Typically if an individual posts a duplicate I will do something to mark one as casual and leave a comment suggesting its removal. What do you do if people were together and both post the thing?
Does it matter?
Links removed by moderator. Please don’t posts links calling out behavior of other users.
iNat’s Help covers this: https://help.inaturalist.org/en/support/solutions/articles/151000175911-what-should-i-do-about-duplicate-observations-
Users should not do anything simply to make duplicate observations casual grade. Doing things like adding an unsupported DQA vote or similar would be violations of iNat’s Community Guidelines, and doing this repeatedly could lead to suspension.
Leaving a polite comment explaining that all photos of a single encounter with an organism should be one observation is good, and polite requests to combine and/or delete one of the observations are fine.
Duplicates should also not be flagged.
If users use the same photo as someone else without permission, one can be flagged for copyright. If two users independently observe the same organism, this isn’t a duplicate.
Oh… Oops. Thank you!
For duplicates I copypasta. Does not offend against any iNat guidelines, and all the relevant info is there and searchable.
See also (include the other obs link)
please delete one of them
Please don’t ID duplicates - they need to be deleted by the observer
See Observation Field - Duplicates Observation
What is a duplicate observation?
If two people photograph the same tree, does that mean one person’s older historical observation is a problem?
When the same observer uploads the same observation more than once. Often, it is an oversight – they forgot that they had already uploaded it.
The example that was given was of the exact same photo used to show the same individual by 2 different users which is copyright infringement for one observation.
I wished people would realize that if they go out together and only one person has photos (because only one has a camera for example), they just need to take more pics so that they can share and coordinate the originals (therefore posting different pictures of the same individual).
or you say ‘John’s picture, posted with permission’
Thanks, that’s also another way to deal with this situation that works that wasn’t crossing my mind when I replied.
Both pretty simple solutions to prevent at least one of the observations from going to casual!
I think it’s helpful to point out my experience with duplicates.
I mostly photograph insects. When doing this, I usually get a small series of photos. I edit my photos. If I’m dealing with a species for which I think uploading multiple images would be useful, I do so, again as “one observation”. (I consider a series of photos of the same individual insect in a short amount of time to be “one observation”).
But this wasn’t always the case. When I first joined iNat, I did not understand this distinction so I would upload such series as separate observations. But, thanks to the helpful comments from those who identified my observations, I quickly learned that these were considered “Duplicates” and to be combined under one observation. I even learned how to go back and combine some of my older observations (but due to the vagaries of my life, there remain a few of my early observations that are “out of compliance” as it were).
I’m not sure what the time limit is for when “one” observation becomes another. For me, now, as long as I know it’s the same individual (bee, wasp, whatever) and I’m following it for say, 30 minutes, and I want to upload multiple photos, I do so as one observation.
When I come across obvious duplicates while ID’ing unknowns (two observations with the exact same picture), I will often try to find at least two organisms in the picture so I can ID both observations for two different things. If they already have matching IDs, either provided by the observer or another identifier, I will typically add a comment on the observation that was uploaded later (higher number in the URL) pointing out that is a duplicate of the earlier observation and include a link to that. Sometimes this will result in the observer going “oops” and deleting the duplicate. If not, at least it lets other identifiers know about it.
If one of the pair is already - RG at sp - then our comments will help to prevent identifiers wasting time and effort on IDing the still Unknown duplicate.
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