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Why I left iNaturalist

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Re: Why I left iNaturalist

#91

Post by MattBlissett »

jg0r3 wrote: post #49
mapmeld wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had this same mindset, and when I travel to somewhere less-traveled, I always like to post photos on iNaturalist and map parks and trails on OpenStreetMap to contribute to the open tech ecosystem. A year or so ago someone asked Reddit for examples of how iNaturalist is used by scientists. I go on Google Scholar and it's papers about crowdsourcing, community, classrooms. I didn't see papers where the data was part o…

I work in a large conservation organization focused on rare plant conservation. iNaturalist is sometimes used by our ecologists/biologists as a starting point for collating occurrence data. The iNaturalist data itself is likely specifically being pulled from gbif. Then they go private/specialty databases that have more spatially and taxonomically accurate records. But iNaturalist data is often not considered high qua…

GBIF track the use of data we provide to scientists, where they later publish papers citing that data [1]. For iNaturalist, the list of known citations is at [2]. In most cases a download of data from GBIF will include data from more than one dataset (iNaturalist is one of over 110,000). To find how particular records in a download were used — or even if they were discarded — requires reading the paper.

As an example from the list, "Aedes albopictus Is Rapidly Invading Its Climatic Niche in France: Wider Implications for Biting Nuisance and Arbovirus Control in Western Europe" [3] cites 5348 iNaturalist records.

[1] https://www.gbif.org/literature-tracking

[2] https://www.gbif.org/resource/search?contentType=literature&...

[3] Paper https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.70414 citing GBIF data download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.gzdq3f

PS we are recruiting an engineer, but the deadline for this position is today: https://gbif.link/senior-data-engineer

Re: Why I left iNaturalist

#92

Post by Sharlin »

WoodenChair wrote: post #18

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…

The iNaturalist app is incidental, merely a means to an end – an end that's fundamentally social in nature. Like Wikipedia. The software merely enables the mission. This is his (very valid) viewpoint, I believe.

Re: Why I left iNaturalist

#93

Post by cyberrock »

Eji1700 wrote: post #41
WoodenChair wrote: post #18

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…

It bothers me that pragmatism and understanding things like business, economics, and the like can often be commingled with being greedy or evil. Yes there are lots of people who use what they learn to justify shit positions but personally I started learning all these things because in any other endeavor you want to take seriously you learn everything you can about it. The number of people who mean well but then just…

I used to roll my eyes at fictional settings like LotR and Starcraft (Protoss) that pit orthodox/"white" magic versus forbidden/"black" magic, but now I've woken up to see this industry split into such a moral schism in multiple ways. (Aside, of course, from white/gray/black hat hackers, which is more about actions rather than knowledge)

Re: Why I left iNaturalist

#94

Post by tensegrist »

Earw0rm wrote: post #63
mmooss wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one view of how to structure organizations but hardly the only one. Much of SV was built using non-hierarchical organizations, often bragging that nobody had a title. The greater corporate world embraced flat organizational structures for 1-2 decades and did very well. Toyota famously gave (gives?) everyone on the assembly line the power to stop production, and they were (are?) considered the pinnicle of autom…

Am sure you're already aware, but for others in the thread: Absence of titles does not mean absence of hierarchy. Absence of formal hierarchy doesn't mean absence of social power. At their best, flat hierarchies do as described. At their worst, they take on all the worst aspects of cults together with all the worst aspects of high school. Endless manoeuvring for influence, currying favour, autocratic fiefdoms emergin…

> nominally "flat" hierarchy with power-gradient characteristics can be the worst of both worlds

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyranny_of_Structurelessne...

Re: Why I left iNaturalist

#95

Post by cowsandmilk »

thethethethe wrote: post #56

> iNat’s current Leadership does not share this belief. To them, Seek is an off-brand liability that they don’t intend to improve. They think iNaturalist the product can serve those Seek users while also serving existing core iNat contributors to the detriment of neither. I am a big iNaturalist user and I think the seek/iNat is confusing and a missed opportunity. Seek feels very much like a feature of iNat that is it…

You hit the nail on the head. The separate “power user” interface is the web app on a desktop.

Re: Why I left iNaturalist

#96

Post by palata »

culi wrote: post #17

> 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…

> Every time someone on HN complains about agile the typical response is that "they weren't doing agile correctly".

The problem is that "agile" is not really a thing. Originally it is just a few sentences saying "have common sense". And it became a big bullshit business with certifications and coaches.

Re: Why I left iNaturalist

#98

Post by Earw0rm »

PunchyHamster wrote: post #85
Earw0rm wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am sure you're already aware, but for others in the thread: Absence of titles does not mean absence of hierarchy. Absence of formal hierarchy doesn't mean absence of social power. At their best, flat hierarchies do as described. At their worst, they take on all the worst aspects of cults together with all the worst aspects of high school. Endless manoeuvring for influence, currying favour, autocratic fiefdoms emergin…

> At their worst, they take on all the worst aspects of cults together with all the worst aspects of high school. Endless manoeuvring for influence, currying favour, autocratic fiefdoms emerging without people having the mental framework to even identify that they exist. But that's just how it works in typical normal hierarchy. The normal hierarchy just makes it easier to "pick a target" you need to please The fallin…

> But that's just how it works in typical normal hierarchy. The normal hierarchy just makes it easier to "pick a target" you need to please

It means that the org has been intentionally designed with that in mind, so those running it will be aware that this is an operational factor.

> For the idea to work you not only need culture where that won't be shunned by some manager coz it made him miss their KPIs, but also having each worker be competent enough to know where to use the power

And a culture which allows the worker to possess whatever information and context they need in order to exercise that competence effectively. Hiring and training is part of it, sufficiently open information-flow is the other key.

Re: Why I left iNaturalist

#99

Post by sehansen »

WoodenChair wrote: post #55
doctorpangloss wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When the two mix it doesn't always go well (see Mozilla). you've written more than 20 paragraphs of comments but I stopped here, because if you think this way about Mozilla, a very successful company and philanthropy, you probably are not making generalizable judgements about others

> you've written more than 20 paragraphs of comments but I stopped here, because if you think this way about Mozilla, a very successful company and philanthropy, you probably are not making generalizable judgements about others I mean yeah, if you think Mozilla has been well managed over the past two decades, then yeah we're on different planes of understanding the world. - The only product it makes that anyone cares…

Organizations in decline often have to pay above market rate for executives, so it's hard to say that it's definitely too much. Especially when Mozilla spends ~$280,000 on software development, i.e. 40 times as much. Even paying the CEO $0 wouldn't really move the needle.

But, yeah, Mozilla has been fumbling constantly for the past decade, at least.

Re: Why I left iNaturalist

#100

Post by Hendrikto »

auggierose wrote: post #74
WoodenChair wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you've written more than 20 paragraphs of comments but I stopped here, because if you think this way about Mozilla, a very successful company and philanthropy, you probably are not making generalizable judgements about others I mean yeah, if you think Mozilla has been well managed over the past two decades, then yeah we're on different planes of understanding the world. - The only product it makes that anyone cares…

Just out of interest, how much should the guaranteed salary of a non-profit CEO maximally be?

Guaranteed? Enough to cover living costs.

Everything else should be performance bonuses. Of which Mozilla CEO would have gotten none, based on their failure.

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