Hi, what happens if there is an existing project[1] and the place shape/kml defining the project area is replaced, edited or deleted? I assume that doing so would effect the project’s observations but I’m not sure. Assuming that modifying the boundaries does affect the observations, and I think it must, is there a way to “lock”/archive a project in its current state?
[1] Associated with a bioblitz that has ended if that’s relevant
I just found this: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/what-happens-when-you-delete-a-traditional-project/26162
But that’s asking a slightly different question to me. I’m wondering if there’s a way to keep a project intact with the observations still in the project but delete the boundary (not the project). The project has start and end dates so no new observations are being added to it at the moment but I suppose the project curators/owners might be able to re-open it at some point?
I have also been wondering this, especially for editing single point places, which are currently all associated with a project, checklist, and/or guide. (See this thread and the GitHub link.)
I merged one yesterday, but it was inside a larger polygon that was also part of the project. There was no effect, but I’m not sure that would always be the case.
Modifying boundaries will affect project, deleting place is not possible if it’s used in a project. You can rename old place and create new one or save statistics for bio blitz as a post in a project and then edit the place.
Yeah I thought it might. The project is from 3 years ago and the boundaries are fairly arbitrary. I’ve emailed the coordinators maybe 5 times in the last year with no response; they’re gone. I guess renaming it (the place name) is the best course of action to preserve the results
Correct me if I’m missing something, but I’m thinking that observations already belonging to a Traditional Project will be retained even if there are changes to the associated place. Collection Projects, on the other hand, are dressed-up saved queries that are constantly re-run against all observations, so changing the associated place would immediately change the set of eligible observations.
Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m asking. I don’t want to mess with a place and accidentally delete all the observations already collected in it though
See: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/salton-drive-biodiversity
I changed this from a traditional project to a collection project last year and noticed that it dropped a lot of observations. (The reason behind that dealt with the circles of uncertainty.) The project is defined on the place named “Salton Drive & Vicinity, Austin, TX” so I just uploaded a new, slightly larger place and the project then “collected” most of the missing observations.
So this was a case when enlargement of the place collected more observations. Changing a boundary might have an unpredictable impact on what the project collects, particularly due to circles of uncertainty and/or obscured observations.
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