One big problem with the iNaturalist journals is that they don’t have a way to store images. You have to link to the image. I have some journal posts that link to images stored on my website but I’m thinking of getting rid of my website. I saw someone else had put their non-observation images for a journal post in an observation with private coordinates marked as captive and with an explanation and link to the journal post. Are there any rules against this? It seems like if we want to preserve iNat data, including journal posts, images should all be stored on iNat so they aren’t lost. Example journal posts with images I’m thinking of putting in non-observation observations here and here.

I don’t personally think this is a good use of iNat observations. There are other ways to host photos, and I don’t think iNat has any obligation to media hosting for users’ personal journals. For instance, some users want video in their journal posts. iNat doesn’t support videos, and those users use alternate video hosting services for that. The same can be done for photos - there are hundreds of options for this. If users really want to force iNat to host journal images that aren’t observation images, I believe it is possible to have photos that aren’t a part of observations, though I forget how this is done and am not necessarily advocating that as a good solution (though better than making fake observations).

[image] cthawley: I don’t personally think this is a good use of iNat observations. I don’t know if it is a great idea either but I’m looking for ideas on how to keep iNat related data/info on iNat. Links from other sources change, disappear, etc. All the extra data/images could be tied to a legitimate observation as extra images but a chart comparing iNat phenology data from three taxa really doesn’t seem appropriate for that. Seems much better to add that to an observation that will provide a useful link but be hidden away with all the other observations that aren’t good enough to ever make it to research grade. Is posting iNat phenology data as an observation really worse than a blurry landscape photo posted as an observation? Or almost any observation with the location set to private?

[image] keirmorse: Links from other sources change, disappear, etc. links to images on iNaturalist could change, too. it wasn’t that long ago that a big chunk of image urls changed when iNat began participating in the AWS Open Data program. they’ve also talked in the past about potentially changing the naming convention for image files.

I admit that I have done this myself. The problem with hosting the images elsewhere is that photo hosting sites disappear (often with little warning). Photo hosting is not a lucrative business and you either need to pay a subscription or risk your images disappearing. I would rather keep them on iNaturalist with the journal post. If someone has a specific suggestion for a better idea, I would love to hear about it.

I did an experimental post as an example of what one of the proposed iNat journal post image observations would look like, which you can see here. It looks like I can post an observation without a date and location, I can make the nonexistent location private, and I can give a lot of nos for the DQA. This should mostly hide the observation so that it would be out of anyone’s way. As this is related to the genus Malacothamnus, I IDed it as such, So, if someone digs deep, they could find this observation. This would link to an iNat journal post about Malacothamnus, which would make the “observation” more valuable than many of the poorer quality observations currently on iNat. Overall, it seems like an effective solution to the issue of iNat journals not storing images. As long as a post like this is related to iNat, iNat data, and helps the iNat community, it seems like it shouldn’t be an issue except that it isn’t about one organism at one place and time, which is where the problem comes in. Thought for or against? Other ideas?

I do wish there was an official way to do this. I’ve done a number of journal posts where I might have wanted to included a range map that I generated, but I did not include one since I would have had to have hosted it somewhere else on the web. It would be nice to keep associated images all in one place. I don’t really care for the idea of putting non-observation type images into an observation though. It is definitely a hack.

I’m honestly glad the photos in journal posts are just links to photos hosted elsewhere. I make identification journal posts, and I frequently use images that aren’t mine to point out important ID features. Downloading someone else’s photos and uploading them myself would be unethical and potentially illegal, but linking to the original photos hosted elsewhere is perfectly fine and doesn’t require any special permissions.

[image] zygy: If someone has a specific suggestion for a better idea if you don’t want to use a photo hosting site like Flickr for whatever reason, Microsoft’s OneDrive service allows you to embed a photo that you have stored in OneDrive into a web page. Wikimedia allows you to upload photos, provided they meet certain guidelines. I wouldn’t expect either of these to disappear unexpectedly. [image] paul_dennehy: linking to the original photos hosted elsewhere is perfectly fine and doesn’t require any special permissions. limited such use is probably no big deal, especially if you’re giving proper attribution / credit, but not everyone likes it when images on their site are used on another site. (they have to pay for that traffic, but they’re not getting the benefit of folks visiting their site.)

Posting non-observation journal images as observations?

General

jwidness December 21, 2025, 5:34pm 4

You may be interested in this feature request: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/make-it-easier-to-insert-photos-into-comments-journals-etc/14147

Topic		Replies	Views
Make it easier to insert photos into comments, journals, etc Feature Requests	38	2608	November 6, 2026
Can I use photos taken by my grandparents or other deceased estate? General	70	2149	December 23, 2024
Suggestion on how to include habitat images General recommendations	32	4014	March 29, 2024
Is it acceptable to create a second account for things that I did not observe myself? General question	54	5155	August 11, 2019
"My" Observations? General	33	2438	October 17, 2023

Posting non-observation journal images as observations?

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