I know one can opt out of Community ID in iNaturalist. To me, this is opting out of one of the most useful, engaging features of the resource, but maybe there are some good reasons I haven’t thought of. Why do some folks opt out of Community ID, and if you do, how well does that work for you? Jus…

@aspidoscelis – I am very glad to hear that you value documenting biodiversity. As you say, too many ecologists feel that reporting growth forms is enough, and it’s really not. For one thing, it allows non-natives to slip into the habitat unreported. Several years ago I met a researcher who docum…

For what it’s worth, I’m thinking specifically of cases where species-level IDs are recorded in ecological data, but there’s no documentation associated with those IDs. If the data says they recorded Bommeria hispida, can anyone else verify that ID short of going out to the site and hoping it’s stil…

I see. In the small dataset I downloaded (200 observations), it was easy to find the original identifications by looking for disagreeing identifications and checking what those were. In a huge dataset, or one with controversial taxa, that could get too cumbersome. I wonder if iNaturalist has a me…

I think this kind of issue could be easily solved as part of some pretty minor changes that would also improve iNaturalist’s handling of taxonomy in general. I wrote a feature request yesterday, I guess we’ll see if it shows up there.

Just a short reminder to try to stay on the original poster’s topic of reasons for opting out of Community ID (or not). If a new thread about database management/uses is of interest, that can be created and a mod can easily move that element of this conversation there so it can be continued.

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” :-)

Why do I find opting out annoying? Recent case: I am working through some spider taxa in Europe. One species is so far presented on iNat by 14 observations. 5 of them are wrongly identyfied right now by two different observers. Boths are so far not reacting nor replying. So those wrong IDs now jus…

How? Even if I use “ID can be approved” (they are not RG now anyways) they appear in both Map and list… it does not solve the problem

Instead you need to choose it can’t be improved, they go to casual, leave a comment and id and mark it so it’s not shown on the map.

Why opt out of Community ID?

General

Topic		Replies	Views
Concerns over opting out of community taxon General	81	2889	May 18, 2025
Opting out of community taxon General	273	10067	March 21, 2026
What is even the point of the 'opt out of the community ID' function? General	44	1187	December 8, 2025
Opting out of community ID vs literally anything else General	65	4181	October 13, 2021
Should we change the way "opt-out" observations are treated? General	67	2769	January 14, 2021

Why opt out of Community ID?

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