With plants at least, if it hasn’t been posted before in the immediate vicinity or if the phenology is interesting you should post it if you want to. All this plant data is valuable. No one collected “unnecessary” data about lots of places that are now destroyed or species that are now rare or extirpated
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… I am into moths. My observation method (light at night) makes it interesting to me, to monitor the seasonal occurrence of moth species. Some are on wings very early or very late in the year, some form 2 generations etc. I am not doing this for any audience out there… just for myself. I have always done diaries with my recordings in the past… and this is now all on iNaturalist. Some of the ones from the past are uploaded without photo, some with a photo of a dry collection specimen (mainly from the 1970s)… so, in summary, there may be lots of idividuals of those species common to where I was observing… unproprtional… but should I care? There will be 1 record per species per night for the easy to ID species. But for some more difficult groups, for example Boarmiini (Geometridae, Lepidtoptera) there may be pictures of different individuals, as I have no clue which exact species I am looking at. Again, should I care? - The thing I worry much more about is the longevity of iNaturalist. My diary notes, written on paper, survived now for almost 50 years and are still readable. Will iNaturalist also survive???
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You could always export your records and keep a copy yourself. I have the parts of my iNat account stored locally.
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