Both these instances
- Adding a photo of the same individual in the same condition even if taken later
- Adding a photo of genitalia dissected later
are proper and have no issue to me.
However, I disagree that they are analogous to a situation where multiple life stage photos have been uploaded to the same observation from different points in time. In the examples above, the condition/life stage of the organism has not changed. The photos will not be treated erroneously by iNat or via export - eg, an egg being shown as annotated for adult or a life stage photo being given a date that may be off by months from when it was actually observed.
I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with linking to the photos stored somewhere off iNaturalist, though it isn’t ideal - the link might change or the site might go offline, etc… Linking to another iNat observation would be preferred imo. Linking to the photos, either via another iNat observation or off site storage does avoid the issue with incorrect data being entered. Using another iNat observation has the advantage of making the data for the other life stage available.
All of that said, based on the current guidance for this new DQA, it’s clear it should not be used to address observations with this issue, though it clarifies that observations with multiple life stages of the same individual are not encouraged on iNat:
"Please do not vote “No” to the “Evidence related to a single subject” DQA 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).
These last three situations are not encouraged on iNaturalist, but please do not use the “Evidence related to a single subject” DQA condition to flag them."