At 4am this morning, I started getting notifications for observation fields additions on other observers’ observations that I had previously IDed. I can’t find a way to turn these notifications off. (My iNat username is now morcutt)
Platform: website and iOS
Hi Michelle,
Have you read this article https://help.inaturalist.org/en/support/solutions/articles/151000198927-how-can-i-reduce-the-number-of-notifications-i-receive-
And unfollowed each observation?
Thanks for responding. I’m almost positive that the observation field notifications just started this morning. These notifications aren’t addressed in the article since notifications previously only concerned the ID/comments area of observations. I would still like to get notifications for agreeing and disagreeing IDs and comments; I don’t really want to turn these off to avoid getting the observation field notifications. I would have the same issue if I clicked unfollow on each observation I IDed.
Edit: Or have we always gotten these and I only just noticed due to the flood of them today?
I posted a similar issue two years ago: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/notifications-of-observation-fields-by-muted-users-due-to-incorrect-attribution/57441
I’d assumed it was fixed, but now I’m getting a flood of plant interaction observation field notifications too. I’m not entirely sure if it’s someone I’ve muted before or if it’s a new person.
I just noticed the fix on the last post says “You should no longer be notified when a muted user edits an obs field on your observation.” So maybe the fix didn’t apply for observations that aren’t mine but I’m automatically following (because I added an ID)?
A difference is, this time, although it’s very very likely all these notifications are coming from one or two people adding observation fields, the person the edit is attributed to is almost always the observer. Now this is the case for both the dashboard and on the observation url itself (two years ago, it showed the actual editor on the dashboard and the observer on the observation url).
As for unfollowing every single observation where I add an ID, that’s really not feasible. I ID many many bees, so it would be a big task, and unfollowing an observation would mean I wouldn’t see any disagreeing comments or IDs along with the observation fields.
There was a series of taxon changes to Coreopsis today which included automated updates to existing observation fields.
That’s probably it then, since it seemed like they all came in batches. That’s a relief!
Cassi, this might be getting into the weeds a little too far, but I’m trying to understand the above result: Is it because the Observation Field included a taxon name (from iNat’s taxonomy) which has subsequently been changed? In particular, is this due to a genus split? Will species merges/splits generate the same type of re-notifications?
Yes, here is the genus split: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/177328
And for example here is the first observation in the OP’s screenshot: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/315056561, changed by the system due to this species level taxon change: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/171296
I don’t know if a taxon change where two species are merged into one generates the same notifications, but I assume so!
