Screenshots of what you are seeing :
Shown bellow.
Description of problem :
Step 1:
I’m starting by assuming that iNat intends to show the most local and/or the highest threat level conservation status relevant to an observation.
Step 2:
If the conservation statuses are not added to the edit taxon page in this order iNat does not display the expected status. (Although this does not seem to be an issues with Global IUCN Red List statuses):
Step 3:
If the conservation statuses are added to the edit taxon page in the reverse of the order iNat displays them on the species page (State > National ) it does display the expected status:
generally it tries to find the first status that is Near Threatened or worse associated with that taxon in the places the viewer is allowed to see for that observation, and isn’t too picky about ordering within those parameters
however, there are a lot of weird exceptions, e.g. when the taxon has no status but an ancestor does, or when there’s a global status but no place-based status
It seems like some additional functionality is implemented for a status at the Global level as it will show a national status at NT or above over a global one that is NT or above regardless of the order on the edit page. As a work around I have found if you change a national status to LC it will reorder the list on the edit page so that this status is at the bottom which can then be changed back to it’s correct status.
Given there is a work around (putting them in the order you want them to display) it is not a major issue but would be a nice functionality to have.
There is another part of these statuses that could be a bug… or could be an incorrect expectation on my part… That you might be able to help me with. When you add a status the site has instructions that say “Status code, rank, etc. If a short code like E or CR exists, please use that, but if not, please use the full status, e.g. endangered or critically endangered.”. Again this seems to work fine for the global IUCN Red List statuses (Ignoring that the e in endangered should probably be capitalised on the observation page given it’s after a semicolon):
I can’t seem to find a way to get it to work like it does for the global statuses, doesn’t seem to matter if I put “CR”, “cr”, “Critically Endangered” or “critically endangered” it still behaves the same. Strangely enough if you add “CR” to the description it then adds “Critically Endangered” twice.
Again this is not a major issue, I have just been using the full word with the statuses I add so it avoids it being a problem but just seems a bit odd.
