I am hoping to learn about the process involved in linking a place listed in the dropdown menu under “Explore > Location” with a proper polygon outline. Two examples recently in my own work are “Sackville Waterfowl Park Trail, NB” (currently one small grid square that covers only about half the park and trails, and I believe its outline has recently changed) in my hometown and Algonquin Provincial Park, ON (currently the settlement of “Algonquin Park” is mapped as a small grid square but the much larger park is not an option). Is this something I can edit myself or do I need iNaturalist staff effort?
You can create your own places and edit them without help of iNaturalist staff and curators. Only curators, staff, and the creator of the place can edit already existing places. If you can’t find the place you want, go ahead and make it!
Thanks! I just created a place - Sackville Waterfowl Park - but it isn’t showing up as an option under Locations yet. Any idea how long until the place list is updated, or if I need to do something else?
The Locations field on the Explore page comes from Google Maps, which iNat doesn’t have any control over. Only in the filters>More filters, can you select the Place you created. They’re redesigning the Explore page soon, so I assume they’ll fix this, since it’s a common point of confusion.
You have to be careful where you search, places are stored in 2 different spots in iNat. Some come from Google Maps, some are saved inside iNat itself. To access the 2nd in searches usually requires going into the filters button on a screen.