What is the point of Casual Observations?

As far as i know many sites use observations without photos. You can validate those observatios with alogrithmes. And if 10 other people did observe the same organism in the same area it could be valid as well.

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I just want to see my grandma’s tomatoes. -0- https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/36598988
I also post those that I couldn’t photograph, e.g. I see Rooks in Moscow, where they’re not common, but always from the car, so I just make casual obs. I haven’t posted species that are not on my official list yet, though, like Mistle Trush, hope to see them later and add a valid observation of those.

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I‘ve posted several cultivated plants in exotic countries without a good knowledge that they were cultivated - just a mistake that was corrected, but I did not erase these OBs. Now I post cultivated plants or domestic animals (or wild ones but not in their original locality) purposefully for two projects following their rules: Domesticated Biodiversity Project (that is domestic animals and cultivated plants that have been changed much compared to their wild ancestors) and Biodiversity of food markets in the world (cultivated and wild organisms). I find these two projects interesting and with a good purpose.

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I don’t really care for the term “casual” and it almost seems to go against iNat’s objective. iNat’s goal is to get people to observe nature, but seems to treat anything cultivated as second class citizens of the natural world. I would consider myself a gardener first who happens to enjoy plants and the creatures the plants attract. Personally, I don’t care if the plant is wild or cultivated and while that data is important, being cultivated shouldn’t rule it out of existence for research purposes. I have plants, that aren’t supposed to grow in my area, but they are and they’re doing very well. How is that data not important to how well a plant adapts to a location?

In addition, the terms blur the lines for me, in ways that I still don’t really comprehend. For example, I have planted banana plants… they’re cultivated. But these bananas readily produce their own pups, which would be wild by iNat’s definitions and for the life of me, that makes no sense. In black and white terms, I understand, but I just don’t look at nature and gardening in black and white.

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Some of us old-school types have kept hand-written field notes for many years. I have field note books that go back to the 1970s. Lots of observations buried in there that are not easy to relocate. Although I don’t do it much, I’ll occasionally post a Casual record without photo on iNat to mark an observation that is either of importance to me (so I can find it again) or might be of some value to others (e.g., a rare bird observation from the past).

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I totally agree. I think the “Research Grade” classification or not should be independent of whether an organism is wild or captive/cultivated or occurs in the gray area between those two (ecological restorations and reintroductions, especially). Research Grade observations should have time, date, location, at least 2 ID confirmations, and not be people. Basically, it should indicate data quality, not data type.

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This thread answers a question I had but hadn’t pursued: How can I keep a list of all my undocumented observations? I was wondering if I added them but then marked them as private if they’d show up correctly in my lists. I’ll consider just uploading them as not having evidence (or correct time, date, or location, too) instead. Is there a template for the csv file to upload? I couldn’t find anything with the required field headers and order.

I don’t know how to upload in bulk, but if you do “uploads” without photo or sound, as far as I know they will automatically become casual without your having to mark extra fields.

I’ve been recording all my recent black bear sightings, although I’m never going to be taking a photo. Very handy that they are there for my reference but not “bothering” anyone.

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I agree. “Casual” seems to imply a value judgment, especially when contrasted with “Research Grade”.

They should just be called what they are: Captive/Cultivated.

I know that’s a lot to fit on the little flag icon (maybe “non-wild” would fit?), but it would be better semanticly than what it is now.

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I make observations of both wild and clearly cultivated organisms worldwide. I often upload one of the best photos for curation on iNaturalist, and then come back sometimes to use this photo in one my University courses, or some other type of presentation. As far as cultivated plants, I like to learn the names of these species, and getting an identification on iNaturalist can be useful.

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I’ve posted the cultivated parent of a wild seedling, if I know what’s happening there. (Two posts, one casual and one wild.) Also, occasionally, a cultivated plant I want a name for.

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I agree, @Star3 ! Let’s change the system! Have wild vs. non-wild, which can both reach Research Grade (and therefore are both in the “needs ID” pile), and use “casual” for things that lack something – a photo, a place, whatever – or show rocks, etc. Researchers who want to avoid the cultivated plants can just sort on the wild vs. non-wild category.

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I don’t personally mind “Research Grade”, but only because I already know it really means “GBIF eligible”. That’s not something that is immediately obvious, though, and I see where you’re coming from.

I do think you’re right that “wild” and “non-wild” are more friendly terms, though, that do fit the stated purpose of iNaturalist (encouraging interactions with nature) far better. Especially since the data collection, and thus by extension the GBIF syncing, are “by products”.

And I agree with your other points re: “Needs ID” as well.

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Long discussion running here https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/rename-research-grade-discussion-and-polls/590/4

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These casual observations can be city trees and plants (native/non-native) that are part of phenology and biodiversity surveys: often we (at Earthwise Aware) have casual trees marked in surveys that study the phenology of guest and resident arthropods that we also record and link to the host plat/tree.

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You can do a batch upload on this page with one species per line (I think any unique name will work but scientific name is probably best) then where & when. You would need to do separate uploads for each place/date. I have used this in the past four uploading a list of all the birds I’ve seen somewhere when I’ve not been able to take photos.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/new/batch

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Ok, ty!

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True that. On scuba trips, I don’t get pictures of lots of things I see because I don’t always dive with a camera, I don’t use it for everything I see, and I’m not that good at it anyway. So if a dive guide identifies something cool, I might have him show me a picture to make sure that’s what I saw. And often my dive buddy gets cool pictures of things I see but they doesn’t want to use iNat or put their photos out in public. (I dive with some folks who make money selling their underwater photos online.)

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it may be worth mentioning to them that they can still retain full copyright on their photos which are uploaded to iNat. even a casual photo-less observation with a link to the relevant photo (in their gallery or wherever) would be beneficial :)

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