We’re rolling out a new security measure today and I wanted to give a heads-up curators, especially those involved in moderation.
All new iNaturalist accounts (those created after the time of this posting, or threreabouts) will be required to confirm their email address before they can interact with content created by other users. Existing accounts with unconfirmed email addresses will not be subject to this restriction. It should take less than a minute to confirm an email address.
New accounts with unconfirmed email addresses will still be able to make their own observations, join projects, write journal posts, and interact with others on their own content without confirming their email address. Someone creating an account at a bioblitz, for example, will have no barriers to making observations or joining the bioblitz project before confirming their email address.
Any new account with an unconfirmed email address will be prompted to confirm their email address when they attempt to interact with other users’ content on the iNaturalist website, and will be sent an email with a confirmation link to be clicked on.
Why are we doing this?
We hope this requirement will make it more difficult for those with malicious intent to negatively affect the iNaturalist experience for other users while keeping the barrier to interaction low for those who want to genuinely participate. This should also reduce the moderation load on Curators as well.
If anyone is unable to confirm their email address, they should submit a ticket to iNaturalist Support or email help@inaturalist.org.
If you find any bugs, please submit a ticket to iNaturalist Support.