Is the iNat directorship taking iNat in the right direction and paying enough attention to the user base?

[vbjanos]

100 million is a scary number.
Who will identify all the new observations? What are the identifier recruitment or training plans? Where are the proper identifying instructions, the keys, glossaries and treatments coming from?
Who will provide advice how to take photos and what details to take photos of?

[GeolTel]

Uh, “the community” as usual? no need for recruitment plans instructions keys glossaries - “the community” does all that, and will keep doing it no matter how large the ‘user base’ is.
As long as it works well enough for their goals, there’s no reason for the staff to change anything.

[DianaStuder]

but users is not observers. As seastarya explains, that includes (logged out or don’t have an iNat profile) people who are googling for info and landing on iNat. Those users are already here. @seastarya an estimate of the global total of iNat users now - would help to put the 100 million ‘target’ into perspective. I know it has been mentioned before, but could never find the thread again.

[pmeisenheimer]

I’ve been following this topic sporadically but stayed out of it, maybe because it has too much in common with stuff I’ve had to deal with in my professional life.

iNat is a not-for-profit corporation. That’s a label that gets atuck on a lot of different kinds of organizations with a lot of different kinds of objectives so generalizing can be difficult. One generalization that applies pretty broadly concerns the most common reasons that non-profits stumble and sometimes fail.

There are two that stand out- money and sound management. Both are in limited supply. Of the two, sound management is the more scarce in the non-profit world. The big organizations have an easier time finding and keeping people who known how to lead and how to manage (they aren’t exactly the same).

Anyway, it was with these considerations in mind that I asked a couple of questions when iNat incorporated.

It ian’t very easy to find the right person or people to run an organization. The difficulty is magnified when thought has not been given to how management will be structured. There are different ways of doing it that are appropriate in various settings. None at all is always a poor choice.

So I guess this ia long-winded way of agreeing with those who have obaerved that this sort of thing is sadly common in not-for-profits. A surprising number manage to muddle through and more-or-less function. Many do not. Some figure it out, take governance seriously, invest in training for staff and board, take the time to nurture a workplace culture that is open, accountable and built on shared trust and respect and thrive. There doesn’t appear to be any reason that iNat can’t be one of those.

@seastarya

The core mission to document the world’s biodiversity remains unchanged

If documenting biodiversity is the core mission, that is a change. As referenced in the blog post, and as stated in iNat’s messaging, the core mission is connecting people with biodiversity. The data are a significant benefit that should be valued and taken very seriously, but it’s a benefit that is a product of the mission not THE mission. iNat would have looked very different from Day 1 if that were not so.

[seastarya]

You’re right that the core mission is to connect people to nature and advance science and conservation — I didn’t phrase this well in my last response and apologize for the confusion. I’ll add a note to my previous post as well to clarify this for anyone else who comes across it.

[austin_ajit]

@DianaStuder

tying your memory card on iNat, like tipping out a garbage bin - that should trigger a polite warning. You may not upload more obs, till you sort out your previous mess.

That seems like a good idea, but how would something like that work?
*Just asking out of curiosity *

[austin_ajit]

I’ve finished reading this whole thread, and I’m even more confused. What’s going on? What’s the major thing everyone wants rn? What are the Inat staff doing that created this thread? What can be used to solve the said problem?

[vreinkymov]

[afdexter]

Roughly speaking, one of the founders left and wrote a blog post describing his grievances. Many of the post(er)s in this thread are largely taking sides. iNat staff have maintained what I would describe a dignified silence about the conflict.

[RL7836]

@rcavasin

I don’t see why there can’t be a simplified version of iNat for the casual user and a more sophisticated version for users who want and need that functionality.

The departing individual felt this was critical (based on my reading of his missive). It would likely be helpful for us to hear the rationale of the board that feels so strongly that these two user groups must be joined …

@thebeachcomber

with respect to identifications (and annotations to a degree), I personally think the lack of a bulk tool is a good thing. In my opinion allowing for massive bulk actions increases the chances of making mistakes due to human error. It would also certainly facilitate much easier ‘abuse’ of the system by the very small % of bad actors that might want to game the leaderboards or make troll IDs.

Identifying the few who have earned the right to use such tools is (imho) massively important (probably obvious enough that it doesn’t need to be pointed out (again)). To have a reasonable hope of continuing to exist (in a valued way), it would seem that iNat management needs to identify critical enabling tools for identifiers to allow them to efficiently utilize their time (& not continue to chase away some of the best). Toward this end, it would also require iNat management to acknowledge that identifiers are not all equal (duh) & that some form of tiered structure is needed. Finding ways to treat identifiers that reflects the importance of their contributions to iNat’s success cannot continue to be low priority.

[DianaStuder]

I would like iNat itself to have layers where you earn rights. Like the low barriers here in the Forum. The way iNat is set up a new iNatter is free to dump thousands of obs, with random IDs, ignore comments, bored of that, Next ! That is not good for embattled identifiers. The Forum has a ‘nanny’ which keeps us neatly in line. Obs on iNat deserve a little more TLC too. That more than two thirds and Ancestor Disagreement grates on me - 2 wrong - needs FIVE right is unrewarding drudgery - but necessary to improve obs quality, and pre-empt even more wrong IDs.

Could start with an email / PM reminding iNatters to clear their Mavericks - at least to look at them, then withdraw or reconsider if appropriate. How many Maverick IDs across iNat ? Too little too late since identifiers have already done the push-back !

[choess]

I generally agree with @rcavasin: the modal iNat user has different needs from the various groups of “power users” and (power laws being a thing), those users do contribute disproportionately to the overall accuracy and usefulness of iNaturalist (both in providing data to scientists and in identifying things correctly for more casual users). The effect on the site of making the iNat experience worse for them will likewise be disproportionate.

In defense of existing leadership, having multiple “products” may be more than the iNat team can reasonably maintain. As @anneclewis pointed out, iNat is doing an incredible amount with very little. The rapid growth of the past several years has led to social strain (the CNC being one of the flash points), but there are also hints that there’s a lot of technical debt as well, and that a lot of development energy is going into keeping up with scaling. That may represent the other side of the story. (I also second Anne’s point about users being unrealistic about the costs of features. e.g., I like the idea of an identification wiki much better than AI, but after ~20 years on en.wikipedia, I also know the amount of ongoing moderation energy required makes it a complete nonstarter.)

Of course, that also makes me feel pretty apprehensive about “100 million”, even as an aspirational goal. I no longer see iNat growth as an opportunity to see cool new species from interesting places and help work out what they are–instead I expect existing features to break or be taken away from me because they don’t scale.

[thebeachcomber]

@choess

Of course, that also makes me feel pretty apprehensive about “100 million”, even as an aspirational goal.

just to clarify/reaffirm, a significant portion of this number refers to people who are interacting with iNat ‘indirectly’:

@seastarya

This is an aspirational number that reflects the full scope of how people might connect with nature through iNaturalist: observers making observations, identifiers helping with IDs, Seek users learning about species around them, researchers accessing data, educators bringing iNaturalist into classrooms, conservation partners using the platform for their work, people accessing the website as a reference, and more.

[emphasis mine]

Whether there are 1 million, 10 million, or 100 million of these ‘indirect users’ is irrelevant to site features and scalability, right? There are already literally millions of people interacting with iNat in this way. So I appreciate the concern that

@choess

I expect existing features to break or be taken away from me because they don’t scale.

but to my understanding there is not a causal relationship between these two things. Happy to be corrected if I’m wrong or misinterpreting this, but I don’t think any site features that relate to, eg identifiers, would be significantly affected (if at all) by the number of people indirectly using the platform without ever logging in or making an account, a demographic which will constitute a huge portion of that aspirational 100 million, were it to be ‘achieved’. That is my interpretation at least of this situation.

[pisum]

here’s a video that may be of interest to some: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRVFYKkBwrc. it’s a podcast where loarie talks about iNaturalist. i don’t know if there’s anything new here exactly, but if you don’t already have an idea of he’s thinking about generally and what has shaped his viewpoint, this may provide some of that insight.

[danlharp]

@earthknight

This discussion is not for bringing up anything about individuals or personal issues, but about the direction iNat has been drifting in recent years and whether decision makers for iNat are paying attention to and understanding the needs and concerns of the user base.

I’ve been working in small nonprofits (budgets under US$1M/yr) since 1994. I feel much of what we’re seeing in iNat are classic problems in nonprofit management and leadership. E.g., one of the big problems in the nonprofit world is that, unlike the for-profit world, there is no bottom line. This means it’s often difficult to come up with good metrics for nonprofits – something Peter Drucker pointed out back in 1990 in his classic book on nonprofit leadership and management.

And this is true with iNat. We see lots of different metrics being presented to show success – total number of users, number of scientific papers stemming from iNat, total number of taxa represented on iNat, etc. etc. As a result, some people will point to one set of metrics and conclude it’s a success, while other people can point to a different set of metrics and conclude it’s a problem.

From my own experience in the nonprofit world, I look at several of the decisions iNat has made and remember all the mistakes I’ve made. Like the Google AI situation – when someone offers a ton of money to a cash-starved nonprofit, it’s super easy to accept that money even though it results in mission creep, extra stress on staff, alienation of some people the nonprofit is trying to serve – although if the nonprofit doesn’t accept the donation, they will likely get equally vigorous criticism from other people who feel the nonprofit should never turn down money. I’ve been in both those situations; nonprofit managers and leaders have to have pretty thick skins, because there’s pretty much always someone criticizing you.

This is not to say that I agree with everything iNat leadership is doing. I think it’s obvious they’re having growing pains. And I hope iNat leadership is taking advantage of the wealth of resources out there for nonprofits, because I’ll bet all the problems they’re facing have been solved in creative ways by other nonprofits. But above all, I’m glad I’m not part of iNat leadership – with the kind of growth iNat is seeing, conflict and stress are inevitable. Thank you staff, for doing the best you can. Thank you board, for doing the best you can.

[sjl197]

@pisum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRVFYKkBwrc

Thanks for the link to the Youtube video, for me that’s the kind of thing that i want to hear from ‘Loarie’ as the leadership - what iNat is about these days and why. I just don’t understand why it takes another user to now post that here in a discussion thread to make me aware of that. I also don’t get why besides some helpful feedback from ‘seastarya’ on certain points that there’s still no central engagement here. Do you all value those of your user base who have helped bring you to where you are now? I’m not seeing it, i’m really not.

Else on the previous comment “And I hope iNat leadership is taking advantage of the wealth of resources out there for nonprofits, because I’ll bet all the problems they’re facing have been solved in creative ways by other nonprofits.” Hmmf. Exploitation of a community of volunteers then rarely replying to vocalisation of their concerns about ideas - or dare i say, their desires, or often, even their needs? I’ll say it.

[Post-edit - i returned to this 24hrs later and removed the links from two name-tags]

[afdexter]

Fully agree. I would hate to be one of the iNat staff assigned to respond on the forum. I don’t have the kind of thick skin it would take to respond politely to people who write, in effect, “Youse bastards are all exploiting us, and you haven’t even asked my opinion!”

[sjl197]

I returned with the idea to delete my last view as possibly unfair. However, now, thank-you, I’ll instead double down now with that, what you call ‘dignified silence’ I call not dealing with issues where contributors feel aggrieved. .

[danlharp]

@sjl197

Else on the previous comment “And I hope iNat leadership is taking advantage of the wealth of resources out there for nonprofits, because I’ll bet all the problems they’re facing have been solved in creative ways by other nonprofits.” Hmmf. Exploitation of a community of volunteers then rarely replying to vocalisation of their concerns about ideas - or dare i say, their desires, or often, even their needs? I’ll say it.

This is actually one of the hardest parts of nonprofit leadership and management – how to integrate all stakeholders, including both meeting the needs of all stakeholders, and valuing the contributions of all stakeholders. Some of my biggest mistakes as a nonprofit manager have been caused by not paying enough attention to core volunteers – it’s easy to not pay enough attention to those folks because they tend to be so dedicated that they do the work no matter what. I’m actually in the middle of this right now in my current job…after 32 years in nonprofit management, I still fall into this trap…sigh…which means I’m constantly tapping into resources (consultants, books, websites, mentors and colleagues, etc.) that help me redirect my actions so I can support all stakeholders. I’m not trying to excuse the mistakes of any nonprofit manager or leader (esp. not my own mistakes) – but I’m hoping by pointing out this basic fact of nonprofit life, we can figure out ways to move forward to continue a vision and mission that continues to inspire us.

[cthawley]

Speaking personally, and not with my moderator hat, I do feel that this post is

@sjl197

possibly unfair

in two specific ways.

1. I think it’s pretty unreasonable to expect that all of iNat leadership is at the beck and call of iNat forum users to respond to their questions on the forum. There are two iNat staff positions (that I know of) focused on more general community engagement: tiwane and seastarya. They are quite active on the forum and have been active in this thread specifically. The initial post here was specifically asking the forum community about what they think :

@earthknight

What are your thoughts on this larger question?

[EDIT: I just want to thank everyone for having a thoughtful and polite conversation about all this. Lots of good people here.]

iNat staff have contributed some clarifying comments and moderated the discussion a little, but it is primarily a community-lead and engaged discussion, which I think is as it should be.

I also think expecting that all iNat leadership staff will be engaging with a user-started discussion is both unrealistic and would honestly be a little silly. Most reasonably-sized organizations have spokespeople or dedicated community-liaisons/teams who handle the social side of things. This is both because those people are experienced/good at what they do, and because the directors/whoever is at the top are spending their time differently - they’re leading/directing (as they should) as opposed to engaging with individual comments and concerns. For instance, I work for a state org whose staff is not that much bigger than iNat’s. We have staff whose job it is to interact with the public. Our directors don’t reply individually online/on social media that I have ever seen. If something comes up that is important, staff take it to them and then respond online for our org. iNat leadership actually does respond individually on the forum occasionally (which is more than I would really expect). They also engage with the community in pretty standard ways for similar orgs - through posts on iNat’s blog which are available to the broader iNat community (not just the limited user group on the forum) where they do respond individually in/to comments sometimes, traditional and online media (interviews, podcasts like the one above, etc.), and then posting links to that content where the community can see it (iNat’s social media channels, etc.)

2. Characterizing iNat as engaging in

@sjl197

Exploitation of a community of volunteers

is pretty much over-the-line to me and untruthful. A common definition of exploit is “to take advantage of something (a person, situation, etc.) for one’s own end, especially unethically or unjustifiably.” I find it hard to understand how this description would apply to iNaturalist, a non-profit that runs a free platform where iNat users are 100% voluntary. If any user feels “exploited”, they can walk away or decide to participate less or not at all at any time.