Tag bombing as I understand is repeated tagging of the same person within a short period, especially if it is from the same observation. This should be discouraged if not banned.
Using tags as an invitation to participate is not bombing, that’s the recruitment. This is common practice.
@birdwhisperer first, thank you for doing so much IDing in the taxon that matters so much to me. And for IDing my photos, even my often very non-ideal ones. I feel like a broken record, but to me this does not feel like the same thing, so thank you for outlining an example of what TO do instead of what not to do. (Although I agree with DianaStuder about being hesitant to ask top iders. But we usually know or can find people who are expert.) None of the people I recall being tagged were top IDers in that taxon. Neither is the IDer who was talked into changing a genus to a species ID to make it RG.
And since you ID birds, I don’t actually mind being @ed if I make an error. I see that as having my back—I check comments and IDs daily (usually at least every morning and evening) to make sure I’ve not held up a correct ID or made a typo. I am careful, but it has definitely happened! I appreciate the opportunity to fix it. I click on comments and anything that’s not research grade or has a ton of IDs to make sure I’ve not messed up or gone entirely off track and IDed a Brown Thrasher as a Brown Recluse or some such.
I do not check them every two minutes, nor do I expect others to. There are few real emergencies in bird ID. So strings of @s and repeated taggings seem too much. And again, not top IDers, or names I’ve ever seen while frequently IDing that taxon.
Hi, @justyna_keirat, what I mean by @bombing is not mentioning people in a reasonable attempt to note and correct errors. Usually if someone points out an error (I try to be conservative and don’t make many, but I am still flawed, especially at routing unknowns), I will usually catch it myself, almost always fix it immediately, and not infrequently apologize for the error. I don’t think tagging several known experts once and moving on is @bombing, and I am more than happy to be tagged if I’ve made an error.
I can’t share the post because the user has deleted all the tags and comments but mine, but it is the combination of rapid-fire and repeated comments and interrogations and tagging multiple rounds of people in a short period of time that seems harassing to me.
I ID in the parent taxon for this genus daily and don’t recall any of those people being experts in the field. The supporting IDer is not listed as a top expert in that taxon. Nor do I recognize the name of the IDer. I usually do 50–200 IDs per day.
In the forum we are not allowed to negatively call out other users in an identifiable way, so even if the user had not deleted evidence of the exchange, you should not be sharing any links. Even in a case such that another user is guilty of mobbing, that does not make it OK for us to start attacking them behind their back.
that sounds like harassment to me, and it can be flagged.
wisely summarized by Barbara here.
if someone’s behaviour is bad enough it’s making you feel negative about contributing, that alone is reason to bring it up – to them, to a third party, to Curators, or to help@inat, depending.
to speak more generally, most internet disagreements are made easier to handle after a short break. whether that’s a brief walk, a round of a video game, or several days to reflect – the ubiquity of the internet has encouraged an artificial pressure to respond NOW and to be on-call 24 hours a day. that’s just not healthy. patience is a virtue – honestly the only reason I’m on top of my notifications more than a few times a week is that (1) they’d otherwise build up to hundreds and (2) as a curator and moderator my timely intervention can be of the essence.
This is actually happening to me. I know tagging people to discuss ID is totally ok, but you can note when someone is rude. There is a guy trying to push everyone to change their fish IDs. It is strange; Ive been identifying fish myself, and Ive used scientific literature and evidence to support my claims, but he ignores it and uses his own guesses to justify his identifications with verbose language, even when they dont make sense. He is using the tagging features to pressure others into changing their IDs, even urging people with no fish knowledge to conform to his proposal. I found this odd, and fussy, but now I see that it’s widespread behavior.
Identifying species takes time, and it’s exhausting to maintain the hypothesis, so I just let it happen, and let him keep the ID, even though I know I’m wrong in not “figthing back”
as mentioned, this is reportable behavior, as this is not identifying in good faith
This is a loaded phrase. It implies that the poster has a predetermined idea of an ID and is shopping around for concurrence. Is it not also possible that the poster is searching for information on how to distinguish species (whether or not they’ve already come to a conclusion) and in that vein are tagging multiple experts? Hopefully (a) they are not just tagging sympatico friends on iNat who lack the expertise to make a judgement (which does happen occasionally), and (b) they are researching the taxonomic interests and geographic focus of the iNatters they tag.
Hopefully, yes. But in a few really annoying cases, no.
“loaded” but quite accurate. OP is describing a quite specific scenario that I’ve seen a half-dozen times or so where the observer is very clearly fishing for agreement and not interested in new distinguishing information. indeed, as Barbara notes, “hopefully” is doing a lot of work. this thread is not about making assumptions, but about what to do when someone already knows the @-bombing is occurring precisely because the person is very much tagging simpatico friends to agree with them
@nancylightfoot Do you consider your question amswered? If so, I’d like to close the thread, since this is veering into actual moderation / flag discussion / reporting on specific poor behaviours which is out of scope.
I’m so sorry, astra_the_dragon. Yes, you should moderate as you see best! I mostly wanted to raise the issue. Again, apologies for the slow reply. Work and all, you know. Thank you.
That would be my hope as well, and I cannot testify to another’s state of mind.
My eventual decision as well. And I’m sorry to hear it, @diegoalmendras. Please keep IDing! I wish I had better advice, but you may find some on this thread. You can escalate, and there are informed suggestions for how.