What is the purpose of journals?

Still semi-ish new to iNat, well a month or so but I still haven’t figured out what people usually use journals for. Does anybody have any idea what they’re for? Should I start using them for something?

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You can use them to write about almost anything you are interested in.

Take a look through my journal posts and that may give you some ideas:

https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/susanhewitt

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My best use has been to give an extended, illustrated explanation of something that I frequently would like to make as a comment. Once the journal post is written, I just add that link to the comment, for example https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/janetwright/46564-the-changeable-life-of-lance-leaf-greenbrier. I wish I had discovered that use earlier.

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Ah, thank you. Nice little feature.

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They are also used to announce/plan bioblitz gatherings and guides/instructions to help folks with species ID
https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/pfau_tarleton.

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The journal can be used for whatever you want. I’ve used mine to talk about some of the Entomologists I’ve worked with, as well as to make guides to identification of some moth species. Like @janetwright I will often link specific entries to a comment.
Some folks don’t use them much at all - Greg Lasley, who died earlier this year, and was a highly respected iNatter, had three journal entries. His knowledge was shared on other platforms. So whatever you do with the Journal is up to you! Here’s a link to mine - mamestraconfigurata’s Journal · iNaturalist.ca

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Most often they’re used by project admins to collect and share statistics data and news or add announcements. As a user you can use them for pretty much everything, just be careful as every journal entry can be seen by anyone.

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