nobody forces me to sort observations by their popularity (stars clicked). it’s entirely optional. just like it would be entirely optional for you to sort observations by their value (donations given). so why would this option make people stop using the platform?
you didn’t click the star button for my observation of a cooper’s hawk. but if you had, so what? so what if 1000 people clicked the button star button for my hawk observation? this would somehow force me to take and submit more pics of cooper’s hawks? of course not.
if you posted a pic of a rare ficus, and people donated $500 bucks for it, this would somehow force you to take and submit more pics of rare ficus? of course not. you keep throwing around the word “force” as if somehow money would be used to twist your arm into behaving in a way anathema to your very nature. either you’re badly misunderstanding me, or i’m not making myself perfectly clear, so let me reiterate… there would be absolutely no force involved. nobody would be forced to donate. nobody who donated would be forced to use this perk. if anyone did use this perk, nobody would be forced to be influenced by it. nobody would be forced to reciprocate in any way.
let me try to put it as simply as possible. with my proposal, we’d have the option to know which organisms inat donors were most interested in. and trust me, i know it’s not going to be ficus. it’s probably going to be birds, but i have absolutely no idea which birds. you’d be completely free to ignore this information. personally i wouldn’t. i’d be very much interested in seeing and knowing which birds inat donors care about the most.