That would mean that some of the rarer (or lesser-known) taxa have no taxon photo, which is counterproductive because these are taxa that would benefit more from having one. There are a few times I have added a taxon photo that was not RG simply because there were no RG photos available.
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Iāve seen SO many taxa with only the single auto-selected photo that have stayed that way for a very long time. Maybe people do more taxon photo editing in some areas (geographical or taxonomical), but it certainly isnāt true in many cases Iāve looked at.
If there are lots of photos to choose from, the probability of finding the ideal one is slim unless people are willing to put in a lot of time hunting. Alternatively, if there are relatively few, probably few people look at the taxon and therefore itās less likely to be updated anyway. Either way, relying on someone else to find the perfect photo seems doomed to failure.
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I think the best solution would be just to limit specific users hability to edit taxon photos if we detect abuse the way I have with this user. I have wasted so much time deleting his non research grade photos from all the taxons he has edited that I have considered just quiting as a curator. I am burned out. This guy takes good RG photos from other users on the taxons he edited for his own non research grade (and some are wrong). And also has used sockpuppet accounts for increasing his own observations as RG.
I am still writing the email as Tiwane requested with the proof, but it is taking more time than expected. I am very frustrated and very tired to be honest.
I just sent a couple of emails from paulo.acevedo@gmail.com. One for a user that has 2 accounts and the other for this specific issue. Thank you!
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Please do not publicly show e-mail addresses like this. Every user, like me, can access this section.
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I certainly understand that there are some frustrating edge cases but for every suggested restriction there are plenty of scenarios where that is going to cause more harm than benefit.
As a curator, I really want the number of tasks requiring curator privileges to be minimal. Most curators requested those rights because theyāre inspired to improve iNat in some way, and the more this feels like āworkā the less theyāre interested in volunteering time.
Restrictions make sense where the potential for disruption is high, so Iād support limitations on who can edit high-level taxon photos and maybe a few perennial targets (Felis catus?)
For the photographer who has to substitute their own photos for a carefully chosen selection of ID marks, Iād suggest trying to coopt them into improving taxon photo selection. Maybe link to a forum post or journal entry discussing good photo choices? No problem for them to add good photos of their own so long as the result is an improvement over the previous choices.
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I agree, all the restrictions discussed above would have negative effects on a far greater number of more obscure taxa than are being impacted by people excessively changing pics. Just by way of examples Iāve dealt with, many species Iāve identified and added my own photos of arenāt research grade because I collected and identified the actual specimen separately; sometimes another expert might be able to do that, sometimes not, sometimes there is no other expert. In other cases, there are one or two other photos that are relatively poor quality, so mine is the only good one available. Also regarding limiting changes, itās not uncommon to choose a picture and then discover that itās actually misidentified (even for RG observations).
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Perhaps we shouldnāt use taxon rank, but number of observations as a filter for locking images.
I partly agree with both sides. On rarer taxa, I have added some of my own photos as they definitely showed the subject the clearest and the identifying features (according to my sources) were most clearly visible.
On common taxa, the image keeps changing and I had to remove images a few times already because they were - while certainly very good photos - not good representation of the taxon.
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I think the only restriction I even like is giving curators the ability to lock photo edits (temporarily) on taxa to prevent edit wars/brigading.
That, and potentially locking photos for high-level taxa and extremely iconic species like, for example, Mallards.
Anything more restrictive than this could potentially creat an even heavier burden for curators, or alternatively, make it difficult for folks to properly curate taxa photos. When Iām editing taxa photos, it is often of little-observed species that are under little risk of an edit war, but in dire need of good photos. Like changing a questionable blurry mushroom photo to a much better one that is sequence-confirmed and shows field marks.
Sometimes these are my own photos, because sometimes I have things come back sequenced that have no observations yet on iNat - restricting people from using their own photos has potential to be an issue.
Sometimes, these are photos from non-research-grade observations - identifiers for infrequently observed taxa can be hard to find, and sometimes I end up with a sequenced mushroom that still doesnāt easily hit research grade. Having to wait to edit these until I can tag someone to confirm my ID could lead to me potentially forgetting to curate the photos properly.
Sometimes, multiple angles are required to get a full sense of what the orgamism looks like - severely restricting the number of photos a given user could add to an observation could reduce clarity.
Anything that requires curator approval is going to hit a massive bottleneck. Period. Curators are volunteers.
Voting will result in popularity contests, or photos making it to the top because they are good photos, but not neccessarily good for identification.
I could go on. Except for a few bad actors, the system seems to work fairly well, usually. Just remember to report people that are abusing the system when you catch them doing it.
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I think having high-quality taxon photos is important. I had one up for a long time, and it was just deposed for a less clear photo, IMO, and I wondered about (1) how my photo got there in the first place, and (2) why it was replaced with that particular photo (there are many spectacularly good options). I wonder if curator-of-photos could be a separate volunteer iNat position for each taxon.
I also want to share that on eBird, Iāve been motivating myself to fill in missing audio and photos by checking the illustrated checklist at my local hotspots for missing species or very poor media. There the photos used for the species seems to be automatically updated based on ratings, with a bias for retaining the original photo. If I add a photo or replace a very poor one with something clearer, itās usually up the next day, so Iām assuming itās an AI filter of some sort. Itās important to note that on eBird, ratings are not just a thumbs up / favorite, but a five star rating system. I wonder if allowing users to rate photos with multiple stars would help. Of course, that comes with its own issuesāthere are reports of people doing spite ratings and people make errors. But I like the idea because itās community driven. Which of course of necessity leads to people being people. :) Just a thought. Thanks for raising this discussion.
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Presuming the changes are fairly recent - you can click History on the Curation tab to see whodunit.
History was introduced in February 2022, so no history is available prior to that date.
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Feature request made to allow curators to lock photos: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/allow-curators-to-lock-editing-of-taxon-photos/68027
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Thank you so much as always for taking the time to teach me about iNaturalist! I donāt mind the change, but I am curious.
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I donāt think itās totally wrong to view self-promotion as the incentive that drives discovery of the best photoā¦ but if that isnāt the result, the ability to self-promote should be limited.
Iām not commenting either way on self-promotion, just pointing out that in many cases taxon photos really donāt get updated that often, and that itās nowhere near as simple as āthe best will rise to the topā.
Personally, I would only ever specifically use my own photos if I canāt find a better one showing what needs to be shown (for example, Iāve used my fruit photos on at least one heath because everyone else seemed to have focused on the flowers).* I wouldnāt like to have that option removed and hope that someone else will eventually find and add them, because I doubt it would happen. But yes, I agree that self-promotion for the sake of it should be discouraged.
*I do mostly pick photos out of the photo browser without knowing whose photos they are, so itās possible Iāve occasionally included mine without meaning to - which I donāt see a problem with.
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Agree. Sorryā¦ I guess I was thinking of the thread as a whole and responded to you.
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Iād be interested to know what taxonomic groups are plagued with photo wars. Is it a widespread problem?
Iāve never actually seen a dispute over taxon photos. In fact, Iāve been surprised at the sluggish pace of upgrading the selected photos for the taxa I look at (tropical, Eastern Pacific mollusks). Most of these species have fewer than 200 observations, many fewer than 20, so there are not a lot of photos to choose from. A lot of the species are still represented by photos from online sources (mostly Femorale). I try to replace those with iNat observations because, unlike Femorale, the iNat photos have a specific locality and date, because the colors are often more accurate and because I think iNatters deserve recognition for their observations.
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Itās not common in plants, as far as Iāve noticed, but Mirabilis jalapa has people switching the photos every couple of weeks. There is a lovely montage of photos comparing the broken-colored flowers that some cultivated selections have. It is really pretty, but not so typical of the wild and escaped plants. People regularly switch back and forth between the pretty montage and more typical looking examples of the species.
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I kinda like that Mirabilis jalapa montage. iNat has a lot of newer users who observe cultivated/captive organisms and itās a good indicator that Mirabilis jalapa can look like any of these flowers. But that approach may not be appropriate for lots of organisms.
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And obviously several people who set the Mirabilis photos agree with you. :)
I think itās suitable as one of the example photos for the species, but I prefer a more naturalistic photo as the main one. I carefully selected a good one, but itās long since been changed back, and I donāt care enough to change it again.
There are several plant taxa where the cultivated selections look little like the wild types, so deciding which photos to start with will always be a challenge.
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