Oh, that is a heartbreak! I’m sorry you lost your companion, Pepper. I’m pretty sure your rabbit was in good hands all along and I think you did well by Pepper.
I think it is pretty common for animals to do an amazing job hiding any distress, illness, or infirmity. In the natural world, hiding such weakness has survival advantages.
You are not alone in missing signs.
Ten years is a good long time for a rabbit. I’m certain she was loved and well-cared-for. Grief is natural, and I hope you find some catharsis, meaning, or comfort soon.
The problem for me is when several people on a forum make an assumption about something I have written. Especially when it seems to go against an unwritten rule of what the majority thinks is virtuous thought. I think it is called virtue signaling. It is not just on iNaturalist. Try defending cats or keeping
eponymous bird names on a birding group. You quickly find out how unwelcome you are. Even if you have been welcome or appreciated before. I have noticed this especially in the last couple of years on fora. My desire to keep inputting data into iNaturalist and other places like eBird is still stronger than quitting, but the desire to quit is definitely stronger now,
You might find with age (I’m an old curmudgeon) that as you get older the opinions of others mean less and disagreements lose their sting. Not that I never change my opinions; I’m open to new information and new viewpoints that might change my outlook on many topics. But being the minority opinion isn’t something to be avoided, just to run with the crowd. Would get pretty boring if we all agreed all the time.
For me it has been the opposite with iNaturalist and other databases. The negative or snarky comments seem to have increased since I joined these platforms. So for some reason as I have gotten older the number of iffy comments has gone up. This reverses any gains I might have from old age it seems.
please, flag or block those who are needling you. Curators will determine if intervention is needed.
As teellbee said, it’s very common for animals to hide distress and illness since that has survival advantages in the wild, and I imagine Pepper will have done the same.
You clearly cared immensely about her and you did what you could by seeking treatment as soon as you realised she needed it, and really that’s the best anyone can do. She had a long life and was well loved, with an owner who obviously would have done whatever she could to make sure she was okay.
I hope you get some time to grieve and process everything, and that your migraines ease off and the meds start helping more.
At first I didn’t know you could flag negative comments. So when a comments appeared I did not flag them until after the forum topic closed and I was told the flag could not be acted upon. The iNat system seems to give negative commenters the advantage over people they attack. I.e. they can comment but there are no consequences.
I’ve seen iNatters suspended and removed from the site over their frequent inappropriate comments. Maybe it takes persistent bad behavior and multiple warnings before this happens. I’d use the flag option on their comments whenever this happens so there’s a record.
While that is certainly a valid perception, the opposite perception can also be valid: that “off topic” is frequently misused to hide replies that someone simply prefers not to see, but that do not actually violate anything. That, too, can feel like bullying, especially if someone has previously been silenced for not following the crowd.
If you see that happen, I would not hesitate to contact INat staff. However, I strongly doubt this has actually ever happened. There are some persons with really mean characters present on iNat (being a mean person is not a reason to get suspended), some might be really good in their field of science, but you simply can’t let them attack single persons or parts of the community on a regular basis. I’m sure most curators weight carefully between their contributions to the site and hiding inappropriate comments in order to deascalate situation. There are often comments that are minor or borderline inappropriate. From my experience this comments are resolved to 80% in favor of the the flagged person.
It may not have happened to you, but others speak out of their own experience of iNat. Some leave silently.
I don’t know whether you did understand me correctly, (Sorry for my bad English). I have to admit that I really don’t like the expression “been silenced” just because I think it is still not true on iNat. As part of social media it provides several means of communication which you can use. Of course there are certain rules of communication and most of them can be found on the iNats homepage They are really not a big secret. Most of the time you get help, when you do something wrong. Which a few exceptions you only get “silenced” when you repeatedly do something wrong and not because you are just different then the rest. Second, I get somewhat suspicious when someone uses “being silenced” in the internet as well the real world as this expression has been “hijacked” by people with antidemocratic and racist tendencies lately (“blaming the victim”-hope the translation is correct).
Your English is fine.
We will agree to differ.
And as I said, when you didn’t violate any of those, but someone doesn’t like what you said, they can always resort to “off topic.”
Hi All,
The conversation seems to be moving away from the original topic - iNaturalist and Mental Health, and towards a discussion about how iNat and the Forum are moderated. It’s fine to talk about these issues, but if people want to continue this conversation, please move it to one of the existing threads like
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/off-topic-arguments/47902/17
which is very relevant. A moderator can also move related posts there or to a new thread if desired.
Thanks.
So, getting back to the situation described in the original post, the user made errors in performing identifications and recognized them as mistakes. However, the user also felt that some of the responses to those mistakes were demeaning. Recognizing that there are a wide diversity of perceptions and sensitivities to criticism among iNat users, we of course realize that no particular flavor of phrasing of advice will always succeed in making the user feel valued, while also guiding them to a better path. Perhaps, though, we can identify here some best practices that seem most likely to succeed in that regard.
It is unfortunate that the original poster has not responded within this discussion since the original post. So, @AlanM, if you are reading these responses, please note that we do care, and would value your input.
Sorry but I don’t understand. How a site is moderated can affect how people react to their experience of the site. Some of my experience with Facebook plant and birding groups meant leaving the group. It seems like there is a high tolerance of bullying behavior on some FB groups. I don’t want to see this spread to iNaturalist because it is a little more difficult to leave a group that you have invested a lot of time in.
Not sure how you resolve this without specific examples. What one person might consider an inconsiderate comment might be judged by another to be simply a terse response (not saying that’s the case with the OP’s concerns). I suppose it’s up to the moderators or staff to make the call on what is a toxic situation that leads to participants leaving the site to protect their mental health.
My impression is that iNat and the iNat Forum are pretty tightly moderated, certainly more than other social media sites which are typically a free-for-all. Which is why I stay away from all those others (they certainly can impact your mood and possibly your mental health).
There are tightly moderated groups on Facebook (I am a tight moderator on one) Choose which groups you join with care.