I also wanted to mention that none of this is occurring in a vacuum. In terms of moderation there is usually a lot more going on than is immediately evident. And since all of us here are also active on iNaturalist itself, a lot of what happens here is connected to what happens on iNaturalist itself - issues, conflicts, friendships, rivalries, and all of those other messy elements of human interaction we all are familiar with. There’s no formal connection between flags on iNat and the forum, but certainly in many cases where there are disagreements or issues here that seem to come out of ‘nowhere’ they are actually originating in things that are happening on the main site. In some cases they also relate to past discussions on the Google group, which was more raucous than this one and also not used by a lot of people who are now using this one. And people are a lot more likely to drop a flag, I think, if someone here has also acted in a similar way on iNat. Whether or not that’s the best way to use flags I don’t know, but it’s a reality of human nature and being a part of a community.
In terms of people over-flagging, note that one person’s flag can not hide a post. And if we encounter issues with someone ‘flag trolling’, then we will have to deal with that as well. I don’t think that is happening here.
So yeah, as bouteloua says above, if you have concerns about moderation, feel free to message @moderators . This sends a message to all of us and is better to use than trying to single out just one of us to message. If you have an issue with the moderators or otherwise something you think is better addressed to staff only, your best bet is help@inaturalist.org.
Overall, it’s true that this forum is moderated differently than many others and more ‘closely’ than websites a lot of people use (twitter, reddit, etc), and also more so than the Google Group. That is because this is meant to be an efficient and relatively drama free place to discuss issues, concerns, suggestions, etc. If you’re interested in a more informal, fun, goofy sort of setting, i recommend checking the unofficial discord server . If you’re interested in discussion about specific nature related things, an inaturalist journal post may be best.
Hope this helps!