I’m finding more and more observations without media and while these get flagged as casual (non verifiable), I almost always accept those types of observations in my collection projects. I don’t necessarily care how a plant made it into a park - if its there, its now part of the ecosystem and may prove to be important.
When setting up a project, I would like the option to exclude observations without any images or sounds. Why not the default?
With photo / sound is Verifiable.
So exclude Not Verifiable.
While true, observations with photos/sounds are verifiable - you missed the point - non verifiable are casual or captive/cultivated and as i said above, I accept those observations so that won’t work. If i exclude non verifiable, i exclude many observations that I do want.
This looks like another example of the need to filter for specific data quality assessments in project set up. Casual grade is a coarse filter. You either have to accept all of it or none of it in a project.
There is a lot of useful data marked casual but a lot of minimally-useful data too, e.g. missing time/date/location information. I think lots of us want to include casual grade data that meets some of the DQA without having to accept all casual grade observations.
There is an existing thread that has morphed into this request. Maybe it was the one about wild and natural vs captive and cultivated?
Not exactly. I’m not really sure why observations without media are even allowed - I don’t see the point on this platform. I would occasionally see a random observation without media / ID, but now I’m seeing MANY observations with no media, but with IDs. Seems to be mostly birds. eBird would be a better option for those. I have no value for those and there isn’t an easy work around if you accept casual DQ.
Excluding observations without media would seem like an easy fix since they already filter for photos and or sounds.
please keep in mind that just because you see no value in these, does not mean that many other people do not. There are many reasons why someone may upload a casual observation with no media. For example, I am sometimes employed to conduct species surveys on private properties or on land slate for development. If I see a species that I can clearly ID on sight, but didn’t get a photo for any of multiple reasons, I can still upload a casual record, and have it appear on my species list for that site.
Thats fine, but it would be nice if I had the option to easily exclude them. Simple enough.
sure, and I don’t disagree with your feature request, I’m just explaining why they are allowed on the platform
Fair enough, but I get:
(observation link removed by moderator)
Why?? Whats the point? I saw a bird!!
I’m even seeing cases of no media and the IDs are typed in (not selected from pull down list). I even had one observer who uploaded multiple observations with no media or even selected ID (shown as unknown) - the species were put in the notes.
Fair enough, but I get:
(observation link removed by moderator)
Why?? Whats the point? I saw a bird!!
So, it is ID’d as a warbler?
It is pretty common for new users to misunderstand how to use the iNat apps and website. There remains a big need for onboarding tutorials, as has been discussed for at least half a decade here. I don’t even know if iNat staff considers this a deliverable.
This seems like a reasonable request to me, but it seems that very few feature requests come to fruition.
Yep, they saw a warbler!!
I’m rather hoping this request makes it, since it’s useful and appears to be a simple fix - could be wrong.
Got my fingers crossed.
