I worry about this so much…I like iNat because it is NOT like other social media (full of nasty comments)…you just come on here, do the IDs and enjoy learning and seeing what people are photographing and experiencing. I worry as more and more people come on board that it could change (and bringing in more users seems to be the point of the ambassador program). Another exmaple was hearing about the many people that “cheated” in some of the recent challenges just to get up in the leader board (to me that is NOT the point of iNat at all…being at the top of a leader board). I do worry. I wonder if iNat could do some education about the value/importance of identifiers and how to handle when someone discovers a potential mistake by someone making an ID…lest we lose more identifiers due to situations like the one you encountered. Maybe in their newsletters?
I liked reading in this thread that someone is doing presentations about the importance of and need for more identifiers. Maybe that could get just as much focus as bringing in new observers?