My position remains:
Saludos.
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This is an issue. 111 comments agree.
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/are-drawings-evidence/8595
To be clear - I would accept artwork which shows the field marks I would look for across photos.
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It sounds like this identifier may just have adjusted their own standards for how much visual detail they need to be confident in offering their IDs. Could it be that they are just saying that they’ve had second thoughts about their willingness to say (for example) that the white-flowering tree in the blurry distance shot is groundsel just because it PROBABLY is groundsel? Have they decided that they now want to see more detail of leaves, flowers, bark, etc. before IDing? Maybe they got burned on some other ID assumptions and were embarrassed? Are their skills just maturing, or are they now under more scrutiny in school or job? I would guess in this case that they are now avoiding adding IDs on all observations with poor photos, and they may be going back and retracting IDs that they now realize were sloppy. If they’re trying to make you remove observations, that’s not cool, but retracting IDs — even if they tell you why — seems to be all about their iNat style and not an attempt to change your iNat style.
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Ah, you’ve misunderstood, sorry. The person in question here isn’t revoking IDs on blurry photos from a car or illustrations — they never added IDs to those in the first place. I’d have no problem with someone second guessing their own identifications after learning more.
But that’s not what’s going on here— they’re revoking IDs from completely separate observations, with clear photos, easily identifiable, because they don’t like that I post the other observations.
They don’t like my photos of the groundsel trees taken from a car, so they’re removing Identifications on /other/ observations of mine taken at close range with very clear diagnostic details, and no other lookalikes, including from years before I ever took any pictures from a car.
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The person can remove their IDs if they want. If they wrote you something that violates the community guidelines or terms of use, then definitely flag that, but the ID removal is not a violation.
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I am aware that removing the IDs is not a violation. I would have no problem if that’s all that happened.
The problem is that they’re trying to pressure me into removing my own observations because they don’t approve, and they’ve probably done this to other people as well. When I flagged the PM, I was told it wasn’t being done in bad faith, but how is pressuring people to delete observations like this good faith?
Editing to add: This problem would be solved if the person was told not to send people messages like this to punish people for not deleting observations they don’t approve of, and making it clear to everyone that if someone sends them messages like this, they should report it, and that staff should take things like this seriously.
Again, we have to ask how many people have been bullied into not uploading anymore because of things like this?
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The person sounds like they decided they don’t want to interact with you for some reason and that’s ok. I don’t understand why they would go though such effort to remove a bunch of IDs but it sounds like most people in this thread don’t see this as some form of punishment or bullying. None of us have seen the message they sent you but I suspect we would read it differently than you do. Did this person tell you you have to do something “or else”, or they just tell you why they were removing their ids?
Don’t think of IDs as rewards or punishments, just think of them as interactions with other people. You also probably don’t want to interact with this person now, so maybe it’s for the best that you avoid each other.
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Sorry, but this wouldn’t be the first time the majority of people on these forums have thought that behavior was totally okay when it wasn’t. I personally know a dozen people who stopped using this site entirely because of the way the staff here enable bullying and bigoted behavior.
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If you block the identifier in question, they will be unable to withdraw any other IDs from your observations, foiling their efforts. See https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/taxon-swap-results-in-permanent-maverick-ids-when-identifier-is-blocked/55700.
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Unfortunately the problem there is that we’re only allowed to block 3 people total, and I have people blocked already that I really, really do not want to unblock.
Edit: oh, and there’s a relevant quote from that thread too, thanks for linking it:
confirming that this kind of behavior is considered vengeful and not in good faith.
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iNat has two goals which come into conflict occasionally: producing biodiversity data for scientific use, and connecting people to nature (just setting up for context, I think everyone in this thread knows these).
A certain fraction of people who join iNat, for whatever reasons, get the impression that only the first goal exists, or that it’s the only goal with value. They’ll then complain that “lower quality observations” are “poisoning the well” and discrediting the value of the entire database. I can only assume that they either haven’t read the guidelines and help pages, or don’t care, and assuming they aren’t actively hostile (I can’t tell from the descriptions above whether that’s the case here or not) there’s not much to be done about them other than point them in the right direction and ignore further complaints. Assuming best intentions, they’ve just misunderstood the purpose of iNat and are acting overconfidently on that misunderstanding.
(there are equal issues with people getting the opposite impression and only knowing about the second goal, but that’s not relevant here)
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I’m setting this topic to close in an hour, it’s not productive any longer and I think we’ve heard from multiple perspectives so the question has been answered.
@nonbinary-naturalist if you dislike this person’s actions that’s understandable but they’re not violating any rules. They’re allowed to remove their IDs for any reason. This is an interpersonal issue and there are mechanisms for dealing with it. If you want to block this person, you can petition for a fourth block to be added to your account.
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I didn’t say they violated rules by removing their own IDs, I am saying that they only sent the message to pressure me into deleting my own observations that don’t violate the rules, and that should not be considered okay behavior.
I have a problem with the bullying that is at the heart of this whole interaction, and the way iNaturalist staff seem to have no problem with it.
Why is it considered acceptable behavior to punish people for not deleting observations that aren’t against the rules?
Edit: Also, then please just give me the ability to block more people now instead of forcing me to jump through the extra hoops. Everyone should have the ability to block as many people as they need to without having to beg for the ability to block more.
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It’s certainly strange behaviour… if they’re a curator then they ought to know that the observations aren’t against the guidelines, and that this isn’t how DQA issues are resolved even if they were. If they’re not a curator then trying to enforce (their interpretation of) guidelines on their own is weird.
I think one of the sources of disagreement here is whether the removal of someone else’s IDs constitutes “punishment”. If they deleted their account then those IDs would disappear too; nobody has a “right” to someone else’s IDs. But certainly if they have expertise that nobody else has then withholding it or retracting it could well be interpreted that way.
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@nonbinary-naturalist – I believe you that this is an effort at bullying. It was wrong. You can stand up to this bullying by continuing to post the observations you consider appropriate here. You have also stood up to it by bringing this problem to our attention (everyone’s attention). There are limits on what iNaturalist can do about it, given iNaturalist rules, desire to be welcoming, and the limits on busy staff. We can hope that this bully was having a bad day and won’t do it again, but if we learn that he does, we’re more ready to deal with it than we would have been if you hadn’t brought this up. Leaving the situation this way is not satisfying, but it’s the best that can be done at this time.
I’m sorry to hear that you had to deal with this.
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As I understand this, id’s have been revoked on several (many?) observations, not because there is anything wrong with those particular observations but, rather, because the identifier thinks some of your other observations have poor, blurry or otherwise inadequate photos. They have informed you that they will no longer id any of your observations because, in their judgment, some of your photos are bad.
I don’t know if this amounts to bullying because I haven’t seen the actual wording of the message, however, I’d say you’re better off without this individual. Block her/him and move on. There are hundreds of other iNatters who can identify plants from the Southeastern United States.
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Thank you for understanding, and don’t worry, I’ll keep posting observations whether this specific person approves of them or not. I just hope no one else has to deal with this behavior in the future.
I made this forum post to bring other people’s attention to it,and at least I succeeded there, even though it’s going to be shut down. Hopefully if anyone else gets messages like this they’ll speak up too, and appropriate action will be taken to protect people in the future.
Edit:
Yes, that’s correct. To simplify it, they don’t like observation Z, so they’re revoking their ID from observation A as punishment.
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I do agree that removing IDs explicitly as punishment for uploading observations he doesn’t like is inappropriate. I also feel maybe the number of blocks permitted (iirc it’s limited to limit usage of server resources) maybe should increase, at least for active users with many observations/IDs, as they interact with more people and therefore might have more unresolvable disagreements?
The person sent OP a DM saying that this was because of something the OP was doing unrelated to the observations they were withdrawing the IDs from. If I may speak boldly, that doesn’t sound like normal, healthy behaviour to me–that sounds like trying to do, in the bounds of iNaturalist, what an abusive family member does to control someone.
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I understand you are concerned that this person is bullying other people as well. If so, they should have reported it and then the flags are known and dealt with.
It is so hard for us to change from a neutral stance on this because we cannot read the wording.
I am sorry you have been hurt by both the fool who bullied you, and the lack of recourse.
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Anybody can delete their IDs regardless of reasoning. And why would you want their ids anyway if you two have personal disagreements and are wanting to block them?
I dont really think its possible to bully somebody by just deleting IDs, its their decision. Nobody has the right to anybodies IDs.
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