Occasionally I run into an observation that includes a sound, with the user simply recording themselves talking about the observation which also includes a photo of some organism. In my opinion, this is inappropriate use of sounds. Any opinions?
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If there’s nothing other than human speech yes, it should be excluded, as every media file should have something about the specimen in observation, but I never hear those, usually they talk a lot but there’s some bird calls too. I’d say leave a comment first about it without adding an I’d, but if the author doesn’t respond - add it.
Though it’s not a very big problem imo as it’s quite rarerare and sounds are not very well presented and shown on iNaturalist.
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I wouldn’t say that its an inappropriate use of sounds, but rather an inefficient use of it because one can just type what they say into the observation description directly, as opposed to recording the audio, then transferring from phone to laptop, then uploading audio file to inat.
And if the photo has nothing to do with what the observer is talking about then…
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While I think the audio note is interesting and possibly contributing to the record, there ought to be a way to remove that record from those having “audio vouchers”. For example, they should be excluded from the Audio Observations Project.
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@dan_johnson - One thing you could do is ask @finatic to give you curator privileges in the Audio Observations group. You ID as many insects recordings as anyone. As a curator, you could remove an observation from that project at least?
I can do it as a curator there, but I’ve never come across one?
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Inneficient to upload, but I can see why many people would feel it’s a much more efficient way to take the notes while in the field.
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Yeah, while the audio contains info about the observation, it is not audio of the specimen. It should ideally be part of the description, not part of the observation media
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I’d disagree, because we have examples where people have taken photos of field notes (as in literal photos of handwritten notes on a sheet on paper) or drawings and staff has said that does count as evidence.
This would just be the auditory equivalent of that.
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Drawings yes, but this, no, I don’t think the staff have said this is appropriate media evidence?
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I thought I’d seen an observation with a photo of a handwritten note without drawings, but I’d have to look again.
I’ve only seen drawings and sketches.
Like photos, I think sounds attached to an observation should be evidence of the organism being documented in the observation. Notes should be in text form, IMO.
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Could it be somebody that battles to type (disability?) and prefers to rather add a voice note of the observation?
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I did go through a phase where I could not type or write, due to an injury. It may be worth considering that angle.
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Ideally users would be able to mark an audio file as “evidence of organism” or “notes” if this usage of audio was allowed.
In the case of the recording being notes, could we ask the individual to transcribe the recorded notes into text as a comment/description and then delete the recording. Or we could do it for them and then ask that they delete the recording?
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This approach is sensitive to the reality that not everyone has enough bandwidth to load sound files when text would do.
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