Interactions? 01 02 03 04 05 06

I’m struggling with how to create an interaction on the new site.
The approach seems to be you have to create a new entry and then link them afterwards. This is an improvement, in particular it will allow circles of associations (A eats B which visits a flower of C with which A is associated) which was never possible on the old site without duplicating at least one of the records. So well done team iSpot on listening to the feedback on this and improving it.

However I’m not seeing how to actually make the link. I created these two entries https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/observation/732167/ and https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/observation/732168/ but when I click on the ‘Add an interaction’ button and select the ‘Which other observation was it interacting with’ I’m not given any selections to link to.

Suspect I am missing an obvious thing.

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I dont think this is an improvement. It is an alternative method, but the old iSpot method was far more efficient.
I think the programmers tried both methods, but messed up.
Method 1 is to link two observations. The catch is that they have to be 20m apart or less (I would have thought 2km would be OK: e.g. I photograph a hedge here and 10 minutes later walking see a bumblebee visiting it: do I really need to have another observation for the hedge to link it to the bumblebee? Ditto: a day or two is OK: as may be a month or two or three, if I am recording pests to my Chili plant).
But if the locality of the other is not close enough then you cannot link it.
Method 2 is there, but is so obtuse you probably missed it. click on “Alternatively you can create a new observation” Now that is the same as the old iSpot except: - it does not carry over the pictures that you dont want to have to reload because they are already loaded; and it does not remember the locality; and it does not remember the date: What a ridiculous option. [[ if you are astute you might notice that the option to create a new observation is given twice in in the box: once at the top and once at the bottom, but they both do the same thing, whereas I am willing to bet that the bottom one is supposed to be Method 2, but the programmer messed up]]

Both are needed. But we said that right from the start: the programmers have only half listened, and got it wrong again. This is not an improvement: it is a backwards step.

What is still missing is a way to correct a mistake after posting it. The ideal would be a system similar to the IDs where we can agree with an interaction type, or suggest an alternative (and agree to that).

In fact you said it all and already answered your question “what a difference a few metres make”: well in this case “the 100m apart” is 80m too far to allow you to make them an interaction!!!
That is the sort of feedback and improvement we have come to expect in this “upgrade”.

It is not often that the obvious thing one misses is something one has already said and used as a title!!

Is ~68 the plant or the moth?
I dont now the Horse Chestnut well enough to know what the moth looks like on it …

I suspect that ~68 is meant to be the tree - if you enter horse chestnut, and press Get Recommended, iSpot returns the moth, not the true. This regularly traps people.

Managed to get it to work by deleting the tree entry (a feature which has been made harder to find in the new design) and recreating it at https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/observation/732183/

The problem here was because iSpot was picking up the GPS data from the pictures when I tried to swap the pictures around in the tree image (because the second image shows the leaves differently) it was picking up the other location and so not allowing an ex-post facto linking of the images. Recreating it and only swapping the image order after making the association seemed to fix it.

Once iSpot has restored the facility of remembering site names and locations this should be less of an issue since the same site name will produce exactly the same location and allow linking.

Whilst on the topic I noticed that the interactions shown now label the thumbnails of the entries with the titles rather than (as on the previous version of the site) the LikelyID name of the species. For me I think using the species name is the better approach as it makes it quicker to simply read off the interaction without having to go to each entry.

Largely a matter of taste really (although I am sure someone will be along to assert that it is not a matter of taste but in fact a matter of essential scientific principle for their particular circumstances) so not one I’d see high up the priority list for a change - although I’d hope it is quite an easy one to implement.

The old iSPot used the Title until there was a Likely ID, then used the Likely ID. WE WANT THAT BACK. Please check if this is not happening.

More oddities. I created a bundle of interactions starting with this one

https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/observation/752762/

From that I created the two plant ones and linked them. That worked. To create these I created the new entries and used exactly the same OS grid reference for the location, I did not edit the resulting (wrong) location created.

I then created the flies entry (https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/observation/752819/). This was created in the same way using the same OS grid reference for the location and not editing the location created. When I tried to add the interaction from the flies the pigeon entry was not listed as an option (although the two plant entries did appear). However from the pigeon entry the flies did appear as an option in the interactions list.

Not sure what what can be since presumably if A is within 20m of B then B is within 20m of A (although not doubt some clever physicist can come up with a concept of space-time where that is not true).

Same thing when creating the fox entry (https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/observation/752898/) where an interaction from fox to pigeon could not be created but an interaction from pigeon to fox could.

All possible to work around of course but clearly something a bit odd going on.

There is a Code update happening as I speak (this minute) so all your links are inaccessible (to me).
But, to be honest, there are a few things we might consider -
such things as interactions must (should?) be well down any ‘repair’ list
Nevertheless we should be told what is happening to the incredibly L O N G bug list - what priorities are being set and when we might expect a better, more engaging, service.
Now that the Southern Africans (NOT all) have actually made the breakaway - see southern African Community is moving. | News | Southern Africa | iSpot Nature the driving force for radical improvement may have been lost.
It’s now up to us to badger the Admins.
Here I am then, asking for a glimpse of the Plan to Make iSpot Better. I don’t think we need anything precise, just a sketch. Please?