We’ve been having an issue lately of observers who disagree with ID’s deleting observations. I know of two in the last week. This is getting annoying since it wastes our time, and they usually throw in an insult before leaving. Is anyone else having this issue?

I think the behavior described at the start of this thread is very frustrating. I’m glad we have the Forum to vent about it. That said, I have a few more comments. (Don’t I always?) First, if the observer insults you, flag the post for iNaturalist to deal with. (Or choose to ignore it. I have …

I agree, there’s little that can be done. Even flagging an insult is likely out, since the observation was deleted. I’ve run into this a number of times, but happening twice in a week made it more noticeable. [image] sedgequeen: researchers who download citizen science data and don’t make any…

[image] neylon: Here is a line from a paper published last month: “We did not review or attempt to correct any of the identifications in the iNaturalist dataset That’s disturbing. And the degree to which it is disturbing depends on the nature of the paper, the manner in which the dataset was…

I have not seen this. I have however, ID’d someones observation, and then they completely change the observation to a different set of pictures of another organism! Without context, someone seeing the new observation with my old ID still probably thinks im an idiot!

I have read several papers that used iNat data and they are invariably incredibly frustrating to read. It is rare that one of the authors is a regular user, and therefore misconceptions about the data is collected and how it is verified are abundant. One from a couple of years ago defined Research…

[image] Italopithecus: unless their identification is totaly unplausible, I would try to live and let live In my experience, most taxon experts here find any identification other than the most accurate, precise, up-to-date one “totally unplausible.”

Ah yes, I’ve seen that occasionally as well.

[image] neylon: “We did not review or attempt to correct any of the identifications in the iNaturalist dataset" Also bizarre!

Yeah, I’ve had this happen to me too. I kinda wish iNat inserted a short line if an observation gets edited after another user interacts with the observation. Something like “user deleted a photo” “user uploaded a photo”. I’ve had other types of situations where this would have helped too.

[image] neylon: “We did not review or attempt to correct any of the identifications in the iNaturalist dataset" Can you provide a link to the paper?

Observers deleting observations when identifiers disagree with them

General

jasonhernandez74 August 7, 2024, 8:18pm 50

In my experience, most taxon experts here find any identification other than the most accurate, precise, up-to-date one “totally unplausible.”

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Observers deleting observations when identifiers disagree with them

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