Here’s a rather extreme example:
I took a photo of Watermelon Snow (unicellular algae) coating a snowfield on a snowy peak this past summer, from about 20 km away. I credited the observation location to the snowy peak, not to the low elevation beach where I was standing.
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My thoughts are that the preferred location should always be where the organism is, but iNat is always going to get a ton of observations from users who will leave it where GPS shows their phone or camera. Of course with birds flying over, I choose close to where I’m standing if they flew close to straight overhead, even if my best photo came from before or after.
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Always best to document the location of the organism itself as precisely as possible. If that’s a problem, you can (1) explain in the Notes field or in a comment (e.g., “Observed from the road 200 meters south of the pin,” or “The tree was across the river from this location,” etc.), OR (2) you can edit the observation to move the pin closer to the organism’s actual location and adjust the accuracy as needed.
I make sure to broaden the location circle and to move the center of it a bit so that the EXACT location of any of my sightings will not be clear. This is a habit that I do on every observation, probably stemming from my beginnings as a helper and sensitive bird species photographer. The point of iNat is to provide a database for the region and habitat that critters live in, NOT to show anyone exactly where the critter is. Hence, the difference of a hundred yards should already be obliterated by a much wider location circle and the fact that it is intentionally moved off-center. So, in my way of looking at this, you are way overthinking this. If someone can use your location to go right to where the critter is, then in my opinion you’re doing it wrong.
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I generally use a GPS tag for my observations, which is where I observed from. Organism location would be better, but it’s usually not practical for me unless I’m with the organism.
When I don’t have a GPS or phone with me, I end up putting the county, if known, or the state (or even country) for the location. This causes the iNat location to appear to be in the center of the state or county, which can be an unacceptable error. I occasionally have someone ask for clarification, such as why an octopus is in a desert. I just now moved a 2009 Joshua tree observation of mine from the center of Nevada to a smaller area of southern Nevada, where Joshua trees actually grow. You can edit an observation to add a better location and estimated accuracy, which in some cases is enough to differentiate the organism.
My goal is #2, give the latitude of the place where the organism was. That sometimes means using a very large accuracy circle. Occasionally I use the location where I am / the GPS unit is, with a large accuracy circle.
My opinion is that (1) is acceptable, but (2) is better. Usually (1) is easier, as other people have mentioned. This isn’t really a problem for bugs though…
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I generally always go for option 1, because I do all my observations on my phone by taking photos at the time and uploading later. The location is the location stored as meta data with my photos. There are occasions where my phone failed to get my location at the time, and then I’ll have to make an estimation from memory, and based on the locations of photos before and after. I don’t think it makes a big difference.
It seems like a very extreme edge case where a (flighted) bird (or even a large mammal) observed 100 m from a county/state/country border would not also have been on the other side of the border at some point, so I don’t think it’s a disaster if the position is that much off? I guess if the habitat changed so drastically at the same border that it just wouldn’t be interested in anything over there? Maybe that is possible? For plants (and insects/arthropods/fungi etc) my phone is generally in virtually the same location as the specimen :P
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The GPS accuracy on a smartphone is closer to ~10 m, an order-of-magnitude higher than you’re suggesting. Asking people to record down to the meter isn’t going to be accurate. Plus, very rarely are folks taking identifiable photos of plants from more than 0–20 m anyway.
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Location data can be manually set, and that is something I will often do for standalone plants that can be easily spotted on the satellite imagery, or when they’re on/adjacent to an easily observable feature. Other times I will take several readings and average them for a more accurate location. My smartphone often sits more around the 7-4m accuracy mark.
Quite a number of people in my local area that observe for weed control reasons will aim to get observations to the exact coordinate, because as I said earlier, it is essential for pest plant control to have an accurate location. This is often accompanied by annotated flagging tape, so that even if the observation on iNat isn’t perfect, it’s at least good enough to get in visual range of the flagging tape.
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Hi,
Please keep in mind that:
- satellite (aerial) imagery – including the one assembled by Google from various sources – can be notably off, at times by several meters, making it impractical or unusable for precise ‘pinpointing’; production specifications of their source imagery should be duly verified before assuming it is true-to-ground;
- the “accuracy” or “acc.” reported by a smartphone and other consumer-grade devices is entirely theoretical (calculated based on generous assumptions, commonly expressed as a meager ~68% probability) – not a real (measured) one.
Aiming for good precision/accuracy is nice and noble, but it all becomes moot whenever one hits such technological shortcomings. At which point the flagging tape, textual hints (“the orchid was about 3 feet to the north of the eastern end of the bridge”), or even a simple photo of the surroundings… are the way to go.
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