New DQA: Does "Evidence related to a single subject" mean the same individual is in all photos?

For what it is worth, I believe that iNaturalist should stick with the requirement that all observation data include must contain the same individual organism in the same (relatively brief) period of observation. Or, as an alternative, provide a way to subdivide observations with ROIs (regions of interest) to account for the different individuals, being able to specify to which organism or object an annotation belongs (e.g. obs #200580384.1, #200580384.24, etc…)

I asked about this about 3 years ago and the responses were generally inadequate:

Observations where photos do not all contain the same individual organism: Annotation options?

The DQA or Annotation ought include the condition of the same individual organism, in the same period of observation.

I would also note that the draft guidelines here

Please do not vote “No” to the “Evidence related to a single subject” Data Quality Assessment condition in these scenarios: […]

When there are different photos of the same individual at different points in their life history (e.g. photo 1 is an egg, photo 2 is a caterpillar, and photo 3 is an adult butterfly).

also go against past advice of iNat staff (@tiwane in this response) in response to this question:

Seeking guidelines for hatched insect galls on plants

I appreciate that an attempt is being made to fix the problem of multi-species observations, however the revisions are leaving a major gap unanswered.

1 Like