# Why are withdrawn IDs updated with taxon changes?

**URL:** <https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/why-are-withdrawn-ids-updated-with-taxon-changes/9194>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [January 6, 2020, 9:17pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/why-are-withdrawn-ids-updated-with-taxon-changes/9194 "2020-01-06T21:17:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![saturnring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@saturnring](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/saturnring)\
**Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 9:17pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/why-are-withdrawn-ids-updated-with-taxon-changes/9194/1 "2020-01-06T21:17:55Z")

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I notice sometimes that withdrawn identifications get updated with taxon changes. Is there a reason why that should happen, or is it a bug? Just one example that was in State of Matter Life before my ID: [https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/20619064](https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/20619064)

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**Author:** ![rupertclayton](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/rupertclayton/32/2745_2.png) [@rupertclayton](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/rupertclayton)\
**Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 9:29pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/why-are-withdrawn-ids-updated-with-taxon-changes/9194/2 "2020-01-06T21:29:33Z")

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I assume that the observer didn’t actually withdraw their ID themselves. Instead, there was a taxon split on Nov 19 and the observer’s original ID was automatically withdrawn as part of being replaced with the new taxon name. Do you see something that indicates otherwise?

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**Author:** ![saturnring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@saturnring](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/saturnring)\
**Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 9:37pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/why-are-withdrawn-ids-updated-with-taxon-changes/9194/3 "2020-01-06T21:37:21Z")

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You’re right, that may be what happened on this one.

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**Author:** ![rupertclayton](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/rupertclayton/32/2745_2.png) [@rupertclayton](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/rupertclayton)\
**Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 9:39pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/why-are-withdrawn-ids-updated-with-taxon-changes/9194/4 "2020-01-06T21:39:46Z")

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I guess it would be helpful if the taxon split process labelled the former identification “ID automatically replaced”. That would make it a lot clearer what happened to users reading through the chain of IDs.

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**Author:** ![rupertclayton](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/rupertclayton/32/2745_2.png) [@rupertclayton](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/rupertclayton)\
**Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 9:41pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/why-are-withdrawn-ids-updated-with-taxon-changes/9194/5 "2020-01-06T21:41:47Z")

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And in fact there’s already a [feature request here to fix this](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/improve-wording-of-ids-created-by-taxon-changes/3705), which I have just upvoted.

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/inaturalist/original/2X/7/7831452cf7f0d653ff1ffd34176334b7ef1b6a17.png) [@system](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2020, 9:43pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/why-are-withdrawn-ids-updated-with-taxon-changes/9194/6 "2020-03-06T21:43:32Z")

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