
iNaturalist - brudgers
https://www.inaturalist.org/
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k_sze
It’s incredible how far along iNaturalist has come. I’ve been an active user
in Hong Kong since before the Pokémon Go craze. I used to tell my coworkers in
jest that I gotta catch them all. :P

Seriously, iNaturalist is sooo much more meaningful than stuff like Pokémon
Go. If you have kids who want to play Pokémon Go, show them iNaturalist
instead. It’s a great tool to teach kids about the environment and its
evolution. Once you start getting into iNaturalist, you’ll start noticing
trends of species getting more or less populous from year to year, and you’ll
learn to identify bugs, plants, birds, etc, and you’ll gain a new appreciation
of nature, even when you are in an urban setting.

~~~
jbob2000
People play Pokémon go because it’s Pokémon, not because you get to walk
around and observe the world.

You’ve basically just said “eat vegetables, it’s the same mouth movements as
eating candy!”

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cetalingua
We are trying to do something similar (citizen science + AI) but for the
acoustic data,our first model can identify manatee calls and mastication
(chewing) sounds. [https://manatee-chat-demo.appspot.com/](https://manatee-
chat-demo.appspot.com/)

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todd8
This app sounds like a great idea.

I had to do a number of silly school science projects with my daughter while
she was growing up, things like a bridge made of toothpicks and glue. These
projects, while not really serious science, were experiences we both remember
now that she is an adult. One of the best projects was making a short video of
the animal life that lived around a local lake.

This was a really fun afternoon and evening where we recorded insects,
turtles, birds, and even bats. It was a really nice time to talk about natural
science with my young daughter.

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sdan
I remember my sibling using the app when we were going on a guided tour in
some wetlands. Pretty cool app that democratizes sightings of plants and
animals.

~~~
Scea91
I actually learned what the app is about from your comment better than from
the landing page. However I wonder... as a non-native speaker I totally
understand the meaning of your comment, but I am curious if 'democratize' is
the correct word in this context.

To me it somehow communicates that there is something systematic (maybe even
unfair) restricting some people from learning about nature apart from their
unwillingness to study the topic. I mean this in a neutral manner, no one can
possibly study everything.

Because I see the word used quite frequently in other contexts, I wonder if my
understanding of the word is in line with the 'accepted' interpretation.

~~~
smackay
It's mainly the difficulty of getting sufficient information to people to let
them understand what they are seeing. Field guides are generally detailed but
you need to have some identification skills and know how the field guide is
organised. The general guides cannot provide sufficient coverage so you need
one for birds, one for mushrooms, one for trees, one for flowers, etc. etc. A
phone app solves a lot of that.

The additional advantage of phone app is that allows casual contact (assuming
people are motivated enough to install it) so if someone comes across a flower
or tree with fruit they have enough information to at least identify it and
perhaps learn some more about it. That's a huge step forward compared to
today.

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stinos
Many countries already have applications like this with databases ranging back
into the eighties or even earlier, and are used both by professionals and
others. And a lot of them. So unfortunately I don't see those people leaving
their track record behind and swith, which is going to lead to uncovered areas
in this application. Unless they can hook into each others databases?

~~~
brudgers
The iPhone App shows other people's geotagged sightings on a map. Not just
your own.

~~~
stinos
I'm aware, my point is rather that it does something which other apps also do
already and did so for much longer, making me wonder if it's going to see any
traction. E.g. iNaturalist shows me like 10 observations in the past month for
my location. Obsmapp shows me hundreds for the last week.

~~~
brudgers
I did not know about obsmap. A few months ago I came across iNaturalist
looking for species information for the Salinas River National Wildlife Refuge
in California. iNaturalist had a lot of information for that specific site as
well as for Monterey County, CA in general.

Just now looking at Obsmap for the first time, I saw fewer observations for
the Salinas River NWR and surrounding area. But it looked like the activity
may be more broadly worldwide. It doesn't look like what I was looking for.
That doesn't make Obsmap bad, just maybe less useful for me. Probably depends
on where a person is observing.

Thanks for turning me on to it though. Maybe it will come in useful in my
future.

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brudgers
Previous discussion,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14831794](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14831794)

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frereubu
For a project that seems to be based around a mobile app it’s a shame that the
site doesn’t seem to have a mobile version (at least not for me on iOS /
Safari)

~~~
brudgers
The iOS app can be found by searching the appStore for "iNaturalist." Android
is probably similar, but I'm just guessing.

~~~
frereubu
Sure, I can download the app but I'd prefer it if the website was easier to
read on my mobile so I know if I actually want to spend the time downloading
it, rather than having to zoom and to scroll to see what it actually is. I
think they're reducing their uptake by not making it easier to figure out what
it is.

~~~
brudgers
Oh. The app isn’t like the website. It’s an app and takes advantage of
geolocation and camera integration.

I don’t really find the website a great novice oriented UI design. But it’s
been worth learning in my case because it has high information density. That’s
more important because to me because it supplements my long term interests.

