Hi Luke
As the author of the BOCA Birding Maps I thought I would add a comment here.
It was always intended that registered users (not necessarily BOCA members)
would be able to add to the maps and comment on the locations - as we all
know birding sites change rapidy and I have been to many places that were
recommended in a book or an old web site only to find them covered in houses
now!
The code to do this was written but a key issue for us was going to be
moderation - as anyone who runs a website will tell you, as soon as you open
it up to user comments you get a high %age of spam that needs to be filtered
out.
Before we could tackle that issue we decided that for various reasons - both
technical and aesthetic - we needed to rewrite the basic website.
Unfortunately the person chosen to do this did not achieve what we wanted,
and so late last year I took over the development again and the new site (
boca.org.au) was launched a few days ago (and to those who have had trouble
reaching it - it does work but it takes time for all ISPs on the Internet to
know about new sites). There are still some things running on our old shop -
basically the difficult database stuff - but they will be moved to the new
site as soon as I can (allowing for the odd birding trip!). Once we have the
transition complete we have a number of plans to make the new site much more
useful and dynamic, and improving the Birding Maps is high on the list. We
do intend to open it up for user comments, but we will need regional
moderators to do this and we will be looking both at our own branches and
other respected birders to play a part in this role.
The original system had links in to both Eremaea and BirdPedia so that you
could look at what was being seen in those areas and we had an agreement to
use Atlas data as well, although that part was never implemented.
Suggestions always welcomed!
Dave
2010/1/28 Luke Shelley <>
> Hi Chris,
>
> <>
> I couldn't agree more, which is why a wiki system that can be updated
> constantly by users would be a great way to go. The BOCA website has gone
> some way to providing information on sites that can be accessed by a map.
> It's a good start, but would benefit by being able to be updated regularly
> and by users.
>
>
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