I’ve added a North American project, but it isn’t working - the geographical filtering is inactive.
I’ve also split British and Irish observations from the WP ones.
A British Tigridia pavonia observation looks like it’s going to stick as without likely ID because the name isn’t in the dictionary.
I think in those cases, not all, we should add an ID higher in the Tax Tree but hopefully at Genus level. That way the post gets Likely and is seen in other Observations. When we KNOW the species, it can be put in the Common name or in the ID Description Panel with a note
In this case I think we’d be stuck with something suprageneric - Iridaceae would be better understood, but the dictionary might have the subfamily or tribe.
The alternative attitude is to wait for the dictionary to be fixed.
No, I don’t think so. the updated dictionaries are with the OU (I am told), and have been for months. But money is needed to code them in.
It is going to take an age to get even the very basic things we need so will be a long time before Dicts are done.
THREE PROJECTS to help anyone find Observations withOUT Likely IDs
Check the maps and home in to see the Obs. Or click the galleries for thumbnails
Adding an ID is the main aim, offering support secondary. Adding comments or suggestions is possibly not the way forward at this time as posters are unlikely to see Comments
OK, if you only post one a week. But more is a pain.
Also, what about all those observations from 3 years ago that suddenly get a comment, an ID or a please may I use your photo request? You will never see them …
We have not had a dictionary update for the SANBI dictionary since Sept 2014 despite having done 5 updates since then for the dictionary - so dont hold your breath!!
Front Page News - EDIT
All-organism Obs Project between 1 Jan & 8 Aug
Daily updates on the front page here
https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/project/738198/recent-observations-without-an-id
Updates
Progress? yes Absolutely!
18:00 09 Aug 7653
13:00 14 Aug 7624
17:30 14 Aug 7538
20:45 15 Aug 7465
The right click or the wheel clcik on the thumbnails makes me so cheesed off. Clearly the programmers dont want us to make IDs!!!
and dont forget:
and more specifically
There are also projects for each group, as well as a few marine vs terrestrial for fish and invertebrates …
WOW 17288 Unidentified thingies! Where are the Naturalists in Southern Africa?.
Someone please put the lovely Daisy in the Gulf of Guinea out of its misery - I failed. No-one will move it, just ID it!
This is southern Africa, where we dont necessary post for immediate identification but as a record for future identification.
I know: I have over 6000 unidentified observations.
But the vast majority of unidentified are plants and fungi. And a large number of idnetified taxa are only to family or worse …
We do have stats: it is in one of the old forums (in fact, and entire forum topic was devoted to statistics of this sort), but that is now all gone.
But the issue with photograth if you look carefully is that the locality is lost!!! A bug in iSpot!
The problem is that one needs a locality to start an ID in southern Africa! (and altitude helps, but iSpot is not interested in that). But this is probably a West Coast species, and I know it, so will see if an ID will sort out the locality.
Note that it is in South Africa, even though it is shown at the magical locality of 0S 0E!!
more:
why is this in southern Africa:
And this?
This one is particularly embarrassing: iNaturalist showing up our bugs:
Even a Chilean in southern Africa:
I presume that this is also one;
When are these bugs going to be looked at?
I am! One or two in particular where confirmation of unusual species would be appreciated (eg https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/observation/736734/greater-horntail-urocerus-gigas and https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/observation/738436/willow-emerald-damselfly-chalcolestes-viridis (@chrisbrooks where are you?!!)
Chris doesn’t come here, I don’t think - the Tag will only get to him if he’s registered here.
I spent awhile and I am close to agreeing to the Chalcolestes but I need to check things tomorrow.
The pic is missing from the horntail, that should be easier IF you can reload it - make certain the titles contain no symbols. I cannot agree without a picture or a much better description.
Who’s nicked my photos? Is it the same cad who took my project?
Seriously, many thanks for your help: it’s greatly appreciated. I’ve uploaded 3 photos (though I can’t be sure if they are the same ones previously posted.
Ian
They probably should but once you’ve got a few on here it is pretty difficult to do so without notifications. I’m probably flicking back through the last 20 or so I uploaded but if someone where to provide ID or comment on one from some while back (like https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/observation/208280/rock-pool-triple-1 to take a random example) the chances that I would get back that far to notice it without track changes is pretty minimal.
That said I do have a separate file with the URL for every unidentified critter I have on there and do sometimes go back through them all so I would eventually spot it (I can go back to my earliest unidentified one http://www.ispotnature.org/node/128154 if I want). But I doubt a new user would anticipate the need to do that and set it up (I know I didn’t at first).
Might you be able to shed any light? (they are still there) I have said from the beginning that we should reload them, despite Tony’s protestations (that it’s iSpot’s responsibility). So did you have symbols in the title, were they too big, did you leave a box unticked somehow. Any clue would help us.
I name all my photos in the same way with an identifier provided by the camera followed by the common name (if any) and then the scientific name in round brackets. So, from the SLR the format is IMG_nnnnn Common Name (Scientific name) and from the phone the format is WP_YYYYMMDD_hh_mm_ss_Pro Common Name (Scientific name). Both formats were, I think, used in this observation.
All my other observations follow the same naming convention and don’t seem to have caused problems.
Ian
If you reload them, then all of the contributions made by other people would be lost!! That is unethical. Throwing away good data and input and lots of work, because iSpot programmers cannont do their job properly and are unethical in not fixing up the data corruption that occurs from their sloppy work.
The originals must be in the backups. And the bug that stopped them from copying or that lost the link must be debugged and fixed. No compromise!!! This is data corruption at its worst, and not what we should be expecting or tolerating from the Open University!
