I have wondered on this point before. No, these images do not offend me in any way. Saddened sometimes, yes.
A possible future solution that iNat could implement. When an observer uploads a potentially sensitive photo, have a checkbox that can be selected.
The checkbox could either fade the image until a user clicks on it to enlarge it or a default cover image placed stating something like “This observation contains images that some people may find disturbing.”
Could be they were so upset that they left.
Because it is something that matters to other people, too.
But while they had an iNat profile, there were - no obs and no IDs. I checked back when this thread opened.
Also no response from them on this thread.
I assume that annotations are meant and not tags. I don’t think tags are standardized enough to make them very useful as an exclusion criterion. On the identify page, under advanced filters, it is easy to exclude observations with a particular annotation (e.g. all observations without the annotation dead). The relevant bit of url seems to be
without_term_id=17
I think if you add this to the end of the url of the explore page it should function similarly there.
However, filtering out observations annotated as “dead” is not a perfect workaround for this issue. The subset of observations for which the “dead” annotation is appropriate is not identical to the subset of observations that I would find distressing to see.
I am definitely squeamish about things like roadkill and am quite happy if I do not have to look at such observations, though I think it is important to record such instances. But an observation of, say, a beetle or fly found on a windowsill that has died a (presumably) natural death does not bother me at all. I also would not be bothered by the bleached skeletal remains of a long-dead vertebrate, or an empty shell of a mollusk.
Images (or audio) of a live animal that is clearly suffering would distress me, regardless of whether the suffering is the result of an accident/predation or human-inflicted cruelty (albeit more so in the latter case).
It is also possible for observations of live organisms to contain gory images of dead organisms – for example, a predator tearing apart its prey or fly maggots/scavenger beetles on a decaying animal corpse.
A mechanism for flagging “triggering” content would need to be worded very carefully, because what bothers me may not be what bothers someone else. I think the important thing is not to ban or remove such photos entirely, but to provide users a way to choose whether to view them (maybe displaying a warning, or a “click to unblur photo” function).
Without such a mechanism, perhaps it would help to encourage observers to be thoughtful when uploading observations that contain images that seem likely to be distressing to the average user. It is easy enough to be strategic about what one uploads for the first photograph (e.g., blurring parts of the image or using a cropped image that omits the gory bits).
I know this topic has been discussed ad nauseum at this point, but one aspect that seems to be overlooked in the whole “blur anything marked dead” debates is that, at least as far as I can tell, the “Dead” annotation is not meant to be used automatically for images including a dead organism. It’s not a tag for the picture; it’s an annotation of the observation- “did this observer find the organism alive or dead”, not “is it dead in all or some of the pictures posted”
I think if some sort of tag/annotation/whatever for “disturbing images” were to be added, it would be something distinct from what is meant by the “Dead” annotation. “Dead” as an annotation on iNat does not mean “dead thing is present in the picture”, it means “subject organism was found dead by the user”. In entomology and botany, dead preserved specimens are frequently posted to iNat, but it has been explicitly stated on the forums several times that if the date and location of original live sighting are associated with the observation, it is correct practice to annotate as “Alive”, despite the organism being dead in the picture, as it was observed alive and then collected. For example: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/annotate-dead-or-alive/17537
“Dead” is used to indicate that the organism was dead when encountered, which can then be used to exclude the date of that observation when developing phenologies of the species (e.g. an observation of a dead adult Phigalia in a windowsill in July does not accurately represent the time when adult Phigalia occur alive in nature, which is exclusively December-April).
I find myself downvoting “Dead” annotations for pinned specimens that were collected alive all the time, as these observations do represent observations of live organisms, even if the evidence presented is of the preserved specimen. I know some users would like to use “Dead” as a way to say “the picture shows something dead” for whatever reason… they don’t want to see a dead specimen, they want a way to distinguish between in situ images and those that show something which may have faded colors, etc. But the way “Dead” is currently understood on iNat, this is a misuse of the annotation. Same applies to plants; if I remove a floret from a grass to take home and put under the microscope to count the veins, I’m posting a picture of a “dead” part of the plant, but I observed a live plant in nature, so “Alive” is the correct annotation. I could easily see someone applying this to charismatic vertebrates too: a photo of a deer you just shot and killed still represents an observation of a live organism, even if you killed it before taking the picture, so there’s a strong argument to be made that “Alive” is an appropriate tag in these cases too. And as much as it sickens me when someone kills a snake out of ignorance, and as much as I’d prefer not to see those images, I could see someone annotating such an observation as “alive” if the snake was observed alive before being killed. “Someone observed a live snake at this date and location” = “Alive”, even if what they did to it when they found it resulted in a dead snake for the photos. I think it’s worth considering what the “Dead” annotation means, because if it’s being used in some contexts to refer explicitly to organisms found dead but in other contexts to refer to organisms found alive as a tag for “Warning: Dead thing in Picture!”, then the annotation loses meaning.
If someone posted a feature request to add an additional annotation for “may contain graphic images”, I’d vote for it, though I doubt I’d ever bother to use it myself when implemented, because it would give an outlet for those who want to have a way to hide pictures of dead things without having them misuse the “Dead” annotation as a content warning button. If someone wants to mark all my pinned bugs as potentially offensive, be my guest… but please don’t do it by incorrectly annotating them as “Dead” observations.
I agree that the “dead” annotation is often currently misapplied to collected specimens, but I think this is an issue with different interpretations (what is seen in the photo vs. the status of the specimen when it was collected).
I don’t think the suggestions to filter out observations that have an annotation of “dead” are intended to be a recommendation that it should be applied to observations that have graphic pictures of (possibly dead) organisms. Rather, this is a workaround that provides sensitive users a way to avoid some (not all) observations that they are likely to find disturbing – in the absence of other options to flag such photos.
It is not possible to annotate plants (or fungi) as “dead” or “alive”, presumably because of the difficulty of determining when a plant is in fact dead (rather than, say, dormant).
Agreed, though I will also note that I have not seen an example of someone citing an observation of anything other than an animal as disturbing/wanting to flag it for this reason.
So the fact that the Alive/Dead annotation isn’t available for many taxa doesn’t reduce its effectiveness as a filter for this. I do also agree that using this annotation isn’t a perfect filter, but it is fairly effective as an “off label” use.
On a different note, personally, I worry about any type of official annotation for “disturbing” content. Unlike other annotations or DQAs, this field would be very subjective and not especially evidence-based. It could also discourage users from posting observations which include these types of pictures (which often have a high scientific value) or lead observers to feel that they have done something wrong by posting these pics if their observations are downvoted/annotated with a term that is often pejorative. This could discourage users or cause them to reduce iNat use/leave.
Many people find spiders and snakes disturbing - does that mean we would blur them, too? 
?
Avoid Unknowns and focus on your preferred taxon.
The profile is still there, they just have 0 obs and 0 IDs
There is a huge difference between hunting or fishing when it is the only way or the main way for getting food and, on the other hand, when it is made mainly for fun. Here where I live, for example, hunting and amateur fishing are made mainly for fun.
This is the hard part. Yet users could be suggested to consider the possibility to avoid posting observations that could hurt the sensibility of certain other users.
While I don’t personally hunt for fun (although I do fish), I don’t have any problem with people who do as long as it’s done sustainably. It actually kind of surprised so many people here are against it. You know how important of a tool it is for wildlife management, right? And it’s a way people engage positively with the natural world, which is my book is a very good thing.
Hunting and fishing??
Perhaps - USA duck hunting has a permit system that supports wildlife management? For South Africa presenting trophy hunting as ‘for’ nature - to me is greenwashing and financial vested interests.
Not convinced, but at least out in nature - is presence and eyes on the ground.
So we are to somehow determine the intent of the hunter/angler and whether they are having any fun in their activity or doing it strictly because they need the food it provides (with no enjoyment)? And then decide if the iNat record documenting this is inappropriate or okay?
In the US, hunting and fishing of most types are heavily regulated. Nearly all hunters must buy licenses and permits. That money is what primarily fuels conservation here.
I think it would help to clarify what is meant by hunting for fun. I live in a place where many people hunt, and to my knowledge the typical hunter here falls into one of 2 groups:
1: Eats meat and can afford to buy meat from the store, but enjoys hunting and prefers to get some of their meat by spending time outdoors.
2: Is not starving but has limited finances and hunting is a way to get more, and more nutritious, food than they could otherwise afford, also enjoys hunting.
Group 1 does hunt because they enjoy it, but they are still eating the animal, and would just buy more meat from the supermarket if they didn’t hunt, so I don’t see this as the same thing as killing something just to kill it
Yes, as do all hunting and fishing, at least in my state (NY). In fact, the deer here are overpopulated and humans are their only major predator (but some of the coyotes do get big enough to take on deer), so hunting is actually an ecological positive in the case of deer. It’s not like we have tourists coming in to hunt endangered stuff, in fact, anything on the state threatened list cannot be so much as disturbed, let alone hunted.
A lot of this discussion is starting to rehash this thread: The ecological impact of hunting
@dianastuder See this comment for more info on how conservation is funded in the U.S.
Yeah, I am not bothered by gore and carcass obs are important, but I do agree that blurring the first pic at least so that someone scrolling by isn’t too bothered is a good idea.
I agree - the conversation here seems to be trending more towards debating the ethics of various activities such as hunting/fishing. However, the OP asked specifically about photos showing animal gore and an ability in the iOS app to denote/report images showing gore with no reference to hunting/fishing.
Let’s try to keep the conversation focused on that original topic and not delve into the ethics of hunting/fishing/etc. This topic has been addressed on other threads, and these could be reopened to continue discussion there or a new thread created. Since it is a topic that is a hot button issue, please keep the forum guidelines for civil discussion in mind.
Perhaps move the hunting shooting and fishing comments to an earlier thread?
Then we can get back to
Annotate as Dead.
Choose the first picture to be less triggering.
The author of the question appears to have abandoned iNat and its forum.