I make it a policy to only follow people who owe me money… or a beer.
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Maybe to gauge what following is about on this site? It’s not immediately clear what it does until you give it a try and realize all it does is basically generate notifications.
Good point! Photographing rare stuff and paying attention to details that other people miss to take pictures of is another consideration. That seems to be how I attracted some of my followers. Checking through my list I see several people with whom I’ve shared photos for projects outside of iNat (books, brochures, websites), who are not active on the site themselves and apparently joined iNat for the primary purpose of following me because I’ve given them permission to use my pictures.
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I think it can matter but it doesn’t need to. This person seemed concerned that they were doing something wrong or missing something. Of course many people do care a lot about it, but if your account doesn’t end up having followers, that doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong or are not contributing. That was more what my point was. Probably poorly worded because I was half asleep. But that’s what I was going for!
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Happy to read this! People joining iNat solely to follow you is highlight for me. Talmbout iNat influencer 
By the way, let me peep at my follower count.
I think it is really important to realize that followingship here means something else then in other social media. In many other plattforms followers mean that your content is looked at, that you are seen. It works a little different here. People find their content in many different ways, e.g. the explore page of their region. So if one does not have a lot of followers it basically does not mean a lot… it doesn´t show you how “successfull” you are on this plattform.
However, I personally find the follow-function useful. I use it regularly but mindfully and am following a little more then 20 people now. Those are mostly active observers from regions I am currently(or have) living in and which have a similar observation style (e.g. every small arthropod they find, only decent amounts of birds and plants)… I like having those observations on my feet to learn about the diversity of organisms I am interested in in my region… hopefully it also helps me to ID my own observations.
I also follow some observers that are very taxon and region specific for taxa I am IDing a lot… especially if they also take nice pictures that will help me improve my IDing-game.
At least for some of the people following me they seem to have a similar approach. Quite some of those are IDers that had helped me ID some of my observations and probably realized that I like to photograph the stuff they are interested in. Thats all.
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I looked and I actually have a decent number of followers and have no idea why! I assume it is from IDing things as well, so my observations are nothing special.
I also follow the same general method of following - really just folks I know.
I agree that
So I wouldn’t take it as a bad sign if anyone has few followers. It’s one of the less used features of iNat.
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I have literally 1 follower because i barely know anyone else who uses this
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The stated aim by iNat is to encourage NON-scientists to engage with nature. Scientific data is a secondary bonus. It is called I Naturalist (not I Scientist)
back to @acacia-lizards original question
I am interested in what people observe this week on the Cape Pensinsula - preferably from people who know what they are looking at - so @cmerry and @botaneek (always helpful for the really difficult IDs!) and @alexlansdowne
My followers are either Thanks for IDs or from this Forum?
Reciprocal doesn’t work well. @beetledude checks insect IDs but I would be daunted if I followed all of his obs. Some filter for location, others for taxon.
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I have 13 followers and 1000+ observations.
A couple of them I know, most I don’t and have very few observations so maybe i just helped them at some point with an ID.
I follow a few folk, 3 or 4? In my area and/or I know them, one i do field work with so I like seeing if they got a photo of something I didnt.
I dont put much stock in it. Its just a way to follow folk you think take interesting photos / make interesting observations, mostly.
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I thought you phrased it really well, and were on the money with the added caveat that it can matter.
To clear up any misconception, iNaturalist is not like other social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube where the goal is to amass a huge number of followers or subscribers. The social aspect of iNaturalist serves more of an educational function.
Each person has their own philosophy on who they follow. I follow twice as many people as those that follow me, some follow nobody, others lots of people. It really just affects your feed. Personally, I follow pretty much anyone I know in real life, and also other locals that are talented within their own field of specialization (mostly botany folks). A few talented local botanists also follow me and help with identifications and send a comment here and there, it’s great to get their help and to get to know them but also puts some pressure on me to post quality photos in my observations as well as to not be sloppy with the IDs I put on my observations 
.
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I think ‘following’ on iNat is mainly used either to stay connected to observations your real-world friends and colleagues are posting, or otherwise to follow specialists who share your particular niche interest. In 11 years on iNat (with nearly 4k obs and 10k IDs), I’ve accumulated 30-odd followers – around half of whom are people who follow me because I know them personally. Myself, I follow about 20 people, almost all of whom I know personally outside iNat.
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If it makes you feel better, sometimes it’s a little bit weird when you get followers, depending on the person it is.
I recognize most of the 33 people who follow me, but not all, and one of them is a guy that has always been vaguely, uh… not exactly flirtatious, but I strongly suspect he had intentions towards me (despite him being a lot older than me, and me making it obvious that I’m not the slightest bit interested lol) so… that makes me feel weird. Luckily I already obscure my coordinates, so nothing too bad can come from it, but it does strike me as a tiny bit concerning. You don’t get notified about followers, so who knows how long that was going on before I was aware of it…
I also don’t notice a real benefit from having followers; I think most people who follow others are trying to learn from the followed person’s observations, rather than just generally see them and help ID them, so it’s sort of a silent I’m Watching Everything You’re Doing function. It’s just kind of a thing.
I only follow 15 people myself, and they’re either people who post interesting things I might want to check out or look for in my region, or personal friends that I help ID things for. For example, a friend of mine is experienced with entomology and macroinvertebrates, but I’m mostly a plant/bird person, so I try to ID his plant observations and he helps with my bug ones.
tl;dr You’re unlikely to get followers unless you encounter people who know you personally outside of iNat, or if you’re a frequent poster. It isn’t something to worry about; very few people use the follow function, and it won’t really improve your iNat experience in any meaningful way.
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Hilarious
I’ve been a user since 2014 and am almost at 9k observations. I just checked and I have 38 followers and follow seven. I don’t use any other social media where you follow people (other than subscribing to channels on YouTube if that counts), so the whole thing is kind of foreign to me. I only tried following others on iNat a handful of times because I really like their photography for instance and I wanted to try out the feature. But, I honestly never even look at my dashboard to notice the updates about them… so it’s kind of pointless for me. Instead, I’ve bookmarked an explore search for the taxa I’m interested in for my geographic region and that is what I browse almost every day. If I could get anyone I know in real life to actually use iNat like I keep suggesting ad nauseum, I would follow them!
The following and “liking” on platforms doesn’t come naturally to me still. I’m more of a lurk and read a lot type, with occasional replies. On another forum I’m on it seems like many people use the “like” on just about everything they look at, so I keep getting all these notifications all the time and I don’t know what to make of it. Even on iNat sometimes I get a notification that someone “faved” my observation and I look at it perplexed and wonder why they did that, because it’s nothing interesting or special in any way. Must have been accidental! I occasionally “fave” observations here when I think the photo is particularly great or the subject unusual.
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I wasn’t aware of this feature until you brought it up. Looking at mine, it consists of: people I’ve interacted with in comments and in person and people I’ve helped with IDs. If you’re comfortable with local taxa, becoming one of your area’s consistent identifiers would probably increase followers.
I think there may be a generational factor with respect to followers, for lack of a better term. I grew up with a great emphasis on internet privacy, where people rarely used their real names and had cheesy usernames like xX IAmSoCool Xx and instant messaging was the way to connect, usually just with people I knew somewhat.
With the rise of social media and the rise of platforms like YouTube and Instagram, it’s changed the dynamic where one content creator and many followers is now a more common. I guess with that can come a feeling of being shunned if one doesn’t have followers?
Maybe it’s just me or that bias from having grown up as I did, but this features seems a little buried in the platform? It’s much less prominent than making observations, suggesting IDs, or making comments. Maybe this is another factor?
However, I do follow observations (not people). If there’s something I see that I can’t identify it’s useful to get a notification as the ID gets refined. I also ‘favorite’ observations if they’re funny (thanks @raymie) or they have interesting comments.
I probably won’t use the people following feature going forward, given @artemesia’s comments and topic: Why is iNat male-dominated? I don’t want to make someone feel uncomfortable by following them. I manually ‘follow’ some profiles of locally active observers/identifiers by checking their profiles for new observations, usually to concur IDs in gratitude for their enthusiasm/support of the local iNat community.
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Me, too! I even noticed one follower who seems to have joined iNat for the purpose of correcting me on two of my identifications. They have no observations themselves and just a few IDs, all on my stuff. I’m oddly proud of that one. (I have since figured out that I know this person and they are very knowledgeable - I hope the get bitten by the iNat bug and start ID’ing for others as well.)
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If I had a say, I would want people to follow me who are
- Interested in similar region and or taxa
- Can assist with IDing in this region and or taxa I frequently observe
The few I follow, I can do such for them; so to me that’s the point of the feature - following those who you can help the most to make it easy to find
I feel like I shouldn’t read that thread xD I did a scan and saw some stupid things posted I’m glad it’s closed. I’ve def had a weird interaction with a male on iNat; and I removed them from a project of mine they joined because of it.
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Until you asked this question, I was not aware that I had any followers; I never checked. It turns out I have three, one of whom is someone whom I also follow.
Or post in a location that one is particularly interested in. Or, maybe there could be other reasons; like, why do we follow people on other social media platforms?
I can see that. But on the other hand, there are a lot of women on here who post observations worth following.
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That’s true, there are lots of good observations made by women. I think adding such specific observations to favorites covers this concern?
I doubt anyone would see you following them = stalker. And surely female iNatters wouldn’t like to be seen separately from men, needing different actions on them, that closed topic suggested having obscured observations, so if person is afraid, that should be enough, and if they don’t like followers, they should state that in bio and write in dms, asking you to unfollow you.
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