Yesterday, I went to a small forum about an endangered plant in my region. It was pretty cool, and I had some really good conversations. People here are really committed to protecting endangered, iconic plants.
It was all fun until we were walking through a native garden within the facilities. Then, a guy pointed at a plant and said, “This plant is interesting! I have it at my place, and we’ve already recorded it on iNaturalist. Are you on there too?”
And in my mind, I was like, “Honey, you’re standing in front of one of the top observers and identifiers here, a total nerd!” But out loud, I just said, “Yes, I’m on iNaturalist too.”
I was a bit nervous about revealing myself, and I also thought, Am I getting older? Does my profile photo not match me anymore?
I still feel a bit shy about mentioning my iNaturalist profile
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I would never think to try to identify someone by their avatar–not only am I bad at faces, but most of my friends’ PFPs are their fursona or other images completely unrelated to what they look like in real life, so I’ve never formed that habit.
Someone on Reddit did ask me if I’m on iNaturalist. They thought my pfp looked familiar, and we were in r/iowa so it’s likely they’ve seen some of my observations in Iowa.
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As far as I know, there is no unique identifying handshake used by iNatters and it’s not a secretive organization like Skull and Bones. I don’t usually advertise that I use iNat unless someone asks, and I still don’t recognize some of the active iNatters from my area, in part because many use pseudonyms. I don’t think you need to hide that you’re an iNatter unless it becomes a persecuted group, which I don’t see happening. ;-)
Added: I do have a couple of friends/colleagues who like to tease me and another iNatter friend for our promoting the site to them. They’re both good naturalists but don’t use iNat, or at least not very often. Maybe they think it’s kind of a cult.
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I’ve always been eager to share iNaturalist with other people. I’m always telling interested people about the site and what my username is, in case they want to check my profile out in the future. I’ve never felt shy about letting others know I’m on iNat.
A few years back I started a new job at which one of my top plant identifiers also worked, which I wasn’t aware of at first. It was only after like half an hour of talking with her (during which she mentioned iNat a couple times, and I’m sure she knew who I was on iNat) that I realized that her real name matched the iNat username!
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Wandering around, camera in hand, with one’s eyes fixed on the ground and taking photos of weeds and other random objects?
At least, this is more-or-less how we recognized each other the one time so far (to my knowledge) that I encountered another iNatter in person. (It may have helped that the site in question was not the sort of place that one would actively seek out for a nature outing unless one happened to know that it was home to a significant population of a rare bee species – so it was a reasonable conclusion that we were both bee people, if not necessarily iNatters.)
I suppose one could also buy an iNat hat or shirt if one wanted to make sure of being recognized. I don’t live in an area with a particularly high density of iNatters, but I have wondered sometimes whether I have crossed paths with others unknowingly. A couple of times I know (based on observations in the posted on iNat) that I have been out on the same day at the same location as someone else but we seem to have missed each other by an hour or two.
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Yep, on a couple of occasions I’ve been photo’ing right next to an iNatter but didn’t know that until I saw their records on iNat from the same time and place.
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Done. I ordered a t-shirt. Hopefully it will be delivered today. It’s confusing when the shipping company tells you that your shipment “has arrived in the destination country” (meaning, it has crossed the US border into Canada). So my t-shirt is somewhere in Canada? Seems a bit vague.
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I wish they sold an iNaturalist patch so I could make my own gear. As a large human being regular size t-shirts always end up like a crop top and that is not the look I want to go for. The cap is decent but I wear a brimmed hat to protect my ears. I know too many people who have a chunk out of the top of the ear from biopsies.
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This is getting a bit off-topic, so I will start a separate thread
I guess the opposite of shyness would be to be a walking billboard for iNaturalist, the way @sambiology is (and I will be soon). I started a separate thread about this:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/inat-merch-discussion-not-an-ad/63400
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I’m apathetic about this sort of thing and have never bothered to talk about iNaturalist offline except with friends and colleagues who also use iNaturalist for recording observations. I think there are sometimes small- or large-scale iNaturalist-organised meetups in my region, but I’ve never gone, mostly due to being busy. but in general I also am a slow, methodical, silent botaniser/naturalist and prefer to do my own thing; I’ve gone on hikes/mini-expeditions with fellow plant student friends who have the same approach, but again, these are people I already knew outside iNaturalist long before. as for revealing my iNaturalist usage during a presentation or a larger discussion, well, that sounds deeply unnecessary.
conversely, it’s not that hard to figure out who I am from my iNaturalist profile, but essentially nothing has come from that either. I’m happy for it to remain that way as long as I’m still terrible at responding to messages in a timely manner.
My friends agreed that unfortunately, walking around Hollywood reservoir taking photos of weeds with a $6000 camera came off more as ‘rich hipster’ than ‘blatantly autistic’.
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Some professionals might have a negative opinion about iNaturalist (and our egalitarian policy about observations and identifications), but when someone else has acknowledged their iNat connection in a positive light, why not do the same?
We may be a global, cooperative, citizen science project, but most of the time we’re alone when walking outside making our observations or sitting in front of our computers posting and identifying them. There’s a little online interaction with others–and more here on the forum–but I appreciate the occasional encounter with a fellow iNatter, IRL.
And I’ve bought my shirt to wear in the field, this year, in case the secret handshake isn’t enough. 
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That depends. If our data ends up being used in environmental advocacy, we could become persecuted by anti-environmental interests. There was some discussion about this in relation to beavers in a thread that was since shut down.
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It’s true there have been times when I’ve worked as a field biologist that I’ve avoided identifying myself as such or revealing details of my work to locals, especially when the organism I was working on was endangered/protected or on track to be so. I recall the story of a colleague who was in a bar in a small town that once had a timber-based economy and a field tech spread out a map on the table with survey sites for Spotted Owls. The waitress asked what they were doing in town and the field tech gave them all the details. Needless to say, the field crew were not greeted with enthusiasm.
Sometimes keeping a low profile is the best approach. Of course iNat records are very public so there could be some risk there.
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It’s a shame that it’s sometimes best to keep quiet about these things. At a previous job where I lived in field housing, I heard stories about local hunters dumping dead pigs in the driveway a few years before I moved there to protest invasive hog eradication efforts. But I still always try to engage with people whenever I get the chance during work, if they seem interested. I get very excited when I meet others who use iNaturalist, though it doesn’t happen very often for me.
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Social media is a very confusing world. I’m an open book, I have a iNat t-shirt I’ve worn when out hiking or at nerdy nature events but I’m learning that not everyone is like this and most people like their anonymity. 
I have ADHD and a terrible filter maybe that’s why it’s so confusing for me.
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I am usually telling and selling iNaturalist to other people whenever it feels appropriate…appropriate at least to me :-)
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