Hello,
Sorry if I missed the answer in the Getting Started or FAQ pages, or in previous forum discussions.
I enjoy iNaturalist a lot. But these days, due to the pandemic (and now, also winter weather), the vast majority of my observations are in my backyard and around my house. Mostly, these are birds that come to our bird-feeders and bird baths. There are also some squirrels and rabbits. (There are also more unusual ones like fox tracks, but they do not raise the same concern for me.)
In fact, we may have some āregularsā - individuals from the same species that come to feed and drink here almost daily. I cannot prove it (except for one squirrel with a distinct characteristic). I like taking and sharing multiple photos of our visitors. I also enjoy looking at multiple photos of the same species. (Then again, how is that different from enjoying watching multiple cat videos online? :-)
My concern is the community or scientific value multiple observations of the same species or even individual at the same place, sometimes on the same day.
It reminds me of the old saying, āthe plural of anecdote is not dataā. Recording anecdotal observations without any limit on duplication or sample-selection bias does not seem likely to product useful data.
In contrast, Project Feeder Watch says to record only the largest number of individuals of the same species of bird on the same day. This avoids double-counting the same individuals, as they may come to feed repeatedly. It also seems to be focused on abundance data.
The Ontario Breeding Birds Atlas (as I remember it from years ago) was even more structured: you have to go to randomly-determined GPS locations within a geographic rectangle, once for each location, and record all birds observed during a pre-set number of minutes.
These are citizen science projects, and I can see how they would produce scientifically useful data. iNaturalist also looks like it aspires to produce such data (otherwise, why the āResearch Gradeā labels?). But I am not sure how the data would be useful if I can keep posting the same species (or even individuals), from the same location, even from the same day.
I love sharing observations and exploring those shared by others. But perhaps I should post repetitive observations on a purely enjoyment-oriented site like Flickr, rather than getting these observations posted here and labeled āResearch Gradeā?