What is the appropriate response/action for a user uploading multiple duplicate images, organisms?

[bouteloua]

@Star3

Hmm, seems like a DQA setting for duplicate might be a better solution (removes RG without adding flags that are impossible for curators to resolve).

After this feature request along those lines was closed in July 2019 (https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/create-a-way-to-flag-duplicate-observations-and-remove-rg-status-from-the-extras/201), I sent this reponse privately, but I’ll post it here (lightly modified :)

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@tiwane

we plan on adding a merge (and split) tool sooner rather than later, so it will hopefully make merging these easier for the observer.

In a lot of cases the observations shouldn’t even be merged though. One just needs to be deleted. I would estimate in >95% of instances folks do not follow up on their duplicates or other data quality issues. This will only be a very, very minor help.

@tiwane

it’s not a major data issue, although yes, it can certainly be annoying for identifiers.

Duplicates are a huge pain in the butt for identifiers. Anything that makes the identification process slower and more frustrating is a major data issue.

@tiwane

Things could get messy when the community starts flagging duplicates, i.e. which one is the “original”?

We’ve been flagging them for years. The “acceptable” observation is the one that is oldest or isn’t flagged.

I plan on continuing to flag duplicates as I see them in order to remove them from the Identify pool. This will continue to make the flags page unwieldy and difficult to manage.