My main concern is about consistency. 1) in messaging 2) in policy/ protocol 3) in enforcement/ application
As evidenced (pun partially intended) by the many embarrassing questions I ask here, I am someone who has been on the site fewer than two years, am trying to be helpful and a valuable community member as I learn more but struggle with not being a professionally trained research (hard, social doesn’t count here I think) scientist nor a computer-savvy person who can understand half of what you very experienced folks discuss here. I imagine if I’m having these questions other people might be as well and asking them will possibly benefit the community even if I annoy folks along the way.
Evidence is a driver of everything on iNat, as there would be no data without some evidence, however it may be defined. I think then, that all efforts to engage an audience and active user base, in keeping with the site’s stated mission, should be made which include removing or clarifying conflicting information, (or making it really clear that there is a lot of subjectivity in the appearance of conflicting information) and a clearer path to become a more integral part of the community (which can be defined more broadly elsewhere) in a way that perhaps minimizes some of what I see as mistakes that can be mitigated with the aforementioned improved messaging. e.g.: I feel awful when I learn I thought I was doing something helpful but may instead, have been disseminating incorrect information with unknown consequences.
yes. essentially. I’ve been told that because of a blurry photo (regardless of evidence that I can make an ID, provision of supporting information, field marks, etc.) something wasn’t going to be able to be IDed past a certain point. If I were to have instead drawn a picture of what I saw and that could become research grade then that is incredibly confusing. I am neither in favor nor opposed to using illustrations, I just think that consistency is something that would keep me coming back and probably others enjoy it too.
I’ll end by saying that my overall involvement and comments here and elsewhere are driven primarily by an overwhelming horror at what has happened to global biodiversity, a desire to proactively contribute to the work of others through my interaction with the natural world and data collection to protect what we have left and mitigate as much future disaster as possible and to do so with a sense of urgency I feel is generally lacking among our species. Thanks.