Keeping Lists Clean!

I've noticed quite a few lists on BUBO arn't quite Clean and what i mean by that is people are Listing birds on a particular list where they don't belong. If you Look at the British BOU list there are a few birders that have Irish American Herring Gulls included! Surely these should be saved for the British and Irish Lists etc? I thought one of the purposes of BUBO was to have transparent and correct Lists...Any idea's about how this could be "policed" for want of a better word? Birding/Listing Police...now there's a thought!

Cheers Ian.

Hi Ian

Yes, we're aware this happens but we don't a) have time to look at all the records (and for most of the world, we'd have no idea whether the records were likely or not anyway) and b) we don't want to set ourselves up as arbiters of other people's lists. However, where genuine mistakes appear to have been made, or list definitions seem to have been misunderstood (as in your example) then we're happy to drop people a line and ask them to change the record. The main problem is one of time spent in checking.

We have considered having a feature where people could query other folk directly over their records, although there are clear pros and cons to this. Until/unless we set something like this up, we'll happily continue to deal with records on an individual basis. Again, the main problem is that we don't have time to check them all (we're over 1 million records entered now!)

If you do spot records you think are genuine mistakes then please draw them to our attention and we will forward them to the listers in question. Perhaps we could do with a small team of volunteers to keep an eye on newly entered records, perhaps a week's worth at a time?

The other thing that would help would be if more BUBO listers made use of these forums, as this would quickly bring such issues to the attention of more site users.

Cheers

Andy

One quick change we could make is to have some text come up when you select Britain (when creating or viewing a list) that includes the note "This does not include the Republic of Ireland!". Hopefully this might act as a little reminder to people, as well help to highlight any errors that have come in.

Hi all,
this is my first post on the Bubo forum and about time too.
My first issue is about keeping lists clean. Mr Dan Chaney of Kent has got an official Britain & Ireland list and counts birds that he has seen anywhere in the World on it ! Surely this is not acceptable.
My second issue is a feature that i came across whilst adding my Western Palearctic lifelist to the Danish website netfugl. With a click of the mouse on a personal list, birds are arranged in chronological order, a very useful feature and one that bubo could benefit from ?
Regards,
Vince Halley-Frame.

Hi Vince

On the second point, you can do this on BUBO already. Simply click at the top of the date column (i.e. where it says date) and it'll sort by date descending (most recent at the top). Click it again and it will sort by date ascending. You can also sort it by alphabetical location should you so wish!

Cheers

Andy

You are absolutely right Andy, i just tried it and it worked !
Thanks for the tip,
regards,
Vince.
:blush:

Vince Halley-Frame wrote:

...has got an official Britain & Ireland list and counts birds that he has seen anywhere in the World on it ! Surely this is not acceptable...

This is an interesting one actually. What he has recorded is sometimes known as a "false" Britain and Ireland list, i.e. a list of those birds that are on the Britain and Ireland list and that he has seen, but not necessarily in Britain and Ireland. Listers being the obsessive lot that we are, it's a valid list to want to keep. Clearly including this together with other people who are recording "proper" Britain and Ireland lists is very misleading though (and mucks up targets and blockers reports).

What I will look to do is introduce proper support for "false" lists to BUBO Listing. We can then move Dan's list to a false list so that it doesn't get mixed up with all the others.

I should be able to do this and introduce some other list "types" at the same time, e.g. photographic lists, green lists, ringing lists.

Let me know your thoughts.

About the fellow whose list isn't "clean": mostly this is just amusing and shouldn't be taken TOO seriously by other birders! My guess is the guy is probably a beginner who just wants to get started LISTING! I remember so well doing this YEARS ago on my first neotropical trip down to Trinidad and Tobago with Field Guides. I was ecstatic about seeing a Northern Waterthrush (my first) down there, which I avidly added to my ABA lifelist! My enthusiasm was quickly squelched by more experienced birders who laughed me to scorn! And yet that Waterthrush stayed on my "lifelist" for quite a while, till I'd actually SEEN one in the U.S. and was gradually able to give us such foolishness! So I say LET THE GUY ALONE! He'll get over it when he's ready to. And in the meantime he can list ANYTHING HE LIKES on his WORLD list! Mymm Ackley (Nobody should care what's on SOMEBODY ELSE'S list anyway!)

Usually "unclean" lists are down to genuine mistakes. For example, we have had a few cases where birders have added Irish birds on a Britain list – we do support both Britain and Ireland as a single unit as well as separately, and some birders prefer to list one over the other. It’s quite easy to forget which list you’re dealing with and add an Irish record to a Britain only list. When we see any of these, or anyone mentions it to us, we ask the lister to correct it.

It’s a similar situation as you noted when ABA listers weren't too happy with your Trinidadian waterthrush on your ABA list!

The particular case we had is an interesting one since the lister in question wanted to record a type of list we didn't support in BUBO Listing, i.e. a "false" list (where the species must be on the list in question, but could have been seen anywhere in the world). Not a type of list that I find much point in I have to say, but others are perfectly entitled to keep one if they want to. Anyway we have now introduced proper support for false lists , so we should now all be clean and happy! :laugh: