An appropriate project?

Just wanted some views on something please. I’ve been wondering about the appropriateness of creating a global project of what I would call “natural icons” ie those creatures that would be considered iconic and/or perhaps are rare etc, for example one would be African wild dogs. Without in any way wanting to boast, I have been so unbelievably lucky to have travelled fairly extensively and seen some of the most incredible wildlife. However, I’m not sure this is an appropriate project as firstly, whilst there is a theme, it wouldn’t have a specific geographic base and would also obviously be fairly subjective as to what I considered iconic. Mainly though because of the very real danger of it being a bit of a “vanity project”. It would certainly involve me sharing my own experiences, backed up by what I consider are our best photos (mainly my partners, with his permission of course). However, my purpose would be to “share the wonder” along with some accompanying information about the species - albeit, because the “icons” would be generally well known, the info may not all be new to people. I therefore wanted to check whether this would be appropriate or not as an iSpot project, or whether it’s something that’s better suited to a personal site of some kind?

I think you need to begin to add a unique tag to every Observation you’d like in your collection You CREATE a tag (by adding it) called myicons (say) keep it short and don’t mix cases. Once it is in the list (used once) it will be there forever.
There are plenty of Vanity Projects in iSpot but the boundary of what is and not is very blurred!
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You can create the project IN the UK Community, doing so with generate quite a bit of interest and feedback, which may not be the case in the Global Community.
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Begin SOON. There is no need to add a map to the project but you must add your filter myicons - NOTHING else, no groups, no dates, no users.
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You can form your first trail in a few seconds via New/Project/Title. You can see if it will work by adding the tag to a single observation and then see it’s collected. ANY observation will do to create the tag and it can be removed afterwards in prep for the REAL thing.
Projects can be tried and deleted inside a minute, through it is not a race
We few will be watching and some of us will beat you with an encouraging comment before you delete it - you see!

Thank you so much for the encouragement and extremely helpful info. I will give it a try later today!

Sounds fun, Luisa. Not sure that I’ll be able to add much as although I’ve travelled to quite a few different continents I’ve rarely had the chance to take photographs of wildlife. E.g. I’ve seen Siberian white cranes in India - but nothing to show for it (or them). I think that they are extinct there now.

Thanks Ken - and Siberian white cranes - wow! Makes me so sad what we are doing to the world although I think they are still hanging on. What a shame you don’t have photos - but at least you have the memories.

Just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has visited, commented or advised me on my first iSpot project - “My icons of the natural world” It has been really appreciated and I’ve learned a lot. It took quite a bit of confidence to do it and I knew, being a global one, that there was unlikely to be a huge amount of interest, but I wanted to try a project on a subject I felt comfortable with. I may add to it from time to time in the future but for now I will consider it ended - many thanks again everyone!

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Well done, Luisa, for biting the bullet - and to your other half for some amazing photos.

Many thanks Ken . You should definitely do one - perhaps something like a ladybird one with all your brilliant observations.

I’ll consider it. I’m not even sure how to start…Is there a ‘how to’ guide somewhere?

Morning Ken, there is this from Dejay https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/project/819772/
I am definitely no expert but for mine all I did, again advised helpfully by Dejay, was create a tag and that pulled them all together automatically. However that was because mine were global and spread around so a map was complicated. You can also delete projects very easily so might be worth just having a practice.

Definitely agree that tags are good for a personal project. I have one with 2 tags as where I stay in Devon is one farm but I’m privileged to wander the adjoining one. Here it is:

Ladybirds would make a brill project as it’s difficult to know where to start when looking for an ID!

Thanks for the helpful feedback, Luisa and NT. I like the idea of doing something on ladybirds. I’ll ponder it, as I’ve got a lot of uncertainty in my calendar right now.

Yes of course - absolutely no pressure. Will look forward to seeing it if you decide to go ahead at some point.

Am I correct that you can choose a specific tag for your observations, that enables them to be located easily, before you actually launch a project? For example, if I put the tag ‘ladybird2023’ on my observations, would I be able to gather them into a project at a later date?

Yes that’s exactly right Ken - where it says descriptive tag I just wrote one in of my choice and it saves it, then any observations that I wanted to include I just put that exact same tag and the system automatically pulls it into your project for you. You could also do this retrospectively to previous observations so you could add the tag and it should then link it to your project. Hope that makes sense.

Should have said, when you set up your project there is a filters page and one of the options is a descriptive tag so you just type your tag in there. I tried it as a test first and then just deleted the test project.

I think Derek has suggested in the past an option for ‘temporary projects’ i.e. projects that are just there while you are trying out things or using them to gather items for use at that moment but you don’t want it to be a long lasting project for everyone to comment on. They automatically vanish when you logout or have some other self destruct mechanism.
This kind of thing does not exist at the moment. One reason it would be useful is that at certain times of year when the OU students are using ispot intensively it is useful for them to be able to see their project in the project listing on the home page and every new project that is created after theirs pushes theirs down the listing, unfortunately there is no ‘sticky’ button to keep theirs at the top of the list.
The students are not using the site much at the moment.

Thanks, All. I’ve started using the tag ‘Ladybird2023’ so that I can at least easily access this year’s records. Of course, I haven’t being listing every sighting on iSpot - I must have had 50 or more last year. The ultimate aim is to build up the national database, especially while the atlas project is on-going.
Anyway, if the project does materialise, I’ll coordinate with Derek and others - and hopefully others will also contribute.
For anyone interested, this is the place to see what has been recorded so far in your (or any other) area.
https://connect-apps.ceh.ac.uk/targeting_revisits_ladybirds/
If you search for Newchapel (the bottom one on the list) and navigate to TQ3742 (my home Km square) for example, you can see the 16 species I have recorded thus far within the square.

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i will gladly help you do this. First a brief test project that collects all your newly tagged ladybirds.
It honestly will take only a few minutes to produce.
It does not need a Map, it only needs a simple filter for the tag and a few words of description.
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BUT you WILL find the Explore Community Filter a good place to start.
See https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/project/844368/
Also there is a guide to making project here
https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/project/841419/
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There are well over 500 unloved, unvisited and forgotten personal projects in iSpot and I am trying, (single-handedly) to INDEX those that may be of interest to today’s users. Just sayin…
https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/project/812703/

Thanks, Derek,
I will have a look at the weekend.
I had a quick look… and found that some have no observations at all. E.g. https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/project/513426/odonata-eastern-yorkshire