Restrict suggestions to NZ

[verc...@gmail.com]

With the merge into iNaturalist, is there any way to restrict suggestions by geographic area? In some instance I get only rubbish suggestions for species nowhere near NZ.

[Murray Dawson]

The recent change from NatureWatch NZ to iNaturalist NZ should not have affected the location behaviour as all that was changed in essence was the website address, and not functionality. Are you logging in through https://inaturalist.nz or the international site (https://www.inaturalist.org/)?

Oh, if you mean the species suggestions arising though image recognition, then that is something I'm not sure of. You would think that the system would recognise the location and exclude species not found in that country. I'll need to chase that one up as I've also wondered about it.

Cheers

Murray

[verc...@gmail.com]

I do mean the species suggestions from image recognition. It would be infinitely more useful if it could be restricted to geographic area, so that all the results weren't from the US east coast. Take this example with a purple mushroom. Only one of the suggestions is even found in NZ it seems:

[johnb...@gmail.com]

Only one option presented when logged in to https://inaturalist.nz

cheers

John B

[verc...@gmail.com]

My example was with profile setting on inaturalist.nz, using the inatuarlist.nz url, so unsure if you're doing something different:

[kiwif...@gmail.com]

I don't think it is as simple as restricting to NZ. We are TRAINING the AI system, so it makes sense to not put boundary restrictions. If something turns up outside range, then the system should be able to identify that too, and unless we train it to do so, it never will!

[Colin Meurk]

Incidentally, iNaturalist NZ – Mātaki Taiao isn’t any more ‘merged’ into iNaturalist that it was before as naturewatch.  But if you are logged into inaturalist.org rather than inaturalist.nz then you will certainly be swamped with global species/observations in the everyday use of the site. It’s important that locally you use the local domain name so relevant functionality defaults to nz.  But as alex says, we have 30 000 exotic plant spp in nz that need to be factored into any AI algorithm operating here.  Cheers c

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[Mark Tutty]

Hiya Colin,

 

It used to be that sining in through iNaturalist.org would have you seeing all observations worldwide, but long before the domain change they worked on the regionalisation, and you could log into iNaturalist.org and as long as you had “NatureWatchNZ” set as your regional instance in your settings, you would only see NZ observations unless you removed the filter for New Zealand specifically, ie all searches had a default location setting of New Zealand.

 

Since the domain change, there is no change to that. If anything it has made things worse, because previously the domain was NatureWatch.org.nz, which stood out as a lot different to iNaturalist.org, so you could immediately see if clicking a link was going to take you off domain and therefore you would need to sign in again to do anything. iNaturalist.nz vs iNaturalist.org doesn’t stand out as much different!

 

When Jon mentioned we were considering losing the NatureWatch name and domain, I was all for the taking up of iNaturalist.org, ie use the international access. The only thing we really lose is the homepage with all the help stuff etc, which for the most part no-one ever sees anyway! I jump straight in through bookmarks. As long as you set regional instance, you still have a regionally customised experience. I was surprised to see it become iNaturalist.nz!

 

cheers
Mark Tutty
kiwif...@gmail.com

 

From: Colin Meurk
Sent: Tuesday, 23 October 2018 2:34 PM
To: inatur...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: Restrict suggestions to NZ

 

Incidentally, iNaturalist NZ – Mātaki Taiao isn’t any more ‘merged’ into iNaturalist that it was before as naturewatch.  But if you are logged into inaturalist.org rather than inaturalist.nz then you will certainly be swamped with global species/observations in the everyday use of the site. It’s important that locally you use the local domain name so relevant functionality defaults to nz.  But as alex says, we have 30 000 exotic plant spp in nz that need to be factored into any AI algorithm operating here.  Cheers c

 

From: inatur...@googlegroups.com [mailto:inatur...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of kiwif...@gmail.com
Sent: Tuesday, 23 October 2018 2:14 PM
To: iNaturalist NZ <inatur...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Restrict suggestions to NZ

 

I don't think it is as simple as restricting to NZ. We are TRAINING the AI system, so it makes sense to not put boundary restrictions. If something turns up outside range, then the system should be able to identify that too, and unless we train it to do so, it never will!

On Thursday, August 16, 2018 at 8:33:49 PM UTC+12, verc...@gmail.com wrote:

With the merge into iNaturalist, is there any way to restrict suggestions by geographic area? In some instance I get only rubbish suggestions for species nowhere near NZ.

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[Colin Meurk]

Thx mark

I’ve forwarded to Jon for his comment.  I’m currently in china and not always able to respond just now. In fact surprised the googlegroups is working 😊.

I still think there are advantages in having our own instance.  But haven’t explored all the matters you have raised.  In fact because of googlemaps can’t bring up inat here.

Cheers

c

[Murray Dawson]

The reason for the name change was forced upon us all and explained at https://inaturalist.nz/posts/16686

I know that NZ observations posted on our regional instance at https://inaturalist.nz propagate up to the international iNaturalist.org, but I don't know if those posted internationally travel back downwards to our regional instance. Regardless, I would strongly encourage people to post to our NZ instance and I think that the bilingual name iNaturalist NZ — Mātaki Taiao adds a nice touch.

Murray

[Mark Tutty]

Yes, the dual name is worth holding onto iNaturalist.nz for!

 

And it’s not so much a matter of why we had to change domain, yes we all know that story... my comment was more along the lines of which way the name change went... as it was my understanding at the time that we were going to be going through the iNaturalist.org portal because the need for regionalisation had now been catered for in the international portal. Also there is the matter of maintaining two versions of the code when there really isn’t significant benefit to doing so, and ditto the phone apps

 

Obs do propagate both ways, the data pool is global. What changes is the default setting for searches, and with NatureWatchNZ regional settings, we have a location of “New Zealand” defaulting in all searches/lists.

 

cheers
Mark Tutty
kiwif...@gmail.com

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[Colin Meurk]

Thx Mark

Sorry I’m not the technically best-equipped to answer all these points; but the default to nz for local users is I think a convenience.  Not everyone knows or understands how to achieve the regional search you refer to. And for first time users I think it would be confusing if they didn’t see their local data to the fore.  So I would imagine it is best that this is the default for here.  But, note that our usernames and passwords work equally for inaturalist.nz and inaturalist.org (as well as for the Canadian and Mexican versions as I understand) so if you want to view things from a purely international perspective it is easy to log onto those other linked portals.  Of course it is desirable for projects and places to focus on the local instances.

And any species search will search the world regardless of which regional instance we use.

But maybe I’m missing something

Cheers

c

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[verc...@gmail.com]

To reiterate, I have and always have been using the .nz, and yes, searching defaults to New Zealand (or Wellington in my case). However the suggestions when uploading new observations are global, unless I'm still missing something.

 

This might in theory be great for training a global system, but actually is just extremely frustrating getting the screeds of irrelevant suggestions, and having to spend extensive time elsewhere to find information, or just dumping an observation well above the species level and hoping an expert shows up one day. If I'm uploading a skink photo, I probably have some idea what it is already, but it certainly isn't helpful to get suggestions for a global medley of snakes. Surely having the option to test against a specified geographic area (like the search functionality) for suggestions would mean more effective, efficient identifications (and so train the system)?

On Thursday, August 16, 2018 at 8:33:49 PM UTC+12, verc...@gmail.com wrote:

[Murray Dawson]

You are right, and I totally understand what you are saying! Others have been frustrated redetermining species absent from NZ, but coming up as a match based on global recognition.

Having the ability to default to a region in the first instance (for us NZ), but to be able to make and clearly denote which are matches from other countries would be the way to go in my view. That would usefully catch plants that are cultivated in NZ or recent weedy escapes not well represented on iNat NZ, but are well recorded and native to other countries.

Murray

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