Allow user (the option) to re-observe species for a challenge (if not of type 'spot x new species' specifically)

[katajanmarja]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

Once I've observed a species once, it will not qualify for a challenge I start later, as far as I can tell (it could of course also be a bug if I'm misunderstanding the UI).

I noticed that some challenges push for observing a reasonably specific creature type, such as 'a reptile' or a close dove relative, or a tree.

While I can occasionally spot a representative of these species, I don't have an unlimited supply of different species I can find in some of these groups. So if I bioblitz on Seek with 1 challenge active and can't get that last picture of an insect because they won't stand still, I'll notice I can't find 10 different trees anywhere in my neighbourhood for the next challenge since I already observed all 10 species there are to find during the first challenge that didn't need trees specifically.

I suspect this is not maybe intended behaviour for all the challenges. So while the challenges for "find new species" where the categories are reasonably broad are completely doable, the challenges for "observe a dove relative" can suddenly become almost impossible once you've been using Seek a few years and have already seen the 3 doves or approximately 3 reptiles we get in this area.

Describe the solution you'd like

As a workaround, I just started all challenges simultaneously, but it won't solve the problem for challenges in the future, and it's a bit awkward. I would prefer to focus on one challenge at a time.

I feel the outcome should not be different whether you start the challenges simultaneously or do them one at a time. The same selection space of species should generally be available.

• If the challenge says "find 2 different X" it should accept two species that are different from each other but that can have been observed previously before the challenge started (by re-observing).
  If the challenge says "find 10 new species" like the Seasonality challenge, it's fine, it should be species I haven't observed before, I love this kind of challenges too (I just can't find 10 new trees or 3 new doves or reptiles over the next several years)
• If the challenge says "find any ten species (that make you happy)" like the Natgeo nature challenge, it should allow me to re-find an already observed species so that I can indicate that dandelions make me extra happy even if I've already observed dandelions last year, and I can use personal discipline to NOT observe the 10 easiest species around (or an option given for re-observation, if you like)
• If the challenge says "find 20 plants" like the Dec 2019 Climate challenge, it should allow me to re-observe species (that are not already included in the challenge, i.e. not allow me to re-observe 10 x dandelion to complete it)

Describe alternatives you've considered

• I prefer NOT retroactively solving a challenge by already-made Seek observations from the time before I started the challenge. I just want the option to re-observe to advance a challenge I have started after the limited-choices species have already been observed. I can always skip ones I already have.

• A "start all challenges" button would make the workaround easier, but I would rather make the workaround unnecessary since it won't work for new challenges anyway.

• Possibly the 'keep old photo' vs. 'use new photo' popup could be used also to indicate whether the re-observation should be included in a challenge, but I think for most people it just adds unnecessary GUI complexity. If they want to avoid the issue they can try to find species not observed (though it may be hard to tell what you have observed on the fly after a few hundred species are covered). As an obscure alternative, the 'keep old photo' could be used as an indicator of "don't use this in the challenge", but this would be obscure and most people would just find it confusing - but it would be usable as a workaround.

Additional context

• I do most of my current testing on iPhone, just in case this is in fact not supposed to behave like this and/or I've misunderstood the user interface.