[obol] Bogus GBBC Reports

[Joel Geier]

Hi folks,

Thanks to Phil Hicks for finding the appropriate place to report GBBC
shenanigans, and thanks to David Bailey and Robb Fergus for their roles
in reviewing the data.

Unfortunately erroneous data (whether intentional or simply novice
error) are an inescapable bugbear of web-based projects like the GBBC.
The only defense is more eyes to look at the data, so I hope all of you
reading this, if you can find the time, will spend some time browsing
Oregon's GBBC data and report lists that seem grossly out of whack.

I do think that the GBBC could make some structural improvements to
avoid these vandal attacks. One problem is that a vandal who posts an
obviously bogus list like the Bridge Creek Wilderness list remains
effectively anonymous. Robb notes that this seems to happen every year
in Oregon (and I suppose Oregon is not the only state where this
happens).

I've helped to administer the web-based BirdNotes database,
www.birdnotes.net, going on ten years now. Tens of thousands of bird
lists have been posted to this database. We do get occasional "off-by-
one-line" errors in data entry, but we've never had a case of vandalism
like the GBBC seems to get every year. 

One very big difference is that the identity (or at least e-mail
address) of anyone who posts a list on BirdNotes is readily available to
anyone who browses submissions to the database. With the GBBC, none of
us have any idea who posted the bogus Bridge Creek Wilderness list, and
there is no way to hold them to account.

If the GBBC would change this policy of hiding the identities of people
who post lists, I suspect that the vandals would disappear. Novices who
really think that every black-and-white woodpecker they see is an
American Three-toed Woodpecker, even in Malheur County, might also get
some help.

Good birding,
Joel

--
Joel Geier
Camp Adair area north of Corvallis