Platform(s) website. Observation and identification, notifications.
Description of need:
in comments, I want to be able to tag (@) a project to bring an observation to the attention of traditional project admin that I’m not a member of. For instance when I’m IDing there are observation that may interest or could be added to a project.
This would then show up in the notification of all admins of the project.
Just thinking out loud:
I like the idea, although it has its downsides too with the potential of too many notifications for project admins. Regardless, being notified for specific projects definitely has value.
Isn’t @ usually used for people? Maybe a # for projects? (or something else)
It’s an interesting idea, though, I think it would need to allow project admins control over it, as some large projects could potentially get high volumes of notifications and swamp admins.
if implemented, I think it would need to be opt-in on a project homepage (and if the project wasn’t opted in, then the option to tag it wouldn’t be available).
It would also be tricky to figure out what the tag for a project should be - some projects have very long names.
Or maybe you could ask admin to open a journal post.
Then interested people could link to hopeful obs in a comment.
Easier for admin to work thru that way?
At least until we get notification management tools. Some profiles state flatly - I do not look at notifications.
Using add to project? If the project is traditional and open but you’re not a member, it notifies the admin/managers. For project names that have spaces, you would need to use “-” like in the web link. In this screenshot mock up, if I weren’t member of the projects, I should be only able to bring it to the attention of Australasian fishes, since the first one is a collection project and any qualifying observation would be there anyway.
Notifications can be filtered (digression, I would prefer to filter on ID & comments rather than Real Time Discussions):
I’m not sure why you would want to do this. If you know enough about the project, and are interested enough in it, to want to bring an observation to their attention, why would you not just join the project?
for what it’s worth, it is possible to add an observation to a project without joining it, using the API. if the point is just to add observations to projects, it seems like the most direct way to do this is just to to change the existing website interface to allow non-members to add observations to a project, if the project allows for that. in the absence of that, i would think the best way to notify curators of an observation of interest would to look up who the curators of the project are and then just mention (aka “tag”) them in observation comments. (to me, that’s no less difficult than trying to figure out what the project slug is, which is probably what you would need to do to properly mention a project.)
For projects I’m not interested enough to join but to know about. There are quite a few projects about animals eating organisms, some allow non-member observation but only if you upload a new observation. If you have an observation that is already on iNat, you need to join the project.
When I go through unidentified and come across microscope observations, I would like to bring it to the attention to the microscopy project that I think fits the best. I don’t want to add mushrooms to a diatom project.
To find the admin/manager, I need to find the project first anyway. It would be easier if it’s already integrated rather than going through an extra layer. I know there is an API, but I am clueless about it and may not be the only one, and again, it’s for new observations, not existing ones.
just to clarify, i’m not suggesting that most folks should use the API. i’m saying that since the API already allows the addition of observations to projects by non-members, it would seem noncontroversial to change the website interface to allow non-members to add observations to projects (assuming the project allows this).
No worries. There are projects where you can add obs without being a member, but it’s only for your new ones, not for your or someone else’s existing obs. Does the API allow to add existing obs to projects?
yes, that’s my point.
