[texbirds] Re: e-bird question- Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
- From: Eric Carpenter <ecarpe@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: MBB22222@xxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2013 23:05:40 -0600
Mark,
I'm not sure you have the right idea about the eBird review process.
The areas not being reviewed 'adequately' as you put it are areas that
are not being reviewed in a TIMELY (in the eye of the beholder) way
perhaps but the reviewers are all quite competent and often go above &
beyond to get documentation on sightings. Many requests for
documentation can go unanswered. The reason why the time lag in what
some folks seem to be expecting as real-time or near real-time
posting/vetting of every one of their sightings is because all the
reviewers are volunteers who often have a list of things they need to
be or rather be doing (many of them are often out birding instead!)
then this task.
Who is guarding the guards? Well, the "guards" as you put it are very
few in number who are both willing and able to do this and don't
really need guarding at this point but would love to have additional
guards helping them instead. They are part of a behind-the-scenes team
that is making eBird data quality better and better and are constantly
revisiting old records in a never-ending process of separating the
wheat from the chaff. In the end, the "misleading" records are indeed
removed from the database and/or never make it past the reviewers in
the first place.
There is a lot more data and interesting sightings in eBird these days
then there is in Texbirds, either the listserve version or the
Facebook version, and I would say that both those forums suffer issues
of quality/lack of vetting with no appointed "guard". Mining eBird
can produce some real diamonds in the rough that would otherwise never
have been documented. Thanks to adoption of smartphone apps like
BirdLog and Bird Watcher's Diary by birders in the field, much of that
data now comes in almost real-time (or at least on the same day).
Unfortunately, that amount of data can not be vetted instantly simply
because there aren't that many hours in the day. Just one month into
the year, and there are over 24,000 bird records in eBird for 2013 in
Harris County (the core of Houston birding); in the Austin area, there
are over 16,000 database entries from January for Travis County. The
validated records for these areas paint a much more accurate picture
of bird distribution (for regularly occurring species) than any other
medium/forum we have.
As Mary suggested, providing documentation w/o being asked (BirdLog
will even let you know what sightings require documentation) will
speed the process along. Reviewers certainly aren't perfect and tend
to err on the conservative side as might be expected, but they do a
pretty bang up job in trying to guard the eBird store.
-- Eric
Eric Carpenter
Austin
(full-time eBird reviewer for Travis County and part-time/backup for
other areas of the state)
On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 10:01 PM, <MBB22222@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> Well, just to make sure that nobody misunderstand my intention - I truly
> like the idea (eBirds) and this database could be helpful, but … There is
> usually a ‘but‘, isn’t it?
>
> It is not important how many and how long hours reviewers spend when
> checking records - what counts is quality not quantity. I read with quite
> interest these only few responses and it was not a surprise that only some
> regions are thought to do reviews adequately (hope more than listed).
>
> So another question needs to be asked: Who is guarding the guards?
> Evidently some reviewers are having problems with verifying records (hopefully
> they do not use vote method which is so often used on popular fora). IMHO
> another layer of guards checking guards could improve the situation so would
> removal of those who for whatever reason cannot correctly qualify records. I
> understand that this is a new project that still needs a lot improvements
> but there is no excuse to keep and accumulating worthless and misleading
> records. This database (eBirds) should not be a replacement for places where
> birders look for something to chase - Texbirds and other similar websites
> are good enough for that. BTW I only recently learned that there is
> difference between birder and bird watcher … So birders have plenty of
> places to
> check for something to chase and records on eBirds should be rather delayed
> than incorrect. Often less is more …
>
> Mark B Bartosik
> Houston, Texas
> _http://www.pbase.com/mbb/from_the_field_
> (http://www.pbase.com/mbb/from_the_field)
>
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--
Eric Carpenter
Austin
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