Organising observations

One of the many things I’ve learnt since I began participating “seriously” in iNat a few years ago is that iNaturalist can be just about anything to anyone. And as in so many other contexts, the more you give, the more you get back. That being said, “real communication” is something that actually happens relatively rarely, perhaps at least partly because Identifiers (the ones most likely to come across another iNatters observation) are generally dedicated to reducing the backlog of observations needing IDs and the time is (or seems) too short to just chat. Or maybe because they’re unwilling to add to the number of notifications an observer receives (yes, with the present system, it can seem a problem) without good reason. When I’m IDing and come across an observation that grabs my attention in some way, I do try to add comments, but I have to say that I’ve managed to engage in a “real” exchange very rarely.
In the past, I participated in a number of online nature/photography forums and one of the things that got me bouncing around like a two-year old in front of my screen was precisely the joy of sharing enthusiasms and discoveries, something sadly not always possible in “real life” (whatever that is!). I do miss that.
Sometimes I will post some strange/amazing/beautiful/unexpected organism on iNaturalist, not so much to learn what it is, as to share it with others who I just KNOW will appreciate it as much as I do. But then there’s no reaction, so I wonder if anyone else did actually come across it and what they thought… That lack of feedback is totally understandable, but sometimes I confess it does make me feel a little sad.
Perhaps the answer is actually here in the iNat forum where there are quite a few threads in which people can share just these enthusiasms (https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/what-is-your-favorite-lifer-from-this-week and https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/best-photos-youve-uploaded-on-inat would be two examples). Or you could start one yourself :blush:.

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