If the coyote had hands it could’ve taken both. But maybe it came back for the egg later. Humans have hands but we’re limited by time and competing interests. Maybe those inatters who decided to go with the roadkill will still come back for the egg later.
3 Likes
i mean, right now i have other tabs open. sure. and sometimes i have two windows open side by side. but usually it’s the same task. maybe i’ll have a permaculture youtube video playing on the tv while i’m id’ing ficus observations on my laptop. but for the most part we switch between inat and the alternatives. how we divide our time between all the possible alternatives depends on the amount of benefit we get from them. if we only have the time and energy to juggle 12 things, and we encounter a new beneficial thing, we compare it to the least beneficial thing we’re juggling.
to pump your intuition, if we imagine someone working on a cure for cancer, and they’re on the right track barking up the right tree, we’d be concerned if we noticed them spending a lot of time on inaturalist. what could they possibly be doing on here that’s more important to humanity than curing cancer? the movie the medicine man starring sean connery comes to mind. i’m sure i must have seen but it was so long ago that i can’t even remember what he was trying to cure. was it cancer? i should probably watch it again. have you watched it?
imagine a fundraiser for inaturalist where donors can help rank movies. which movie would be at the top of the list? if you hadn’t already watched it, would you?
I imagine the people working on curing cancer will be doing their research during the working hours. Generally if people are spending their work hours on other endeavours than their work, they get reprimanded or fired. iNat isn’t a site that employs observers, it’s something that people choose to spend their free time on for, as I said previously, a variety of reasons.
2 Likes
I suppose so, but as a disabled person with chronic fatigue who has to constantly weigh up which tasks take priority, I still disagree that people are automatically going to throw the least “beneficial” thing to the backburner. I often do tasks that other people might be confused by me prioritising while putting off more “important” tasks, but while they may be less “beneficial”, they also take less energy, or benefit me in a way that isn’t obvious to someone else, or I’m willing to take on the toll of doing it even if other people would decide the downsides outweigh the benefits, so if I want to do something, I’ll do those even though it’s not the “best” use of my time according to other people.
I wouldn’t be concerned by this though? Most people are using iNat in their spare time, and people working on cures for cancer are typically doing it professionally at work, so why would these things be mutually exclusive? People need breaks from their work or they’ll just burn out, so why would it be concerning for someone to enjoy using a nature site in their spare time instead of working themselves to death?
2 Likes
iNaturalist can’t be all things to all people. If someone’s sense of accomplishment comes from likes/favorites/etc., then traditional social media platforms are much better than iNat for that. But that’s a niche well covered. iNat offers something different, the ability to have a community confirm/refine your ID, a place to store your sightings for your future refence, and a place to have fun IDing stuff, all while contributing to science databases.
I’m not saying that social media isn’t good for anything other than likes, or “kudos” as you put it. I participate in a few Facebook groups, and I even post nature photos on Instagram/Facebook and enjoy the likes I get. But iNat doesn’t need to mimic that. Most observations on iNat don’t get any “kudos”, because “kudos” aren’t how observations are most valued on iNat. I wouldn’t post on iNat if all I got were favorites and no identifications.
4 Likes
I have to ask, what exactly makes these donation based rankings so appealing? I personally don’t understand it, and it seems like a number of other people are just as confused, but the idea keeps being brought up in various iterations, so clearly you see some value in it that the rest of us don’t.
I’ve already heard the explanations about voting not requiring sacrifice and therefore not being as meaningful, but I still just don’t see the appeal of a donation based system. I feel like iNat isn’t the right place for this kind of model, but I’m sure you could find some kind of economics related forum that would be just as enthusiastic about your ideas, perhaps even someone willing to set up something like you’ve proposed, rather than trying to bring the ideas to a site where time and time again, forum users have expressed that this isn’t a feature they’d like.
If your idea is as good as you claim, and we consistently aren’t willing to entertain it, what’s the point in wasting your energy on trying to convince us instead of people who may be more open to the idea elsewhere?
1 Like
Almost every single thread the OP begins leads to exactly the same point: the idea that iNaturalist should begin a market based system wherein donations are tied to particular user actions.
(a thread allegedly about filter preferences)
(a thread allegedly about the need for a flat disagree option)
(a thread allegedly about recruiting qualified identifiers)
(This thread, allegedly about one of a kind sightings on iNaturalist)
Staff has already said the following:
@epiphyte78 Please consider that derailing your own threads may lead others to think these threads are to be avoided (best case) or think them… disingenuous (worst case).
7 Likes
No, Isaac, don’t put the magnifying glass down! Something even more amazing is hidden in the light… a code, a key to the cosmos. Isaac Newton didn’t miss much, but that one was a beaut. He just walked right past the door to a hidden universe; a door that would not swing open again for another 150 years. It would fall on another scientist, working in the year 1800, to stumble on a piece of evidence for the unseen worlds that surround us. - Neil deGrasse Tyson
that other scientist was william herschel. i’m guessing that he didn’t put the magnifying glass down very often.
if we’re reading a book or watching a movie about a scientist about to make a major breakthrough, we inherently enjoy their single minded pursuit. we love that they don’t put the magnifying glass down. we love that they forget to eat and shower. we love that they are entirely consumed by their overwhelming passion for discovery. the last thing we want the scientist to do is to take a break.
when i’m researching ficus on inaturalist, the last thing i want to do is take a break. i get annoyed when my stomach growls. i hate having to interrupt my research for something as mundane as a bathroom break.
if one of your favorite shows has ever been canceled, the decision was based on breadth rather than depth. in terms of movies, one of my favorite movies is the man from earth. what’s the most money i could reasonably spend on this movie? on amazon it’s $21 bucks. i buy it for myself. i buy it for my best friend. i buy it for my best neighbor. still, it doesn’t even get close to transformers in terms or revenue.
let’s say that inat has a fundraiser where we use donations to rank movies. we’re not buying movies, we’re promoting them. we’re giving them proper kudos. in this case it’s not just a question of how many (breadth) people like a movie, it’s a question of how much (depth) they like it.
with buying, transformers wins. with promoting, the man from earth wins.
with buying, style and superficiality wins. with promoting, substance wins.
with buying, a movie based on cartoons i grew up watching, wins. with promoting, a movie that entirely consists of a room with a handful of college professors in different fields debating the possibility of immortality, wins.
and it’s not like you need to take my word for it. inaturalist needs money anyways. it should be fundraising anyways. so why not give donors the opportunity to help rank movies. and then you could see for yourself the kind of content that wins with proper kudos.
imagine there’s a nerd convention. there are many different rooms for all the different possible topics. seblivia and i are in one room, that i somehow created, and we’re two grown adults talking about whatever we want to talk about. you come into the room that i created and of course you’re welcome to join the conversation. it’s a public room. but if seblivia asks me an economics question that i find very interesting, and you’re not the least bit interested in economics, then what’s the reasonable thing to do? try to force us to talk about something else? or do you simply exit from our room and enter into one of the numerous other rooms where people are discussing topics that you’re more interested in?
i’ve attended numerous plant society meetings. after the meetings people mingle and form into little groups where they talk about whatever they want. it’s pretty great. not once has anyone ever come up to a little group i’ve been in and complained about the topic. it’s never happened. not once. nobody in real life at a plant society meeting is so rude or unreasonable.
a simple rule for online forums is, if it’s not something you would do in real life, please don’t do it in forums.
I suppose I just don’t really see why it’s necessary to apply this to iNat. As @ItsMeLucy pointed out, you’ve brought this up in thread after thread, and the moderators have repeatedly closed down those threads since they were no longer helpful.
iNat already asks for donations, and people who are enthusiastic about the site donate to it because they think it’s valuable, y’know, just like how you keep talking about people donating to show they value something. That’s already happening, but it just doesn’t involve ranking anything.
You have ideas, and you’re enthusiastic about them, and I’m sure there is a place for those ideas, but your threads about them have already been closed down over and over again, and I don’t know about you, but I’d take that as a pretty strong hint that they’re not going to be implemented.
And as for this:
I think this is very much a matter of opinion, and in my opinion, I think society needs to place more value on taking breaks and prioritising your own health instead of romanticising sacrificing your own wellbeing to achieve something productive at all costs. I don’t inherently enjoy any of the things listed here; they just make me concerned for that person
2 Likes
Just a heads-up, I’ve silenced epiphyte78 for continuing to not contribute to constructive discussions and basically sealioning here on the forum, and they continued to do so after a direct warning and after having several threads closed for doing basically this.
I’m going to set this thread to close in an hour.
10 Likes
Wow, I learned something new. Never heard of sea-lioning. Seems to be a form of energy vampirism.
I happen to really like sea lions.
7 Likes
So are you saying that in an irl plant society you would petition drastic changes to the organization at every meeting but disguise it by titling the agenda item differently each time and none of the other attendees of the meeting would have the slightest complaint?
Additionally, none of the content in this message is actually responding to @ItsMeLucy 's , you seem to read but maybe not comprehend beyond digging your own hole and repeating what you have already said.
4 Likes
I was about to say the same. It’s a shame, though, that sealions are maligned in this way. Figging might be a better term.
6 Likes
I noticed this with his replies to my messages too. He kind of sidesteps answering the questions to and repeats the same thing over and over but just with different phrasing or analogies
2 Likes
Yes, that’s basically what sealioning is.
3 Likes
That’s what I figured. It’s a shame it couldn’t have been a productive conversation, but here we are I guess
2 Likes
All good, you’re welcome to start a new topic about the subject.
3 Likes
This topic was automatically closed after 60 minutes. New replies are no longer allowed.