Weeell…it certainly isn’t very encouraging about the current state of iNat’s organizational processes…
…but I nonetheless find it helpful to read a critical inside perspective into what has been going on for the last year or so.
I have increasingly had a vague feeling that something is “off”, that there is a mismatch between the vision that many of us have for iNat and what is being communicated and implemented. I don’t just mean the Google grant, but also things like the way the new app seemed to completely disregard the features that users have been saying they want, or the problems that plagued this year’s CNC. It has sometimes been hard to know how to interpret this mismatch, particularly in cases when our concerns have been largely met with silence from staff.
So in a way, it is a relief to learn that I have not been imagining all of this – that there are tensions behind the scenes which we have (understandably) not been party to. It is also, to some extent, a relief to know that our concerns are in fact making their way to iNat staff and that at least some staff members have understood these concerns (even if some of these people are now former staff members). Because sometimes it has felt like we are talking to a void.
And while it is not great that there are significant problems being grappled with behind the scenes (struggles to find workable leadership structures in the face of explosive growth, competing visions for the future of iNat), some of what I have felt for some time at least makes more sense in light of these insights. Oddly enough, that gives me more hope that maybe these problems will eventually be resolved than I had when it seemed that everything was going smoothly within the team and it was only us users who were left baffled by certain decisions.