I am a bit torntorn - The very legitimate concern of @dianastuder that people should make “two and a half times as many IDs as they make observations” in order to reduce the pile of unidentified specimens made me think of similar things as @sopacexplorer posted: people who make identifications also have a life outside of Inaturalist, e.g. other hobbies, work, family… The discussion (https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/an-idea-to-promote-explosive-growth-for-inaturalist-and-its-data/47583/89) had a bit of an overlap with this one, because it also deals with some things… the question of quantity and quality of observations, how we interact with each other in Inaturalist, help each other with identifications, but also how we communicate in general. Inaturalist is used by so many (!) different people, from young to old, from complete nature novices to experts working with a specific group of species… These people have different time capacities, different languages (both native as well as writing style, sociolect etc.), ultimately also different reasons why they use the platform. I see all this as something great, something we should embrace - that this platform is very accessible and open. But in order to be that for everyone, the “pedantry” mentioned by @jasonhernandez74 is also important to address. But maybe this is on Inaturalist - I do not remember what kind of welcome message(s) you get when you start (maybe someone could help me out here), but the moment after people sign up could be a key moment to give a little introduction on how things work in Inaturalist, not only how to upload observations, but also that people will often “only” briefly verify or falsify an observation, with no or only a few words added as explanation, but usually these people are approachable and very happy to answer questions. I think this is very important to know! (I often like to go through very old observations - identifying them can be like solving a little puzzle if they are a bit more difficult - but it is not uncommon that the users of the observations made 4 or 5 years ago are no longer active - adding additional information there would be - at least for them - without any added value)
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