What makes you assume that people who opt out (…out of the “leave it to the majority to decide what is scientifically correct”) do not care?
If they don’t respond when an ID is added, why would we ID their obs?
Especially if a string of taxon specialists have not noticed Opted Out - your ID is not required ;~)
If this was a blanket opt-out, rather than case-by-case for problematic taxa, it shows that they weren’t on board with what the iNat community is about. So let 'em go to casual grade.
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I’m unclear on details but this apparently isn’t correct? There are several users that the iNat team honoured and some have had an amendment added to their profile information about their passing, though I don’t know if all of the latter were done by iNat staff or relatives.
I don’t expect people to agree with opt-out always, but I find these kinds of stances to be a little bit disingenuous and troubling to consider.
Opt-out gets a bad reputation because the worst implications of it, if misused, could cause faulty data or waste identifiers time. But there are plenty of people who use opt-out because they care, and plenty that will update or opt-in after when IDs are challenged or changed. Judging the system by a banner of a selective malicious or unhelpful few is not productive. And no ID is a “waste”, even if the observer doesn’t opt-in to it, as it educates others who see the observation later. I’ve learned helpful input from such cases before.
The only problem I see with opt-out is the topic here. Where someone may become inactive or pass and their observations become effectively frozen in time.
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We don’t know why people choose to opt-out of community ID’s. They may care a lot about getting the ID right. They may not. They may be long gone from iNaturalist. And their motivations don’t really matter.
If the observer doesn’t update his ID (and doesn’t explain why) it just becomes a trap for identifiers, causing them to waste time needlessly. I wouldn’t do this with a recent observation, but with older observations that can’t correct an ID or get to RG because the observer has opted out, I have no qualms about selecting “No, it can’t be improved” because it can’t. If the observer cares about whether the observation remains Casual, he just needs to opt in.
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My admittedly very limited experience with opt-out is that most people never follow up on it. I’ve added comments to such observations a few times and had a total of one response (yep, I think that was you). Most have merely added an ID and effectively left the observation to rot when it turns out to be wrong or is just at a high level. (Of course, I’ve typically found them when going through old Needs ID and therefore I won’t see ones who do actually respond to alternate IDs, so I probably have a biased view.)
If someone does want that sort of control over the ID of their observations, and follows up on any differing/improving IDs, I don’t have a problem with it. I wouldn’t want one of my observations having an ID I was convinced was wrong either. But if someone is not willing or able to respond to a question, I have no qualms about marking it ‘good as it can be’, even if that makes it casual.
It would just be nice if the information that someone’s opted out was available without having to open the observation to see what’s going on…
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That is because you, are the exception that proves the rule.
I know that you respond promptly to IDs, and I in turn will withdraw from yours if needed.
A substantial chunk of ‘opted out for all my obs’ is from people who don’t understand what that means. And don’t understand how to respond going forward. A yes you are right comment does not hack it.
Opting out for single obs for good reason is a valid choice I respect.
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Here is the link from tiwane for you
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There is a concept called “a digital ghost”, which refers to your online presence after you die: your social media accounts, your comments on threads, etc. It is a strange thing that you can experience right here and on iNat.
This thread about lapsed users raises an interesting counterpoint: instead of people who are dead, but are still functionally alive online,
We are concerned with people who are actually alive, but are functionally dead online
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I just want to say. The feature opt out works if the user is there to curate their data and make decisions. If something ever unexpected happens like with this case. The users data will be stuck forever. It does create issues becuase i dont know how many users would honestly agree with having their observation data be stuck in stone like this. But we cant really ask them what their wishes are.
I think perhaps a setting would be the best option. Like if a user is inactive for a year, opt out gets switched off to prevent data becoming locked in stone for eternity. But also an option if that is really what the user wants.
As an Identifier myself. The unfortunate truth is when i run into a situation like this. I usually just go through their observations and mark reviewed as theres nothing i can do. If any are incorrect, i just mark as good as can be making them casual as theres nothing else you can do. In a way its just ignoring their data and contributions. Which im not sure many people actually would want.
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Can @tiwane or someone provide a percentage of how many people have opted out? How many Observations percentage wise fall into this set?
(I wonder if there is a perception that this is a wider spread consideration than it actually is, if it is such a low percentage that for most everything, these Observations would actually fall well within the margin of error of any scientific data set.)
We really ought not to be trying to read other presumably capable adults’ minds and wishes nor second guessing their decisions. That said, for underaged individuals accessing the site (I believe there is a threshold), perhaps these settings ought to be chosen by the adults providing consent.
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2 years ago, I could have told you, but…
https://www.inaturalist.org/comments/11776935
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“We really ought not to be trying to read other presumably capable adults’ minds and wishes nor second guessing their decisions.”
This is why a setting in the profile would potentially be a great way to solve this issue. If after x years of inactivity, opt out turns off, or opt out is on regardless of account inactivity.
“I wonder if there is a perception that this is a wider spread consideration than it actually is”
It’s not that big of a number percentage wise. But what i can tell you is when users in a situation like this where they may have passed away suddenly without being able to change their settings, or if they have left INaturalist, or just don’t access their account anymore. Have rare or very under observed species. It can be quite a bummer becuase those are data points unusable now if they aren’t IDed. I had this happen with one of the users mentioned here where they had observations of some species with barely any observations and which could really use more.
I’m sure there are some users who would want their observation data set in stone. But i’m also certain that there are people who use the opt out feature that would not want their observations to be frozen for all time if something unexpectedly happened to them where they were not able to change that setting.
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From my interactions with users, I’ve learned that some people set their account as “opt out” as they sign up, without having a clue what that means. They didn’t intend anything by it. Not that that matters for our discussion.
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I think a change to how observations with a conflicting Community ID and an ID by a user that has opted out are shown would be better and easier.
Currently if a users that has opted out of Community ID provides an ID to an observation “Species A”, that’s what shows up when you search that record. If 17,000 people provide an ID of “Species B”, then that observation will still show up as Species A. It will also show up in maps when looking at all observations of Species A, even if the Community ID is Species B.
I would like to see a change where opting out of Community ID doesn’t mean that the users ID overrules the Community ID
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But the user’s ID overruling the community ID is precisely what opting out of the community ID means! What it’s supposed to mean.
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slightly off topic, but in that comment:
Until a new feature is available for filtering “opted-out” observations. (A technical review of this feature is on-going).
Now that there is a filter which filters out observations with private locations, which shares many of the same issues as opted out observations, I see no reason why an opt-out filter shouldn’t exist, especially since it is possible.
Does anyone know the status of such a thing in the two years since?
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I think this would be a very elegant solution to an otherwise difficult problem. I would encourage you (or someone) to submit it as a feature request for account settings.
This makes it a user choice, and not an automated system change that the user might or might not want if they were around. While some may argue that removal of opt-out should be involuntary after some passage of time, that is probably not going to happen given iNat’s account ownership model, which seems unlikely to change.
Maybe in addition to an overall period of account inactivity, it could also allow a user to put a “timer” on individually or globally opted-out observations, even if their account continues to be active.
Personally I don’t use the opt-out feature, but if I did I would certainly take advantage of such account setting(s) if they were available.
I could see the same concept being useful for other purposes too. For example, I would personally love to have an account setting that would automatically revert ownership and control of my account to inaturalist.org after a chosen period of inactivity, circumventing wills and digital assets and all of that (or untimely lack thereof).
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Opted Out means the observer insists - I am right, and you are all wrong - no matter how many of you there are, or how good your assorted credentials are.
I do respect that choice, if a thoughtful observer has - done dissection or whatever in a lab setting and KNOWS their ID is right. But those obs are almost non-existent across iNat (for Opted Out that is).
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