Notes From Nature Talk

@DZM: NFN Talk revision

  • Mr._Kevvy by Mr._Kevvy

    Oh oh... my blathering is getting noticed. :^)

    Rather than using object comments which are limited to 140 characters, all mash together, and don't show up in the actual boards, I would say it's much more useful to use the "Create a New Post" buttons on the right side of the object's Discuss page to start a topic for the inquiry that is linked to the object. That way it shows up in the Boards so others will see it is present and can accept replies, plus it's an actual thread separated from other threads. And that 140 character limit is annoying...

    I think the object comments are used just to note things for individual objects for when the database is put together rather than serve as a discussion place, thus the lack of structure. This is also why I use them so extensively. If there is a mistake on a label, then my one transcription of the correction may be overriden by three other verbatim transcriptions of it when the concurrency is done. So if I don't document, all those findings will be lost and the database full of errors that project scientists then have to waste their (far more expensive) time duplicating the finding of; plus I'm not flooding the actual boards with these comments as they don't start actual threads.

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  • robgur by robgur scientist, admin

    @Bonnie123 and "@Mr. Kevvy" --- these are awesome suggestions. I have a lot more I want to write to you both because you have both been so engaged, so fantastic. As I have mentioned before, Notes from Nature is run on a shoe-string, which is itself an overstatement. We get developer time measured in minutes per month, not hours or days, and that is how it has worked since we launched. The very incremental improvements that we have been able to make are hard won by the whole of the team --- developers, scientists, our amazing volunteers. This is about to change, and maybe in a major way, but for now the minor change is SOME developer time devoted to NFN measured in hours per week, to start in April or May. At first, I expect change to still be slow, as the new developer learns the codebase. But hopefully over summer, we can slay these persistent bugs, implement some neat things across NFN (e.g. ditto function, zoom) and get us to a spot where frustrations are less palpable. I know I have asked you bear with us for a while longer, but we are finally able to say with some assurance that good things will happen now. And maybe great things --- we are waiting to hear still about a "game changing" funding opp. Again, many thanks for your continued patience in the face of challenges. We appreciate very much. @DZM @Austinmast.

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  • robgur by robgur scientist, admin

    @Bonnie123, yeah I am amazed at the amount of work required for the ornithology ledgers and I also think we have some real issues with how we deal with ledger rows etc. and the relationship to ledger pages. Another place where I think we could really make some major improvements to the benefit of all.

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