It would be really nice of the search filter options were expanded to include Endemic.
Given that “Introduced” is already an option it seems like an oversight to not include Endemic.
On place checklist pages you can filter the species by observed and endemic:
The checklist pages have far too many issues for them to be all that useful in their present state. The issues with check-lists have been noted and discussed in a lot of posts, and the upshot of all those appears to be, “We know there are issues are working on them, but it’ll take a while to get to them,” which is understandable as it’s a lower priority issue.
Despite having added all the species that should be in the area (according to the park, our records, past surveys, etc) only one of the many, many endemic species here actually shows up as endemic one of the checklists, and it’s not even an option on the other:
Both checklists also show completely different results of observations and species counts, and even of species themselves in some cases, despite me being the person who populated both of them the exact same data and one of the checklists (the one showing the least data) completely incorporating the areas enclosed by the other, plus a bit more area.
Checklists are potentially really useful, but, in my opinion, at present there are too many issues with them for them to be a reliable source, which is disappointing.
Having “Endemic” as a Search option both makes sense considering the other Search options (Introduced especially) and makes it much easier to flag species for endemic status that need it.
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It looks like the checklist in your screenshot is associated with a project, not a place, which would probably account for the more limited filters - it wouldn’t make sense to mark a species as endemic to your project, but rather the place associated with the project.
That there is a checklist associated with a Collection Project might be unintentional (@pleary?). I don’t think the checklist is linked anywhere prominently on the project pages if at all.
I think we are wandering off topic here. The point of this Feature Request (I really wish it hadn’t been moved to “General”, I’d prefer it stayed as a Feature Request because it is very specifically a feature request, not a general discussion) isn’t about the checklist pages.
That’s a different topic, one that’s been discussed quite often.
As mentioned on the original topic, your note has been moved to the topic for feature requests related to the Explore page. Feel free of course to continue that discussion there! https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/ideas-for-a-revamped-explore-observations-search-page/8439/111
More details regarding why I moved the posts:
I saw that. Thing is, given that’s a post from last year and is already very long any additions to it are likely to be deeply buried and overlooked.
I understand the reasoning behind merging it, but I’m not sure that merging topics that disparate in dates is a good idea. The last comment on that chain prior to the merge was nearly a month ago, indicating that people aren’t really engaging with the topic any more.
To me that indicates most of what’s important to the community has already been discussed. The Explore page redesign is long overdue and the staff will have their own internal plans in addition to the community wishlist. I’ll let @tiwane weigh in as to whether forum moderators should continue to follow the guidance on approving and merging topics as listed in the pinned feature requests topic.
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Cool, it looks like several species have been listed as “endemic” here - when I first linked to it, there was only one.
I dug up the info on how to make those changes via the Places checklist and changed them.
Still doesn’t read right in other checklists though, but that’s a different topic.
Which reinforces the idea that merging new info into that so late in the date may not be the best practice.
Also, what winds up being important doesn’t always show up right away, often important ideas or things that a community values emerge far down the process, as they may not have occurred to people within the relatively narrow window of fresh interest in the topic.
For continued input on a topic like that a more engaging approach might be to have a “monthly suggestions” post instead of adding to a 5 month old topic that’s faded from active engagement. That would encourage people to more actively think about the topic, would help to keep comment chains from getting unmanageably long, and perhaps make it easier to search and archive ideas and comment chains.
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Yes, and on the other hand having discussions about a similar topic fragmented into many different locations can make the conversations frustratingly overlapping/duplicative and also hard to follow. Two sides without a perfect medium. (And ideally the Explore page would already have been redesigned by now ;)
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As soon as you reply to an old topic, it jumps up to be the latest post anyway, so it’s effectively at the top of the “let’s discuss this further” pile!
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I approved the request without thinking about this @earthknight, I’m sorry, and@bouteloua did the right thing by moving it.
That thread is meant to be just a repository for suggestions from the community, which we’ll go through when we start working on a revamped explore page in earnest, so your suggestion/request won’t be lost. FWIW, a new explore page, like revamped notifications, video upload support, and other cool features are all things we would like to accomplish, but resources are limited and they take longer to get to than I think any of us are happy with, but that’s the reality of the situation.
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