Hi,
I just created a place because in a couple of months we will be doing a bioblitz there and we are starting to prepare for it. However when I am on Explore page and select my place in the filters no observations show up there. So far there’s only one observation there, but it’s definitely there, it’s RG and it appears as soon as you remove the filter right in the middle of the place.
https://www.inaturalist.org/places/viii-kauno-fortas
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=147574&view=species
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?nelat=54.9229864546239&nelng=23.909146785736084&place_id=any&swlat=54.91620370644324&swlng=23.86831283569336
How come? :)
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The accuracy of the bat observation surpasses the place borders and the other two observations were made out of that place.
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I am in a similar situation and am about to create a location myself, so I’m interested in the answer here.
Did you create the observation before or after the location?
It’s a guess, but maybe if the observation came first, it’s never been tagged against the new location?
I hope not as it would be pretty inflexible design, and I’ve lots of existing observations I want to fall into my future location!
The accuracy circle must be contained by the place borders. Then the observation will show on the places list.
They will be there, don’t worry! It’s fabulous how they appear as a group once you have the Place to collect them. But as said above, the accuracy circle must be small enough, and the co-ordinates accurate enough, to be contained in the Place.
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Now I get it, thank you. The bat is a threatened species so the observer probably wanted the location to be obscured.
The location is not really obscured… try to contact him and ask.
what I did when I created a place, to counter this issue, was to make the place a bit bigger than the area I wanted to look at – 50 to 100 meters in each direction, so that observations from the edges would be included.
I was wondering about that. With small places a significant percentage of observations could have part of the accuracy circle outside the place. I have some observations which are in a strip of scrub along one edge of a local park*. I know they were observed in the park but the accuracy circles probably include the road next to the park. Modifying the accuracy circle so it is entirely within the official boundaries of the park (by changing the centre point or making it smaller) or making the place bigger both seem wrong.
Would it make more sense to consider the observation to be in the place if more than a certain percentage of the accuracy circle was within the place? Of course that might be significantly harder to calculate (I’ve not given that part any thought).
* Which doesn’t have an iNaturalist place yet but I’ve been meaning to create one.
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I have to give a lot of my obs accurcy circles of 2m for that reason, monitoring a particular habitat quite different from the adjoining, ie different land management.
I don’t feel that the difference between 2m and, say, 10m, is significant enough to damage anyone’s research into species distribution, and anyone interested in either that particular mini-site or the issue being studied by me can always query it.
If only there was a filter that allows to view the observations in a particular area even if only the center of the obs accuracy circle is in it…
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I agree. It currently excludes observations if there is a chance they are not in the place, but it would be so helpful for bioblitzes if observations were included if there is the possibility they are within the place… in other words, include observations if the accuracy circle or obscuration square breaches into the place
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I agree. It would be very helpful. I’m kind of worried about my bioblitz now because there will be a lot of people who will be using iNat for the first time and are not very good with technology in general. It will be very hard to explain to them how to set the correct accuracy of an observation so that it is not excluded from the area…
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I usually make a collection project that picks up observations automatically, and a traditional project that I can manually add observations to. Then an umbrella project that brings the two together. The “public front” for the bioblitz is the umbrella project. Because of the large obscuration square involved with endangered species, they often get omitted from small area bioblitzes, but this approach allows you to manually add them. It also means that you are not so reliant on tech savvyness of participants, which means you can focus more on making it fun for them :)
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