Numbers of Users

Yes, well said…
I think Tony might (should?) tone down his pushy ‘invitations’ here too. I really don’t think UNDERmining the work done by the current Za community is a good idea.

It was not my decision to leave, but the decision of the southern African community. Firstly the iSpot 5000 team decided to canvas support, and then all southern African users were invited to contribute and a decision was made on this.
So, the decision is that of the southern African community. So I am not undermining the work of the iSpot ZA community, but carrying out their mandate.
I will continue to remind users of the migration to iNaturalist until the negotiations with the Open University to migrate our data to iNaturalist is complete, and the SANBI logo and our data are repatriated …

For the record…
It was my decision to leave Ispot and migrate to Inat.
My decision was based partly on the “un-functionality” of the updated program - (to this end must note and commend the programmers for their work on fixing the program) but mainly based on the incomplete and out- dated dictionary (SA) - this has remained out dated for years, with no attempt to update it.
Now one can say that the programmers are not biologists so how would they know if a new species was discovered and published which would be a reasonable argument if we were not part of a team that continuously worked on keeping the dictionary up to date. If only the six monthly updates were implemented…
Further to this a forum that we had on the old Ispot that dealt with new specie publications, name changes etc, and contained pages and pages of data and discussions - miraculously just got dumped with apparently no thought as to the amount of time that users (mainly Identifiers) may have put in to help build the site.
Noting Miked comment above

do understand and sympathize - money does not grow on trees - sorry for the pun. But in context one should also note that the SA dictionary was not updated for the past few years, ie: a situation that occurred long before the program update, and neglected during such update.

In conclusion, I believe that Ispot was, is, and will be in the future a great platform, and a place where Nature prevails.

Riana and Mike Bate - It would be great if you could drift back from time to time and maybe share your expertise with those who have chosen to remain.
I often thought that the SA dictionary must have been compiled by someone from another planet and why they insisted on us naming plants to the n’th degree, with common names, which were unfamiliar to the common folk was beyond me.
Never mind - we can always quote Shakespeare, and apparently even his words have been changed

But this comment is so sad
"IDs
12 December 2017 - 9:33PM Tony Rebelo
Cape Bird Club
Entomological Society of Southern Africa
South African National Biodiversity Institute
Botanical Society of South Africa A-team
Protea Atlas Project
South African National Parks Honorary Rangers
Toyota Enviro Outreach
Friends of Tokai Park
Senior Scout Adventure
Western Leopard Toad Volunteer

If you want an ID, we can give it …."

The Royal, somewhat disloyal, ‘WE’. Pity…

Deserter or in hibernation?

I suppose many of us went into early hibernation during the more challenging times for Ispot (I certainly did). I continue to look in from time to time, but have nothing to post right now.

As Arne said, I’ll be back (in the spring), along with many others I’m sure.

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Could always encourage others to join and/or post older observations.
When working through observations in the ‘Europe plants without ID’ project I noticed some rather poor resolution images from a particular ispotter that were unidentifiable. It happens that I had visited the same area before ispot started so checked back through old images which had not been posted on ispot. I had photos of the same species from the same field (!) but at high resolution so was able to add these to ispot and identify the species in the poor resolution images from the other ispotter.

You’d be pushed to improve some of appalling Observations that I dealt with in that project.
To be honest, low-resolution pictures are OK, compared to low commitment to descriptions and titles. I used to skip posts that had NO remarks, not even a What’s this? I no longer do this, preferring to be constructive - but still rarely getting a response.
Here’s one (and not the worst)
One word title (typically Plant), sometimes with a ? (very well known culprit with loads of Icons) - NO description, NO plea, NO gratitude
I think a lot of his pix were (are) taken from a moving vehicle but with GPS engaged - hence location details.

Wondering if I can interest you in Thesium sp. I don’t know how many there are in the UK (maybe only one) but I found this interesting article, today which I think will have a Global fascination https://academic.oup.com/botlinnean/article/162/3/435/2724260
I’ve set up a SA Project hoping to encourage more observations
https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/southern-africa/view/project/755245/thesium-something-to-think-about

What about this?
A blot on my Thesium Project.
I’m sad to say these may be Capetonians :blush:
And look at all their Brownie Points!!!


AND another (is this what they plan to send to iNat?):cry:

Cry, the Beloved Country

I have removed the ‘restore the changes’ image from this post since the changes they were referring to have mostly been restored.

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Plenty of winter botanising to keep us amused - its all still out there, just a little more challenging…

I am very interested in the UK Thesium - but am going to be no use whatsoever when it comes to SA Thesium… good luck with the project though

ASIDE - just in passing - see what I found today - not only iSpot
404 - Page not found
Sorry - you’ve reached a dead end. We’ve recently made changes to kew.org which has meant that some old links will no longer work. Please try again from our homepage.

I think we may pick up some interest here.
Nicky vB did a more local Project -
I remembered Dan Nickrent who amazingly told me about our Priscilla Burgoyne, when we were struggling to find out more about Cytinus capensis


Dan is very interested in parasitic plants
See: http://parasiticplants.siu.edu/Thesiaceae/index.html
http://nickrentlab.siu.edu/

BUT Tony is at it again adding comments to every post on the SA Community site - is he is really trying to undermine iSpot


Sorry Lucine: you should have been told to post at www.iNaturalist.org and not here. My apologies. I will inform the Scouts forthwith!

Sad, I know, but perhaps a problem for the SA community to address on their site and not on here.

Personally I was never convinced that a close link between the two communities was beneficial to either and felt that a separate, but parallel, iSpot SA site would have been better. That would have allowed any necessary minor divergence to have happened - such as regular updating of local dictionaries - without affecting the other site. It would have been little hardship for the relatively few people with interests in both communities to join both of them.

As it is, we are left with the ailing remains of a great site which still has massive potential. Perhaps we should concentrate our efforts on realising that potential.

I’ve recently been looking at a number of free courses run and/or hosted by the OU on their OpenLearn (http://www.open.edu/openlearn/) and FutureLearn (www.futurelearn.com) sites. I wonder if an on-line course on identifying UK nature would be something they would consider? It could make use of iSpot and have links to many of the other useful resources available on the internet. I guess a number of us on here would be prepared to help create such a course. [Perhaps the iSpot team might draw this suggestion to appropriate colleagues and let us know here what responses they get?]

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We did have our own site. Until Sept 2014. Then it was unilaterally decided to join the two sites - we had no say in that: until then it was OUR site and we ran and totally curated it. That was the last time the dictionary was updated too. After that no one knew how to do it. And we had no curation rights at all, other than to ask the UK curator to add badges.

Having great fun on iNat: even my poor resolution, moving, from far, observations are getting identified. And the filters and projects and content are quite mind-blowing. Even computer-recognition software to ID those especially out of focus, badly cropped, no notes and poor locality observations. I dont think ANY saffricans stayed behind.
As for Lucine submitting her observations to iSpot: that was an oversight: Scouts have been asked to use iNat since November for their Springbok hike and award. Lucine must have been misinformed or failed to check up after our iSpot base at the Cedarberg Adventure 2016 (I dont need to say what it will be in 2018).

Enjoyed the read. Sorry you are so bitter. Sorry that you have nothing more exciting or worthwhile to do than rant on about me. I have no regrets!

Dont worry, midwinternight is over. Things can only get better from now on. Cheer up and find something constructive and exciting to do. Alternatively, you know were we are.

Have a great 2018 a merry Xmas and a Happy New Year. May all your prayers about iSpot be answered …

I apologise if you think I ranted. That certainly wasn’t the intention. Even less was it the intention to rant about anyone in particular: again, I apologise if my post was taken that way.

I’m glad the South African community have found a solution which suits them though it’s disappointing that this couldn’t have been within the iSpot framework. That said, it would be good if we could all work towards returning what is left of iSpot to the excellent site it should be. I’d be pleased if my suggestion were to help progress in that direction.

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