Should I try to be frugal with iNaturalist's bandwidth?

[tisli]

Even knowing what is not identified by others can be useful data, so mass deleting… I wouldn’t do that.

[thebeachcomber]

@jasonhernandez74

If an observation has sat for a long time at an ID level whereby it would go to casual if “Cannot be Improved” was checked, why keep it? If it has sat that long, clearly the tacit consensus is that it “Cannot be Improved.”

There are many, many observations that have been sitting for years on iNat unidentified that are easily identified once the right expert comes along. It’s just a matter of waiting for that person. During an ID blitz I organised earlier this year, there were plenty of records that had been on iNat for 6 or 7 years without an ID that were pretty easily moved to species

[DianaStuder]

I still pick up obs from 10 year ago, which have been ignored by identifiers - and I can help the ID move. It can … take … years.
(One was my fault, I had ticked Not Wild - who knows why - now it is RG)

If your pictures are sharp, then keep your obs on iNat.

[jnstuart]

I think my record long period was about 9-10 years from the time I submitted with a tentative ID to when I got a good reliable ID from someone knowledgable. I’d forgotten all about that submission.

[pinkspoonbill]

I wouldn’t worry about the energy used by your laptop as you identify (or upload) observations on iNat. You’d have to sit without doing anything using electricity otherwise. If you’re not IDing on iNat, you might be watching television, using your computer for games, browsing or relaxation, charging your phone after using that, or even a lamp for reading. All of these probably use similar energy.

Having fewer children may help in the future, but sometimes kids can be of assistance. They may be minimalists, or find careers in conservation and help with land use and keeping species from extinction.

[pinkspoonbill]

I very, very rarely post casual (cultivated) observations because, based on it solely never going to research grade, appears to be unimportant. However, ever since joining iNat, I am confused as to why cultivated observations aren’t as useful as Research Grade naturally occurring ones. To me it seems casual observations can do the following:

1. Show us where garden plants are able to be grown.
2. Assist in the gardening and landscape industry what plants can be sold where.
3. Assist in showing us what will eventually become invasive. Perhaps it isn’t invasive at first and observations can tell us when it does, or tell us what cultivars are and aren’t invasive.
4. Indicate climate change or climate problems by showing that cultivated non-native plants grew in a location for 50 years, then suddenly died out and can never be grown there again. Or suddenly became invasive where they weren’t.
5. Can show what cultivated plants are located where and what native and non-native arthropods they support. And what plant diseases they are supporting.

I would think there would be an interest from commercial plant growers and landscapers in cultivated observations. In fact, perhaps some of them would be willing to donate to iNaturalist if they could use data to show what they can grow and sell in an area.

[carl_ramirez]

Yes, there are obviously environmental concerns with taking up unnecessary bandwidth.
However, I was thinking more in financial terms of bandwidth costs - I don’t have much money to donate to iNaturalist, so I want to ensure the costs incurred by my iNaturalist usage to be worth it (i.e. maximise the proportion that are Research Grade).

[spiphany]

@pinkspoonbill

To me it seems casual observations can do the following:

1. Show us where garden plants are able to be grown.
2. Assist in the gardening and landscape industry what plants can be sold where.
3. Assist in showing us what will eventually become invasive. Perhaps it isn’t invasive at first and observations can tell us when it does, or tell us what cultivars are and aren’t invasive.
4. Indicate climate change or climate problems by showing that cultivated non-native plants grew in a location for 50 years, then suddenly died out and can never be grown there again. Or suddenly became invasive where they weren’t.
5. Can show what cultivated plants are located where and what native and non-native arthropods they support. And what plant diseases they are supporting.

All of these forms of data are available in greater volume and can be collected more systematically from other sources – plant databases for gardeners, sales records from gardening centers, etc.

Observations of cultivated plants cannot tell use which plants have the potential to become invasive or not – only observations of escaped garden plants can do so. This also requires that observers correctly mark their observations as “wild” or “not wild”, which is often not the case.

Changes in reports of cultivated plants may have nothing to do with climate conditions, but may be the results of social trends (decisions to get rid of or stop selling certain plants, new legal provisions, aesthetic preferences, etc.)

Observations of cultivated plants do not tells us what native and non-native arthropods they support or what plant diseases they have. Observations of those arthropods and plant diseases do. It is possible to use observation fields to provide information about the host plant, so technically it is not even necessary to enter a separate observation for the cultivated plant if you know what it is.

[wendyjegla]

Ah, good point. I think it would be useful if everyone were - as you are here - a little more creative in thinking about the consequences of their actions.

[justatrashpanda]

Environmentally: Sending electrical signals down wires is not very energy intensive. I don’t think there is anything to worry about here.

Financially: Bandiwth is cheap. Like so cheap. Amazon Web Services charges $0.05 per GB of data transfer. Even if you uploaded a terabyte of data to INaturalist, you’d only cost the project $50.

I think the good that this project does far outweighs any concerns that might be had about the size of the uploads.

(A quick note about storage too, this is also very very inexpensive.)

[DianaStuder]

the load on the servers, which iNat pays for?

[jnstuart]

I donate US$10 per month to iNat which probably more than pays for the relatively few records I submit in a month.