Soft launch of iNat's Help Site

I think it would be helpful for new users or people who aren’t users yet to have a prominent FAQ about the difference between iNat and Seek with links to both. Something like “iNaturalist or Seek, which app is right for you?” Plenty of new users seem to think iNat is just like Plantsnap or Google Lens and don’t understand that their photos are posted publicly for everyone. Maybe emphasize that Seek is best for keeping a private species list and iNat is more about connecting with the user community.

Yes, it would be nice if people read a little more before jumping in, but if it’s posted in more places, I think it would help people who are considering using either one.

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One spam message - but you cannot know how many iNatters tried, and gave up. Especially if we have slow internet - it is sometimes impossible to send our response within the tick tick time frame.

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As I said above, the spam message was not related to the Submit a Ticket form…it was from an article feedback form, which do not require reCAPTCHA.

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Perhaps staff can consider Cloudflare’s alternative version.

Unforutnately I don’t think that’s an option on Freshdesk.

As far as I can tell, since I removed reCAPTCHA from the ticket submission page, we’ve received one spam message so it seems fine to leave it off for now.

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Will there be a help article for profiles?
Please add a picture, not the default grey ghost - any picture (except a flaggable offense) It is a visual reminder of who you are on iNat.
Some info - interested in … taxon
Location (if they are comfortable sharing that)

This already exists both into the old and new help site, I guess it could go into more detail but I think it gives a good general idea

On a side note, the Confirmation email FAQs title is kind of weird, cause there are some faqs related to other aspects of the account (like deleting and merging accounts). Maybe Account FAQs suits better

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Thank you for the link, I looked for it while browsing the new site but didn’t see it.

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I could also not find a reference from iNaturalist.org to the new help site. Will it be added to iNat-site soon?

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currently it’s buried on the Help page, which is itself buried in the “More” menu dropdown… https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/help… I suspect we want it to be better before moving it into the spotlight, though,

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Please include ‘delete an observation field’
Here (the only one I found at ‘Help’ or wherever)
https://help.inaturalist.org/en/support/solutions/articles/151000169941-what-are-tags-observation-fields-and-annotations-

I did find tiwane’s answer on a forum post. Not intuitive to - click on the field name - to trigger the option to delete.

Just realized that if you answer “No” in the “Was this article helpful?” but then you click Cancel if you go again to the same article it doesn’t show up again. Not sure if it’s intended behavior but I guess it be better if it doesn’t just disappear (or if Freshdesk even allows to edit that).

Also, I wanted to make a ticket cause this tutorial lacks the first “L” in multiple from the title

Thanks, that’s been fixed.

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With the shiny new DQA - this one needs updating already. Wonderful!

https://help.inaturalist.org/en/support/solutions/articles/151000171680-what-do-i-do-if-the-observation-has-multiple-photos-depicting-different-species-

Then I can change my comment link to go to your Help.
Instead of the blog post - which is more complicated for people who are not part of that experiment.

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Today I have a batch of school kids observing cultivated plants - all good, learning to iNat.
But their teacher is using the Sex annotation for plants where it doesn’t apply.
Very difficult to explain to someone who doesn’t understand - separate male and female plants.

You mention sex annotation in the last line here. Help, please - something I could link to in future?

https://help.inaturalist.org/en/support/solutions/articles/151000169941-what-are-tags-observation-fields-and-annotations-

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Finally switched things over to Freshdesk and updated the “More” menu on the main site. Network sites have control over what appears in their More menu, so not all of them will have the same links.

The “old” help pages now only have large text that explains where the current page can be found, and a link to where an archived version of the old page can be found.

If anyone can/wants to translate help pages, that would be awesome! See https://help.inaturalist.org/en/support/solutions/articles/151000194744-can-i-help-translate-inaturalist-

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I was just updating my links in my frequent comments and noticed that this page is not udpated for the new mulitple species DQA (see 2nd paragraph): https://inaturalist.freshdesk.com/en/support/solutions/articles/151000169931-can-i-identify-multiple-taxa-per-observation-what-if-my-photo-has-a-flower-and-a-cool-bug-

Maybe it could just refer to this page instead: https://inaturalist.freshdesk.com/en/support/solutions/articles/151000171680-what-do-i-do-if-the-observation-has-multiple-photos-depicting-different-species-

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Thanks for the reminder.