Totally agree. I’ve read through (and started one of) the threads @bobmcd [linked above], and I honestly am baffled as to how there hasn’t been any movement on this on the part of iNaturalist!
On the one hand I have heard from them that this is not a democracy, so votes don’t count, on the other, I hear that they want to take community feedback into account. It seems a way to hedge against having to take any proactive role in at least staking out what iNaturalist stands for as an organization, if not a community.
Looking through the threads, the general pattern in each of the discussions I notice is:
- Someone brings up the idea of having some code or recommended best practices for iNatters
- Someone agrees
- Someone else denies that people could even potentially harm wildlife in documenting them
- Someone else supports or refutes #3.
- Rinse and repeat for a few weeks/months
- Nothing happens, the thread devolves into a side issue and gets shut down or closes due to lack of responses over time
How is it that a group full of people who love nature does not have a list of guidelines to follow while observing species in a responsible manner? I frankly didn’t expect this type of resistance or inertia from iNat and am actually disappointed by it.
Am I missing something here? This is not rocket science and shouldn’t even need to be a user-driven initiative!