Hello Everyone,
I'm looking forward to taking on this great project and doing it the justice it deserves. I think we all owe the previous compilers (Norm most recently) a great big thank you for all the hard work they did in keeping this project going for so long. I hope to live up to their efforts and also continue to improve on the Report with all of your suggestions.
Right now I don't yet have the database in my hands - Norm has burned it on a disk and is sending it to me as it is quite large. Once I get that and can start perusing through it, I will begin the process of updating the database tables and getting the report form out to everyone as soon as possible. Here are some things I am pondering:
1) I am soliciting suggestions now on how we can improve on this already-great project and especially how we can get more buy-in from the MD/DC birding community. Looking at past reports, there are a lot of great birders that either don't submit or no longer submit. I'd like to change that. I realize that I am fairly new to a lot of you in the MD/DC listing community and so there may be a lot of "who's that?" going on, but perhaps my newness can be a positive as I don't come with a strong allegiance to anyone's particular viewpoint. I also do not have an ego that this should be "my" way or the highway, so please submit any ideas and all will be considered. As Norm told me, at some point you have to make a decision on whether to include or exclude something in the report simply based on the amount of effort required vs. the benefit.
2) One listing category I think would be interesting to add is a MD Month List...i.e., birders would submit their total state species for each calendar month in 2011. Same for DC. I think this would be fun and over time we would have "all-time" month lists the same as we now do for the state lists. For ebirders (and I DO feel strongly that we all owe it to the birds to be ebirders - that's my one and only editorialization!) tracking monthly totals is already done for you, and for past months you simply have to click on "Explore Data" and then "My Observations" and then create a month report for any month you like.
3) Doing County Month Lists similar to above might be more work than I want to take on right now especially in my first year. It is these kinds of issues that I will have to think through. I'd appreciate your thoughts on these potential new Listing Categories and any others you may have.
4) I'd like some feedback on the popularity of "Work" or "Other" locale lists. My feeling is that these are somewhat nebulous and are so wide-ranging in breadth and scope that they may not be all that useful. Bottom line is that we all like to see how our lists stack up against others, but if "my" other list is a 2 acre suburban pond and "your" other list is a 100 acre park on the eastern shore, is there really a basis for comparison? Does anyone have strong opinions on this?
5) Eventually I'd like to see all data submission for this project be via the internet...and I welcome any web-savvy folks out there who would like to work with me to make that happen! Please let me know!
6) One of the first steps is that I need to update all of the official County Totals in the database...I don't know who the keepers of all those lists are but am asking you to step forward. Also, I am thinking that our wonderful ebird reviewers may be able to offer some info on this issue.
I'll do my best on this project and look forward to hearing from you all!
Sincerely,
Russ Ruffing
Woodstock, MD
On 12/30/11, Norm Saunders<> wrote:
We had about 7 or 8 people express an interest in the project after Phil
Davis placed his note on MDOsprey. Just to fill in the details, I notified
Mark Johnson I would no longer be doing it back in late February or early
March of 2011. I also noted this in the write-up for the last List Report
released in March of 2011. Mark announced it at an MOS board meeting and
asked the board to also announce it at their local club meetings. Given all
this I can't get over all the people who implied I was sneaking out without
giving notice.
That aside, Mark Johnson selected Russ Ruffing from Howard County to take on
the list report project. Russ will likely need assistance and also your
patience...the first year is always the toughest one, from a technical
point of view and from getting acquainted with all the "players" in the
Maryland listing games. My best wishes go out to Russ...let's all help him
out this year!
Best,
Norm Saunders
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