Thank you for this comment!
(If only there was a ‘
’ or ’ 
’ feature on the iNaturalist platform…)
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Ok, I just looked at a few examples, and it seems that I also added an observation field in most (all?) cases. This was because when I was downloading data via the web interface, I couldn’t get the annotations, so I had to add a corresponding/linked observation field for the life stage annotation. When you add the insect life stage field, it automatically sets the life stage annotation at the same time (at least it used to). Now that I’m using the API, I can access the life stage annotation, so I only use the Insect Life Stage field to override incorrect life stage annotations.
So I guess because I was setting the Life Stage field as a workaround for a problem with the annotation, that’s why I’m now registered as following hundreds of old observations (and getting nuisance notifications as a result). It’s good to know that the annotations won’t result in nuisance notifications. I’ll try to remember to limit my use of fields (since it appears that they do register me as following the observations to which I add them).
That’s for favoriting an observation, not to thank identifiers/commenters intervening on your observation.
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Uhm, how much money would you be willing to bet? Because actually I think you’ve just lost… meet me, a “strident” (?) defender of my treasured freedom to be able to add the odd “pointless” comment now and then. And I do actually do my share of “heavy lifting” (although admittedly not as much as some), so believe me, I’m well aware of the consequences. I have NEVER complained that my observations languish unidentified and I’m always profoundly grateful if any IDer, whether top or not, answers my (very sparing) tags, even if I have to wait a year.
Anyway, on a slight, but relevant, tangent, I’m sure anyone who gets abundant notifications will absolutely agree that…
Absolutely yes, it’s a real problem and a big deterrent to would-be IDers. But luckily we don’t have to rely on iNat’s native notification system, thanks to @pisum’s excellent Notifications Web Viewer extension. This makes scrolling down to pick out relevant and/or interesting comments VERY quick and easy, even when dealing with hundreds of notifications at a time. I don’t know what I’d do without it… probably I would have stopped IDing a while ago. Of course we all dream of the day when iNat’s own notification system is given a good workover, but in the meantime my heartfelt thanks go to @pisum just about every time I open iNat.
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I did qualify my statement with the word “most”. A single counter example doesn’t necessarily refute the generalization.
Thanks for the tip on the notification viewer. I may look into it. I’ve already installed the “Universal Metadata Tool”, and it helps with annotation (as well as certain other tasks), but I have to re-install it every time Firefox gets updated, so I’m hesitant to go down the rabbit hole on another add-on. It’s a shame we have to resort to all these work-arounds to lessen the burden of what is necessary work.
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Oh, I didn’t know you could do that! How would I find that again, short of bookmarking that link (and then promptly losing the bookmark?)
I can’t find it anywhere on the website or my dashboard.
Interesting diversity of opinions. Unfortunately, we can’t know how welcome a comment about picture quality or gratitude, etc., will be. Whatever we do, we will annoy or fail to encourage some observers.
Scale matters here. As several people have mentioned, being thanked or complimented often would cause our notifications to be even more overwhelming than they already are. It also makes each thank you or compliment less valuable, even for those who like them. However, the occasional such comment can make nearly all of us smile (or at least feel less like we’re throwing rocks in the ocean) and for some it can be really encouraging.
My conclusion? “Don’t thank or compliment” is wrong. “Thank and compliment a lot more” is also wrong. So do these things rarely to keep their value high and their annoyance factor low, but do them once in a while.
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In conclusion, there’s no more commenting for a reason, which makes those existing more meaningful and nicer to receive.
It seems natural than unless there’s a way to filter ID notifications from other notifications, it just end up being some spam (albeit a nice one).
When I get a comment is (almost) always related to an identifying tip, and that’s gold for me. I rarely receive comments on my observations, so I can’t complaint, and when IDing unknowns I enjoy them but I’m glad they’re not a lot of them.
I have never considered iNat app as a social platform actually, for that I use the forum. I actually wouldn’t want iNat to become something like instagram.
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From where I sit, I can’t see any menu item that goes to comments. In the 11 years (next week) that I have been using iNat, I have found that keeping and organizing bookmarks have been foundational to my navigating at ease - that and knowing how to search the forum and if anything bookmark How to use iNaturalist’s Search URLs - wiki part 1 of 2 . All this said, finding Comments is as easy as taking your preferred affiliate, mine is both inaturalist.org and inaturalist.ca and adding /comments to it in the URL space such as inaturalist.ca/comments Hey Presto. Commit comments to memory if you don’t like to bookmark.
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Personally, I love getting comments, no matter how trivial. I even like the mildly irritated ones I sometimes get when I disagree with someone’s observation (exciting!).
When identifying I’ll often add a comment to the ID if I can do it in a few words (e.g. “opposite leaves,” or “serrated margins”), or if I’m disagreeing and the reason isn’t what I would consider immediately obvious.
I’ve seen it expressed on the forum that they don’t make comments because the vast majority of observers don’t seem to care about how something is identified, but I like to think about my comments as being not exclusively for that one observer, but for anyone in the iNat community who comes across that observation in the future.
I tend to only thank identifiers if I’ve @ mentioned them (which I don’t do all that often), or if they’ve bumped a too-bold ID of mine to a broader taxonomic level (because I know that’s a mostly thankless task and I want them to know I appreciate it and will try to learn from it). If someone comments something like “nice pic!” I tend not to say thanks, even though I am very thankful—comments like that really brighten my day!
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Roadside ditches of cultivated land, unkept verges and unused urban blocks are often the last refuge of native vegetation, holding on to their former teritory.
I visited revegetated reserves where along the road leading to it there was greater diversity than in the reserve.
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I really can’t recommend it enough. I honestly don’t think I could cope with the notifications without it. Do give it a try, for me it was an absolute game changer. I’ve never used it with Firefox, but with Chrome, it has never given me any problems even after updating. You’re absolutely right it is a great shame we have to resort to these third party extensions, but I have to say that after a while I completely forget it isn’t an integral part of iNaturalist until someone reminds me!
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To my mind, this is completely different from the “nice pic” or “thanks for the ID” type comments. Justifying an ID (though not always necessary) is often helpful. I often provide this kind of comment along with a disagreeing ID, especially if I recognize the observer (vs others who may be extreme casual users and may never see whatever comment I provide). If I provide a long/detailed explanation regarding an ID, and someone thanks me, that’s fine. But I don’t need to be thanked for the hundreds of IDs I might provide in a single day.
I would say that “thank you” type comments are appropriate in circumstances where one has asked a user to do something (eg. double check a date/location, provide additional photos, or clarify some other piece of information). If the user actually responds, it behooves us to acknowledge their extra effort.
In short, I’m not against comments per se. Just the pointless chatter. Of course, opinions will vary on what constitutes “pointless chatter”.
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It’s rare to receive any comments on my observations, but when I do it really feels good and it’s meaningful to me.
Yesterday I got one, and it meant a lot as it came from someone who spends time around here IDing tracks and signs of mammals and we know how hard it can be without a proper documentation…
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/342462875
So, yes, for me a comment acknowledging the observer care on the observation is something I do like from time to time.
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That’s a good distinction to make.
I imagine one’s patience for non-informative comments depends on how many people in your ID taxon/area are inveterate thankers. There’s one person whose observations I’ve IDed a handful of times that will always @ mention me with just a thank you—if there were many people, or if it were for someone who posts more regularly, I can see that getting old pretty fast.
I guess I just like (or at least don’t find annoying) any sign that I’m not just an identi-bot IDing observations that the observer just picked the first CV suggestion for and will never look at again. But I probably also don’t ID/observe enough that I’m ever swamped with frivolous notifications.
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as bob says - I remember to forward slash comments (and Chrome remembers that I wanted MY comments last time … I initially found the link via a forum post, which is my usual How Do I source.
For those who like to give and receive comments - here are 4.5K obs - with 2 good reasons to comment.
- Low Growth Countries (@bobmcd 's project) Less than 1% of iNat per country.
- Acounts created within the last week - our tiny window of opportunity to welcome newbies. Give them someone to ask … and our chance to catch mistakes (please split multiple sp, missing date / location / picture)
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?project_id=123926&user_after=1w&place_id=any
You can add your preferred location (but from the low growth places!) and / or taxon etc as filters to that URL.
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I think of something like that as providing useful feedback. I always wonder if the angles I take help with the ID for taxa that I don’t know.
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True and for disagreeing identifications need some sort of comment explaining why. I am not good at this myself but thank you for mention this as iNat is a community based platform.
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I can understand how this happens but it hasn’t been my experience. I’ve done 10K IDs in the last 12 months and most days I don’t get very many notifications at all except for my own observations being ID’d