Trial for iNaturalist Google Group replacement - please test it out!

[Tony Iwane]

Hello iNaturalist Google Group members!

Thank you for all of your contributions to our Google Group lo these many years, a lot of good feedback and discussion have come through here. However, we are looking to create a better forum for iNaturalist that has more features than Google Groups and will (we hope) allow for better feedback and more organized discussions. Our goals are to have:

• A platform not tied to a Google account, which we know some iNaturalist users have issues with.

• A platform with which one can use one’s iNat account to log in.

• The ability for users simply vote for a feature request, for those who don’t want to engage in discussions but want to express themselves.

• Ways to organize posts by category so that they don’t get lost in a mass of unrelated posts.

• Better and more dynamic moderation options to keep discussions civil and on-track.

• A way for users to create and share various iNat-related tutorials.

Right now we’ve started a trial forum on Discourse, which is an open source discussion platform, and after setting things up we have about a week left in our trial period so we’re notifying iNat Google Group participants about it and would love it if you tried it out and gave us some feedback so we can decide whether or not to continue using it for our main community forum.

Here’s what to do:

1. Go to inaturalist.trydiscourse.com and sign up for an account. You can sign up for one via your iNat account, which we would prefer. Then your iNat username and your username on the forum will be the same.

2. Discourse uses a trust system to a) prevent spam and b) allow users to slowly gain abilities as they become part of the community. It shouldn’t take long, normally, for new users to get past level 0, but with very little to read at the moment, it won’t be easy to get to Level 1. So once you join, send me a personal message (I’m tiwane) and I’ll upgrade your trust level as soon as I can so you can try out more features. We're temporarily allowing users at level 0 to send personal messages.

3. Spend some time reading the community guidelines and poking around, then start making a topic or two and adding replies. I’ll try to seed more conversations in the meantime as well, but I think you guys will be better at that than I am.

4. After using the forum for at least a few hours (a day would be better), starting adding specific feedback in the Forum Feedback category: https://inaturalist.trydiscourse.com/c/site-feedback

Things to keep in mind:

• Per Discourse’s recommendations, we’ve made only a few categories. If more are needed, that’s something we can add in the future.

• It may take a moment for you to learn how Discourse works, so please don’t provide feedback until you’ve spent some time learning how to do things and have explored the site a bit.

• Things are pretty basic now, including the look of the forum. If we continue with Discourse, we’ll work on making it more tailored to our needs and I would like to implement iNat’s color scheme in the design as well.

• I’ve almost certainly made some mistakes with settings, category descriptions, etc, so if you spot something please let me know. Either send me a personal message or write in the Forum Feedback category.

• If we continue with Discourse we will definitely need volunteer moderators (I made a post about that) but for this trial, iNat staff will be moderating the forum.

Tony Iwane

[Charlie Hohn]

Wow, this sounds awesome! I am signing up

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============================
Charlie Hohn
Montpelier, Vermont

[Donald Hobern]

I'm trying to use the "Use your iNaturalist account" login but I get the whale shark. Does that work for others? I'll keep trying.

[studebakersamuel]

Worked for me. Unfortunately it also took me out of iNaturalist.nz, but I guess that's inevitable and something I will have to watch out for.

Great format btw, and I look forward to spending skkme time on tge tutorials, good choices to start with. Thanks @tiwane

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 on the Telstra Mobile Network

[Jane Widness]

FYI you don't actually need Tony to upgrade your trust level, the system will bump you once you meet some basic qualifications.  Assuming the iNat team left the defaults, you need to go into 5 topics, read 30 posts, and spend 10 minutes reading.

[Chris Cheatle]

One comment I would make about the display, I'm not sure if this can be altered, is that to me at least the layout of Category and Latest being side by side makes it look like they are linked. 

For example from the screenshot, I assumed 'Dealing with account deletion' would be the most recent topic under Bug Reports, so I clicked there on the left and could not find the topic, because of course it is filed elsewhere.

It is opposite right now of most forums I have seen.

On Thursday, February 7, 2019 at 3:14:03 PM UTC-5, Tony Iwane wrote:

[Chris Cheatle]

Sorry, here is the screenprint I meant to attach above

On Thursday, February 7, 2019 at 3:14:03 PM UTC-5, Tony Iwane wrote:

[Chris Cheatle]

A separate comment - is there a way to make voting an 'agree / disagree' rather than just agree as it appears to be.

Right now the only apparent way to indicate you disagree with something is to write a comment, which can very quickly get buried in the heap of comments, while agreement seems very much 'in your face' based on showing number of people who support something. 

[Donald Hobern]

In my case, it never worked - so I've registered separately. Was it just me?

[Charlie Hohn]

Good point about the voting. 

Sent from Gmail Mobile

[Charlie Hohn]

Sorry didn’t mean to hit send. Good point about the voting. I get the desire to not be negative but the ability to vote no on something is valuable. It also might reduce negative comments because people can just say “eh” without having to specifically explain every time. 

[Kelly O'Donnell]

I'm getting the whale shark too on all my browsers (Chrome, Firefox, and Safari). 

[Jane Widness]

My profile says my trust level is "basic" (level 1), but when I tried to post, it gave me a message saying it had to go through moderation first.  Is that what's supposed to happen?

[Tony Iwane]

- Chris and Chalrie, can you please provide feedback on Discourse in the Forum Feedback category?

- Donald and Kelly - Were you signed in to inaturalist.org at the time, or were you using a partner site? Looks like perhaps there's an issue with logging in via one of our partner sites, we'll take a look.

- Jane, if you were trying to add a topic to the Feature Requests category, note that in the About section for that category, we say that all new topics must be approved by moderators so that we don't have duplicate feature requests.

Tony

[Tait Sougstad]

Whale sharked as well. Currently using Chrome on my phone. I log into iNat via my Google account, if that detail matters.

[Chris Cheatle]

FWIW - I log in as well using my Google Account, and did so onto the new forum as well with no issues. Also on Chrome.

[Jane Widness]

I was able to post in another category, so that was the issue for the moderation.

New issue though, I've run into the max number of posts a new user can make on the first day :/

[Donald Hobern]

For me, the whale shark was on Chrome on Windows and on Android. On Windows, I was already logged in to inaturalist.org (not one of the regional sites). I log in using my Gmail address as my userid, but with an iNaturalist password (rather than using Google authentication).

Thanks,

Donald

[Tony Iwane]

Tait were you already logged in to iNat on that browser when you tried to create a Discourse account?

[Jane Widness]

Since I can't make a new topic in the discourse forum, I'll ask my question here.  Is there a way to move the pop-ups that cover the preview of your post?  The ones that say things like "thanks for starting a new conversation" or "your topic is similar to".

On Thursday, February 7, 2019 at 3:14:03 PM UTC-5, Tony Iwane wrote:

[Tait Sougstad]

No. Signed in first and it worked. Thanks, Tony!

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[bouteloua]

Jane, for me there is a little x in the top right corner of those pop-ups. Then it shows my post preview. You can also press the "esc" button.

cassi

[Jane Widness]

Oh, sorry I was unclear.  I wanted a permanent way to move them.  Every time I start a new post it seems to have at least 1 pop-up for me to exit out of before I can see my preview.

[Tony Iwane]

Jane, I think those will go away soon, once you post enough. I'm not seeing them anymore.

Tony Iwane

[Tony Iwane]

Heh, nevermind, just got one. I'll look into it.

[David K]

I am logged into the Canadian site (on safari) and repeatedly get this rejection

On Friday, February 8, 2019 at 11:33:20 AM UTC-5, Tony Iwane wrote:

-

[Mark Tutty]

After signing up (which you have to do even with an iNat acct) you will be sent an email for confirmation. That has a link that needs to be followed to activate the new discourse account. The error you are getting looks like it’s suggesting no account has been successfully activated...

 

cheers
Mark Tutty
kiwif...@gmail.com

 

From: David K
Sent: Saturday, 9 February 2019 11:26 AM
To: iNaturalist
Subject: Re: [inaturalist] Trial for iNaturalist Google Group replacement -please test it out!

 

 

I am logged into the Canadian site (on safari) and repeatedly get this rejection

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[Yann Kemper]

Very exciting, I’ll be sure to sign up!

[Kyle Copas]

Same here—multiple days, multiple times, multiple browsers...

=====
Kyle Copas

Skovtoftebakken 15

2830 Virum

(+45) 28 75 14 75 | skype kylecopas

[Tony Iwane]

Some clarifications:

- In order to sign up/sign in with your iNat account, you have to be currently signed in to inaturalist.org (not any of our partner sites, unfortunately) in the same browser you are using Discourse with. This will set up your discourse account with your current iNat username and iNat profile picture, as well as teh email address associated with you iNat account.

- You can also just sign up with your email address and a password, but I think it would be best if you chose the same username as your iNat username, so people in the forum know who you are. :-)

On Saturday, February 9, 2019 at 5:24:43 AM UTC-8, Kyle Copas wrote:

Same here—multiple days, multiple times, multiple browsers...

=====
Kyle Copas

Skovtoftebakken 15

2830 Virum

(+45) 28 75 14 75 | skype kylecopas

On Fri, Feb 8, 2019 at 11:26 PM David K <djka...@gmail.com> wrote:

I am logged into the Canadian site (on safari) and repeatedly get this rejection

On Friday, February 8, 2019 at 11:33:20 AM UTC-5, Tony Iwane wrote:

-

- Donald and Kelly - Were you signed in to inaturalist.org at the time, or were you using a partner site? Looks like perhaps there's an issue with logging in via one of our partner sites, we'll take a look.

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[Kyle Copas]

Sorry, Tony, but I am most definitely signed in on iNat when getting the nix.

Not worth the hassle, tbh, since I already know the tool (and like it) from our Discourse installation at https://discourse.gbif.org…

=====
Kyle Copas

Skovtoftebakken 15

2830 Virum

(+45) 28 75 14 75 | skype kylecopas

On Sat, Feb 9, 2019 at 5:04 PM Tony Iwane <tiw...@gmail.com> wrote:

Some clarifications:

- In order to sign up/sign in with your iNat account, you have to be currently signed in to inaturalist.org (not any of our partner sites, unfortunately) in the same browser you are using Discourse with. This will set up your discourse account with your current iNat username and iNat profile picture, as well as teh email address associated with you iNat account.

- You can also just sign up with your email address and a password, but I think it would be best if you chose the same username as your iNat username, so people in the forum know who you are. :-)

On Saturday, February 9, 2019 at 5:24:43 AM UTC-8, Kyle Copas wrote:

Same here—multiple days, multiple times, multiple browsers...

=====
Kyle Copas

Skovtoftebakken 15

2830 Virum

(+45) 28 75 14 75 | skype kylecopas

On Fri, Feb 8, 2019 at 11:26 PM David K <djka...@gmail.com> wrote:

I am logged into the Canadian site (on safari) and repeatedly get this rejection

On Friday, February 8, 2019 at 11:33:20 AM UTC-5, Tony Iwane wrote:

-

- Donald and Kelly - Were you signed in to inaturalist.org at the time, or were you using a partner site? Looks like perhaps there's an issue with logging in via one of our partner sites, we'll take a look.

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[David K]

The iNat authorization never worked, so I signed up for a new account.  Is it because my iNat password is too short for discourse?

[Tony Iwane]

If anyone having trouble can share their INat username, that will help us diagnose the issue. And yes, it's totally fine to not use your iNat account for this, but we *would* like it if you chose the same username on Discourse as your iNat username.

Tony

[Zanskar]

Hi everybody

Great tool, thanks a lot. Just one question : is there a link to this forum from the main site ? 

[bouteloua]

If you mean this forum as in this here, Google Groups, yes, it's on the help page. As for Discourse, they're still in trial mode, so it wouldn't make sense to link to it yet if they decide to go in a different direction.

https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/help

cassi

[Jeremy Hussell]

I started to sign up with my iNaturalist account, but recoiled from the warning message (screenshot attached). After reflecting on it a little, I realized that the warning is necessarily true (thus shouldn't be changed or removed), and created a new account with the same user name as my iNaturalist account but a different password. Not sure what effect that will have if I change my mind and try to sign up using my iNat account later.

[Chris Vynbos]

I have registered via iNat account with no problems. Is it possible/intended to import the google group discussions to date into Discourse?

[Chris Cheatle]

I asked that on the new forum, until a decision is made if they will go forward with it, and move out of trial mode, no decision about older content from here will be assessed.

[Kelly O'Donnell]

Hi Tony,

I'm still having trouble using my iNat username. I'm logged in to iNaturalist and I've turned off any plug-ins that might be interfering, but I'm still getting the whale shark. My username is klodonnell.

Thanks!

Kelly