I think this means I haven’t made a compelling enough argument!
I grew up in south central Pennsylvania, not far from a crossroads of Americana, namely, where the Appalachian Trail crosses the Mason-Dixon Line (not far from Gettysburg):
When I walk that section of the trail and crossover from Pennsylvania to Maryland, nothing changes (which is why they need a sign to mark it).
To really appreciate what “home” means ecologically, to understand what’s native vs. introduced, to recognize when an observation is unexpected, I need to migrate my thinking from “Pennsylvania or Maryland” to “Ridge and Valley or Blue Ridge”:
That’s difficult when the site reinforces through visual display an arbitrary boundary that was settled in 1767 by surveyors resolving a land dispute. It’s when I cross those ecoregion lines that I ought to see changes, not the state line.
Learning about things like ecoregions and the effective 100th meridian has been one of the best results of using iNaturalist for me, and I’d like to see all the users on the site learn about them and be able to utilize that knowledge as well.