What can iNaturalist do to better support people of color?

[Star3]

@pisum

but i suppose you could make a system that (also) captures observed injustices and cruelties. if you could systematically classify, catalog, and map such injustices, that might be a powerful tool to inform public discourse and policy. black kids getting harassed at a street corner by cops might never make it to the news, but maybe a cluster of 5 or 50 such observations recorded for all to see might help to advance the conversation?

I think I remember hearing there was a site like that for street harassment and catcalls a few years ago (either pre #metoo or around the same time), so it could be done.

[pisum]

@Star3

I think I remember hearing there was a site like that for street harassment and catcalls

probably this: https://www.ihollaback.org/. i tried to look up some stores on the website. it’s a little clunky. a lot of the stories in my area lead to broken links. better than nothing right now, but it could be amazing with a little love, i think. i think if someone really fixed this up and increased usership and awareness and then came over to iNaturalist and said, hey, give me a job, it would not be a difficult hire.

[Star3]

Like having a cache of cameras people could use while in the field/foraging in an area without internet connectivity and also an “upload station” (library/civic center/cafe/etc with a free to use computer with a connection to the iNat website) that people could come to later to post the data?

[Star3]

@questagame

But at the moment the iNaturalist system is designed so they must each individually join iNaturalist. Why? How does that help?

The advantage I see is being able to engage with the observer.

In the past, if I wanted to ask a question on a questagame observation (e.g. “do you want this observation to be for the flower or the insect?”), I would never get a reply.

I don’t know if they just didn’t want to talk to me (that’s valid, there are times I wouldn’t want to talk to me ) or if there was simply no method of routing my comment to the user and then the user’s reply back to the observation.

[alecc]

I, for one, as a member of the community interested in real answers to the posted topic question, am beyond irritated at this point that you, Andrew, have hijacked an extremely important thread to air what are largely your own personal grievances with the site. You’ve buried a handful of legitimate points in an avalanche of discussion irrelevant to the point of this one specific forum thread. I hope mods will again choose to move these off-topic posts to their own space. Call me cynical, but in a thread specifically, explicitly, and earnestly soliciting constructive solutions for BIPOC under-representation on and within iNaturalist, the majority of the words you have added to this conversation don’t seem centered around that goal. You clearly have an axe to grind, and I would respectfully ask not that you stop trying to grind it, but that you start grinding it in a separate, more appropriate space. Thank you.

[mira_l_b]

Everyone:

Please remember we are all on an international forum and the question is about support for more than Americans and more than “American issues.” Please explain U.S.-centric terminology when used and provide context for folks not in the U.S.

Also, please remember than none of us can be sure without meeting each other, the circumstances of other people’s lives, presentations, identities, struggles/traumas, socio-economic circumstances, levels of awareness and activism stance and that we don’t make assumptions about people except to assume they mean well both on the forum and main site.

[Star3]

@questagame

There’s something amiss when governments give money to an Institution to run a citizen science project, which supports an academic department for all their data science, but the on-the-ground providers of the data get nothing.

I could see where a case can be made that it’s exploitative to have the user base as unpaid interns, doing the field work for CAS, if iNat hadn’t repeatedly posted that data collection is a secondary function of the site (supported by the lack of rigor and/or prerequisites in observations, and in who can post or ID), and the main purpose is to connect people with nature. Unless you think CAS is using iNat to fulfill public engagement initiatives, I don’t really see how this comes into play?

[Star3]

@simono

Not wanting to gripe about it…but I’ve spoken to local representatives of the state dept responsible for environmental protection and parks, which keeps giving me a cookie cutter response to use their state level app to log nature sightings as this is all they will use to make management decisions eyeroll . It appears to have extremely few users, is barely updated and connects to no outside databases like GBIF or Atlas of Living Australia.

Do they have a public social media presence? Over here, many government agencies do, and it’s harder for them to shunt you off to the side if you post publically on their Facebook or Twitter and a lot of people start upvoting or adding to your comment.

[cmcheatle]

@questagame

There’s something amiss when governments give money to an Institution to run a citizen science project, which supports an academic department for all their data science, but the on-the-ground providers of the data get nothing.

With the possible exception of students being forced by their instructors, every person who contributes to the site is voluntarily doing so. Suggesting that remuneration should be made is a model that you may wish to pursue for your platform, but I don’t see it as appropriate for this one.

[carrieseltzer]

Thanks everyone. We’re working on a summary of the suggestions so far, and for readability we’ll move some posts to separate threads.

[fffffffff]

I don’t know how things are working in Australia, but here I know people who are getting grants from the goverment (or commercial organisations) for receiving, accumulation and work with data on iNat, I suppose the same can be done in other coutries, e.g. if you want to research biodivercity of the territory, you can spend those grant money to pay those who gather information.

[charlie]

well, from the standpoint of both an applied ecologist by career and an amateur observer of other nature stuff outside of my area of expertise… iNat offers a free mapping platform equivalent to other platforms which are quite expensive and honestly, don’t work as well. I don’t see participating in open data as a form of manipulation in the same was as unpaid internships for ‘exposure’, etc. In fact, to me iNat provides a lot of value that DOES translate to monetary-type value. And… I do plant IDs because I LIKE doing so (albeit less frequently lately due to being really busy), and because i want to participate in the community and be a participant in the data.

There are a LOT of obstacles to POC and other marginalized groups in science, ecology, etc… and iNat actually has less in the way of gatekeeping than any other similar platform I know of. That isn’t to say we couldn’t and shouldn’t do more. But again, this is a community-based effort so in addition to challenging iNat and the CAS to make any changes… WE need to make changes.

As such if anyone has a project or a location where marginalzied people are using iNat, and if it falls within my area of expertise (mostly plant ID the US and southern Canada), let me know and I will add you to my plant ID watch list or create a new one. Someone could make a collection project type thing, that could be valuable.

[eric_hunt]

My takeaway from Andrew’s comment is that due to our privilege as white people in an economy designed for and by white people, we have the ability spend time on hobbies such as citizen science projects without concern for making money to survive. It’s a concept that needs thinking about for sure.

[fffffffff]

That is a certain fact which goes far beyond race itself, just yesterday I saw a post of how different regions of Russia contribute less iNat and GBIF data if their economy levels are lower, so basically any person that has to struggle more has less time for iNat and probably there’s a gap in knowledge of iNat existence that also comes from lack of free time because of work or other reasons.

[sgene]

@eric_hunt

we have the ability spend time on hobbies such as citizen science projects without concern for making money to survive. It’s a concept that needs thinking about for sure.

Another thing that needs thinking about is whether marginalized people being paid for collecting data are being taken advantage of by having limited bargaining power. After reading everything here, that would be my main concern about “combining” iNaturalist with any other system.

[charlie]

@eric_hunt

due to our privilege as white people in an economy designed for and by white people, we have the ability spend time on hobbies such as citizen science projects without concern for making money to survive. It’s a concept that needs thinking about for sure.

I agree that this is absolutely an issue, we run into this also with lack of diversity in the ecology field as the field has various barriers to entry and if you aren’t at least somewhat well-off it’s really hard to find your way into the field. That being said i am not sure what iNat specifically can do about this other than what it is already doing (giving away a free platform to collect data and offering ID help)… otherwise, it just turns into a generic ‘tear down the broken system’ comment which i don’t disagree with but doubt we can hash out in this thread.

[sgene]

@eric_hunt

I’m REALLY trying my hardest to extract big picture ideas that are worthy of discussion from the actual reality of Questagame’s business model.

Me, too. I’m struggling to figure out what the issues in general are about group accounts–whether they would be more inclusive in general and why, and whether there are ways to have group accounts that still allow communication between all members of a group and the broader community of iNaturalists. I think the last one is just not possible with very large groups.

[DianaStuder]

There is an elephant in the room, a hidden layer of First World Problems on social media (whether it is iNat or FB or …) People on social media have leisure and disposable income beyond survival. Especially now in COVID lockdown, the marginalised who depend on casual work - can’t pay the rent, nothing to eat.

And, California based iNat did appeal for voluntary donations.

[Star3]

I guess they could be more inclusive because users who do have / can afford reliable internet access could upload on behalf of others?

I think group accounts could work for smaller groups (a particular teacher’s classes, local clubs, or perhaps something larger like the reservations mentioned upthread, etc), but as you said there is probably a maximum size limitation.

It probably also is a big headache for copyright, eg. if a user wants to only use their audio, photos or Nature drawings for iNat, but the group wants to sell some images or recordings for fundraising.

[sgene]

@eric_hunt

what changes iNat could make to improve access in communities who do not follow the eurocentric way of doing science (individual contributors, no anonymity, no communal participation) are very compelling and I feel they deserve a public airing.

Why not bring each of these up in the topic asking how iNaturalist can improve to be more inclusive, and explain how you think each is important, and how specific changes to iNaturalist would result in it being more inclusive? I would be interested in reading your opinions on those particular issues.