Personally, if someone choses to do this either by mistake or on purpose I don’t pay that much attention to it. There are a good number of people who are older, that may not fully understand the platform or even less so – technology. A simple conversation is all that is usually needed to correct the issue. It would be concerning if it was the same observation but with different locality and time information. As I would assume they they were intentionally being deceptive.
1 Like
It becomes more difficult when each photo shows different details and none individually is enough for ID but collectively they would (say, a photo of a leaf in one observation and a photo of a flower in another). If they would only combine them, it would be fine…
3 Likes
Glad to hear it shouldn’t affect data. But yes, the burden on IDing is real. I have started IDing (generally high-level, unless I happen to be familiar with the organism) and annotating in the past few weeks and I can see that it would be a waste of people’s time to separately ID five pictures that ought to be grouped together. Same with annotations.
3 Likes
I know this is completely in line with iNaturalist policy, but this kind of observation also makes me a little uneasy. You can do it, of course… but should you really?
1 Like
There are a handful of “Duplicate …” Observation Fields I use to make these easier to find and exclude. I may also leave a comment, if I think it will be helpful to the observer.
2 Likes
This is my biggest issue with the practice described here as well. In some cases, I’ll even see 10 observations of the same bug at the same time and place, some left at “Unknown”, some at “Insects”, some at Order, and others at Species- because some photos show ID characteristics and others don’t. If it’s clearly the same bug in all the photos, I’d tend to think the best practice is to either ignore them all or take them all to the same taxonomic level. But technically some of the individual “Observations” lack sufficient evidence on their own to ID, so I can see an argument for judging each observation on its own merit and ignoring the other ones with different angles. Neither seems like a good option, so I’m never quite sure what to do in those cases.
2 Likes
I comment - which is immediately visible.
I don’t use observation fields, except rarely, which means I also forget to look at them.
I limp thru each obs, find the ‘best’ one. Add an ID there. Gather up all the obs nos, make a comment, and copypasta across ALL the obs. Seldom makes a difference. But it is a courtesy to the next identifier, and the next and …
That - please combine multiple obs of The One - also needs a DQA, and push them all to Casual while we wait for the observer to catch up.
3 Likes
This is also why I think it’s best practice when IDing true duplicates to put the ID on both the observations, even if you leave a note to delete one of them. I don’t know how much time I’ve spent clicking through Unknowns with a very obvious ID that multiple other IDers have commented on saying “duplicate plz delete”, yet left in the Unknowns to be looked at by more IDers. It’s one easy click for the first identifier to put it at a taxonomic level and it saves loads of wasted time by other identifiers having to click through it later.
3 Likes
I see your point, but to me adding an ID at the same time is encouraging the observer to ignore the comment because ‘clearly it’s okay’. And unless you can take it to the optimal ID (species or whatever’s the best you can do in the taxon) and it quickly get to RG with only one more ID, it’s going to still be sitting somewhere where more people will need to look at it, so you’re not really changing much that way. Having said that, if something has been sitting for a couple of days or more with such a note, I’ll add an ID to start the process under the assumption that the request to delete is going to be ignored.
1 Like
On a different but related note, is there any way of dealing with a user with thousands of observations who (1) consistently uploads observations without IDs (generally without adding them later, it’s not that they just have a different workflow), (2) frequently uploads cultivated plants such as street trees but never marks them as such, and (3) seems to introduce others to the platform who then show the same poor behaviours?
Have a copypasta ready, and snarl at them on each obs you engage with … but of course, we don’t ‘snarl’.
Increasingly, I largely ignore their observations because I find it frustrating - but I’d love to have some positive action that could be taken!
(Admittedly, I probably do lean a little more heavily on the ‘not wild’ button with this person and their associates than I normally would - since I’ve seen zero evidence of improvement despite comments.)
2 Likes
Have you gotten any responses to comments – that is, do you know whether they are seeing comments in the first place or are merely not interested in changing their behavior?
Occasionally it happens that, for whatever reason, users don’t see or notice notifications and don’t realize that IDers are trying to communicate them. I believe this was particularly an issue with the old iOS app, which is still probably in use by a reasonable number of users. Sometimes in such cases sending a private message has been more successful.
Of course, if this behavior applies to not just this user but also the friends they are inviting, such a scenario seems less likely (if there are multiple people surely one of them would realize that they are getting these comments and that they mean something).
I’d say put up with it for now, but if they are clearly unresponsive (rather than not seeing the notifications) then we might have a problem.
Also, how often do you see their observations while sifting through unknowns? Just a question, to check how prolific the problem is.
Edit: Wow, almost 125000 observations for the main man (if I have the right guy). Okay, this problem is much bigger than I thought. One of the associates appears to be new and only have 3 observations currently so I might work on pinning this specific account down.
2 Likes
Edit 2: Another new account which I won’t name, she seems to be exclusively uploading potted plants which are not marked as cultivated so I’ll deal with those too.
Only 15 obs so I can keep up with this account as well.
3 Likes
Yes, I did notice the were sometimes thanking people but I’ve never seen them responding to another comment. Maybe they don’t know how to use the notification system and other messages never reach them? They seem to either use a translator from time to time or know the basics of Spanish, French and English based on their comment history.
I left a flag. Hopefully someone can help here.
1 Like
No, can’t be the same person - the one I’m thinking of has under 50K observations. A scary thought that there are more out there like that! This person seems to upload in batches so that there are times when there are heaps (sometimes for several days), then there might be nothing for a while - or at least nothing in the areas I check, which might not be the same thing.
No, I’ve never had any response to comments, but frankly that seems far more common than actually getting a response. You’re right that it’s possible they’re just not seeing them, so maybe I should try a PM. I guess I’m put off by the knowledge that while I’m generally pretty good at responding to comments, I’m terrible at responding to PMs…
1 Like
Well, one of the ‘associates’ that I followed seems to have figured out the ID system exists so hopefully the quality of observations, at least from that account and hopefully from others, will improve
2 Likes
Is there a comprehensive list or tutorial on data quality tools?
Id’d be interested for more than the described reason.