I just listened to the fascinating Data Skeptic interview with Scott Laurie, and I feel like I “get” things that seemed meaningless to me before.
When I used to see “New Computer Vision Model with 1656 new taxa” announced on the blog, my reaction was, “huh?”
Now I understand that Inaturalist is examining data accumulated by users and checking it against human experts in order to help the AI model identify more species more accurately. And it’s updating the whole system once a month! Which is amazing.
Now I feel like I get it, I’m excited about it, and I’m eager to see what the next update will hold.
I wonder if there is a more effective way of communicating INaturalist’s exciting achievements and growth.
There is a somewhat clunky, technically demanding, down-in-the weeds quality to the app itself, to many of the website’s features, and to the way the organization talks about its work that may put off many potential users.
I am constantly proselytizing about how amazing Inaturalist is, but I’ve made surprisingly few converts. (Surprising to me, anyway)
INaturalist is rightly proud of its scientific nature, non-commercial orientation, and all-around nerdiness.
But to reach kids, non-scientists, the less-formally educated, the less-wealthy across the globe, I think it would be great if the organization invested more heavily in communications, and in streamlining the app experience.