Relationship between U.S. iNat and versions in other countries

General
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I normally log in via the main, U.S. based iNat, but on occasion I will be sent a link from a users in other countries, such as Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, etc., which have there own versions and, apparently, separate log-in protocols. Whether or NOT I am currently logged in to my primary account, I am not given access to the links of the other country sites without logging in with a separate membership and password t first OR waste time trying to figure out how to find the post in question on the U.S. site. So my questions:

  1. It seems that all the country versions feed into the same database, so from the US site, I assume I can see all posts from any country. Is this accurate?
  2. Why is the separate log-in needed for posts linked by members in other countries?
  3. Would it be possible to have just a uniform, world-wide log-in, which would avoid this issue entirely and possibly other related issues? Hint, hint…
2 Likes
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  1. Yes, all the observations feed into the same database and are viewable by anyone.
  2. There is some technical discussion here: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/if-logged-in-on-a-network-site-log-the-user-in-on-all-other-network-sites/52331
  3. Also discussed in the above topic, though see https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/stay-within-your-inat-network-affiliation-domain-when-clicking-links-to-other-inat-network-sites/6898 for a couple workarounds (using Requestly or Tampermonkey)

For more info on iNat network sites, also see https://help.inaturalist.org/en/support/solutions/articles/151000171181-what-s-the-inaturalist-network-which-site-should-i-affiliate-with-

3 Likes
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i’m not sure if jwidness’s referenced posts address this directly, but if you have the URL of the link to partner site, you can just change the domain of the URL to get to the page in the main site. for example, if the link URL is https://inaturalist.ca/observations/999999999, then just replace inaturalist.ca with www.inaturalist.org to go to https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/999999999.

8 Likes
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Thanks – that makes sense, and I’ll give it a try!