Q1 I’ve created a number of projects in iNaturalist to help with the development of species lists for insects such as Lepidoptera. In the past I added updates through the journal section and linked to reports I uploaded to ResearchGate ‘projects’ but they discontinued this function. Is there another way to link to project reports to citizen science initiatives like these as this is not a feature that currently exists in iNaturalists?
Q2 How do we encourage more folks to join, contribute and participate in projects?
To get people to contribute to your projects, you need to spread the word. Write messages to people who frequently observe the kinds of species you are looking for. Or add a link to your project in the comments of the kinds of observations that would fit. Or, look for the observations that would fit and add them to your projects. Or…any other ideas to let people know that your project exists. You should also explain on the project page why the work is important and what you plan to do with the data.
I believe mothmaniac meant that ResearchGate has discontinued its “projects” option, which is where they were posting PDFs, etc. describing the results of the iNaturalist projects. Is there a way to upload PDFs to journal posts?
no, there’s not. You have to host it somewhere else, perhaps on something like Google Drive or OneDrive, and you can link to it in an iNat journal post.
One small step: Create a “journal” entry (here on iNat) which lists the projects (function as an index) and link it from your profile page. List the projects – maybe organize them geographically – and include descriptions. You might want to include projects which are adjacent to those which you created, e.g. other regional Lepidoptera projects. If you find yourself IDing a user with a bunch of images that fit, include a comment with one of your IDs that mentions the project(s) and include the journal link so they can read more about it.