On the website, the translation of 0,0 observations into unknown location observations appears to have actually been implemented as a translation of any lat = 0 observation to unknown location. This can be problematic because there may be observations with legitimate coordinates where lat = 0. (See the next post for details.) Additionally, the Android app also seems to display long = 0 observations with unknown location. (The iOs app will need to be checked to see how it behaves.)
When viewing coordinates on the observation page on the website, lat = 0 observations display a blank lat value, even if the corresponding long <> 0. similarly, long = 0 observations display a blank long value, even if the corresponding lat <> 0. It’s probably better to blank out a 0 lat or long value only in cases where the observations are at or very close to 0,0. (This is not a problem on the Android app, but the iOs app should be checked to see how it behaves.)
sorry for going a little off topic, but do you know if there have been any related bugs reported since the fix for the 0,0 problem (other than this one)? i tried to search through the forum, but it’s there’s a lot of stuff, and my brain isn’t working right today.
specifically, it looks to me like the way they addressed this was to effectively make any observations along lat 0 show up as location unknown (rather than, say, making only something near 0,0 show up as location unknown). (unless at 0,0, observations along long 0 still look okay on the website, except that their longitudes shows up as blank rather than 0. they do not show up on the Android app, however. i’m not sure about the Apple app.) the unknown location designation for non-0,0 lat 0 observations seems problematic because you could potentially have legitimate observations along lat 0. (it’s probably relatively unlikely that something has exactly lat 0, but maybe someone is approximating when putting in coordinates?)
I’m not aware of other related issues having been reported. I went ahead and broadened the topic title and turned the first post in this topic into a wiki – we can probably just consolidate the lat/long at 0 issues in one place.
I have observed several geckos at the Equator Monument in Pontianak, Indonesia and was unable to upload them with 0.00000 latitude. The system interprets it as lack of latitude and gave me the following message:
“You are submitting observations without dates or locations. Observations without this information are often impossible to identify and will not be visible by default in observation searches.”
Of course, what I did was simply changing the latitude to 0.00001 - but I still think it’s a bug that ruins the fun a little bit ;)
What a interesting quirk! It’s quite unfair as well, since anyone documenting flora or fauna at the North (90 N) or South Pole (90 S) will have no problem entering a latitude. (I don’t know why there aren’t more observations from the latter two locations.)
Edit: I realised after making the above assertion that, unless the observation was made on the pole, an observer may have some trouble assigning a precise longitude depending on where around (in the immediate vicinity of) the pole they may have been standing.
you still should be able to upload observations without the need to change latitude to 0.00001. this more of a warning message than something that will actually stop your upload, although it does seem to be somewhat problematic in this particular case.
It’s quite unfair as well, since anyone documenting flora or fauna at the North (90 N) or South Pole (90 S) will have no problem entering a latitude. (I don’t know why there aren’t more observations from the latter two locations.)
90 N and 90 S are infinitely small points. I doubt you’ve be able to observe something at those exact points.
Well, 0°N (or S) is an infinitely thin line too! I doubt you could tell whether any gecko resting on the equator was more in the northern or southern hemisphere.
The OP’s move to shift the location of the gecko by 0.00001° (about 1 meter…to the north or south?) makes sense considering the modest yet non-null size of these creatures, and the difficulty in determining precisely their geometrical center point. ( )
I might be able to upload the observations, but only as “casual” with location missing. When I clicked “edit location”, the latitude was completely gone (just an empty field) and the map was centered on the Sahara desert instead of Indonesia.
That’s what I figured in the end - that a few meters in any direction don’t really make a difference. It’s not even certain that the equator monument itself stands at 0.00000 latitude, since it was originally built about a hundred years ago, when the measurement methods weren’t as precise as they are nowadays. Still, it is an interesting quirk.
yes, that’s the same problem previously reported back in the day in the other thread i noted. my earlier point was really that “problem uploading observations” is less accurate than “problems with observations along the equator”. regardless, i think your bug report probably should be merged into that earlier report.
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