Why can you batch delete observations but not IDs?

General
1

I would like to batch delete my IDs for certain species without having to do it manually (or at the very least “batch withdraw,” although I would prefer to delete them as I think it would be cleaner).

I asked something similar in the past (“how to remove myself from being listed as a top IDer for some species”); it sounded like there was not a way to do that without manually deleting IDs or deleting my account, but looking through older posts here tonight, it looks like there might be either a browser extension (for batch withdraw) or URL (for batch delete) that I can use (but I couldn’t figure it out how to do either by looking through the old posts). Thanks for any help or suggestions.

Someone is probably going to ask why, so I’ll answer that here. There are two reasons. 1) I don’t want to be listed as a top identifier for some species. 2) On a couple of species, I have learned more and may have made some errors and just want to remove all of the IDs so there is no risk I pushed any obs incorrectly into RG. Thanks in advance.

2

the only sort of extension that i’m aware of that helps with bulk actions is https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/official-release-of-the-inaturalist-metadata-tool-by-megachile/79300, although i’m not sure that withdrawing / deleting IDs is included among one of the available actions.

even if that’s not available, it should be relatively straightforward to either withdraw or delete IDs via the API. how best to go about that depends on how many IDs need be deleted and what sorts of skills and tools you have.

3

Thanks. I think that is the one I saw. I’ll try to figure it out and see if I can make it work. Thanks!

4

Please withdraw instead of deleting. Deleting erases the history that an ID was ever there, which is very confusing for observers (who might recall the observation having been ID’d and wonder what happened or whether they misremembered) and if there were any comments or responses to your ID, they will become decontextualized, making the discussion incoherent.

5

Good point. Thank you.

6

It looks like withdrawing is now available, cf. Megachile’s last post in the thread:
Provide a way for users to batch withdraw selected IDs - Feature Requests - iNaturalist Community Forum

7

Great news! Thank you!