I want a place where people post about their projects, and post ID tips. But it seems this forum is “not for” either of those things. So does anyone have a suggestion for a place where these things CAN be posted about?
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I agree that it would be nice to have an organized place for those and there are projects dedicated to ID tips. Lacking those for my group of interest, I decided to build out a set of identification tips for the lizards of the Amazon as part of my project Lizards of the Amazon Region. I also did so for my main study species Side-blotched Lizards. In both cases, I used the existing structure of journal posts to develop notes for myself that I then decided to share with everyone else as part of those projects. In my case, I wrote the notes with the idea that certain traits would be visible in iNat photos and others would not. It took months to build out the notes for the Amazon lizards and it’s still incomplete. I’ve toyed with the idea of building out a similar set of notes for lizards in Central America, just haven’t had the time yet. That’s one of the main limits, the other being the knowledge of how to actually, you know, tell these things apart. In that case I relied on an existing infrastructure of the Reptile Database, but a similar thing may not exist for all taxa. I also had to dig through the literature to find sources that describe the identifiable traits. This was a labor of love, but dang it took forever to do. This is probably what prevents most people from tackling a project like this and it certainly hasn’t made me eager to tackle it in Central America or for other herpetofauna.
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There is an iNat Discord Server. While I don’t much like Discord in general, the iNat server is organised well and reasonably active.
Also in the BlueSky iNatters thread, quite a few people have participated. Perhaps it is possible to form some sort of iNaturalist community there as well? Someone might be able to create a feed or something perhaps?
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Sorry — Couldn’t resist sharing this one!
I happened on the Geraniaceae group on FB. My familiar identifiers - but there they have their OWN photos and can show and explain … how the stamens are arranged in this sp vs that sp. Wow!
PS checked those 3 for obs uploaded to iNat. Not. Focused on IDs only here.
That’s basically what the bsky inatter list I made is - you can pin the list to the top of your page, and clicking on it shows a feed of only posts by people on that list.
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Oh nice. I didn’t realise you could pin lists to your home as well. ^^