Comments on your comments!

eBirders

Thanks again for providing valuable insight into how you use eBird, what you like about it and what you think needs to be developed. The responses show that we have a broad range of users, from beginners to experts, and each user seems to use eBird a little bit differently. Below I'll try to address some of the questions that arose.

To Dave Rach: Active promotion is what we're hoping to achieve. We want eBird to go 'viral', that is we want all of our users to actively promote it to their birding friends and family. Ideally each eBirder would be a vocal advocate for the project on listserves and anywhere else they could find a forum.

To Claire: I actually think that it's great that you're one of the biggest contributors. This shows that you don't need to be a famous globe-trotting expert to make a huge contribution to eBird. Your data are as valuable, or arguably even more valuable because of your understanding of eBird, your repeated observations and your inclusion of effort information. This is the epitomy of what we want in an eBirder!

To John: Hotspots are sometimes an issue in eBird. eBird thrives off data, and when a new hotspot is created it is certainly data poor. Over time the bar charts etc become fleshed out with more data. It just takes a while, especially if you're one of few people contributing to the hotspot.

To Kathiesbirds: The fact that you've moved from GBBC to eBird and now count all of the birds you see all the time is incredible. That's the model that we hope many GBBC participants will follow. In terms of convincing your friends who are using other birding software, well, that's a big issue. Many birders do use other software to keep their lists, and we're aware of that. We are trying to develop ways to easily migrate those data into eBird. See this URL for a section that shows the differnt programs (e.g., AviSys) that have written code to bring data into eBird (http://ebird.org/content/ebird/home/birding-news-and-features/about/ebird-news-index). The real issue here is that eBird collects data in a way that is useful to science. By contributing complete checklists of birds from discrete locations with associated effort information, you are adding value to your observations and allowing them to be used in scientific analysis. Observations of single birds in space and time, as many of these software packages record them, and less useful becuase they lack the specifics that are needed for analysis. That's the critically important thing about the way eBird works. We're always walking the line between trying to let birders do what they do in an enjoyable way, but at the same time steering them in the direction of making their data more useful.

To Corey: We do have plans to make eBird available worldwide. We hope to do this in the near future and it is one of our major goals. The problem is that its not as simple as just turning it on. There are many things that work behind the scenes to make eBird what it is, including regional editors who review data, automated filters that create checklists and flag potentially erroneous data, hotspot editors etc. It is a major job to just get all this working in the USA! Right now we plan to launch the rest of the world in beta, which means it'll be less than smooth for a while, but will consistently improve with time and subsequent iterations.

To Paul Hurtado: We're actually working on a concept right now to do just that! We are going to introduce a map that shows where the data are concentrated and where we need data. We're actively working with analysts right now to create that.

To Sean: We are currently working on our first series of APIs and data feeds that will stream data out of eBird. These should be launched within the next several months. What we need to do next is to ask you, and the rest of our users, exactly what kinds of feeds you'd like to see if you were going to display eBird information elsewhere (e.g. Facebook).

To Michael: There are lots of good ideas here. The big one that I see is the realization that we might need to take more 'starter' data to get people involved, and then push them in the right direction with their new observations. Right now you need species, date and location for a record in eBird. We've toyed with the idea of creating an 'initial life list' option where users could just go in and set up their lists without the associated data, and then move forward from that point. What has stopped that is our desire to keep the database solid, and free of information that can't be used by science. What we're realizing is that we might have to change that policy to get people 'over the hump' and into eBird. Once they are in eBird, we've found that they really do begin to understand the importance of contributing effort-based observations. Not all will, but it certainly might help.

The blog would be a great forum for people to help others upload data. We'll do a post on that in the near future. There are some new tools that make this even easier. Check out the eBird Express here (http://www.ocellated.com/tag/ebird-express/).

To Sean: We are in the process of trying to 'take the lid off' eBird, open it up in ways that it hasn't been seen before. Part of that will be allowing users to expose their data to the public or to just 'friends'. Right now only you can see your individual checklists, but in the next iteration of eBird we want YOU to decide who can see your data. I know that I'd like to see what some folks are reporting. In addition we need to begin to uncover the review process, make our data editors visible and accessible to the public and generally pull back the curtain on some of things that happen behind the scenes. More transparency will make users more comfortable with the whole process.

To Oriole: Agreed, birding has to be fun first, after all, that's why most of us do it! We just need to find the right mix of fun and science at eBird.

To Derek Bakken: eBird does allow the option of entering data at the county and even state level. The reason that we try to steer people away from that and toward more location-based checklists is that the latter are so much better for analysis. The former are find for listing, but it all comes back to adding value to your data. If you're out there collecting data, why not go the extra mile to make it useful. It's actually more rewarding in the end even for listing purposes because then you can view location-based lists, not just county etc.

To Brendan: We are definitely focused now on trying to build community around eBird. We don't want to build a "Facebook for birders" but we do want to interface more fully with these types of social networking sites. I'll turn it back to you: what kinds of eBird information would you want to display on your Facebook page?

To Jennifer Wenzel: If you open a checklist using the "Manage my observations" tool you can see under "Date and Effort" info on each individual checklist whom you've shared it with.

To Clay: Do all you can to get others into it!

To Anonymous: RE your observations being in the wrong order, email me separately with more details and we'll look into it (bls42@cornell.edu)

To Dave Rach: We can open this forum up so that users (members) can post topics. What we don't want is for the discussion to turn from eBird to "what bird is this?" etc. There are other forums for that kind of birding info.

To Joe: Hah! I also birded Costa Rica on my honeymoon and submitted a ton of checklists. I used an Excel spreadsheet to collect the data while I was there and then bulk uploaded it when I got back. We need to do a feature on how to do this on the eBird home page. Look for it soon.

To Lindsey: Another nod to the social networking side of things. We need to do this better.

To Gallus: eBird allows you to enter all field identifiable subspecies in North America. They might not be on some checklists, it depends where you are birding, but you can always add subspecies data using the "Add a species" option on the checklist page. See the eBird taxonomy (http://ebird.org/content/ebird/about/ebird-taxonomy) for all that we have to offer. We are now working closely with Clements so that it and the eBird taxonomy will become one and the same.

To Evan: Location-based data are better for analysis and for listing purposes. It sounds like what we need to do is to design a quick way to create 'day reports' that will tally all the birds you've seen in a day.

The 'timeout' on a checklist submission should be 60 minutes. eBird restarts the clock each time you interact with it so if you click the 'rare species' link in blue at the top of the page, and then revert back to 'most probable' you'll be back where you were with 60 fresh minutes to continue.

To Riasp57: It's great that you've moved over from GBBC to eBird. If you want to talk specifically about what birds your seeing and that type of information, you can check out the listserve called BirdChat here (http://listserv.arizona.edu/archives/birdchat.html)

To Jay McGann: Duplication of effort is definitely something that we struggle with. That's why we're trying to make it easier to import data from other software to eBird.

To Finatic: Yes, eBird Buddies would be able to see your checklists etc. and look at your data. Maybe even comment on birds that they like or dislike.

To Anonymous RE Weather: You can put weather info in the checklist comments to describe local conditions. We gather weather info for analysis from automated sensor networks so adding that into eBird would be somewhat redundant - at least from an analysis perspective.

RE "Here Comes Everybody". We realize that in most community-based sites that a relative few contribute the majority of the data. Even still, the numbers at eBird are on the low side. What we hope to learn is why 90% of users don't contribute data, and then possibly make some changes to welcome that group into the fold. There will always be more users than contributors, however, we are hoping to improve the ratio.

To Linda Price: Yes, agreed, we definitely need to feature the utility of finding your own place to monitor. While many birders do visit the hotspots, finding and owning your 'local patch' as the Brits call it, has tremendous benefits.

I really like your idea of the 'eBird help night' at local bird clubs.

To Jay McGann: We are attempting to do precisely what you say, which is to bring all bird data under one umbrella (including eBird) at the Avian Knowledge Network. Check it out here (www.avianknowledge.net)

To James Fox: We need to step up our hotspot process in general. There's a lot of potential here for more useful information and ways to organize bird information.