I’ve noticed that iNaturalist has “human” as an animal you can tag in your observations. I’ve only ever seen it on humorous observations.
This had me brainstorming though, would there ever be a time when a “human” observation WOULDN’T be casual? Maybe a situation where humans left pollution or something so scientists could track human ecological impacts… but I feel like there are other ways to label that.
I’m just really itching my brain thinking of context where “human” as an ID would be anything other than “Casual.”
Research Grade on iNat ≠ data that’s valuable/usable for research.
Observations of humans are automatically deemed “casual” by iNat and there is no circumstance where -by the definitions iNat uses- an observation of humans or human artifacts could count as anything other than “casual”.
The observations you could make of humans, for which the argument that they count as “wild” could be made, would lie so far back in the past that “recent evidence of an organism” would have to be voted false.
Inat does not allow non-casual human observations. Probably for data privacy concerns. I have a photo of an arrowhead I found in a creek bed that I like to think is fun “evidence of organism”. But it will still always be flagged casual.
The human taxon on iNat is Casual by default now. Previously we could choose Wild vs Casual but that was abused. Guidelines and practice since tidied up.
Ya…I understand the purpose of research grade, that’s why it was an odd inclusion that I was itching my brain about. Given the nature of the research that iNat supports, I never assumed there was value in archeological or anthropological observations, the closest I could think of is human impact, like pollution or something, but even then I think we have other ways of tracking it.
I just found it to be an odd ID option, given that it seems it’s not usable by research by default.
Yeah there are sites/apps designed for this purpose. See this FAQ on our help site. iNat’s simply not made for it and we want it to be focused on observations of non-human organisms.
It has its uses. Sometimes some human-made thingy can resemble an organism at a distance. In those cases, marking as “human” is a very easy way of dealing with them.
(For example I once found a very rare and cool looking lichen – that turned out just to be paint.)
If I hadn’t been active after making that and the option to ID as human didn’t exist it would probably have been in the Needs ID pile for a lot longer than it was.
I’m glad you left that observation, instead of deleting it! It’s a great example of how the process works, and how to keep an open mind and positive attitude as an observer and as an identifier.
iNatting at it’s best, even if it didn’t turn out to be the scientific coup you hoped for…
Basically all observations of Humans are considered wild on iNat (there used to be a part of the curator guide that said the only captive humans were prisoners and hostages). But, all observations of Humans on iNat are automatically marked as casual regardless of DQA status.
Observations of human remains are not allowed on iNat, per the Community Guidelines see:
Don’t post photos of human remains. Observations of remains of deceased humans are not allowed on iNaturalist. iNaturalist is primarily for observing wild, non-human organisms and the strongly-held beliefs regarding human remains across many cultures make these observations potentially deeply hurtful and offensive without contributing to iNaturalist’s goals. If an observation of a deceased human is posted, first please assume the observer meant well, then contact iNaturalist and staff will intervene.
Of course they aren’t. But how about a parasite on a human host? If the host is non-human, then both the parasite and the host are ‘non-casual’ observations.
You may be able to ‘vote Not Wild’ but tiwane asked us not to when the taxon was deliberately defaulted to Not Wild. Joke IDs for wild humans was probably why the taxon default was changed - I don’t remember the details.