Having just come across yet another species represented by a photo of the wrong species [update: someone has now corrected this, but the incorrect photo is shown in the screengrab below], I have a couple of suggestions towards more accurate taxon photos, which I thought I’d float here before putting forward as a feature request.
The first is that by default, when clicking on “Edit Photos”, I’d like to see “Photos from… RG Observations” instead of “Photos from… Observations”. One could still select all Observations if needed, but where RG photos exist, at least that gives some more confidence that the species in the photo is the right one.
Second, it would be nice to have some sort of subtle indicator that a photo is not from a Research Grade observation, as a warning that the identification might be less reliable. I recognise that there are great, accurate non-Research Grade observations out there, but the majority (if not all) of the incorrect images I’ve seen on the site have been either from observations without RG status, or from Flickr. The case I’ve linked to is a bit anomalous, as it was an RG observation, but then was subsequently corrected - this correction has no way of showing through to the taxon page. Such an indicator need not be obtrusive, e.g. a grey outline or a message that would appear when the mouse hovers over the image, but would save on having to click through to double-check that an image is what it is meant to be.
it matters,
sometimes it is quite laborious to locate RG photos among available photos of the species,
filtering would be of great help and would make tags more secure,
thanks for the suggestion
A Research Grade filter is already available in the photo-picker for default taxon photos. It is just not currently the default filter, which is “all”. This request is to make it the default, which certainly makes sense to me (unless maybe no RG photos are detected – otherwise one might get a mistaken impression that no photos of any kind exist for the taxon).
Both that request (which is for all photos appearing in the photo browser, if I understand correctly), and the current request (for the photos chosen as taxon defaults), would be very helpful IMO.
Since anyone can edit photos - and I have done a couple - it is disconcerting to realise that the selection offered is NOT research grade. I would definitely prefer the default to rely on research grade.
I have been careful in the changes I made, adding pictures to show diagnostic features. Mostly where there is only a picture of a ‘pretty flower’ but no leaves, and no wider view of the plant.
I often look at the photos page for species I know well with the purpose of finding the incorrect images and correcting their IDs. So I would like “show all” to remain possible, even if the default is changed to “show research grade.”
Both of these features would be fantastic. For years I didn’t even realize the “See photos” displays included non-RG. Showing RG only should definitely be the default.
