Adding obscured observations to new style collection projects

[Chris Shuck]

I would like to be able to manually add observations that have obscured coordinates to a project which I have created. It is preferable for all species observed to be represented, especially rare species. It doesn't seem that this is currently possible. I had to create three projects to make this happen:  one collection project (unobscured observations), one traditional project (obscured observations), and one umbrella project to bring the two together (https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/plants-and-associated-insects-of-cavedale-road-sonoma-county). I really prefer the format of the collection project to that of the umbrella project, which isn't really designed to serve this purpose. Also, having three projects for what should really just be one is far from ideal. This could be solved by allowing users to manually add obscured observations to a collection project. Any chance this change could take place?

Chris Shuck

[Chris Cheatle]

I'm not sure this is possible either technically or philosophically.

technically it would require a redesign of how the new collection projects work. In these projects, observations don't "belong" to a project. They are found in a search that is associated with the project.

Philosophically, the exclusion of obscured sightings is an intentional design choice. I am not suggesting it is your motivation, but it is designed as such to prevent people from using these projects as a backdoor to circumvent the geographic security and gain access to hidden locations. There are security settings in traditional projects that support this, but they don't apply to the search based model in the new projects.

If you have a research or official conservation etc requirement to know the private locations, there are processes which I am sure one of the official iNat staff can share with you for getting access to these data.

[Charlie Hohn]

I think it might make sense for people to be able to somehow put their own self-obscured observations into a collection project. Since they are self obscuring, the geoprivacy is really their call. Auto-obscure is a different story though. 

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Charlie Hohn
Montpelier, Vermont

[bouteloua]

"If you have a research or official conservation etc requirement to know the private locations, there are processes which I am sure one of the official iNat staff can share with you for getting access to these data."

Is this true? I would hope that by obscuring or marking my observations as private, they actually are.

cassi

[paloma]

I agree with bouteloua. It appears that this page may be misleading: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/geoprivacy

[car...@inaturalist.org]

Chris Shuck, Chris C is correct that it is not technically possible or philosophically consistent to allow the manual addition of observations to a collection project. If you were working with a collection project using county or state boundaries, obscured observations would be included (this allows for state and county level summary stats to be correct).

However, contrary to what Chris C suggested, there are only two ways in which obscured and private locations are shared with others:

-Traditional projects (if you have selected to share true coordinates)

-Network members (partners in Mexico, Canada, Colombia, and New Zealand) *if* you have chosen one of those portals as your site affiliation in your account settings. 

We take user geoprivacy settings very seriously and do not share sensitive coordinates outside of the circumstances outlined above. We know we need much more clarity throughout the site for users and this is a priority in the coming months.

We do plan to explore approaches beyond projects for sharing true coordinates with organizations that have legitimate research, management, or conservation uses (especially for auto-obscured coordinates since those could presumably inform conservation actions). Any changes will be clearly communicated before going into effect and there will still be user control options to prevent sharing. 

To take an extreme example, if you join iNaturalist and don't affiliate with a network member, set all of your observations to obscured or private, never join any projects (or join without sharing coordinates), and (in the possible future) never "trust" any other organizations, iNaturalist would never share the true coordinates with anyone (and admins can't see them when we look at the site, either). 

Margaret, can you clarify what on the geoprivacy page is misleading? 

Best,
Carrie

[paloma]

I just meant that if anyone has potential access to private or obscured observation locations, without the observer having given consent in the ways you mention, I would consider the geoprivacy page misleading in not spelling that out. Thank you for your prompt clarification, Carrie.

[Charlie Hohn]

Thanks Carrie! It's appreciated! The geoprivacy is important from policy-related angles where if an agency or group wants to share something, they may be banned by law or policy from sharing the location and need to make sure it doesn't happen.

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[Chris Cheatle]

just to be clear I did not mean to infer you could ask for and get a data file for example, but that the specific cases detailed by Carrie in her response were still there as options.

[Chris Shuck]

I understand the philosophical reasons for obscuring the coordinates of special status plants and animals. It is logical and I'm all for protecting these species. But this project, for example, covers about 2,500 acres and has a perimeter of 12 miles. Finding the locations of these obscured organisms is like finding a needle in a haystack. There could be a minimum size cut-off for projects, and those projects which have an area under that cutoff would not be allowed to add obscured observations of listed species. As a side note, after logging out and then viewing my old style group of the obscured observations, it seems that the actual locations of these observations remain obscured. 

Technically, I'm guessing there is a way this could be accomplished regardless of the way the projects are currently set up, although considering how these projects are set up it probably would not be simple. But I guess there would have to be a demand for what I'm asking for and perhaps there is not. 

[Charlie Hohn]

I thought there was a minimum cutoff but things near the edge might still not add. The system definitely isn't perfect. But obscured observations were getting added to tiny places like an individual 1 acre bog, so the concern is valid. (that being said i wish there were some other option too it makes our bioblitz complicated

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[Chris Cheatle]

There already is a sized based threshold applied to if the sightings are visible or not. If you do a collection based project with a national or provincial based geography rule for example, the obscured records will be incorporated into the project results. At some point, the geographic threshold is met and then the exclusion starts. For eample, this project https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/dragonflies-damselflies-of-ontario-canada is Ontario wide and shows obscured observations with no issues.

As far as I know, the iNat has chosen not to communicate the exact threshold that is used. We can debate what any individual feels is an appropriate cutoff, but that process is already in place.

[Mark McKnight]

I have a similar desire to show an endangered species inside a project. We are part of the red wolf SSP and would love to get our wolves added to the project I’ve created covering our property. I haven’t marked the observations as obscured so I’m assuming the red wolf is automatically obscured because of its extremely endangered status. The observations are marked as cultivated/captive.

As a captive breeding program participant, we advertise the wolves as broadly as possible to drive visitation and awareness (and, critically, for fundraising) so it’s not really a situation where the obscured location is helping. It’s actually impairing our efforts to get the word out. Maybe if the species is automatically obscured it could still be included in projects if it’s marked as captive.