Following a few complaints on the issue, I
joined the following project:
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/gauteng-protected-areas
This umbrella project collects observations from a few protected areas in Gauteng.
But subsequently (as with the two users who alerted me to the issue) the project now displays on all my observations, even those not in any of the projects collected by the umbrella.
So for instance:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/352384215 (for user Suvarna).
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/359199159 (for user me)
Now display the project Gauteng Protected Areas.
But they are not in Gauteng, or any of the projects in the Umbrella.
Simply the project now displays on every and all observations by any user who joins the project.
Flag the project on iNaturalist. Most likely one of the included projects has malformed criteria (could be that it accepts all observations worldwide or similar). The admins of the umbrella project can take care of that.
edit: what I’m saying is that it’s a problem with the project, not a bug of the platform.
Except it doesn’t appear that the observations are added to any of the included projects. And the observations don’t seem to show up on the umbrella map.
These projects have the location set to worldwide, but there is only one member and it’s only for a specific date:
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/sunderland-ridge
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/tweeling-zusterstroom
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/hennopsrivier
It’s specifically this project, which is included in the umbrella: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/biodiversity-in-parkmore-south-africa
It has no criteria defined, so any and all observations fit, and therefore the umbrella project appears on any and all observations of people who have joined the umbrella.
As I said, tell the umbrella admins about it (message, or make a flag), they can fix that.
I see Biodiversity in Parkmore, South Africa https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/biodiversity-in-parkmore-south-africa has no boundaries set.
But the culprit may be collection Hennopsrivier under the unbrella project https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/hennopsrivier where the location is set at Worldwide. No defined area. I just joined it and my obs from Overberg are showing up in it.
Yes, I didn’t mean to say that there aren’t other included projects who also cause problems. The Parkmore one was just the first one I found.
Still not a platform bug.
These two have a specific date set, and are for project members only. They are not malformed in the sense that the Parkmore project is malformed, which (as of now) has no inclusion criteria at all.
That seems unexpected to me as it says
Projects need to select one or more taxa (e.g. birds, conifers), places (e.g. Brazil, Yellowstone), users, and/or dates to begin displaying observations.
So it doesn’t display observations on the project, but they are still included?
Yes, we’ve had this exact situation with the bird windows collision umbrella project. Getting rid of the malformed project fixes it.
Thanks for investigating and picking up the “problem project”.
I have sent msgs to the respective project admins to have the project requirements fixed before being added once to the Umbrella project.