Taxon page updates, should not be allowed if website didn't fully load!

Happy New Year to all!
I am currently making changes to geographical distributions and taxonomy. During this, I experience some troble because I sometimes start my action without having a fully loaded iNat taxon / atlas page.

Platform (Website): Windows
Browser, Firefox

Problem (1): the atlas page didn’t fully load (yet), no countries highlighted, no observations visible, and I can already click on a country. I can “add” that country, but if, in fact, that country is already listed (but not loaded to my PC), it will actually “remove” it without any warning! This is a trap! It happened many times to me, and it’s kind of annoying to keep clicking / reloading the same page, just to be sure that it’s fully loaded. Mostly, I am dealing with distributions without observations in the countries I am clicking… but it can happen anywhere …

Fix (1): Either provide a “download bar” or a “sand clock” such that I know the page isn’t fully loaded; or you could block the geographical features and make them only accessible AFTER the page has fully loaded.

Problem (2): the taxon page didn’t fully load (yet), it shows observations=0, observers=0, identifiers=0. Sometimes it’s stuck there for some time. For making a taxon change, it is very important for me to know, if observations would be affected or not. If yes, I usually prefer to ask a fellow curator to double check it before I make the change. If there are no observations, it’s not so critical and I usually make the change right away (to save time).

Fix (2): Similar as in (1), you could provide a “download bar” or a “sand clock” such that I know the page isn’t fully loaded. Or, at least, DO NOT fill the taxon statistics with “0”, and then later change it. Could be filled with any other character, like “?” or whatever …

Thanks for looking into this. (By the way, it isn’t the end of my work with atlases and taxonomy for moths, it’s just the beginning …)

Best regards,
amz

2 Likes

wrong wrong wrong

whenever the loading is a bit slower than usual, the error happens. I had it a dozen times in the last 48 hours, that I intended to add a country (which I didn’t see on the map because it wasn’t loaded) and instead I deleted it without any warning. Be aware, it’s still not working properly and can be destructive!