Hello fellow ambassadors,
I’m a long time and quite avid fan of iNat as you all are undoubtedly :)
I am also fortunate enough to be working on the City Nature Challenge Global Organizing Team this year. I am writing to ask that you all try to find time to help make identifications during and after the CNC, especially while the identification period is still ongoing (that is, until May 10). Yes, ID’s can be anytime and far into the future, but given the extreme amount of activity that happens during CNC, we need all the help we can get!
It’s terrific that iNat has developed and shared all of these ID resources. Perhaps we can all make a little extra effort to bring along some new identifiers this year. Also, we are working on some template scripts to share with folks who make some common observation mistakes and I will link to them when they are finished. I’m also putting the finishing touches on an eZine specifically for CNC, which I will share when completed.
Lastly, in case anyone does enjoy CNC, but hasn’t heard about the changes for this year, let me share. We are no longer a competition, the emphasis is on global collaboration to record biodiversity. Our aim to encourage quality over quantity. And, we are no longer accepting casual observations for CNC. This might engender a lot of comments and feelings, but it worth noting that this is an example of an imperfect decision, but it does make sense.
As you all know, any observation will always be part of a users history on iNat and may contribute to some research at some point, but CNC won’t count those observations any longer in an effort to get people to focus on WILD nature rather than a leaderboard.
Perhaps we can all create an ID party during or right after CNC? What a big help that would be!