My ID module presented me with three observations of the same organism, made by three different users. They were all created within 30 minutes at the same location. By my math, that counts as the organism appearing three times in the statistics, which feels wrong.
I know it’s not forbidden, but I feel uneasy leaving it as is. I could bump them all to RG, but I’d like to get feedback on whether they should all become RG or not.
I completely understand that there’s no way to decide whose observation would be „the one and only valid” one and of course I can’t stop anyone from observing something just because someone else already did. However, I still feel that a group shouldn’t upload the same organism multiple times, or should they?
A simple example: five people find a tree and decide to post it to iNat. Each person takes their own photo and uploads it as their observation. How do we avoid ending up with five trees instead of one?
I don’t think its wrong in any way if a group saw an organism and everyone posts it, they are just expanding their own life list, especially during herp sessions multiple people end up posting their own pics of that same individual
You just gotta ID all of them or do one and skip rest
The rules are very clear on allowing multiple observations of the same organism by different people, so yes, please bump them all to Research Grade. If you don’t, it just leaves more work for the next identifier to come along, but they will probably all end up RG eventually anyway. And in the meantime, shunning some might confuse and discourage the observers (likely students) as to why their classmate’s observation reached RG so much faster than their own.
An “observation” on iNat is an interaction between a person and an organism. So 3 observations can mean 3 people observing one organism, 1 person observing 3 organisms, 3 people observing 3 organisms, etc. Any attempt to interpret the number of observations on iNat as the number of organisms present is misguided- that’s not what iNat shows or is meant to show. The goal is to get as many people as possible interacting with nature, so 3 people interacting with the same organism by photographing it is strongly encouraged.
A unique observation is an interaction between a person and an organism at a specific time. If a group of five people observes a group of five zebras, then 25 unique interactions have happened and by iNat’s definition would be entirely justified in posting those 25 observations separately. Of course, it’s not necessarily especially useful data or the best use of identifier time, but that’s a different matter.
If a group of people observes a rare species as part of a group tour, it may be the only time in any of their lives that those people see that species. It would be unreasonable to deny any of them to add it to their own life list on iNat just because somebody else in their group beat them to it.
While I see your point that it’s perhaps not ideal to have multiple records of the same organism at the same time, you cannot think of iNat data points ever as being unique. Even if there were some way of forcing groups to post only once, there are specific very famous individual trees/elephants/lions/etc that are being observed by thousands of tourists every day, and consequently regularly posted on iNat. There would be no practical way to unify these sightings.
There is one grey area that I came across recently. Both members of a couple had posted the same photo of a spider, and when I commented that it was a duplicate, they said that they had both observed the spider and were justified in adding it to their own iNat accounts. That’s fair enough, but they had both used the same photo for their observations, which does make me uneasy and is getting into grey area territory given that, strictly speaking, only one of them must be the one who took the picture.
I’m sure this has happened with my wife and I. I had an iNat account long before she did, and I posted some photos that she took on our trips, with permission and credit given. Now that she has her own account, I’m sure some of those have been re-posted by her. I agree it’s a gray area, but we’re allowed to post photos of organisms we saw that were taken by others if we have permission and give credit, and multiple people can post the same organism, so I’d say it’s permissible. I’ve also run into the issue where my wife and I share a camera for a 2-week trip, and by the end we have literally no clue who was holding the camera when every single photo was taken, so who “took” the picture is a gray area in and of itself.
You could mark them as “Same individual over time”, unless there’s a better one. Thirty minutes isn’t much time, but it is some time. I recently marked three observations of the same grapevine by different people, one recent by me, as the same individual.
I agree with OP that it’s not ideal, but it’s how it works on iNat. On eBird, you have the ability to “share” checklists with multiple observers, so an entire group doesn’t have to enter their sighting of the same bird individually and you can thus avoid the confusing duplication. Perhaps someday iNat will have the same functionality, i.e. to share an observation with others.
As for multiple observers using the same photo, I see no meaningful difference between that and using different photos taken at the same time. If one is going to be allowed the other ought to be as well.
With the exception of things like the California Monarch Butterfly Count, I don’t think iNaturalist is for counting organisms exactly. Just take a look at 180+ Snowy Owls in California which is just 1 individual. It’s still excellent for seeing if an organism exists in an area.
I personally don’t mind seeing 4-5 of the same exact organism observed by a small group of users, but seeing 50+ of the same organism in unknowns from a bunch of new users using iNat for a school assignment can be mildly infuriating (see: “Duress” and “Contest” users).
Oh lord those users who create accounts solely for their assignment or smth, they fry my brain
I’ve IDed thousands of observations and atp I recognise which tree of the neighbourhood they’re posting
countless observations of the same crow/pigeon/mynas and trees , when its to that extent then its problematic
You know how trees at arboretums or nature centers have a plaque that states the common name and scientific name? Your tree needs a plaque that says “Please stop posting to iNat”.
I totally get your point, but I agree with the users above that a) it would probably be unfair to deny the observation to a part of the observers and b) it’s simply how iNat works - not all data points are unique. I have been in the exact same situation where a friend and I both make an observation because we both want to have the organism in our life list and there is not yet any possibility of sharing an observation.
But there is a similar situation which I always struggle with when identifying: an observer posts multiple observations of the same individual at the same point of time (e.g. a bird on a birdfeeder) instead of making one observation with 10 pictures. I think that’s more of an “issue” but after all they’re free to use the site the way they want.
I do not have a good idea of such users and in the end I think this could be a rather childish behaviour. It is somehow like all these people were dying to be the one who photographed that organism… Maybe an effect of the “Instagram society” in which if you don’t have a photo of something uploaded you don’t exist? This is just a hypothesis…
Anyway, it happens that a group of people upload more observations of the same individual with multiple (often wrong) identifications. This is much worse.
PS: how boring those who istinctively have always to tell you the rules and that iNat is meant for…
Or maybe one simply wants to have a personal record of what one saw that day, or one happens to like the photos one got, or any number of other reasons. Nothing “childish” about it, nor is it social media run rampant.
Consider it the other way around: if iNat is about documenting one’s personal encounters with nature, why should one feel that one should not upload something one saw merely because someone else also happened to be present and also happened to photograph it?
Many times when this happens, the user creates a separate observation for each photo not because of a deliberate choice, but because they don’t know how to upload multiple photos in one observation or they don’t know why it might be preferable to do so.
Would be nice if we had an “ignore” button that works similarly to the “reviewed” button. I think there would be a lot less grumbling about “nuisance” observations.
I have lead nature walks at a refuge where we introduced visitors to iNat. It was easier to have everyone (generally no more than 10-15 people) take a pic of the same organism - we used white clover - and do the observation together. From that point forward, the visitors would have some duplication, but most were trying to find other things.
