[obol] Re: eBird, and wrentits
- From: Mike Patterson <celata@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: OBOL <obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2015 19:46:10 -0800
It must be February...
I heard a thing on NPR the other day that people who complain a lot
live longer. Something about stress reduction.
As a long time eBird complainer, I suspect I've added years to my life.
We all want ebird to do what WE want it to do, but I think we forget
that it is, more or less, a free service provided to us; that the goals
of the Cornell Lab for Ornithology are not necessarily "provide a free
place for folks to track, in near real time, the occurrence rarities to
chase and keep track of personal life-lists". These are byproducts of
eBird not its goals. And perhaps more importantly, the vetting process
is done by volunteers. The definition of volunteer is: donating time
and energy to do a thing free of charge out of the goodness of your heart.
If you have ever worked with volunteers (and I have), you know
that volunteers bring the skills they have, not the skills you or I may
think they are supposed to have. They donate the time they have not the
time you or I might think they should spend. I turned down the
opportunity (more than once) to be an eBird editor. I don't have the
time to do it right or the patience to deal with all the folks who get
upset about being questioned or corrected (you know who you are).
The only reason I can think of for why we NEED to have near real time
confirmation of rare or unusual species are egocentric. In
biogeographical terms rare and unusual species have little or no meaning
as individuals. The only folks who need that kind of turn around are
folks who like to chase stuff. If we are reaching an era when we have
to depend on eBird to announce and track rarities, then we all need to
get used to disappointment. It's not the right tool for the job and was
never intended to be so. Near real time reporting is why God created
phone trees and twitter.
When you hear me complain about eBird (and don't think I won't continue
to do so) it will seldom be about the editors or speediness of the
confirmation process. If you have issues with the turn around on record
vetting, volunteer to be an editor yourself. See if you can do better.
--
Mike Patterson
Astoria, OR
Problem? what problem?
http://www.surfbirds.com/community-blogs/northcoastdiaries/?p=2667
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