Having Observations Automatically Added To a Project

[Daniel Kurek]

I have set up to iNaturalist projects.

https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/lepidoptera-of-australia

https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/odonata-of-australia-dragonflies-damselflies

When people post observations of Lepidoptera or Odonata that are georeferenced in Australia, can I have them automatically added to these projects.

Is this possible?

If so, how can I set this up.

Thanks,

Daniel

[ellen hildebrandt]

You can do that; (be careful to do it correctly, or you can end up with a mess)
Go to your project page, and click a link that says "Edit project" (on my browsers it's on the upper right hand side, near the large project photo).
  On the edit page, ,before you do anything else, i recommend looking carefully at your project rules to see that they are set to include precisely the taxa and the locations and the timeframe that you want in the project. Make these adjustments, if needed,. Then  (i'm sure i don't have to tell you this), Save your changes

  Then return to  the edit page, scroll down to the "Observation Aggregation" section. You can check a box here to automatically add any observation (ANY observation) that meets the project rules. There are some warnings there about how this can go badly if you haven't set up the project rules to exclude unwanted stuff. 

Again (i'm sure i don't have to tell you this), Save your changes.
  Notice on your project main page that you have some tools there to help you find unsuitable observations within the project. So if, later on, you end up having to change the project rules, you can use this for weeding out. 
  Also notice the tool for automatically finding observations that suit your project rules. You can use this as an alternative to the automatic aggregator. This tool doesn't take permanent effect, and it doesn't automatically add to the project. You get more control this way.

[Tony Iwane]

Daniel, the project aggregator is a big strain on our website, and we allow it only for bioblitz projects, which have a defined start and end date. For other projects, a site curator would have to turn it on for you.

If all you want to do is see the observations of butterflies or odonates in Australia, using Observation Search would save you a ton of hassle. If you just set your taxon to lepidoptera and your place to australia, you will return all of the leps in Australia, no project needed. And you can save that search URL as a bookmark and go to it anytime, it will always be updated, and you can use other filters to search for observations that you want. Here's the URL for leps of Australia: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=6744&subview=grid&taxon_id=47157

Tony

[kestrel]

Pretty sure that will only work if he's a curator. Right now, the only projects where automatic aggregation is available to anyone is bioblitz projects.

Running the automatic aggregator on a place that big and a taxon with a great number of species puts too much strain on the iNat servers, if I recall correctly.

I think in this case, it's either better to just use the observation page to see those observations, e.g., https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=6744&subview=grid&taxon_id=47157, or if there's a larger reason to have an actual project, to set up the project with all the rules and then search for suitable observations to add - asking those folks with large numbers of observations to join the project and and use "Add from your own observations" tool to find and batch upload their observations.

[kestrel]

Whoops, Tony and I responded at the same time - luckily our answers are the same! But wanted to make it clear I was responding to Ellen's message, not Tony's. :)

[bouteloua]

Daniel, you may find some other helpful information at this page: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/managing-projects

[Daniel Kurek]

Hello Tony Iwane,

I am happy to use the observation search, but once at that screen how can I bulk add observations to my project.

Thankyou,

Daniel

[Sam Kieschnick]

I'm curious about the automatic aggregation of observations to a 'place' rather than to a 'project.'  Is this also a strain to the system?

I've started to encourage folks to just create a place rather than create a project if the question is "What are all of the organisms in this area?"  I have them search for existing places, and then if there isn't an existing place, and it's a relatively small place (ex: city park), then they can create a polygon and all observations made within that polygon are automatically added to the place.  Is this also a strain to the iNat system?

Thanks!

[Scott Loarie]

Hi Daniel,

You can only bulk add your own observations to a project from
Observations By You -> Batch Edit -> Select -> Add to project

You can't bulk add other's observations which is why tony was
suggesting maybe use observations search instead of a project

Sam, If you're referring to the Observations tab on a Place page,
thats just using the boundary to dynamically filter observations that
fall within it. There's negligible strain associated with filtering
obs compared to using the aggregator which creates a lot of database
records linking observations to a project and other associations.

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Scott R. Loarie, Ph.D.
Co-director, iNaturalist.org
California Academy of Sciences
55 Music Concourse Dr
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[David K]

similar requests to permit bulk uploading of other people's observations has been made previously (at least once by me):

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/inaturalist/_X-1bwk9tec

and here - this includes a good discussion of some of the challenges faced by the iNat team:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/inaturalist/bulk$20add$20observations%7Csort:date/inaturalist/PW_F28ikr2Q/ywWQL_XzAwAJ

here is a related request to permit bulk edits of jobs in a project (that I also believe would be helpful):

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/inaturalist/bulk$20add$20observations%7Csort:date/inaturalist/VllYWey1aR4/BH5OG6nVCQAJ

I think that this topic reappears regularly because it would be so obviously useful to project admins, especially given the system resource challenges posed by the more widespread use of the aggregator.  

[Charlie Hohn]

what about just running the aggregator once a month or something, and only if the project admin/curators are active? If people want things added sooner they can do it manually.

I have no idea how often it runs now so maybe that wouldn't help much, but just a thought.

[David K]

Charlie - that topic was addressed in the second link (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/inaturalist/bulk$20add$20observations%7Csort:date/inaturalist/PW_F28ikr2Q/ywWQL_XzAwAJ) but was left unresolved. 

I agree that that the aggregator doesn't need to run continuously, but monthly is too infrequent for some projects.  For example, there are one or two folks who try and review every observation in http://inaturalist.ca/projects/ontario-butterfly-atlas.  Last year (2016) there were only 200 observations per month in the summer, which may have been manageable for a once-a-moth aggregation.  However, this year, there were 30-50 per day in the summer, and I expect that will increase in 2018.  Nobody wants to wait until month-end to vet 1,500 or 2,000+ (hopefully) observations. So I suggest that there should be a variety of frequencies available depending on the volume and needs of a given project  - as this wouldn't be as big of an issue if someone wasn't trying to review every observation.

David

[Charlie Hohn]

sorry, i missed that.

But it sounds like running a huge aggregator every day for a project with 50 observations a day just isn't an option due to technical limitations. That being the case isn't a month better than never? And couldn't you just refew a few weeks late? Again, not ideal, but we only have the tech we have.

[tony rebelo]

Excuse my ignorance, but why should a Project put any more strain on the system than running a filter/search?

Perhaps if you only run the "project aggregator" for any particular project when it is opened, perhaps with a restriction that it is only updated every half hour if it is being heavily used (e.g. a very popular bioblitz) - would that not solve the issue?

or is there something about the "project aggregator" that I am misunderstanding?

Tony