First, I want to clarify my thoughts: I’m not sure if this is a feature idea or a general topic for discussion.
Second, English is not my native language, so some mistakes may occur; however, I can understand written English very well.
Third, I used Gemini to help me fix my grammar and organize this post.
Thank you
Differentiate Recent vs. Historic observations on taxon maps using color-coding
Idea:
Current Goal: When viewing a taxon map, all observations are displayed as a single color (or a heatmap). It is currently difficult to tell at a glance if a species is still present in an area or if the data points represent historical records from many years ago.
Proposed Solution: I suggest implementing a color-coding system for map tiles/pins based on the age of the observation.
Example: Use a bright red(current one)
for “Recent” observations (e.g., within the last 20 years) and a darker or different shade for “Historic” observations (e.g., older than 20 years).
Why it will improve iNaturalist:
Visualizing Trends: It allows users to immediately see if a species’ range is expanding or contracting without having to click on individual pins to check dates.
Motivating “Rediscovery”: If a user sees “Historic” markers in their local area with no recent sightings, it encourages them to visit those specific spots to see if the species still persists there.
Data Clarity: It provides a much clearer “story” of a species’ presence in a region over time, which is invaluable for both casual observers and researchers.
Specific examples/locations where this would apply: This would be beneficial globally for all taxa. In the attached mockup, you can see how much more informative a map becomes when you can distinguish between where a species was found 50 years ago versus where it has been seen recently.
Included are two example photos showing a species’ decline in specific areas over time.
Note on Source: This concept is inspired by the map display used on the Flora of Israel Online website, which effectively uses this color-coding to show species distribution over time.
Love this idea - Even better to have it graphed by every 10 years. I would say to make colours little more drastically different to be easily noticeable. This would also tie into the long winded topic on Captive/Cultivated better expanding on the platform
Feature requests should be submitted as such and with the template/key info filled out. If the OP wants to submit as a feature request, or edit, then move, that is fine, but I wouldn’t want to do it without their approval. There are also plenty of instances where someone wants to propose something more generally to get community feedback (which seems to be the case here):
and then later submits as a formal feature request after taking feedback into account.
To add more to your question, I think a major obstacle for me in submitting an official feature request here is mostly the language barrier, as I don’t fully understand everything and sometimes feel overwhelmed by the guidelines. So it’s a personal issue.
If others find this idea worth attempting to submit as a feature, I wouldn’t mind it being transferred to the correct forum.
or you can just download a bunch of observations and then visualize them however you like.
…
because “recent” can’t be reasonably defined consistently across use cases, i think trying to build functionality into the system is unlikely to happen. but maybe someone would be willing to make a third-party tool that would help your workflow, if the first item above doesn’t work for you for some reason.
