Hello,
This will be my first time organizing a bioblitz and I’d like advice from others about how to offer prizes. We will be having an open collection project. Am I correct that I will be able to contact prize winners via email through the info they provided to iNaturalist when logging on? Do they have to become project members in order to for me to do this? Although, I think ideally people will become project members so that they are not just contacted me out of the blue without being aware of the project first? If anyone has experience with how best to contact prize winners, I would appreciate it. Thanks, Lindsey
The only people who can see the email addresses of iNaturalist users are iNaturalist staff members and we don’t share those. You can, however, send someone a direct message on iNaturalist and they will likely be notified of the message via email. They do not need to be a project member.
You can read more about projects here: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/managing-projects
If you plan on offering prizes, I’d recommend making them pretty minimal (eg a T shirt or something) and just for fun. Valuable prizes can create the wrong incentives and in the past have led to inappropriate use of iNaturalist, falsified data, etc.
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i also just want to put something out there about prizes and goodies, i follow a secondhand thrift type store that sells most things and is really dedicated to reuse, and they say that drawstring bags come to them in large quantities and they cannot seem to sell them so they, against their wishes, have to throw them out to make space for other things, so even though they are pretty popular things to give out, it may be best to avoid doing so
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I find that the direct messages on iNat are fine. I fully agree with Tony here, keep the prizes low-key. If the event is enjoyable, a minor incentive is often enough. Attached is one prize that was received in my recent ID-a-thon.
edit:
Going back to the observation, it’s all rights reserved so just to be careful I’m removing the image. Sorry guys. Should have been more careful.
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I was just about to say this. Whilst its good to offer a bit of motivation, one should be careful not for it to result in a misuse of iNat.
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Oh my gosh I looove it
I have to say, the photo is from an observation I have to track down and @ddubois2 added the eyes, I’m just very very very tired but can find it latre
I have to say, the photo is from an observation I have to track down and @ddubois2 added the eyes, I’m just very very very tired but can find it latre
Yes, that looks fun! If you cannot find the OB in your example above, here is a sort of similar “looking” thing that you can use freely - crop, decorate, etc., (for non-commercial usage, which covered pretty much anything iNat.)
I remade it with one of my pictures, it still captures the side of Orobanchaceae I just can’t unsee.
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