaturalist could ask the observer to review their observations because someone believes there are duplicates. This feature could include a small text box for the reviewer to explain their reasons and provide links to the other observations.
I’m not sure if this is a common problem in the community or if there are other discussions about this topic (after a brief search, I found some discussions that touched on similar issues but never addressed this specific “problem”)
In short, duplicates are indeed annoying, but the best coarse of action is to leave a polite comment and move on.
My go-to copy and paste is:
Is this the same individual as [this observation](link here)? If so, please combine all photos into a single observation. There are tips for combing your observations here: how to turn multiple observations into a single observation. If this is a different individual, then separate observations as you have them is fine.
I adjust some of the wording if it is clearly the same individual, such as the same photo being used for both observations.
Some of the wording here is ambiguous, so I’m uncertain if you are referring to observations of the same individual over multiple visits/days or multiple observations of the same individual on the same day. The former is a valid procedure, and the latter is not. From the FAQ’s What is an observation?:
if you take multiple pictures of the same organism during the same encounter, please combine them into a single observation. If you revisit that organism later […] you should make a separate observation because it was observed on a different date.
As a note, iNat data doesn’t equate to and shouldn’t be translated as abundance data.
Different location - use DQA - Location is not accurate - which makes it casual.
For an actual duplicate - the same photo - I use (this is not in the guidelines)
See also (insert link to other obs)
please delete one of them
Please don’t ID duplicates - they need to be deleted by the observer
See Observation Field - Duplicates Observation
(We need a new DQA - duplicate - same info all the way = Casual)
For this is the same bird, but from a different angle and shows more field marks - I use this, which IS within iNat guidelines
If the same individual is seen by different observers using different pics, there is no issue.
If the same pic is uploaded by different observers without permission, this is an issue, and all but the original pic can be flagged for copyright. Occasional user of others’ pics with permission is allowed but not encouraged.
If an observer uploads the same pic in multiple observations with different times/locations, those observations with different date/time/location can be addressed with the DQA (downvote Location is Accurate or Date is Accurate as necessary).
If an observer uploads the same pic with the same date/time/location in multiple observations, you can leave a comment asking them to delete all but one observation, but otherwise nothing needs to be done (despite the duplicate being annoying).
If an observer uploads different pics of the same individual organism with the same date/time/location, you can leave a comment asking them to group all pics of the same individual into one observation, but otherwise nothing needs to be done (despite the duplicate being annoying).
If a user continues to upload large quantities of duplicates despite comments asking them not to/instructing on better use, this could be flagged for curators to look into.
If the field marks are scattered across various obs - which, because they are scattered, may attract various different IDs = lots of extra work for burnt out identifiers.
The identifier asks - does it have a red chest, blue feet, a long curved beak ?? While that info is scattered across iNat.
Because I ignore audio clips, my iNat use is visual. Wait! I have already IDed that one … yup = Duplicate, sometimes even 3 or 4.
Presence data is unavoidably biased by the observers and how busy they are. If they’re going to the same spot every day and observing the same bird each time, it’s valid for those all to be separate observations (and I don’t think you should be bugging them into deleting them).
I don’t think it’s wrong for a place that one very dedicated person visits regularly to end up as a hotspot for a particular species, because we don’t really have a better rigorous definition of hot spot. Clearly the spot is hot enough that someone can be bothered to go there every day and make all those observations…
The other side of the split vs lump for multiple images is what if you watch a butterfly or cicada emerge over several hours? You might well get interesting things to see that merit different observations and stringing them all into one kind of breaks the “point in time” assumption about observations.
I split this one into four, roughly corresponding to time slices when I paid attention and took photos vs. taking a break, then linked them all in the descriptions: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/213834598
I think this can be an issue if someone wants to use the data for research purposes. In these case, it would be necessary, and probably feasible, to gather all the observations of the same species placed in a circle of n meters radius.
In other cases, maybe, it could be better to leave this issue behind as there are far more serious ones. By the way, I usually identify just one of these repeated observations of the same species in the same place.
I’ve never see more than a few duplicates of a single individual by the same observer on the same date. If it “wastes my time” then it is only seconds.
I usually identify only one observation too, but there is the risk that the other observation will be identified in another way and maybe both will get the Research Level.
7 obs of the one bird - 7 IDs by others - could have taken 6 other obs to RG instead.
Ultimately it comes down to where identifiers choose to spend their iNat time, and trying to get obs out of the Needs ID pool for the next identifier.
I Mark as Reviewed and push to Casual (within guidelines)
If it’s the same individual on the same date at the same place, all the photos should be placed in a single observation. Here’s somebody’s copypasta that I’ve used to deal with this: "Hi, it looks like photos of this organism are uploaded as separate observations. On iNaturalist, multiple photos of one organism taken at the same time and in the same place should all be uploaded as one observation. If you have accidentally uploaded images as separate observations when they should really be combined into one, here is a tutorial which tells you how to combine them: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/how-to-turn-multiple-observations-into-a-single-observation/9838 "
If they’re exact duplicates, I ID and go on. Sometimes make a comment that they’re duplicates and one should be removed, but that takes more time.
I think it’s really helpful to ID all the duplicates or all the different observations of one individual because after IDing one I can do the rest quickly and that reduces the time other IDers need to spend on them. Of course, sometimes that gets annoying.
If they’re photos of the same individual organism observed on different days, it is nice to add a link between the observations. I usually do that in a comment that gives the observation # or URL of all those in the series, but I think there’s a more efficient way that others know about.
For me, a major difficulty of photos of a single plant being posted as different observation is that very often I need to see more than one structure for the identification. If they’re in different observations, I never get them together so I can’t make the ID or I can’t ID all of them.
Even if all the photos are identifiable individually, identifying each one (and maybe annotating it and/or adding it to a relevant project) is a waste of identifier time, a resource we don’t have enough of on iNaturalist.
I had an experience last year where someone doing a pollinator study posted separate observations for each photo, resulting in 50-100 observations per observation session, often with 4-5 duplicates of each individual. Because the observer was relying on very rudimentary bee knowledge and the CV, most of the observations were mis-ID’d.
It was fairly stressful for me and I suspect also for the other active bee IDers in the area, because we found ourselves confronted with large volumes of mis-ID’d observations that needed to be corrected. If they had simply been duplicates with a general ID, we could have ID’d the clearest photos, noted that the others were duplicates, asked the observer to fix, and skipped them. But because there were wrong IDs, we ended up looking at the often blurry photos from odd angles, comparing observations and trying to figure out which photos belonged together in order to suggest an appropriate ID. During a time of year when we can hardly keep up with the flood of observations as it is, this was extremely frustrating and took up valuable time that could have been used more constructively.
I am new to this forum. Although I am 84, and have been photographing nature most of my adult life, I only started submitting my photographs to iNaturalist about a year and a half ago.
I am not sure I have this straight. I have had a practice of submitting multiple pictures of the same species seen in the same location and on the same date onto the same observation. This link shows and example of that.https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/228525153
Am I doing it right?
packwood40
Ideally, all the pics in the observation would all be the same individual bird. If they are all the same species but the same individual isn’t present in all pics, this isn’t ideal, but it will work out. I can’t tell in your observation whether the same individual is present in all pics, but it looks like at least some of them show the same individual.
So, in short, if the same individual is present in all pics, even if there are other individuals of the same species present, it’s good!
If there are pics that don’t have the same individual in them, they should be in separate observations. There’s generally no issue with making a few observations for different individuals at the same time/place/location (just don’t make 100!). In fact, sometimes this is very useful as they can show different life stages, sexes, phenology, etc.