Description of need:
Observers sometimes edit an observation after another user interacts with it. Ideally, observers should add a comment explaining the edit if it is reasonable to do so*, but often they don’t.
A few case examples:
- See this forum post. An observer posts an observation, an identifier adds an ID, the observer deletes all the photos on the observation and adds new photos of a completely new organism with no explanation. This is an extreme example that thankfully doesn’t happen often, but it does happen sometimes.
- User A posts an observation with multiple photos representing one organism, but the last photo represents a completely different organism. User B posts a comment explaining that the last photo should be moved to its own observation as it represents a different organism. User A does so but doesn’t post a comment stating that they did so. User C sees the edited observation and comments something like, “these ARE all the same organism”. Different iterations of this situation happen relatively frequently, sometimes involving other aspects like the date observed, location, etc.
Feature request details:
It would be nice if iNat automatically generated a text box when an observation is edited to help mitigate the confusion caused by these situations. Because observers often make a series of edits on an observation immediately after posting, and because the app sometimes uploads observations somewhat piecemeal if service is poor, I suggest that these messages only start being generated after another user (i.e., a user that is not the observer) interacts (e.g., identifies, comments, favorites) with the observation.
Messages can be something like:
A photo has been deleted from this observation.
A photo has been added to this observation.
The observed date/time has been edited.
The location has been edited.
I know notifications are scheduled for a revamp, and others may have different preferences, but I personally would also like this to generate a notification for anyone who is following the observation. This would help mitigate the following situations:
- User A posts an observation with photos representing multiple different organisms. User B adds the appropriate vote in the DQA and a comment explaining that each iNat observation is supposed to represent a single organism. User A corrects the error, posts no comment, and doesn’t add a counter vote in the DQA. The observation remains casual because User B doesn’t know the observation has been corrected.
- User A posts an observation. User B asks if User A has any photos showing X feature needed to identify the organism to species. User A adds a photo showing the requested feature but does not comment/tag User B. User B doesn’t revisit the observation because they don’t know it’s been updated.
*It likely isn’t necessary for the observer to post an explanation for minor edits (e.g., adjusting the observed time by an hour due to forgetting to account for a time zone/daylight savings change), but it certainly wouldn’t hurt if one was automatically generated.