Is there a way to add other observers to a an observation?

General
1

Is it possible to add other observers to a sighting?

Example: You are on a trip with friends and all of you see a briefly appearing Badger, only one person snatches a photo and uploads it on their account. Do the others now have to enter a new observation without photo or is it possible to cling on to the photo and the observation from the photographer? Platforms like ebird have shared checklists but I could not find anything here so far?

If this is not implemented then why?

Regards

Max

2

welcome to the forum :)

in short, yes

Here is an active feature request for this: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/share-observations-between-users/337

(but an observation is meant to = interaction between an individual and an organism)

3 Likes
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thank you

4

the thread seems to be rather old and inactive, I understand this as “the feature is not coming” ?

5

in the near term at least, this is probably a correct assumption

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I understand the desire to have such a feature, but it would end up overcomplicating iNat. As an observation is defined, it is essentially the witnessing of a single individual life-form by an individual person at a particular point in time and particular location.

Thus if a group of six hikers spots a group of six badger as they head out for a walk, then they see that same group of badgers further along the trail an hour later as they return from the hike, a total of 72 observations have occurred, all of which should be logged separately. (That’s the theory, at least, although of course it’s not always practical to follow the rules to the letter, especially regarding one organism per observation.)

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Question answered, closing to focus discussion at open feature request https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/share-observations-between-users/337