Just want to respectfully suggest to all that it’s not going to be helpful to further re-hash history at this point. Folks are owning their pieces of what went down, and I’d love to see it continue uninterrupted in that helpful direction.
5 Likes
Heard and agreed
1 Like
I 100% felt that Bobby’s comments to me were ignored by the moderator, and that the insulting comment was completed ignored, and felt it was implied that he was right. It was a spark to my reply. I still don’t understand why that comment, along with the others comments wasn’t 'hidden". At that point the moderator was there I didn’t feel the flagging or help option would have been needed and felt the offending comment should have been hidden/deleted *Note I choose the word deleted earlier I see the error and should have chosen hidden, I apologize.
I do appreciate the kind words Jonathan, and comments from all, but it appears to be a hard line for Inat of placing decorm of personal communication over valuble data and contributing members. But there will always be debate about taxonomy, security of locations, personal tone, insults and the such on a online forum no matter how much you “ask” others to play nice. It isn’t a garden party it is a database of wildlife which in itself will create unwanted debate. An Owl nest location is one example of many. Asking members to play nice and suspending them sure seems harsh, but it will only lead to resentment in communities regardless of the experts still here.
I respect that decision, even if there are better ways to handle these type of things and there is no need to reinstate my account, we just need to address the deleting of my records. I am a volunteer of my time to all, and I don’t have to suffer being harassed by INat members, and followed by being judged and prosecuted by Inat staff and moderators. My reputation among many important herpatologists speaks for itself.
Every single one of them has sided with placing value of data over decorm and most with my right to tell a bully to piss off when moderation failed.
Inat has made its choice, and as a long time supporter with 1,000’s of hours of effort here entering data, helping others, including scientists here, promoting Inat at educational booths, social media and in person, that I am bit floored that it is all for not, and that Inat has put a blemish on my record because I tell a person that stalks me and that I tried to block and his friends to piss off after nothing was done. That said, I will live with the consequences, bulling is rampant in this world, online, in schools, in the work place, and those that actual defend themselves are thrown in the lot with the bullies, if that is the case, so be it. I ll do my time, as admittedly my response was harsh in wording.
I don’t need this stress and judgement for something I do in my spare time to help science, scientists, and agencies.
Dr Greg Pauly, Dr Lee Grismer, Dr Robert Fisher, Dr Jesse Grismer, Dr Brad Shaffer, Dr Sam Sweet, Dr Aleta Quinn, and Robert Hansen Editor of Herp review, along with the USGS, The CDFW, the USFWS, UCLA, and many more will vouch for my reputation along the importance of the data I provide.
I Nat has made it’s choice and I have made my case publicly, via email and here, as disappointing as it is, the case is pretty much a closed case. No need to further the case I can enter my data in HERP and provide it to agencies and researchers through that platform where offending comments are hidden.
Thank you all for your time on this matter. But I will always side with victims rights to defend their reputation, honor, and person from bulling, threats, and slander online or in person, especially when my defense was only a couple chosen words, and I did not threaten anyone. We all have that right, and Inat has a right to suspend me for that, and I respect that choice, it is their database.
I also respect the point of view that it’s never allowed. I unfortunately, have seen way to much abuse, slander and bulling in my life to sit by and call out for help. That is not in my DNA set.
My apologizes to all for the huge differences of opinion on this matter. Thank you for hearing my defense and wish all here the best.
Sincerely
Brian Hinds
1 Like
Since I have several thousand snake identifications and I have interacted with both Brian and Bobby hundreds of times, I feel obliged to say something here.
To be clear, I am not saying what they said on the observation was right, we all know it wasn’t. Nor am I trying to pick favorites and support one of them more than the other. I also haven’t seen the observation before everything got deleted, but I have seen taxonomy debates get way out of hand before (why is it always Lampropeltis!?), I can guess what was said.
Anyway, both Bobby and Brian in my experience have been, at least for the most part, outstanding members of iNaturalist. Snakes as a group have a higher proportion of research-grade observations than even birds - The most out of any large group (as far as I can tell). This is in large part due to Bobby and Brian’s thousands of identifications. Plus, 99% of the time, they have been extremely polite to me and all other users, even when they disagree. I agree, personal insults are not acceptable on the site, and their suspension was warranted. But I hope that both Brian and Bobby have learned from their mstake and will be allowed back on the site soon. I really don’t think something like this would happen again. We should also acknowledge that Brian has been very mature in taking responsibility for his actions, despite the fact that he got suspended (if I had been suspended I don’t know if I could be this composed, I value my iNat account than any other account I have!!).
I added this as a comment on the observation itself too, but can the iNaturalist staff (@tiwane @loarie) please remove all the comments that are in any way referencing the insulting nonsense that went on on that observation? It is honestly one of the best snake observations I have ever seen, and all of this nonsense is ruining it. I don’t think anyone would object to that.
That being said, somewhere on the iNaturalist community guidelines page it may be wise to add a couple screenshots of this conversation (with names blurred out) so that people know where the line between polite conversation and insults is. It may be unclear for some people.
Anyway thanks for reading. I hope to see Brian’s and Bobby’s accounts back on iNaturalist soon. Let this thread be an example to all of us so we know what is not acceptable.
*Edits: grammar
Hi folks,
I have only very modest observations on iNat but I do teach, speak, and publish on taxonomic instability, freedom, and responsibility. I’ve observed some ridiculous exchanges and heard about others (JMIH is fun!), but this kerfuffle is really mind-boggling. If you folks are actually booting fundad off iNat because of this, I respectfully request that you suspend me and delete all of my observations as well. In the future, when teaching and speaking about Citizen Science, I’ll talk about eBird and H.E.R.P.
Best
Aleta
The problem was not disagreement about taxonomy, which is fine, it was about personal attacks in comments. It’s possible to argue all day about taxonomy without making it personal.
I find taxonomic arguments interesting and entertaining myself, while recognizing that they are a tempest in a teapot (storm in a teacup?) and of interest to very few. But not when they lapse into personal attacks.
4 Likes
Yes, I read the above. btw you don’t think there are personal attacks at JMIH and in print? :-)
Perhaps the best way to deal with personality clashes is through e-mail. I don’t know, but if people can work out (or not) their grievances off the identification page. I have interacted with none of the people involved (I do think I may have had something to do with Bobbyfingers, but I don’t work with Herps, so I’m not sure what it was about.). On the identification page, only comments about the specimen’s ID should appear. Work out differences in another way, and agree to disagree if needs be.
1 Like
Yeah, there are (not that it’s appropriate), but that’s not relevant to iNat or the way this website is operated. It’s hardly the place for getting into heated personal arguments, especially on someone else’s submitted record. That was disrespectful to the submitter.
Added note: the submitter of this amazing record (sebastian14) is apparently very new to iNat — this was his first record. One hell of an introduction to the site. We shouldn’t forget that he was disrespected more than anyone by having his record turn into a battlefield.
3 Likes
I don’t think anyone is doubting that this is not the place for heated personal disagreements.
I think what Dr. Quinn is saying is that obviously such will occur, they can be dealt with, but to boot someone off iNaturalist for responding to insults after a moderator refused to stop the insulter is really beyond any reasonable proportionality.
In fact, Brian’s is the loudest voice calling for inappropriate personal comments to be deleted immediately. But people didn’t seem to want to focus on that and instead wanted to focus on repeatedly telling Brian why he was in the wrong to defend himself when others wouldn’t.
1 Like
Hi @aletaquinn @Fundad and others, I just wanted to to make a brief point here that the iNat admin, not site (or forum) curators, are the ones who make the decision as to whether these accounts are banned and or restored. I personally hope the account of Fundad (and anyone else who takes responsibility for the argument) can be restored, and unless we hear specifically from admin that it will not be restored, I hope people won’t quit the site or have observations deleted… we just don’t know what the ultimate response will be and I think it’s likely it will all be resolved. Hopefully admin will respond soon but you can also reach them at help@inaturalist.org.
This stuff is just hard. I’m not always good at it either! Quite the opposite… but this particular issue doesn’t seem unresolvable. The way the explicit disagreement works is indeed confusing at times. And if there’s a hybrid that isn’t added to the database yet, how do you choose what to classify it as? There isn’t a clear answer there really, so while it is too bad that the other issues occurred, in terms of the ID verification it doesn’t seem like anyone was doing anything malicious!
8 Likes
Sorry, I should have clarified. I meant that taxonomy debates often get out of hand and become insulting. For example, scroll down a bit here: http://www.fieldherpforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=23520
@prakrit – I’ve been involved in herpetology in one way or another for almost 40 yrs and I’ve seen these sorts of arguments before. I don’t know if it’s unique to this field of study, probably not, but I’ve found such personalized arguments kind of embarrassing. Although I shouldn’t, I find it remarkable when other taxonomists in other fields manage to keep it civil.
@jonhakim just to clarify, unlike here on the Forum, there are no “moderators” per se on the iNaturalist site itself. There are instead volunteer curators who review hundreds of issues every day, ranging from maintaining site taxonomy, to flagging inappropriate content (which all users can do) and dealing with such flags. I am a curator too, and I have to admit that I had mostly forgotten about the ability of curators to hide comments, having almost never encountered the need. So this was a re-learning experience for me too, and I suspect for other curators as well. I think it’s already been made clear that the curator who tried to intervene in this case, once discovered, was not intentionally taking sides and was attempting in good faith to help.
That said, it hopefully goes without saying that everyone is responsible for their own behavior on iNaturalist. And as was already made clear, the only acceptable “defense” on iNaturalist is to flag comments and other content that violate the site’s Community Guidelines or Terms of Service to get the attention of curators, and/or contact staff at help@inaturalist.org, and not to go on offense and start creating further violations.
I echo @charlie’s points too, and again plea with everyone not to engage in further recriminations here. It is what it is at this point, and I hope that some positive outcomes can still be salvaged. That now being out of the hands of the volunteer moderators and curators, and up to staff.
6 Likes
Yeah, I didn’t even see the original thread, but between what remains & this topic I find myself doing a bit of second-hand cringing. 
I wish I could like this more than once. 
3 Likes
I’ve discussed the matter privately with fundad, I’m not sure how much I want to say other than that I’m happy to make their suspension temporary. No one else has reached out to help@inat to offer responsibility for this.
Anyone who wrote the other comments is free to delete then, but I’m not going to. And they’re not breaking the community guidelines, so they shouldn’t be hidden by curators.
Other platforms can host the type of discourse they want to, but iNaturalist is not a place for personal attacks, insults, cursing, and the like. It’s possible to disagree without resorting to any of that, and this is a standard which I think iNaturalist should maintain and enforce. It’s not something we as staff and curators do perfectly at all times, but I think we can all strive to be more thoughtful and respectful when communicating with others. Remember, we all have a moment to look over what we’ve written and then make that decision to actually post it.
I think the discussion over this particular situation is pretty spent so I’m going to close it. If you want to, you can message me here or email help@inaturalist.org.
11 Likes
Sorry, I also just want to make one thing clear about my actions, since a few have asked and I owe a response. I suspended three of the users because it looked like the situation had gotten out of hand, Community Guidelines had been violated, and I didn’t want things to escalate further because tempers were flaring. Generally I’m all for warning people first, and these were not meant to be a permanent suspensions. But that was never made clear, so I apologize.
I also messaged those users and told them to email help@inaturalist.org with questions or concerns, but apparently those messages (at least the one to fundad) didn’t get through (we’re looking into it), so I understand how that would have been very alarming. Again, if you have concerns, feel free to message me or email help@inaturalist.org. Happy to have a civil discussion about how to deal with something like this in the future. But I do remain firm in my (perhaps naive) belief that important discourse can and should be civil and respectful, and iNaturalist should strive to meet that standard, regardless of how things are carried out elsewhere.
Finally, please remember that site curators and forum moderators are real people who are volunteering their own time to keep iNaturalist and this Forum a place where people can safely express their opinions, and they are following the iNat Community Guidelines which were created a while ago with community input. This not easy, and mistakes will be made, please understand that. I think what’s important is determining how to best keep iNaturalist a safe and encouraging place.
(Really Finally) Speaking as a Bay Area resident and ophiophile, the snake pictured in this observation is amazing. It’s a bummer that all this energy ended up being negatively focused on others rather than on the amazing things that are posted to iNat every day by this incredible community.
13 Likes