I noticed that after posting an observation my written location under the map is not matching the setting on the map: eg the writing says “Bracebridge, ON, Canada” but the map shows a location in Russia! Is this a bug or did I do something wrong? Your help is really appreciated
Can you provide the URL to the observation?
You’ve likely accidentally clicked on the map and selected the location, given that your photo does not appear to have embedded gps in it. There is no relationship between the text and the entered coordinates, the text is a free text entry box that users can enter any data in they want.
I deleted the pinned location, pinned the location again and changed the 4 problematic observations. Right now I tested the pinned location with a different observation and it worked. I think it was probably my mistake somewhere along the line.
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The place edit field acts as both an entry and a search. If you put in a name of a place, and press enter, it will try and find the nearest matching place and put the pin location there. If you don’t press enter after changing that field and then save the observation, it records the place name WITHOUT moving the pin location.
It can be a useful feature… Often I don’t like how the maps label the name for the place, so I can edit it afterward to be more reflective of the place observed. For instance, at our local Eastwoodhill Arboretum the GPS location gets given a name like “Ngatapa 4072, New Zealand” or “Gisborne, NZ-GI-GB, NZ” depending on where in the arboretum the gps location is. That to me is meaningless, so I often change the name to “Eastwoodhill Arboretum, Gisborne, NZ” which makes more sense, or even to “Pear Park, Eastwoodhill, Gisborne, NZ” to bring in the actual area within the arboretum. When I do so, I am careful not to press enter, or it will attempt to find a place called that and move the pin location to there… which often produces strange results! If i accidentally do that, I just exit the observation without saving, and re-edit to try again.
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I’d assert this becomes really confusing if, for example you’re bulk editing and forget to press enter a few times; the result is an observation list that shows valid, correct placenames, but when clicked on they do not lead to that placename on the map.
Ex.: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/30647854
I get the usefulness of e.g., @kiwifergus’ use case, but having one text box perform two functions when it’s just labeled “Where were you” doesn’t strike me as intuitive
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