elbillaf's Journal

I'm just beginning to use this tool. I've been thinking about doing something like this for some years now. I have a vision, but I haven't been able to find a good set of tools to help me do what I wanted. I think maybe iNaturalist is a good start, maybe even an excellent start.

This is the launch of my personal project to document the living things - plants, animals, microbiota, fungi, etc. - in Lorton, VA, USA - as well as the environment, such as pollution, habitat and so forth, which affects those living things. I gave a false start to this project some years ago. The infrastructure that I wanted to work with was not in place to make the project simple, by which I mean that they were insufficient to conduct the project the way I wanted to do it without a lot of other work to make that infrastructure useful to my end.

I have a mind that such a documentation might some day prove interesting or even useful to someone.

I've recently begun using the iNaturalist app for android and I think this app and the corresponding servers and other infrastructure will be sufficient for most - but not all - of what I envision.

1. There are people in the broader community of users who can help to correctly identify what I observe and document. Proper identification has been a problem for me for as long as I've been doing this.
2. There is a means of documenting the date, time, and location of observations.
3. There seems to be a way of providing multiple pictures for an observation. I need to figure out how to do this, but it's mentioned in their guide. This is useful, for example, to zoom out from a tree for a photo and then to zoom in for separate close-ups for the bark, leaves, flower, fruits, etc. Ideally I want to have multiple pictures tied to a single observation.
4. There is a facility for documenting whether something is "wild" or whether it is "domesticated/ cultivated." I like that both of these kinds of observations are encouraged.
5. The data are exportable.
6. Images can be stored with the observations. Some of the other tools I tried to use required that the images be stored in some other location.
7. While the project is my personal hobby, I would like other people to be able to view observations, or contribute to the project to whatever extent they are also interested.

Some things that I would like to be able to do, but I'm not sure I can or should do with this tool.

1. I would like to document things like pollution and environment, maybe events that happen - such as people literally throwing sacks of trash into a stream - as well as (potentially) astronomical, atmospheric observations, or perhaps to tie in to other sites that are already keeping track of this kind of information. I don't know that this site will support these functions or, if possible, whether that kind of stuff would be welcome (need to review the rules, peruse what others are doing and maybe try socializing with the more experienced members).
2. I would like to be able to tie in separate observations of the same object. For example, I would like to take multiple pictures of the same tree in all seasons and through the years - from sprout, to sapling, to mature and fruiting tree, to dying and dead true, and eventually to dust.

Some things I really like about this site:

1. The infrastructure seems stable. It was developed by the California Academy of Sciences. I do not live in California, but they don't seem particular about that. In any case, I suspect they might be around for a while. Obviously they are interested in promoting Citizen Science and as hokey as it sounds this site is sort of a "gift to humanity."
2. There's some nice features as I've mentioned above.
3. There is a community of users, none of whom may be interested in my particular observations or project, but from whom I can get help and solicit ideas - not just with observations, or even with using the tools, but perhaps even other tools, methods of recording, techniques, insights, who knows.

It answered some of my questions - no non-living things, like pollution, etc. Check.
I kinda thought that would be the case, though I was hoping otherwise. OTOH, maybe that's a good idea, even for my Big Idea. There may be other places I can log this other data. Also, I discern from the list of species that they permit observations of things like protista, fungi, and other things. That's good news.

There was some mention of "duplicate observations" being undesirable. However, they are not clear what this means. It could mean, "Don't post the same set of pictures over and over." And if that's what it means (and I think that IS what it means), then I agree that it's useless - even a waste of resources and people's time. Also, it creates clutter to wade through if one is trying to study something, say multiple observations of a particular kind of snake.

OTOH, and I hope this is not what they mean (and I think it isn't what they mean), it could be that this refers to observations of the same thing. That would be disappointing, because one of the things I hope to do with my project is document the same thing over time as it matures and the seasons change and the environment is affected.

I'm going to assume what I consider the more reasonable interpretation unless someone tells me otherwise.

The Big Caveat. I do most of my Internet activities from my cell phone. Kinda hard to see what all is going on there. I just sat down to my desktop to review some things (like the TOS, etc) and discovered that creating a Project is not the recommended way of doing what I want to do. However, it doesn't say that one can't do it. I think I'll just sort of play it by ear.

The note under Managing Projects says:
"If your reason for wanting to start a project is simply to keep track of all observations recorded in a particular geographic area, you may find that using the filters on the Observations page is sufficient for your needs."

Moreover, as I look at their "reasons to create" a project, I see that none of my reasons apply - and that my reason for doing this (well sort of) is specifically addressed as an exclusion. Maybe as I get more familiar with the tools available, I'll delete the project (assuming that deleting the project will not delete the observations associated with it).

It is not my expectation that anyone else would contribute to the project, only that anyone who had an interest could do so easily.

First, I only have two observations and both are listed as "Research Grade." Not sure what that means. I was feeling a bit embarrassed that my pics were so crappy - especially the Luna moth, not a crisp image at all. Aha! I see there's a discussion at the end of the entry called "Data Quality Assessment." The criteria make sense. The existence of a photo (or some other artifact) is important, but the quality of the image itself is not part of the assessment - only its existence.

Second, I see that they include "sounds" among observations. I didn't write that as one of my goals, but it was something I was hoping would be permitted since some animals make pretty distinct sounds - mourning doves, foxes screaming, and the like. Makes sense.

Third, I notice that one of my observations - the Luna moth - has already been included in someone else's project. I assume they found it interesting or useful to their own purpose. This is one of the reasons I wanted to do the project online and make it available to anyone.

Fourth, I notice that my Luna moth correctly says that the image is in Fairfax - and that's perfectly true, but I was hoping to be more specific. I do have an interest in making and recording observations in the wider area, even beyond Fairfax. But for this project I want something more specific. I need to figure out whether I can "tag" items and, if so, whether I can have multiple tags.

I also confirmed I can upload multiple photos for a single observation.

I note there is a bit of lag for information to percolate through the system. I added an observation (multiple photos) and then added the observation to this project. One screen tells me (correctly) that I have 2 observations in the project, but when I click the link I only see the observation I added previously. I suspect the new one will pop up later.

Or it could have something to do with the fact that I have not ID'd the observation, so it is not "research grade."

I think I can add specific, additional fields to collect data for my observations. I saw that someplace and will find it again. I think the creation and existence of the additional field(s) was tied to the project, and not with the individual observation, but that the field(s) would then exist for any observation in that project. I need to play with this feature to figure out the details.

It's good that all these photos are tied to a single observation. I'm hoping there is a mechanism for tying observations together. Say, the specific vine(s) growing on a specific tree, or an individual creature through multiple observations. Maybe an "additional field" could help with this, or perhaps there is some outside tool that could be used.

One thing that's a little irritating is that the location field insists on using an address even when that's not appropriate. I specifically went to the trouble of getting the GPS coordinates and the system won't let me enter that. Instead iNaturalist insists on making me use the annoying map feature. (Annoying, because it took me several minutes to figure out what it was doing the first time, and then to have it throw away the actual location you have painstakingly entered and replace it with an inaccurate address.)

... even though it is not "research grade." So it just take a while for information to percolate through the system. That's okay. Useful to know.

So this evening I downloaded the KML file for it from the census bureau with a mind to add it, but it looks like it has been added. However, it hasn't picked up the observations I made for the area. Couple things.

Either I missed it previously, or someone has added Lorton to places since yesterday. There seems to be a lot of info for Lorton, so either it was there already, or the people who maintain this stuff already have a well-defined procedure in place for adding information for new places.

I have two observations in Lorton. The locations I entered for them indicate that they should be in Lorton. So either the site does not check for this and one must manually add observations to a place as one does for a project, or perhaps the system needs time to percolate this information, or perhaps the site has just a single coordinate for Lorton instead of a KML. More to fumble around with.

For information, this is how I got the KML for Lorton:

I went to the page: https://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/data/kml/kml_place.html
and selected Virginia to download the zip file.
I then opened the zip file and brought the first kml (the largest one, titled "cb_2016_51_place_500k.kml") into a text editor. I then searched for "Lorton" and copied that entire <Placemark> ... </Placemark> section into a separate file I called "lorton.kml"

I then went to google "my maps" and created a test map and loaded the kml into a layer to be sure it works: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1wK6uhZJz1jKoaGqJ8lVd9Ph0GLFiq0R5&usp=sharing

1. On my Japanese Honeysuckle observation a big pink icon with an exclamation mark appeared with it saying where it was "introduced." I think this is because it's an invasive species.
2. I just noticed that the text colors for the observation IDs correspond to the colors in the species drop down list. That's a nice touch.
3. The Japanese Honeysuckle observation ended up in the "Chesapeake Bay Watershed Biodiversity" project. I don't recall adding it to that. Maybe I did it by accident, or maybe someone found it interesting that this invasive species is in this particular location. (I'm sure everyone realizes that it's in the area, but observations by a lot of people might help track its spread. I'm guessing.)

The system said it was published, but I don't see my message. I'm already getting irritated.

That's weird, because other posts without tags showed up. None of the tags seemed appropriate, but I picked one that seemed close. In any case, it shows up and people have viewed it, but there is no response.

I noticed that my Lorton observations still do not show up in the Lorton, VA, US place, so the discrepancy is probably not due to "percolation time."

Also, I notice that the info for Lorton, VA, US place consists largely of wiki data - could be it was copied or it could be that it links to it automatically. That's interesting.

Still can't add a KML file to the Lorton, Location - or even tell whether the location already has a KML. It could be that such a thing would not be used. I thought I saw previously a way to upload it. I guess I could make a new location and at the KML, but that just seems wrong.

Also, still can't figure out how to get my existing observations associated with the location. I could delete them and reenter - That also seems really wrong.