That is too much of a hack! The key point is having to have obs with no IDs, so they don’t show on the taxon map of the species concerned! So, it is not “better”.
On the subject of effort quantification, it is no more of an issue for count=0 than for count=anything else! Count =1, for example, means little without knowing effort.
well, any attempt to capture absence data in the current system is going to be a hack one way or the other. if i were a developer trying to implement something to capture absence data in the system (other than trips), i would not do it in the way you’re suggesting (via a count field) because that alone is not enough of a separation (in structure, process, etc.) between 2 very different kinds of data (absence vs presence).
so the way i look at it, if you’re going to do a hack in the meantime, you might as well do a hack that can’t be confused as a presence data point. and the thing that i pointed to earlier can’t be confused as a presence data point. but you can still search for and map those (hacked absence) points relatively easily. so that’s as good as a hack gets, in my opinion.
Maybe, but are absence vs presence really ‘very different’? I don’t think so, which is what I was trying to explain. A zero in the count field is perfectly in line with what a count field is designed for, I suggest. Absence will always be trumped by presence, so if someone else looks harder and finds 1 or more, then that will trump any absence observations from the same location. The difference between 0 and 1 is literally the same as between 1 and 2, etc. The only thing is to prevent zeros showing on maps in the same way as nonzeros, but that is surely easy to implement! Considerations relating to search effort are no more significant for zeros as they already are for nonzeros.
One problem with the zero count thing is it’s attached to one point and there are literally a million things that might be absent. I could make 50 observations of elephants around my house and make count = 0 but it doesn’t tell you where I looked or whether I did a full species inventory etc. I really think for most things a line or polygon is needed to collect absence data or else a full inventory of observed species like with ebird and the inat trips.
If you are suggesting that users could go out of their way to do things with the zero count thing that are not sensible, then yes, of course they could, as they can now with other things if they want to. But we don’t see many users making 50 obs a day of the same individual plant or whatever, so why would they be any more inclined to make 50 zero elephant observations from the same point? I suggest that the important thing is that zero counts can be put to good use.
Haha. You’ve clearly never looked at my calendar. But my point is without defined parameters adding random negative data on stuff as observations seems problematic for a lot of reasons and I don’t think it’s a good idea.
Why doesn’t it tell me that you looked for elephants around your house?
But do I make 1 point or 50? If I make 1 what does it refer to? I haven’t defined my search area at all, time searched, or anything like that. And I’ve created a bunch of elephant points that even if marked as no evidence of organism will show up on some searches. And it doesn’t show up in others you’d want it. And others can’t verify. I just don’t think this form of negative data collection works for how inat works.
Why haven’t you defined your search area by way of point and radius on the map? The elephant example may be a red herring (so to speak!) Think of an example more along these lines: there is a new incursion of an insect which has a single host plant. We want to determine the extent of the incursion, so we check the host plant wherever we can find it. It would be useful to know where the host plant is known to be and known not to be (whether wild or planted!) We can add observations of the insect where found on the plant and also zero observations where not found on the plant, to act as a baseline for future surveys. Without the zero obs, subsequent surveys don’t know if those plants were checked or not.
The radius is for locational uncertainty not marking an area. And it’s not a convenient shape for doing that anyway.
Well that opens a whole new can of worms! What sense does the count field have at all, in that case? At any rate, one can specify an area verbally within an observation and this would make just as much sense for zero obs as for nonzero obs. I feel as though different issues are being conflated here.
There could/would be defined parameters added. There could be casual vs. research grade “0 count” observations. Maybe RG would require another observer at the same time or maybe just that the observer have enough observations/identifications of that species that their “expert” data doesn’t need to be verified.
This may not be what iNat was created for, but I think it’s a huge miss to have hundreds of thousands of observers out there and only get half the data. Many of those observers are experts in there fields and if they’re not attached to a study in some way, this is data that is lost forever.
Besides the scientific value, I would enjoy going back to a place where volunteers have pulled garlic mustard and recording a zero count. That would be as fun as recording the native plants that took its place.
Just thought of another use. If you’re looking for a species thought to be extinct in a certain area, you could search by date and see where others have already looked recently. This would free you up to look in other places. (A bit more helpful for plants than animals.)
for what it’s worth i think a formalized way of documenting absense is a good idea, i just don’t think recording the presence of something with an observation, then marking zero in a field, is a good way to do it. if you are doing this please find a way to exclude it from the map at least, and don’t attach a photo.
What about taking the photo near where the garlic mustard was, creating a field for garlic mustard = 0 or something, then adding a native plant that is growing there instead? Then you get your negative data but also are using the site the way it’s made to be used.
But @charlie, that is exactly why this thread is a feature request. We do need a change in features of some kind to be able to do this sensibly. I agree about not adding a photo to a zero obs. That will at least prevent RG as things stand (though RG could fairly easily be prevented in other ways for zero obs, e.g. if count=0, then RG=disabled).
The problem with your “what about …” suggestion is that the zero observations won’t show on the map for garlic mustard. Although we don’t want them to show on the map in the same way as nonzero obs, it would be very useful to get a visual of where the species both is and isn’t.
i don’t think i want absence points on a range map, seems like a lot of clutter even if it’s a different symbology. And it just doesn’t compute to me that you’d want a range map and also have places something isn’t. I know eBird kind of does it but their model is so different.
So make it a user option to show or not show
it doesn’t make any sense. that isn’t what range maps are for. you could have the option to show presence of mcdonalds restaurants too but it isn’t what belongs on the map.
I think so i don’t get embroiled in another repetitive conversation i will leave it at this: my ‘vote’ for what it’s worth is to never show absence data on a range map.
i ‘vote’ for what i think is best for the site. Sorry if you don’t like it. We both know they aren’t going to put absence data on the range maps anyway, regardless of whether you (or i) want it.
You need to tone down the condescending tone, bigtime. I grasp what you are saying just fine. I just don’t agree with it
Pots and kettles
I don’t even know what that means. But I think people ought to be able to vote or not vote on a Feature Request according to their own judgment. The decision is not going to be made by us anyway.