I’ve seen a lot of confusion on observations of old specimens on whether or not they should be counted as research grade. When I went looking for guidelines on what to do in situations like this, I’ve found out that we (currently) only have one concrete rule on how this should work: the evidence of …

[image] ajamico: So, here’s the question that I’d love to get input on (or ideally a staff member to provide a concrete rule): If the evidence of the organism is older than 100 years from the present day, but within 100 years of the date of observation, is that considered “Recent evidence of an…

I don’t really have an opinion/answer to this. However, since I am fascinated by fossils, here is a project that appears to deal with it well - https://inaturalist.ca/projects/16560 . Old, or fossil specimens are valuable, as they provide some evidence that species x was in location y at a point in t…

Thank you for the explanation and reasoning! That makes a lot of sense :)

Would that mean that my currently uploaded specimens from the 1920’s, or any of my non-iNat uploaded specimens from before 1930 can’t become research grade? All were received in trades, or purchased from estate sales after the passing of the original collector, but none predate 1904 based on what I…

Wouldn’t that mean that here in the next twenty to thirty years or so, it would no longer be possible to add observations of organisms from between 1900 and 1920?

What if you received a specimen in a trade, and the specimen was collected within the past few months?

Yes, that seems likely and intentional

It would mean you better upload them via different accounts, attributed to original collectors. You should only upload observations you made, imo it’s easier to make a table with data and upload to GBIF.

[image] person: Would that mean that my currently uploaded specimens from the 1920’s, or any of my non-iNat uploaded specimens from before 1930 can’t become research grade? I don’t see why they shouldn’t become RG as long as their collection date and their location are being used for the obse…

Yup, I just added that if you want to “save” original data, you as user didn’t observe it in 1920, so can’t use that date.

Museum Specimens / Antique Photos and iNaturalist

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Museum Specimens / Antique Photos and iNaturalist

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