Half a million submissions
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Greg Lasley
Jan 13, 2014, 9:08:45 AM1/13/14
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Congrats to iNat for half a million submissions as of yesterday, Jan. 12!
Charlie Hohn
Jan 13, 2014, 9:44:33 AM1/13/14
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Neat! Someone should post some observation graphs like before... I am guessing the rate drops off a bit this time of year due to the cold, also the drought in CA, but I've seen more widespread observations throughout the world lately which is awesome.
Lynn Watson
Jan 13, 2014, 10:37:47 AM1/13/14
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Congrats, indeed. Can't wait to resume submitting.
Matthew Muir
Jan 13, 2014, 11:13:50 AM1/13/14
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500k submissions is an awesome milestone, but the congrats may be premature. The number at the end of the observation url is over 500k, but taking into account deleted observations, etc, the present count is 473,630. You can see the current total on the observations page: http://www.inaturalist.org/observations
On Monday, January 13, 2014 9:08:45 AM UTC-5, Greg Lasley wrote:
Greg Lasley
Jan 13, 2014, 6:02:12 PM1/13/14
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Oh well…….I guess I di dnot think about deleted obs……but the “true” 500K will be passed soon none the less.
Greg
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Chris Brown
Jan 13, 2014, 6:29:18 PM1/13/14
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Congratulations on 473,630!
Sent from my iPhone
> On Jan 13, 2014, at 3:02 PM, Greg Lasley <gla...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> 473,630
Sent from my iPhone
> On Jan 13, 2014, at 3:02 PM, Greg Lasley <gla...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> 473,630
AfriBats
Jan 14, 2014, 10:46:30 AM1/14/14
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Hi everyone!
(nearly) half a million sounds great, and maybe it's a good opportunity to ask both where iNat stands and where the platform is heading to. I had a quick look at some of the other projects:
Project Noah, global: 560,000 observations, couldn't find anything about user numbers.
iSpot, Southern Africa: almost 100,000 observations and 4,200 users <http://www.ispot.org.za/Stats%20update>
Apparently iSpot as a whole (South Africa + UK) has > 250,000 observations <http://www3.open.ac.uk/media/fullstory.aspx?id=25783>
So according to these figures iNat is doing pretty well. I was amazed, however, that some other platforms have observations a magnitude (!!!) higher than iNat:
Observado (mostly users from Netherlands & Belgium) with 9,800,000 observations and 4,400 users
Naturgucker / Enjoynature (mostly users from Germany & Austria) with 4,500,000 observations, again couldn't find user numbers.
A project such as iNat can be seen from different perspectives. A user might be mostly concerned with the functionalities of a given platform, e.g. by having a collection of his/her observations, different lists etc. At the same time, projects such as iNat can serve a much broader purpose by documenting species distributions, range shifts, population changes etc. In this regard, I feel iNat clearly leads the field by sharing and integrating data with platforms such as GBIF, EOL, IUCN Red List.
These broader aspects (conservation & science) clearly depend not only on data quality, something where iNat is probably also leading the field to ensure the latter, but data quantity, that is the sheer number of observations. Some actually argue that data quality is much less important if compensated by loads of observations, and this might be actually true. As the examples of the 2 platforms mentioned above clearly show, iNat could do much better in amassing observations.
We've been discussing some of the potential hurdles for newbies, and solutions to make things easier, for instance an "iNat light" version, functionalities to help new users getting started (e.g. warning messages if species names are not linked to iNat's taxonomy, when location & date information is missing), etc.
In my personal view, iNat is wonderfully designed, both in terms of functionality and GUI, but as a scientist with quite a bit of experience in things like taxonomy, GIS etc, I probably find many things very intuitive that an "average" user might find difficult to get into.
To make a long story short: I think iNat is great for those with a more professional background in biodiversity mapping but probably a bit heavy for newbies and those who want to have it simple. I hope iNat will develop in a way that all the advanced functionalities are maintained while at the same time becoming more attractive to many more users - and moving from a North American user stronghold to a truly globally used platform. I guess the latter will require an option to switch between different languages.
Cheers, Jakob
(nearly) half a million sounds great, and maybe it's a good opportunity to ask both where iNat stands and where the platform is heading to. I had a quick look at some of the other projects:
Project Noah, global: 560,000 observations, couldn't find anything about user numbers.
iSpot, Southern Africa: almost 100,000 observations and 4,200 users <http://www.ispot.org.za/Stats%20update>
Apparently iSpot as a whole (South Africa + UK) has > 250,000 observations <http://www3.open.ac.uk/media/fullstory.aspx?id=25783>
So according to these figures iNat is doing pretty well. I was amazed, however, that some other platforms have observations a magnitude (!!!) higher than iNat:
Observado (mostly users from Netherlands & Belgium) with 9,800,000 observations and 4,400 users
Naturgucker / Enjoynature (mostly users from Germany & Austria) with 4,500,000 observations, again couldn't find user numbers.
A project such as iNat can be seen from different perspectives. A user might be mostly concerned with the functionalities of a given platform, e.g. by having a collection of his/her observations, different lists etc. At the same time, projects such as iNat can serve a much broader purpose by documenting species distributions, range shifts, population changes etc. In this regard, I feel iNat clearly leads the field by sharing and integrating data with platforms such as GBIF, EOL, IUCN Red List.
These broader aspects (conservation & science) clearly depend not only on data quality, something where iNat is probably also leading the field to ensure the latter, but data quantity, that is the sheer number of observations. Some actually argue that data quality is much less important if compensated by loads of observations, and this might be actually true. As the examples of the 2 platforms mentioned above clearly show, iNat could do much better in amassing observations.
We've been discussing some of the potential hurdles for newbies, and solutions to make things easier, for instance an "iNat light" version, functionalities to help new users getting started (e.g. warning messages if species names are not linked to iNat's taxonomy, when location & date information is missing), etc.
In my personal view, iNat is wonderfully designed, both in terms of functionality and GUI, but as a scientist with quite a bit of experience in things like taxonomy, GIS etc, I probably find many things very intuitive that an "average" user might find difficult to get into.
To make a long story short: I think iNat is great for those with a more professional background in biodiversity mapping but probably a bit heavy for newbies and those who want to have it simple. I hope iNat will develop in a way that all the advanced functionalities are maintained while at the same time becoming more attractive to many more users - and moving from a North American user stronghold to a truly globally used platform. I guess the latter will require an option to switch between different languages.
Cheers, Jakob
Charlie Hohn
Jan 14, 2014, 11:13:05 AM1/14/14
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Thanks for this info! I think it depends a lot on what the focus for the site is as well as the data type. For instance, eBird has a huge amount of observations. These are definitely valuable, but in a different way than iNat. Most iNat observations have photos and georeferenced locations. Project Noah has some great photos, but doesn't seem to have as much diversity of different species types nor does it have as reliable GPS info. It looks like Observado has a low number of photos. This of course isn't to say these sites aren't really neat and good things, just that they are different. The real challenge is finding ways to use all this data collected in different formats by different people with different goals and interest and levels of knowledge.
Very much agreed with pushing for a more global platform. I've noticed that trend on iNat becoming more pronounced lately, but there is definitely more that can be done too (see NaturaLista).
I personally would be disappointed if iNat decreased from its usability to professionals in any way. I think a lite site is ok as long as it doesn't create problems with observation quality or too many spam users we can't self regulate, etc. I still think it might make sense to keep a different website (ie: Project Noah) for much less serious dabblers, and figure out a way to share the data behind the interfaces. I know this has been discussed before. In the least, if we push for a huge number of amateurs (meaning people who are just learning, not 'amateur' experts who aren't employed but are expert naturalist) I think we will need a more robust reputation and research grade system, or something.
Very much agreed with pushing for a more global platform. I've noticed that trend on iNat becoming more pronounced lately, but there is definitely more that can be done too (see NaturaLista).
Thanks again!
C
Greg Lasley
Jan 14, 2014, 11:16:04 AM1/14/14
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Hello All,
I certainly agree with your thoughts, Jakob. One of the big questions today, in my opinion, is where do people deposit various wildlife records such as we do on iNat. There are so many different places in addition to the ones you specifically mentioned. And there is no way to get all the data together as each site is completely independent. For the past 14 or 15 months I’ve pit all my efforts onto iNat, but I speak to others who simply prefer other sites. I spend a lot of time in the odonate world and an very involved in OdonataCentral, but it seems as if many states want there own internet site for records from that state such as the devbelopers of OdonataCentral have trouble getting any records from those particular states. Bottom line is that this massive effort is so diluted and there is not a way to gather all the info on a given species in one place. I guess that is the nature of the beast and I certainly do not have a solution to this growing issue.Greg Lasley
Charlie Hohn
Jan 14, 2014, 11:39:10 AM1/14/14
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On the 'professional' side, NatureServe and a series of Natural Heritage Inventory programs exist in many states, provinces, and some countries outside of North America - see http://www.natureserve.org/visitLocal/index.jsp . The Navajo Nation even has one which is very neat. (Disclaimer: I work for Vermont Natural Heritage Inventory, though my iNatting is mostly for fun thus far). The NHI programs are vital because they are often linked to regulatory protections/incentives to work for species and natural community conservation. As iNat and other similar websites take off, we are presented with a very neat opportunity, but also uncertainty as how to best link these resources without either being redundant or losing data. iNaturalist has had positive interactions with NatureServe - it would be best for Ken-Ichi or Scott to describe these as I am not privy to all of them, of course. However, I am excited for iNaturalist as a link between regional entities and the public, which could be a great two-way resource. It seems like iNat has the best potential to link with Heritage programs, of any of the available options, due to the excellent database and the high-quality users. We are lucky in Vermont that iNat has gotten an enthusiastic buy-in, mostly thanks to the non-profit Vermont Center for Ecostudies. http://www.vtecostudies.org/ . So the question really is how do we link all of these agencies from individuals to a global level?
When I attended the NatureServe conference I was especially excited about the interest from groups visiting from Latin America - they are part of newer governmental or grassroots efforts that may not have access to GIS licenses, fast computers, some of the more expensive software, etc, and iNat offers them an excellent opportunity as long as the language barrier is broken (perhaps those in Spanish-speaking areas can use the Mexican page even if not in Mexico?)
There's also the issue of literally thousands or millions of pages of field notebooks and plot forms that ecologists have created during field work that just sit and gather dust, or if lucky, are scanned then usually forgotten about. These include a lot of 'common' species, but hey, with habitat loss, climate change, introduced tree diseases etc, today's common species may be tomorrow's conservation concern. I've noticed it's very easy to enter this data into iNat, and have done a few of my field points, but there are no photos and so it results in a large 'dump' of photoless observations that will never reach research grade. So I'm not sure if that is a good use of time or not.
Thanks so much for creating this dialogue, any thoughts are welcome as iNat becomes an increasingly useful tool for broader audiences.
Ken-ichi
Jan 14, 2014, 2:32:50 PM1/14/14
to inaturalist
First, thanks for all the kind words. As I've said before, the
strength of iNat is people like you folks, so if the site does
anything right, it's mostly thanks to you.
Regarding numbers, bird-oriented sites like eBird (which dwarfs all
the others mentioned so far w/ ~100,000,000 records) and observado are
always going to have much higher numbers, both because birders are
crazy about birding AND about recording, and because the birds lend
themselves to comprehensive listing in ways that more diverse taxa do
not, e.g. it would be overwhelming to go for a walk and name every
single plant you saw, unless you were walking in Antarctica (or unless
you are Charlie), and it's often impossible to make species-level
identifications for things like arthropods *without* a photo. Our
emphasis on media definitely dampens our numbers, but also enhances
the memorability of our experiences outside and makes it easier to
communicate those experiences to others, which is what interests me
far more than watching the observation counter roll over. I also think
media provides a higher-quality form of evidence than listing. I think
we've all photographed things we confidently ID'd in the field only to
find the photo revealed it to be something else.
As far as "dilution" and data sharing go, that's definitely a problem
from the perspective of data consumers like scientists and land
managers, and for data producers who want their data to be useful. To
some extent, GBIF (http://gbif.org) has already done great things to
address this, but to my knowledge, iNat
(http://www.gbif.org/dataset/50c9509d-22c7-4a22-a47d-8c48425ef4a7) and
eBird (http://www.gbif.org/dataset/4fa7b334-ce0d-4e88-aaae-2e0c138d049e)
are the only large(ish) citizen science sites that contribute to this
centralized repository. It's the classic data silo problem. I've
thought about a more distributed model in which different sites share
data in a more peer-to-peer fashion with a common protocol, but I
think most of the people who work on sites like this rarely have the
time / resources to work on big picture stuff like that.
I'm personally less concerned about data fragmentation than I am about
community fragmentation, which is way harder to address, IMO. I don't
really care that eBird has a bajillion observations, but I really care
that they have a bajillion really great birders who could be helping
to vet data and give newbies a helping hand. This is why we're
pursuing collaborations like NaturaLista (and hopefully others in the
coming year). Few things have been more personally exciting to me on
the site than watching naturalists from the US talk with naturalists
from Mexico about things that transcend borders and languages, and
it's all due to a shared platform. How we can bridge the many social
networks of naturalists and their different approaches and cultures
without taking the facebookish one-network-to-rule-them-all approach
is, I think, a much bigger and more important challenge.
-ken-ichi
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strength of iNat is people like you folks, so if the site does
anything right, it's mostly thanks to you.
Regarding numbers, bird-oriented sites like eBird (which dwarfs all
the others mentioned so far w/ ~100,000,000 records) and observado are
always going to have much higher numbers, both because birders are
crazy about birding AND about recording, and because the birds lend
themselves to comprehensive listing in ways that more diverse taxa do
not, e.g. it would be overwhelming to go for a walk and name every
single plant you saw, unless you were walking in Antarctica (or unless
you are Charlie), and it's often impossible to make species-level
identifications for things like arthropods *without* a photo. Our
emphasis on media definitely dampens our numbers, but also enhances
the memorability of our experiences outside and makes it easier to
communicate those experiences to others, which is what interests me
far more than watching the observation counter roll over. I also think
media provides a higher-quality form of evidence than listing. I think
we've all photographed things we confidently ID'd in the field only to
find the photo revealed it to be something else.
As far as "dilution" and data sharing go, that's definitely a problem
from the perspective of data consumers like scientists and land
managers, and for data producers who want their data to be useful. To
some extent, GBIF (http://gbif.org) has already done great things to
address this, but to my knowledge, iNat
(http://www.gbif.org/dataset/50c9509d-22c7-4a22-a47d-8c48425ef4a7) and
eBird (http://www.gbif.org/dataset/4fa7b334-ce0d-4e88-aaae-2e0c138d049e)
are the only large(ish) citizen science sites that contribute to this
centralized repository. It's the classic data silo problem. I've
thought about a more distributed model in which different sites share
data in a more peer-to-peer fashion with a common protocol, but I
think most of the people who work on sites like this rarely have the
time / resources to work on big picture stuff like that.
I'm personally less concerned about data fragmentation than I am about
community fragmentation, which is way harder to address, IMO. I don't
really care that eBird has a bajillion observations, but I really care
that they have a bajillion really great birders who could be helping
to vet data and give newbies a helping hand. This is why we're
pursuing collaborations like NaturaLista (and hopefully others in the
coming year). Few things have been more personally exciting to me on
the site than watching naturalists from the US talk with naturalists
from Mexico about things that transcend borders and languages, and
it's all due to a shared platform. How we can bridge the many social
networks of naturalists and their different approaches and cultures
without taking the facebookish one-network-to-rule-them-all approach
is, I think, a much bigger and more important challenge.
-ken-ichi
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Lynn Watson
Jan 15, 2014, 12:10:11 AM1/15/14
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Lite Site
WRT data entry and what, where, when, etc., most of the fields are relatively straightforward.
The most difficult field for novices, is the "What".
Instead of a lite version, possibly there could be a "Help" button next to 'What" that could provide more assistance, possibly in another screen.
The Darwin project, if I remember, had more help for the "What".
On Monday, January 13, 2014 6:08:45 AM UTC-8, Greg Lasley wrote:
AfriBats
Jan 21, 2014, 1:35:27 PM1/21/14
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That's a good suggestion, Lynn! It seems many newbies forget to click on the "Look up" / "Search" buttons for both the What and the Where, so quite a few observations end up with unlinked IDs or unmapped localities.
Would it be possible to introduce something where, while typing in an ID, iNat starts showing suggestions? It does that when using the invite tool for other sites (Flickr, Picasa), and this could be something to reduce the taxonomically unlinked observations. Maybe this could also work for places.
Along the same lines: if a given taxon is not included in iNat's taxonomy, why is it necessary to hit the button "Search external name providers" instead of automatically doing this in the background? Again, simplifying things here and there might make iNat more attractive to beginners as well as users who don't want to dig into the deeper levels.....
I'm not so concerned about data fragmentation if data would be merged in a global repository such as GBIF. Since iNat currently seems to be the only (or one of the very few) citizen-science project actually feeding into GBIF, I would love to see iNat becoming viral and leading the way. From that perspective, it is indeed about numbers of observations and users! Although I agree that having nice tools and associated media to verify IDs that help to assess data quality, I believe that for many if not most conservation & scientific purposes, a large number of casual observations is more important compared to few observations with triple-checked quality of IDs.
And finally re spreading out globally: maybe EOL or other organizations could provide funds to translate iNat into other languages!
Would it be possible to introduce something where, while typing in an ID, iNat starts showing suggestions? It does that when using the invite tool for other sites (Flickr, Picasa), and this could be something to reduce the taxonomically unlinked observations. Maybe this could also work for places.
Along the same lines: if a given taxon is not included in iNat's taxonomy, why is it necessary to hit the button "Search external name providers" instead of automatically doing this in the background? Again, simplifying things here and there might make iNat more attractive to beginners as well as users who don't want to dig into the deeper levels.....
I'm not so concerned about data fragmentation if data would be merged in a global repository such as GBIF. Since iNat currently seems to be the only (or one of the very few) citizen-science project actually feeding into GBIF, I would love to see iNat becoming viral and leading the way. From that perspective, it is indeed about numbers of observations and users! Although I agree that having nice tools and associated media to verify IDs that help to assess data quality, I believe that for many if not most conservation & scientific purposes, a large number of casual observations is more important compared to few observations with triple-checked quality of IDs.
And finally re spreading out globally: maybe EOL or other organizations could provide funds to translate iNat into other languages!
Scott Loarie
Feb 11, 2014, 11:02:02 PM2/11/14
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Almost exactly a month after Greg's prediction, we've reached 1/2 a
million observations! I posted some very basic stats here:
http://inaturalist.tumblr.com/post/76391191046/1-2-a-million-observations
Thanks everybody!! How long before we hit 1 million - should we place bets?!
--------------------------------------------------
Scott R. Loarie
www.stanford.edu/~loarie
Email: loa...@stanford.edu
Phone: 415-278-1220
Post-Doc, Dept. Global Ecology
Carnegie Institution for Science
260 Panama Street
Stanford, CA 94305
Lecturer, Dept. Geography
561 McCone Hall
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720
Co-director, iNaturalist.org
California Academy of Sciences
55 Music Concourse Dr
San Francisco, CA 94118
--------------------------------------------------
million observations! I posted some very basic stats here:
http://inaturalist.tumblr.com/post/76391191046/1-2-a-million-observations
Thanks everybody!! How long before we hit 1 million - should we place bets?!
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--------------------------------------------------
Scott R. Loarie
www.stanford.edu/~loarie
Email: loa...@stanford.edu
Phone: 415-278-1220
Post-Doc, Dept. Global Ecology
Carnegie Institution for Science
260 Panama Street
Stanford, CA 94305
Lecturer, Dept. Geography
561 McCone Hall
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720
Co-director, iNaturalist.org
California Academy of Sciences
55 Music Concourse Dr
San Francisco, CA 94118
--------------------------------------------------
Andre Hos
Sep 21, 2018, 10:41:02 AM9/21/18
to iNaturalist
We have even more typical Dutch, national sites...als containing 15.000.000 (verspreidingsatlas) or 100.0000.000 (ndff) observations.
Not international..and nearly only in dutch.
And a huge disadvantage is it is difficult to see the data..or een to see your own data...
I am afraid the Dutch tax payer spend millions on it.................
Often photos are not needed at all, only for rare observations one of the observers has to prove the sighting.
Very diferent from iNaturlist which allow ''high'' resolution photos and it is even a requirement to have an photo.
Very diferent from iNaturlist which allow ''high'' resolution photos and it is even a requirement to have an photo.
TELMEE.nl
http://telmee.nl/index.php?c=info&m=pic&mm=spinfo&taxid=8491703&scinames=0®id=37
http://telmee.nl/index.php?c=info&m=chart_europe&mm=spinfo&taxid=8491703&scinames=0&year=-1®id=37
http://telmee.nl/index.php?c=info&m=graph&mm=spinfo&taxid=8491703&scinames=0&year=2018&endyear=2018®id=37
and
http://telmee.nl/index.php?c=info&m=pic&mm=spinfo&taxid=8491703&scinames=0®id=37
http://telmee.nl/index.php?c=info&m=chart_europe&mm=spinfo&taxid=8491703&scinames=0&year=-1®id=37
http://telmee.nl/index.php?c=info&m=graph&mm=spinfo&taxid=8491703&scinames=0&year=2018&endyear=2018®id=37
and
VERSPREIDINGSATLAS, originally only for mosses but now for skunkweed and plants to.
around 15.000.000
The plant community is rather professional
https://www.verspreidingsatlas.nl/
https://www.verspreidingsatlas.nl/kranswieren
https://www.verspreidingsatlas.nl/0342
and a paid, abonnee system for professionals
https://www.verspreidingsatlas.nl/kranswieren
https://www.verspreidingsatlas.nl/0342
and a paid, abonnee system for professionals
100.000.000
https://www.ndff.nl/ ( Er zijn ruim 100 miljoen waarnemingen in de NDFF opgeslagen.)
https://www.ndff.nl/api/
Op dinsdag 14 januari 2014 16:46:30 UTC+1 schreef AfriBats:
https://www.ndff.nl/api/
Op dinsdag 14 januari 2014 16:46:30 UTC+1 schreef AfriBats:
bouteloua
Sep 21, 2018, 10:52:09 AM9/21/18
to iNaturalist
It's not a requirement to include a photo on iNat.
cassi
Ian Toal
Oct 1, 2018, 5:38:30 PM10/1/18
to iNaturalist
It is wonderful and astonishing that iNat has reached this milestone. Further to Greg's comment, would it be possible to get other sites to add themselves as Projects so that iNat data is shared with them as well? I always add observations I identify to both the Moths of Canada and Moths of North America, just to share data as widely as possible. One thing I have noticed from the identification side (which is what I like best) is that some areas are fairly well represented, and some are sparse. There are few Noctuid observations from Western Canada, and even less from the North, so there are big gaps in the data. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how this might be achieved?
Ian
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