I love that this conversation has touched so many aspects of having museum specimens and old observations on iNat!
I guess here’s sort-of a TL;DR of the topics being discussed, with most of the questions still up in the air on a clear answer (given for convenience, if you’d like to answer or discuss a specific question it’s easy to quote these):
- Old photos are allowed as observations on iNaturalist. However, it isn’t clear what the cap is on the maximum age of them (it’s either 100 years or 130 years). Are observations older than 100 years from the present day allowed to go to research grade, assuming all of the information is accurate to the date/location of the original observation/collection? (this was the original topic, the general consensus seems to me to be that as long as there is recent evidence at the time of observation, it is allowed for observations to be older than 100 years)
- Are people associated with public collections allowed to post their specimens on iNat, even if there may be an entry for that specimen on GBIF, under certain circumstances? What would those circumstances be (the iNat poster is the owner of the collection or the person who collected them, the ID is still uncertain, etc)?
- What are the specific rules surrounding creating an observation when you are not the direct observer? Posting others’ photographs aren’t allowed without explicit permission, but what about cases where the observer is not able to post them? Are there any specific cases where it would be acceptable to post for the observer (the observer/photographer was a family member who has since passed away, or something else)?
If possible, I think it would be great if a member of @inat_staff like @tiwane could weigh in on these questions, as I’m not sure it’s possible or acceptable to make a poll for members to vote on rules such as these.