Hacker News Reader

Comment by kylenessen | Hacker News Reader

Why not iNaturalist?

iNaturalist is great for identification and information, but it lacked the fun and soul we were looking for.

It doesn’t feel like you’re playing when you use it, it feels like you’re in biology class (no hate to them).

Wildex gives you cute fun facts and lets you build up points for rare species finds. It feels like a completely different experience.

> It doesn’t feel like you’re playing when you use it

That's a feature, not a bug. Gamifying nature is a bad idea. It's tourism, but with the worst kind of tourists.

At the same time, learning doesn't have to be boring. Most people don't care about the family/class/genus lineage. They just want to know a) what it is, b) some other interesting facts. Sure, have a link to the drudgery, but having something fun/interesting that gets/keeps people excited about going outside and enjoying nature is not a bad idea. Just because gamifying has been used for bad by others doesn't mean it's bad for everything. Nose, despite face; baby/bathwater types of things come to mind here.

Fully agree here.

Respectfully disagree here, the more people you could get outside appreciating and learning about nature, the better it can be preserved for future generations. Whether it’s gamified or not.

> the more people you could get outside appreciating and learning about nature, the better it can be preserved for future generations.

I don't know about that. We are with so many people now and there is so little nature left. The Pokemon 'Go' craze showed what happens when you set gamification and outdoors on the same track. It just doesn't scale in the same way that virtual things do.

iNaturalist specifically has a gamified Seek app for new users which is more approachable and has more 'fun' elements than the main iNaturalist app: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/seek-by-inaturalist/id13532241...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com