I agree with this 100%. Same approach for me.
Hiking through national forests and exploring tidepools with my camera is fun, and iNaturalist is a great way to document what I’ve seen while contributing to a greater body of knowledge that will outlive me (I hope).
I already have a more-than-full-time job that taxes my brain. The moment iNaturalist starts to feel like a second job, I’m out.
Oh dear, I know I’m going to make myself SO unpopular with this 
, but actually, I WOULD discourage them if all the house sparrow pictures were taken in more or less the same place at more or less the same time, without any other particularly interesting traits (mating, feeding, etc).
iNat declaredly prioritises personal engagement and that’s great, but it is also declaredly a community and couldn’t function without the involvement of that community as a whole. Now maybe I’m old-fashioned, but doesn’t being part of a community also mean giving some thought to what is best for that community, not thinking exclusively about your own personal satisfaction?
The problem is that every observation uploaded involves not just the observer themselves, but also the community as a whole. At least one other identifier and possibly many more will be investing their time and effort in that observation before it moves out of the ID process. Is it really so very wrong to encourage people to give some thought to this as they’re uploading, particularly given the relative dearth of identifiers?
I wouldn’t discount the value of house sparrow observations. I can recall reading a book about bird survival in cities—perhaps someone will jump in with the title—in which the author was hugely excited to come across a population of sparrows in London.
Also, nothing mandates that those observations obtain a confirming ID. No-one is being forced to stay up late to get them to RG. I’ve used iNat to map species occurrences with low-quality shots, and the records are useful to me even though a confirming ID is unlikely to ever emerge. I don’t believe I impose a burden on “the community” by uploading those observations.
50 obs of sparrows could be nicely balanced out by their 150 IDs of ‘other’ sparrows. Then we make progress. Together.
Perhaps the book was Moth Snowstorm by Michael McCarthy, though the loss of house sparrows from London gets discussed in many other places.
Thanks–it could well be that. I read that book not long ago.
Obviously I just used sparrows as an example because they had already been quoted in this thread. As I usually observe plants and arthropods, I could just as easily have quoted dandelions, daisies or cabbage white butterflies. Of course there can be scientific value in repeated observations of common species, for example, I usually post the first example of species common in my area to flower in that season because I know that can be useful to study phenology. But that was actually not my main point…
You’re right, but it is intrinsic to the way iNaturalist works that all observations will eventually be accessed by at least one IDer who may or may not have stayed up late to shift some observations from the “Needs ID” pile. If that doesn’t get them to RG, then they’ll be accessed by an undefined number of other IDers, until for one reason or another they exit the ID process. Even if the observer doesn’t want or need this, it is not their choice. They can’t opt out. This means that posting an observation cannot be just an individual act of engagement with nature, it also engages with a community of people. And according to my way of thinking, that is something which every observer should bear in mind. But as I said when I posted my reply, I know that this is not a popular point of view.
Oh yes, and that is exactly the point. But we all know that is just not going to happen, at least not in our time dimension 
.
I see what you mean and although I understand why people don’t want to take actions in that sense for the greater good of more engagement with nature (which I support), I do perceive an imbalance between observing versus identifying, so thats why I’d like to value more the time or IDers by not posting every day the same squirrel at the same park. Anyone looking at my profile would see that I’m an observer not an IDer (except for few basic ones), so this doesn’t come from frustration, just not taking IDing for granted.
But this being said, I feel birds are fine with quantity. I have been doing few unknowns that were common birds so I was able to provide species level and it instantly got plenty of IDs. I see some crows with 10 IDs (same Corvus corax). Then plants it starts being challenging and when I look at fungi it feels trying to find a star in the sky with the naked eye.
Finally, when speaking of quality of observation it means that the photo has clear IDing features, provides some value. I think people in the forum supporting “quantity” don’t think of hundreds of blurry shorts of a blob that would be weak evidence anyways.
But the point applies in every case. You don’t know what value that repeated observation may have. But the cost of a judgmental attitude is that you can deter someone who might otherwise become more engaged with nature, or even—not the same thing!—with iNat.
It is not judgemental. We are asking ‘prolific’ observers to ID a bit too. There are no paid identifiers. Neither Curators (who are not museum curators) nor iNat staff are obliged to make IDs. All identifiers are volunteers.
And identifiers are ‘expected to explain themselves on each obs’ too
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/lack-of-reasoning-on-disagreements/75635
As a proportionate identifier, I’m familiar with these points. But we are arguing about a hypothetical repeat observer (e.g. of sparrows), onto whom each projects a particular set of characteristics, so it’s not surprising if we reach different conclusions.
If the goal of iNat were for observations to reach RG, prolific sparrow-observing behaviour might “matter”. But I regularly see staff pointing out that RG isn’t the goal. My OCD traits notwithstanding, I’m getting more comfortable with that stance.
My comfortable way of dealing with 50 sparrows - would be to sort out that batch of 50 - mark as Reviewed - leave them to a happy birder - and move on. Really not judgemental. We each choose what, and if, to observe. And if and what to ID.
I would limit wrong to - joke IDs. And using copyrighted pictures. Both of which can be sorted with flags or DQA. All good.
Of course it does… sparrows, daises, dandelions, cabbage white butterflies, exactly as I said, glad you agree with me 
.
But as I also said, that was not my main point. I suppose my mistake, if indeed a mistake it is, is to feel very strongly that iNaturalist is a community and as with all communities, it doesn’t hurt to be aware of the effect one’s actions have on other members of that community. As they say: “no man is an island”, even though I personally quite often wish I was 
!
I don’t think you can convincingly assert both that your position is unpopular and that your discussion partners are, whether they know it or not, simply agreeing with you.
If you are fine with the repeated observations, then you are fine with them, and there is no need to say anything else about the matter.