Can't delete a Place from a Project because User names cover up the part of the Place name

[nvhamlett]

Please fill out the following sections to the best of your ability, it will help us investigate bugs if we have this information at the outset. Screenshots are especially helpful, so please provide those if you can.

Platform (Android, iOS, Website):

Website - using an iMac running OS 10.14.6

App version number, if a mobile app issue (shown under Settings or About):

Browser, if a website issue (Firefox, Chrome, etc) :

Firefox 94.0.1, but it also happens with Chrome and Safari

URLs (aka web addresses) of any relevant observations or pages:

ULV R. Good’s Chaparral & Foothills Field Studies
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/ulv-r-good-s-chaparral-foothills-field-studies

Claremont Hills Wilderness Park, Claremont, CA, US
https://www.inaturalist.org/places/claremont-hills-wilderness-park

Screenshots of what you are seeing (instructions for taking a screenshot on computers and mobile devices: https://www.take-a-screenshot.org/):

This is a different project (https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/biota-of-the-claremont-hills-wilderness-park), but it shows same problem:

Note that I do NOT want the place deleted from this project.

Description of problem (please provide a set of steps we can use to replicate the issue, and make as many as you need.):

My iNat colleague Randy Good (@randallgood) and I were trying to be good iNat citizens and eliminate duplicate places. I recently obtained a KML file of the official boundary of the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park and used that for https://www.inaturalist.org/places/claremont-hills-wilderness-park-official-boundary. Randy can use this place for his projects, so he attempted to delete the duplicate unofficial place (https://www.inaturalist.org/places/claremont-hills-wilderness-park). Here’s what happened.

Step 1: Go to https://www.inaturalist.org/places/claremont-hills-wilderness-park

Step 2: Click “Edit place” on top right of page.

Step 3: On the Edit page, click “Delete” at the bottom of the page. Get a message that you can’t delete because other projects are using that place.

Step 4: Go to https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/ulv-r-good-s-chaparral-foothills-field-studies (the only project that is using that place)

Step 5:Click “Edit Project”

Step 6: Attempt to the delete the redundant place but can’t because the approved users are covering up the little x on the right of the place name.

[fluffyinca]

I think a workaround would just be to delete all the user requirements, delete the place requirement, then replace the user requirements.

[thomaseverest]

Did you try merging the places instead of deleting? That’s generally better than deleting anyway.

[nvhamlett]

We did think about that. Unfortunately the project is for a large class, and, understandably, Randy really does not want to have to re-enter all 203 names. Thanks for the suggestion, though! We would do that if the number of users was small.

[nvhamlett]

This sound like a possibity, @thomaseverest, but after looking through the forum for information on merging places, I’m still fuzzy on some details:

1. The two places in question have different creators (I created one; Randy created the other). Can either of us merge the places?

2. How does the merging process work? The place with the rough boundary (which we’d like to delete) extends considerably outside of the place with the official boundary (which we’d like to keep). Does the merged place fuse the boundaries? Or can we delete the place we don’t want in the merging process? Is there a good description somewhere?

Thanks!

Nancy

[thomaseverest]

Ah sorry I was assuming you were a curator because you were talking about deleting places, but you were the creator so you had that ability. I can merge the 2 places, essentially deleting the one you don’t like but you can mix and match the names, place types, and boundaries while the data get merged too. The boundaries don’t get fused—you just pick one. I don’t think the projects with the old place get replaced with the new one, though, so you’d have to update that. Does that sound good? Should I keep the old name or the new one?

[nvhamlett]

@thomaseverest, thanks! We don’t want to break the projects, but I think they’ll be OK.

It looks like things are as we want in your screenshot, but just to be extra-clear:

We want to delete this boundary:
https://www.inaturalist.org/places/claremont-hills-wilderness-park

We want to keep this boundary:
https://www.inaturalist.org/places/claremont-hills-wilderness-park-official-boundary

The two projects that use these places are:

1. https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/biota-of-the-claremont-hills-wilderness-park
   which uses only the “official boundary” place

2. https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/ulv-r-good-s-chaparral-foothills-field-studies
   which uses both places as well a bunch of others. Deleting the boundary for:
   https://www.inaturalist.org/places/claremont-hills-wilderness-park
   should not hurt this project as the area covered by this place is completely within other places included in the project, and Randy Good, the project administrator, has given the go-ahead for the deletion.

Both projects are Collection projects.

The new place can be named “Claremont Hills Wilderness Park” (or “Claremont Hills Wilderness Park, Claremont, CA” whichever would be a preferred iNat name). The only reason I named mine
Claremont Hills Wilderness Park (official boundary)" was because the “Claremont Hills Wilderness Park” name had already been taken.

Thanks so much!

Nancy

[thomaseverest]

Great! I merged as you suggested. Given that the projects included both places and they’re inside other included places there shouldn’t be a change in the observations included. If you run across any more issues feel free to flag the place(s) in question.

Also this doesn’t actually address the original bug report but it provides a workaround solution. :)

[nvhamlett]

Thanks, @thomaseverest! This seems just right!

I do hope someone fixes the original bug. I have another place I’d like to clean up multiples, and I expect to run into the same problem.

Thanks again!

Nancy