Is posting an observation without a documented photo acceptable? Saw a comment to that effect, though the observation would only be classed as “casual”. Wondered what the general feeling is on this.

Its not against the rules, in iNat, but as you said, it will only count as a casual observation. I believe the website also has an option to upload observations without photos and/or sounds.

it’s fine. such an observation without a photo would just become a casual observation. if you look at the Sankey diagram at the bottom of this page ( https://jumear.github.io/stirfry/iNat_obs_counts_by_iconic_taxa.html ), you’ll see that there’s a (relatively) small but significant number of bird obs…

Like everyone else said, it’s totally fine, but because it can only be casual grade , it won’t show up on maps or in search results by default. If it’s bird observations you’re recording and you can’t get a photo, you can record sounds and upload those to iNaturalist. You might also consider using e…

I have to add that adding a photo to that effect is counterproductive. iNat adds a note and mark that observation automatically as casual. Somebody has to do or did it now.

I have found eBird cumbersome to use

As others have said, it’s s absolutely fine to post observations without media. If the description or comments don’t indicate that it was intentional, though, I will leave a comment that media is missing, because sometimes it is the result of an interrupted upload or sync error that the user was un…

eBird is definitely cumbersome if your main purpose is uploading geo-tagged photos of the species you observe. But iNat is more cumbersome (and generally insufficient) if your purpose is collecting survey data of which species are and aren’t present in a given location, which is the original and pri…

I have 13,000 observations without photo! The reason is, my old moth diaries from the 1970s are obviously hand-written books. For me valuable because they come with species, location and date. They will never be confirmed, but I can still get them in the distribution map view. During Winter time, I …

Posting w/o photo?

General

marina_gorbunova September 6, 2020, 3:21pm 2

iNat is made to connect people and nature, in any preferable way. Your choice matters, not someone else’s opinion.

Topic		Replies	Views
Posting observations without photo General	18	1544	July 13, 2021
Uploading observations with no photos General question	32	710	December 5, 2024
Is it okay to upload an observation without a photo if I’m sure about the ID? General	5	211	October 24, 2025
Are observations without photos welcome? General	7	772	August 18, 2021
Posts without images General	29	1791	March 20, 2022

Posting w/o photo?

Related topics