[tn-dragonflies] Re: Odonata Central
- From: rconnorsphoto@xxxxxxx
- To: tn-dragonflies@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2010 22:06:37 -0400
A few thoughts, tardy and not thoroughly researched as I am not at my home
computer this week, so hope this helps:
Submitting records- improvements needed to make it easier and faster to add
records, for example it is not necessary to re-load all photos after submitting
a record(s). The re-loading of photos takes lots of time and someone entering a
record does not necessarily need to see previous photos.
The site has some "glitchy" features- for example the Maps feature often hangs
on one species and I have to log out and try again for desired species.
A venue other than OC may be more appropriate for multiple sightings,
checklists, early - late dates, FOY records etc. OC has its work cut out just
keeping up with county records.
Richard Connors
Nashville
-----Original Message-----
From: kjchilds <kjchilds@xxxxxxxxx>
To: tn-dragonflies@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sun, Jun 13, 2010 10:34 am
Subject: [tn-dragonflies] Re: Odonata Central
Thanks, David.
Keep 'em coming! When you go looking at the site, go in trying to think as
someone new to ode-ing or as someone that isn't very computer savvy might. I
think the site was originally designed as a resource for serious ode-ers or
biologists but if they want to get people to submit more records, the general
public needs to be able to easily navigate around the site.
Here's what I have so far. I'll probably change the wording on much of this
before I send it to John. Let me know if I'm wrong on any of this. I don't have
that much experience with the site so it's likely that I'm missing something
obvious.
I typed Chester County into the Checklists search box. Nothing happened for 3
minutes so I decided to work on something else while I waited for the search.
Clicking on anything, even another program wiped the search box clean. I tried
it 5 times with the same result. I left for awhile and tried again and then it
worked fine. It might be easier to use if there was a "search" button to press
so the user has an idea that it should be working. That goes for any of the
automatic search boxes. I typed "blue" into the Photo Gallery search box and a
bunch of results popped up. I typed "blue" into the Field Guide search box and
nothing happened. Using the examples given on the Field Guide page I searched
anax, green, juni, Anax junius and nax j. Only anax and Anax junius yielded
results. All of the examples should have worked but even if they weren't
supposed to, there was nothing to tell me that my search had failed. FYI, all
the examples did work on the Photo Gallery page. You have "Choose a location
below to see its known Odonata Fauna" but that really doesn't clearly state
that "its known odonata fauna" are only those species that that have been
submitted to and confirmed by OC. A checklist is usually a list of what species
someone can expect to find in a certain location. I wanted to find a list of
what species had already been confirmed for my home county and it took awhile
because I didn't think of looking in the checklist section. By process of
elimination I finally figured it out. On the Search Records page, the Taxa
Filter and Location Filters have down arrows on the right side of the entry box
which normally should indicate those are drop down menus. They are only drop
down menus once you've completed a search and even then, those arrows do
nothing. Again, there is nothing to tell you that a search is in progress or
that you may have typed in an invalid search query.
Do you want records of all sightings or only those of a species that hasn't
been recorded for the county you are reporting on? I'm assuming the latter but
I can't find anything that tells me what it is you need.
A fair number of the times I went to the Records page, nothing loaded. The last
time took 4 refresshes to get it to load. When submitting a record, once a
photo has been selected, there's no way to remove it. If you make a mistake and
select the wrong photo to upload, you have to refresh the page and start over.
I found out later that you can remove or add photos after the record has been
submitted by going to the My Records page but it would make more sense if there
was a way to also do this when working on the original submission.
from David Trently
One suggestion I have for OdonataCentral is to have an option to search records
by "recent changes to submission status". It's a relatively minor need, but it
would be helpful for me when checking to see what species have been newly
confirmed, or unconfirmed, for various counties. This would be especially
important for a record that was submitted a long time ago and not acted on for
a few months. Right now, the only other thing I can think of is to make it
clear if they only want first county records, or if they'd like additional
records, especially for less common species. I'm thinking on the lines of
Bugguide,net, where you can see species' records by month as well as county.
Ken Childs
Henderson, TN
Chester County
http://www.finishflagfarms.com
From: Avian Pursuits Nature Tours <naturetours@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: tn-dragonflies@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sun, June 13, 2010 6:11:34 AM
Subject: [tn-dragonflies] Re: Odonata Central
One suggestion I have for OdonataCentral is to have an option to search records
by "recent changes to submission status". It's a relatively minor need, but it
would be helpful for me when checking to see what species have been newly
confirmed, or unconfirmed, for various counties. This would be especially
important for a record that was submitted a long time ago and not acted on for
a few months.
Right now, the only other thing I can think of is to make it clear if they only
want first county records, or if they'd like additional records, especially for
less common species. I'm thinking on the lines of Bugguide,net, where you can
see species' records by month as well as county.
David Trently
Avian Pursuits Nature Tours
...come see the real world!
Knoxville, TN
http://avianpursuits.com/
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