Add Place error (.kml from Google Maps)

Bug Reports
1

I’ve put this as a bug since it’s a .kml file created from an official route.
I created a closed polygon in google My Maps, and exported as .kml
Submitting that as a new place “British Isles (records)” I get a pause for a bit then “504 Gateway Time-out”
It only has a few points on it, I enclose it below. The purpose of this place is to provide a map for records in UK + Ireland and associated islands which is an area we always use here. I kept the points to a minimum.
Perhaps someone could comment with what went wrong… Cheers!

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<kml xmlns="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2">
  <Document>
    <name>Map</name>
    <Style id="poly-000000-1200-5-nodesc-normal">
      <LineStyle>
        <color>ff000000</color>
        <width>1.2</width>
      </LineStyle>
      <PolyStyle>
        <color>05000000</color>
        <fill>1</fill>
        <outline>1</outline>
      </PolyStyle>
      <BalloonStyle>
        <text><![CDATA[<h3>$[name]</h3>]]></text>
      </BalloonStyle>
    </Style>
    <Style id="poly-000000-1200-5-nodesc-highlight">
      <LineStyle>
        <color>ff000000</color>
        <width>1.8</width>
      </LineStyle>
      <PolyStyle>
        <color>05000000</color>
        <fill>1</fill>
        <outline>1</outline>
      </PolyStyle>
      <BalloonStyle>
        <text><![CDATA[<h3>$[name]</h3>]]></text>
      </BalloonStyle>
    </Style>
    <StyleMap id="poly-000000-1200-5-nodesc">
      <Pair>
        <key>normal</key>
        <styleUrl>#poly-000000-1200-5-nodesc-normal</styleUrl>
      </Pair>
      <Pair>
        <key>highlight</key>
        <styleUrl>#poly-000000-1200-5-nodesc-highlight</styleUrl>
      </Pair>
    </StyleMap>
    <Placemark>
      <name>British Isles (records)
</name>
      <styleUrl>#poly-000000-1200-5-nodesc</styleUrl>
      <Polygon>
        <outerBoundaryIs>
          <LinearRing>
            <tessellate>1</tessellate>
            <coordinates>
              -10.6803317,57.4416039,0
              -11.7789645,53.458189,0
              -11.2917938,51.434149,0
              -7.9625075,49.3635092,0
              -3.7474928,49.5789897,0
              -2.5067524,49.0178681,0
              -1.7937926,48.8648696,0
              -1.8223111,49.2184111,0
              -2.0944582,49.4999713,0
              -2.4421341,50.0366453,0
              -0.4607688,50.1185257,0
              1.1409573,50.5094731,0
              3.5433188,54.0207919,0
              1.228848,60.5839141,0
              -0.8365817,61.4777911,0
              -5.9605514,60.5878815,0
              -10.6803317,57.4416039,0
            </coordinates>
          </LinearRing>
        </outerBoundaryIs>
      </Polygon>
    </Placemark>
  </Document>
</kml>
2

I think it’s because the place you’ve defined is too big at 994,850 km², the limit is about
695,662 km2. Or it contains too many observations (~3,390,000).

If it’s for a project you can add multiple existing places that cover the same area. eg:
United Kingdom
United Kingdom EEZ
Ireland and Northern Ireland
There are also a handful of places that cover sections of the sea around Ireland if you want coverage further out to sea. (Search: ‘Ireland’ > View All > Places)

Or if you want to use the new place on the Explore or Identify pages the place ID(s) can manually be added to the URL, then bookmarked in your browser for future use:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=6857,165258,125910&subview=map
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?place_id=6857,165258,125910

1 Like
3

I had googled British Isles and it says 315,159 km² so although mine is a little broader I wouldn’t have expected it to go over the limit…
If it really is that large, as an important area could it be added? it’s vital for all British uses since we don’t use United Kingdom since flora and fauna ignore the division of Ireland, and we include islands like Isle of Man etc.

4

^^^ You can see the British mapping area by this search for Lamium on the BSBI website, it’s a pretty fundamental area to have - https://database.bsbi.org/maps/?taxonid=2cd4p9h.n5n

5

994,850 km² is the area of the polygon according to Google Maps

1 Like
6

It could be - 315K is probably the land area, whereas the polygon has a lot of sea. In practice almost all records are land-based and so the large size is deceptive in terms of computation and observations represented. If I trimmed it down to just the land area, it would fit within the 600K but then the computation required would possibly be hugely increased, then I think it would be better to have it added by a curator on the basis it is computationally better to have a few points than the much smaller area with a lot of points - unless the area is being converted into a myriad small squares (it would be useful to know the type of algorithm used so the shape can be optimised). If converted into rectangles or strips there’s probably little to gain from fitting it to the land shape.

7

Incidentally taking up the adding existing places idea, could I ask how that is done for a traditional project, since it only seems to allow one place entry? That could be a workaround if needed.

8

Yes, I don’t think that this is a bug but the system working as intended as @lawnranger explained. The general practice here is to use combinations of other existing places, either in a project or a search URL that lead to the result you want.

Some of the issues surrounding making places that include ocean areas or other large places are documented in other threads here so you can check those out. Examples:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/new-limits-to-place-creation/24878
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/how-to-create-a-new-place-on-inat/3281

1 Like
9

Thanks - I’d read one, but the other thread was new, which I’ve now read.
I think there are two issues here - firstly it’s still to be explained how to apply multiple areas to a traditional project, since it only provides an option to select a single area. If someone could explain that, it would be good!
The second issue is that the United Kingdom isn’t the standard national recording area, but generally it is Britain + Ireland + Islands, or else the places (Scotland, Ireland, Wales, England, mainland etc) may be approached separately; but having N. Ireland disconnected from S. Ireland but attached to the mainland doesn’t make any biological sense, Ireland is either treated as a whole island (either solo or joined to the mainland) or its two parts (N & S) are treated for local usage. So the UK as an item doesn’t exist in normal use. I know it’s a political entity, but it isn’t a biologically meaningful one, so there needs to be a unit covering the British Isles, with sub regions as hierarchical children to it. Looking at the mentioned threads, I understand there’s a first-time indexing hit to a place contained within a large one - i.e. since it is in Europe it would perhaps have to be scanned against the 26m records in Europe; although that’s not necessarily true, since it could just be scanned against items within its bounding rectangle for first time indexing, about 4.8 m items of which almost all can be automatically counted in by belonging to the UK or RoI (S. Ireland), but it’s going to be about the same number of items if I carefully draw round the islands to fall within the size requirements only it will likely take longer to index due to the much greater complexity of the polygon, if it’s calculating points against the polygon (using a winding number). If it converts the polygon to horizontal strips or filling-rectangles then it would be probably be about the same, but again there’s no gain in shrinking the polygon to match the limits. The main point though is that the UK isn’t a meaningful recording area.
See for example -

10

You should be able to save a single place, then edit again and add another. It’s not very efficient, but most projects with multiple place rules use Collection projects. Actually, it’s not clear to me why you want a Traditional project rather than a Collection project?

1 Like
11

The reason for a traditional project here is so that items can be manually added. There can be a great many reason for this. For example this particular one is for collecting unusual plant records in Britain & Ireland that are of good quality (i.e. there is a chance of identifying them), which is useful for experienced botanists without much spare time to examine as well as generally interesting.
David

12

Who is going to be allowed to add observations? It sounds like only a few people who will know which observations are “unusual” and “good quality”. If so, you don’t really need place rules, these users seem unlikely to accidentally add observations outside the area of interest.

13

Yes, the choice of who will add them will evolve as needs.
The question of Britain + Ireland arose at the same time but it represents a separate issue that no one uses the UK biologically.

14

The polygon seems to exclude most of Alderney when I put it on Google Earth.

15

Good point - I did it a little quickly and it was hard to see what was there in detail!
I think I’ll make a precisely-made one and I’ll be sure to include Alderney.
Personally I think the Channel Islands should be included in the French botanical systems not the British ones, but they are used in the British so I’ve included them too, it doesn’t make a huge difference to the broad floral picture, and there’s some merit too due to the ease of travel connection.
David

16

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