Why can’t we make a separate section on this forum for the folks who want to promote their projects and get ID and curation assistance?
The admins seem to do their nut in when these sort of topics are opened in ‘General’, and lets be honest, why shouldn’t people want to seek that kind of support from this forum? I’m honestly lost as to why this is so frowned upon, maybe someone can help me here?
ID assistance is what the main site is for.
The forum is meant for discussion, not promotion.
Curation assistance is what #curators is for, however specific questions about specific taxa should be directed to a flag, rather than a topic here.
be polite. it’s part of the rules here.
There’re topics in General dedicated to projects of certain types, so it’s untrue, but id assistance is not for forum, otherwise now everyone can write asking for id, with CNC and almost summer nobody is getting ids.
Yes, there are topics for certain types of projects. OP was asking about a whole category designed for each topic/post to be a promotion of a project, I assume.
As others have said, this is a place to have constructive conversations about issues, questions, and experiences relevant to iNat, as well as report bugs and make feature requests in an organized fashion.
There are mechanisms for requesting ID help on iNat, and curation help is done via flags plus the #curators category here.
Regarding project promotion: I understand people want to promote their projects, and they can do so via journal posts, messages, comments on observations (targeting people who are likely to be interested), and via social media and other non-iNat outlets. I don’t think a category for promoting projects would spur constructive conversations, it would likely just get flooded by anyone and be an unsearchable morass of “check out my project!” posts, and frankly be another category to moderate that I think wouldn’t really further the goals of the forum.
I get what they asked, but OP said people are against it in General, while they’re not, unless it’s just a link without anything else.
Don’t think that would end well. It would most likely get spamed and a lot huge job for mods.
It seems like a good area to find things of your interest like if you want to try something new. Plus it could also come with rules like they could only post a topic in there like 1 once a week per user so it doesnt spam or build up.
Read Tony’s message above, it’s better than any explanation I can come up with.
No need to go to the forum to find this, there’s a whole page on the home site devoted to featuring projects.
Whats the page called? Id like to look because some of the projects that have been shared in the forums have spiked my interests in projects.
Tony’s message is about different stuff at all, I’m not pro- or against new forum branch, I directly answered to:
Is that another way for saying loose their minds?
I don’t really understand the relevance to the question, but that’s fine.
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects
It means to get very angry or something
Yes. I think on a global site it would be best to look up an unfamiliar phrase rather than assume it is impolite. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/do-your-nut
I mean, the phrase itself doesn’t sound necessarily appropriate, but I get your point.
Atleast 15 replies so far, but still - no-one has answered my question :(
@zdanko you are quite correct in your assumption. Just as we have different forum categories such as ‘General’, ‘Nature Talk’, ‘Forum Feedback’ (This one), I am further requesting a category solely dedicated to Project assistance and promotion. Perhaps I incorrectly applied the term ‘curation’ here as what I meant was merely “assistance with management”. Also, getting one’s project ‘Featured’ on the Homesite’s Project tab is simply unfeasible for the sort of projects I’m referring to (see below)
@fffffffff In the ‘General’ category, it explicitly states in the description that to “promote projects” is forbidden, which is the antithesis of what I am suggesting here. Not sure what topics you’re referring to then?
Allow me to further elaborate on why I’m requesting a unique category for projects:
This is my project here - https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/floral-and-insect-biodiversity-of-potential-mooi-river-stewardship-site
I only have about 7 followers at the moment
Furthermore, my project is dedicated to observations in a specific plot that I know very well no-one else on iNat has ever set foot in or recorded observations from. This makes reaching out to fellow SA iNatters on their observations, and convincing them to follow my project, somewhat difficult (I’ll give it a try nonetheless)
The fact I have so little followers also means that any attempt to solicit more using the project journal is likened to using a loudspeaker in a vacuum. It is only through a bigger platform such as this forum or Facebook that I have a fair enough shot at gaining more followers and therefore accruing more exposure for my project
This is why I am making this suggestion. Saying that a ‘Projects’ category in the forum will attract spam and take up precious moderation time is hard to grasp as the very same thing could/would happen in other sections of this platform
Finally, for those who caught the wrong end of the stick, “do their nut in” is South African slang for “Stressing themselves out” and is a harmless comment. Apologies if it sounded untoward
There are already a bunch of ways to get your observations identified. The number one way is patience. You can read more about it in one of these threads:
Question about response time for IDs
What if nobody IDs your observation?
How to pay attention for old observation to identify it?
Why are Trees Slow to Get Identified?
etc.
You’re not the only one waiting longer than you’d like for IDs. I have observations that are years old still waiting for the right person to come along. Identifiers are volunteers and demanding their attention when they have potentially tens of thousands of other observations to ID is in my personal opinion not helpful.
Take the time to develop personal relationships. Introduce yourself to others in your area, help identify their stuff, ask what photographs would make the ID process easier for them. Etc. You can always @ people but they are far more likely to respond if you are friendly and polite.
I started with zero followers like everyone else. I gained a bunch over time. Most of them are new users whom I helped with IDs. Some are friends I made here. A handful I have no idea who they are but whatever. Only one did I specifically ask to follow me, and I only did that because I wanted his help to improve my own identification skills of local plants.
Thanks for the link
Where exactly in this thread have I mentioned wanting to get more ID’s? What I’m suggesting is to increase project exposure, increasing ID’s for project-linked observations is just a by-product of that
Sounds to me like you’re replying to the tone of my post, not the content. This is against the very rules you first mentioned above
This paragraph has an air of condescension to it. Why don’t you follow me and see all of what I’ve done since 2017 to now? I’ve made journal posts (followed by only 1 person). I frequently @ those who are authorities on various taxa for ID assistance. I have a detailed bio and have assisted with over 200 ID’s for others. The result of all of this is a grand total of 7 followers. At this point, the only other way I can solicit followers is to PM each of the people I have a good relationship with requests to follow me and my projects