Instances where America-centrism is busted on iNat?

Californi-centric observations? I remember those days. All that is needed are more participants, more data and time for the data to normalize. The centric trends will fade over time as Id’s are refined … Probably.

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North America

YES!!!

And looks like more are going to follow. :)

I’m confused. Honeybees are Eurasian - they were introduced to the US by humans. Me observing a bee in the UK doesn’t mean I’m contributing to America centrism.

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Most of honeybee obs are not from its native range I’d guess, each species in top of observed ones are from US, those that originated in Eurasia or originally live here and there, they all are in top because of US observations.

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In the data we obviously have a bias and I think more or less everyone is aware of that.

As far as attitudes are concerned I have often encountered pretty annoying US-centrism in online communities. Some people from the US seem to believe anyone with internet access communicating in English has to be a US citizen. But I think this is extremely rare here on iNat. Actually I can’t recall a single instance of this here. That may partly be because my memory is failing me, but in general I definitely perceive this community as one that actively and successfully embraces international diversity.

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There’re some topics that are worded the certain way that the theme wouldn’t be understandable for someone from another part of the world, because they’re referring to more or less common knowledge for e.g. US citizens who are into nature, and not known for others. e.g. topics about cicadas this year, without googling what’s going on you can’t fully understand them (not the best example, there were others about weather this year, and maybe the new one about oaks, etc.). Those using only common names probably could be also called so. But it’s all totally understandable for community that originated and mostly grows in one certain place that peple don’t think that mentioning which country they’re talking about is needed.

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Sure, some people (rightly) assume that many of the forum participants will be in the US and they might not always explain things in a way understandable for anyone. But for me that is very harmless. What I’d be annoyed about is for example if someone asks for advice and gets a reply that wouldn’t work anywhere except in the US, without the respondent bothering to ask for/check where the person asking lives.

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I’d say it’s totally okay too, even though it’s funny to read comments about contacting wildlife rescue as if it really was a thing that actually existed out of first world countries. I never seen anyone being aggressive about such things or pushing it and that’s what matters. Sorry for bothering you about it, it’s just always interesting to see how people have totally different views on things based on geography only.

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A couple of things here. iNat observations depend on at least three things. That people have the time to observe nature, that they have the means to take photos, and they also have the means to upload those observations to the website. For many people, these are not easily obtainable. It may take more dedication than folks have. People working in illegal mines are unlikely to go home and stroll around taking photos of local plants, etc. This is just one example. And as @cmcheatle says, many parts of the world are sparsely populated, so even if people want more observations from that area, they will be hard to come by. As a Canadian, most of our observations are from the southern part of the nation. I would love to have more observations from the north, but since few people live there, and for those who do, photographing nature is low on the list of daily life. So, there are many factors to consider when we look at the gaps in the data, many of which iNat cannot fix.

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I’ve noticed on the Forum we tend not to be very specific – or even general – about where we live when we post responses. I agree that someone in the U.S. (like me) might respond to a question with a U.S.-centric answer, but if they (we) do that, we should identify where we are on the planet. Same for other parts of the world. I have only a fuzzy idea where many of the regular Forum participants live and often that information is helpful to put a post into the proper context.

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Is this an actual case of the common names being the exact reverse of the scientific names, or did you get them mixed up?

Which leads to some pretty hilarious flame wars, as someone goes off about the U.S. Constitution on a Canada-based forum.

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I sometimes feel so (provided there is no evidence to prove otherwise)… When I check the observations, I correct myself. I thought @fffffffff was American (nothing about the first impression suggests otherwise) until I checked her observations and name. I though @thebeachcomber was American until I checked his observations.

It’s so powerful it has become sort of an integral theory of society worldwide. Only in Region-restricted forums is this not the primary assumption. I actually assume you are American, by default. I’ll check to verify.

Sometimes it fails. Some people of out-of-US origins, including names and areas of expertise, take @elaphrornis, are actually current US citizens.

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If you step away from California (where iNat is based)
And then again from the USA
I wonder how many iNatters (with me) come from the Rest of the World? What % is USA based?

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Well, roughly you can check the map (it doesn’t count travelers, but still), or see those charts that iNat presents each year with USA growth larger than the rest of the world. It’s scary, esp. seeing how many blank spots are still on US map, even in California (and not in reserves).

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Yes, there are still many areas of the US that are just not very accessible so lots of places yet to explore. Or there are just not many iNatters visiting them.

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I thought more about towns, like some streets have no observations (and those are not closed ones to public), and it’s really interesting what lives there!.) I know why it can happen, but with so many observers it should be less likely to happen!

The word “busted” here bothers me a bit, and I’ve had a bit of a puzzle about it. To me, the word implies someone got caught in the act of doing something wrong? Is that what it means in the current vernacular?

Hmm… Just say, if this app had been developed and launched in Mexico or Australia or Japan or India or (insert your country here), would there be any surprise or curiosity about why the user base and common name usage was weighted to that country?

Or, do I misunderstand the question posed here? Not sure.

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Maybe a better term would be neutralized or negated or simply rendered absent? I doubt the intention was how we Americans use the term “busted.”

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Interesting. I hadn’t really thought about it, but generally your definition is correct. In this case the word is (as @jnstuart said) being used to mean “nonexistent” or similar.

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