Hello- I am admin for a few projects and I realize that in at least a few instances, 3 that I am aware of, state listed species are not showing up in projects. For example this observation is not showing up in this project. The project parameters are just based on location only so I am guessing it’s not showing up because the organism is a state listed organism, or is there something else I am missing? Thanks Pete
I suppose it’s the common problem with collection projects: if the accuracy circle of the observation goes beyond the boundaries of the project place, it won’t be included.
Edited for clarity (I hope)
Yes - if an observation is obscured, and the whole obscuration box is not in a user-created place, the observation will not be indexed as being in that place (and thus not in the project). It isn’t listing per se, but obscuration. The same also applies to accuracy circles.
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I don’t recall all the details because I was brand-new and had no idea what was going on, but I had some trouble with my first observation, which was of an otter at a local park. The species is automatically obscured. In order for my observation to appear in the park collection project, I had to join the project (and possibly also give it permission to view obscured locations?).
The obscuration rectangle for that observation definitely goes outside park boundaries, but it does now appear in the project:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/208167937
Just to clarify, the obscuration rectangle/accuracy circle has to break the bounding box of the place. Depending on the shape and location of the place, this can make a big difference.
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If a project includes multiple locations, is the bounding box the area covered by all of them together on the map? Or does each location (separate parks in my example) have an individual box?
It’s based on each iNaturalist Place - “location” doesn’t really have a defined meaning here. An iNatualist Place can have more than one separate boundary in it (eg https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=11&subview=map) and we use the bounding box of the entire Place for this rule. So for Hawaii, even though there are multiple polygons (around each island) the bounding box would be something like this:
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Thanks for the replies. I understand.
Okay, then how is this observation in the Erie MetroParks project???
I looked up the obscuration box and it goes way north of any possible bounding box for even the entire county park system (which is not a place, it’s just a list of places).
(I suppose I do not need to know how this works. I’m just very confused. 
This does explain why in Ohio projects there are more observations that get mapped in Kentucky than in Indiana, though.)
Can you please provide the URL of the observation, and of the project? Specifics are really important.
Yes, here is the observation again:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/208167937
And here is the project:
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/erie-metroparks
I doin’t see it as being in that project, which means that a) the project owners turned on trust and b) you joined the project and trusted it. The project is then using the true location. Only you and the project admins can see that it’s in the project. So its true location should be within one of the Places used for the project.
Oh that makes sense! I did trust them with the location (…that’s why I joined in the first place). Thank you!
So it seems you can get observations with obscured locations in your project, even if the obscuration box is outside your boundaries, but you have to get permission, and the location is still obscured for the general public. This seems like a fair compromise to me. There is a way to get the information, it’s just not automatic.
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