I’d love to have the ability to query observations by a list of target taxa, whether in the Explore interface or by aggregation in a Collection Project. The ultimate use case I have in mind is establishing a Locally Rare Plants of Marin County project that will aggregate observations based on the list we have, both for documenting new occurrences and for truthing/reviewing the list itself. Lists like this are often formed by mining stodgy databases and the soliciting the reminiscences of local experts, but iNat’s wealth of observations is missing, crucially. It used to be an option in Traditional Projects!
You can do this by creating a list: https://www.inaturalist.org/lists/
and then using list_id= on the Explore page.
Such as observations of these spring wildflowers in the Chicago area:
https://www.inaturalist.org/lists/111820-Chicago-Wilderness-Region-Spring-Wildflowers
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?list_id=111820&place_id=57482
You can also add a list of target taxa in Collection projects, though it’s a bit tedious if your list is large:
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Cool, thanks. That will serve as a snapshot workaround for now. Entering the taxa individually in a project is not something I want to do, but I might just bite the bullet
From another topic:
Maybe @pleary can give a status update on whether this might get implemented soon?
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Hi, Just reviving this query on whether we can use lists with Collection Projects. It would be extremely useful to have this feature. We plan to have curated lists of native trees for different places and being able to upload a CSV file of tree species to a named list and then using that list to limit which species can be included in the collection project would be a great help. Right now, if we want to limit to specific species then the species have to be added one by one to a collection project… for lists with >100 species (e.g. a rainforest zone) that would be very cumbersome. Thanks.
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I don’t have any new information, sorry.
I want it for a project on Trees of southern Africa. I have the lists. I have a traditional project.
But I want an automatic one. Adding in and thereafter managing 1500 species (on now two lists) is a schlep! Especially compared with how easy it is on Lists.
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Yes, agree. We have a similar need here in southern India. Besides this feature, it would also be nice if when the table of observations is generated within a project, the species for which there are zero observations (from the list of species) are also listed in the table. Right now even if the project list has a species, if there are no observations of that species it does not show in a project at all. If it did show (and indicate zero observations so far), then it would help direct attention to species for which observations are needed. Don’t know if you have a similar issue.
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Besides this feature, it would also be nice if when the table of observations is generated within a project, the species for which there are zero observations (from the list of species) are also listed in the table.
The feature you want is in the checklist pages of places.
e.g. https://www.inaturalist.org/check_lists/75443-Western-Ghats-Check-List
Not recorded: https://www.inaturalist.org/check_lists/75443-Western-Ghats-Check-List?q=&view=photo&taxon=&observed=f&threatened=any&establishment_means=any&occurrence_status=not_absent&rank=all&taxonomic_status=active&commit=Filter
Recorded: https://www.inaturalist.org/check_lists/75443-Western-Ghats-Check-List?q=&view=photo&taxon=&observed=t&threatened=any&establishment_means=any&occurrence_status=not_absent&rank=all&taxonomic_status=active&commit=Filter
Provided that your project does not have a complex place filter, you can add this in the journal or About section as quick links.
Thank you for that. Good to know. Took me a little time to find the link to checklist under places, but I think I get it now!
Although the original point about enabling uploading a list of species as a CSV file to restrict Collection Projects to that set of species… is still needed I feel.
Is there any update on this? Very surprised that it is still not implemented. With many collection projects including/excluding hundreds of taxa, the ability to bulk upload taxa would be extremely useful to many (as mentioned above and in many other threads) and would presumably be fairly easy to implement due to already existing for the little-used Lists.
The &list_id= URL filter does not work in the compare tool and is generally very buggy/ineffective.
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I have no insight, but agree it would be very nice
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Would be great to have this… still need it very much!
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No update as yet, sorry
Thanks @tiwane. Will look forward to the update if/when it comes… and check back here periodically.
Hi again @tiwane @jwidness @pleary
Just jumping in here again to note that @dgreenberger in the very first post on this thread had already noted that this requested feature (use a saved list of species to aggregate observations in a project) is still available in traditional projects: Observation rules: be of a taxon on the project list
but has not been implemented in Collection projects. I wonder why such a useful feature was removed for Collection projects. Would be pretty neat if it can be brought back. I could set up a traditional project, but it would mean adding observations manually into the project, which can be very difficult and inefficient for the project we have in mind. Thanks and cheers.
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How do these requests work?
One makes a request. Anyone can vote for it.
What then?
Is there any feedback? like has this request been:
- rejected
- ignored
- waiting for 30 votes to trigger a response
- been looked at but low priority
- number
42 4445 on list of requests being attended to. - been considered but queued for next revamp of projects in 3024.
So where is this request for filtering projects on an editable list (such as a place checklist or something similar)?
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I don’t know if I’d say it was removed. It’s been a few years since we made collection projects, but if I remember correctly a taxonomic list isn’t really workable with collection projects, at least when used as a list of taxa to include. There are other options that we’ve considered, like uploading a CSV, but currently this functionality is not high on a list of to-dos, I’m sorry.