Mushrooms

the accessibility of the fediverise as a platform is an issue

I know I directly mentioned this community, but I was more inferring generally about internet forums. When referring to this one specifically, it would be with the hope of it becoming large enough to have sufficient numbers of people with the expertise necessary to answer mycological questions.

The best place to go for PNW mushroom identification is a Facebook group as much as I hate to say it.

Interesting point! Though I don't entirely see why Facebook would need to be the community of choice instead of another. Why not hypothetically establish a local instance of Lemmy for the same end? Or were you more talking about facebook's already established size, so it's less work?

but there are so many reasons to meet in person and go on forays with people more experienced than you.

I think that I would agree that it is at least very efficient means of acquiring mycological information. For example, I went on a day course for morel foraging once, and I definitely learned a lot from that in a much shorter timespan than I likely would've by simply reading and asking questions on forums.

When you follow taxonomic keys it’s not uncommon that you need to evaluate mushrooms based on their taste (bitterness, piquancy, etc.), their smell, and other qualities that are impossible or difficult to describe objectively or photograph.

For clarity, are you saying that there are qualities that can only be taught by first having someone that can already identify the mushroom to then point out the quality that you must memorize for future comparison? Or is it simply a failure of proper communication — ie maybe it is possible to describe these qualities and one is perhaps lacking the sufficient descriptive skills?

As others have pointed out, mushrooms are heavily local and the internet will have people who will easily misidentify a species because it looks just like something they are familiar with in a different region (this is the cause of many deaths, east Asian immigrants coming to the U.S. misidentify deadly poisonous mushrooms as a common edible from back home when they come here).

I certainly agree that this is a risk. I think, at least, a big chunk of it could be alleviated by people citing how they know the information that they are providing — eg if someone asks about a mushroom in Cascadia, then someone says they know what it is and then cites their source as knowledge gained in China, it should then raise some red flags, or at least raise the bar significantly for trust.

Furthermore, internet forums are not well suited to the kind of pedagogy and learning that getting experience with mushroom identification requires. You need continued experience watching others identify mushrooms successfully and to learn over the course of their identifications how to identify mushrooms yourself. There is a kind of learning from exposure that happens that way which isn’t replicated easily on a forum.

I sort of half agree with this. I think the important component that's fundamental to what you are decribing is experience. Simply reading about mycology isn't sufficient; one must also practice identifying what they find, and they must get constant feedback on whether the identifications are correct, and if they aren't, one must learn why. Where we differ, I think, is that I think that one can do this via forums, it just might be less efficient. One must also be resistant to misinformation, and one must take a scientific approach to how the information is presented rather than purely a teacher/student approach.

That's such a unique and interesting method of identifying a mushroom!