Improvements requested

BROUGHT FORWARD again and EDITED 12 October

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 ‘Unread’ (currently 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 ‘things’ 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 “gooseneck”

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 ‘valuable’ 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 FAR from logical and in ERROR - 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 - ;‘Go to Page 9’, say. Some Project Galleries have over 40 pages, requiring over 40 refreshes to get to the FIRST occurrences. The same applies to the map, we have to click Show More Observations as many times as there are ‘thousands’ to get the final number of Obs. The Changes & Activity Trackers already have this feature. [your-ispot/activity-changes?page=6]

16 Allow us to Follow

(and UNfollow), a user

17 Allow PREVIEW

of Observation detail before ‘publishing’

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.

20 Add a more powerful banner

to the Home & Uload Page PLEASE CHECK YOUR CHANGES TRACKER FRQUENTLY : also HERE https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/article/566/ispot-help-and-support

21 Disallow Refresh

for some operations (or modify to return to Previous page, NOT the beginning) after an agreement is added, specially during next and previous process. SPEED UP refresh anyway

22 Add-to-Project Button

Like Add to Favourites, Follow/UnFollow user, this would be a really useful too

23

suggestions for additions please?
AND I would like to consider the ORDER in which these might now appear - from urgent, essential to desirable…
I frequently send this list to Admin staff, so they always have it to hand at Budget meetings.