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rhudedog 
Posts:1
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| 12/03/2009 3:16 PM |
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i just updated to version 3.6 with the greatest of help of Jeff.... thanks. in older versions, endemics in the checklist were shown in bold..... can this be done in the latest version? thanks. i'm a rookie poster... |
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jjones
Posts:5100
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| 12/03/2009 3:24 PM |
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Hi David,
Me again. Did v2 really show endemics in bold? I don't remember that - but v3.x contains no data on endemics - and therefore will not be able to highlight such. Sorry. (And your first post was very professional!)
In v3, species already seen are shown in bold for a checklist report type.
Jeff |
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Birder's Diary Technical Support |
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SteveO
Posts:509
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| 12/03/2009 11:30 PM |
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I don't remember endemics as an early BD feature, either, but if I have a chance I will crank up v2.5 and see if I can determine it. Unfortunately, my version 1.7 no longer works - I think it was an OS or Access upgrade that did it in.
I do remember discussing flagging endemics with Jeff. In theory, if all checklist locations containing a taxon (thing) are descendents of location X, then that taxon is endemic to location X. Except that would make every species endemic to the world and possibly to a continent, and we would not want to report that - and the code to determine it would run a while..
There is also a question about vagrants. If a species is endemic to Russia, and a single bird wanders from Big Diomede in Russia to Little Diomede in Alaska, and gets caught (by Paul Lehman - since he finds all the good stuff), it will appear on the Alaska checklist. However, generally vagrants do not count against endemicism. And BD would have no way of knowing if that Alaska Checklist entry was a vagrant.
I think I stopped thinking about flagging endemics because it made my head hurt, and Jeff stopped thinking about it because I stopped asking. |
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Regards,
Steve |
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Kim Tarsey
Posts:35
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| 12/09/2009 9:40 PM |
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I'm sure I remember endemics being in bold text also. I also think this is a nice feature.
Regards Kim |
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cowboyinbrla
Posts:270
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| 12/17/2009 1:58 AM |
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Looking at Steve's notes, I think both problems *could* be addressed *from a technical standpoint* with changes at the database level, but that might be best to postpone to post-3.7 (or at least, not to the first general release of 3.7.
For the first, adding a "Disable Endemic Checks" field to the locations table (a yes/no bit-type field) would suffice; if checked, it would disable checking to see if species for that location were endemic. That field could be set to TRUE for world, continents, and any other "super-regions" that might report an overabundance of meaningless data. That would leave countries, US states, and Canadian provinces (and I'm not sure what else) as locations in the "default" install which would allow BD to do the calculations.
Obviously there should be an option to disable endemic checking on reports, if that were implemented - or even better, require checking a box to have it figure out the endemics, so that by default, it wouldn't do the calculations and slow things down.
Likewise, for vagrants, in the table which associates thing-with-location, a field would be needed to flag vagrants. If checked, that bird would not count as an endemic on a checklist for that location. However, that would mean a lot more work in maintaining the checklists - because I'm not sure that state committees normally report which birds on their state lists are vagrants vs. which ones are regularly-occurring but rare. At the ABA level, it might be easier, as you could simply flag all location-thing associations of Code 5 birds as vagrants and not count their ABA-area occurrences as relevant for endemic-ness elsewhere.
As I said, technically feasible - but whether it's worth the work or not, I don't know.
Kevin |
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jjones
Posts:5100
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| 12/17/2009 10:53 AM |
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Appreciate the feedback Kevin.
There are many hurdles to overcome that have plauged this effort form the beginning:
- A data source (much like the taxonomic lists constantly maintained and updated by their respective authorities) that list endemic status worldwide. One that is updated and maintained.
- Overhaul of data design to support updates and maintenance to such data in BD.
- Overall value gained for the work required. I am constantly weighing, do I put in x hours of work up front and y hours of work annually for maintenance, for a feature that is now easily solved with a small bit of research on the web? Will it be deemed as a selling and differentiating feature for the product?
- Overhaul of functionality to support this feature.
- and more that don't come to mind until I really start thinking about how this could work...
Every time I/we address this, it falls short of the short-list of other features that can and should be in BD.
But - by all means, I am driven by customer feedback and input. And response here and push received, could always get this higher on the short list.
Jeff |
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Birder's Diary Technical Support |
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SteveO
Posts:509
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| 12/17/2009 2:45 PM |
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I am a regular reviewer of SACC material and contribute to their effort on a regular basis.
I recently went through their Endemic lists, and found about 20 instances where a species was flagged as being endemic in one country, but was also flagged as occurring in another country in a status other than vagrant or hypothetical..
All of which leads me to believe that there may be some science in defining endemics, but there may also be an element of national pride.
Basically I end up agreeing with Jeff. It is possible, but quality of the results depends on the quality of the data. Is the benefit sufficient to offset the cost? |
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Regards,
Steve |
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cowboyinbrla
Posts:270
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| 12/18/2009 12:14 AM |
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Jeff- Believe me, I can imagine the work involved - As a user myself, I really wouldn't care if endemics were flagged at all (that's not something which is particularly important to me). It seems like more work than it's worth - not so much from the eventual programming (which is a one-time time sink) but in maintaining the statuses.
Kevin |
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jjones
Posts:5100
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| 12/18/2009 9:11 AM |
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not so much from the eventual programming (which is a one-time time sink) but in maintaining the statuses.
Agreed Kevin. If there were simply a single source of reference it would make the task seem less insurmountable.
Thanks again for your considerable and thoughtful input on this.
Jeff |
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Birder's Diary Technical Support |
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