You seem to be assuming that every photo is originally taken with a device that captures the GPS coordinates. I know there are DSLRs that can record GPS, but there are probably a whole lot more that do not. I have fairly expensive DSLR and it does not record the GPS… I can sync it to my phone and get the GPS, but not from the camera directly. People can also turn off the location on their cell phones as well. So whether it is an original photo or a photo of a photo. you are relying on the person to know the location.
3 Likes
Looks like the observation from the opening post has now been flagged for copyright, so presumably someone was able to find the photo elsewhere on the Internet.
But yes, for https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/30450596, the interaction and resolution were perfect, so well done @ianswift!
Or maybe just new user, working on becoming serious? 
3 Likes
Thanks everyone for a good discussion. I’m going to think about this a bit more. I guess if the species in the observation is normally found in that region it’s reasonable to allow it (although some people who approve ID may not know this).
2 Likes
For me, the biggest thing to consider is communication. I think you are right to QC the observations as you have been doing, just that you need to assume good intent (or at the very least “innocent ignorance” on their part), and so the best course of action is to make your assessment, and leave a quick comment along the lines of:
“This appears to be a photo of a photo. I have marked it as ‘location inaccurate’, but if you can confirm that you observed the actual [spider|tree|snake|organism] and that you have located the pin on the map where you saw it, then I can remove that inaccuracy flag.”
It can be cut and pasted in as required, or you can use a plugin like textblaze to manage them if you end up with lots of different cut and paste texts. I like to add a bit extra, hopefully to encourage them to make more observations…
“Thanks for sharing what you see :)”
because I really do remember what it was like to receive those first communications from other iNatters… they can spur you on to do more, or nip your iNat experience firmly in the bud.
3 Likes
I agree that the list of examples ianswift gave don’t seem particularly problematic (compared to the one in the original post). For cases like those, I might sometimes leave a comment asking for clarification, but that’s all.
The cases that I find problematic usually have more obvious issues. Typically, the Observed and Submitted dates/times are identical, and the location is a house in a residential area. If the photo of a photo is from a computer desktop screen, it seems quite likely that the date and/or location may well be wrong.
Where there is good reason for doubt like this, I think the DQA is exactly the right tool for flagging potential problems - so long as a comment asking the user for clarification is added as well. In fact, if the flags are set straight away, the comment is absolutely essential, since users don’t currently receive notifications about DQA changes.
If I was the user who uploaded a photo like this, I would be very grateful that someone had cared enough about my observation to flag any potential issues with it. If there’s something wrong, I want to know about it straight away, so that I can fix it as soon as possible. I would certainly never assume that such issues somehow reflected badly on me, or that the people raising them were being “arrogant”. The assumption about good intentions doesn’t just apply to new users. It applies equally to all members of the community - including those who volunteer their time in making improvements to other people’s observations.
2 Likes
This topic was automatically closed 60 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.