simple clear instructions: adding observations to projects, etc.

[Matthew Herron]

I am not having an easy time finding information on using iNaturalist. 

Can anyone provide a link to clear and simple instructions for how to get other people's observations into the project I have created. I understand that there was a long discussion on projects before but in lieu of sifting through that entire massive thread for some answer, can someone point me in the right direction?

Information under Help is very limited concerning projects, even though this is a huge part of iNat.

I am supposed to give a workshop on iNaturalist next month and I want to be able to convince of the power and functionality of this app/web community. 

Orientation video for the new interface on youtube? 

Some more instructions for the website, maybe, for core functionalities like projects? 

I would not mind collaborating with someone else in this forum via a Google Doc to get some good instructions going for the main website (if the developers are open to reviewing and hosting that information).

Thanks,

Matthew

[Ken-ichi]

Adding things to projects hasn't really changed recently. To do so, go
to an observation page (e.g.
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2672046) click "Add to
project" at the top, and click "Add" next to the project you want to
add it to. If the observer allows you to add their observations to
your project, it will get added to the project. If they don't, you'll
have to ask them to add it themselves.

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[Matthew Herron]

What about large groups of observations, say at a bioblitz? Do I have to contact each person and ask them to add their observations? Is there not a way to ask all observers at once to opt in?

Matthew

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[Scott Loarie]

Hi Matthew - 

For most projects, people add observations to them one at a time through the tool Ken-ichi mentioned.

At the moment, BioBlitz projects work differently because they don't display/count observations added to a project but rather observations fitting some sort of search criteria defined in the project (I know confusing)

So for a BioBlitz, you currently don't have to add observations to your project to have them counted/display on the project page.

There's also a tool called the 'aggregator' that we've made available to site curators for projects with fairly strict rules which automatically adds observations matching the search criteria defined in the project. For example, this project of mine http://www.inaturalist.org/projects/terrestrial-isopods uses the aggregator to automatically add all observations of Oniscidea

Once/if we are sure the aggregator is working well and not causing any load problems, we might make it available to everyone. But if you're not a site curator and want to try it out now, contact me off-group and I can check out your project and activate it if it matches the criteria the aggregator needs.

-Scott

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Scott R. Loarie, Ph.D.
Co-director, iNaturalist.org
California Academy of Sciences
55 Music Concourse Dr
San Francisco, CA 94118
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