Backlog of spider flags

Curators
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There are currently almost 200 unresolved flags related to spider taxons. For most of these flags, the reason they are unresolved isn’t because it’s unclear how to resolve them; it’s because there are only 2 people who can make taxon changes to spiders (since it’s under a taxon framework) and neither of them are very active in this regard. This has been a known issue for a couple years now, but nothing has changed. Would it be possible to associate some additional curators with this taxon framework?

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I’d love to get @loarie’s thoughts on this.

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I’d be supportive of opening up (ie removing taxon curators for) spiders if @cmcheatle is

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I have long noticed that arachnologists are comparatively not very active on iNat and it is such a shame. If I log some obscure moth or louse or nondescript bird, I typically get IDs within days if not hours; but half of my spider observations seem to sit unnoticed for months.

It is not for want of people interested in arachnology. I’m a member of a British spider Facebook page with 30,000 members and a South African one of a similar size, and if you post on either of them you typically get expert IDs almost within seconds! I have often wondered why those people are not attracted to iNat. I don’t have any good explanation.

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You should also reach out to this guy. He’s very active on S. American spiders.

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You can ask them to check your obs on iNat and see their reaction?

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I would like to specifically thank @cmcheatle for all the great work he has done on curating spiders thus far. He has put in some truly heroic efforts to clean up the enormous and constantly changing taxonomy of spiders. I just don’t think it should be the burden of a single curator, especially since it’s very difficult to keep up with all the changes, many of which are not tracked by the World Spider Catalog framework (such as most taxon changes higher than genus).

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I often leave a specific link to iNat on the FB for Indigenous Plants in South Africa. iNat has so much more info to offer than FB (except for a focused discussion around is it or isn’t - which has high value wherever it happens to be hosted)

There are familiar names on both sites, and some who prefer one or the other.

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