Is there a way to flag the user entirely? Bc I saw a person join iNat, upload 9 or 10 copyright images (all of which got removed), dip out of the platform….but the user is still on the platform and the faulty observations still are there. also, I realize that iNat can’t remove observations, but are observations removed if a person is banned?
Currently iNaturalist only supports flagging users directly, as spam which is a narrow use case.
I’ll just add that the spam flag often gets mis-used for wider use-cases beyond content that is clearly intended to make money (the narrow iNat definition). For more information check out the iNat help topic for spam.
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Ugh. Seems like repeated copyright infringement would be a proper expansion of the flag. I don’t know if iNat holds any responsibility for that kind of thing if it occurs on the platform, but if so, repeated violations by a user should, to me, merit a user flag.
Maybe worth a Feature Request to do something like how 3 spam flags currently result in automatic account suspension. In the case of copyright violations, though, maybe the threshold needs to be a little higher, since in those cases it’s more often “innocent” new users playing around. If they don’t learn after seeing several “Copyrighted Material Removed” notices on their observations, though, then more drastic action could be warranted.
My only reservation is that sometimes the owners of images already posted elsewhere on the Internet, using a different name or pseudonym (or sometimes stolen by other copyright violators), also post their images here. For that reason I try to be really certain before I flag something for copyright. More cavalier flagging could result in unwarranted suspensions and loss of valuable new users.
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Same thing happened to me with this user [link removed by staff] who literally just uploaded random photos and a sound of them making a weird noise and the observations are still up but the user hasn’t been active since I found them from commenting on my observation. I flagged all of the observations and the person clearly was just using INaturalist to upload random things, but hopefully the person doesn’t come back until they find out how to properly use it. They haven’t been banned.
Please don’t link to specific accounts or observations in a negative light. I’ve removed the link to the account.
There’s already a request: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/copyright-flags-should-trigger-automatic-warnings-and-suspension-similar-to-spam-flags/65021
IMO before implementing something like that the user should be explicitly told they should only post their own photos.
To be clear, iNat can definitely remove observations. I will do it if someone makes a sockpuppet account or is just trolling, and we state that in the Community Guidelines.
“Banned” is usually not a term we use as it generally means that a person is completely banned from iNaturalist forever. Accounts are suspended and the account owner can appeal at help@inaturalist.org. Making a second account to evade suspension is itself a suspendable violation.
Regardless, an account may be suspended for reasons unrelated to the quality of their data, such as for insults or hate speech. Should those account’s observations be hidden? I also just flagged several of an account’s photos as copyright infringement, but all their earlier observations seem fine. It didn’t seem malicious, I think they felt they should use an example photo of the bird species they saw if they couldn’t take a photo at the time so I warned them. If an account like that was suspended, I don’t think all its content should be hidden.
It’s not clear to me what you’d want a “flag a user” functionality to do, or how it should be applied. I agree that we need better tools for curators/staff to deal with offenses on a large scale, but oftentimes an account will have some fine observations and others that need intervention of some kind, like hiding or flagging as copyright infringement.
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It definitely feels like we need a more streamlined way to report clear copyright/rule-breaking patterns without doing it 1-by-1. For now, I’ve found that a quick email to the help team with the user’s URL is way faster and more effective than playing ‘whack-a-mole’ with individual flags.
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