I currently have conversation with an observer who actually added a map of his findings of the same species in the area as a second photo of an observation. I advised him politely to remove this additional picture because it would violate iNat rules.
He asked back for a reference to the rule.
I searched through the help aside from some more or less related discussions I didn’t find a statement that every picture should include the organism in question.
Is such a rule documented?
His map will show up among the taxon pictures for the sp, which is not useful if you want to see what the sp looks like. If you look thru the pictures for recent (I presume it is recent ?) obs of that, there will be a map - which is clearly out of place.
Photos or sounds attached to observations should include evidence of the actual organism
A map or habitat photo does not indicate any evidence of the particular organism in that observation.
what I sometimes do, I upload the habitat photo as a separate observation - because usually there are forms of life visible, so I might just upload them as ‘dicots’ or similar.
Then, I put the image in the notes of the observation I want a habitat shot for (using img src html code).
Or to say it positiv: fotos of maps and habitat pictures are allowed in the same observation, as long as the organism in question is also in the same foto.
I usually suggest putting habitat shots into comments/IDs. Can’t back it up by a rule either but I agree to what’s been said befor: No evidence of presence.
Thanks. While not very explicit as it not states that every single picture must follow this rule it seems to be the best and only reference.
Every single picture is implied.
Since we have a DQA for - each picture shows a different sp and they should be split into separate obs.
Let me reiterate a distinction being offered by @mreith: Including a context image, i.e. a wider shot with the organism (e.g. a plant in its setting) can be useful but neither necessary nor particularly informative in many cases. I did so recently when I documented the early rosettes of some Texas Prairie Parsley (see the third image) because it gives the viewer of the observation the context of the associated habitat and, in this particular case, documentation of a very recent habitat manipulation (prescribed burn). Notes with the observation explain the inclusion of that “habitat” image. Note that the “organism” (a local population of the prairie parsley) can be seen in the habitat image.