Indigenous knowledge about the use of fire, in Australia (and the USA?) is slowly and painfully being recognised.
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To some extent in the USA. At least along the West Coast. That said, after years of unnatural fire supression without proper fuel reduction, weâre probably beyond what can be solved by forest management alone, indigenous or otherwise (at least with the level of resources we allocate for it now). Devastating fires have become pretty much unavoidable yearly catastrophes.
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We have just had - a fire that destroyed the library at the University of Cape Town. Blamed partly on unmanaged invasive alien pine trees, bonus points for tall palms.
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Having âupperâ academic training is no measure of someoneâs expertise, and never should be the defining characteristic of what an expert is. On the other hand, people with advanced education are probably statistically more likely to be experts. Thatâs something that was probably more the case 20, 30+ years ago when citizen science and accessible literature was more of a problem.
A lot of researchers and taxonomists these days, the people publishing species revisions and studying those species, are hobbyists. They do it in their free time because there is no job that encompasses that role. Additionally, a lot of necessarily field skills are not taught in the classroom so thatâs where âamateurâ and âuntrainedâ experts become valuable.
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That may be true in botany, perhaps entomology. I donât know. Most of the vertebrate species revisions Iâm aware of are by academics, including grad students doing dissertations and masterâs theses. The genomics labs are pretty much at universities.
How can we address the problem of gatekeeping? For instance, in order to validate your Google Scholar account, you need to provide an institutional email address, different from your personal one. This excludes those who may have published peer-reviewed articles, but are not affiliated with a research institution.
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As a counter-example, Iâm both old, smart, and hairy.
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iNat is not about discussing lack of expertise elsewhere⌠the only time expertise should come up in iNat is between two individuals that mutually respect each other, where the one acknowledges the other as being more knowledgeable on a given matter. Even the top arachnologist could defer to a member of the general public if it is a matter that the general public has first hand experience with. We see this in the literature to a degree, where the âexpertâ writing the paper refers to behaviours observed in the field by a collector. While the expert has more knowledge across the subject, someone else can have far greater knowledge of a subset of that subject. How on earth would you hope to quantify that in any sort of metric?
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This to me is the heart of what makes iNat so special, and I think it is getting lost. Too often qualifications or âexpertiseâ are used to shut down a challenge. âI am an expert, so what I say is rightâ. Or âthe experts agree with me, so I must be rightâ. Or âI donât want to agree with you, regardless of how logical your reason is, so Iâll defer to this expertâ
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Do you mean, given a second lifetime?
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I might be mis-reading you, but if âmeasuring expertiseâ is where iNat is going, or even contemplating going, then I am out. If that direction benefits iNat, then iNat will be richer without me. I joined iNat to accomplish a task, task accomplished⌠but I stuck around because I liked the âwe are all equalsâ approach the CID system brings. If some are going to be measured as âmore equal than othersâ then it no longer appealsâŚ
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Weâre equal in ids but never equal in our knowledge of specific groups, itâs impossible and not needed.
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I accept them, because they are there. I would not care if they werenât. The fact that they are there has me wanting to try and use them in what I feel is a practical way, such as⌠when my IDs are more than 3x my observations, I judge myself as needing to get off my computer more and get out and observe more. That is all they mean to me⌠Of more interest, is how long has someone been in iNat, and how communicative are they⌠if that makes sense. Someone who engages in a conversation, is far more value than someone who does not. And they can have 50000 IDs or obs, and be a bad communicator, or they could have 5 IDs or obs, and be a terrific conversant⌠that is where I would put value in a metric⌠In fact, I find that where I do engage with a ânew userâ in that 1:1 equal way, then they often go on to make far more IDs, more obs, and just get more involved with iNat⌠but that is purely subjective, just my impression. Perhaps it is just wishful thinking that I âhave that effectâ?!
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With the explicit disagreements modal worded the way it currently is, then that is not quite so. It is being used to âcancelâ or negate the effect of some IDs without justification, on the premise that they are âover-reachâ despite there being identifiers who are asserting confidence in their finer IDs. I know this is happening still, even though it has been nearly 2 years since it was first raised as a problem, because it has happened to me in the last few weeks.
My issue with knowledge of specific groups is that you can have someone, say, expert in all mygals, but then someone with expertise of the mygals just from one geographic place could have much greater certainty over an ID at species level IN THAT PLACE.
@odole
The assertion you seem to be making is that we need a metric on how expert everyone is, but I am saying we donât. We donât have a weighting system in iNat, and yet the âNZ spider communityâ have been working with each other for quite a few years. We have all pretty much figured out who each other is⌠just through interaction with each other! If we had a weighting system, then everyone would know that Cor is the expert, and I am just a hack that has looked a few things up in the books. I wouldnât be involved in the âspider communityâ on that basis⌠it is precisely because as a new user I have to LEARN who are the experts (through interaction) that I have become part of the community. Otherwise, I just submit my spider obs, I get my ID (maybe⌠because the spider âexpertsâ are loathe to put an ID if they donât have spider in hand to examine under the microscope), and I move on. Because I donât know who the âexpertsâ are when I am new, I interact with everyone as if they are true equals in that respect. I make IDs without being afraid of being wrong in front of the experts, and they communicate with me about why they think I am wrong, and over time I build up a picture of who knows what. Before you know it, people are calling me the expert, and tagging me on observations!
I have learnt a great deal about spiders in my time in iNat. I have also learnt a lot about plants and moths, but I gravitate to spiders because the literature is very easy to access. I get tagged in on observations from North America or Europe of spiders in family groups that occur here in New Zealand, and of course I only have knowledge of this particular geographic location. Often, even though I am top 10 in that family or genus, I canât actually help much if it is North America! But even that can be helpful in building community⌠because I get to look at observations that I wouldnât otherwise look at, and I get to see the conversations that take place on those obs, and I start to learn who are the experts in those areas⌠through engagement⌠not through any leaderboard or expertise grade etc.
The leaderboards are not a measure of expertise. They do however have a role to play in how community builds in iNat.
and as for comments leaderboards? I just donât care. I can find who the top commenters are by url hacks. I can set a filter and then order it by number of comments. or favs⌠Iâm not talking about who talks the most, I am talking about who talks WITH ME the most! And I know that from first hand experience! And I donât just mean number of comments, or number of words⌠I mean substantive⌠When an âexpertâ comments with a link to a very relevant paper, that might only be a couple of lines, but that is âworth moreâ than 15 pages of discussion about how the spider looks like a smiley bird poop!
[edit: but I do enjoy the conversations about the smiley bird poop, it too goes a long way to buidling community!]
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No. I am not arguing that at all. I am saying that those âleaderboardsâ exist⌠and as a person who wants to âgive backâ as much as he receives, I made it my objective early on to ID at a level 3x what my obs # was. This solely on the basis that it takes 2 IDs to make RG, and count an extra one for all the obs that donât get two IDs⌠so 3 IDs per obs and Iâm âpulling my weightâ or âpaying my wayâ, so to speak. I initially picked on the âlow hanging fruitsâ⌠the kereru, the sparrows (until I learnt there were many more âsmall birdsâ than just sparrows!) and the spur winged plovers⌠and the more I wanted to âobserveâ, the more I found I needed to learn in order to keep up that 3:1 ratio. Fast forward to post covid, and I am now in the reverse situation⌠I need reasons to get out and make observations more, it is too easy to hide inside and make IDs all day. So now I use the SAME metric the other way around, and NOT as a measure of expertise AT ALL! At best, I might use it as a measure of how passionate an identifier or observer is⌠or just as a metric of whether they are âindoors book typesâ, or âbackcountry hiking typesâ⌠and even then, it is a superficial initial judgement unbtil such time as I can form a REAL impression of them through DIRECT INTERACTION.
I am emphasising with capitals on a lot of this, because I think iNat is very much about the building of community, not about the measuring of the communityâs expertise.
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Iâve activated Slow Mode to encourage this conversation to include more and more calm voices.
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What I would value and use - would be a clearly accessible link to search comments ⌠for that one where they explained about Anaxeton laeve versus arborescens. But the leaderboard I scan for names that are already familiar to me because we have a history of communication. I rank the leaderboard for me, from my iNat experience.
If the taxon is unfamiliar to me, but interesting, then I will fave or follow, and see how the ID unfolds.
If the person is new to me, I will scan their obs and IDs, then decide where I would rank them for myself.
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There is actually an easy metric for detecting experts! Anyone giving a talk on something while 500+ miles from home is an expert.
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Itâs a little ambiguous in entomology because a lot of the work is done by people who have PhDs in systematics, or through the dissertations of those people, but who donât have full-time jobs doing it (they either have non-academic jobs, or academic ones doing other things). I constantly hear people say âoh, this revision would be perfect for a grad studentâ without any consideration of what that student is going to do after they finish.
No you donât, I verified mine with my website email address because my university one will be lost if I change positions. I donât think that really means anything anyway, it just keeps there from being multiple profiles. Many big researchers I know donât have a profile at all (which is kind of annoying when itâs a common name).
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I really do think you are missing my point.
First of all, I said âI donât careâ. As in ME. That doesnât even reference the newcomers at all. I am simply replying to your assertion that I want a leaderboard for comments. I donât. period.
And for what itâs worth, I donât think newcomers need one either. They donât need to know who the âtalkersâ are, they will find them out by talking with people. What they need is every encouragement to strike up a conversation at every opportunity. And to stick around and be part of more conversations. By creating a âleaderboardâ for talkers, then all we do is encourage them to ignore the less-talkative ones and focus on starting conversations with those that are ALREADY TALKING! Maybe you could create the leaderboard and put the least talkers at the top!
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