Several hours ago users began reporting a malfunction (“Observers, species and other stats not showing”), describing how it was messing up various functions important to them. The list of “things I can’t do when this is going wrong” grew quickly. Clearly iNaturalist is extremely important to a lot of people!
Within a couple of hours, @pleary of the iNat staff reported the problem fixed, and things were back to normal. Do you realize how unusual it is to have this kind of responsiveness? and for a resource that (unless you’re a voluntary donor) is FREE to all users?
Just wanted to make sure we don’t take this great resource and its operating staff for granted.
Yeah, I want to thanks inat staff for maintaining this wonderful app. This app connected me to nature, and you guys maintain it, you are like the pillars of buildings, without you inaturalist does not stand. so thanks a lot for your help.
Thanks @janetwright for the callout - it is much appreciated. I’m happy so many people enjoy the site and choose to spend their time contributing in a variety of ways.
We don’t get everything right all the time, so I’m also very appreciative of the active community of people using the site and apps and letting us know when something is broken. Without the quick feedback it would take us longer to track down our bugs, so thanks everyone for your patience and for bringing issues to our attention!
They don’t deserve that much respect: they haven’t made me part of the staff!
Seriously, I stand in awe of the iNat staff, who deal with issues which are far beyond my ken. We can take, and make observations, but they are the ones who make it possible, and can fix the glitches. I do thank them with all my heart.
This is also a huge strength of iNat staff (and the folks on the forum as well). There’s a strong culture of responding well to constructive comments, and iNat staff were instrumental in creating that!
Let’s thank them, yes, but also let’s all consider making a monthly donation to iNat, so the staff can afford to do what we need them to do as things progress.
Much appreciated, thank you! Like Patrick said we don’t always get it right and I wish we had more bandwidth to get to bugs and feature requests more quickly, but we try to do our best.
I’m also sincerely in awe of the poeple who devote so much of their time to make the community better - it’s incredibly humbling. Thank you so much!
I, too, would like to thank those who work tirelessly to maintain this site. Not only do individual naturalists from around the globe grow and learn from this resource, but the benefit to other sites dedicated to monitoring our natural world on various continents rely on iNat’s archives, respected for content and cooperation.
A monthly donation to iNat can be very small and still be useful. For example, I think pretty much all of us could afford one dollar a month, or two dollars a month. Some of us can afford $5 a month. Large amounts are really great of course, but even small amounts add up if enough people do that.
A great option that iNaturalist has too, is to be an anonymous donor. I think (It’s more that I know, I’ve been told this by some people on iNaturalist) some people might be embarrassed if they can only donate small amounts at a time. Or can’t commit to donate consistently for financial reasons. Or some people just like to stay out of the way and not really be noticed in the case that they make a big donation. It’s just a great feature to use across the board if you fit into either of those categories, or any other person who would prefer anonymity.
Edit: I should also clarify that I don’t think embarrassment or shame is due to anything iNaturalist has done, but I think money problems are emotionally taxing and create that type of emotional burden that can cause a lot of insecurity. It’s just a very helpful workaround to navigate through this anonymously, is my point.
Have always been willing to help me learn to use the site, even when I complain and am very wrong. They deserve our thanks, respect and maybe a Porsche. Not having a Porsche, I will just say Many Thanks!!
PS. Contact me if you have a Porsche you don’t need.
