Thank you, Brenna, for summing that op and providing the link. Saved me a lot of time browsing through the whole topic!
It is still not clear for me however why iNaturalist has not updated its annotations for birds at this point, after such a long time and so many good arguments. Is it really not doing anything because of disagreements on what to do? As @swampster points out, technically speaking, we can call all birds that are not adults ‘‘immatures’’, but the same is not true for juveniles. The juvenile phase is actually rather short in most birds, and the fact that some species may retain juvenile feathers even up to three molt cycles does not mean they are still juvenile. So the easiest solution is to actually just change the word ‘‘juvenile’’ to immature, or even better and more inclusive, as a slash, to ‘‘juvenile/immature’’. My question is, why is this very obvious solution dismissed by iNaturalist, and why is the term ‘‘juvenile’’ kept in place even though in many occasions the term is plainly wrong, as pointed out by many users?
‘‘Subadult’’ is an old-fashioned word for ageing birds that are almost adults but not yet fully molted into their definitve plumage. This is not a really helpful term, not a different life stage and is now largely avoided in precise molt terminologies such as the WRP-system (Wolfe-Ryder-Pyle), the HP-system (Humphrey-Parkes) or other authors on molt terminology like Howell. ‘‘Subadult’’ can easily be included in the term ‘‘immature’’ and understood as such. The same is not true for juveniles: juveniles and immatures are two different life stages, which is precisely what the annotations are about, right? A slash may work just to separate them all together from fully grown adult birds. We now have many bird ID’ers who don’t feel comfortable annotating immature birds, because the bird they are looking at is neither juvenile nor adult, and so as a result you miss annotations from them. What is holding iNaturalist back from making a very easy change that would suit everyone and result in more precise and useful annotations?
Joe @joecoolbrew says many species breed in their juvenile plumage, but there is a difference in plumage and plumage aspect (how plumage looks). Strictly speaking, juvenile birds cannot breed, and when birds breed they have replaced at least the majority of their juvenile (body) feathers, but immature/adult birds may have retained juvenile feathers or a plumage aspect that resembles that of juveniles more than that of adults (for example delayed plumage maturation in some American warblers). It is not just the plumage aspect that defines our terminology, it is the life stage of a bird that defines how its plumage looks first and subsequently how we can call it based on the plumage aspect.
If the term is changed from ‘‘juvenile’’ to ‘‘juvenile/immature’’, not a single one of the 440000 annotations would have to be changed, and all of them are (unless wrongly identified as juv./imm.) automatically correct, too. Again: what stops iNaturalist from making this simple change, one that eBird indeed has already implemented years ago (and rightly so)?
(Edit: Please note that I am not critizing iNaturalist at all and love the platform! Just asking questions trying to understand the ‘‘why’’, and making a suggestion for what I think may improve the database. My direct and honest writing style can be a personal or Dutch culture-based thing where we say things as they are. My apologies beforehand if I may come across as rude towards iNaturalist at any point in my post.)
