I find it really interesting to follow people’s contributions in the city I live and that exploration contributes for building each city’s community. To make it even more impactful, iNaturalist could highlight the most commented records nearby and showcase newly discovered species in the area. this would also draw attention to notable records, which sometimes go unnoticed in the explore tab. Those news would be great at the city, state, and national levels.
Imagine something like that:
“Myscelia orsis was added to California’s species. Click to see the first recording”;
“Angola gained 3 new species this month. Look all new registers”
“A great discussion is occurring in Myscelia orsis register by Pescarts. Get a look!”
An automatic feature. No people needed. Otherwise, volunteers would have to work continuously to make the app more interesting to overall community. If a feature like this was really implemented, maybe they could access that same space, to promote something like meetings or projects in the area.
That’s so nice. The fact that we are in a similar perspective means its an improvement that probably more people are seeking for. Maybe our contributions can influence one another.
It happens automatically if anyone links to a post from another thread. So you could post a reply on my feature request linking back to your post here.
I would be against this. Features like this on social media sites often just draw undue attention to (often) already controversial posts and would incentivize people behaving in ways that draw attention or controversy and invite participation that could negatively impact data quality. I agree there’s potential upside but there are too many unintended negative consequences. I think one of iNat’s strengths is that it doesn’t use some sort of engagement-focused algorithm to surface content.
That is true - we have to work to decide which iNatter, location or taxon to follow. Never run out of something to ID or annotate, or taxon sweep, or … GSB will keep me on double shifts for weeks.
I “subscribe” to any fungus observation made in the Greater Boston region, which is great for keeping up-to-date on what groups of species are fruiting at any given time, but I do see the utility in something which shows notable and novel observations. It would inadvertently flag A LOT of maverick mid-identifications.
I agree with the cautions about promoting the visibility of any observations based on engagement. I think iNaturalist should be very careful to avoid the kinds of social media algorithms that reward attention with more attention; those sorts of practices seem corrosive to community standards and quality communication.
That said, I do like the idea of getting updates about my local area, and I think there are interesting data trends that could be surfaced algorithmically for any arbitrary Place that a user subscribes to, in a way that makes space for interesting and fun community perspectives. Essentially a polished, fun custom display for a set of queries. Things like:
What are the most recently-added new species in this place?
What seasonal species are expected this month that weren’t seen last month? (A place to see what’s “in season” if you will)
What are the species that haven’t been observed in this place in the longest time?
The key thing in my mind would really be to base the algorithms on nature data, not on platform user activity. Obviously since the data comes from users, there’s some overlap, but I still think there’s a distinction to be made between data about the taxa/place versus data about a post/user.
You make a great point. iNat is a space where people interested in their particularities go where they want, without being influenced by programming. This ends up bringing only people who have something to add to the right observations. It’s simple and wise. Even though these features would be really cool, I believe the main issue wouldn’t be big discussions (?). I think we have a good community that knows how to argue intelligently and politely (?). In my opinion, the main problem with data would be using our skills in a programming influenced way, which could lead the wrong people to the wrong places, when they could be making more relevant contributions in the area that interests them freely, without the influence of getting a look on “what’s going on” news.
It’s interesting to note how a simple tool can impact an entire data management process by influencing the people involved. This is very intriguing from a scientific perspective
