I know of at least one locality that included non-verifiable observations in their totals. This increased their “total species” and total observers/participants. Observations with no photo or audio recording should not be included, correct?
Sounds like cheating to me. A challenge is a challenge.
In the past it’s been up to the local organizers of each city to decide if they wanted to accept casual/non-verifiable observations for the City Nature Challenge. Some organizers don’t want people to feel discouraged if they unknowingly took a photo of a cultivated plant, to see their observation disappear from the project once it gets marked as not wild, or they want to allow people to still be able to include their sighting of something that they weren’t able to capture a photo or sound recording of, like a fast-moving bird or insect. There’s currently no way within projects to exclude just observations without evidence: you can only exclude casual observations, which then also excludes observations with evidence that are captive/cultivated, so in the interest of inclusivity, many organizers choose to accept casual observations.
This year all the CNC projects will follow the same rules, which will allow casual and non-verifiable observations, but will also exclude taxa like humans, dogs, and cats. As always, the CNC Global Organizing Team is asking all the local organizers to emphasize observations of wild organisms and observations with evidence, and they also ask organizers to reach out to participants in their city who seem to be focusing on captive/cultivated organisms or making lots of observations without evidence.
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However, when I look at their CNC 2024 page, and several others, they all seem to be set up with the same criteria: Research Grade, Needs ID, and Casual. I cannot see/find a difference other than when I go to a project, and click on “Filters” theirs is the only one that does not already have verifiable checked. ???
Thanks, does explains everything. Too bad that there can be no distinction between “casual” and “non verifiable”. I would prefer they did not include “non verifiable” because they may risk offending some iNat newbies, but they may also turn just as many away by weakening the authenticity of the results. All they have to do is make it very clear that casual observations will not be included, and explain clearly what constitutes a casual observation.
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