I’m realizing now that, beyond a research and learning too, iNat is kind of social media that enables us to connect and form a community. Of course, we can find people that share our interests when they ID our observations or we ID theirs, and we can connect with them through comments and in this forum.
I’m wondering if there’s more we can do with profiles. I really like the idea of life lists and the recent developments there. I also know you can feature taxons.
How about specific observations or photos? There are good reasons why other social media networks use profiles to feature what the user likes or in ways they define themselves or want to announce to others.
I remember an interesting post somewhere about observations that told stories. It would be great if someone had a good story and was able to publish it on their profile. Or if someone had a great photo of something and wanted to do something interesting with it beyond use it as their profile pic.
Maybe I’m missing something, but after some effort, I haven’t figured out how to do much with my own profile. It’s pretty bland.
Adding more power (features) to our profiles could also attract certain talents to iNaturalist, like professional photographers, and connect them to scientists, authors, teachers, people in media, and more.
Any ideas out there?