Condor Watch Talk

Idea to speed classification

  • All41 by All41

    It would be great if the program would show us a pic then ask, "Is there a condor in this pic?" If "yes", go to the classification scheme in place. If "no", go to a screen which asks us to enter the total number of each other animal-- eagle, coyote, raven, vulture and other then be able to write in what the "other" is. Would make marking the pics really easy and would go much faster.

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  • CosmicLatte by CosmicLatte

    I think they also need information about the foraging behaviors of the other animals in the images - it would be helpful for them to know which animals get to carcasses first, for example. I could be wrong, but the detailed information like "How close is this animal to the carcass?" is potentially useful, even if it's not of a condor.

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  • BirdGrrl by BirdGrrl scientist in response to CosmicLatte's comment.

    Yes! Thanks for the help, CosmicLatte! You're right on.

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  • daishizukagmail.com by daishizukagmail.com scientist

    There is a trade-off between the speed/ease of classification and the speed/ease of data analysis. We are trying to strike a balance between making the classification experience easy while making the data structure tractable for data analysis. With that said, we have identified some improvements that should improve both the user experience and data analysis, so we are trying to implement those as best we can. Thanks for the feedback.

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  • mosaic_world by mosaic_world

    my comment is about user experience when classifying non-condor animals. currently I need to click two buttons (after selecting the animal type, for example, raven): Next, and then Done. it would be really nice to only have one button to click (if there are many non-condor animals, it feels very redundant to click buttons which are not gathering new data).
    also on the penguin watch site, there is a list of animals and after I select an animal type, I can click each animal on the image (without having to click Next and Done inbetween) and I feel like this is more efficient. I +1 the spirit of the comment by All41 above.
    I hope that is helpful. I am a big fan of the CA Condors, having watched a couple fledglings on the San Diego Zoo cam and am very happy to have found this project.

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  • wreness by wreness moderator

    Hi Mosaic!

    We're glad you found us 😃 Condors are amazing and the idea of this project if to help keep them around a lot, lot longer and safer from death by lead poisoning.

    Yep, yep about the interface. There are a lot of things we would like/hope to get updated and improved if/when there's an upgrade to the Condor Watch site. It was pretty bare-bones here when the site was made, with a lot of features having to be left out due to the available funds and then tons of fixes and tweaking to correct things. The newer sites like Penguin Watch and even Chicago Wildlife and the Chimps area have a lot more streamlined menus and even available photo ID menus right on the marking page that would be nice to have here. Condor Watch is kind of "old" by Zoo standards even though we're only a bit over a year old. We are waving our hands and standing on chairs hoping Zoo will swoop by and add some bling to us.

    If it makes you feel any better - when Condor Watch was first put up we have to mark every single raven, one by one. Every. Single. Raven. Have you run into a photo yet with, oh, 32 ravens? Wait. Oh, just wait. That was 6 clicks per raven, back in the day. (It's been streamlined quite a bit here from how it used to be). Raven-click, distance from carcass-click. Done-click. Next-click. ARGH. The "All Animals Marked" button used to be directly under, and about 3mm to the right of, the "Next" button so if you clicked too fast you were Done before you were Done. Like 40 times a night. If you left your window open while you classified you could hear people yelling "NOOOO!" all the way across the neighboring 4 states. It let you know you had company at least.

    Thank you for the suggestion and it will be noted and passed on. We have lots of photos yet (lots! lots!) and as a the current batch is classified (almost there!) the next will be downloaded into the system. Along the way I'm sure improvements will be made and all are being kept track of so thank you! Many have been implemented as our whining and begging wear down the technical people eventually or they take pity on us (yes!)

    And welcome! Anything I can help you with please feel free to post or send me a message. I love messages! We also have many smart people here who can answer the TALK comment questions and many have a warped and wicked sense of humor which is a nice requirement here since it can get a bit sad looking at deceased condors and entrails but we still are of very scientific minds. (and please go introduce yourself on our Chat board 😄

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  • vjbakker by vjbakker scientist

    mosaic_world -- I regularly do classifications to keep of pulse on CW and I agree with you completely. And basically, what wreness said. We are not able to get all the upgrades we'd want, but we like to hear from you and what your priority improvements are. We'll try. And thanks for bearing with us!

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