Hey curators, Every so often a user under the age of 18 asks to become a curator, and they’ve shown good behavior and decision-making on iNaturalist. But, I’ve decided to not let anyone under 18 become a curator on iNat, just because of the amount of responsibility involved. However, I’m wondering…

[image] pmeisenheimer: an understanding of how iNat works.” I will also comment that ‘how it works’ covers multiple things. How it works technically, socially, what the rules on the site actually are, what the site goals are in things like taxonomy management and even use of the site etc…

Sure. I don’t mean to minimize these factors and I don’t imagine the folks choosing curators do either, The qualifications are what they are. We’re talking about opportunities for a few exceptionally motivated and capable people. Lack of experience is the young person’s ball and chain. I’m an old m…

Thank you for so many thoughtful replies, everyone, they are much appreciated. I’ll definitely relax my personal application of any age limit (if anyone I didn’t approve in the past due to this wants to email help@inat and let me know, please do). I do think it’s important to weigh someone’s behavio…

Isn’t that what @bug_girl is saying? We all need a mentor to be a curator here whether we be a teenager or as like someone in my age group (possibly allycouch’s grandmother).

I think that a “junior curator” is a little too dissentient, and that would give away that (insert name here) is a juvenile and could be threatened with cyberbullying and inappropriate messages, and even inappropriate identifications(intentionally identifying a plant as an animal, vulgar terms, etc.…

[image] tiwane: or a way to give one’s IDs more weight in the CID algorithm To me this should be a red flag, regarding anyone (regardless of their age) who does or has previously indicated this as a reason why they want the role. It demonstrates either an unawareness, or perhaps worse an unwi…

I am talking about the angry behaviour that curators occasionally have to deal with when dealing with the taxonomic side of things. These don’t always come in public comments; sometimes they come as personal messages.

I’m not sure that we need to label people as junior curators in their profiles. But perhaps behind the scenes (as it were) it would be known that the person was being mentored. I don’t know how to deal with people posing as what they are not. There are a few curators who don’t use any identifying i…

In a workplace this would fall under harassment policy. Presumably iNat has one and if not it needs one. Nobody, regardless of age, should be expected to deal with sociopaths on their own. Dealing with difficult, unreasonable and nasty people is a fact of life. By the time a person is out of 8th gr…

Age Restriction for Curators?

Curators

Topic		Replies	Views
Should site curators be allowed to make another user a curator? Curators question	41	5259	January 13, 2023
Remove all curators and start from scratch Feature Requests web , under-review	75	7314	January 19, 2026
Curators, what do y'all do? General web , question	16	1027	December 11, 2024
Becoming an iNat curator General question , information , curator	55	2235	February 5, 2025
Recognition of young iNatters General	62	4771	March 5, 2026

Age Restriction for Curators?

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