This forum is for discussion about iNat. It is public (not limited to iNatters). So, you will get response. If you intended your message to go to iNat staff, you need to use their dedicated email.
A reminder won’t help for new users. And old users know already.
A short video about what is iNaturalist and the collaboration aspect of it would be great and useful. People won’t check Q&A downloading an app, we shouldn’t be naive. However, the people I introduced to iNat they don’t speak English, so it would have not helped them much unless it’s multilingual and it’s start becoming complicated for iNat staff.
The broader topic of engaging new users in what iNat is vs the myriad of Animals/Plants ID apps out there would require a different marketing approach that would “sell” iNat as a platform to learn and exchange about nature rather than ID. But that’s a lot of work and frankly, judging by the numbers… it seems iNat model is successful enough without doing more. But I do believe it’ll be needed before extenuating the limited pool of IDers vs increasing amount of Observers.
I might be a bit off-topic… so:
video idea is better than reminder.
Hi - still trying to figure out how this works - what is the dedicated email?
Again, the DQA puts the burden on the identifier to fix the observer’s failure to follow the rules. If we are worried about identifier fatigue on iNaturalist, expecting identifiers to fix persistent failures to follow rules is one way to worsen identifier fatigue.
A link in the side column is not the same as an onboarding video that literally pops up and is in the face of someone who has just made an account.
This is how we are asked in both iOS apps.
A lot of people do not read or respond to messages for a wide variety of legitimate reasons.
The forum is attended by a small minority of iNaturalist. We all would like everyone else to please post all observations correctly to the best of their ability.
iNaturalist is
a global online platform and mobile app for nature enthusiasts to record, share, and discuss their observations of plants, fungi, and animals. It functions as a community-based tool for citizen science, where users can help identify species, keep track of their sightings, and contribute data that can be used in scientific research.
Thats how and why it started and is and will remain a main purpose of iNaturalist.
Stick around, and you will see ongoing posts in the forum.
Observers want identifiers to …
Identifiers want observers to …
That is a substantial part of why I would like observers to be carrot and stick encouraged to MAKE some IDs, that way they can deal with the ‘observer should’ issues for themselves. And see why they should make the small effort on their own obs.
thank you for the email!
I mean, yeah, but it doesn’t solve the problem that people aren’t. Just yesterday I had to tell someone to mark as “cultivated/captive” a photo of a human pet dog that was labeled “research grade.” Because it hadn’t been marked wild in the first place. People are ignoring the requirements.
Mark the DQA and realize you cannot change anyone.
Keep in mind the “staff” is small and everyone else volunteers.
I feel like a broken record, but as I’ve said already (1) I’m usually ID’g on my phone on the iNat classic app which means I have no access to the DQAs (2) it’s exhausting to be fixing multiple observations (because you can’t batch mark DQAs and I’m not asking to be able to right now) when the observer can’t or won’t follow the rules.
I don’t care if there’s a large volume of potted plants. I care that they are marked wrong, in part because people can’t, don’t, or won’t follow the basic rules of posting on iNaturalist. I guess I’m having a hard time understanding why we are allowing such leniency. I understand we are mostly volunteers and that staff are small. But based on some other posts I’ve seen in the forum just in the last couple days while I’ve been poking around, there is a substantial problem especially in the US with people not complying with basic parameters for observations.
Thanks! That forum thread is really enlightening. I may reach out to the Ambassador person, because I’ve also seen at least one instruction sheet from a botanic garden that failed to specify the need to mark observations as wild/not wild, and that’s a problem too, which might be addressed with specific iNat outreach.
I agree that we need more dedicated tools for onboarding, but I partly disagree with this:
I agree that it’s not a solution, but it is an acknowledgement of the problem and a step towards making more people aware of the problem. Frankly, I would value almost any effort towards addressing this problem over the persistent apathy that has developed surrounding this topic. If you want my full thoughts, they’re fleshed out here: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/are-new-users-required-to-understand-the-differences-between-wild-and-cultivated-when-creating-an-account/57719
It would be easier for you to change your work habits than to rail and think you’ll change other people.
And that is a great way to get people to say “screw it, I’m not participating in this anymore.” Which iNat is struggling with, as they are fighting identifier fatigue.
We sympathize with your frustration, but the point that many of us have been making is that a fair percentage of users who do not mark observations as captive are not failing to do so because they “can’t, don’t, or won’t follow basic rules of posting”, but because they are unaware of what those rules are in the first place or why they matter.
Many of them, like you, are using one of the apps, which do not include much or anything in the way of explanation, and they may not see notifications when IDers leave comments or know that they should be looking for them.
If iNat were to send out a mass e-mail reminder to all members, how often would they need to do so in order to make sure that each new batch of users is informed? How many other users would feel that they are being spammed with unwanted e-mail if this were to be implemented?
I agree that this should not be the burden of IDers. As many of us in the forum have been saying for some time, iNat needs better onboarding that includes providing orientation for new users (who may never have thought about the difference between captive and wild and why it might matter for people using the data and who may in fact be completely unaware that anyone is using their observations for research). I believe staff are aware of this but developing a strategy for onboarding that is both useful and not too intrusive is a challenging task. If you have practical ideas I’m sure they would be welcome.
Which of the classic apps are you using? As far as I know, both of them should have the option to mark observations as captive, though many of the other DQA items may not be available.
Because I’m old (I guess), I didn’t start on the app, at least to sign up. And, maybe also because I’m old, I read the rules before joining. I am increasingly finding out that this is not a normal thing people do.
I get emails from people, and that’s how I know.
iNat Classic for iOS. It has the ability to mark your own observations as captive/cultivated, but it does not have the ability to mark DQAs on other people’s observations, and you can’t annotate observations (e.g. organism present, etc.). I honestly chose the Classic app because it’s simpler and also collects less data off my phone per what the App Store told me. Which, right now, I’d rather be giving out less data than more.
I’m not really convinced staff cares about this issue anymore. Which is fine, I guess. That’s their decision. But the new iOS app literally doesn’t even give you an option to mark observations as cultivated without going into the settings, so this interface decision makes it pretty clear to me that this is not a high priority for them.
If it were up to me, I would make a lot of changes to the way iNaturalist deals with cultivated plants. But it’s not, so I just have to accept that there are always going to be lots of incorrectly labeled observations and that’s just a fact of using the platform.
This is tangential, but since the CV runs on every uploaded photo, couldn’t it recognize potted plants a throw out a pop-up simply asking the user whether the plant is cultivated or not? If they click “yes” the DQA gets set automatically, if they click no, fine.
I think tools are there that could help mitigate these sort of things.
I also think there’s not harm in iNat reminding users of how to properly annotate their own observations.
I’m not a plant person, so I can’t make any sort of judgement on that matter, but this is definitely a problem where I ID as well. Many MANY pet Tarantulas not marked captive. Or those in zoos or taxidermy in museums. I try to give folks the benefit of the doubt because I know not everyone is as familiar with the site, but it is frustrating as Tarantulas are 90% of what I ID. It’s not too big of a deal for me just because the other folks who ID are very good about marking captive, but it does feel like something that could be remedied with a little explanation box when you post your first observation or something like that.