City Nature Challenge - issues & suggestions for improvement

General
21

I have been thinking about this for days.

Background: I am just an Observer, not a very good Identifier, and here we have “Retos”, periodically, in which I participate lightly but not competitively, which is to say I do not change my habit at all.

Tangential background: a friend of mine once designed a citywide scavenger hunt, based on the history of the city. She got the permits, lightly advertised it, and on a lovely spring day, people worked in teams and enjoyed solving clues whilst hunting around the city. There were prizes for speed, accuracy, most team spirit, best costume, etc.

The first year was mildly successful, the second year more so, the third year was tremendous, but a terrible thing happened after that: the contest became a victim of its own success. First there were people from other places who drove and wanted to participate, though the number of teams was limited, then there were accusations of cheating, traffic was disrupted and local businesses complained about crowds and huge amounts of litter left, etc.

So my friend dissolved the contest and walked away from it, this thing she had designed out of love for the city.

Here is what I wonder: what is the purpose of CNC?

if the point of this is to gather snapshots, or to encourage participation or anything other than competition, why not remove all aspects of competition entirely?

This is to say, why not take away the “particular day aspect” and scoreboards that compare cities, etc, and just if a city asks when the next one is, say, “we assign you this date” or “pick one of these dates” and then spread them out? Spring is later or earlier in different places, and nature is not a one day thing but an every day and every weather phenomenon. Perhaps tie the weather report for the city to the project. Refer to it as a project. Not a challenge but a “snapshot” or whatever the purpose is.

I do not know what the solution is, but I think there has to be a shift in mindset, so I think going back to “what is the purpose?”, the why of it is essential.

(For my friend, it was for love of our city, and so for love of her city she had to discontinue the competition, which had become a burden to it.)

19 Likes
22

Let the winner be the first to cross 60% RG
That would be Graz this year.

Say the first third of identified obs are the WOW and the straight forward (mostly done), and second third is the straight forward but we haven’t got to them yet. The last third is the blurry green stuff, who knows?! (And frankly who cares … but wait, is that a spider?)

2 Likes
23

Thank you, I didn’t know (obviously) and will definitely make use of that going forward!

1 Like
24

Let’s face it, what we saw in this year’s CNC was a contest to see who could cheat the most - La Paz or Cochabamba. Their regional rivalry should be settled on the football field, not on iNat. They should both be sanctioned until they clean up their act.

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25

Cochabamba project has been flagged.

Not La Paz. Yet. But only 6% RG

Macao is 39% RG which matches the average.

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26

Macau put on a showing as well - I’ve never seen so many flags generated by such a small project before!

6 Likes
27

I have been finding a good way to quickly whittle down the numbers of plant species in one project: by looking at the species page, and examining observations one species at a time.

This way I usually end up discarding as cultivated quite a number of plant species very quickly, especially if I start with taxa that have only 1 or 2 obs.

4 Likes
28

I found this out also. But i know too little about plants to do this effectively. I dont really know common house plants or street tree species.

So when i found a house plant, i would look at other observations of the species.

1 Like
29

Well, for many of these, they’re either in a pot or as a cut flower of vegetable, so no plant taxonomy knowledge required.

5 Likes
30

I am one of the observers (and novice identifiers) that thoroughly enjoy the Challenge every year. I am dismayed by the trends and the direction this is taking, and although the Challenge and the Southern Bioblitz are highlights for me, I also think this needs rethinking. It is just such a huge thing - keeping the fun aspect alive to keep luring people into observing and appreciating nature, while also keeping it ‘serious’ - not just another game with misleading results. Somehow the organisers (sorry to say THEY - I always feel like an armchair commenter) needs to reavaluate the goals. The numbers are there, wonderful, but so much so that it has become meaningless.

As much as I hope the challenges will continue, I hope this year’s frustration will lead to changes. Becoming a lot more strict may feel like going a step backwards, but it is needed.

4 Likes
31

It might be worthwhile to investigate how many of the user accounts created at the beginning of the CNC remain active after the event. From spot-checking some users whose observations I verified I suspect this to be a very small number.

8 Likes
32

I just wanted to point out, as people are brainstorming, that we should bear in mind whether a suggestion is possible within the way iNaturalist already works. For this quoted example, I don’t believe the apps or website are capable of blocking observation uploads in a specific geographic area on specific dates. I am not shooting down the idea, just pointing out new coding would be needed.

2 Likes
33

I agree with everything - I was preparing the report of our participation in the CNC by titling it with a quote from Pope Francis’ encyclical, Laudato sì: “Less is more”.

We must always remember why we are doing something, to avoid the risk of derailing in directions that take us away from the initial objectives.

The purpose that must animate us can only be to bring people closer to nature, creating bonds with it and ensuring that they protect it.

If you think about the numbers, it would be enough to go to a natural meadow and photograph every single individual in the meadow - we would easily obtain thousands of observations, most of them without any value, both at a scientific level and at the level of the human-nature relationship, because the individual organisms would have been “objectified”.

Last but not least, the meadow would be completely and totally destroyed and trampled and we would spend a great deal of energy to store the data inside the data centers, increasing the problem of global warming.

Now, on the contrary, let’s think of an organizer who says “photograph what you find wonderful, or interesting or that attracts you and, together with the photograph, also include the motivation that pushed you to photograph, to make this observation”.

There would certainly be fewer observations, because more care is needed, more time, we need to stop and look outside and feel inside ourselves, what moves us.

Imagine a little girl, or a little boy, who makes just one observation during the CNC, perhaps the inflorescence of a dandelion and then writes a nice text about what struck him or her and pushed him or her to take that photograph.

Imagine that that little girl or boy, after this experience, continues to make observations on iNaturalist, in the same way.

And that maybe one day he or she becomes a true naturalist, capable of having a positive impact on the conservation of nature.

Who won, in the end?

As I recently noted in a great article, CNC should be “a tool for cultivating deeper connection, care, and collective stewardship” between man and nature.

11 Likes
34

I suggest that you filter your observations for “captive.” This lets you see at a glance which ones have been so categorized. I just did that for mine, and the only ones that came up are classified correctly.

35

This is actually a nuanced comment because basically ALL elite athletes cheat by various means. The issue is, getting caught! At the elite level, you cannot compete drug-free if all of your competitors are enhanced.

So the CNC would be the same thing: sophisticated cheating (that did not corrupt the data, or at least not AS MUCH), might be okay, but we want to eliminate the blatant violations.

3 Likes
36

I see no reason to cheat at all. Photo your organisms within the time-frame of the CNC and within the area defined as your CNC area. Don’t photo captive/cultivated organisms. Don’t tinker with the data associated with your photos to make them eligible. Don’t use other people’s pics. It shouldn’t be that difficult to do it honestly.

10 Likes
37

Unfortunately there are identifiers that just frivolously agree with everything and rack up >99% supporting ID’s. Don’t know if this would work.

5 Likes
38

Even in non-CNC times there is a problem of “only two ID’s to RG” observations, the 60% rule just asks for ID cheating. It’s not about quality, as it may seem from the first glance.

1 Like
39

Every solution needs established iNatters to play by the rules.
And newbies to conform to the rules.
Broken window syndrome?
Otherwise iNat slides to - Remember when …

There are iNat guidelines?
Which are enforced and monitored?

2 Likes
40

Casual observations should not be allowed. Any regional projects that include casual observations should be excluded from the overall challenge.

It’s bad enough at any time, but identifying during the CNC was a tedious chore.
iNat desperately needs a quick and easy way to mark an observation (or a whole page of observations) as Not Wild.
When you come across lots of observers who have gone through the same botanic gardens, snapping everything in sight and uploading, often without names,just marking as Not WIld is too much trouble, let alone identifying.
Particularly when you can tell that the observer has no real interest in what they snapped … just the number of snaps.

6 Likes