In 2002 eBird began.
As you noted, there have been several different areas where the idea of using citizens to track birds emerged. Our partners in Quebec have been some of the most creative and exciting groups to work with, in large part because the way they're thinking about building community and leadership structures to manage data quality, and to engage new people in the collection of citizen science data, has really transformed how we think about gathering things.
One thing I'd like to highlight is that, by integrating large-scale projects, you're able to bring people in from Quebec, Chile or India, who are able to share their experiences. We have a Slack channel that involves regional leadership. My job is not to set any of the policies. Those are set and managed by local review teams. There's the same balance in citizen science that we have in government. When decisions are made at a local level, to what extent do they need to be coordinated at the federal level?