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Why I left iNaturalist

kueda.net

21–30 of 166 posts

Re: Why I left iNaturalist

#21
> Toward the end of our time at CAS we experimented with sociocracy as a way to organize without hierarchy and coercion, but despite my enthusiasm for the form, we didn’t start with universal buy-in or understanding from the whole team, we didn’t fully adopt its structures, and, like many democracies before us, we ultimately voted to abolish our own democracy when we formed the “leadership circle” and created a hierarchy.

Is he referencing a bunch of democracies I haven’t heard of or is this the kind of guy whose so far anarchist he thinks that republics and dictatorships are equivalent if not equal?

I tried to steel man this and looked up historical records on any democracy voting in a new, non democratic system and the closest I get is(not intending to Godwin’s law this) examples like the Nazi party being voted in and then taking authoritarian control.

You could make that argument if you squint your eyes a little or hold a high bar to the electorate, but I feel like I’m missing a reference with the way he said it.

Re: Why I left iNaturalist

#23

Business books sometimes get a bad rap on here, but I never read an essay where I more thought "wow this guy really needs to read some basic business books." Even though it was a non-profit, there is so much wisdom in them about management and leadership that was clearly lacking throughout his experience. It's too late now. But maybe if he understood some of the reasons back when they were starting the app why organi…

Could you recommend any book in particular?

Re: Why I left iNaturalist

#24
post #21

> Toward the end of our time at CAS we experimented with sociocracy as a way to organize without hierarchy and coercion, but despite my enthusiasm for the form, we didn’t start with universal buy-in or understanding from the whole team, we didn’t fully adopt its structures, and, like many democracies before us, we ultimately voted to abolish our own democracy when we formed the “leadership circle” and created a hiera…

Sociocracy is a theory of governance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociocracy

Re: Why I left iNaturalist

#25
post #20
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having never used iNaturalist, but as someone who believes that Wikipedia might be one of the most important knowledge resources created in the last 100 years, I'd love to hear more about why you think this.

I use it a lot. My ex is a biologist and they use it a ton. It's a massive dataset. There's nothing quite like it. The way people collaborate and verify information on iNat is invaluable. The best thing about iNat is the passionate people on there. If you don't know an ID, just post it and within a day someone will correct it. It's crazy. Download Seek and go try it out. Make sure to sign up for iNat and connect your…

Why do you recommend Seek? I’ve been using the iNat app (though since it was released, they’ve been asking me to upgrade to the newer app) and it seems fine. Take a picture or upload an existing one, get recommendations for ID, then upload to the community for further consensus!

Re: Why I left iNaturalist

#26
This was a disappointing read for several reasons. The product/management/PR issues are very relatable.

The community good of a database like iNaturalist is incredibly valuable, both now and for untold uses in the future. I've read interesting research that made use of that data and have personally found the range maps produced by it interesting.

As a user I will be very sad if they kill off Seek. I'm somewhere between a casual and a power user. I don't work in a field that would use iNaturalist but am a pretty dedicated amateur when it comes to identifying plants and animal signs, and have a stack of well worn books for such. I tried getting into the iNaturalist app several times and it just never stuck. But a couple years ago I tried Seek and it has been great! It's not perfect, but it works quite well and at a minimum gives you a starting place to confirm or reject an ID.

Re: Why I left iNaturalist

#27
post #6

iNaturalist ranks right up there with Wikipedia in importance. It is more than one organisation, but rather a central org + a network of regional organisations. The regional organisation provides a lot of biological technical expertise. Citizen scientists alone would not be able to correctly handle the complex taxonomic issues you have in biology… or even basic identification in many cases. Where the organisation(s)…

Having never used iNaturalist, but as someone who believes that Wikipedia might be one of the most important knowledge resources created in the last 100 years, I'd love to hear more about why you think this.

I use it to ID cool insects I come across, I get responses within few minutes to hours.

Re: Why I left iNaturalist

#28
I love iNat, and I think it has a lot of real-world value. Others seem to have a better understanding than me, but from a purely anecdotal perspective, there was a huge prairie dog colony encroaching on housing. For years, nobody did anything about it. I documented it on iNat (for fun), and within a month they were relocated safely. How cool!

Re: Why I left iNaturalist

#29
post #21

> Toward the end of our time at CAS we experimented with sociocracy as a way to organize without hierarchy and coercion, but despite my enthusiasm for the form, we didn’t start with universal buy-in or understanding from the whole team, we didn’t fully adopt its structures, and, like many democracies before us, we ultimately voted to abolish our own democracy when we formed the “leadership circle” and created a hiera…

> Is he referencing a bunch of democracies I haven’t heard of [..]

Historically: Weimar Republic, Czechoslovakia in 1948, Italy starting 1922, Austria starting 1933.

More recently: Venezuela starting 1999

Halfway there: Turkey starting 2017, Hungary starting 2010

If you broaden past just nations to include various organizations that used to be democractically organized at one point, you could make a much longer list...

Re: Why I left iNaturalist

#30
post #24
post #21

> Toward the end of our time at CAS we experimented with sociocracy as a way to organize without hierarchy and coercion, but despite my enthusiasm for the form, we didn’t start with universal buy-in or understanding from the whole team, we didn’t fully adopt its structures, and, like many democracies before us, we ultimately voted to abolish our own democracy when we formed the “leadership circle” and created a hiera…

Sociocracy is a theory of governance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociocracy

I’m mildly familiar with the idea, but I was referencing this subset of the quoted sentence

> … and, like many democracies before us, we ultimately voted to abolish our own democracy …

The ellipses are intentional, if the fragments of the sentence before or after change how to interpret this, please let me know

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