I don’t think there should be a button or option to report objections images. You’d be tapping into a culture war topic, not science. There ought to be some way to flag gratuitous photos of dead animals and critters, but am unsure how that would be implemented. For one thing, it would be lots of work for mods. For another, there’s no solid policy about how to include or not photos of expired organisms. Leading to that age old conundrum, why create a law if it can’t be enforced? I have included photos of dead plants, insects and a vole that I didn’t know about. Gory yes, disrespectful no.
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I think these two aspects are key – gory images and animal suffering/pain.
This might be a good way to frame a possible option to flag images: not a flag for “disturbing” or “sensitive” content, which is very subjective, but for certain specific cases. It would also be important that such a flag not hide the images entirely, but blur or obscure it in the thumbnail view/until clicked on, so that users who are OK with seeing such content can do so.
I am on the fence about whether a flag option would introduce more problems than it would solve. However, the current workaround of excluding observations annotated as “dead” from searches seems like a very imperfect solution – it will inevitably produce both false positives (excluding lots of innocuous images like shells, dead intact insects that died peacefully, etc.) and false negatives (not excluding images of live animals that are suffering, or scavengers on gory carcasses).
I think it is also important to encourage observers to be sensitive when uploading images of roadkill and similar – i.e. to consider whether they can use something for the first photo that will not shock innocently browsing users who are not prepared for or expecting to see gore. This is not a perfect solution either because it relies on awareness and voluntary compliance, but I think it would reduce some of the concerns.
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If they are in a project - a personal setting to not see that project?
Yeah, if people are good about putting observations in the roadkill project, that would probably be useful as an exclusion criteria.
It may be worth pointing out that these advanced sorting settings (excluding observations annotated as dead, excluding observations in certain projects) are probably only feasible for website users – I don’t think it helps app users like the original poster.
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It is upsetting, I am sorry, I am someone that posts roadkill, snared, and other dead animal observations.
It is important to know what is being killed, and where and how. This can result in community groups going out to do snare sweeps, or authorities reducing speed limits in high roadkill spots.
Some users use a pre-made gore warning image, or other take a picture of a part of the animal that is intact. However, sometimes it’s not quick to do these things in the field, and sometime there simply isn’t enough left of the animal to post a ‘nice’ picture first.
It would be good if there were some setting on iNaturalist to filter these out; I don’t like looking at my own snare/roadkill observations!
It is possible to ‘mute’ users who post frequent ‘gore’ observations.
It is important to have a way of communicating these things - local knowledge frequently encourages a snare sweep that can result in the removal of hundreds of snares, that undoubtedly save many animals from a truly horrific death.
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Dead organisms are not, and IMO should not be, against the rules. The reason I am saying there should be a report button is to report things that are against the rules such as nude photos of humans, swastikas, stolen photos, ect
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With this I completely agree. I concede your point. I think a button might become overused for the wrong purposes, however. It should be accompanied by a disclaimed and reporting options. But there are many trolls in the world and they need a takedown.
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There is an observation field: “Interaction → scavenged carcass of.” I used it for my Black Vulture observation.
The button already exists on desktop and is an important part of removing trolls, as a curator I monitor reports regularly, and can simply resolve invalid reports without action, the amount of incorrect reports is not problematic so far, and malicious false reports will lead to suspension.
I see no reason for the mobile version of iNat not to have this same report feature
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you can do this, using the little flag icon on the photo
(apologies to Erika Mitchell and this very non offensive Hawthorne observation pictured, i needed an example :D )
edit: i guess you are saying this isn’t possible on the app, which would make sense to add, but the app has barely any functionality for perusing observations of others
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You are correct, this is about the lack of such a button on the app (as well as the fact that OP wants to consider certain dead obs inappropriate)
This should be at iOS - not General.
One THOUSAND views and zero response from @areyouserious
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A post was split to a new topic: Question about posts
@bouteloua it says this was split, but then when I click on the new topic it was split into I get “page not found”
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Likely, the comments split out were moved into a private topic.
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I didn’t know private topics were a thing, how does that work?
My snark was removed to a ‘private’ conversation.
(But we still have no response, and no obs from ‘are you serious’)
I use my iPhone as my only internet.
Screenshot of one of my observations and how to report/ flag indicated by arrow.
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If the moderators feel that a post should be discussed privately between them and the writer of the post, they can split it into a private message.
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What doesn’t disturb me is seeing the carcass of my neighbors cat after a coyote kills and partially eats it because that is natural. What really disturbed me was when my neighbor who lives about 4 doors down the street posted a picture of about 50 coyotes he killed in one night. Totally legal in California, although, in my mind, totally senseless. Seeing my neighbors cat killing a Yellow-rumped warbler disturbs me. Roadkill also disturbs me, not the dead and mutilated carcass, but knowing that it is a life essentially wasted. I post roadkill when I find it because counting roadkill and its location, I think, is important.
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