While this is true, it’s not like anybody expects that from iNaturalist or any organization. There are lots of consultative models that are widespread and work fine.
Many nonprofits, and a few for-profits, have boards elected by dues-paying members. iNaturalist has a pool of monthly donors that could easily be voting members who elect board members at an annual general meeting, as a way of integrating the community into the organizational feedback loop. It’s bog-standard practice.
I put most of my thoughts in a journal post here.
One step that I think would be beneficial is finding ways to quantify the sources of frustration that users having been reporting. Is it possible to quantify whether the percent of obs that end up Casual has increased? Technically the percent of observations that are research grade has apparently been pretty stable across iNat’s history. Technically the time it takes for observations to reach RG has apparently gone down consistently (Campbell et al. 2023, figure 1c). Why is that not what we perceive as identifiers and observers? The backlog of Needs ID observations has grown substantially which is an issue in its own right, but apparently the number of identifiers has grown to keep pace with the rate of new observations. Is it just that seeing the massive number of pages left to ID on the Identify page is discouraging?
This depends on which user base you’re talking about. If you’re talking about casual users who just post observations to iNat I would say, “Sure”. If you’re talking about the iNaturalist community, especially curators and identifiers, I would say “No”. Longstanding concerns from the community have been ignored for years, often without even an acknowledgement from staff; there are currently extremely few development resources dedicated to either the website, the CV model, or the database due to a combination of focus on the apps and attrition of other staff; and iNat directorship doesn’t seem interested in consulting the community about important decisions (see the AI debacle).
The prime example that comes to mind of concerns being ignored is the Sorcerer’s Apprentice Problem, which has been made much worse by the upgraded apps. There are at least half a dozen forum discussions about the problem and 3 feature requests to address it (all with lots of votes). To my knowledge, iNat staff have never commented on the problem, even though it is probably the biggest waster of identifier time and energy. (The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Problem is the fact that the CV often recommends species IDs in cases where it should recommend higher level IDs instead and creates a feedback loop reinforcing bogus species IDs.)
There are other issues I could list related to curation and identification, but I feel like I’m getting off-topic. A more important thing to talk about is how do we get iNat directorship to care about community concerns? Should we form some kind of informal organization or union that would give us leverage in discussions rather than just yelling into the void? Should we ask for seats on the board of directors? Are there are other ideas?
EDIT: Short answer: yes. Realistic answer: Its complicated, see below.
Reading through the blogs on here and being more of a forum observer, I don’t post often, I do feel like there is something to be said about the vast “customer base”. I personally appreciate iNat for its ability to connect me back with the field of ecology and identification. Nowhere else have I, as a non academically employed person, encountered this many willing people to discuss the sciences (and ecology). Sure, I’m working as a nurse and have plenty of opportunities to discuss science, radiology, human pathophysiology, and public health type things but nothing scratches the itch of IDing, or “field sorting” as I call it.
I do think that many, possibly the majority, of companies are moving in a direction of automatizing with AI. While I have my hesitations with that I also understand that automatizing systems has always been around and there have always been uproars about it. Think about the unionization in the factories and the actualy political backlash that recieved and still recieves. I would never want the job of trying to figure out what to do be cause you’re essentially choosing which mud pie to eat.
Lastly, I want to thank all moderators, and consistent contributors I’ve talked to over my time here. I appreciate all your help and kindness.
P.S. for those more casually inclined I think Ken-ichi Ueda hit the nail on the head in the section about seek and its user base.
Well that’s disturbing.
Members of the boards of most non-profits are supposed to form their own informed opinions of what is best for the organization and based on that, push staff leadership to make changes that will improve the org. Most board members at most orgs, I should say, do not do this because it takes time and can cause strife, and it is easier to wait for information from staff leadership and then follow their direction. I do not know what the current dynamic with iNat’s board is. But one possible answer to your question is to find a board member who is willing to communicate about these issues and present to them concerns/requests/etc. from a group representing keystone iNat users.
It’s unfortunate that one of the founders of iNat felt that he had to leave but I’m not surprised. Any organization includes people with different visions of what’s important and what’s not and schisms are inevitable. I’ve long thought that iNat has grown too fast and included too many bells and whistles on the platform. I never got into Seek and when I do use the phone app (not frequently) I stick to iNat Classic. No website/database will meet everyone’s needs or wants, but for me iNat has worked well (but my needs are simple). Probably time for management to sit back and think carefully how it wants to proceed. Hopefully the site has the ability to stay functional in some form for years to come.
It looks like one of the board members actually has an iNaturalist forum account: @catchang. Perhaps they would be kind enough to comment here.
Edit: It looks like Cat hasn’t posted in almost a year, so that might be a long shot.
Cat is a very kind and thoughtful person, and was a very active iNat identifier and observer long before she joined the Board. I was introduced to her by @graysquirrel.
I worked for many years in organizations that shared one chronic problem that no one seemed able to solve: lack of communication. That led to lots of bad feeling among rank and file employees, people leaving in disgust, and other issues. Just knowing what was being decided, whether we had a say in it or not, would’ve been helpful, and even if I disagreed with the decision it would’ve been good to have been in the loop. Lots of organizations fail to see the value in good communication among staff and stakeholders. Not sure that’s a problem with iNat but worth considering.
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.
Hi folks, thanks for the constructive discussion so far. Just a note that I’ve hidden some posts that are verging a bit off-topic — please keep the subject on iNaturalist’s current and future direction.
I’m against that idea, and I donate. People complained to the grant from Google concerned with unconfirmed worries about giving them control but making the higher payer vote is bit change of the way iNaturalist work and its success. And of course, companies could donate to vote and steer it towards another decision.
Regarding the OP’s question, it’s maybe worth emphasizing the obvious that the “user base” includes a large number of individuals who are a voluntary workforce that keeps the site functioning in terms of contributing content, curation, IDs, comments, etc. … actions that go beyond mere casual use. Not paid staff but crucial contributors.
Citing Campbell et al. again, in 2023 they estimated 2.5 million users with observations and only 280k users with identifications (11%). But in particular, 75% of identifications were made by only ~2000 users (0.1% of all users). Anything that supports, grows, or frustrates this core group will have an outsized influence on the quality of the observer experience, quality of the CV, etc.
Perhaps because I joined later, and I have no demands on iNat, I don’t see what this is about. iNat organisation is behaving like a bigger organisation as it grows…
The community felt that they were in a cooperative? I don’t think that this is what this Community is about.
In the forum, people come together with a common interest and share their passion, knowledge and time with each other. The interaction has no direct involvement of iNat and most of the topics aren’t related to it. If we would all meet in a café to discuss about this instead, should we demand to manage the establishment?
The forum users aren’t all the iNat users, as many have already rightly pointed out. And definitely, they aren’t an elite who has more rights or knows better than the rest.
this is the single most helpful step that can happen now and especially publicly summarise those metrics, and outlines on their current priorities of iNat conditioned from those metrics
- although I loved how the user surveys happened and they may have given some rough picture already, maybe making the survey results summay public and brief statements on planned/deferred/prioritised and rough possible solutions of those from iNat based on those survey results would help everyone and especially tackle all the common point mentioned - silence. Silence is always major contributor on uncertainty and biggest contribution hurdle. It’s totally understandable silence can happen simply from multiple things like lack of time or delayed decisions where no satisfiable answer can be made at this point owing to other constraints and plans and flow as of now, but any answers or kicking of planned solutions framework would offer every side (staff/users/contributors/leadership/hobby coders) a step ahead. I have seen some feature requests getting answered by something from staff, and although i thank them, here we are talking of global steps with quantifiable frustration from larger set here like survey results and how a highly rated point in those is (re)considered by iNat as of now - and i have simiarly seen some github requests labelled as hard-release and so but again I as external one is not simply aware where to focus more.
for example, i am thinking of trying to do my first code commit to inat web code on github but amid the myriad voted pending feature requests here on forum (which its already understood is minor user subset) and surveys, at least planned steps from iNat side based on rational priorities will give people like me idea on what to even focus or possible for me in coding into core iNat open-source code or rather simply just focus my efforts on external things with inat API interoperability which would inherently be less effective and low-reach even if done.
I should be clear that this step is not about asking to make staff or leadership accountable nor demands for rationality behind existing decisions which may or may not have merits in future that everyone cannot see but simply rethinking what can-might-possibly happen that hasnt happened yet so to offer value to more platform user sets here based on those official surveys results or staff feedback or any other channels and their summaries of current weightage from iNat side. Maybe internal staff decision summaries and discussions (if they happened) could be made public or atleast minimum viable version instead of full log, and maybe that can help this topic question more effectively without knowing full picture and when we all can only see aftereffects of attrition and all.
If we would all meet in a café to discuss about this instead, should we demand to manage the establishment?
We aren’t patrons in a cafe. We’re the volunteer workforce that keeps iNaturalist running smoothly. We curate the taxonomy, identify the observations, onboard new users, organize events, and even help write some of the software. We do all of this because we believe in the project and want to support it and see it succeed. If that is being hampered by poor communication and poor management from staff, we should at least try to have a conversation about that. Some of the problems that have been pointed out don’t sound like normal organization growing pains, nor does the widening disconnect between the staff and community. Indeed, in every other community-oriented website I’ve ever participated in, engagement with the community is highly prioritized and the concerns of the core community are balanced against goals for growth and expansion. I don’t expect iNaturalist to be a democracy or cooperative, but I also don’t expect the work of the community to be taken for granted.
Just replying to say how much I agree with @zygy here.
If iNat curators and power-identifiers stopped contributing, the website would grind to a halt.
