I live in Victoria, British Columbia, though I spend a lot of time in northwestern Ontario and Nova Scotia, too. I think iNaturalist is a wonderful and important tool, and am thrilled by the community: so many observers, so many kind and helpful identifiers, and so many people looking to learn more about nature. It takes a little while to get to know how to use iNat, but the potential is huge once you do. We make a permanent record of what's out there in nature, and that's a really important contribution to our understanding of the natural world. iNat is also really fun.

I'm a professional biologist though far from a perfect naturalist: I make mistakes all the time. I'm grateful for all the ID help I get from the community here. Taxonomy has never been as well supported as it should be, and improving the accuracy of all our biodiversity observations/data is yet another example of why taxonomists and expert IDers are so important. Since I'm lucky to spend a lot of time in nature I've taken it as a responsibility to go out and come back with a good story and a better understanding of what's out there: I try to get as many observations as I can everywhere I go. As a scientist I know how important lots of people making lots of observations can be.

My day job: http://starzomski.weebly.com/, and my main iNat project (co-lead with @johndreynolds): https://www.inaturalist.ca/projects/bc-parks. A big Platanthera stricta: https://www.inaturalist.ca/observations/29829517

Here's a guide the BC Parks iNat team developed with some photo tips! https://cwf-fcf.org/en/resources/downloads/booklets-handouts/iNaturalist-Photo-Guide-Final.pdf

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If you're interested, here are a couple of our first analyses of iNat data in British Columbia, done by @ellyne as part of her MSc. They're open access.

Geurts, Ellyne M., Reynolds, John D., and Starzomski, Brian M.. 2023. Turning Observations into Biodiversity Data: Broadscale Spatial Biases in Community Science. Ecosphere 14( 6): e4582. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.4582

Geurts, Ellyne M., Reynolds, John D., and Starzomski, Brian M.. 2023. Not all who wander are lost: Trail bias in community science. PLOS ONE 18(6): e0287150. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287150