I have found my local CNC while we are still going through IDs duplicates and non wild things, a really great thing to reference to the non biology people in my life when they say things like “but diversity is only in _____ areas”
Its just been helpful to keep others interested in the biology. I also like to find things here in town. I know it may not be the biggest most valuable data but there are some things I’ve been able to pull out. Like I am working on keeping track of catalpa escapees along the river here in town, getting even your “average joe” helps with those observations, I know they likely will not end up in species level data but it is still helpful data.
That’s a useful link. Thanks. Added to my list of things to look through out here.
originally came from @annkatrinrose here on the forum
This year was my first time taking part in CNC, and I have to agree that it is not really what iNaturalist needs. First of all, it is impossible to choose a date that works perfectly for everyone — in my region, at this time of year, almost nothing is growing. Second, I did not see any real increase in identifications for my observations, although I had hoped there would be more. In practice, it felt no different from what I have been doing throughout the whole year.
I think it would be much more motivating to introduce a rating system and different achievements that would be displayed on a user’s profile. These achievements could be earned for completing daily, monthly, or yearly tasks, or for building a species collection. We could also add rarity modifiers based on region: for example, observing a polar bear in Africa could be worth +500% points! And every next photo of the same weed could get -10% points. Experienced identifier users could give likes and dislikes, and add or remove rating points for high-quality observations from contributors. Different leagues could be introduced for beginners and advanced users. And so on.
If a project needs to encourage a certain kind of user behavior, achievements are the simplest and most reliable way to do it. Personally, I would have much more fun improving my rating throughout the year and earning different symbolic rewards than intensely photographing things once a year during CNC without really feeling any difference.
I was thinking of a simple monitoring indicator (yes, it must be some kind of professional bias), obviously something simple and immediate. A test could be comparing global observation data for Saturday and Sunday, April 18-19, with Saturday and Sunday, May 2-3.
If the CNC has worked in engaging more people in using iNaturalist in nature, we should see a positive difference.
Or, at the local level, we can compare the difference in data, again for these two periods, between a location where the CNC took place and an adjacent location where it did not take place—always referring to the percentages of observations before and after the CNC.
This would also provide a comparison between two independent samples.
_____________________________________
Update: I attempted to analyze the 2025 results.
In practice, I considered the increase in observations and observers between two weekends before the CNC (keeping in mind that both the number of observations and the number of observers on iNat are constantly growing) and the increase in observations and observers between two weekends after the CNC.
In both cases, the difference between the weekends considered is 14 days, to eliminate random fluctuations as much as possible.
The results left me speechless. Maybe burnout?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1npp4ctpBkf6HfJAQtfM97Ag3afmPGdf93Y3wnQzOJzU/edit?usp=sharing
? But you yourself have made zero IDs for others. Surely you have some knowledge to share ?
You have made 1K obs. My wish and hope (not an iNat requirement) would be, if you usually start your obs with your own ID that you owe 1.25 as many IDs for others. The ‘and a bit’ covers obs that need discussion to reach a Community Taxon. If you upload without any ID then the ratio jumps to 2.5 Your profile says you are interested in mushrooms - I would love someone to take the Fungi I scoop out of Unknowns … that bit further. I can scoop out lichens.
4.6K Fungi in the Global (not in A City) project for CNC26 - you can add a filter to your preferred Location. We have until 10 May to continue uploading and ID.
@anastasiiamerkulova has almost achieved 1.25 Thank you !!
Regarding IDs: I’m happy to say that about 75% of observations in our region have already reached Research Grade. This is an amazing result! Unfortunately, fungi are a tough group to identify by photo alone, as microscopy is often needed for a final call.
I totally understand that the City Nature Challenge isn’t for everyone. However, we’d love to have you join us next year — perhaps you’ll find plants or birds more interesting! Also, we’re always happy to have your help with identifications, whether within the project or in general.
Our phenology does start a bit late, but finding 300+ species is definitely possible, and our participants manage to do it every year.
a rating system here, take a look https://glauberramos.github.io/inat/achievements?user
This is a the craziest joke I’ve seen on the forum.
To be honest I wanted to say this too, that just like the forum gives us badges to motivate us, iNat itself should have the same. Not like points. Just badges.
In the northern hemisphere it is Spring, but for those in the southern hemisphere it is autumn. I think that is why the Great Southern Bioblitz was made but the data in these short spots do not help much. Also add a focus on regional weather conditions. For example for places in South a South-east Asia, having a “Great Monsoon Insect Bioblitz” will certainly be worth it. Can’t CNC be on different dates for different locations with there results being announced at the end of the year???
I know that some users are interested in gamification, but staff have rejected this idea and confirmed they won’t be adding these types of features. If anything, they’ve reduced gamification recently by allowing hiding leaderboards for projects, a change suggested by the community and introduced specifically in response to some issues with undesirable user behaviors during CNC. See
and more in the comment and other threads. Gamification is also not currently permitted in Feature Requests, see:
There are some user-created additions/extensions that give achievements that you might be interested in with one linked above and a couple others elsewhere on the forum I think.
This is a great link, I’m addicted!
I’d just like to emphasize that the City Nature Challenge is NOT run by iNaturalist; it is a separate organization: https://www.citynaturechallenge.org/
iNaturalist is simply the host for most of the observations made by CNC participants. Perhaps those who want the CNC to be something different should talk to the CNC organizers?
I agree, though the forum has hosted a variety of discussion threads about CNC in the past, including some that lead to this year’s changes, e.g.:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/city-nature-challenge-issues-suggestions-for-improvement/65039
So I think having discussions about CNC on the forum and potential issues/changes is legit, and CNC folks do read the forum. That said, much of the conversation here goes beyond the intersection of CNC and iNat to more philosophical questions about/issues with CNC itself. So while it’s fine to discuss here, I agree that there may be better routes if someone wants to go beyond discussion and try to effect change. I expect that there will be some reflective threads about how this year’s CNC played out on iNat after the dust has settled and people can assess what worked and what could be improved.
Will certainly be interested in a thoughtful evaluation of what eliminating Not Wild achieves. It is an improvement, but how much? In what way ? And then CNC27 should be even betterer.
Very good points! And I certainly participated in last year’s CNC discussion on the forum and I very much appreciate the changes both the CNC organizers and iNaturalist have made for this year’s CNC. I’d just like those expressing dissatisfaction with the CNC to understand the complexities of running a world-wide, four-day bioblitz with, currently, almost a hundred thousand participants and 2.3 million observations just on iNat alone, and who knows how many participants and observations on other data-gathering platforms. Of course it’s not perfect. Of course every observation is not suitable for scientific research. Of course not every participant will continue using iNat or even just noticing the wild organisms around them.
And yet the CNC, like iNaturalist itself, is simply amazing. Both the CNC and iNat have been growing exponentially in participation over the past decade or two and I think they have had a synergistic effect on each other. Sure, let’s keep trying to improve the CNC and iNat, but sometimes I think people can do that more effectively by participating year-round on iNat, making both observations and identifications, and then using the knowledge they gain from iNat to help out with their local CNC once a year.
But the CNC and bioblitzes are primarily about biodiversity, not particular groups of species. Their purpose is to create a snapshort of all living things within a given area during the same period each year, so that we gain a broad understanding of the natural environment around us and how it changes over time. Large-scale surveys of this kind using professional scientists would be far too expensive to run on a regular basis, so voluntary public engagement via citizen science initiatives is absolutely essential.
Habitat destruction is largely responsible for the dramatic decline in diversity amongst the small organisims you seem most interested in. Many of those organisms require specific host plants and/or habitat types to sustain viable populations. The fragmentation of local enviroments due to human activity leads directly to the loss of species diversity, so it’s vital that we both record these ongoing environmental changes and maintain public awareness of them through regular events like the CNC and bioblitzes.
Ultimately, these events are as much about political engagement as they are about engagement with the natural world; they are a way for us to keep speaking truth to power. Big events like the CNC can help generate the big data-sets and big science that goverments will start to take notice of if enough of the voting public are actively engaged in it. If more people care about what’s happening to their local environment, more pressure can be put on goverments to take action.
The small stuff is what we (the already committed naturalists) do the whole year round. So what you’re really asking for is just more naturalists - which is primarily what iNaturalist is for (as the name implies).
This is an important point. I think some responses here seem to assume that CNC is some kind of iNat initiative. iNat is just the platform used to gather the data, and tbh, anyone who’s active enough on iNat that they’re hanging out here in the forum isn’t the target audience for CNC. It’s meant to be an outreach to get more people looking at nature. If you’re already out looking at nature and iNatting on a daily basis, then CNC isn’t really meant to do much for you.
I’m glad for this. Comparison is the Thief of Joy, and leaderboards irritate me. lol
I see an immediate problem.
That people would be incentivised to take polar bears to Africa? Or just lie about the location?
I guess you are speechless because the increase in participants slows following CNC. I’d like to see a longer run of data as a graph. You can’t judge normal fortnight-to-fortnight variation from two samples.
If there is a steady year-round trickle of people getting interested in taking up iNaturalist, there may be a spike in take-up caused by the publicity around CNC which then leaves a reduced pool of potential recruits immediately after CNC, so recruitment drops temporarily.
At least the number of users and observations didn’t drop after CNC.