I’m not sure if this is a bug or intended behavior, but I wanted to bring it up for discussion. Here is an example of the bug: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/51020931.
The observer opted out of community ID so when the taxon split happened all of the IDs for that observation got updated except for the observer’s (which of course is the only one that matters in this case). I wouldn’t expect that opting out of community ID would also opt out of taxon updates. This seems like it could be a problem for iNaturalist in the long-term as observers die and taxons get rearranged.
As far as I know, that’s annoying but intended behavior. Opting out of community ID means “Don’t ever change my ID for any reason. If I want it changed, I will do it.”
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What about for a taxon swap? Does the observer ID remain set to the inactive taxon? That seems like it would be problematic.
Taxon swaps can be a major reason that people may opt out of community ID. If they are more familiar with old names, or disagree with the current taxonomy, or are using their data for some big project that relies on using a certain nomenclature, opting out of changes keeps their records the way they want them.
Opting out of the community ID is different from opting out of taxon changes, although users who do the first may be more likely to do the second.
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Interesting – I didn’t realize that. The few examples I’ve seen where one old-name observation was left orphaned after a taxon was swapped and then the old one inactivated were where the observer was opted out of community ID, but it makes sense they’d likely opt out of automatic swaps, too.