I have found several discussions on this forum suggesting ways to cite individual observations or groups of observations. However, these recommendations seem to be primarily intended for citations in the reference list and/or for assigning or depositing observations in online repositories. Even when the discussions address citations within the body of the text, the guidance tends to be relatively brief and does not provide detailed conventions for how individual observation authors should be identified in the text itself, comparable, for example, to the more established guidelines provided by APA for citing images or identifying authors within the text.
My intention is therefore not to replace the use of repositories, reference lists, or existing citation practices. Rather, I am exploring a way to make the identification and attribution of individual observation authors more practical and dynamic within the body of a scientific article, while still retaining the observation ID as a unique identifier. The proposed system would allow authors of scientific papers to adopt a consistent notation specifically for in-text attribution of iNaturalist observations.
In my usage in a couple of published papers (and in iNat journal posts), I only use the copyright symbol to literally reflect an explicit copyrighted image as uploaded by the OP. For any of the other types, CC-0, CC-BY, etc., etc., I don’t usually symbolize that category. I just include the @username and the iNat observation number. In one instance, I used the format, “Name, iNat 1234567” with either the person’s real name where known, or the iNat handle.
the point of citation isn’t to identify who holds the copyright on a given work. the point of a citation is to allow someone to identify and find the work you’re referencing. the information that’s important for locating a work are things like author, publication, publication date, title or other identifier, etc. for citation purposes, it doesn’t really matter who holds the copyright (although, by default, the author usually does), nor does it matter what sorts of licenses the copyright holder has granted.
now, if you’re including, say, a photo from an observation in your paper, then you may need to add attribution for the image itself that identifies license / copyright claims (because you’re redistributing the image). it depends on the license or the copyright situation.
I agree with pisum. Attribution and copyright are two different things. There is no need to include copyright or licensing information in a simple citation (unless you are reproducing the entire observation complete with notes and comments). I like gcwarbler’s style. Maybe writing out ‘iNaturalist’ instead of just ‘iNat’ would be better. It’s also possible to cite iNat observations on GBIF, and GBIF already has an established citation recommendation for observations: https://www.gbif.org/citation-guidelines#singleOccurrences.
It still leaves too much “for the end of the text, in the references” and too little in the body of the article, which is what I am proposing. However, I also agree with Pisum that the symbol isn’t necessary.
The article uses a separate template for photo captions that highlights the licenses within the structure, but that applies only to that specific section. I realize, then, that I don’t need to use it in the body text; I will remove it and keep (Author ID) in the proposal instead. Thanks for clearing up my question about the symbol—it really isn’t necessary.
