I don’t think it’s fair to cast all cases in which users speculate on the locations of obscured observations as
In the specific instance the OP described, the initial observer did not flag or ask for the comment to be removed or indicate that they felt discussion of the location was a problem as far as we know. They were made aware of the comment and could choose to delete the observation if they wished.
iNat’s obscuration is not perfect, and no one should assume it is so or rely on it. iNat’s documentation says as much, and pretty much describes the scenario laid out here. If a location/observation is really sensitive, it probably shouldn’t be posted on iNat.
To play devli’s advocate, in a way, the commenters are doing a little bit of a service here. If two users on iNat are already able to figure out a location of an observation from the photo/context, others are certainly able to do so as well. The observation is already not secure, and the obscuration is ineffective. Commenting at least lets the observer know that their observation is not effectively obscured and that they might want to consider deleting it.
This was my thought too… clearly the location was recognizable from the photos, or else the commentor wouldn’t have been able to identify the location as they did. If it were my observation, I’d want to know that it’s from such a well-known spot that others in the community immediately recognize it.
I have plenty of insects I’ve refrained from posting for this exact reason- sometimes something is so restricted in its occurrences that anyone “in the know” can quickly work out where the observation is from, just from knowing the county. Obscure all the Northeastern Beach Tiger Beetle observations you want… we all know where you were: on the one beach in the county with the endangered beetles.
Think of the obscuration as harm reduction. It doesn’t make it impossible to figure out the location, but it does make it that much harder.
In a case like this, anyone who could guess the location from the picture + knowledge of the extant locations for the species is likely not a threat for poaching based on the inaturalist observation because they already knew of the population already. Therefore, the only people who revealing the location is helpful for are people who couldn’t have figured it out anyway. If any of them exist, then the obscuration has accomplished its goal of making it harder.
On the other hand, if literally anyone could figure out the location from the photo, then the obscuration also wasn’t hurting anything, and commenting the location accomplishes no purpose other than making the observer uncomfortable and possibly causing them to delete it or stop posting. It is respectful and fosters better community to not do this.
We shouldn’t discuss the specific instance(s) on the forum but I’m not sure that is true anymore; anyway I don’t think the initial acceptability of a behavior should be decided based on whether or not it was flagged after the fact.
A concluding update on the situation, which I shall try to keep as general as possible:
Staff clarified that while the Community Guidelines may not explicitly discourage speculating on obscured locations, doing so does violate the Terms of Use, specifically the clause on privacy infringements of posted content. This clause states, “You represent and warrant that: […] the Content […] does not violate the privacy or publicity rights of any third party”. Staff even likened such speculative comments to ‘doxxing’.
I hope this application of the clause is helpful for anyone who comes across similar situations. That said, the specifics of each situation will matter, and it is usually best to contact the commenter first to try resolving the issue directly before escalating it (e.g., by flagging or hiding the comments).
That’s a good reference to have, though I hope then that this “ruling” will be incorporated into the Community Guidelines. These are much more accessible and understandable. ToS is very much “legalese” and rarely interacted with by any users. It will also be much harder for non-native English speakers to understand/access than the Community Guidelines (which are also more likely to be translated, I think…)
as argued above. Many species are cryptic, limited in phenology, or rarely seen at certain locations. Users may recognize a location they have visited before but didn’t know that a species of interest was present. Certain landmarks may be visible in a photo, etc. that no previous knowledge of the population at that location is necessary to interpret. I personally have found multiple locations of multiple species that poachers are interested in as obscured observations on iNat that I otherwise was not aware of. I was not trying particularly hard or using any “dark arts”. If I can do this, many people can. I would wager that many forum users have been able to do this as well.
I don’t generally post about this in comments as I don’t think that it is a good idea, but I think that many users overestimate the efficacy of obscuration. I agree that obscuration
but the people who are interested in gaining location data with a bad intent are
a) definitely out there and
b) likely to be at least somewhat proficient at it
c) more motivated than average whether for a personal collection, money, whatever
It’s important that users realize the limits of obscuration which I think discussing this situation helps with.
Sure; I’ve been able to guess the location of an obscured observation because I didn’t know the site, which narrowed it down considerably because I knew most of the area of the obscuration box pretty well. But I didn’t post guessing about it in the comments. There’s always going to be holes.
In cases where you have, say, a highly recognizable waterfall paired with an endangered species, or a lizard crawling across the screen of a GPS unit, it might be good to warn the user in comments that the location is easy to guess, but that is different from actually guessing it in the comments without any indication that the purpose is as a warning.