advice asked for starting a project

[Iwan Lewylle]

Hi,

I was an administrator for herps in Belgium for almost a decade on observation.org or actually the local branch www.waarnemingen.be, and I moved to Canada a year ago.

I kept using observation.org, but now I'm thinking of also starting to use/creating a project on iNaturalist, but I have a couple of questions first.

1) someone asked me to take over the project 'common wall lizard of North America'. Is it possible to open up that project to all local amphibians and reptiles, but only for Vancouver Island or BC?

2) do I need to ask someone for permission first? I have found of couple of herpetologists that want to help me centralize data on Vancouver Island.

3) is it possible to upload a shp-file or csv-file from observation.org into iNaturalist? I've got a couple of hundred data I rather not like to upload manually...

4) One of the biggest differences is the fact that iNaturalist is focused on pictures. For example I don't seem to be able to visualize all the calling Northern Pacific Tree frogs on Vancouver Island. I only see those submitted with a picture. Am I doing something wrong or do I need to become an admin first to visualize those on one map?

Looking forward to hearing from someone ;-)

Iwan Lewylle

[Chris Cheatle]

You can define a project for any combination of taxa and geography you want.

I'm not sure what you mean by ask permission, to set up a project no, anyone can do it. To add records, it depends on which type of project. For old style projects where records are manually added, users can block others from adding their records. For the newer collection project style which I would recommend using, no permission is required (The main difference is in the old style the project admin can see obscured location, in collection projects they can't, hence no blocking).

Yes you can import a csv. On the observation creation page,but is an option, I believe the documentation is there when you do it.

The iNat team turned off seeing no photo records on the maps. Due to community feedback, they are turning it back on. It will be available again soon.

[Charlie Hohn]

in the mean time, until they put the photoless observations back on the range maps (and hopefully soon!), you can see them by going to 'explore' and searching for that species and unclicking 'verifiable'. it's clunky and slow, but works as a stopgap.

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Charlie Hohn
Montpelier, Vermont

[Tony Iwane]

Hi Iwan,

Replies are in-line.

On Wednesday, December 19, 2018 at 7:19:58 PM UTC-8, Iwan Lewylle wrote:

Hi,

I was an administrator for herps in Belgium for almost a decade on observation.org or actually the local branch www.waarnemingen.be, and I moved to Canada a year ago.

I kept using observation.org, but now I'm thinking of also starting to use/creating a project on iNaturalist, but I have a couple of questions first.

1) someone asked me to take over the project 'common wall lizard of North America'. Is it possible to open up that project to all local amphibians and reptiles, but only for Vancouver Island or BC?

As of now there is no way to transfer ownership of a collection project, although they can make you an admin and you can edit the project. For a local herps of Vancouver or BC, I suggest you create a new project.

 

2) do I need to ask someone for permission first? I have found of couple of herpetologists that want to help me centralize data on Vancouver Island.

As Chris said, it's a little unclear what you mean by "ask someone for permission".

 

3) is it possible to upload a shp-file or csv-file from observation.org into iNaturalist? I've got a couple of hundred data I rather not like to upload manually...

Yes, on the standard upload page, click on "More Import Options" and select CSV, which will take you here: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/import#csv_import You will see a formatting example there. Photos cannot be uploaded via CSV.

 

4) One of the biggest differences is the fact that iNaturalist is focused on pictures. For example I don't seem to be able to visualize all the calling Northern Pacific Tree frogs on Vancouver Island. I only see those submitted with a picture. Am I doing something wrong or do I need to become an admin first to visualize those on one map?

Charlie gave good instructions for this.

[Iwan Lewylle]

First of all thanks for all the replies!

Secondly; As Chris said, it's a little unclear what you mean by "ask someone for permission". Well in Europe (observation.org) we normally ask for permission (team of developers) before we could start up a project, because once you become an administrator you're able to see the locations/entire distribution of endangered species... So you had to proof a bit that your intentions were good. For example I would show them this publication; file:///C:/Users/iwan/AppData/Local/Temp/atlas_amfibieen_en_reptielen_van_de_provincie_vlaams-brabant.pdf ( in dutch but it gives you an idea).Or they would allow me to start administrating records of common species, and after a while you would get 'promotion' and you would be able to see endangered species. This seemed to be a good strategy to encourage people to also submit data of endangered species...

@ Chris ; would it be possible to get some more information about; "To add records, it depends on which type of project. For old style projects where records are manually added, users can block others from adding their records. For the newer collection project style which I would recommend using, no permission is required (The main difference is in the old style the project admin can see obscured location, in collection projects they can't, hence no blocking)." because I'm not entirely sure what to make out of this. Sorry about that!

Is there a link where I can learn more about the difference  between the collection style projects and the traditional style? Is their a manual for (potential) administrators?

Or do I just start with it, experiment a little and I can always switch from one style to another? Or is it better to do my homework and start once I'm well informed?

Iwan

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[Chris Cheatle]

Iwan,

There is a fairly extensive introduction to projects here > https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/managing-projects

Permissions regarding projects are not really centralized on the site, it is more in the hands of the user who adds the data.

• under your account settings, users can configure which traditional projects may add your data (all, only ones you have joined, or none - you alone can add records to projects)
• within each individual traditional project, users who join can further configure the visibility of obscured coordinates to project admins (admins can always see, they can see if you personally add the record to the project or they can never see). Its under the Your Membership link on the project home page,

Traditional projects require the records to be manually added to the project. Users can bulk add their own records, but as an admin you can only add records from other users one at a time. So if you find a user with 100 records not in the project, and want to add those, you need to do it as 100 individual steps.

Collection or new projects automatically add all records that meet the criteria of the project. So if you configure a collection project for reptiles in BC, every record, past and future is added to the project (they are effectively saved searches). Records from all users are added, regardless of if they join the project or not.

Because of the more open nature of collection projects, there is no facility for project admins to see obscured coordinates, there is no opt-in etc, they remain obscured under all circumstances.

The user interface, stats tracking etc are all far superiot, at least in my mind for the new collection projects.

Unless you have a compelling need to see obscured locations, I'm not sure there is a good reason for a newly created project to use the old style. If you do have this need it may even be worth setting up 2 projects, one new collection project covering all records and a old style one just for the protected species. This is a practice that for instance has been adopted here in Ontario.

There is even a tool if you inherit or admin an old project to convert it to a new collection project.

Enjoy your first Canadian winter, although if you are in BC, you wont get the full experience. 

I would have tried to muddle through that Dutch document you mentioned but it did not attach. I lived for years in Denmark, you'd be surprised how often I got asked how hard it was to learn Dutch as a result.🤔

[tony rebelo]

The other, more compelling reasons for using traditional projects are: 

* if it is list driven.  Adding species to the new collections project is OK for a few dozen species, but for - say Trees of southern Africa with 2000 species, adding 2000 species one by one, is rather tedious.  A conventional project allows one to add a list of any number of species very efficicently.

* if you are collecting special data fields.  So if you need for instance a field recording numbers seen or the substrate they were seen on, then traditional projects manages this very well.

The use of conventional projects for downloaded obscured data is over-rated.  Firstly, you cannot see Red List species - only those obscured by users.  Secondly, users have to allow you to see their coordinates, otherwise they stay obscured.   And then lastly, you (or a curator, or else the observer) has to add the observation to the project, which in a small focussed project is easy, but for large projects, you will need to set up programmes using APIs to manage this.

However, unless the above concerns are serious, the modern collection project is far superior in terms of reporting and graphics.