Is there a way to flag an observation so that it doesn’t show up in the Identify screen (or better still doesn’t show up until it has been edited)? If I’m identifying unknown observations there will always be some that no one can do anything with because they have multiple organisms or are humans or some other reason that that isn’t easily classifiable in the Research Grade Qualification section. I’d guess other people identifying unknown observations would come across the same observations so it might be good if I could hide them.
To hide them from yourself: Mark them as reviewed (or just hit “r” while the observation is open)
If you think they should be hidden from everyone: Mark them as “identification cannot be improved” in the data quality assessment
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These can actually become very valuable, both for data and for education of newer users, if someone is willing to spend a little time communicating with the user.
For a single photo with multiple identifiable organisms, ask the observer to state which organism they want an ID for (check their description and comments first, in case they already did so). If they so state, then reward them with an ID! (at whatever taxonomic level you can). And then encourage them to use the Edit => Duplicate feature to make additional copies of the observation for any other identifiable organisms in the same photo, and similarly state which (other) organism they want identified in each one.
For observations with multiple photos, each of a different organism, the user should be gently reminded in a comment or message that an observation is for an encounter with a single organism at a single place and time. Encourage them to post separate observations for each different organism in their set of photos, and remove the extras from the current observation. This can be done via new uploads, or again by using the Duplicate feature, and just un-checking the unwanted images in each duplicate before saving.
For photos of Humans, just ID as human and move on, or maybe leave a comment that you look forward to seeing their observations of other wild organisms too.
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I was thinking of observations where someone had already put a comment on and the user had (yet) done anything. There are going to be some where the user never comes back and so they could appear in people’s searches indefinitely. I suppose marking them as “identification cannot be improved” in the data quality assessment would work (and that can be removed if they do edit the observation).
The other example I was thinking of was duplicate observations.
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Yes, in those cases, if the user remains unresponsive, then @reuvenm’s suggestions are the best way to go.
I would note the opposite can also be an issue. If you flag or DQA something and the user does fix it, you get no notification about it, so if the user does not know how to offset your action, the record will still stay hidden.
Any comment or action you take should also have explicit instructions to offset your DQA vote or flag if the user does fix.
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Should this work if they are “Unknown” or “State of matter Life”. I’ve tried it on some duplicate observations or observations where it’s not possible to id anything and I’ve still had them show up in identify later.
it needs a community ID before that takes effect. that is, 2 people need to add IDs first
Thanks!
So is there something I could do to stop an observation like this showing up in identify:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/29336866
It has multiple photos (which was pointed out by someones else 2 months ago), I’ve just checked that user’s observations and all photos are duplicated on other observations, so there is no reason for the observation to exist. I’d like to stop it showing up in “identify” so that people trying to categories all the “unknown” uk observations don’t see it.
There is unfortunately no agreed upon way for how to deal with duplicates when the user is unresponsive to comments asking that they remove them. Personally I flag them so that they’re casual grade.
Staff response on this here: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/create-a-way-to-flag-duplicate-observations-and-remove-rg-status-from-the-extras/201/53
Which flag do you use?
I flag it as “other” and say something like “duplicate and user unresponsive to requests to delete”.
I already did that one. https://www.inaturalist.org/flags/409978
Ah, thanks. The “Inappropriate content?” flag. I had forgotten that could be used for things other than spam / offensive content.
It specifically says it shouldn’t be used for duplicates (that text was added within the past year). But 🤷
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Yes, there doesn’t seem anything else to do with them so sounds good :-)
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