How to use iNaturalist's Search URLs - wiki part 1 of 2

Tutorials
, ,
103

I am finally making headway and at last finding all my “lost” obs not appearing in Projects, by searching my obs in a larger place, then excluding obs from other areas I frequently observe, getting the number of “lost” obs down to under a hundred. I haven’t yet successfully excluded multiple projects though.

104

Thanks, Yes that is what I am looking for.
I think it will be useful to have an alphabetical list of the filters which links to the descriptions

1 Like
105

Darn, I just found that rhis comment search will literally only pull up “comments” on observations, but not look at the comments field that is part of any “identification”. Some/many users treat those fields as identical so many (functional) comments are therefore not searchable. So is that a bug or a feature?

106

I think it’s a missing feature. :)

2 Likes
107

Ooh, I have to readjust my votes then, thanks!

108

I have now been able to exclude multiple projects but only by writing “&not_in_project=” again. Don’t know what I am doing wrong…would someone be kind enough to reiterate exactly the code for excluding multiple Projects?

109

I scoured the API best I could but was unable to find a way to exclude an active identification - as in without_ident_taxon_id=47126

Is it possible?

110

I don’t know for sure, but since &project_id= and &not_in_project= seem to expect project name stubs (i.e., “nz-beetles-and-their-grubs”) instead of simple project ID numbers, they may not support separating multiple stubs with commas, like other multi-choice parameters do.

No guarantees, but one thing you might try is using project ID numbers instead of name stubs, try separating them with commas, and see if you get the results you were expecting.

Project ID numbers are not easy to find. One way I know is to search for the project from https://www.inaturalist.org/projects, and open the project page. For a collector-type project, make sure the Overview tab is being displayed, then hover over any of the “View All” buttons for “Most Observations,” “Most Species,” or “Most Observed Species.” Or for a traditional project, hover over any of the numbers for those same stats. The URL that will display while hovering over those spots shows the Project ID number instead of the project name stub.

If this works, lets make sure we clarify this part of the Wiki!

2 Likes
111

Thanks very much jdmore. I will try that soon as I am on my computer (my tablet has a strange notion of predictive typing and the correction thereof)

2 Likes
112

I didn’t find a place to hover over. I went to the link you gave (not a place I have been before as it is in iNaturalist portal, not iNaturalist.nz portal), had Overview selected, and tried hoverng over all those View All buttons. Once I caught a glimpse of something that looked like a tip, ie sopme small text, just as my mouse was moving away. I tried repeatedly to get that to happen again but it didn’t.

113

Ability to see the underlying URL may be browser-dependent. I use Firefox, and the URL shows at the bottom left of my window when I hover. If the URL doesn’t show somewhere when you hover, there should still be a way to right-click on the button and select “Copy Link Location” (Firefox wording) or whatever the equivalent is in your browser. Then you can paste into a text window (or the address of a new browser tab) to read the URL. Hope something like that works for you!

114

Thanks jdmore. Safari offers that option on Right click, but pasting the url just shows it as words, not a number. Oh well, its not a majpor problem. It just makes my links very long and tricky to edit as they are much longer than the browser url window.
I will try pasting and editing them in a text document if needed.

115

I find the easiest way to find a project ID is to do this:

  • In the top search box, type in some letters of the project name.
  • When the project you want appears in the dropdown, hover over the Observations option (hovering over the About option gives you the named URL).
  • This gives you the project ID number in the URL that shows in the bottom-left of the screen (FF, Brave, Chrome - don’t know where it shows in Safari).
  • Note down the number (using a piece of paper and a pen - this may sound primitive ;-D).
  • Then search for the next project and note down that ID number.
  • Once you’ve got them all, add to the search URL you’re filtering for.
  • If you intend using the filters again in future, bookmark the page so you don’t have to go through all of this again.

Hope this helps :-)

Just by the by, a tip for finding user IDs on the people page - if you hover over the picture (avatar) you get the name, and if you hover over the username you get the ID (or it’s the other way round).

3 Likes
116

Thanks karoopixie. This seem promising! I don’t get any Project number in the URL until I select a Project from the dropdown, but then I see it in the URL.

Now all I have to do is remember which Project I selected:), as that info is no longer visible once the url appears…but it is good to see those numbers, and I will paste them into my spreadsheet alongside their text name spellings and the Place ID numbers…great wiki! Karoopixie, would you like to add your answer to the wiki?My head is still a bit too spinning to attempt to paraphrase it yet…

117

Two relatively easy ways to find project ID numbers:

From Identify, open Filters->More Filters and fill in the Project box. When the search updates, the project ID will be in the URL, e.g. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?project_id=8725.

From your project home page, add .json to the URL, e.g. https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/kaipatiki-project.json. The ID number should be the first thing in the list.

3 Likes
118

@kaipatiki_naturewatc ( forgot to reply to)

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&user_id=clay_s&verifiable=any&not_in_project=plants-of-texas,audio-observations-from-around-the-world
successfully removed observations of my plants and recordings of birds. It appears to function identically to
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&user_id=clay_s&verifiable=any&not_in_project=plants-of-texas&not_in_project=audio-observations-from-around-the-world

2 Likes
119

@clay_s that’s interesting, thank you.

120

Is there any search paramater for finding observations that don’t have a specific observation field? I looked in the api and I found nothing. I tried a bunch of searches and found nothing. Pls help.

These didn’t work:
&without_field:Individual%20identification
&does_not_have_field:Individual%20identification
&not_field:Individual%20identification
&not_field=Individual%20identification
&without_field=Individual%20identification
&does_not_have_field=Individual%20identification
&has_field:Individual%20identification=false
&has_field:Individual%20identification=0
&with_field:Individual%20identification=false
&with_field:Individual%20identification=0

2 Likes
121

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?field:Individual%20identification=
Produces records with something with Individual identification

https://www.inaturalist.org/observation_fields/48?value=
List ones that have null in the field.

I can’t find a way.

2 Likes
122

ahem, bump, scuse me…

1 Like