i think part of the issue here is that the results returned from /v1/projects don’t seem to be ordered in any logical way. so if you simply sorted the projects by update date, that would give you more recent projects.
i created a page that will help to show the results of GET /v1/projects in a more human-friendly format.
page: https://jumear.github.io/stirfry/iNatAPIv1_projects
code: https://github.com/jumear/stirfry/blob/gh-pages/iNatAPIv1_projects.html
using that page, you can see what the API will bring back for different parameters. by default, the Nearby page in the app seems to apply only lat/long filters, not any sort order. so here’s roughly what i get, using approximate lat/long (https://jumear.github.io/stirfry/iNatAPIv1_projects.html?lat=29.7&lng=-95.5):
note that the projects returned above are relatively old and not necessarily located close by. but simply forcing an order gets me a fresher list of projects (https://jumear.github.io/stirfry/iNatAPIv1_projects.html?lat=29.7&lng=-95.5&order_by=updated):
but the projects above are still sort of far away. so specifying a smaller radius than the default (500km) gets me more relevant results (https://jumear.github.io/stirfry/iNatAPIv1_projects.html?lat=29.7&lng=-95.5&radius=100&order_by=updated):
… but i don’t think any one set of parameters will necessarily give me the most optimal set of projects. so i think it’s still better to empower users to find projects using at least all the filter parameters currently available to /v1/projects. (ideally, we would also get new date and taxon parameters, too.)
feel free to use the new page to see how well different sets of parameters work in bringing back relevant projects.