Why aren't my records being added anymore?
If you have been adding records to the Texas Nature Trackers Projects (Herps of Texas, Birds of Texas, etc.) for a couple of years you may have noticed a change recently. Previously, you joined the group and gave permission for your records to be added to the project and you were done. Any eligible record was automatically added to our project.
But iNaturalist has had to recently change the way projects aggregate records because it was too processing-intensive to be able to maintain with the huge number of records coming into iNat daily. So the Texas Nature Trackers managers have had to turn this auto-gathering feature off.
So you mean I have to add each record to the project individually now????
No. This doesn't mean you have to go to all 267 records of herps from your latest herping trip and add each one to the project individually. You can use the project's search tools and batch add all those records at once.
For those unfamiliar with this shortcut, here's how you do that:
- Go to the Herps of Texas Group Page and find the "Add From Your Observations" link next to the map.
- This will take you to an Edit Observations page with only your eligible observations listed (i.e. herps found in Texas that aren't already in the project). Choose the "Batch Edit" option.
- Now you will see checkboxes next to each record, but you don't have to worry about going down the list and choosing each record. Simply choose "Select All" from the top of the page and each record will be selected.
- Now that all your eligible records are selected, open the pulldown menu at the top of the page under "Add to Project" and choose the Herps of Texas project (the pulldown menu will list all the projects you have joined so you might need to scroll down if there are a lot).
- The system will do its magic and you will get a finished screen saying that your records have been added to the project. If any records are excluded because they don't qualify or are already in the project, it will let you know.
Now your new records will be included in the HOT project and you should be able to see that on your record page.
Sorry for the addition of an extra step to get your records in the project, but at least using this batch upload you don't have to add to each project one at a time. For those who upload a lot of records (mako252), this should save quite a lot of time.
Chris
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Sorry, but I am a little dense. Does this just apply to TNT projects or across the board for all such projects on iNaturalist? @craighensley @sambiology
I believe it applies to all projects using automatic aggregation. @taniahomayoun explained it to me so maybe she is the best person to talk to.
There are several project types. The traditional projects (back in the day, this was the only one available) allow project owners to see geolocation data for even private or obscured coordinates. The trick was you needed to opt-in based on privacy features, so you had to add observations manually unless the owner had a tool turned on that automated this. As a member of a group, you would not know if the project owner had this feature turned on or not.
Newer projects are more of a search feature: if your observation meets the criteria set by the project owner, they will automatically appear. However, the project owner for these types of projects does not have access to geolocation data for obscured or private observations. For projects like Herps of Texas, where specific coordinates are necessary to get high-quality data, the traditional project type is preferred, but the aggregator was notoriously resource hungry so I'm not surprised they needed to remove it.
I usually add mine manually when I post the observation. Will I need to go back and do this step or are the observations there already?
@spyle64 - no. You only need to add them once. But if you are like me and forget to do that on the app, this just shows how to go through and get them all in there. If you are unsure of some of your records, try the approach I have shown above. If you have any eligible records that are not in the project, it will bring them up.
@nanofishology - So Collection Projects were not straining the resources. It was Traditional Projects running aggregators. Correct? I have been very sparing with creating projects because I do not want to create a strain on resources. I had been considering creating a few more until I saw this post. But I would only be creating collection projects, so I should be OK if I am interpreting your comment correctly.
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