Should I delete unidentifiable observations?

General
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I have a few observations that will likely not be able to be effectively ID (some organisms need better photographs than what I took, potentially even a microscope for some.) Crayfish claw, lichens, etc. Just wondering if it would be better to delete some of these instead of clogging up more identifiable posts.

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If you feel confident the community ID cannot be refined further you can check the “No, it’s as good as it can be” box here (this should be at the bottom of the “Data Quality Assessment” form) which will remove it from the identification pool:

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Please note for this option to be available the community ID needs to be established, which requires two IDs at the most specific level. So for instance in this situation:

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The checkboxes are grayed out, as there is only one Muscoidea ID:

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If I agreed with the Muscoidea ID the checkbox would be available.

I personally don’t like to delete my observations as I figure there’s always some chance they could be useful for something I hadn’t even thought of. I’ll always think about the bristle worm that got rediscovered by researchers who knew to look in the background of seahorse observations!

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Welcome to the iNat Forum, Lily!

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Shouldn’t it be the “No, it’s a s good as it can be” box??

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I have not had enough coffee today! Thank you

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You could keep these observations until you figure out how to photograph to make it identifiable and revisit the location with the organism. Then delete them after you got better photos. Of course, this won’t work if the organism is elusive and you are unlikely to encounter the species again easily.

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Thank you very much for the thorough explanation!

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I have done that before - for some reason the wording always throws me off.

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You are allowed to delete your observation but you don’t have to. I depends how do you use iNat and for what purpose.

For delete:

  • If you want to showcase you photography skills and that one does not measure up to your standards
  • You don’t want your location at that time on public record
  • The observation hinders in some way what you want to achieve

Against delete:

  • And old observation can show how your knowledge and skills increase over time
  • The photo(s) look good
  • The subject is rare, hard to find or hard to capture in a photo
  • There are useful comments on the observation
  • You want to keep a timeline of the places you visited
  • The observation has some value for you or it assists with what you are trying to do in iNat

When I see one reasonably good photo but no identifiable features, i just skip. If I see a couple from the same observer, I start leaving comments on what to capture to allow identification.

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If there are IDs, comments, annotations, observation fields or projects on your obs - please don’t, delete the time and effort that others have put in for your obs.

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