Why was this reply by questagame flagged?

[pisum]

@questagame

But at the moment the iNaturalist system is designed so they must each individually join iNaturalist. Why? How does that help?

But what I’m also getting at here is a cultural shift - a way of expanding knowledge exchange so it’s more decentralised.

iNaturalist is not a data aggregator. that’s the function of ALA and GBIF.

nobody has ever said that by joining iNaturalist, you can’t also join Questagame, if you like.

questagame obviously will never give anyone here a straight answer about why it cares so much about pushing its data into iNaturalist. so i’m going to fill in the gaps.

the real reason questagame is interested in linking to iNaturalist is because the QG identifier community is not as strong as the iNat identifier community. plain and simple. one of the really neat things about iNaturalist is that you can post an observation, and an expert from half a world away will make an ID. most people who have used iNat will have experienced this small sense of awe at some point. when questagame says that “these experts should be sharing knowledge”, what they really mean is that they want access to the power of the iNat identifier community.

isn’t one of the unique points of QG that they pay people to identify? if you look at the fine print, questagame actually allow people identifying on their platform to nominate an organization to which questagame is supposed to make a distribution at some point. do those other organizations actually ever get a check? who knows?

and where does the money to “pay” for identification effort come from? the app is free to download and use, but QG may charge you to start a “clan” or to start a “bioquest”. in iNaturalist, you will never be charged to start a project or bioblitz. iNaturalist is interested in creating a community. questagame’s desire to build a community is mixed in with its revenue model. that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but just think about that next time questagame talks vaguely about some sort of fancy ideal like freeing certain groups of people from the shackles of the western science establishment.

so let’s put this all together. if you’re a questgame user paying $X a year, but none of your observations are getting identified very quickly, would you be happy? if there’s another platform that you could use for free and which offers access to a larger community and where your observations are more likely to be identified, would you be tempted to drop questagame altogether?

does questagame really offer anything unique that really supports BIPOC?

once again, we’re talking about what’s good for QG, and not what’s actually good for BIPOC. so time to get back to the original topic.

[questagame]

How about this pisum - when the planes start flying again, you’re invited to come stay with us in Cairns! Yidinji country! I think you might surprised that we’re not the sort of terrible ogres you seem to assume. :-)

[eric_hunt]

I did a 3 week orchid (and one talk on California native plants at RBG Sydney) speaking tour in Australia back about 12 years ago - Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sydney, Melbourne and absolutely loved Australia. I would jump at a chance to revisit any part of Australia!

[questagame]

You’ve got to come see us in Cairns eric_hunt, soon as this dreadful Covid is over!

[cmcheatle]

If adding group accounts or any other changes to their for profit platform is so important to QuestaGame, whether it is to address racism in science, citizen science, society or elsewhere (all of which are laudable goals to pursue) or any other reason, there is nothing stopping them from downloading the inat code base and implementing and rolling it out themselves, as with the exception of the computer vision component, it is all open source and 100% free to take, change, re-implement etc. Yet they seem utterly uninterested in doing so.

Demanding that another organization make changes to their platform to support your (again for profit) enterprise and then calling them out as discriminatory for choosing not to do so is poor form in my view.

[eric_hunt]

Honestly I don’t care how Questagame runs their business, instead I’m REALLY trying my hardest to extract big picture ideas that are worthy of discussion from the actual reality of Questagame’s business model. If that’s not how I was perceived or understood, my apologies, and please take this as my statement as such.

[questagame]

Hi melodi_96, I’m not sure I completely understand your comment, maybe you can clarify a bit? I believe iNat has some special group accounts now (but I don’t think they are flagged as such). I also recently learned of a least one app that’s secretly using iNat as a group account, and I suspect there are more. Perhaps QG was singled out because it generates more data than most. We were struggling to figure out how the iNat community was reacting. We were a new community. Some iNat users objected to the fact the photos were not good enough (a lot were taken by kids, including indigenous schools in WA!). Others that the notations weren’t helpful. Others loved it. We were getting mixed messages; we were new to iNat’s API, its system and its culture (see my previous post about culture). Had there been a “group account” mode that users could disable, that would have solved the problem. It would have also made it clear that we were not a malicious individual or “bots.”

[fffffffff]

Which part of it? I had more “complains” about which accounts participate in CNC, I feel it’s unfair to have a group account with personal accounts, there should be a separate list for those.

[questagame]

@cmcheatle

If adding group accounts or any other changes to their for profit platform is so important to QuestaGame, whether it is to address racism in science, citizen science, society or elsewhere (all of which are laudable goals to pursue) or any other reason, there is nothing stopping them from downloading the inat code base and implementing and rolling it out themselves, as with the exception of the computer vision component, it is all open source and 100% free to take, change, re-implement etc. Yet they seem utterly uninterested in doing so.

Demanding that another organisation make changes to their platform to support your (again for profit) enterprise and then calling them out as discriminatory for choosing not to do so is poor form in my view.

Thanks cmcheatle. Would be good to unpack this a bit. Open source code does not address the the issue of equal rights. That’s because the valuable IP is not the code. The valuable IP is YOU. And me. And everyone in this forum/community who’s willing to freely (or at least cheaply) provide the raw material which is packaged up and presented as “the map.” If that data is biased - i.e. does not include a diversity of people and perspectives - the map is biased.

I hope I’m not sounding “demanding.” Maybe different viewpoints can sound demanding (see my previous post on culture).

[questagame]

Ok, I think I understand now. I was struggling with the CNC acronym.

So just to be clear, QuestaGame does not have a group account now. (We’re actually banned on iNat). But CNC is a great example. Before CNC was represented in Australia, I asked if QuestaGame could contribute sightings to CNC? And what about other existing citizen science platforms in Australia? Could they participate? Australia ALREADY had people engaged in biodiversity mapping. Shouldn’t they be included? (QG runs some successful BioQuests of its own, including the UniversityBioQuest which helped contribute a lot of Sri Lankan activity to iNat in April 2019).

We were told it wasn’t possible. People have to use iNat only.

To your point about, wait, will a group account get 1000s of sightings? How is that fair? Right. I don’t think it has to work like that. Group accounts can be treated differently than individual accounts; and/or individuals can be included in custom fields.

I mean - take the recent Bushfire Recovery BioQuest in Australia - where QG and iNat are doing the exact same thing, exact same location. But now the two groups of people can’t contribute expertise on sightings from the other group! Despite local agreement here, in Australia, that it would be so much better if they could!

If you want a textbook example of a colonial communications structure, I’m afraid that’s it.

[fffffffff]

I think it’s weird, CNC is not the iNat project, so you have to contact CNC organizers and ask them about participation next year on your platform.
This year on iNat on the first place for amount of observations is a group account (with thousands of observations), and it’s very hard to get more observations than a group of people if they try to get as many observations as possible, no matter how good you are.

[cmcheatle]

@questagame

I also recently learned of a least one app that’s secretly using iNat as a group account, and I suspect there are more.

If you can demonstrate that the site is aware of and tolerating other apps to use their platform in ways you feel resulted in your ban, then that adds an additional layer. That being said, and I write this as a non inat employee, simply my speculation, I suspect your banning had much less to do with anything about your account and more to do with your failure to implement changes you were asked and promised to make.

The only group accounts on the site I am aware of are for things like national parks, etc where multiple members of the naturalist staff can centralize sightings under 1 collection.

I will say that parts of your communication seem contradictory, which may be an inevitable result of a dispersed discussion like this. It comes across as wanting to own ‘both sides’ of the debate when you write what you want is access to the iNat ‘IP Pool’ ie the identifiers from the site, but in other places decry it as colonialist etc if someone from outside Australia ‘corrects’ a local in their identifications. Expertise and knowledge does not follow political boundaries.

[Star3]

@questagame

Some iNat users objected to the fact the photos were not good enough (a lot were taken by kids, including indigenous schools in WA!). Others that the notations weren’t helpful.

[…]

@questagame

Had there been a “group account” mode that users could disable, that would have solved the problem.

To be fair, I’ve seen some users make those same complaints about photo quality or notations on observations from individual accounts belonging to adults, so I don’t think filtering out group accounts would resolve that.

[taitsougstad]

I’m going to just jump in and say:

I don’t get a sense that the iNaturalist staff is intolerant or bigoted,
the request by @questagame about group accounts is valid but has many sticking points that prevent immediate implementation and has been discussed at length,
the iNaturalist staff has been working hard on many other feature requests that improve it’s core mission and user experience,
not every platform can do every thing and represent every worldview, nor can it because, contra pluralism, not every idea can be accepted simultaneously
it’s good to recognize the benefits and liabilities of ones culture, but eurocentric is not synonymous with evil or invalid, and pitting individualism against communalism is a false dichotomy
iNaturalist can always be improved, but even in it’s current form I firmly believe it has the potential to be the strongest force in natural education and conservation in the world,
the iNaturalist staff did well to ask openly in the forum for ideas on how to be more culturally inclusive, and should implement anything wise and actionable and stay on target with the mission,
they have not done anything I am aware of to be bothered with inquests and audits and complaints about not immediately replying to a forum comment,
if we want more inclusion in iNaturalist the best thing we can do is go into our communities and get more people using iNaturalist.

[kestrel]

@questagame

But CNC is a great example. Before CNC was represented in Australia, I asked if QuestaGame could contribute sightings to CNC? And what about other existing citizen science platforms in Australia? Could they participate? Australia ALREADY had people engaged in biodiversity mapping. Shouldn’t they be included? (QG runs some successful BioQuests of its own, including the UniversityBioQuest which helped contribute a lot of Sri Lankan activity to iNat in April 2019).

We were told it wasn’t possible. People have to use iNat only.

Hi there, as one of the lead organizers of the CNC I have to say that we never had this conversation with you. There are a handful of cities who DO use other platforms, not iNaturalist. We’ve always allowed cities to use other platforms, especially if they’re longstanding in that region or country, and we always allow the local organizers to make that choice. For the 2020 CNC, we had four other platforms used besides iNaturalist.

[questagame]

Thanks for this @kestra, that’s great. The conversation happened at the citizen science conference in NC. It’s difficult to know who the “lead organisers” are, especially when you’re coming from so far away, so yes, quite possible I was talking to the wrong person.

So is it possible for QuestaGame to be included?

[bouteloua]

The contact and sign-up form for 2021 is here: https://citynaturechallenge.org/contact/

[questagame]

Hi cmcheatle, thanks for this. Let me address your points:

@cmcheatle

I suspect your banning had much less to do with anything about your account and more to do with your failure to implement changes you were asked and promised to make.

This is tricky to discuss. I don’t agree, but if I go into details, I’ll be accused of making the conversation about QG. Maybe a new thread (moderator?) if people are really interested?

@cmcheatle

It comes across as wanting to own ‘both sides’ of the debate when you write what you want is access to the iNat ‘IP Pool’ ie the identifiers from the site, but in other places decry it as colonialist etc

I hear you. I hope this isn’t a “debate” as such - but a discussion (phrases like pisum’s “going to bat for” strike me as “zero sum.” Popularity, upvotes, etc. play no role in advancing science).

QG doesn’t need the IP pool. iNat is asking how it can be more diverse - which is why iNat needs new IP pools. Right? I’m speaking up about an iNat culture, and technology, that’s ill-equipped to recognise new and different IP pools.

[questagame]

@bouteloua

The contact and sign-up form for 2021 is here: https://citynaturechallenge.org/contact/

Thanks @bouteloua - sorry, just realised I responded to the wrong post with my previous post. Anyway…

Have signed up via the site you mentioned. However, note that it says:

General requirements for being an organizer are:

1. Making monthly online meetings
2. Creating and maintaining your city’s CNC project
3. Promoting the CNC in your area including how to best participate and communicating the results of the CNC
4. Completing milestones in a timely manner (based on a timeline given to organizers)
5. Agreeing to guidelines around logo use, talking to media, fundraising, partnerships, etc.

So I’m not sure this is the correct form? Doesn’t seem to apply to us.

[bouteloua]

@questagame

Maybe a new thread (moderator?)

Feel free to use the private messaging system.

@questagame

So I’m not sure this is the correct form? Doesn’t seem to apply to us.

iNaturalist doesn’t manage the City Nature Challenge. The CNC organizers’ general contact form is further down on that page if you have any questions.