Images without geolocation

[JoeCohen]

The vast majority of recently created Observations (one year prior to 2024-08-18) that have images also lack lat/lng. 29236 Obss created in the last year 29002 of those have images 21769 lack lat/lng

irb(main):011> Observation.where(Observation[:created_at] > 1.year.ago).count
=> 29236
irb(main):014> Observation.where(Observation[:created_at] > 1.year.ago).where.not(Observation[:thumb_image_id] == nil).count
=> 29002
irb(main):015> Observation.where(Observation[:created_at] > 1.year.ago).where.not(Observation[:thumb_image_id] == nil).where(lat: nil).count
=> 21769

[JoeCohen]

My current guess re no image geoloc:Most (almost all?) were exported from the user's camera or photo app to the user's computer, edited on the computer, then imported to MO. But they were exported without location data.  What to do? There's nothing we can do directly.

• Maybe warn users when there's no location data; suggest that if they edit photos on their computer, be sure that they exported them to the computer with location info.

  

• Maybe a news article on the website.

• There are some prolific users who typically omit geoloc. See below (user id's redacted). Maybe contact them directly. 

  irb(main):002> Observation.where(Observation[:created_at] > 1.year.ago).where.not(Observation[:thumb_image_id] == nil).where(lat: nil).where(user: *****9).count
  => 4906
  irb(main):003> Observation.where(Observation[:created_at] > 1.year.ago).where.not(Observation[:thumb_image_id] == nil).where(lat: nil).where(user: *****8).count
  => 4837
  irb(main):004> Observation.where(Observation[:created_at] > 1.year.ago).where.not(Observation[:thumb_image_id] == nil).where(lat: nil).where(user: *****2).count
  => 561

[nimmolo]

I like the idea of contacting the big users directly.

Also - it seems your query is for the last year, but the automatic copying of image geolocation is only a few months old, right?

[JoeCohen]

Good question. I don't remember how that worked. I looked at thumbnails of recent Observations by the top 3 users (Evica, Huafang, AK) and found that the EXIF headers lacked GPS data. My guess is that cropped the photos, exported them, and uploaded them.