Please restore the ability to store location details. I’ve created a memo with site names and OS locations, but I don’t want to have to store, then cut-and-paste, the site descriptions every time. I’ve given up on them for recognised reserves, assuming that interested parties will google the site name.
Is the Item 6 - yes?
Like this? but leads ONLY to Changes by others? and is linked to Item 1 in the List.
Perhaps Changes should be the Default Start-up page (which can be changed to one or two personal preferences)?
Also (for goodness’s sake!) REMOVE Tab Quiz and put it in Explore.
Yes, sorry: caffeine not yet absorbed into the system…
endorse all of the above please please please please please
I’d appreciate MORE input on this Order - it is the SECOND revision (thanks to JoP and lavateraguy
TWENTY-FIVE MUCH NEEDED IMPROVEMENTS PLEASE
needed to make the site much more pleasant (FAR less frustrating) to use.
In the Latest Order of Priority -
1 REVISE 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; or allow us to mark those yet to be dealt with
2 Update dictionaries
this is imperative as we observe more and more rare varieties and the Dictionaries get more and more OUT-DATED
3 Reinstate Next & Previous buttons
bring back Next and Previous clicks when browsing Carousels or Filters
4 Allow Edit of Comments
until locked by Reply
5 Review Refresh and Back button
or modify to return to Previous page, NOT the beginning) after an agreement is added, specially during next and previous process. SPEED UP review refresh anyway
6 Devise ways to capture & nurture newcomers
linked to 7 & 10
7 Allow us to Follow
(and UNfollow), a user
8 Allow PREVIEW
of Observation detail before the final Save and ‘publishing’
9 Improve Search
allow a specific search for Observations (find all Obs (only) of Phytolacca acinosa for example) And for precise occurrences like “gooseneck”,
10 Update all Help Pages
create an Index – one we can point users to
11 Fix the Reputations algorithm.
Where sometimes the score rating is FAR from logical and often in ERROR - may apply mostly to Experts and Knowledgeables
12 Retain Locations somehow
allow users to create their own Index (Home, Mill, Foxton Wood, etc) thus saving the laborious need to enter location details every single time.
13 Allow Pages search
Particularly 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 and EARIEST 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]
14 Bring back Social Points
shows those who engage with users or the system or add agreements, to be seen at least as ‘valuable’ as those with high score Icons.
15 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.
16 Solve the Community lock
If we view another’s Community Observation just to look, we become Locked into that Community until changing back to our own community
17 Rationalise the Help with Global Observations Carousel.
First sort out what is Global - all iSpot or just not the named communities. Disallow observations appearing in the Current Carousel from appearing in the Help Carousel. Lined to 15 & 16
18 Add a more powerful banner
to the Home & Upload Page PLEASE CHECK YOUR CHANGES TRACKER FRQUENTLY : also HERE https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/article/566/ispot-help-and-support
19 Review the way Changes links take us to Comments
so that the link takes us TO the comment. Perhaps Colour the relevant panel (new comment) in the old way
20 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?) REGULARLY update the page.
21 Sort Enlarge Picture
remove Zoom. Allow Cycling through Observation pictures when in enlarge mode
22 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
23 FIX the quizzes
REMOVE, test, revise and replace the Quizzes – (listen to senior users!)
24 Resite Changes link
to Your iSpot Drop-down - above Favourites. REMOVE Quiz quick-link from Profile Display Panel
25 Overhaul PROJECTS
Thin down unused, derelict or incomplete PROJECTS. Make Projects easier to form, run and edit
26 Please make suggestions
regarding the ORDER of priority and any ADDITIONS
agree with 1a, 1b, and 2 but then (for me personally) its then 8, 6, then 22 then 4, then 5 then 3 then 12. Other issues affect me less so happy with your order as it stands.
1 Like
The new Order above Jo - thanks. I really appreciate constructive suggestions. If ONLY they could be implemented with such ease!
…well…there IS that. We can only do what we do though and you are doing more than most.
Another minor one - don’t add observations to the confirm global observations carousel until they’re a few days old, as in iSpot 1& 2 - the current situation means that the carousel is polluted by recent observations which may not be difficult, but haven’t yet been given identifications.
Thanks; yes, that used to be the case. I’d say such posts would need to have no ID for at least a week, But it takes only a day to drop off the ‘Current’ Carousel (49 Observations). If the site was running like in 2016 then a matter of an hour or two. It needs rationalising so that NOTHING appearing in the Current Carousel appears in the ‘Help with’ one.
There is a case for the Help Carousel to be linked ONLY to your Community choice, not then, so called, Global.
These are all linked to the rather inappropriate way iSpot deals with Global - See items 15 & 16.
Added as 17 (for the time being) See >THE LIST<
In the other direction, a likely ID at a high taxonomic rank* takes an observation out of the Help Carousel. Perhaps they should stay in until identified to genus or better.
- I added an ID of Mimosoideae for a tree from Botswana yesterday.
I also have a preference for a customised carousel - one where you specify the geographic area.
I think they (high taxonomic rank) should take their chance, there are already far too many in the Help Zone. High taxonomy is often used (I use it) to put difficult Observations into the Other Observations Carousel and it is often as far as we can go (just look at the Moths Pit) . Those who are specially interested in the taxa will (should) browse ‘at height’.
To be honest, if we were good at Programming, (by we I mean they). then obs should be auto-collected into projects like the Moth Pit, think of the endless fun you could have if unidentified trees (not as plants) or spiders were all in one place. Some of that would be solved if everyone used Tags more efficiently.
(Search) “you specify the geographic area.” would be in a Luxury List of Improvements. as yet we have not had a direct response from admin regarding even the burning Changes Tracker Issue.
BACK TO THE LIST
The identification drop-down list issue is rising up my personal list: just had difficulty with this one -
“Silver Y” -> “no matches”
“Silver” -> matching name, but quite a way down the list.
This must be hugely confusing for new users.
At times, everyone must be confused by the anomalies of the ‘Drop-Down’. I certainly am - search for ‘Panel Games’
To be frank (and boring) it is time that Admin realised how uncomfortable the whole site is and added a few sympathetic, perhaps promising comments.
There is good evidence that good people come here for a day or two and leave for ever. New users come, rarely get welcomed, and leave. There is so much wrong with iSpot. And yet…
I get so much frustrating satisfaction here…there really seems no point in adding to the list of difficulties.
BACK TO THE LIST THEN
Sorry to go on about it: but here -
It seemed impossible to input a “starter” that would lead to the option of a genus-level identification.
I went there. It seemed an easy choice. I think you have offered this Genus before, though I could not find an example. The short vertical stroke | defines a boundary between what you can have and what’s considered a synonym or cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cf.
With russula it’s no more confusing than, for example, Lactarius cf.
BACK TO THE LIST THEN
It took me several attempts to enter Rorippa recently. iSpot kept replacing the list of Rorippa species with a longer list where if Rorippa it was way down the bottom. (I got the impression that it wasn’t there at all.)
I don’t think this ‘issue’ has changed since ‘the beginning’.
Names given to the right of the vertical slash are extinct names, common names or accepted synonyms. Either way ONLY the name LEFT of the slash will appear in the Scientific name (you can DELETE the common name if it doesn’t apply)
But where you choose a species name, the common name (in Brackets) is carried to the Common Name Panel
You can try this - to Water Cress (but still safely delete the Common name) Substituting A Cress should be OK,
I really don’t think this has changed in years but lately the ID panels are more sensitive to (MY) ‘interference’.
…
Editted in
Take a moment to look at the SANBI Dropdown where several Common names’re available in different languages. Should the UK one have Gàidhlig, Gaeilge nah Eireann, Cymraeg version and perhaps regional ones too?
Please, please don’t say yes!!
SOME IMPROVEMENTS SOON PLEASE
a few people have suggested a Like:heart: or Thanks Button 
Whatja think?
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