Cobirds vs Facebook

[Robert Righter]

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



Sent from my iPhone

[Paul Hurtado]

I've seen the issue of facebook groups vs traditional email lists pop up in many states, and twice went so far as sifting through some data to see if a growing state Facebook group was associated with a decline in email list posts. Here's the results:

https://mostlybirds.wordpress.com/2013/10/03/too-many-birding-forums-in-ohio-2/

In short, the email list was unaffected, meaning that the Facebook group wasn't making the email list obsolete. Far from it! It was just another place where people were sharing information about birds -- sometime birds that might have otherwise gone unreported. 

I expect the same trend would be found in CO.

The issue isn't one of CObirds going away. It's how we, as a community, keep tabs on all the many places people can report birds. Yes, it's harder than having a single email list to pay attention to, but it's also allowing us to get more reports from more people. The typical modern problem of having too much data, and feeling like we're drinking out of a firehose. But there are some good things that come with all that information!

For example, just this week in NV someone who isn't really a birder photographed a GROOVE-BILLED ANI near Las Vegas (only 2 previous records in NV). Someone in CA noticed and alerted the email list, and ultimately we even got a rare bird report from the observer thanks to NVbirds members reaching out to the observer. 

It's a record we probably wouldn't have ever heard about (or at least not until well after the observstion) were it not for this person using iNaturalist as a place to share their photos of a broad array of orgsnisms. Check it out -- it's a fantastic place to report your non-bird observations as a citizen scientist: inaturalist.org

CObirds is alive and well, and these other platforms offer much more than they might detract. In my opinion, the email lists benefit most from these other platforms when some of us pick one or two to add to our own online activities, and make sure to cross post interesting observations when they pop up. 

Good birding,

Paul Hurtado

Reno, NV (and Pueblo, CO)

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[mvjo...@gmail.com]

 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

[Eric DeFonso]

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)

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