We’ll try this out and see how/if we can minimize its impact on infrastructure. No timeline yet, though.
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I might be the vocal minority here, but I would request a lot of thought on the front end when increasing ‘gamification’ of iNat. That’s not to say I don’t like this idea implemented in some way shape or form, but rather to say that minor changes could change how they impact users psychologically and fundamentally alter the way users interact with the site.
One of the things I love about iNat is the lack of competition and minimal gamification. The site feels completely collaborative; an observation being “hey, I saw this here”, and identifications being “yup, you did”, or comments/further IDs often leading to further discussion on identification or otherwise. There’s no incentive or pressure to observe or identify a specific thing other than the fact that you want to. Year lists aren’t presented front and center reminding you that you haven’t observed Asian lady beetles this month or in a certain county, nor is it in the front and center who is at the top for certain things. These features are all here if users want them, but they are not emphasized, and to a degree I think that’s a good thing.
Personally, I don’t find clicking the “View Yours” button to be annoying (yes, I like to check if I’ve observed things too), but if implemented I like @deboas or @sessilefielder 's ideas. They’re subtle but immediately obvious to someone who is interested in that information. Or, if they would slow down loading of the pages more as mentioned previously, a way to more easily sift through life lists etc to see what has or hasn’t been observed would be ideal so that it only impacts those that are actively seeking that information.
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It could be made optional, but even now you can open life lost and list of not seen there and randomly assign taxa from it, most users it won’t affect that way, but those that will fall jnto, maybe they’re just searching for an excuse? Most adults are responsible and children need a guardian to use iNat.
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I agree that most of the ways here that it has been proposed probably would not have this effect. My message was just intended to express these considerations for changes like this or similar. I’m sure this already occurs but I thought it might be good to voice how I think that overall the way that things are handled in terms of gamification are good, since with discussions of change the discussion primarily tends to focus on change.
We’ve seen that with the like button on social media all it takes is a little dopamine and you’d be surprised how dramatically it can alter behavior, and if you’re constantly presented with something on a website you use frequently it will get you thinking about prioritizing it more. I love eBird but it certainly exemplifies the latter, when clicking the main Explore link there’s a header that says “SPECIES YOU NEED” with links for “target species” for a given area and rare bird alerts, and below that “COMPARE YOUR TOTALS” with a link to see the top 100 birders in an area along with others. Although with birding, there’s the argument that the chicken came before the egg with that one, but it certainly does help proliferate it.
I just like the vibe here and am scared that significant changes to gamification could change that 
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As someone who has seen a good portion of how people use iNat, I can say it’s already in a zone of bordering gamification when it comes to leaderboards, observation counts, species counts, and especially local contexts like county lists, bioblitzes, and regional events aside from that.
In short, I don’t think adding this will provide a huge further step in gamification beyond what already exists.
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I finished implementing the count as shown in my previous screenshot. The update to the extension should be live within a few days.
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To be clear, the request in this thread is not to display obs counts by user, but to add a checkmark with a link to a filtered view of observation for observed taxa, similar to how lifelists in eBird work. I cannot think of any obvious ways in which this would further gamify the experience of contributing to the project.
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To try and visualize examples of pages and lists where I’d personally find it useful to see a clickable lifelist checkmark (linking to a filtered list of all my past observations for that species):
Individual observation pages
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Individual taxon pages
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Taxonomic trees
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Species lists/grids
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Observation lists/grids
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Identify screen
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Dynamic lifelist (although redundant in this context)
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Yes, thank you - it works already!
I have one here
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/78590-Pittosporum-crassifolium
Some people are interested in seeing how many species they can observe, and features such as check marks for life list species, eBird rare bird alerts and target species lists, etc., can be very helpful. Personally, I don’t think that any of these need to lead to gamification. Can leaderboards, eBird top 100 lists, etc., lead to excessive competition? Probably. Is that a bad thing? To an extent, probably. But such features do have many valid applications that don’t necessarily lead to excessive gamification or competition. To be clear, I do appreciate the current iNat “vibe” with its minimal competition. But for those of us who enjoy giving a little more focus to our life lists, a feature such as proposed could be very helpful. The way it would be implemented would not have to “get in your face”; in fact, I would hope it does not. On the other hand, I never thought of some of those eBird features you mentioned that way either, so each to their own. I respect your thoughts too.
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I just realized that this was already covered by a few other people. Sorry for being redundant!
Suppose checking the life list was done client-side.
That is, on loading the website, download the life list. Then, whenever a species is shown, have the user’s machine go through the downloaded life list to see if the species has already been seen.
This might save both server power and loading time.
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I believe that’s indeed how eBird does it.
1 Like