Are new users required to understand the differences between wild and cultivated when creating an account?

[mo0nsgreenthumb]

Well that was a lengthy rabbit trail

[mo0nsgreenthumb]

Nathan first of all, breathe. I get your frustration but iNaturalist should be an enjoyable experience and not an annoyance.
Have you considered reaching out to other identifiers locally to help out with looking through observations that might be cultivated and mark them as such or ask the observer? That way it gets some of that load off of your back.

Best of luck!

[mo0nsgreenthumb]

Ooh I like this!

[quillipede]

@tiwane

FWIW iNat Next has some built-in user interface “hints”, such as the Save/Submit buttons being grayed out unless the observation has a date, location, evidence, and ID, and an alert that tells you it’s missing one of those things if you tap on Save or Submit.

This is exciting news; I’m looking forward to seeing how this affects things once the app rolls out to all users!

I’d also love to see what happens if the buttons just aren’t usable at all (I assume since it’s a “hint”, they can currently use the button, it just doesn’t look usable) until all data fields are filled. I think restrictions like that on accounts below a certain threshold of observations might be a good way to teach good practice without expecting new users to find and watch/read a tutorial or interpret a guidelines document. For things like captive/wild, you could require that they manually select an option, rather than having the field default to one or the other.

[quillipede]

@tiwane

I did make a mistake earlier when I said you’ll see a pop-up if you try to save/submit an observation without an ID - you can do that.

Ah. Is there a reason an ID isn’t included as one of the data points that triggers a warning? It does trigger a warning on the browser uploading interface, after all.

I think this big pop-up seems like a very useful speed bump for getting users to consider carefully what they’re submitting; I always appreciate the batch upload interface warning me when I’ve forgotten to add an ID through web uploads! It would be nice for everyone if the app warning also triggered on missing IDs.

[tiwane]

@quillipede

Ah. Is there a reason an ID isn’t included as one of the data points that triggers a warning? It does trigger a warning on the browser uploading interface, after all.

Not sure, but I think it’s less important for a few reasons:

• location and evidence are something that can’t as easily or accurately be added later
• it’s difficult to make a new observation without adding an ID - that’s the first step you see after you take or import a photo. So it’s less likely to happen.
• if you’re using the website, you have an internet connection and can add any ID you want that’s in the iNat database. In the app, that’s not always possible.
• it could be a bug or an oversight. there’s still a good amount of work to be done on the app.

[lynnharper]

I love this idea. Maybe once or twice a month, there could be an iNat blog post with such tips. The posts could repeat every year, to catch the new observers and refresh the knowledge of old observers. Even better, everyone should get a message about the posts when they appear. Of course, not everything reads their messages, but if the blog post links were then compiled into a wiki on the forum, it would be easy to direct an observer to information on how to tell a cultivated plant from a wild one, etc.

Hey, @tiwane, how about adding this to the long list of what you already do for us? I’d even volunteer to help write such posts.

[JaneBP]

I once posted my fantasy of how it should work when you join iNat. I suggested that new people should be in a probationary period and have their posts critiqued by knowledgable observers so this (captive/cultivated issues) and other issues could be caught up front and corrected. During the probationary period the number of observations they can make should be limited (so there is a limited amount to review). After a period of time with no erroneous observations, they would be like everyone else - free to make whatever mistakes they choose, but at least they would have been informed about their early mistakes. This type of thing (in various forms) has been repeatedly discussed on various forum topics. If there was anything different about my forum post it was that it came from the viewpoint of someone new to iNat who was frustrated by all the bumbling around I did to figure stuff out, rather than from an experienced user who is frustrated by the newbies. So, this topic has been discussed many times that I am aware of and no time have I seen any changes to address these kinds of newbie problems.

[mo0nsgreenthumb]

Yeah using the app changes things a bit. When I was away in a different country with limited internet I found I was able to add observations but couldn’t add any IDs until I had Internet connection, so they would all come up as unknown as soon as they were officially uploaded.

[theresephillips]

When I first started to upload on INaturalist I had no idea that this was a thing. I believe it’s very important to add this information into the guidelines/rules that people will see upon signing up and such. But for now, I usually mark observations posts that are clearly non-wild but I don’t actively comment about the cultivated/captured marking system and importance.

[Italopithecus]

@nathantaylor

I know it sounds bad

For me it is not being bad, but being realistic and practical.
On the other hand, to avoid this, maybe we could intervene in the recruitment of new users which, in my opinion, is one of the really critical stages of this phenomenon.

[nathantaylor]

I appreciate your sentiment. I have been taking breaks between sessions to cool off here. I also appreciate your suggestions, but I don’t think it’s a good long-term solution. At the end of the day, the problem of cultivated observations affects all of us. I want our community to be better and that means promoting changes that produce better naturalists.

[mo0nsgreenthumb]

I completely agree!

[nathantaylor]

Ok everyone, I’ve compiled your notes. Be prepared for a large document! Many of these I like and some I don’t like, but this should facilitate discussion. I will also pin this to the main post. Thanks everyone for their suggestions!

Problem: New users don’t know how to mark cultivated plants as cultivated or may refuse to do so.
Target of these changes: 1. Users who are just getting introduced to the cultivated/wild dichotomy. 2. Users who know the differences, but don’t actually change the status because: a. they don’t know how, b. they can’t be bothered, or c. they deliberately keep plants as wild to get an ID.
Not target: 1. Users genuinely struggling with the cultivated/wild dichotomy. 2. Users with observations that uniquely fall in the gray zones between the two categories.
Potential solutions:

Guideline changes

1. Increase clarity in the Community Guidelines. This should read something similar to: Captive/Cultivated Organisms - These should be marked correctly as either captive/cultivated or wild (if you are not sure how to tell the difference, go here[link to help page]). There are inherent ambiguities regarding the difference between the above categories in some circumstances. However, users are expected to use their best judgment and be responsive to questions about this matter. Addresses 2.b directly and all others indirectly (though the development of the link for how to distinguish addresses target 1 directly).

Onboarding
2. Provide a tutorial that shows users how to mark an organism as cultivated when observers first create an account (app and website). This can be a broader tutorial that shows them how to do everything. Addresses target 2.a.
3. IF the Community Guidelines are amended, provide a link to community guidelines prior to account creation and make them check a box saying that “I agree to abide by the community guidelines.” This will not likely change any user’s behavior (that’s not the purpose of this). What this is designed for is to give us some teeth when dealing with these situations. Ultimately, we would then have clear justification to fall back on if/when a user gets annoyed at us or ghosts us. Addresses target 2.b. and indirectly target 1.
4. Add categories for captive/cultivated organisms so that being counted as casual can still be effectively curated. Many have talked about this before. Addresses target 2.c.
5. Create a tutorial for iNaturalist. Addresses target 1 directly.
a. Similar to discobot.

@AdamWargon

@discobot has a tutorial for how to use the Discourse platform (which is the platform that this iNat Forum runs on).

Could we, or should we, have a similar automated tutorial for using iNaturalist?

b. Strongly suggest taking photos of the entire plant in its context in addition to whatever other close-ups the observer wants to take (this helps address things that look like gray areas, but actually aren’t).
c. Videos

Though,

@spiphany

I don’t know if videos are the best solution. I do think more people are likely to look at videos or interactive tutorials than they are to read a written/illustrated guide, particularly if they are app users.

d. Guided walk through:

@deboas

One could also have one of those guided walk-throughs, an animation when you open the app that shows the steps to make an observation, including marking cultivated (and mentioning that the app is focused primarily on wild species).

6. Improve methods of finding or revisiting tutorials. Addresses target 1 directly (for those who didn’t get it the first time).

@spiphany

Both the help pages and the “getting started” guides are hidden away under “more” on the tabs on the top menu, which means that one has to be actively looking for it.

@DianaStuder

But Help - should be immediately visible, without us having to hunt for it.

7. Create pop ups, automatic messages, banners, or alerts to inform users that they should mark things as cultivated. This could be paired with a reminder that it is apart of the community guidelines to take this seriously.
   though,

@spiphany

if I understand correctly – there has been a preference to avoid pop-ups and similar methods on iNat because these are felt to be annoying and intrusive, and given that many of the more complex aspects of iNat require conscious decisions (thinking about whether something is wild or not, choosing an ID, cropping photos or taking pictures of particular features, etc.) and can be conveyed more effectively through actively imparting information rather than “nudges” that push the user towards certain behaviors, there don’t seem to be a lot of remaining options for improving onboarding.

a. Based on proportion of observations marked cultivated:

@m_whitson

Would it be possible at some point to have something like a pop up message? For example, if a user with less than X observations had more than Y marked ‘captive/cultivated’ to get a pop up message like, “Several of your observations have been marked captive/cultivated. It’s really helpful if you can do that yourself, but we realize it’s often hard to decide. Here are some quick tips…”

@Italopithecus

Maybe a “counter” that counts how many observations of a given user have been marked by that user or by others could be useful. If the proportion is too high in favor of “others”, that user could receive an automatic warning.

If an observer has all cultivated plants, we could perhaps create an automatic message that suggests other apps designed for sharing cultivated plants.

@Italopithecus

If they are only interested in non-wild organisms or do not have the sensitivity to notice wild things, we could consider the possibility to politely try to suggest them to take into account to look for something else.

b. Based on how many observations an observer has added:

@deboas

Or a pop-up or banner once a user has made their first/fifth/tenth plant observation: “Congratulations on making your first/fifth/tenth plant observation on iNaturalist! Please make sure to mark each observation as cultivated (e.g. garden plants, street trees, crops) or wild (weeds and other plants not planted by humans)”

c. When trying to upload an observation.

@tiwane

FWIW iNat Next has some built-in user interface “hints”, such as the Save/Submit buttons being grayed out unless the observation has a date, location, evidence, and ID, and an alert that tells you it’s missing one of those things if you tap on Save or Submit. I think an alert there for new users could work.

@quillipede

For things like captive/wild, you could require that they manually select an option, rather than having the field default to one or the other.

8. Make users take test before using site.

@bbk-htx

Some websites require you to at least read through the guide, and in some cases take a simple test before using their site.

9. Weekly tips

@spiphany

It seems like “tips to improve your observations” might be more attractive than “how to use iNat”, and this could be presented in bite-sized portions

10. Provide a box immediately after(?) account creation that describes what iNaturalist is and what it is not.

@Italopithecus

Few days ago a user with hundreds observations who made a relative high number of obs of clearly cultivated plants replied that was thinking that iNat was just a photo sharing app.

@dgwdoesthings

I think a certain percentage of the large number of cultivated plants come from many new users using iNaturalist as an identification tool. Instead of using Seek or another similar app that meets their needs.

@dgwdoesthings

I think it’s important to let new users know that iNat is not the proper place for cultivated plants but to also direct them to what they should do instead.

@Italopithecus

But I also think that in some cases we should realize that for some users it is simply iNat that does not fit for them. If they are only interested in non-wild organisms or do not have the sensitivity to notice wild things, we could consider the possibility to politely try to suggest them to take into account to look for something else.

11. Probationary period while users figure things out.

@JaneBP

During the probationary period the number of observations they can make should be limited (so there is a limited amount to review). After a period of time with no erroneous observations, they would be like everyone else

[sedgequeen]

Re: a propationary period. Do you really think we volunteer identifiers will consistently review in a timely way all observations posted by the “probationers” and determine if those observers can go on to post more freely? If not, do you think probationers should be locked out of iNaturalist because their posts weren’t reviewed? If you think probationers should be allowed to continue on iNaturalist even if their initial posts weren’t reviewed, what’s the point of the probationary period?

[DianaStuder]

I would like iNat to have some separation of skills and activity. Some ‘reward’ for giving back to the community.

I will phrase this carefully - so it does not apply to the iNatter I am thinking of. Have just read - we use iNat for IDs and to tell us where to go to see what when. A thousand obs. But almost no IDs from them.

8. Test first before you can iNat. An interactive quiz to click thru? Give us your picture. Click click click. Brava - now you can move on to the real live iNat! And obvs with - do not show me this again, and, no thank you - options.

Some throttling against adding obs. Some encouragement to provide support in turn for the next one to use iNat for … We need to reach a sustainable balance between burnt out identifiers and enthusiastic Observe All the (living) Things.

[jonsense]

If pop-ups are generally avoided then this is probably a non-starter, but what if you were required to actively mark if your observation is wild or not wild if you attempt to upload an observation of a taxon where the majority of observations in the area for that taxon are currently marked ‘captive/cultivated’? You’d get a pop-up like, “most observations of this organism in this area are not wild. Can you confirm the ‘captive/cultivated’ status of your observation?” Or for a less intrusive experience, maybe the ‘captive/cultivated’ box could be highlighted in red or something whenever one picks a taxon ID for an observation that is over some threshhold (50-60% ‘captive/cultivated’ maybe?).

Currently iNat already automarks taxa as ‘captive/cultivated’ if 80% of observations in the area are already marked as such, which I think is overall good, but it is definitely annoying that you don’t get notified about it, whereas this would give the uploader more agency/transparency with their observation.

[jonsense]

As an aside (I’m sure many of you know this, but I just discovered it recently), you can toggle the map overlay on an individual observation (or the taxon page) to show ‘captive/cultivated’ observations as blue markers (plus it’s sticky!). This can help give a sense of the proportion of wild to not wild observations in a given area. If the markers are almost all red, you can pretty safely keep your observation as wild; if it’s 50/50, then it’s helpful to put some consideration into whether it may be planted; if the majority of the dots are blue, you should have a good reason to keep an observation as wild (e.g. a tree seedling from a street tree), and probably put a note explaining why you think so.

I guess this doesn’t help if you’re mostly using the app, but I find it very helpful and always keep the ‘captive/cultivated’ toggle on. I only wish it were available on the identification page map!

[DianaStuder]

@jonsense

the uploader more agency/transparency with their observation

? but the uploader should anyway check that their data is recorded as they expected it.

[sedgequeen]

Should yes. But actually do? Not often. At least I don’t often check. Though I may find an error when looking at my observations for some other reason.