I am familiar with the topic where more specific bird age annotations were requested, namely to add an “Immature” annotation. Since no implementation seems to be planned, I have been annotating non-egg, non-adult birds (mostly raptors with multiple moult sequences and age classes) as “Juvenile” to include anything from a hatched chick to a bird that has not completed it’s definitive plumage moult. I am aware there is a Bird Age observation field that has been created for more specific classing.
As a result, a certain user disagrees with my annotations and corrects me in comments that the bird is “immature” and not juvenile. I am well aware of this, yet the only official data annotation that exists between Egg and Adult is Juvenile. In bird aging Juvenile may have a different definition, yet on iNaturalist it seems that Juvenile has been applied generally across all taxa to mean “immature” in contrast to Adult being “mature”.
I am at a loss for what to do. I have attempted to communicate with the user a number of times and even consulted other raptor identifiers on the topic. This user ignores all of my attempts to communicate. I also recommend the Observation Field. Is there any official update on the status of Juvenile and what it includes for birds? Is there any official update on if “Immature” is ever intended to be added?
This ignoring behaviour is not limited to annotations- they also seem to ignore me when I disagree with their IDs and it seems they only acknowledge the correction if other users subsequently agree with me. This has been very noticeable, ignoring my entire comment (with research and cited resources) to thank another later user for coming in and supporting/reiterating what I said. This dismissive behaviour has continued for years while I have been active in IDing these taxa. Unfortunately, since we frequent the same taxa and I often need to correct their IDs at Order level discrepancy (thus requiring many users to look at the observation to make it accurate), it is impossible for me to ignore this user and their activity.
Is there anything to do? I know the guidelines suggest to assume the best intentions from other users, but this pattern of being dismissed unless another user repeats/supports what I say (and is thanked for doing so, where I never have been acknowledged) is very disheartening.