New year 'solutions?

SAPRUG 2018
Sort out the (iSpot) regime in Southern Africa
Allow Editing of Comments, until locked by Reply
Put Quizzes in a drawer, for the time being
Reinstate Community Stars
Update Dictionaries
Give Global Posters more support (and)
Restoring the “saving” of location details

“Reinstate community stars” - have I missed something? Or do you mean social points (which on reflection I don’t recall having seen recently).

Restoring the “saving” of location details would be very useful for me. “SAPRUGSAL”?

Yes, I could not remember the actual title - there was a maximum of 4 stars I think but the total number of ‘interactions’ was shown (it may have been related to Comments). We NEED more interaction across the board

Yes to that. But my last Location is being displayed for new Observations, each time (for some reason but may be related to My Google Location)

I fear Last Location may be a difficult issue. If you are travelling a lot then it will be a nuisance.
If we could add a Filter (MY Locations) and then just type in Home so the details Auto-Upload - is that what we mean?
I find typing in the nearest Settlement very good and fast. say…


.
I rarely use exactly the same location twice, even with my 100 x 100 project (same 6fig)
Maybe then, we want to do one location-click for 10 Observations posted at the same time in the same place - yes? VERY few people are adding Location details

I’ll go along with most of these. I just don’t think it’s appropriate for us to interfere in what another community is doing. SA has decided to leave iSpot; their decision; accept and move on.

That may not be entirely right, as there are plenty of new and recent ZA posts but the remaining community is apparently rudderless.or worse
There are plenty of new unsupported posters and a good smattering of those who have not, will not, leave. I see some are returning…
I agree WE should not interfere but Admin should be supporting the iSpot remainers.

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Is there anyone able to help them with their idents - Marlandza maybe?? I sometimes pick up northern hemisphere plants which have naturalised there, but SA flora is something I have no experience in and mostly well beyond me.

Marland - (bless her) is working frantically in the ZA Community already
There needs to be an interim Curator appointed, someone who can nurture newcomers, suggest corrections, give pointers or suggest improvements to Observations.

Re solutions
Many of yesteryear’s announcements need updating
Here’s one by anon_rqSfylvjOU1498538205 with a couple of dead hyperlinks (Last modified 6 December 2013) https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/article/730372/plants
Actually all of these need revisiting https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/articles
July 2 was the last Tweet - either dump it or bring it to life?
Who was the last to click here? https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/article/155295/ou-player-test (me!) The link features in a few Announcements
Nearly all the links to EoL crash http://eol.org/ - they are spread though Announcements
Lots of Access Denied here https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/article/730387/take-a-quiz-to-test-your-identification-skills
Fix the iSpot CLOCK - it is unpredictable and 12 minutes into the future today
https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/observation/755482/white - my comment

Hold your horses there - have you looked at the stats of what Tony claims the sA Community has agreed upon? I don’t think it was unanimous.
But what really bothers me is what Tony has been doing - and that’s why I’m spending so much time on iSpot (no time for posting Lichens!!)
Every comment that he has made over the years now has his “call” to join iNat - so also now on all my observations where he has commented.
Don’t know why I’m getting hot under the collar about this - we’ve always had our differences; I never let them bother me, but it seems to me that he is attempting to erode the iSpot membership.
He got me to join when we found the Cytinus I think. (Cape Peninsula Top Monitoring Priorities)
iSpot is not perfect but I enjoy sharing all the things we’ve found and I still have so many observatons to post from the Cape.

While iSpot sA is in the spotlight - just some snippets of interest


Then climate change is a problem - The Western Cape is experiencing its worst drought in more than a hundred years.

“Level 6 discourages the use of borehole water for outdoor purposes in order to preserve groundwater resources.”
Yet, I am told, a holiday-homeowner has just drilled a borehole into the mountain at Fish Hoek to fill his swimming pool!!

It’s probably very important to preserve iSpot records - especially of the Cape Peninsula species - but also encourge the monitoring of species that might become extinct as a result of this drought. Kew’s millennium-seed-bank has been gathering seeds for quite a few years - but the iSpot community should be working together not trying to disunite.

:

This is really scary - well I think it is - BUT ALL IS NOT LOST
Was wondering what the old-ispotters were doing on the site in 2018
so checked Riaan’s history.
Commented by Riaan Stals 2 January 2018 - 01:10


BEETLEDUDE “Happy iSpotter from 2011 to early-2017.
Then they broke iSpot.
Now relocating to iNaturalist.”

Latest from two regulars - we’re not alone - Gigi and Brian


M.Sc Student - Stellenbosch University
[email protected]
Pls like my page: https://www.facebook.com/BrianKdNaturePhotography :slight_smile:

You can only do your best - we’re very glad you’ve stayed :slight_smile:

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Thanks for your comments & efforts on iSpot, Marland. I looked at the Cytinus capensis; perhaps the location, Cape of GOOD HOPE is apprpriate for the future of iSpot and iSpotters wherever they are.

I agree we need to support newcomers, and it falls to us veterans to take this on. Is there a ‘Welcome to iSpot’ page? If not we should do it - if not us, then who?

Is there a simple way we can spot newcomers?

New ispotters - I guess the first clue is the plethora of badges that the sA community choose to adopt. More recently I just go to the new observations, and click on the name of the person posting - their date of joining is there. I do this quite a lot, although sometimes I’ve found that there are occasional iSpotters who only post once in awhile - but Tony has littered the site with his own exhortations to follow him, which I find really sad for him, but irritating on my observations.
Meanwhile I’ve found another out-of-date poster who has not kept up with the times and his post is no longer valid - think Mike can sort it out ?


Wondering if this warrents a search to sort them out in one batch

I think posts like that ought to be left alone. They will be seen by very few people who, if they are interested, will probably see them in context - I doubt they will do harm.
I think the History of iSpot, its development and near-demise, should be laid bare for posterity. Those very few PROTEST POSTS (I did some) were valuable in their time, if only to show that we cared and, for me, to water down my anger at the time…
I used to browse iSpot History (it’s not so easy nowadays) I noticed and was struck by, the very strong companionship, ethic and helpfulness that was present in the earliest days. It’s here, now, stronger than for a long time. But let us not forget, nor erase the story of, how we came to this.
ðerek

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Welcome to new iSpotters.
Thanks, Marland. I typed Welcome into the search box and found SA has posted lots of info, much of it under Articles. I think I could write a Welcome page for Global (where I live) by judicious plagiarising of others. But how to do so? I see no way to ‘Add Article’.

Forbidden territory Articles | UK and Ireland | Page 1 | iSpot Nature. The whole area needs updating, broken hyperlinks galore.
I guess they should all be written in the same style, perhaps by the same person but hey, they should be kept up to date and revised often.
See also my

While i’m here (I’m too-often here) Here’s something, though don’t begin unless you have precisely 11¼ minutes to spare

It is such a good item (now, sort of typically, hiding in the Chilean Community), one that used to be quoted by iSpot officials - typically here.

Like me, you will try PODCAST link, but one needs to be very cunning to break the code of broken links - link-forensics is my passion.
http://podcast.open.ac.uk/feeds/life-science-silvertown/transcript/silvertown-ispot_00438_6292.pdf
is the transcript
In it, a little way down you will find “Let me show you something that a six year old found and posted on iSpot not long ago. This made the national press because …”
The post in question took some tracking down and I had to use Ms Google herself to do it.

We owe a lot to Jonathan Silvertown - a few precious iSpotters will know know him Citizen Science — Jonathan Silvertown

What’s this to do with New Year 'solutions?
PLEASE admin revisit all the Broken Links in Articles, then set about writng about the FUTURE of iSpot, not the past. Please?