@natev think of tug-of-war with a twist, nobody actually tugs. the winner is decided simply by whichever side of the rope has more people holding it. this is voting. but if the participants do actually tug on the rope, then whichever side tugs the hardest, wins. this is donating.
voting by its nature solely looks at the breadth of support. donating, on the other hand, looks at breadth and depth.
right now the popular answer is that inat’s mission should largely be about wild individuals. in school, did you win any popularity contests? personally, i did not. nobody that i’ve ever truly looked up to or respected has ever won a popularity contest. so the fact that inat’s mission is largely influenced by a popularity contest is a big red flag.
as you pointed out, inat is a very small and specific subset of the general population. we’re nature nerds. so i would like to think that everyone here would truly appreciate the importance of ex-situ conservation. except clearly and sadly this is not the case.
so even though the majority of members here are nature nerds, tyranny of the majority is still a really bad idea.