I personally dislike such comments for notification and time sake. I got social media for social media things.
This is a topic I feel so strongly about! I am in favor of leaving “useless” comments on observations. There’s so much negativity in the world, and I love sharing my joy with others because even little things like leaving a “nice photo!” comment can brighten someone’s day. I love it when people leave comments like that on my observations.
However, I do understand the people who say they don’t like comments because of the notifications. It’s valid. This thread is so interesting to read because there are so many mixed opinions.
There is one person who always sends me a thank you comment when I have identified or agreed. And he does the same for everyone, so we all get everyone’s thank you comments. I don’t know how to ask him to stop without hurting his feelings. So I don’t do identifications of his posts any more, which is a shame.
Or more correctly, I don’t do as many ids as I otherwise would. It isn’t an unbreakable rule.
When I started out observing while I was very early into learning plants, a very prolific user commented on one of my observations saying that he liked which angles I got of the plant parts. It was a small but very meaningful thing to me that encouraged me while I really didn’t know what I was doing. I still don’t really, but it definitely encouraged me at the time to take better pictures of each plant and to make more observations. That sort of thing, to me, is worth whatever space it takes up in an inbox. That said, I don’t get all that much in my inbox to begin with.
Couldn’t agree more! It’s the small things like that that matter
After reading this thread, it can be summed that some people who dislike excessive and/or non-scientific notifications are against superficial comments such as praise. Others seem to not mind notifications in moderation, and are for commenting. I myself welcome notifications, as I enjoy the interaction, and thus also enjoy the occasional erroneous compliment or thanks. I also like to put positivity back into the community as an identifier, as you never know when a positive piece of feedback may encourage somebody to continue supplying quality observations and appreciating the world around us, the point of iNaturalist as a social media. It is as much a scientific site as a community platform, and I can understand the folks who dislike being flooded with scientifically worthless comments, though I personally recognize the need for artistic or casual interaction.
I will say that in identifying hundreds of mostly beetles at a time, I come across rarities, unusual observations, phenomenal photos aesthetically, and great photos scientifically, and comment on those, however I don’t have the bandwidth to comment on every (no offense) basic “great” photo, sometimes leaving tracts of observations without comment, which you rightfully recognize as pockets of comment scarcity.
If I want praise for a photo I’ll upload it to one of the threads in Nature Talk. And I do! but I don’t need “great shot” as comment…
noooo I’m not allowed to reply with just an emoji! pretend this is just a laughing emoji
out of curiosity, would you consider “those are the perfect angles for an ID, nice” or similar to be the same sort of comment as “great shot!” or not?
i gotta occasionally drop a ‘cool find!’ or ‘great shot!’ or ‘what a cutie!’ along with an ID, but most of my comments are ID tips or interesting info about the subject of the observation
I agree, I also love to add totally useless stuff to the notes of some of my observations. People can comment anything they want on my observations as long as it isn’t obscene, I love having notifications when I log in
I found this depressing.
A lot of my comments consist of pasting links to provide evidence of why I have made a particular ID.
I’m kinda shocked by how many people don’t want people to compliment their’s or other people’s observations. I don’t really see how they can clutter up notifications enough to be a bore or a waste of time. Personally, I rarely run into these comments on observations, and when I do, I’m happy to see the friendly interaction.
Absolutely, every word 
. I personally would love more interaction with other fellow iNat users. When I see an interesting and/or beautiful organism and post it here on iNat, I don’t do this just to get an ID or for other personal reasons, I do it because I’m sure to be bouncing around like a labrador puppy with enthusiasm and just longing for someone to share it with. The same goes if I’m IDing or just exploring and come across something special. I tend though to rein in my enthusiasm and reluctantly keep it to myself precisely because I fear that many people…
There you are and I absolutely respect this… but what a pity (in my mind), because even a simple exchange that starts with “nice photo” could make someone feel they’re part of a community, then as part of a community, they might take that little bit extra care in the next observation, they might find the courage to start IDing, they might turn out to be the absolutely most fascinating person you’ve ever come across and you’ve just made yourself a friend for life. So many maybes.
I suppose this way it’s more efficient, less “clutter”, but I do feel something’s missing with this clinical, mechanical approach. As I said, there you are… perhaps bouncing labrador puppies actually don’t mind a bit of clutter if it brings a smile to their and/or someone else’s face every now and then.
But it depends on whether an iNatter is not very active, or at least does not make many IDs for others = oh I have a notification, yay !
Or the taxon specialist, or someone doing a taxon sweep = maybe hundreds of notifications in a day - which is then another layer of work to clear. Because I clear obs which are trapped at a broader ID I often come across …
John asks Mary - what beetle is this ? Mary explains it has green striped leggings so it is Green stripy. John says THANKS, but does not withdraw or change his wrong ID. Sigh. Question asked and answered, effective response zero. A mere thanks does not hack it.
The best way to ‘say thank you’ would be to withdraw your ID, so your obs is Needs ID at Green stripy. Even better, if you are confident of stripes, and green - would be to help your identifier with some of those IDs. Proteas - we had 8 pages when I shut down yesterday, now there are 10 - trying to clear a page or 2 a day - but I cannot keep up! PS I am the minion, not the taxon specialist 
2 and a bit on 18 March - running as fast as I can !
Yeah, this is the sort of situation I was thinking of – as opposed to occasionally thanking users who have been particularly helpful with a tricky observation or gone through one’s observations and helped with a bunch of them, which seems to me to be fine, as it is typically part of a more extended interaction and not just empty words.
Once or twice I have, in fact, gently tried to point out to such users that while I appreciate the gesture, if everyone did this for every ID they got, I would quickly be absolutely overwhelmed with notifications (particularly if they also tag me and agree with my ID at the same time, since each of these actions generates a separate notification – meaning that I get up to 3 notifications just because someone wanted to thank me, plus additional notifications again if they also thank people who later ID the observation).
I understand that the intention is to be kind and express appreciation, but honestly, if you want to thank people for their IDs, the best way to do so is by being a good observer and good community member: by making good observations, thinking about the CV suggestions before using them, only agreeing to IDs you can confirm yourself, withdrawing your ID if corrected, and maybe even giving back to the community by learning how to ID some organisms yourself or adding annotations. (Yes, IDers do notice and appreciate these things.)
I’m not sure whether I have been effective at not hurting people’s feelings when pointing this out, but I think one person has stopped doing this so hopefully I didn’t offend them too much.
I think it’s more a dislike of this happening excessively, to the point that the gesture may feel empty and meaningless, like the cashier’s “have a nice day” when you finish your transaction at the supermarket. Cultural and personal attitudes towards small talk also vary.
I don’t think those of use who are critical of the practice are saying, never thank or compliment someone. But the original post was suggesting “normalizing” this – i.e., the idea that this should be a frequent and regular practice. And given other recent forum discussions, some of us may have felt that it was suggesting that we should be making an extra effort to add social-type comments even if we might not otherwise be inclined to do so.
Absolutely not, because it has a meaning. I might even be inclined to ask: “oh thanks, what is it really that you see, which makes the ID possible?” or somthing like that.
It isn’t merely a bore or waste of time. If it were only that, it would be bad enough. But because of shortcomings in the notification system, it can also result in the receiver missing important notifications, because they’re buried in an avalanche of pointless chatter.
If you can’t imagine how this can happen, please allow me to spell it out:
During busy times in the butterfly season, I might ID several hundred of observations every day. At other times, I might add hundreds of annotations in a day to observations that I’m not even particularly interested in.
Now, remember that I’m registered as following all those observations [EDIT: simple annotation may not result in following an observation, but adding an observation field appears to do so]. I must be registered as following tens of thousands of observations right now. That can result in a lot of notifications if folks comment on even a tiny fraction of the total. Lots might be pointless comments, while a few might be important (eg. questions related to the IDs I’ve offered, responses to requests for clarifications, etc.). The notification system on iNat works OK when you’re only getting a few notifications per day, but it gets awkward if you get more than a dozen or so (problems discussed in other threads). When there’s a deluge of ‘nuisance’ notifications, it becomes easy to miss the important ones that might be mixed in.
You may think “oh, how sad that your interaction with iNat is so dull and mechanical”, but that’s the reality for anyone who makes a serious effort at doing identification in a systematic fashion. And unfortunately, most of the identification gets done by a small number of identifiers. So pointless chatter may seem harmless fun to the great majority of iNat users, but it can be discouraging (if not crippling) for the folks who are doing the heavy lifting.
I would bet money that the same folks who most stridently maintain that they should be free to interact in iNat in whatever way they please are the same people who complain bitterly about how long their observations languish unidentified, or that top identifiers don’t respond to their tags. They never connect the dots between what they do with their treasured freedom and the consequences.
just to clarify, adding an annotation to an observation does not register you as following it. If you add an annotation to an observation but don’t interact with it in any other way (adding an ID, comment, etc), you won’t get any notifications for any activity by other users on it.