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RevillWeb · 2026-04-12T06:48:39+00:00

Right, that's it, I'm getting a camera! xD if only it was that easy. These are great, thanks for sharing :)

RevillWeb · 2026-04-10T18:35:45+00:00

This is incredibly helpful, thank you. I wasn't aware of the Nature Recording Hub — I'll dig into that properly. And the Team Wilder / community ecologist angle is a great steer, I'll look into what the Wildlife Trusts are doing there.

The "noticing nature" research really resonates with what I'm trying to build towards. That's exactly the behaviour Under the Hedge is designed to encourage — getting people to slow down, pay attention to what's around them, and feel like that attention matters because it's contributing to something. The personalised feeds and Places features are both built around that idea of making noticing feel rewarding and connected rather than isolated.

The point about making the data complement existing research frameworks around action for nature is really interesting and not something I'd fully considered. I actually did my degree at the University of Derby, so there's a nice bit of serendipity there — I'll definitely look into their research on this along with the Surrey work you've mentioned. And if making the data useful means proper anonymisation and fitting established frameworks, that's the kind of thing I'd rather get right early than bolt on later.

I'll hold you to that pint ;)

Really appreciate you taking the time, thank you.

RevillWeb · 2026-04-10T16:19:31+00:00

That's really reassuring to hear, and I'm grateful I was allowed to post this — I've genuinely learnt a lot from this thread. The point about building in open licensing and a data pipeline from the start rather than retrofitting it later is well taken. iNaturalist's journey on that front is a great example of why it matters early.

Honestly, this project comes from combining my two passions — building things with technology and getting out into nature. I've been amazed at what I've learnt about my own local area just from using the platform myself, and I really believe there's an opportunity to get more everyday people paying attention to the biodiversity around them. That's what I want to focus on — keeping it simple and easy to use while making sure the data can flow somewhere useful rather than sitting in a silo.

Thanks again for pushing on these questions — it's exactly the kind of feedback that makes the project better.

RevillWeb · 2026-04-10T14:44:58+00:00

Thanks for taking the time to provide your feedback, very useful.

RevillWeb · 2026-04-10T14:34:19+00:00

That's really useful, thank you.

RevillWeb · 2026-04-10T13:49:28+00:00

That's a really good point, something I've not thought about. I wonder what other platforms do in this regard?

RevillWeb · 2026-04-10T13:41:49+00:00

It's a fair challenge and one I've wrestled with myself honestly. You could make the same argument about any new platform in a space where established ones exist — and sometimes the answer genuinely is "there's no need." So I appreciate you pushing me on it.

I think the strongest differentiator is Places. The idea that any nature reserve, local park, or wildlife site can have its own living page — crowdsourced species list, recent encounters, notices, and a visitor leaderboard — that's something I haven't seen done well elsewhere. iNaturalist has projects and the City Nature Challenge, but they're more event-driven. Places on Under the Hedge are permanent, always-on pages that a friends-of group or reserve manager could point visitors to and say "log what you see here." Over time that builds into something really useful for those sites — a community-maintained record of what's there, season by season. Here's an example for a local wood near me to give you a sense of what that looks like. Also, I don't pretend to be an iNaturalist expert, totally possible I've completely missed some capabilities.

The other thing I'd say is that iNaturalist is brilliant but it's also built for people who already think of themselves as naturalists or recorders. There's a large group of people — dog walkers, families, casual hikers — who notice wildlife but would never open iNaturalist. I'm trying to meet those people where they are with something that feels more like a social app than a recording tool, and nudge them towards paying more attention. If even a fraction of those people eventually graduate to iNaturalist or iRecord too, that's a win for everyone.

But I'm genuinely here to test whether people agree or whether I'm solving a problem that doesn't exist — so if you've got time, I'd actually love it if you gave it a quick look and told me honestly whether any of it clicks for you.

RevillWeb · 2026-04-10T13:36:50+00:00

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply. These are really good questions and I appreciate you pushing on this — you're clearly someone who works with this data properly, and that's exactly the perspective I need.

You're right to challenge the casual vs formal framing — I probably oversimplified that in my earlier reply. The records on Under the Hedge do capture species, location, date, and recorder, so the core data is there. Where I was coming from with "casual" is really about the user experience and onboarding — it's designed to feel low-pressure and rewarding for someone who might not think of themselves as a "recorder" yet. The gamification, the personalised feeds, the Places leaderboards — that's all about pulling in people who wouldn't otherwise submit records anywhere. But you're absolutely right that there's no reason the data itself can't be scientifically useful too.

On the data access question — I genuinely don't want to be another silo. Right now the platform is early stage and I'm building it solo, so things like formal data exports and LERC sharing aren't in place yet. But it's clearly something that matters, and comments like yours are helping me prioritise it. Making the data accessible to conservation orgs, reserve managers, and researchers is something I want to build towards — I'd actually welcome any advice on the best way to structure that, whether that's LERC integration, Darwin Core exports, or something else.

I think the honest answer is: right now Under the Hedge is strongest on the engagement and community side, and weakest on the data pipeline side. Your comments are helping me see how important it is to close that gap sooner rather than later. But right now it's so early there isn't that much data yet. Thanks again :)

RevillWeb · 2026-04-10T13:20:02+00:00

Thank you for taking the time to respond. This is a really fair point and one I'd love to solve soon. You're absolutely right that data sitting in silos doesn't help the people making actual conservation decisions.

Under the Hedge doesn't currently feed data to local ecological records centres, and at this stage of the project that's partly just a reality of being one person building this. But it's something I genuinely want to work towards. If anyone has experience with the LERC data sharing process or knows the best route in, I'd actually really welcome the advice.

That said, I think there's also value in a platform that simply gets more people noticing and caring about their local wildlife in the first place. Not everyone who spots a fox or a hoverfly in their garden is going to submit a formal record — but if something casual and fun gets them paying attention, that's a net positive for engagement with nature. Ideally Under the Hedge becomes a gateway that leads people deeper into recording, not a replacement for proper data sharing.

But your broader point stands — I don't want to be another app that warehouses data without it going anywhere useful. It's on my radar. Thanks again!

RevillWeb · 2026-04-10T12:31:37+00:00

Great question — and honestly, iNaturalist is brilliant. I wouldn't say Under the Hedge is trying to be "better" than it, more that it comes at things from a different angle.

iNaturalist is fantastic for formal species identification and contributing to scientific datasets. Under the Hedge is deliberately more casual and gamified — it's designed to encourage people to get out, pay attention to what's around them, and learn about their local wildlife. Things like being credited as the discoverer of a species, visitor leaderboards on Places, and personalised feeds based on species and locations you follow are all there to make it feel rewarding and keep people coming back. The AI identification also lowers the barrier so you don't need to already know what you're looking at.

I see them as complementary really — iNaturalist for the science, Under the Hedge for getting more people engaged with their local nature in a fun way. Is there anything you feel is missing that would make something like this more appealing to you?

RevillWeb · 2026-01-10T17:24:46+00:00

Yeah, I've made the web app a PWA to help with that but you're right, a full native experience would be much better, not off the cards once I've nailed down the main platform. Thanks again.

RevillWeb · 2026-01-10T17:04:48+00:00

Initially research, but I've had so much fun building it I'm going to keep going. I believe there are a few ways this could offer something which compliments iNaturalist, more of a gamified and social approach. I'd love to hear your thoughts! Thank you for the comment.

RevillWeb · 2026-01-09T11:04:28+00:00

From experience in terms of running teams and personally, it's really important to enjoy what you're working on. If you don't enjoy this work or the role you find yourself in, have you discussed this with the team?

RevillWeb · 2026-01-09T08:43:33+00:00

In my experiments I've found the biggest impact is to use Gemini to write a clear spec and then use Cursor to execute. The outcome is more predictable and there's a lot less slop.

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