Accuracy circle size consequences

General
1

I turned in a bug that you can see using the link below. I drew a custom selection rectangle and was wondering why the selection was including over 20 observations that weren’t in that rectangle. It turns out that the markers for the 20+ observations weren’t in that rectangle. But, the accuracy circles for those 20+ observations extended into the rectangle I drew.

Most of those 20+ observations were mine. They were dragonflies. I’m going to go back and look at them. I try to mark things accurately. But, for things like dragonflies which fly around, I use a larger circle so that people will have an area to search if they choose to try to find that insect again.

https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/resizing-a-rectangle-boundary-box-on-the-map-results-in-observations-outside-that-rectangle/78364

2

I think it’s taken for granted that animals can move around. You should adjust the uncertainty radius appropriately when you’re not precisely certain where your observation was made, but you shouldn’t increase that to try to account for the possible range of that animal.

3

Here’s the Help page about it: https://help.inaturalist.org/en/support/solutions/articles/151000226294-why-aren-t-some-observations-appearing-on-the-map-

I agree with Larry, I don’t think this is how most other people view the accuracy circles on observations.

5

just to clarify, the coordinates of those observations actually are in your rectangle. the thing about those observations is that their accuracy circle is very large, and because they are larger than a particular threshold, they won’t show up with markers in iNaturalist’s maps. (but they still get picked up by the rectangle filter because that sort of filter determines in/out based only on the observation public coordinates sans accuracy vs the rectangle boundaries.)

6

There are two ways I’m not precisely certain where the observation was:

  • I don’t know where I was. Last Monday (last day of CNC), I was in a park, and I wasn’t sure where the trail I took is on the map, so I drew a circle that I’m fairly sure encompasses everywhere I could have been. (The animals I observed there were birds, and I didn’t see them but recorded their sound.)
  • I know where I was, but I don’t know where the animal was. Twice I’ve observed birds that I think were flying over the French Broad River, but I couldn’t tell the distance, so I drew a big circle centered on the river. In the linked observation, I wasn’t in the circle; I was in a parking lot east of the circle on Depot Street.

My most precise observation of an animal was my first Argiope, which was on top of a traverse point I know the position of within a couple of centimeters.