Some of you might remember my term “love bombing” for picking one person’s iNat profile and identifying as many of that person’s observations as I can. Well, last night it happened to me! One person went through all of my fungus observations (except the lichens).
There was a lot of pushing things back to broader taxa, as I have learned to expect from myco folks. And I admit, I countervoted a few of the “as good as it can be” votes – but only ones that resulted in a “Casual” status that I couldn’t reverse by withdrawing my initial ID. But there were also some that ended up RG at the genus or section level, which I’m okay with.
There were a couple of what I call trades: one observation at genus level pushed back, but then a different observation moved forward to that same genus; one observation at the species level pushed back to genus, but then a different observation at the genus level moved forward to that same species.
It was so exciting! I was on at the time, so I got to see the notifications coming in, make comments, and get replies in real time. And the best part is that I do believe that was the most new RGs in one day that I have ever gotten.
Yep, I try to do this myself from time to time, especially if I can tell the other person really cares or is trying to ID the organisms to species, but doesn’t really have the expertise in the taxa.
That or high-quality observations from single observers, which are often more satisfying to go through since you get more in-focus pictures with diagnostic features being documented.
I hope I can get some of this love bombing sent my way as well, though I am guilty of putting up blurry shots about half the time!
The first time I saw you mention that I started doing it occasionally. I’ll usually go through someone’s oldest obs and see what I can tug out of limbo. I have a couple of things that’ll trigger the action, so to speak, so I’m glad you got a bunch taken care of, its super nice when it happens!
This is neat! I’ve done what you call love bombing for a number of peoples Chironomids. Just picking a profile and going through all their Chiro obs. I enjoy hearing your perspective on it, and I wonder if this is how others have felt when I went through their Chiro observations.
I love this! It gives people more motivation to make IDs which is something we greatly need. I like looking at the people who have given me the most IDs and try to help them in return.
It’s a wonderful idea and a lovely thing to do, but you might want to consider a different name for it, as “love bombing” is a term used to describe a manipulation tactic often used by cults trying to reel in new members. I’m not sure how commonly known that usage is, I just know that, when I saw the title of this thread, I did not understand it as meaning what you actually meant.
I didn’t realise what he meant either. I thought he was talking about someone repeatedly liking and unliking one of his posts/comments. Somewhat similar to what some YouTubers call “heartspamming”. It’s considered annoying and rude because it results in repeated notifications.
By the way, on YouTube, hearting is not merely liking. It’s only available to the creator. That’s not the case on the iNaturalist Forum, as anyone can like a comment, not just the OP, and the original post can also get liked.
Anyway, given that “love bombing” refers to a type of manipulation that’s even worse than heartspamming, it certainly doesn’t seem right to use the term “love bombing” for going through someone’s observations and identifying them.
These observations often need love because the DNA results come in later and often people are nedded to vote on the correct ID. Having DNA barcoded observations with the correct ID allows people to search just sequenced observations with a URL like https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?field:DNA%20Barcode%20ITS=
I’m so relieved that this is a post about identifying and annotating iNat observations and not the usual sense of “love bombing” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_bombing), which is a very frightening manipulation tactic associated with cults and abuse!
As someone who has benefitted from your “love bombing,” I’m always thrilled when you look at my Chironomids, since it really helps to get someone with actual knowledge to look at a tricky group and I do make a point of trying to photograph the flies that come to the moth lights. D_kluza is another user who has done this for me, but with moths; I think I would have had over 150 identification notifications from him in one day had I not started reviewing in the middle of the process and it felt like Christmas had come early. Thank you for that.
It is written in quote marks, and explained in the first sentence. OK by me. (Never heard the term before, so I have no negative connotations)
I do that for newbies with a small number of obs - what else have you seen, where can I help, how can I encourage you to stick around, and to come back?
I noted in the Wikipedia article that love bombing was a term coined by the Unification Church (Moonies), in the 1970s. This alone is a good reason not to use the term.
for picking one person’s iNat profile and identifying as many of that person’s observations as I can. Well, last night it happened to me! 
One person went through all of my fungus observations (except the lichens).
cherish it!!