Why does forum require a separate account?

Just curious as to why users must activate / create a separate account to use the forum rather than just using the forum from within iNaturalist and using our same user account on iNaturalist. The on-boarding process to access and add forum posts was cumbersome. Any clarity?

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You can just log in here with your iNat account though, but forum is on a separate platform.

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Many thanks @fffffffff - are there forum discussions specific to specific iNat projects?

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You can use search function to see if partial theme was discussed, but yeah, you can totally discuss projects here!

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Welcome to the Forum!
What @fffffffff said. This forum is on a different website/platform from iNat. The only rule I know about is that it is NOT a place to ask about ID’s. The curators may shift the content to a different category, but most iNat questions are fair game.

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Hi Greg - iNat used to use Google Groups and you can read some of the reasons for switching to the Discourse platform here https://groups.google.com/g/inaturalist/c/wYoffcaId50/m/k-eoSWFQDwAJ and here https://groups.google.com/g/inaturalist/c/72l44kifzsM/m/7-OLse_YAAAJ

And as far as why it’s not fully integrated into the website, I assume due to a cost-benefit analysis of using a ready-made product (Discourse) vs. investing the time to develop all of that in-house with a small staff.

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