Look at the topic with the most replies on iNat. In the top 5, none have more than 500 users & most of the users are often dormant after some time. Is it time to invite more people?
The forum is not very small-screen-friendly, could it be a barrier? Any stats about iNattersā screen resolutions?
(btw: making a not-so-mobile-friendly forum the only way to report bugs - including app bugs - seems like a weird decision to me; the less friction the better sorry, had overlooked the new help page with āsubmit ticketā)
itās not the only way. help.inaturalist.org and help@inaturalist.org both exist, among several other ways to report bugs.
what the forum provides is a relatively good text editor with an easy way to include inline screenshots and the ability to get feedback from the forum members instead of just staff.
moved to Forum Feedback
Itās hard to judge exactly how widely read the posts are, since itās not necessary to log in to view them.
The dashboard already has a forum-widget showing the latest posts. Perhaps many people just read whatever they find interesting there and donāt bother creating a forum account.
If you donāt think this is sufficient, what else would you suggest?
I donāt have a smart-phone, but when I try the mobile-friendly mode on the website, itās striking that the components in the right-hand panel (including the forum-widget) all get relegated to the bottom when the window is made very narrow. Is that how things work in the app? Or are the right-panel components more accessible there?
When I returned to iNat last year, I read the forums multiple times per day. Now, I may scan once a day to once every few days. We had a topic recently about people being active in iNat, but not the forums and people posted several reasons for it. For me, most of the topics just are not of any interest.
Iāve always used my phone browser for this forum, and I think it works fine.
The Inat website however, is a complete mess. The only time this comes up for me though, is when someone links to a page or observation on the website, rather than the app.
Edit: Well, I just clicked a link to the website, and it works fine. Something must have been updated since I checked it out last, so nevermind that last statement.
Anyone who wants to join can join, thereās no need for an invitation. So if theyāve chosen not to join, why push them to? Even if they join, theyāre unlikely to participate if itās not something that interests them. And thereās nothing inherently either good or bad about having more people involved.
Having said all that, Iām not sure how aware people are of the forum, so itās possible itās worth mentioning on iNat signup that itās a place you can come if you have questions about how things work, if that doesnāt happen already?
(Personally, I noticed the forum stuff on the side bar of my dashboard from very early on, and read posts for quite a while before I finally decided it might be worth joining. If others are the same, I donāt see any need to take additional action. But if others donāt use the dashboard it might be a different story.)
regarding people in the Forum: perhaps a quantitative (enough people on the Forum? perhaps increasing the #) and a qualitative issue. Qualitative issues have been mentioned here in terms of the topics that are presented in various categories that either serve as catalyst to respond/reply or the topics are scanned (fairly quickly) for gold nuggets, and if not, the rest are deemed to be gravel, as time (tempus fugit) in also a factor in peopleās lives with all of the other competing demands for attention and focus. I carry with me into the Forum some cognitive filters that are used to triage what topics to dive into further depending on relevancy and learning opportunity.
The Forum is a good example of,
āYou can lead a horse (Equus ferus; Equus ferus caballus) to water, but you canāt make it drink.ā
and then one more related to topics and writing,
āFrom now on all my writings are fish-hooks: Perhaps I understand fishing as well as anyone? ā¦ If nothing got caught I am not to blame. There were no fishā¦ā Nietzsche
(I was thinking of Bonefish (Albula vulpes) to add in nature connection).
No, there are not nearly enough people on the forum!
What I really want to use the forum for is to have conversations with other iNatters that happen almost in real time. Like I respond to something they posted, and then 2 or 3 minutes later, they respond to my response. And then I respond back to them a minute later. And then two other people chime in 5 minutes after that, and so on and so forth.
THIS IS HOW FORUMS SHOULD WORK!
Yet, there are simply not enough people active here to foster that kind of high interaction. And, worse yet, the forum administration actually seems to discourage that kind of forum use. This is mind-boggling. The best forum is the most active forum. Huge numbers of engagement/page clicks/replies is a PLUS, not a minus.
But what is there to usefully talk about at that sort of volume??
If the forum simply became a chat fest for random topics with talk being the sole aim, Iād be off like a shot.
Here is some more social media
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/link-up-on-social-media/30264
That is such a good idea for a thread!
But, sadly, they went and locked it or closed it or whatever it is that they do. So there is no way to contribute to that thread or add anything to it and not even a way to reply to anyone there. Ugh.
You can ask for the thread to be reopened ā¦
I had no idea that was a possibility. What thingy do I click on or go to, to submit such a request?
Why is that how forums should work? Do such people just live on the web all day? Why are they more valuable participants than people who do other things and look at the forum occasionally?
Hi Tom,
Discourse automatically closes threads after a certain period of inactivity (no new posts), often after two months, although the moderators can make a thread close faster.
I love the idea behind this thread! (sharing links to social media accounts)
But we should also note that if someone is into this, they are free to list their social media accounts in their profile here on Discourse and on iNaturalist. They can invite people to connect with them. Some users do that!
Getting back on topic, I agree with Aaravās position, but I also liked @bazwalās response, and I had nothing to add, so I just liked @bazwalās comment to show support.
We can note that, as of 2026 Aug, we are approaching 20k users on the iNat Forum, but as Aarav said,
With regard to this comment:
Here is a related thread: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/pareto-principle-online-participation/
Iām commenting to provide a kind reminder that a large quantity of the users on the forum are glad it isnāt like social media. If users want the bustling, pushy, all-day screen-staring, it exists elsewhere. All things do not need to be the same just because one person likes it one way; behind every screen is another user with their own views. Variety is good.
After all, does every user on here focus on the same taxon?