Why obscure observations?

General
1

One thing Ive noticed is that some users will obscure everything, even a common dandelion in a public park. I understand obscuring locations on private property, vulnerable taxa, and observations you may be making while still at the location for your safety, but otherwise I dont understand why?

Are there any reasons you obscure a location besides what’s said above?

TLDR of relevant comments!:

  • Privacy and safety- Obscures regularly visited locations, places near their homes, etc
  • observations may be off of regular trials, and they dont want to encourage people leave the trail or want to gatekeep the location from the general public to protect the nature at that location.
  • Out of habit
  • Protect taxa from poachers
  • (not stated I dont think but It also obscures the date, and they may want to hide when they are in certain places)
2

I guess it could also be for the reasons of their own privacy. I can imagine that not everyone might feel comfortable to show timestamped locations of their daily activity. Either “just because” or for some actual valid reasons.

3

I obscure observations made around my neighborhood, so it’s more difficult for people to find my regular dog walking routes. I obscure observations made around friend’s houses, or my parents’ house. Someone might obscure a dandelion at a park they go to often, so that people don’t know they regularly can be found there.

4

Unfortunately, I know of one user who does this now by default because they noticed plants being dug up at locations they documented, not necessarily vulnerable taxa, but disturbing all the same.

5

I obscure my observations locations because I don’t want people to find out where I went and sometimes I forget where I toke those pictures :sweat_smile:

6

An obscured location can have an accuracy of 26.1km. Here in England that can encompass a considerable area with significant variations in vegetation, land use, relief. As far as moth observations from iNaturalist those that are obscured will be ignored as they have so little to add yo our knowledge of distribution and the relationship between the insect and its environment.

If observers have such concerns about privacy, then best not bothering to publish observations in a public medium.

7

A main goal of INaturalist is to encourage people to interact with the natural world. That’s why the mission statement is “To connect people to nature and advance biodiversity science and conservation”, not “to gather data on biodiversity”. There’s no minimum bar of scientific relevance someone’s observations have to reach to be valid INat observations.

9

I agree, but man, them’s fightin’ words.

I just filter out obscured observations. I wouldn’t even know they exist except that occasionally, someone will tag me to identify their obscured observation. I just reply sorry, homey don’t play dat.

10

Again, the mission of the site is to connect people with nature, not to create data for scientists. If what keeps someone engaged with nature is keeping a list of butterflies they see in their garden, then how is it not in line with the mission of this site for them to create observations without media for an exciting new species they saw, even if they didn’t manage to get a photo?

iNaturalist gives you a plethora of tools for filtering out these observations, I’m not sure how other people using this website in the way that brings them joy is harming you.

12

Could you explain how someone

isn’t “connecting with nature”? If this website is encouraging people to pay attention to the natural world, that’s quite clearly accomplishing their mission in my eyes! It’s not clear to me why someone can’t just enjoy looking at a butterfly and want to keep a record for themselves of it! Haven’t people been connecting with nature in this way through centuries, through field journals or even just diary entries?

Not all observations here are meant to be identified!! In fact, observations such that

are excluded from both the Explore and Identify pages by default! You’re right that it would be unreasonable for you to be asked to identify these, but that’s why no one is asking you to! You have to go out of your way to even find these observations whose mere existence is annoying you. I think the issue is you are viewing iNaturalist as purely a species identification platform, but that limited scope was never its intent. It was always designed as a social media for people to share encounters with organisms or keep personal records, and that’s why it has always supported observations without media, for instance.

13

Observations without any evidence are sent to casual and can be excluded with the click of a button!

People may put up a placeholder so later they have geodata or time data, or even just a reminder to upload an observation they made. Others may make it because they wernt able to get a photo but still want it in their personal life list! The latter may not be useful to the scientific database, but Inat isnt just a database, the lifelist exists for a reason!

Comparing a post of someone saying 'I saw xyz!" to egg thieves is kinda wild ngl

14

The mission of the site is still in part to encourage people to connect with the world around them. It’s not just about the science. That’s why casual observations exist in the first place, and why they’re filtered out the way they are- so an observation with little to no scientific merit doesn’t interfere with the science, while still allowing people to upload said observations.

Plus, as said above, sometimes observations with no media are placeholders or to be updated later.

How does uploading “observations” with no media “connect people with nature”? All they are is assertions backed up with no evidence.

Well, a lot of those observations are things like “I saw a really cool butterfly but didn’t manage to get a photo of it”. Yes, that’s not much of a connection to nature for people viewing the observation- what we’re talking about with the connection part is the connection had by the person who made the observation.

Sure, someone could upload all kinds of casual observations of butterflies they didn’t actually see, but that would be an incredibly unrewarding endeavor, so it’s pretty safe to assume that just about any non-outlandish observation you see with no media is in fact a result of a person observing that organism. I.e., someone has connected with nature (by observing it) and found some enjoyment in recording that observation.

You know how there are people who keep a “life list” of all the birds (or broader group of creatures) they’ve seen? And how they don’t necessarily have to have media of every single creature to have it on their list and enjoy having it on their list? Same concept.

What about egg thieves?

Ditto those who interfere with and harass rare animals to “connect people with nature”.

A person who uploads an observation to INat without a picture attached has neither stolen eggs nor harassed an animal for a photo. Frankly, this is kind of an absurd comparison, particularly the first thing? “INaturalist allows observations with no particular scientific value because part of its mission is to encourage connection with nature, which making these observations can do” is not (in my opinion) in any way comparable to “anything that involves interacting with nature is OK no matter how harmful it is to said nature”. Surely you see the significant difference between uploading a no-ID observation of some fast-moving creature and robbing an actual bird nest.

Look- bottom line, INat’s mission statement, taken directly from the “about” page, is “To connect people to nature and advance biodiversity science and conservation”. I’m not sure you’re going to get very far with arguing against, not just part of that mission statement, but the first part of it .

15

ngl – thanks, that is ;~))

16

There are many filters if you want to filer out data, but most are only accessible through urls, so you need to search to find them.

Just a hint in passing for those criticizing other observers, don’t be upset about other people’s, you are just hurting yourself.

And I strongly disagree with critics against obscured locations, there is a reason all sensible species are automatically obscured!

Voluntarily posting at a fake location with a lower accuracy, that’s real ‘junk data’… At least with obscure the real location is saved.

Someone mentioned moths, saying an obscure location is useless… but a strong wind could move any of those species much farther away than 20 km! so with that same logic we should ban any observation of species that can be displaced by wind or sea… that’s just nonsense.

That said I believe there should be a 2nd choice for obscure, within a 1 sq km or 1 sq mile instead of only the current very large area. Horses for courses.

19

My question too. Really, why obscure? I never obscure observations.

astra_the_dragon 21

slow mode on due to heated disagreements, reminder to use “inappropriate” flags for rude behaviour. I’m on vacation but have tagged the other mods to take a look

9 Likes
22

davidp_newton wrote:

“How does uploading “observations” with no media “connect people with nature”? All they are is assertions backed up with no evidence.”

David,

Some, or many, people may be served by the ability to use the iNaturalist platform as a way to keep a personal log of what they have seen.

This makes sense to me. Why?

Well, someone could use any of a variety of other ways to keep a log of all the things they have seen in nature. But most of those ways would require the person to keep track of the medium they recorded the sightings on. Like if one were to write them down, then they would have to keep the notebook dry and protected from getting lost in the clutter, getting accidentally thrown out, getting misplaced, etc. Or if they keep a log of all the things they’ve seen in nature vial emailing themselves, or texting themselves, or keeping “notes” on an iPad or in a computer folder, then they would have to maintain access to that computer / device, or maintain a subscription to whatever cloud-based backup system they have.

But if they just enter a casual record here on iNat, every time they see something that interests them, then it will, presumably, be here forever. They don’t have to do any work or pay any fees or keep track of anything, because the platform does it all for them. So for the rest of their life they can just store all of these personal notes right here on the iNat platform.

So they are better connected to nature because they have a very easy, free, organized, and permanent way of keeping a personal record of everything they saw in nature. Makes a lot of sense to me.

eBird has a setting (I think) in which a user can make all of their info private. I don’t mean just switching your eBird profile to private, but actually making it so that you are the only one who can see any of the sightings you enter. And some eBird users prefer this. They can then use eBird to keep a highly detailed, comprehensive record of every bird they have ever seen whilst out birding. Every sighting, every location, every timestamp, every photo, every sound recording, etc. But no one else will ever be able to see any of it. It is only viewable to the user themself.

So this works as an excellent way for people to use the platform as just a way to keep personal records. It definitely assists in “better connecting them to nature”. It keeps track of how many species they have seen in each county, each state, each nation, and worldwide. It keeps track of how many species they have seen this month, last month, this year, last year, etc. And it is all there for their record-keeping convenience, with no way for anyone else to ever see any of this information. Nothing wrong with that at all.

Perhaps iNat could implement such a setting. Then others could simply use iNat as a personal record-keeping tool, and you would never have to be seeing the casual observations that bother you so much.

23

A common reason is that the species in question is particularly sensitive- it’s something likely to be poached or unsustainably collected, or it’s a species that’ll be easily disturbed by people going to look at it. Both of those are things that are fairly well-documented to happen sometimes when an organism is posted somewhere public- people harass owls away from nests by going to stare, or find rare plants they can poach.

Another reason is that someone might be trying not to make their INat account map out exactly where they live and exactly where they walk on a regular basis.
Internet safety is increasingly difficult with how connected everything gets, and increasingly important, and INat used without a lot of location obscuring is a “hey, look where I live!” sign.
Now, my personal approach to this is that I have a small number of “location safety is a lost cause” accounts, all in the same bubble- mostly things like INaturalist, eBird, and a birding forum. I’m very careful about keeping everything in this bubble contained- I don’t mention any usernames from outside the bubble inside it, and I don’t ever put links to my personal INat stuff outside the bubble (except if showing them directly to a trusted friend).
That way, sure, someone can look at my INat account and see where I live, but they can’t tell who I am or anything about me beyond what I choose to share here. And someone looking at my other social media might know a bit more about me, or they might be really mad at me because I’ve stumbled into the wrong corner of somewhere, but they can’t find my INat account that maps out where I live and gives them info with which to theoretically doxx or harass me.
I like this approach, and I recommend it, but it does take a lot of care. I have to remember that if I link an INat observation I’ve made to somewhere else, I’ve just shown anyone who clicks that link exactly where I live. And, depending on who sees it, depending on what else they know about me or how they might feel about me, that could be dangerous for me.

(Not to mention that some people are actively fleeing specific dangerous people, like if they’ve gotten out of an abusive relationship or are being stalked, and need to be incredibly careful about what they post where. This, incidentally, is part of the reason why it’s important not to post pictures online with other people in them without having asked, or obscured, the other people first.)

And, if I can be particularly blunt, internet safety is something you in particular might want to read up on. Not everyone you encounter online, even in friendly communities, is safe, and you have a profile telling people that you’re a child and giving what looks like your real name. You also have an INaturalist account history that makes it very easy to see where exactly you spend your time. There are hundreds of thousands of people using INaturalist- some of those people are inevitably going to be people who cannot be trusted with that information.
Sure, it may never wind up causing you any problems, but it very much could. If you want to leave all your observations unobscured, you might want to remove some personal information from your account, particularly your age and picture.

24

Perfect !

25

Well, really, it already has something similar- the ability to filter out casual observations, and the fact that they’re automatically filtered out in many searches in the first place.
(Though it sounds like the complaint this person is making is the existence of those observations at all, not just that they, personally, have to see the observations.)

If INat did implement a setting like that, I’d like to see it possible for someone to send a sort of ‘unlock’ link to someone else- it would be nice for people to be able to send “here’s a list of what I’ve observed” directly to a friend. I like showing my friends what I saw on a recent trip or in a certain area, and I’m surely not the only one.