I doubt if there is any need to document the range of humans, since that is a worldwide species, present on every continent and throughout most continents and habitats. I also doubt if anyone needs identification assistance with that species. I am trying to understand how observations of humans adva…

I find this argument absurd and self-serving. If you want to show off your art, there are plenty of places online to do that. Imagine if everyone starting posting pictures their kids drew of a flower and identifying them to species? Or maybe my child’s dinosaur drawings have a place on iNat? Th…

iNat is to encourage people who are not scientists to become aware of nature. It is not defined as a (polluted) ‘citizen science database’

That’s a slippery slope to go down. Who decides what is or has scientific value? Does the next Mallard, or Monarch or Grey Heron etc record that will be submitted have ‘scientific value’? It seems like you’re interpreting my phrase out of context! I was responding to someone who said that an obse…

There might be reason to ID an observation as ‘Human’ if it was a trace observation that was mistakenly thought to be caused by a different organism by the uploader; I can recall one observation where dollops of paint on a fence post was mistaken for a slime mold. I’ve also found and ID’ed an ‘Unkno…

This discussion demonstrates that iNaturalist is in a category by itself. Is it a social media site where one can share an interest in nature and have fun? Yes. Is it a database for serious science? Yes. iNat is as strange as a mammal that lays eggs. My experience here varies. Sometimes I’m reminde…

I appreciate the forum, when the heated discussions remain friendly. If we can listen to each other, we find different ways of using iNat. What works for me, doesn’t work for you, because … and vice versa. But I may discover a quicker, better way to achieve something which is clunky for me now. A…

I am also concerned about the posting of young kids with exact times and locations, which makes them vulnerable to pedophiles. We should require that location on those posts is very general, or hidden.

There’s an open feature request for that here: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/automatically-obscure-observations-marked-as-human/501 with, surprisingly, 0 votes.

Nature-related crafts like your garden bench or my dragonfly mosaic can encourage others to pause, observe, and value nearby plants and animals more. Perhaps, but they do not count as evidence of an organism. I saw this recently as I was providing identifications: a quite good drawing of Oregongr…

They do that IRL, uploading them as observations makes nothing of listed things, we already have real, living things on the website to encourage people, how would they “stop and observe” while checking human observations on iNat?

Why do we have observations of "Human"?

General

Star3 July 3, 2020, 6:09pm 55

That’s a good point re: volume.
The curator guide does specifically mention keeping it under 25% of your observations:

Topic		Replies	Views
Acceptable observations for Humans General	13	1415	November 30, 2023
Human Observations in Schools General	165	3592	May 22, 2025
Our iNat paintings General	17	2138	March 13, 2020
Observations of People and/or Pets General question	19	1919	March 10, 2020
Can I Post Garbage/Lost Belongings as an Observation of Homo Sapiens General question	10	430	September 26, 2024

Why do we have observations of "Human"?

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