For the metadata. Location, etc. They will probably upload the full image when they get the chance to sit down and do it.
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This is interesting - I had never considered this drawback to camera use - I’ve only used my camera phone myself, but I keep thinking about getting a dedicated camera.
But unfortunately when I encounter pictures of a camera back it’s usually by someone who is very novice… not that that would preclude them from having a reason for doing it, but it just makes me uneasy that the location or time information might not be correct or they may be taking a picture of something that is not theirs, and I don’t have many other examples of their work to show that they “get” iNaturalist.
I used to write a little message asking why when I encountered these observations. I think I got maybe one response. Now I just skip identification of them. I guess if they do get fixed then I’ll encounter them at a later date and never realize they were once a picture of a camera screen.
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From what I understand, there are at least two common and valid reasons for making observations like this, 1) to get a GPS marker that the camera doesn’t provide, and 2) to share an observation on site with fellow observers who weren’t lucky enough to get a good shot at what was being observed during a group outing.
However, I’ve also seen observations like this that were clearly made after the fact (e.g. daytime outdoors observations made close to midnight with the location inside a house), which probably should be marked time and location not accurate. I often will put a comment on these pointing out that the time and location should be for when and where the original photo was taken. Sometimes it gets corrected and I’ve learned at least some of these are done because the person finds its easier/faster to make an observation using the app rather than downloading the pictures off the camera and uploading them to the website.
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That does not happen.
yes it does. :-)
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I wouldn’t say it never happens. Rarely perhaps. But I know of people who habitually take photos of cameras and/or computer screens - with the result that their observations end up with inaccurate dates/locations (location is always right on top of the same house in every observation, even though the species is a habitat specialist that couldn’t be found in an urban area). I wish there was an easy way to simply exclude these folks from my identification queue. Yeah, I can edit the URL I’ve constructed and saved, but it is already quite long, and I have a long list of users I’d like to blacklist.
I am used to upload pictures from my computer but I sometimes prefer to have the precise location for different purposes and projects (including phenology follow up, conservation, etc.). For that, I take a picture of the screen of my camera. As I make many observations with the App. in the field, it saves time for me. It is true that it may disappoint and sometimes I received claims that it was taken on a movie or a journal and that it implies to be false. I answered to the first of them and stopped being tired to repeat the same thing. Curiously, it happened only for uncommon or rare species.
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is why taxon specialists respond. Keeping their data tidy.
Would the mute option help you? I haven’t used it so don’t know what it actually does.
No, the “mute option” does not exclude observations - it only excludes notifications. I tried to ask for that feature, too. Currently, I use a URL with “¬_user_id=(my list)” in it.
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In the end, we have to acknowledge that working with software is for many people like executing some kind of rite - they follow the steps they have learned, but do not at all understand what those steps are meant to achieve.
What’s a “file”, what’s a “folder”? Even computer science students often lack such basic knowledge when they start.
Since those “back of camera observations” generally provide all required information (place, date, and a good enough picture for identification), let us keep them. People without computer knowledge can - and do - often provide interesting observations or valuable identifications.
@dianastruder: Yes, in most (all?) of his novels, Cormac McCarthy writes without quotation marks and usually without dialog attribution – you have to pay attention. I just finished his two latest, “Stella Maris” and “The Passenger”. Recommend. Peter Matthiessen wrote “Far Tortuga” that way too. Also recommend.
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Good to know. I tend to roll my own anyway, just because … well, that’s what I do.
@tiwane : I am referring to some specific observations, because it is very easy to find which observations @hamsambly is referring to. I perfectly know that I shall not link them here, and that is why I didn’t.
@hamsambly’s original concern is indeed only about back of camera photos by a user. I add that those photos are also uploaded by batch, with the same day, hour and minute of observation and at the exact same place, and that is a criterion for fabricated data. I also add that this user is uploading photos from book, claiming that is their own photos in a book… and has been asked several times over the years to upload the original photos, but never did.
And two of this user’s photos have already been flagged for copyright infrigement: one uploaded and removed in may 2023, and for the other one, the user claimed that it was his own photo in a book, and the user was nicely and politely asked to upload the real photo 5 years ago, but the user never answered… I also found comments about the strange locations for some observations… and he even answered once: « So mark it no if u like ». I therefore think this user is perfectly aware of what copyright infringment is, and that the wrong date and place of the observation is a problem.
I am waiting for a response to @hamsambly question before asking about the fabricated data. I think there is no need for many users to ask this user about the observations.
My guess: this user just need acurate identifications for his books, and doesn’t care about accurate location and date.
PS for @tiwane - my Swiss name often gets an extra R (it is Studer like student, not StRuder) But as here, both on iNat itself and in the forum - if we do a typo in an @mention - it is accepted, and displayed. Grey not blue, but people are busy and don’t notice. iNat needs to prompt with a popup.
There is no iNat user with that name, did you mean …?
For the typos I recognise, I add a comment with the blued up @mention.
Disappointing both for the one who asked, and the one who never got the notification (because typo @mentions are accepted)
What is worse, with so many international users, the typo may be a valid user name. Not sure how we can resolve that. @tivanee (that exists on iNat)
I see a pop-up when I start typing @ + a username:
The way iNat works (and I assume Discourse is similar) is that it just applies certain settings to any text directly following an @ symbol. The @ mention on iNat generates a notification and links to where the profile with that username would be (if it exists), but that’s it. It doesn’t check to see if the name entered matched an existing username. Discourse at least puts a gray oval under the username if its an account in this forum.
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Correct. I started reading Ulysses and about 2 pages in, my brain clicked (more of a snap really). I closed the book and went on to other less painful activities. Maybe I’ll watch the movie someday.
There appear to be a couple of (other) authors who went without quotation marks in this list:
https://qwiklit.com/2014/03/05/top-10-authors-who-ignored-the-basic-rules-of-punctuation/
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I read it. To the end. But I read a lot, and fast.
I’m going to be traveling soon with my SLR camera and no computer, just a cellphone. I’m thinking I may do the back-of-camera technique for some pics where I want to nail down the location, then replace the photo with the real one when I’m back at home. I’ll add a note to each such record that the cellphone pic is a placeholder for the real one.
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