Re: [cobirds] Re: Cobirds vs Facebook

I too am a big proponent of COBirds remaining as the main conduit for timely reporting on rarities, as opposed to Facebook. My quibbles with FB as a platform in general are many and probably too numerous to mention here at this time, but suffice it to say that FB, even for dedicated groups like the newly created Colorado Rare Bird Alert, is designed more as a true social media platform (meaning photo sharing, conversational snippets, "hot takes", social bonding, and the like) as opposed to rapid fire quality information sharing, which of course is the topic of this whole discussion and a defining purpose of COBirds.

I think it would be a shame if birders as a whole migrated more toward FB as their reporting tool when COBirds already has the protocols in place to insure quality rarity reporting information. By that I mean, rare bird postings generally are reliably providing

- Date and time of sighting

- County of sighting

- Discussion of precise directions when appropriate or necessary (unlike, say, eBird RBAs, where no such delineation is required nor often provided)

- Discussion of any other important or relevant ID issues for the sighting

The new Colorado FB group, and FB RBA groups in general in my experience, do not have these protocols (or at least the expectation that they'll be honored) in place. Thus, whether useful information gets shared on them is really a crapshoot, and the fact that so much cross-posting has to happen for there to be equitable information dissemination in the first place speaks to the redundancy of it all. It reminds me of how, when I first moved to CO 14 years ago, I joined both COBirds and the lesser known "Cobirders" groups. I soon realized that the Cobirders group generally borrowed all the sightings from the COBirds RBA (without permission) and merged it into theirs, so that there was essentially no difference between the two, even though they passed it off as their own RBA. At that point I gave up participating in COBirders.

Of course, people are free to make their own decisions and abide by their own preferences, and they will do so regardless of what I think. All I can say is, I will personally primarily report sightings here, and leave it to others to report them on the FB group, unless I'm feeling particularly jaunty that day. I've been reducing my overall FB participation over the past few years for a number of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with birds or birding, and I don't want to have to resume relying on FB for timely updates for the sake of keeping up with late-breaking bird sightings. I know from experience how good the quality of rarity reporting has been here, and I also know how many of the group members here genuinely care about getting it right and having a genuine communal spirit about birding.

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Eric DeFonso
Coal Creek Canyon, Jefferson County, CO (at exactly 8,000' ASL)

On Thu, Dec 13, 2018 at 11:20 AM <mvjohnski@gmail.com> wrote:

 Tools in the tool box can never be a bad thing. 

I am not much of a chaser these days although there are some I would pursue. Last years Red-naped Sapsucker was one of those I did chase, and in that case, checking the latest and best info on FB would have been helpful. We did see the bird the old fashioned way, with some help from Ira S! 

I am a strong supporter of our COBIRDS list, a quick and concise source of info on what's happening in our State. In fact, I have trouble finding current bird data in other states and am proud of all who have kept ours running so well. Being here in the San Luis Valley, I am quickly able to assess birds of interest and decide if I wish to travel considerable distances to chase. Another useful tool in my opinion. It is great times to have such choices!

John Rawinski

Monte Vista, CO

On Saturday, December 8, 2018 at 11:02:20 AM UTC-7, Robert Righter wrote:

Hi

Leon Bright makes a good point. For almost 30 years Cobirds has been the established platform for communicating all kinds of interesting birding news about what is  going on in the state
By promoting the advantages, or perhaps its
disadvantage of using Facebook as a platform (check out facebooks recent stock collapse) for disseminating bird information could have the effect of splintering, or complicating how we get the daily bird news. Is this what we want?

Are there ways of making Cobirds more relevant to changing times ?

Bob Righter
Denver CO



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