Condor Watch Talk

Damned ravens!!!

  • LAProf by LAProf

    Hope I get some backup here....Site needs to provide a "how many" box for ravens. I'm not going to mark each raven individually. I do not have the time nor the inclination to do so.

    Posted

  • myraf by myraf scientist

    Hi LAProf,
    yes, that would be great. Indeed we tried to see if we could get this change implemented but the programming wizards behind the curtain said altering the type of data streams that come in was not feasible. I can barely text on a smart phone so I am a bit out of my league but it has to do with the fact that all the information being tracked is tracked from a click, so merging that with a box that you input a number was not something they could do. But we did remove the requirement to mark distance to carcass for ravens so, although you still need to click, it does go much faster.

    Posted

  • wreness by wreness moderator

    Wanted to try to back up myraf here since I can't text on a phone to save my life (by the time I type with one finger, "yeah ok" my niece has sent me 4 more texts. the length of the Panama Canal) so maybe I can give you more info here from my Regular Keyboard

    We all feel your pain about the ravens. I do mean "all". There are thousands of citizen scientists helping the magnificent cause here and if I could have a show of hands right now, across the globe you'd see all those hands shoot up. Our only outlet is to mock the ravens heartily in photo comments. The annoyance is supreme when there is a photo with just ravens.

    Condor Watch is hosted by Zooniverse so the data and coding is their interface. The way they ask for data is consistent throughout all their projects. If you take a look at some of the others in which people are asked to count/mark things - an example is Sea Floor Explorer in which citizen scientists are asked to measure scallops and other sea 'life" - the issues are much the same as here. You can get photos with 50 things you have to measure, one by one, that have little to do with why you're supposed to be there. It would be easier if you could just say "50 of them" and get back to what you're actually there to do but again, their interface just doesn't have that option because it's just how they choose to ask for their data from us. Everything is measured and counted individually. Even plankton, even galaxies, even transcribing texts from old log books where 30 entries are identical.

    I think the reasoning is that somewhere down the road someone might find the collected data useful in some way. While the data is here, and this rare chance to get it with the help of the citizen scientists is here, then it's important to get it all. Maybe the # of ravens would eventually be useful data to someone, or more could be learned from it say, if a disease hits the species. California tragically has massive forest fires, so a species count could be helpful for these areas. Or, maybe someone can decide that enough is enough and tell the eagles to start eating more ravens and give us all a break.

    Yes, with all our hearts we know these ravens are a royal pain to have to count. But we always hope you do find the condors and things you learn here and the purpose of this project well worth it. Feel free to joke and chat on the boards - this is what keeps us sane! 😃 And as always, thanks for all your help.

    Posted

  • mboschmd by mboschmd

    If you think counting 11 ravens is bad, up until a week ago we had to also note where the ravens were in relation to the carcasses...so there were many clicks per bird. My worst image was one with 36 ravens on it, and I was raven' mad for half a day after that. 5 clicks per bird X 36 = 180 clicks for one image.
    Glad we don't have to notate the body position, especially since they move around constantly as if they're on a dance floor.

    Posted