Place not showing observations (maybe no bounding box?)

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Star Donovan

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Jan 31, 2018, 12:14:48 PM1/31/18

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Someone made Round Rock, TX is a place in iNaturalist: https://www.inaturalist.org/places/round-rock

There are no observations listed there. I know I (and others) have logged observations within Round Rock, TX.

Per this thread (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/inaturalist/place/inaturalist/ADHYvDYC1vc/PDPB_4bbAAAJ) I tried zooming in on the map to see the boundaries.
I see a map point, but don't see any defined boundaries.
Am I zooming incorrectly, or are there no boundaries?
If the latter, is that why there are no observations listed for this city?

Tony Iwane

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Jan 31, 2018, 1:13:10 PM1/31/18

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Hi Star,

You're correct, looks like the place is solely a point on a map, there are no boundaries, so it will only display observations made on that point.

Tony

Charlie Hohn

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Jan 31, 2018, 1:24:55 PM1/31/18

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can we at least delete the places (not locations) that are just a point? They don't seem to serve any purpose and they confuse people.

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Star Donovan

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Jan 31, 2018, 2:13:39 PM1/31/18

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I can't speak for all the single point places, but I feel Round Rock has enough observations that I'd rather see it defined than obliterated. :)

I'd rather just flag those places somehow.
If places could be flagged like taxon, it could reaches the place's creator (or an admin or curator, if the place creator is no longer active on the site), and they can choose to either set boundaries or delete it.

Star Donovan

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Jan 31, 2018, 2:15:01 PM1/31/18

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Tony,
Who should I contact about defining boundaries for that area?

Thanks,
Star

Tony Iwane

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Jan 31, 2018, 2:17:42 PM1/31/18

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Any curator can add a KML file or draw a polygon of the boundaries. Some users have been getting them from the census bureau: https://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/data/tiger-kml.html

If you send it to he...@inaturalist.org I'd be happy to update it.

Tony

Star Donovan

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Jan 31, 2018, 2:30:26 PM1/31/18

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Thank you, Tony; I will do so.

Janel Johnson

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Jan 31, 2018, 7:55:59 PM1/31/18

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Many of these point-only places seem like they were created automatically and there is no link on the Place page to edit them, even for curators.

Star Donovan

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Feb 2, 2018, 11:27:44 AM2/2/18

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If a curator can't edit the single-point places, and there's no way to flag them, I guess we'll just have to email he...@inaturalist.org as we discover them.

elbillaf

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Feb 2, 2018, 11:56:39 AM2/2/18

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I downloaded the city boundary here: https://www.roundrocktexas.gov/departments/gis/downloadable-gis-files/

(the file city-limit.zip)

I unzipped the 7 files to a directory.

I went here: https://mygeodata.cloud/converter/shp-to-kml

and drag/dropped the entire 7 files and converted and downloaded the KML.

I created a place called RoundRockTX_TEMP here: https://www.inaturalist.org/places/roundrocktx_temp
The map shows up but there are no observations. Not sure what's up with that.

Could be I did something wrong or I'm missing a step. Could be the holes in the map boundary are causing an issue.
It could be that simplifying the boundary would help.

Anyway, since I have the KML, I'll post it here and someone can else can run with it:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

</Schema>

<Folder><name>citylimit</name>

<SimpleData name="CITY_NAME">ROUND ROCK</SimpleData>

</SchemaData></ExtendedData>

</Placemark>

</Folder>

</Document></kml>

elbillaf

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Feb 2, 2018, 11:59:19 AM2/2/18

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Wait ... the temporary place i created is working. It just took a while for the change to take affect.

Try that, please, and see if it gives you what you want.

On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 12:14:48 PM UTC-5, Star Donovan wrote:

elbillaf

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Feb 2, 2018, 12:01:46 PM2/2/18

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It still might be worth creating a simplified boundary.

On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 12:14:48 PM UTC-5, Star Donovan wrote:

Tony Iwane

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Feb 2, 2018, 5:34:44 PM2/2/18

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I added that boundary to https://www.inaturalist.org/places/round-rock yesterday and its checklist did get filled. elbillaf, you'll have to mark "Checklists allowed" when making or editing the place.

Do you mind if I delete or merge your temporary place?

Tony Iwane

elbillaf

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Feb 3, 2018, 12:06:18 PM2/3/18

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Please delete it.

tx,

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