Red Data List obscured

[melica]

I’ve been contacted by our county recorder about an unusual plant, which is on the Red Data List. He has the record via iRecord, and the location was apparently in the middle of a field miles from where it was actually seen. I’ve checked my iNat record and I can’t see that it is obscured https://uk.inaturalist.org/observations/163672587. I’ve been told that there may be automatic obcuring for Red Data plants? Any clarification welcome.
Just don’t want to make life too tricky for our busy recorder!
Cheers,
Karen

[thebeachcomber]

yes this record is indeed obscured on iNat
if you click details, you’ll see this pop-up explaining the obscuration

the location that you see on the map when checking your own record is the true location, but anyone else seeing it will see the random location, ie the one in the middle of the field.

When obs go into iRecord from iNat, do the admins have access to the underlying true locations that they can then provide to researchers etc? That’s the case for Australia and iNat → ALA

[thebeachcomber]

if you head to the taxon page for this species (https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/135229-Buglossoides-arvensis), and go to the status tab, you’ll see that currently all records in the UK are automatically obscured

if you think locations should be open instead, you can flag the taxon and start a discussion. Otherwise if obscuration is warranted, all observations will continue to have their locations masked. There are a few ways to get access to true locations for researchers, land managers, etc

[melica]

Thanks! This particular issue isn’t going to happen very often but it’s quite concerning that records can end up in totally the wrong place on iRecord. It’s hard enough for the recorders to sort through the huge increase of data coming through from INaturalist as it is…

[deboas]

It seems like the data recorders for iRecord might want to filter their data intake to exclude points with a “precision” value above a certain threshold. And/or ensure that they have a project set up that observers can choose to share true locations of obscured data with them. Even so, that won’t solve all problems of inaccurate data. Some people just type the name of the place they observed and use that, creating inaccurate data.