iNaturalist on Mastodon

[sunguramy]

Im sunguramy@flipping.rocks

[elias105]

Does mastodon have something where you can just see all the #inaturalist tagged posts (from all servers)? Like just a URL to click - or is that not how it works? I created an account on a random server the (a?) Android app gave me but it doesn’t seem to show me all of the posts, and I’d also be interested in seeing them without having to log into the app if that’s possible.

[reedlindwurm]

@thebeachcomber

@thebeachcomber@ecoevo.social

I’m not entirely sure yet, but I just posted this toot which you might find useful: https://flipping.rocks/@ReedLindwurm/109367057037725423

[pfau_tarleton]

@elias105

Does mastodon have something where you can just see all the inaturalist tagged posts (from all servers)?

The only way to search is type inaturalist in the search box. Not all servers are connected to lots of other servers. If a server hosts lots of unethical stuff, then other servers will cut them off. So, if you really did pick a server “at random”, well…hard to know what might be going at your end. How do you know that you’re not seeing all the posts? Somewhere, there’s a Local Only button that you can toggle on and off. If on, it only searches your server.

My search says 9 people posted inaturalist in the past 2 days–and I can scroll down and see posts going back several months at least–I stopped at September. You should see a post I made today (Friday) near the top.

You can “pin” multiple hashtag searches in a column so that you don’t have to redo the search everytime–it creates a sort of feed with all posts that contain those hastags. Here’s how.

[sumie-dh]

https://mstdn.science seems to be fine to me - lot of users already in, scientifically focused and not requiring publishing and IRL names from you

@sumie_dh@mstdn.science if you like to have few flatworms in your feed

[elias105]

@pfau_tarleton

So, if you really did pick a server “at random”, well…hard to know what might be going at your end.

uh oh… it’s called mstdn.party - I think it’s just one of the general ones not needing approval, but scrolling through the “local” feed there indeed is a lot of questionable stuff and lots of cat pictures… so once/if there’s a more official inaturalist server I’ll definitely move to that!

[reedlindwurm]

I’m @ReedLindwurm@flipping.rocks – nice to meet you all! I’m now following a bunch of you on Mastodon (those of you who’ve posted your usernames here).

@nikokin

Post inaturalist with your Mastodon account, so we can find each other. I’ll be posting observation pics from @nikokin@pixelfed.social

Do you (or does anyone else) know how cross-platform integrations work? I know Pleroma is similarly for Twitter-like microblogging like Mastodon so they basically seem interchangeable, but how does a photo sharing thing like pixelfed federate with Mastodon?

[arachnoto]

Also perfectly interchangeable. I’m not sure how text-only posts would display on Pixelfed (never used it), but Pixelfed posts will appear in your Mastodon feed as posts with photos.

There are many other compatible platforms that use the same underlying protocol, e. g. Peertube (like YouTube), WriteFreely (like Medium), Bookwyrm (like Goodreads), etc. It is a bit like if you could subscribe to a YouTube channel or follow someone on Instagram from your Twitter account.

[crellow]

I am @nathanodgers@mastodon.nz.

[cthawley]

I don’t think that there’s anything stopping someone from making their own iNat focused Mastodon server (if I understand correctly, which I may not), just like there’s an unofficial iNat Discord. Running a Mastodon server does take a non-trivial amount of work and some time/resources, so it might not be something a smaller organization wants to take on in perpetuity or prioritize over other projects (I’m not speaking for iNat staff here, just my own thoughts).

[fffffffff]

Here’s mine! @fffffffff@flipping.rocks

[elias105]

@reedlindwurm

It seems this is actually how this whole federation thing works. One instance gradually discovers the users on another instance one by one, seemingly based on whom users on the first instance search for and follow. Then, the “Federated” timeline just shows all the toots from all the users your instance knows of, from what I understand. I was confused about how this “federation” thing works at first, too, until a toot from someone else clued me in on it.

Ahh, that explains a lot! And it’s a good reason to join one of the “connected” servers. Like, if there’s 10 servers with all the important inat people, you can expected at least someone form each server to follow everyone interesting from the other 9 servers. And so joining any of those 10 servers is fine, searching for inaturalist will give you all posts from those 10 servers.

I naively chose a random outside server, where nobody follows anyone on for example flipping.rocks yet, and so the inaturalist posts from there are not in my federated timeline and I can’t find them in the hashtag search (until I, or anyone else on my server, starts following those posters).

[reedlindwurm]

@arachnoto

Also perfectly interchangeable. I’m not sure how text-only posts would display on Pixelfed (never used it), but Pixelfed posts will appear in your Mastodon feed as posts with photos.

There are many other compatible platforms that use the same underlying protocol, e. g. Peertube (like YouTube), WriteFreely (like Medium), Bookwyrm (like Goodreads), etc. It is a bit like if you could subscribe to a YouTube channel or follow someone on Instagram from your Twitter account.

I’m just not sure how it displays. Is it just like a picture post with no words, or is it like “Joe Schmoe posted a new photo.” followed by the picture, or what?

@cthawley

I don’t think that there’s anything stopping someone from making their own iNat focused Mastodon server (if I understand correctly, which I may not), just like there’s an unofficial iNat Discord. Running a Mastodon server does take a non-trivial amount of work and some time/resources, so it might not be something a smaller organization wants to take on in perpetuity or prioritize over other projects (I’m not speaking for iNat staff here, just my own thoughts).

inb4 flipping.rocks becomes the unofficial official iNat Mastodon instance and @arachnoto’s web gets overrun with ants (metaphorically)

@elias105

Ahh, that explains a lot! And it’s a good reason to join one of the “connected” servers. Like, if there’s 10 servers with all the important inat people, you can expected at least someone form each server to follow everyone interesting from the other 9 servers. And so joining any of those 10 servers is fine, searching for inaturalist will give you all posts from those 10 servers.

I naively chose a random outside server, where nobody follows anyone on for example flipping.rocks yet, and so the inaturalist posts from there are not in my federated timeline and I can’t find them in the hashtag search (until I, or anyone else on my server, starts following those posters).

As of right now I’m not entirely sure whether it actually searches the posts of those servers or just the posts of those people who have been followed (or maybe followed and/or searched for) on those servers.

[pfau_tarleton]

@reedlindwurm

As of right now I’m not entirely sure whether it actually searches the posts of those servers or just the posts of those people who have been followed (or maybe followed and/or searched for) on those servers.

Found this diagram here:
https://axbom.com/mastodon-tips/

[sunguramy]

@reedlindwurm

inb4 flipping.rocks becomes the unofficial official iNat Mastodon instance

i was just thinking the same thing xD

[arachnoto]

If you put @nev@flipping.rocks into the search bar, my profile ought to come up and you can follow me; and I boost most of the posts people make.

This works for any server, unless one server has blocked the other (which is something to ask your admin about).

[kueda]

FYI, we just stopped removing the rel="me" attribute from links in your iNat profile, so you can add a link to your Mastodon profile there as a way to verify the link to your iNat profile on Mastodon.

[tallastro]

I think I’ll start here too. The rule about flagging images as sensitive if they’re bugs, snakes, etc feels odd.

In general, finding servers could be better. Like flipping.rocks not showing up in searches until you type the full name. This will take some effort to settle in.

[elias105]

@tallastro

The rule about flagging images as sensitive if they’re bugs, snakes

I do appreciate it a lot myself for spider pictures - and for all I know other people react the same way to other things, so better err on the side of marking too many pictures than missing one and ruining someone’s lunch break!

@tallastro

In general, finding servers could be better.

Yeah, I can’t envision mastodon ever getting very many users if they don’t improve that. I think the main issue to solve is adding a way to move servers after the fact (without losing posts). And also adding more information about servers in the server list, like which version do they run on, how many other servers do they block, how many are they blocked by, etc. Right now it just shows you a name but nothing else.

My experience over the past two weeks was:

1. saw this thread, learned about mastodon
2. tried to sign up, couldn’t understand servers, gave up
3. tried again the next day, picked a server which allowed immediate approval, made a few posts
4. learned more about how servers work, changed to another server
5. realized changing servers loses all your previous posts, was disappointed, but stuck around, making new posts
6. learned the new server runs on an inofficial mastodon version, was disappointed missing out on all the new 4.0 features, but stuck around so I don’t lose the posts again

[sunguramy]

I just kept messaging nev for help :P it worked, i prettymuch get it now
i have no idea if flipping.rocks has 4.0 features or not but since i finally understand what i’m doing i’m not leaving. I also like it way better than facebook.