I thought I'd add another perspective on Haans's topic.

For more than 15 years, I have prepared annual summaries of the
significant bird reports for the Toledo area.  These have appeared each
year in the Toledo Naturalists' Association Yearbook.  In order to prepare
these in-depth reports, I have counted on having access to the vast
majority of the most noteworthy sightings from the year just ended.  My
primary sources for these articles in recent years have been RareBird.org,
the Ohio-Birds listserv, The Ohio Cardinal (when it was more current), and
personal communications.  RareBird.org has excellent search and archiving
features, and e-mails posted to Ohio-Birds are easily filed in folders as
received.  More than ever this year, I have been made aware of significant
bird reports in our area that -- as far as I know -- have been documented
on FaceBook or Twitter, but nowhere else.

I am not a user of either FaceBook or Twitter, so comments I make about
either may be inaccurate.  While these electronic media are wonderful for
quickly conveying rare and/or noteworthy sightings, here's what neither
apparently has as a strength: archiving posted information.  The volume of
postings is just too massive.  Digging up records from even a few days
back can become a challenge -- unless the sightings have been cross-posted
on the listserv or another site such as RareBird.  So, while the immediacy
of FaceBook and Twitter may indeed help more folks track down great birds,
many of these records quickly become essentially inaccessible and,
therefore, unavailable for historical record-keeping.  As an aside, I
suspect that other new archive-friendly technology such as E-bird may
ultimately help to overcome these concerns -- but only to the extent that
birders make the effort to post their sightings.

Others who are regional or state-wide record-keepers from around Ohio (and
beyond) may have similar concerns.  Just something to consider...


Matt



Matt Anderson
The Andersons, Inc.
PO Box 119
Maumee, OH  43537

419-891-6527 (office)
419-265-9686 (cell)
419-891-6588 (fax)

----- Forwarded by Matt Anderson/Ag_Group/Andersons on 05/28/2013 09:41 AM
-----

From:
Haans Petruschke <[log in to unmask]>
To:
[log in to unmask]
Date:
05/24/2013 11:33 AM
Subject:
Re: [Ohio-birds] Evolution of communication about Ohio Birds and Birding
Sent by:
Ohio birds <[log in to unmask]>



Hi,

Bill wonders why I encourage the establishment of a twitter feed as a
means
to quickly communicate with Ohio birders.

While I have been aware of twitter since its inception I could never see
it
as being useful for much.  Its use in Egypt during the overthrow of the
Mubarak regime sparked the idea that if people could use twitter to
organize protests and demonstrations, plus summon help when they were
being
attacked by the police, it could also be very useful in real time for
announcing and locating rare birds.

This idea was further codified while the Black-tailed Gull was at
Ashtabula.  As you may recall, it was inconsistent in location and there
was no good means to communicate in real time except by exchanging phone
numbers.

As a result I set up the OhioRareBird twitter account and included a
retweet feature, so that followers replies to tweets would be retweeted to
all followers.  This went no where but it still exists

With the above in mind, I think twitter is an ideal way to quickly
communicate with birders about rarities.  It is free, can be used on any
phone that can send and receive text and is near instantaneous. So someone
who finds a good bird could tweet @OhioRareBird with their find to alert
those following that feed.  From there updates can be easily shared in
real
time.  So if the Black-tailed Gull moves from the docks and is refound at
the pavilion, this information would be immediately available to all
followers.

Further, twitter, while limited to 140 characters can also link to other
sites and photos can be tweeted. Hash tags # provide a means of filtering.
 It is all pretty straight forward, but new and different.  A bit more
difficult for non smart phone users too.

Perhaps one of the problems is the open nature of twitter.  There is very
little control.  The owner of the feed can block a subscriber or delete
tweets, but it is otherwise very much an open free for all.

Everything is there.  All that is really needed is to test it.  If it
works
people will use it. If not we can fix it so it does. Some recognizing the
enhanced utility, will come willingly.  Others only kicking and screaming.

Beyond real time reporting of rarities I see only marginal utility for
twitter in the birding community, but it will work very well for what it
does and so long as we don't try to make it do more than capable.

Haans


On Fri, May 24, 2013 at 10:28 AM, Bill Whan
<[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> I second pretty much everything Haans has said. I do wonder why he seems
> to encourage a twitter feed at the same time he laments the
fragmentation
> of sources of information, though. I too hail Jen's efforts to forward
news
> here for folks, concentrating on the more interesting items that might
> otherwise languish on other forums. As for this one, I doubt Miami
> University will start running ads or sharing our addresses with
unwelcome
> sources; it has reasonable rules understood and observed by nearly
> everyone, and its sponsorship by the OOS and a major university seeks to
> ensure an atmosphere of scientific inquiry and the advancement of
knowledge
> along with the personal enjoyment involved. The proliferation of other
> forums on birding topics is healthy as well, as they more often cater to
> chattier topics, etc., and fill out the spectrum of sites available
without
> crowding oil and water on a single site.
>         All in all, while I realize that once in a while a novice might
> post a photo of a real rarity at the backyard feeder on another forum,
I'd
> like to see us all expect topics that nearly EVeryone on Ohio-birds will
> relish to appear here as well.
> Good birding to all,
> Bill Whan
>
>
> On 5/24/2013 8:49 AM, Haans Petruschke wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Last fall I noted the Findlay Prairie Falcon first got widely reported
on
>> the Birding Ohio Facebook Page and not the list serve.  That group now
has
>> more than 1600 members, and while it was the place to post rarities for
a
>> few months, it has evolved into a perfectly nice place where people
post
>> their photos and ask for identification help.
>>
>> Also noteworthy has been the development of real time posting of photos
of
>> rare birds from the field.  This first happened with the Brookside
>> Reservation Western Kingbird.  We Ohioans seem to be on the leading
edge
>> in
>> this regard, which has only become possible with the advent of "smart"
>> mobiles and phone scoping.
>>
>> In the mean time some other pages have developed on Facebook.  Ohio
Rare
>> Bird Alert, which is dedicated to reporting rare birds and seems to be
>> well
>> used for that purpose.  Additionally, Listing Birds Ohio has become the
>> place for more Birding related discussion and fun stuff related to the
>> sporting aspect of Birds in Ohio. This seems to have also become a
>> reliable
>> forum for reports on rarities.
>>
>> At the same time it seems Jen Brumfield has become the clearinghouse
for
>> quick reporting of rarities.  If you call or text her with a find, she
has
>> a text group list and gets the word out quickly to everyone on that
list.
>>   This is sort of like the old phone trees of the 1970's and '80s but
more
>> rapid and perhaps egalitarian.
>>
>> Jen's efforts work much like a Twitter feed would, but there seems to
be
>> considerable resistance to getting a Ohio rare bird twitter feed up and
>> running.  The resistance is not active, but just seems to be the result
of
>> people not understanding twitter and how it can be used for this sort
of
>> purpose, and the misconception that a "smart" mobile is needed to
access
>> the feed.  It is not as twitter will work with any phone capable of
>> sending
>> and receiving text messages.
>>
>> Meanwhile, this forum has not gone away and many birders make an effort
to
>> post here when something good is found in the field.  The major change
>> being the list server is often the last place where word gets out.
>>
>> The really great thing from my perspective is how Ohio's birders are
>> making
>> every effort to communicate and get the word out about rare birds as
>> quickly and widely as is possible.
>>
>> While most everyone now has a mobile it will be a few more years before
>> everyone has a smart mobile which is more than just a phone.  Once
99.73%
>> of the birding community have adopted "smart" mobile technology, it
will
>> be
>> interesting to see how our communication again evolves.  As it is now,
>> many
>> of us are checking both the list serve and Facebook when we are in the
>> field to make sure we are not missing something.  These tasks may
become
>> more automated as could happen with a twitter feed.  As this happens I
>> hope
>> our communication becomes less fragmented as is the current situation.
>>
>> A chilly 41 degrees on Gildersleeve Mountain this morning.
>>
>> Haans
>>
>
>

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______________________________________________________________________

Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society.
Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list.
Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/.

You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at:
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