The best thing is how iNat makes my lists of species organized and searchable. I don’t have to maintain field notes for thousands of moth species, or collect them to remember they were out that night. If I want to see the nights I saw X species, it is so simple to find that information. Plus it is great that you can do the same for observations for any taxonomic level, and easily find them to provide ID’s. The filters are the most useful feature to allow you to exclude curated taxa and just look at the stuff you still need to attach names to.
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I’d say that even within more dense areas, there’s definitely room to add more dots. Especially when you think about particular groups of organisms.
I live near iNaturalist hotspot, but just north of it, and in my particular area there’s not too many plant-oriented observers. I enjoy the little discoveries, when I find that uncommon/rarer species in my area that no one has noticed before ;)
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I think that’s because you have to be a certain person to fit into iNat.
Identifying is a voluntary thing, not something that you get paid for or something required, so it is, at its core, helping other people.
Persistent observers tend to be curious people - they want to know what plant or insect this is. In fact, that’s probably one of the reasons some of them joined iNat in the first place! Curious people are people who want to learn, not make beef with others.
Most importantly, you have to be humble and accept when you are wrong. iNat is a community. You shouldn’t hold a grudge against someone because they disagreed with your ID. I’ll admit—as proud as I am with my identification skills and knowledge, I still accept that I don’t know everything, and that I make mistakes. When someone adds a disagreeing ID, I see that as an opportunity to learn, regardless of whether I am right or wrong.
Of course, it also helps that we probably all enjoy nature and enjoying nature tends to keep people happy :)
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Thanks for all of the wonderful comments, everyone. I tend to deal most often with the parts of iNat that aren’t so pretty (which isn’t too much, really!) and it’s really nice to hear about the positive effects iNat has had on people. We at iNat are extremely privileged and lucky to have a community that is so supportive and helpful. It really is about the people as much as it’s about slime molds, birds, and parasites.
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You and all the staff do a wonderful job making this a great place to use - thank you so much!
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For sure this is part of it - I think curious nature-lovers are generally a pretty nice bunch of people overall! But it is also due in large part to the hard work of @tiwane and all the volunteer curators who undertake moderation and very quickly deal with anyone who is being uncivil. I really appreciate how quickly the rare abusive individuals I encounter get handled.
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Everything!
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I joined originally to help learn what I’m seeing when I’m off running around. The community has been a huge cherry on the cake. I was always bullied growing up because what girl runs around chasing bugs and weird things in the mud or creek? Girls aren’t supposed to like snakes and creepy crawlies. I’ve since stopped hiding that I’m weird and now embrace it and have real life friends as weird as me and then even some who are not into it but are curious about what I’m doing and have even joined me a couple times. It is nice to know I’m not alone and that other people are just as excited about the amazing world around them as I am.
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I was lucky enough to have 3 brothers, so trying to catch dobsonfly larvae and centipedes was “normal” in my childhood… but yeah, I never had very many other girls as friends either. I recall inviting some girls from school to the beach once, and being extremely disappointed they weren’t willing to partake in a dead-jellyfish-fight, even though the beach was covered in a bounty of gooey blobs. They wouldn’t even poke them apart with sticks, and said I was weird. It was very sad.
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Haha this just reminded me - I used to collect old cicada exuviae off of trees. Obsessively. And when I was about 9, I was very annoyed by some bratty kindergarteners who were always messing with my stuff at school - we didn’t have lockers, just open cubbies, so there was no way to keep them out.
So I got a nice little wooden box with a latch, filled it with those, and told them that the box had “important secrets” and they were not to open it under any circumstances. I barely even left the room before the terrified screaming started, it was beautiful.
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Thank you! You do. a great job.
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I LOVE those types of moments!
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Yes, of course! At this point, they’re doing their job so well that I almost take their work for granted—thanks for bringing that up 
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That’s exactly what I was going for! We focus so much on the negative stuff. It’s always good to take a step back and look at what we’ve accomplished ;-) And thank you so much—you and the rest of the staff— for all those behind-the-scenes things that make this site what it is now.
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I still do that. I have bones and fossils and wet specimens everywhere in my home.
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I didn’t have many friends at all. As I got older I did, boys mostly. Girls still think its weird. Most of my friends actually are about 20 years older than me.
I would have loved going to the beach, although I might not have done the dead jelly fight I would have been inspecting them all with you. Trying to find the one that was different than the others.
Same here, ie not many friends and those I had when I got older were mostly male because they were more interested in nature and less, “ewwww” about it. And I hated/still hate shopping. Generalities I know as there are plenty of women on iNat who aren’t afraid of or disgusted by nature, which is a good thing. Hopefully things have changed with younger folks and an interest in the natural world around us is growing in everyone. At least I hope so.
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I love it as a fantastic place to learn, especially reef fish species that are tricky to ID (I’m looking at you, Acanthuridae, Scaridae and Pomacentridae!). Having a convenient place to store photos of all the stuff I’ve seen is fantastic too. I also love being able to take a photo of organisms I know nothing about (insects, spiders and herps especially) and be able to get an ID on it. The people are just wonderful too!
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I starting iNat to identify wildflowers I would see while hiking. I struggled to use field guides because they were too technical for me and I would get thrown of by a minor detail and go down the wrong rabbit hole.
I now hike to see the wildflowers. I will want to go visit a favorite that should be blooming or see if I can find something new.
I recently started identifying more, which has greatly expanded my desire to learn even more. Unknowns are a gateway drug!
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