General consensus on etiquette regarding recruiting IDs from specific identifiers?

That sounds so awkward for me, many Russian botanists were invited to iNat and they’re doing a great job with iding (almost immediately or next morning), I wonder if the same can happen in other countries (and sure it can).

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That is mostly true for species, but less true for genus, and not true for family. Some plants have practically a worldwide distribution. Common Selfheal, anyone? Also one person’s exotic ornamental is another person’s native plant.

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Thats nice to hear. Some of my efforts to encourage experts to participate here from UK groups has been met with limited enthusiasm (to say the least).

In the UK, we have a bunch of misconceptions prevailing within the community it seems…many as a result of issues formed during data-flow to iRecord. Many seem to dismiss iNaturalist outright …despite having zero or limited experience of the site directly. For some I think they have fought hard for the existing recording platforms and network we have as well…so when I mention yet another platform, it frustrates them. Perhaps they worry that it will splinter the community somehow too… but I think iNaturalist has a totally different reach to the existing platforms here.

Might be a new thread to this, but I wondered how people are going about recruiting more expertise, what barriers exist within different countries and what the adoption curve looks like elsewhere? Is the UK further behind than other countries? I wonder also if there is a tipping point within communities, if it takes a certain % of people being vocal in their support, in order for it to gain traction.

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I’ve heard myself and from other forum members that some experts refuse using iNat without even checking it. I believe that if majority of big experts try iNat, then most of “smaller” experts try it too, if one big expert says it’s a joke to use iNat, then it will affect many other people. So positive self example is cool.)

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To my mind, there are 2 separate issues with generating uptake in nations that already have strongly established local biodiversity platforms.

While my current home does not have one, I lived for a long time in a European nation that did have one (at least for one of my primary areas of interest)

  • if users are already using that platform, it is not simply a matter of convincing them of the benefits of switching to iNat, you need to convince them that the benefits are so great as to effectively start over, since getting your personal historical data into the site can be so difficult. Having their own data split across 2 different platforms is not appealing to many users.
  • experts go where the interesting observations are, but their numbers (the people I mean here) are typically not enough to generate large volumes. So that means relying on other people to generate the records. That means recruiting amongst the dedicated amateur field naturalist user community. Get them onto the site, and let the experts follow the bread crumb trail.

Please note issue #1 will be made even worse if/when the proposed change listed in the github repository to eliminate the ability to import csv files of observations is implemented. Then new users need to be convinced to add all their history one at a time.

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There is this thread that is mostly discussing that topic: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/recruiting-more-identifiers/2388

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Ah yes! Meant to go through that.
Thanks for the reminder.

That’s interesting. That seems more feasible also than persuading experts, as an amateur.

Yeah, I’ve just left my older data on other platforms.
It seems too painful a process to assimilate at present.

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I’m guessing common courtesy is not. Common. sigh I’m so grateful for the help here, I GUSH gratitude. :-)

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