I really like your solution as a whole: adding a short description would make things a lot clearer, although I would suggest “share exact location/share region/hide location” as shorter versions for phone screens. The idea of adding an ‘anonymised’ tag is also really interesting, although it could run into issues if you’re in the middle of nowhere, where “nearest public location” could be hundreds of kilometres away.
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Speaking of clarifying geoprivacy, I am wondering if someone can clear up something for me:
Today, I was going through non-verifiable observations and noticed some missing locations are labelled as private.
Not all, though; in other places, missing and private are still labelled as expected…
The only explanation I can think of is the user set their geoprivacy to be private or obscured by default in their account settings but then missed entering a location, making the location both missing & private. Is that correct, or is there another layer of geoprivacy that explains this scenario?
There is no account setting for default geoprivacy:
I’m not totally sure I understand where the inconsistency is. I think we’re talking about these types of observations:
- lat/lon missing, geoprivacy open
- lat/lon missing, geoprivacy private
- lat/lon entered, geoprivacy open
- lat/lon entered, geoprivacy private
and you’re saying that within the second type (lat/lon missing, geoprivacy private), not all observations display the same? Or only that between categories the display is different?
I don’t know which type it is within! 
I just know some “private” observations don’t have the private/obscured icon.
When you go to the observation pages for these,they say “missing” instead of private.
It’s not a new labeling schema, because other observations with missing locations say missing in both the list view and individual observation. “True” private observations (the ones with the privacy icon) also say private in both the list view and individual observation.
I have no idea what the scenario is that is producing observations that are “private” (sans icon) in the list view, but “missing” in the individual observation page.
yes, i didn’t examine this in a lot of detail today, but based on what i’ve seen in the past, observations where the user has input no coordinates and has set geoprivacy to private will result in the kind of thing that you highlighted in red in your first screenshot above (when viewed by folks who don’t have privileges to the true coordinates of the observation).
it’s a little inconsistent because:
- private observations with coordinates will get the little eye icon, and dates will be displayed at month level
- obscured observations (whether they have coordinates or not) will get the little eye icon, and dates will be displayed at month level
… but it’s a minor issue for wonky data. so i never really thought this was worth addressing.
Just looking for some clarity on this issue.
It came up because I have been going through the non-verifiable observations as linked from the Frequent Responses:
I tend not to comment for people who set their observations to private, because :
- As @jwidness pointed out, that’s a deliberate choice (so there is no need for me to point it out the way I would with “missing” data, which is likely accidental or an upload error)
- Technically, private locations aren’t lacking data, the way a missing location is. The data is there, just hidden.
Having this weird overlap slows me down, because I have to take a closer look and do a lot of dithering to decide whether to contact them or not:
E.g. Is there an eye icon or not? If not, do I need to let them know their observation is missing info? Will they even believe it missing matters, since they were planning on making it private?
So I saw this topic title, and thought it seemed like the right place to ask.
honestly, i don’t think it matters in this kind of case. if the observer misses the warning messages telling them their observation may be missing location when they upload it, and if they miss the fact that their observation is casual status because their observation is lacking a location, then i don’t think someone posting a comment or sending a direct message that there’s an issue in their observation is going to make much difference, unless the observed taxon is notable.
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A one-time warning is easy to overlook. Maybe they intend to add the location later, but forgot.
Also, apparently people sometimes don’t even get the warning at all (from another thread):
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I think the 2 I posted fall into these 2 categories:
lat/lon missing, geoprivacy private
lat/lon entered, geoprivacy private
But I’m not sure if that is the correct interpretation of what I am seeing.
I’m saying they both display as “Private” when viewing observations in a list view.
You have to open the individual observation to see if you should contact the observer to let them know their observation is not verifiable because the location is missing.
I think the eye icon is supposed to indicate “true privacy” vs “private and also missing”, but I am not sure, so I am asking this topic for “clarification and guidance”. 
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I don’t think it was intentional to treat private obs differently depending on whether the lat/lon is missing or not. But that’s just my guess.
It would make sense if treating them differently is intentional, though: one is verifiable and eligible for RG, and the other is not.