I was recently looking back through some of my old observations and saw this Saltwater Crocodile I spotted in 2014… for some reason, it’s been downgraded to casual, but none of the information is missing and the animal was, without a doubt, completely wild. I asked the other identifier if they’d flagged it as casual, and they said they hadn’t, so I presume this must be some sort of bug.
My question is: are there any ways to contest an observation’s casual grade status when it’s wrong?
Hopefully this qualifies as a bug inquiry (hard to know what else it is), and someone’s got the answers out there !
Actually, I found the answer; turns out someone down-voted it as not being a wild animal… I’ve voted it back into wild status myself and sent the downvoter a nice message asking if they wouldn’t mind switching their vote and explaining where the sighting actually happened; I think the confusion was that it’s in a wild wetland that’s across the road from a wildlife sanctuary, and maybe the downvoter hadn’t zoomed the map in far enough.
I actually found a forum post that, for whatever reason, hadn’t shown up when I typed in “casual observations” in the queries… naturally, it helped me solve the issue about a minute after I’d already submitted my question here! https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/why-is-this-observation-casual-needs-id-research-grade-official-topic/13186
Sorry for the false alarm there, folks; hopefully this helps someone down the road!
This answer does not apply to your case but to those users who uploaded a contested casual observation of a plant: I think that if someone is convinced that the observed plant is wild, a demonstration of its wild status should be provided. This means that a photo depicting the whole plant and the environment in its surroundings should be provided. Of course, it is not the same if we have a mature ornamental plant growing in an urban park together with other plants of the same species and comparable age (maybe also all placed in line) and if we see a seedling or a young plant growing in the asphalt. A precise position can also be helpful.
The same is for afforestations/reforestations. They are considered non-wild in iNat but the observation of seedlings or young plants born from seeds is a clue that the planted individuals are reproducing and making offsprings.
The person may or may not always have a wider photo of the plant in question though. I think taking the observers word is best unless it truly seems wildlife implausible.
Because I was observing in an area that has a lot of planted crape-myrtle, when I found one which I do believe to be wild, I anticipated this problem and intentionally made the first picture of the whole plant in its surroundings. If someone doesn’t do this, they can’t really complain about their observation being assumed cultivated.
That’s fine for established users, but many of those who upload potentially cultivated plants are relatively new users who may not even realise that wild/not-wild organisms is something iNat cares about, and therefore won’t have taken photos to prove their point.
Certainly including some sort of statement/photo proof that something is not cultivated if it’s a species or context in which cultivation is probable is a good idea. (Yes, it’s in a garden area, but it did come up by itself. or Self-sown but has had a guard put around it to protect it from browsing.)
!