How to organize and announce events through iNat and iNatForum?

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Event type 1: Dates and location are set. Announcement made to invite interested naturalists and also have a thread to address any questions.

Event type 2: Topic and event’s focus are known but dates & location are TBD based on community interest. Could be a local or global location.

What is the best method and thread type to announce such events?

If you are a prior event organizer, what were some of your lessons learned?

If you are a member interested in attending events, what kinds of event features are likely to intrigue you?

Thank you in advance.

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Just a note that I removed the iNat Forum from the subject of this topic, because the forum isn’t a place for promoting projects.

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On iNatForum, are the terms “event” and “project” synonymous? For example, is a mushroom foray considered a project?

The intent of the OP is to understand if/how events can be organized/announced/curated through this forum. Sounds like a no, so far.

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Yes.

Ok, I thought the scope of your topic was much broader than that. (For example I have had mixed success in getting participation by @-mentioning local observers on a journal post for a project.)

Since this is a forum specific question I moved it to the forum category.

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Can you please restore the terms you removed from the OP. It would help narrow the focus of the discussion.

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Okay, but if your question is how to promote projects or events through inaturalist.org (not the forum) it’s probably better to start a new topic.

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Good point, let me try to clarify.

There are four innuendos regarding the target environment:

  1. If an event/project can be organized via the tools of inaturalist.org
  2. If an event/project can be organized via the tools of iNatForum
  3. How an event/project can be organized via the tools of inaturalist.org
  4. How an event/project can be organized via the tools of iNatForum

And within the body of the OP, there were also invitations to two target demographics; one being prior event/project organizers and the other being members who may be wanting to participate in events/projects.

And please keep in mind I just joined this site a couple weeks ago and still trying to understand the ecosystem by studying the available material and asking questions.

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I may have made an incorrect assumption that inaturalist.org and iNatForum are symbiotic structures. Perhaps they are independent in governance, and only share user names and logins as a commonality.

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This page is a good place to start if you haven’t seen it yet - https://help.inaturalist.org/en/support/solutions/articles/151000176472-understanding-projects-on-inaturalist

And to get a better understanding of the forum and its general guidelines, there are pinned topics at the top of each category.

You’re definitely not alone though, for example we often have people posting requests for identification here on the forum rather than iNat.

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For example - once you have made the project - write occasional journal posts. You can drop the link in comments on relevant obs.
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/great-southern-bioblitz-2024-umbrella?tab=about

There are already a string of projects for City Nature Challenge 2025.

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