Auto-upload on iNaturalist app via phone data: possible benefits and potential problems. Share your thoughts!
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Charlie Hohn
Oct 6, 2015, 12:49:45 PM10/6/15
to iNaturalist
Hi all! I've been part of a discussion with iNat developers about a possible new iNaturalist app feature and we thought itw ould be better brought into this group.
The proposed feature is an 'auto upload' that would upload observations over the phone connection as you made them. The feature could be turned on and off.
In full disclosure I don't think the feature is a good idea, so my below post may be biased.
The advantage of this feature is ease of use. App analytics have shown that many users download the app and make a couple of observations but don't understand how to sync them so they never end up on the site, and the users give up.
There are a few disadvantages too, one in particular I am concerned about but a few others too. Saving the most important for last.
Bandwidth: This will burn through an enthusiastic new user's network bandwidth and possibly cause them to get overage fees.. I see this as a real problem and something that could end up frustrating or angering new users and driving them away from the app. One reason I rarely sync over the phone network is that it uses a lot of bandwidth.
Battery life: iNat already eats up batteries for more intensive users, this may make it much worse which might drive more new users away. This one I am not certain on but it seems logical.
Connectivity issues: Many very neat places in the world including Vermont have iffy phone networks. When it's no service it doesn't matter but when it comes and goes, any auto upload thing will keep connecting and disconnecting, and will make it harder for me to use the phone for other purposes when in nature, like looking at an air photo.
and most important:
Geoprivacy: there are a lot of reasons a lot of people, especially young students, should not broadcast their live location publicly. I'd go so far as to say autoupload is not appropriate for minors to use at all, but there's no way to stop high school kids from finding the feature and turning it on... so this might really cut down on the ability for high school students to safely use the app. I have also talked to many older users who are already concerned about geoprivacy even with the current settings, and this would make iNat a harder sell for these people. I myself am totally comfortable with sharing locations once I get home, but not with sharing them as I am out exploring. There might be rare cases I'd make exceptions,like bioblitzes, but the majority of the time I think it's a really bad idea. I actually stopped using Project Noah (before I found iNat) BECAUSE they had a mandatory auto upload and I was not comfortable with it.
Geoprivacy: there are a lot of reasons a lot of people, especially young students, should not broadcast their live location publicly. I'd go so far as to say autoupload is not appropriate for minors to use at all, but there's no way to stop high school kids from finding the feature and turning it on... so this might really cut down on the ability for high school students to safely use the app. I have also talked to many older users who are already concerned about geoprivacy even with the current settings, and this would make iNat a harder sell for these people. I myself am totally comfortable with sharing locations once I get home, but not with sharing them as I am out exploring. There might be rare cases I'd make exceptions,like bioblitzes, but the majority of the time I think it's a really bad idea. I actually stopped using Project Noah (before I found iNat) BECAUSE they had a mandatory auto upload and I was not comfortable with it.
My ideas (feel free to add your own!):
-Auto upload over wifi only. I'd definitely use this. It would solve the problem of new users not understanding the upload process, since pretty much anyone with a smartphone goes into a wifi area sometimes. I am not sure if this is harder to program than the over the network auto upload though.
-If there is to be a phone auto upload bury it in the advanced users settings so people can turn it on if they want it, after fully knowing what it is. Pop up a warning saying that it may use a lot of bandwidth.
-Automatic 12 to 24 hour obscuring for over-the-phone auto uploads that turns off after a set time. Note this only fixes the geoprivacy issue and not the others, and creates other annoyances also.
Any other thoughts? Do my concerns seem valid or am I just being paranoid? Please do share your thoughts even if you think I am wrong. Thank you!
Ken-ichi
Oct 6, 2015, 2:18:04 PM10/6/15
to inaturalist
While I hear where you're coming from, I think most of your concerns
are going to affect a minority of users, and that minority can opt-out
of auto-upload if they don't like it.
Here's the longer version. To provide some context, there are 3 huge
barriers to people having a rewarding experience with iNat on their
smartphones (i.e. observing something and talking with people about
it):
1) Signing up for an account
2) Creating an observation
3) Uploading that observation so other people can see it
Over the past year we've tried to address the first two problems by
redesigning both the appearance and interactions of signup and
observation creation, but upload remains a hurdle. Our own data show
that most people who install the app never create an observation
(~74%), and many people who create an observation never upload it
(~20%). Personally, I can't tell you how many times I've been at a
bioblitz, watched someone create an observation then show me their
phone and say, "I'm done, right?" when there's a big green "Upload"
button at the bottom of the screen. People simply do not expect to
have to take an additional action to upload their observations to a
website. That's probably why Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and pretty
much every social media app that lets you take pictures automatically
uploads the content you create.
We view our mobile apps as the front line for recruitment, so we need
to make them as easy to use for beginners as possible. We make every
effort to keep them usable and useful for experts, which is not always
easy. In this case we're doing so by making auto-upload optional. It
will be turned off by default for existing users and turned on by
default for new users, but everyone can turn if off if they want to.
Like Charlie, I'm an expert user and will leave it turned off.
To address your individual concerns:
> Bandwidth: This will burn through an enthusiastic new user's network bandwidth
Most new users create less than 7 observations. I haven't figured out
a place to link it yet, but we have this stats page that you
data-lovers will probably like: http://www.inaturalist.org/stats. It's
pretty crude, but you can see on the users graph that most new users
have zero obs, and only a tiny fraction upload more than 7. So I think
for most new users, auto-upload will not present a bandwidth problem.
> Battery life: iNat already eats up batteries for more intensive users, this may make it much worse
Again, most new users don't use it like Charlie and I do. They only
add a couple observations, not 40-100 a day, so while auto-upload will
eat more battery, I doubt it will do so noticeably for most new users.
> Connectivity issues: Many very neat places in the world including Vermont have iffy phone networks.
When you have no network connection, auto-upload just won't upload.
And it won't keep trying again and again until your battery is dead.
Instead, it will try, and if it fails, it will wait a little bit and
try again. If it fails again, it will wait a longer period before it
tries again. This is how most networked applications work in
situations with unreliable network connectivity. As to whether or not
this makes it harder for you, Charlie, this feature is really not
meant for you. We expect you and users like you to leave it turned
off.
> Geoprivacy: there are a lot of reasons a lot of people, especially young students, should not broadcast
Indeed there are, but iNat's Terms of Service explicitly say the
service is not for people under the age of 13, and if anything, the
kind of location disclosure iNat does is WAY less creepy than the way
other apps behave, e.g. the way Google Maps on Android uses your
location to create traffic data, or the way all search engines use
your search behavior to sell your identity (however anonymized) to
marketers. iNat is an app specifically designed to reveal your
location and we do nothing to hide that. This is something users of
any age should be aware of when using our service, and auto-upload
doesn't really change that.
-ken-ichi
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are going to affect a minority of users, and that minority can opt-out
of auto-upload if they don't like it.
Here's the longer version. To provide some context, there are 3 huge
barriers to people having a rewarding experience with iNat on their
smartphones (i.e. observing something and talking with people about
it):
1) Signing up for an account
2) Creating an observation
3) Uploading that observation so other people can see it
Over the past year we've tried to address the first two problems by
redesigning both the appearance and interactions of signup and
observation creation, but upload remains a hurdle. Our own data show
that most people who install the app never create an observation
(~74%), and many people who create an observation never upload it
(~20%). Personally, I can't tell you how many times I've been at a
bioblitz, watched someone create an observation then show me their
phone and say, "I'm done, right?" when there's a big green "Upload"
button at the bottom of the screen. People simply do not expect to
have to take an additional action to upload their observations to a
website. That's probably why Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and pretty
much every social media app that lets you take pictures automatically
uploads the content you create.
We view our mobile apps as the front line for recruitment, so we need
to make them as easy to use for beginners as possible. We make every
effort to keep them usable and useful for experts, which is not always
easy. In this case we're doing so by making auto-upload optional. It
will be turned off by default for existing users and turned on by
default for new users, but everyone can turn if off if they want to.
Like Charlie, I'm an expert user and will leave it turned off.
To address your individual concerns:
> Bandwidth: This will burn through an enthusiastic new user's network bandwidth
a place to link it yet, but we have this stats page that you
data-lovers will probably like: http://www.inaturalist.org/stats. It's
pretty crude, but you can see on the users graph that most new users
have zero obs, and only a tiny fraction upload more than 7. So I think
for most new users, auto-upload will not present a bandwidth problem.
> Battery life: iNat already eats up batteries for more intensive users, this may make it much worse
add a couple observations, not 40-100 a day, so while auto-upload will
eat more battery, I doubt it will do so noticeably for most new users.
> Connectivity issues: Many very neat places in the world including Vermont have iffy phone networks.
And it won't keep trying again and again until your battery is dead.
Instead, it will try, and if it fails, it will wait a little bit and
try again. If it fails again, it will wait a longer period before it
tries again. This is how most networked applications work in
situations with unreliable network connectivity. As to whether or not
this makes it harder for you, Charlie, this feature is really not
meant for you. We expect you and users like you to leave it turned
off.
> Geoprivacy: there are a lot of reasons a lot of people, especially young students, should not broadcast
service is not for people under the age of 13, and if anything, the
kind of location disclosure iNat does is WAY less creepy than the way
other apps behave, e.g. the way Google Maps on Android uses your
location to create traffic data, or the way all search engines use
your search behavior to sell your identity (however anonymized) to
marketers. iNat is an app specifically designed to reveal your
location and we do nothing to hide that. This is something users of
any age should be aware of when using our service, and auto-upload
doesn't really change that.
-ken-ichi
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Kent McFarland
Oct 6, 2015, 2:21:05 PM10/6/15
to inatu...@googlegroups.com
Because you will be able to turn autoupload on or off, I don't see why it would be bad.
Kent
____________________________
Kent McFarland
Vermont Center for Ecostudies
PO Box 420 | Norwich, Vermont 05055
802.649.1431 x2
Charlie Hohn
Oct 6, 2015, 2:29:19 PM10/6/15
to inatu...@googlegroups.com
Hi Ken-Ichi, thanks so much for your response. That stats page is amazing, thanks for sharing that. Looks like there was a big bump recently which is awesome. Thanks to you as well Kent!
I will keep my response short because I've already said a lot and the point of this is to hear what others think.
-I do think it's important that it at least asks new users before turning on. It does worry me quite a bit if it doesn't do that... but sometimes I worry over nothing and I trust your judgement so we'll just see how it goes. Obviously you all know a lot more about app development than I do, I'm just an obsessive vegetation mapper :)
-Google is creepy but it doesn't share that info publicly. I guess Instagram does but only sporadically and not dozens of time a day. But I get your point that most users don't use iNat that way so...
Thanks,
C
============================
Charlie Hohn
Montpelier, Vermont
Charlie Hohn
Montpelier, Vermont
James Bailey
Oct 6, 2015, 3:26:26 PM10/6/15
to iNaturalist
Is there a way to set geoprivacy on the app? Maybe there can just be a tick box to auto obscure new observations, might be easier than coding in automatic 12-24 hours obscuring.
Charlie Hohn
Oct 7, 2015, 10:18:38 AM10/7/15
to inatu...@googlegroups.com
being able to default yes or no for obscuring would be a nice feature. I probably wouldn't use it, but some people obscure most or all of their observations and they'd probably appreciate it.
There hasn't been much response to my auto upload concerns, so hopefully that means I was just being paranoid, which is good. FWIW even though I don't like every new feature I do really appreciate that iNat is constantly changing and improving. Maybe a 'pro' version of the app can be developed some day for more intensive users, though I can imagine it isn't a high priority. I'd definitely pay 5 or 10 dollars for such an app, perhaps more, but maybe the community needs to get bigger before it would support that. And of course it would only be a good thing if the free app maintained all its features. Just to add features for those obsessive individuals like myself.
C
On Tue, Oct 6, 2015 at 3:26 PM, 'James Bailey' via iNaturalist <inatu...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
Is there a way to set geoprivacy on the app? Maybe there can just be a tick box to auto obscure new observations, might be easier than coding in automatic 12-24 hours obscuring.
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Carrie Seltzer
Oct 7, 2015, 2:53:04 PM10/7/15
to iNaturalist
I agree with Ken-ichi. Power users like you Charlie will know how to turn it off, and the benefits of auto-upload outweigh the costs for new users. If someone gets to the point of engagement where your concerns are interfering, hopefully they're invested enough to figure out how to turn off auto-upload.
Also, I love love LOVE the stats page!
Carrie
kestrel
Oct 7, 2015, 3:24:42 PM10/7/15
to iNaturalist
My concern would be for Android users - currently, in this version of the app, once you start syncing your observations, you cannot do anything else in the app. Can't make new observations, can't tell it to stop syncing observations - nothing. When I'm in a place where I have good coverage and I remember to sync after every observation I make, this isn't an issue. It becomes a problem in places where I do have reception, but it's very minimal. In that case, even just syncing one observation - especially if there is more than one photo for that observation - basically makes it so I can't make any new observations within the app for minutes at a time.
I could see this to be even more of a problem if you're in a place where you get occasional spotty reception - like at a bioblitz or on a hike, where you're making observations that don't upload because you don't have coverage, then all of a sudden you get a bit of reception for a little bit, and suddenly auto-upload kicks in and tries to upload everything you've done up to that point. For Android users, this could make it so that you can no longer use the app for a very long time.
Overall I *do* like the idea of auto-upload, because yes, I do think a lot of new users don't realize they need to sync their observations. But, I recommend before it's implemented, that there is an easy way for Android users to *stop* the upload process once it's started (or pause it), OR that there is an update to the app so that you can continue to use it while your observations are syncing. I'd hate to see the auto-upload end up turning new users away because they're at a bioblitz or on a hike and suddenly they can't use the app anymore because it's busy syncing.
Alison
PS Yes hooray for stats!
I could see this to be even more of a problem if you're in a place where you get occasional spotty reception - like at a bioblitz or on a hike, where you're making observations that don't upload because you don't have coverage, then all of a sudden you get a bit of reception for a little bit, and suddenly auto-upload kicks in and tries to upload everything you've done up to that point. For Android users, this could make it so that you can no longer use the app for a very long time.
Overall I *do* like the idea of auto-upload, because yes, I do think a lot of new users don't realize they need to sync their observations. But, I recommend before it's implemented, that there is an easy way for Android users to *stop* the upload process once it's started (or pause it), OR that there is an update to the app so that you can continue to use it while your observations are syncing. I'd hate to see the auto-upload end up turning new users away because they're at a bioblitz or on a hike and suddenly they can't use the app anymore because it's busy syncing.
Alison
PS Yes hooray for stats!
Tim. Reichard
Oct 8, 2015, 2:58:04 PM10/8/15
to iNaturalist
I share Charlie's concern about bandwidth usage on a cellular data connection. I also think the proposed auto-upload feature is well argued and would do more help than harm in solving the issue of forgotten uploads by new users (and also those of experienced users).
But for my own usage, I would steer clear of auto-uploading unless there were a third option of "auto-upload on wi-fi-only," which I would immediately select. Then I could take advantage of the auto-uploading while still classifying the iNat app as an app that won't increase my data bill if I use it a lot.
Could the app offer all 3 upload options (manual, always auto, auto on wifi-only)?
Tim
But for my own usage, I would steer clear of auto-uploading unless there were a third option of "auto-upload on wi-fi-only," which I would immediately select. Then I could take advantage of the auto-uploading while still classifying the iNat app as an app that won't increase my data bill if I use it a lot.
Could the app offer all 3 upload options (manual, always auto, auto on wifi-only)?
Tim
Christopher Tracey
Oct 9, 2015, 3:05:21 PM10/9/15
to inatu...@googlegroups.com
I agree that an auto-upload feature would be good based on the discussion above. I would support an opt-out and/or wifi-only feature.
--
Jon Sullivan
Oct 9, 2015, 5:50:51 PM10/9/15
to iNaturalist
Hi all,
Interesting debate. I can certainly attest to how surprisingly big a hurdle the Upload step is for new users. Like Ken-ichi, I've been frustrated by how many people at BioBlitz type events that are new to the app make observations but don't upload them until we notice and tell them to. They expect that to just happen. For me, this trumps the possible privacy issues. It needs to be able to be turned off, but if people don't want to share their observations, they wouldn't be on iNat.
I understand Charlie's point about minors though. That could be awkward. When we engage with schools in New Zealand, we encourage the teacher to maintain a class account that all the students in that class use. That's still not ideal but it's better than navigating the privacy/parental permission issues to get the students all signed up themselves. With a class account, on an official school activity, with observations being curated by the teacher, I'm not sure if auto-upload is such an issue.
Cheers,
Jon
Interesting debate. I can certainly attest to how surprisingly big a hurdle the Upload step is for new users. Like Ken-ichi, I've been frustrated by how many people at BioBlitz type events that are new to the app make observations but don't upload them until we notice and tell them to. They expect that to just happen. For me, this trumps the possible privacy issues. It needs to be able to be turned off, but if people don't want to share their observations, they wouldn't be on iNat.
I understand Charlie's point about minors though. That could be awkward. When we engage with schools in New Zealand, we encourage the teacher to maintain a class account that all the students in that class use. That's still not ideal but it's better than navigating the privacy/parental permission issues to get the students all signed up themselves. With a class account, on an official school activity, with observations being curated by the teacher, I'm not sure if auto-upload is such an issue.
Cheers,
Jon
Charlie Hohn
Oct 9, 2015, 10:05:15 PM10/9/15
to inatu...@googlegroups.com
To me it seems like I was probably paranoid, which is good... but that it is important to make it really clear even to new users how to turn the feature off if they don't want it. I like the idea of a popup like I saw when I was testing the new app version, but I'm not sure if that will show up for new users or only existing users. I do think it would be good if new users saw a message that asks if they want autosync and entions it will use the cell phone network in real time. I do think it would be nice to have a wifi only option, but not essential.
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jesse rorabaugh
Oct 12, 2015, 1:22:44 PM10/12/15
to iNaturalist
In the past there was a "feature" that if you upload and have a bad connection it would upload a low resolution version of the photo rather than the full photo. This has ruined many plant and insect observations over the years. Since I learned that, I have been really careful to never upload unless I have a wireless connection. Has this been changed? Since I have unlimited data, I would prefer to leave the auto-upload on all the time but don't want to risk any of my submissions having low quality photos because of it.
In general, I support this change. It was too confusing before, I remember it taking me a few days until I realized that I needed to hit the upload button to put stuff online.
As for the privacy concerns, they are over-blown. Compared to a site like facebook, there is very little that people would find which would be damaging to them. The only privacy issues I see are related to time of observation. Someone could do a decent job of tracking you throughout the day if you make a lot of observations. This gets worse if you are auto-uploading rather than simply uploading at the end of the day. It might be a good idea to have a setting to stop displaying observation times, and only give dates.
In general, I support this change. It was too confusing before, I remember it taking me a few days until I realized that I needed to hit the upload button to put stuff online.
As for the privacy concerns, they are over-blown. Compared to a site like facebook, there is very little that people would find which would be damaging to them. The only privacy issues I see are related to time of observation. Someone could do a decent job of tracking you throughout the day if you make a lot of observations. This gets worse if you are auto-uploading rather than simply uploading at the end of the day. It might be a good idea to have a setting to stop displaying observation times, and only give dates.
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