Notes From Nature Talk

No more images in herbarium project

  • md68135 by md68135 scientist

    Hi Everyone,

    The last set of herbarium images were completed this morning! At this moment there are no images in the system to transcribe.

    We are working to get more images up ASAP and will post more information about the new set in the next few days.

    Thank you all for your efforts!

    Posted

  • am.zooni by am.zooni

    😦 This is the 3rd zooniverse project where just as I started to feel I'm getting reasonably proficient and able to make a useful contribution, the project runs out of images. That's frustrating.

    I hope it's true that it's only a matter of days before more images are available, and will keep checking on the status. (On Snapshot Serengeti the wait can be months, and on Seafloor Explorer many months so far, and still waiting.)

    Posted

  • Mr._Kevvy by Mr._Kevvy in response to am.zooni's comment.

    So you could say that the project...

    {{puts on sunglasses}}

    ...has been caught with its plants down?

    (I bet all the botanists are tired of that particular pun.) :^)

    Posted

  • reddder by reddder

    I've become a fungus devotee and I can't help but notice that the mushrooms don't seem to get any respect. I would love to know how many people are actively participating in each of the 4 disciplines in NFN.

    Posted

  • Mr._Kevvy by Mr._Kevvy

    Heh... thanks but I think I will take a break. I was putting a lot off in order to do as much Herbarium as possible. I managed to get through one Ornithology and that was one two many! :^) Macrofungi is OK and did a couple of hundred of those but the labels are often handwritten. One of the reasons I've stuck with Herbarium this long is that the labels are usually typed or printed which enables OCR.

    I rewrote the Herbarium FAQ last night and today. If the response is favourable, I'll see about writing one for the other projects as well. It's about time...

    Posted

  • HelenBennett57 by HelenBennett57

    I'd be fine with Ornithology if there was some way of submitting part of a page, or returning to a page later (actually I could just try having faith that my computer won't crash, and leave the session open; but it means I can't transcribe the same page from both home and work).

    I've tried fungi now and then and the zoom problem totally kills me, with some assistance from bad handwriting and not being certain how to handle all fields. The herbarium is much, much nicer to work in.

    Posted

  • am.zooni by am.zooni

    I had a look at the Ornithology project before I started working on the Herbarium, because I love birds. But there are no birds to see, only text! Then again, on reflection I don't think I'd want to look at dead bird specimens! But the real reason I was put off after viewing the intro video was the amount of text on each page, not to mention having to read handwriting. I fairly often have small bits of free time that I can put to good use on one of these projects, but usually not long enough to complete one of the ornithology pages. I might give it a try some day, if there was a way to suspend work on a page (which seems to be a frequently requested function), but now that I've gotten sort of hooked on the plant labels, probably I won't switch unless there is a long break waiting for more images to work on.

    At a glance, the fungi project looked to be similar to ornithology - long pages, probably time-consuming. And I definitely don't want to look at bug specimens, so that one is off the table for me.

    I enjoy taking a couple of minutes to take a close look at each plant specimen. And the Herbarium labels are nearly all typed text, and mostly quite quick to complete, so it fits in with my schedule, allowing me to break off whenever I have to.

    Posted

  • am.zooni by am.zooni

    Is there an estimate (next week? next month? several months?) as to when a new set of Herbarium images will be ready for transcribing? @md68135 said 2 weeks ago that info about the new set would be posted in a few days, but I can't find anything further about it on any of the message boards. Thanks.

    Posted

  • md68135 by md68135 scientist

    @am.zooni I am hoping for this week, but I not totally certain when it will be. This is one of the things that our new programmer is working on.
    I realize that we are WAY over the two week mark at this point!

    Posted

  • Mr._Kevvy by Mr._Kevvy in response to md68135's comment.

    That was the first post on this board in nearly a week. Woke me out of my estivation and not even for any new work. :^)

    Back to sleep then...

    Posted

  • am.zooni by am.zooni

    Thanks for the update, @md68135. Even though there's no new info, it helps to know someone out there is working on it, and noticing us here.

    And, sorry to disturb your rest, @Mr. Kevvy.

    Hmm, editor question: it seems to automatically insert a hyperlink for most user IDs, but the space in Mr. Kevvy's ID seems to break it. I tried selecting his ID (and other words too) and using the 'hyperlink' button above this text box, but it just inserts whatever I paste into the popup box into the text following the word I had selected. Obviously I'm doing it wrong, but what's the right way to 1) hyperlink any word or phrase and 2) hyperlink a user ID that contains a space?

    Posted

  • Mr._Kevvy by Mr._Kevvy in response to am.zooni's comment.

    If only new images would disturb it... it's good that development is taking place but we're missing thousands of transcribed records while it does.
    Hope there is some work soon. I'm miserably bored and not for lack of trying to be otherwise.
    Yawn. :^)

    Posted

  • md68135 by md68135 scientist

    Hi Everyone!
    The herbarium images are back! Thank you so much for your patience!

    I will posting a few blogs soon about this new collection of images.

    Posted

  • Mr._Kevvy by Mr._Kevvy in response to md68135's comment.

    I waited all this time to gripe and then only three hours later there they are. I've learned a valuable lesson and shall gripe early and often now. 😄

    Thanks!

    Posted

  • md68135 by md68135 scientist in response to Mr. Kevvy's comment.

    Yes, indeed. Well said!

    Posted

  • am.zooni by am.zooni

    Hurray! Thank you. And I too will learn that lesson: must be a squeaky wheel!

    Posted

  • am.zooni by am.zooni

    Wow, I've done a dozen transcriptions from the new SELU images and have already seen FAR more handwriting and faint type (either typed with a dying ribbon or faded later, or both) than in just over 200 SERNAC images. Interesting.

    Posted

  • Mr._Kevvy by Mr._Kevvy in response to am.zooni's comment.

    Amazing... I just came here to post the same thing. :^) Glen N. Montz is Robert Kral's successor... someone buy that man a new typewriter ribbon... lol.

    I'm thinking this is why these collections are being prioritized, because they have the most specimens to be digitized for posterity as they are about to fade into complete illegibility.

    Posted