Recent evidence of organism interval

General
,
1

According to the help page, observations will revert to “Casual” if the community agrees the observation doesn’t present recent (~100 years) evidence of the organism (among other requirements). I’ve come across conflicting interpretations of when this hundred-year interval begins or ends and so I’m seeking clarity here.

Some possible interpretations include the following (and there are certainly more):

  1. Time between the organism being alive and the creation of the observation evidence (e.g., the original photo).
  2. Time between the creation of the observation evidence and when the observation was uploaded.
  3. Time between the creation of the observation evidence and present day.
  4. Time between the organism likely being alive and when the observation was uploaded.
  5. Time between the organism likely being alive and present day.

I have up until today applied interpretation #5, however I know that interpretation #1 is definitely used as well. I could also get behind interpretation #4 or other interpretations using the most recent timestamp as the date of iNaturalist inception. These varying interpretations can lead to very different applications of the DQA vote.

Example: An observation that is more than 100 years old (before present day) and uses a photo of a live organism taken at the time of the observation but was uploaded less than 100 years after the observation took place. Strictly applying interpretation #5 (or #3), this observation would not contain recent evidence. However, using interpretation #1, #2 or #4, it would.

I am aware that the hundred-year mark is a soft limit and this DQA is partly aimed at marking fossils. However, it would still be great to get some clarity on what the “~100 years” interval refers to specifically, to resolve disputes on observations similar to the example mentioned above.

2

I think one additional consideration here is whether the observer actually took the picture or not. I think that part of the rationale for the 100 year fuzzy limit is that it essentially allows use of the field to DQA historical photos of organisms that were not taken by the observer (which is discouraged anyways).

On the other hand, it isn’t unreasonable to think that an older observer might upload a photo they took when they were a child that is now 80-90 years old. This would be fine.

3 Likes
3

Somewhere tiwane said - 100 years was a ‘random’ number to allow for expecting the observer / photographer to have been Alive Then.

The new help, with my bolding, says

  • the community agrees the observation doesn’t present recent (~100 years) evidence of the organism (e.g. fossils, but tracks, scat, and dead leaves are ok)

An obs is meant to be - My photo - taken by me - I was there - then. So, a hundred years is optimistic.

https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/what-is-your-oldest-observation/27766

https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/oldest-observation-date/19063/2

1 Like
4

I occasionally mark very old observations as not containing “recent evidence” due to the observation occurring more than 100 years before present day (interpretation 3). In response to this, the observer and sometimes other users (including curators) counter my DQA vote to maintain these observations at research grade. It would be helpful to have a more specific definition of what counts as “recent evidence” that can be referred to in these situations.

5

Yes, that seems like the wrong way to think of this to me. Think of inat 100 years from now - should all of the observations taken before today suddenly become less valid for research use on that day?

The only measure that makes any logical sense as a data quality metric is whether the evidence in the observation was created “recently” at the time it was observed.

Fresh claw marks on a tree or tracks in wet mud, are Very Recent. Old but still visible claw marks on a still living tree or tracks in dried mud may still be ‘recent’ but less so. Fossilised tracks exposed in the side of a cliff … no longer ‘recent’.

A photograph of a Thylacine from the 1800’s with accurate date and location data is still a valid, dare I say even Valuable observation if the observer is correctly credited by someone with permission to share that photograph here. We can know within reasonably tight limits when and where that animal was alive.

The grey area in this context might be something like “A photo I took yesterday of the (clearly identifiable) mummified remains of a Thylacine that I found preserved in a cave” …

6

I disagree. While the “recent evidence” does indeed refer to the condition of the evidence at the time of observation, the photo of a thylacine shouldn’t be posted as an observation on iNat.

Staff have clarified that one of the reasons for the 100 year number (which used to be 130) is that it excludes observations that could not plausibly have been made by a living person.

A thylacine observation from the 1800’s would not have been made by a living person. An observation represents the observer’s experience - not just any historical observation. Observations like this shouldn’t be uploaded to iNat. For a fuller explanation from staff, you can see
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/museum-specimens-antique-photos-and-inaturalist/31638/28
and numerous other forum threads.

That doesn’t mean the thylacine observation isn’t valuable - iNat just isn’t a good place for it.

2 Likes
7

Thanks for the clarification and link to the other discussion thread.

I picked the Thylacine as an example to think through because it’s an easy one to check for fit in lots of the possible corner cases. The special-case I was trying to qualify by “if the observer is correctly credited by someone with permission to share that photograph here” was the one where there is some direct and continuing association between the original observation and the person posting it here (ergo the permission to share it).

Which I see as being on the edge of the kind of grey @tiwane highlighted with “So IMO iNat is not a great place for posting old family photos that you’re not directly involved with”. And distinct from something like taking a photo of an old photo in a museum, or taking a public domain photo you have no connection at all to off the internet.

The last live sightings were in the 1930’s, so there’s the possibility for a plausible chain connecting sightings that someone was directly involved with to sightings they inherited and curate. But even if the sightings their parents made on the property they grew up on before they were born aren’t appropriate for here, the sightings that they were present for and remember as a child shouldn’t be expired as ‘not recent’ a decade from now when they too are no longer a living person.

In a similar shade of grey we have (some very) active people on inat who have personally collected observation records (which are valuable to ongoing inat projects) that date back to well before inat existed, which they have been incrementally adding here. If one of those people got hit by a bus tomorrow, should completing that task die with them, with the rest of their similar observations summarily becoming “not recent”, or would it be ok for whoever inherited their records to finish that work and add them as the observations of that person.

I wouldn’t want to call that one on the ‘facts’ of a hypothetical situation, or have whatever decision was made in one real case stand as a repeatable precedent. But I could see the RIght Decision going either way on the actual pros and cons of either action.

I love the focus on inat being primarily a living record of what the participants are seeing in the world around them. And I’m ok with the occasional ‘exceptional’ inclusion of proxy observations where including them is in line with that goal - and even, in even more exceptional cases, proxy accounts like this one: https://www.inaturalist.org/people/valerie_taylor - but I agree it should be about people getting outside to see things today, not digging through old drawers to find Content to inflate their leaderboard standings and life lists with.

So I think what I’ve learned from thinking through this more carefully, is that I don’t think that the “recent evidence” flag is a good proxy for the broader issue of “appropriate for inat” even when the reason for inappropriateness is somehow age related.

The organism that this is evidence of had been gone for a very long time before this observation was made.

is not the same flavour of problem as

The observer (has been gone for a very long time and) could not have possibly ever had a direct connection to the inat community.

8

This topic was automatically closed 60 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.