Observations of endangered species have no forward/backward arrows

Platform (Android, iOS, Website): Website

App version number, if a mobile app issue (shown under Settings or About):

Browser, if a website issue (Firefox, Chrome, etc) : Firefox

URLs (aka web addresses) of any relevant observations or pages: Included in description

Screenshots of what you are seeing (instructions for taking a screenshot on computers and mobile devices: https://www.take-a-screenshot.org/):

Description of problem (please provide a set of steps we can use to replicate the issue, and make as many as you need.):

I look at coral, much of it is endangered and so has its location obscured automatically.

If I am on the explore page I can see all the observations within my search parameters, regardless of location obscured/endangered.

When I open a single observation, if it is not location obscured/endangered I get green forward and backward arrows next to the observers name. Using these arrows jumps to the next not location obscured/endangered observation. It skips all the location obscured/endangered observations.

This one: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/164464330
Jumps straight to this one: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/164464324

If you open a location obscured/endangered observation from the explore page, it has no green forward-backward arrows.

The green arrows skip these three obs and they have no arrows of their own.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/164464329
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/164464326
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/164464325

The common factor seems to be location obscured/endangered. Pandas also have no green arrows:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/107876051

It is not a bug, it is by design. It is so people can’t easily work out the location by looking where you were immediately before and after the obscured observation.

2 Likes

(sigh)

I know that makes sense, but…

It’s a pain. You think you’ve cleared all the IDs someone has put up, go back to the explore page and discover that 1/3 are still needs ID and have to be opened individually.

Endangered status is just so random for coral

Porites cylindrica - obscured - one of the commonest species we have in this corner of the world and one of the few that can actually be ID’d to species without a microscope.

Thank you @Vireya

If you think a species shouldn’t be obscured on iNat, flag it and start a discussion, and it can be unobscured if warranted

2 Likes

I think that if you expand your geographic area search so it includes enough space, obscured locations will also be included? not certain.

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Have you considered using Identify instead of Explore?

1 Like

Thanks @jwidness , I don’t find “identify” any more useable than “explore” because so many observations are to Genus at best, and require a close look at the image.

Also, identify doesn’t show any of the ‘endangered’ species either. The latest batch of uploads by Orionsmcc has 157 observations and identify only shows 113 of them.

Do you click on the thumbnails to bring up the Identify Modal? If you’re already using the modal, I’m not sure what you mean by “require a close look”.



Identify should be showing all observations. Can you double check they’re not being filtered out by some other parameter? For example, after turning on all quality grades, and including both reviewed and unreviewed observations by Orionsmcc, I see this screen, including the obscured observation in red.

1 Like