RETHREADED From New year 'solutions? unless we forget OVER TWENTY IMPROVEMENTS needed to make the site much more pleasant to use.
In no special Order of importance then -
. 1 Improve Track Changes - REMOVE our own entries from CHANGES TRACKER, which are duplicated in ACTIVITY TRACKER. Only display the last change to the same Observation (if there are several) 1a. Retain Yellow marker until the specific post has been visited 2 Allow Edit of Comments - until locked by Reply 3 Refresh the Home Page - Add a running Welcome banner which changes when āthingsā are not right. Add strong links to RECENT OBS and START HERE (New Pages?). Tidy up and remove stale notices. Add a large Picture of the Month (NOT competitive?). 4 Update all Help Pages - create an Index 5 Rationalise Global - currently, it means two things in iSpot, ALL Communities or those not UK.
EXCLUDE Other named Communities from GLOBAL or include them all - make it plain which. 6 Retain Locations somehow - allow users to creature their own Index (Home, Mill, Foxton Wood, etc) thus saving the laborious need to enter location details every single time. 7 Allow HTML Text to be retained in descriptions (projects mostly) through Edits. Allow restricted HTML text in comments and Ob. descriptions, but particularly <a ref and so avoid terribly, sometimes over-spillingly long, URLs 8 Improve Search - allow a specific search for Observations (find all Obs (only) of Phytolacca acinosa for example) And for precise occurrences like āgooseneckā 9 Update dictionaries - this is imperative as we observe more and more rare varieties 10 Bring back Social Points shows those who engage with users or the system or add agreements to be seen as āvaluableā as those with high Score Icons 11 Sort Enlarge Picture remove Zoom? Allow Cycling through Observation pictures when enlarged 12 Next & Previous buttons - bring back Next and Previous clicks when browsing Carousels 13 Fix the Reputations algorithm. Where sometimes the score rating is not balanced - may apply mostly to Experts and Knowledgeables 14 Modify quizzes, REMOVE, test, revise and replace the Quizzes 15 Allow Pages search in Project Gallery view - ;āGo to Page 9ā, say. Some Project galleries have over 40 pages. The same applies to the map, we have to click Show More Observations as many times as there are āthousandsā to get the final number of Obs. 16 Allow us to Follow (and UNfollow, a user 17 Allow PREVIEW of Observation detail before āpublishingā 18 Devise ways to nurture newcomers - linked to Items 3 and 16 (above) 19 Review the way Changes links take us to Comments, so that the link takes us TO the comment.
Perhaps Colour the relevant Panel in the old way. 20 Add a powerful banner to the Home Page PLEASE CHECK YOUR CHANGES TRACKER FRQUENTLY also HEREhttps://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/article/566/ispot-help-and-support 21 Disallow Refresh after an agreement is added during next and previous process. But SPEED UP refresh
Anyone can add to this list with a note below (please)
Yes please, letās have some improvements, and not the kind that make things more difficult.
Those changes to Changes would be welcome. When all my own activity is included it can make for a long list. When I have added IDs or comments to markhows plant observations which are all entitled āplant spā (which is fine) it can be hard to make sense of all the activity with the duplicates and then those I have not visited being removed from the list just because I have looked at the list.
Donāt refresh observation after an agreement is made. (When next and previous is put back on carousels this refresh would be an obstacle to working through a carousel.)
Thatās a good one - that Refresh often takes an age and, if you have moved on meantime, will disrupt the whole process - yes?
However, Agreements have to be updated quickly because they are probably timed and certainly ordered. Until recently this happened in a blink but not now. This is to do with the way the site, as a whole, has slowed down. Good evidence @miked , thanks.
I suspect that it stops you moving on. (Iām currently getting round the lack of carousel navigation by opening every observation in a new window - and sometimes closing the window down before the refresh has completed.) Iāve certainly found that tabs are unresponsive while the page is being rendered - I canāt even scroll down to look for identifications and comments until itās finishing loading the images.
ā15 Allow Pages search in Gallery view - ;āGo to Page 9ā, say. Some galleries have 40 pages. We must start only at the beginning and then allowed only First, Next and Previousā
I also find this very frustrating but just looked at a gallery page and it did allow me to go direct to page 8 for example, I did not have to go to page 1 then next then next etc. https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/observations/gallery?page=8
but in other instances, for example with projects, then this is not possible, no idea why they programmed it like this, almost seems deliberately trying to make it awkward.
But here is a Filtered gallery view https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/species-dictionary/NHMSYS0020797234/heterocera/observations I wonder how many pages there are and what might be the first Observation of Heterocera. Some might say āWho cares?ā
ā¦
By the way
That list has a HUGE (who knows?) number of Unidentifieds WITH a Likely Banner. I cannot find Heterocera, nor Lepidoptera in the Species Browser where I might be able find the number of Moth Obsā¦
I suspect a failure of abstraction in the design - rather than putting the web site together round a set of core concepts/objects they did each bit more or less independently.
were you just supporting 17 or did you have something else in mind Mark?.
I am keen to thrash out and include ANYTHING that might make our lives easier.
Though I must emphasise that the SHORTER this list is, the more likely we might get action - the early Bug Reporting Pages had several hundred (615), very few have been fixed and most have been forgotten about.
BROUGHT FORWARD with slight modifications OVER TWENTY IMPROVEMENTS needed to make the site much more pleasant to use. In no special Order of importance then -
.
1 Improve Track Changes
REMOVE our own entries from CHANGES TRACKER, which are duplicated in ACTIVITY TRACKER. Only display the last change to the same Observation (if there are several)
1a. Retain Yellow marker
until the specific post has been visited
2 Allow Edit of Comments
until locked by Reply
3 Refresh the Home Page
Add a running Welcome banner which changes when āthingsā are not right. Add strong links to RECENT OBS and START HERE (New Pages?). Tidy up and remove stale notices. Add a large Picture of the Month (NOT competitive?).
4 Update all Help Pages
create an Index
5 Rationalise Global
currently, it means two things in iSpot, ALL Communities or those not UK.
EXCLUDE Other named Communities from GLOBAL or include them all - make it plain which.
6 Retain Locations somehow
allow users to creature their own Index (Home, Mill, Foxton Wood, etc) thus saving the laborious need to enter location details every single time.
7 Allow HTML Text
to be retained in descriptions (projects mostly) through Edits. Allow restricted HTML text in comments and Ob. descriptions, but particularly <a ref and so avoid terribly, sometimes over-spillingly long, URLs
8 Improve Search
allow a specific search for Observations (find all Obs (only) of Phytolacca acinosa for example) And for precise occurrences like āgooseneckā
9 Update dictionaries
this is imperative as we observe more and more rare varieties and the Dictionaries get more and more OUT-DATED
10 Bring back Social Points
shows those who engage with users or the system or add agreements to be seen as āvaluableā as those with high Score Icons
11 Sort Enlarge Picture
remove Zoom? Allow Cycling through Observation pictures when enlarged
12 Next & Previous buttons
bring back Next and Previous clicks when browsing Carousels or Filters
13 Fix the Reputations algorithm.
Where sometimes the score rating is not balanced - may apply mostly to Experts and Knowledgeables
14 Modify quizzes,
REMOVE, test, revise and replace the Quizzes
15 Allow Pages search
in Project Gallery view - ;āGo to Page 9ā, say. Some Project galleries have over 40 pages. The same applies to the map, we have to click Show More Observations as many times as there are āthousandsā to get the final number of Obs.
16 Allow us to Follow
(and UNfollow, a user
17 Allow PREVIEW
of Observation detail before āpublishingā
18 Devise ways to capture & nurture newcomers
linked to Items 3 and 16 (above)
19 Review the way Changes links take us to Comments,
so that the link takes us TO the comment.
Perhaps Colour the relevant Panel in the old way.
could be useful - often come across useful ID guides, blogs etc that I know a couple of other users might be interested in, but only way to contact them is to comment on a relevant ID or reference then in a post on the Forum (perhaps we could have a Message Board on Forum??)
I suspect the absence of personal messages was a deliberate decision - it means that the OU donāt have to worry (as much) about grooming, bullying and harassment. (Am I right in thinking PMs are turned off on the forum as well.)
A halfway house would be thank and like buttons on observations, identifications and comments. A thank button would let you express appreciation without cluttering up everyone elseās changes tracker, but a lack of user control on text content makes it hard to abuse.
[quote=ālavateraguy, post:17, topic:576ā] deliberate decision[/quote]
In some of the forums I know, PMs work quite well (I must say it works very well in iNat) They are open to abuse but they can be reported and blocked and the sender can be āpunishedā.
Few people are using Like here (Forum), probably because itās a . A thanks button would probably be a good idea in the main site - maybe a would be OK for that! I would be against a score system - showing how many thanks a person has received.
A message board (PM system) in the Forum (Jo) is a good idea but I suspect that only 11 of 20000 āfrequentā users come here or know of its existence!
We could have a switch-on/-off personal message system - if we donāt want to get PMs, switch it off perhaps on sometimes?.
Itās all a bit academic at the mo because we need so many more important things! If we EVER get some of those we could consider refinements or luxuries.
Thanks for repondinā
Back when I joined iSpot (2007/8 ish) I discussed this with the then iSpot team and it was a a deliberate decision. With no way to directly and privately contact members it was thought it would be safer for allowing children to access it and that parents would be more comfortable letting them do so. As a key part of iSpotās purpose was supporting people just starting out learning about natural history this was seen as very desirable. Personally I feel it still is.
Iām not sure I see a value in a personal contact option here (and there has been at least one individual in the past who I am very keen has no method of contacting me in person) since it is focused on identifications and they work best done in public.
VERY valuable David and thanks. I am quite happy to accept this either way but it will require only ONE bad incident to bring it into disrepute. - I have seen some bad stuff even in Comments
I will leave it OFF the ārequestā list until we next have a discussion - it all seems a bit academic, if not futile, at the mo,.
. A thanks button would probably be a good idea in the main site - maybe a