Snapshot Serengeti Talk

Hello, Snapshot Serengeti!

  • DZM by DZM admin

    Hello Snapshot Serengeti Zooites!

    My name is Darren--DZM here on Talk--and I've just joined the Zooniverse team. I'm working on a few projects, first and foremost an overhaul of the Talk system. In particular, I’m interested in working to build a unified Zooniverse Talk within which individual project forums are nested.

    If you have any additional ideas for how Talk can be improved, I’d love to know! I’ll also be around these boards as often as possible, looking for any other ways in which I can help out, so I’m always interested in hearing from you all.

    While I don’t have any sort of zoology or biology background--and any contributions I make are just amateur observations!--I am certainly an animal lover, and Snapshot Serengeti is wonderful fun for me. I’m looking forward to learning more about all these critters from the people here who know the most!

    Anyway, I’ll be around and checking back, so thoughts, comments, concerns, anything like that are always welcome.

    Hakuna matata!

    DZM

    Posted

  • Artman40 by Artman40

    One thing that would be useful is that when someone tags a word that does not describe what is seen in this picture, then it would be nice if science team or some more experienced users can make the tag red instead of your normal colour link.

    What I mean by that that if someone uses a hashtag #leopard but it mistakenly turns out to be #cheetah, then science teams can mark it so that if you'd search for leopards, this wouldn't show up or a mistagged symbol would show up.

    Posted

  • davidbygott by davidbygott moderator

    Yes - or, some way that we experienced users could eliminate incorrect hashtags as we find them, without the edited items cluttering up the "Recent" page?

    Posted

  • DZM by DZM admin

    Ooh, that's an excellent idea. Over on our Chicago Wildlife Watch project, there's a beautiful picture of a coyote that was mistagged as a fox, and it bugs me every time that it shows up if you're looking for fox pictures! 😃

    I'd love to remove that so that it doesn't show up, and of course you don't want edits clogging that page, either. Thank you for the excellent suggestions!

    Posted

  • Artman40 by Artman40

    There is another board with all talk pages: sometimes the main talk page just does not load despite user pages, object pages and discussion boards loading normally.

    Posted

  • DZM by DZM admin

    I've noticed this, too. Typically it works okay if you just reload/refresh, but it's definitely an annoying bug that I'd like to fix in future Talks! 😃

    Posted

  • DZM by DZM admin

    If anyone would like to know a bit more about me and my role, there's a new Zooniverse blog post up from Chris Lintott introducing me.

    Feel free to check it out, and I'm happy to answer any additional questions that you might have! 😃

    Posted

  • kosmala by kosmala scientist

    Hi Darren. Great to have you on board.

    My least favorite bugs in Talk are:

    1. When you do a search, click through to an image or conversation, and then click the browser "back" button, you don't go back to the results of the search. Instead you get a blank page.
    2. And then (following on #1 above), if you try to redo the search, it doesn't work. You have to refresh the search page and often, you have to leave the search page all together, come back to it, and then refresh it in order to do a new search.
    3. Frequently the subjects listed for collections or even those on the "recent" page are not in two straight rows like they're supposed to be, but rather there are gaps and subjects wrap around onto multiple lines. (I can send a screen shot if you like.)
    4. I can't figure out how to get rid of empty collections

    A feature I would like is to be notified (in the profile perhaps?) if someone comments on a discussion thread after I do -- without having to "follow" the discussion. The moderators and scientists often answer lots and lots of questions. If someone has a follow up to our answer, it's easy to miss.

    I also wanted to let you know that we're "between" seasons right now, so traffic on Talk is much lighter than it usually is. We'll be launching our next season before the end of 2014. What's your deadline for collecting feedback on Talk?

    Posted

  • DZM by DZM admin

    Hi @kosmala, thank you! Many of those bugs/feature requests have been already reported, but a couple are new. I'll add them. Could you please send that screenshot to darren@zooniverse.org?

    There's no hard deadline for feedback, although next week I will be presenting everything that I have so far to our team in Oxford to discuss what we want to try to implement, and how.

    Thank you very much!

    Posted

  • davidbygott by davidbygott moderator

    I agree with Margaret's comments on Search. Another thing - on the Moderation page, could there be a link to some guidelines for moderators - their powers and responsibilities?

    Posted

  • DZM by DZM admin

    Search is going to get a 100% overhaul, if I have anything to say about it. It probably will only be implemented on the next-gen Talk, though. It's a huge project.

    I like the idea of making a list of mods' powers and responsibilities available. I'll add it to the list!

    Posted

  • Dianas1505 by Dianas1505

    The example picture for Cattle is actually of a baboon! I know what cattle look like, so no worries there, but it is a bit annoying!

    Posted

  • kosmala by kosmala scientist in response to Dianas1505's comment.

    Thanks, @Dianas1505. There are a few other images that aren't linking correctly. We're going to try to fix the problem tomorrow!

    Posted

  • bumblebee2 by bumblebee2

    just started on this project. How do I record more than one type of animal in the same photo?

    Posted

  • dolphinate by dolphinate

    Click on the first animal type, click on amount, then behaviour, then click on identify. Then do the same for each animal type you see.

    Posted

  • ninawilson by ninawilson

    You really need a description under the activity section for "sniffing at the camera" it seems there are a number of wilderbeast with their head right up at the camera.

    More seriously, it would be useful to have an option for saying there is an animal there but you have no idea what it is. Possibly allowing you to choose a family. There's a few at night where you can see something but the exposure is too bad to make out what, or something too close up to see much at all. Although, I think I got the elephant right just from skin texture.

    Posted

  • dolphinate by dolphinate

    There are a lot of animals liking the close up 'selfie' and glowing night eyes lol.
    Scientists want us to have a 'best guess' if there is a hard to identify animal in the shot. Based on colour, behaviour, place etc. Lots of people making the same guesses would give a classification. 😃

    Posted

  • bumblebee2 by bumblebee2

    thank you dolphinate.

    Posted

  • ninawilson by ninawilson

    Thanks dolphinate, I thought that might be it, but there are times you really don't have a clue, it could be anything. Although I suspect if you have a "don't know" option too many would use it rather than try to work it out.

    Just got a really close up leopard muzzle, I used photos on the internet for that one. You just don't get photos like that on wildlife documentaries. It took me a while to work out I was looking at a close up cat muzzle with whiskas, then it was WOW!

    Posted

  • dolphinate by dolphinate

    Cool, can't beat those 'wow' moments. Keeps us coming back! 😃

    Posted

  • paLLadium2 by paLLadium2

    Even among pictures showing scenery with no animals evidently, many would make beautiful notecards or postcards.

    Posted

  • DZM by DZM admin in response to ninawilson's comment.

    Although I suspect if you have a "don't know" option too many would use it rather than try to work it out.

    Yep, that's exactly why we don't. 😃

    Plus, even if everyone is just taking a totally wild guess on a completely unidentifiable animal, then we'll see a bunch of different animals guessed, and the system will flag that as photo that needs expert study to figure it out. So guessing helps no matter what, as long as it's your best guess!

    Posted

  • katherineslive.co.uk by katherineslive.co.uk

    Not a tech suggestion, but... I think it would be great fun if you guys could post some "great catches" - observations or guesses by us amateurs that struck you as really good.

    I remember a few years back someone spotted and identified a lizard on a branch - that kind of stuff.

    Posted

  • ninawilson by ninawilson

    It would be useful under the "horns" button to have an option for "none". This would be useful to narrow down the antelope types that have no horns. Although it would have to show those where the females have no horns but the males do.

    It would also be useful to have photos of the rear ends of those not already in the "rump" section. You can look on the internet for extra photos for the difficult ones, but they rarely have rear end photos as most people don't want to see photos of those.

    Posted

  • gardenmaeve by gardenmaeve

    May I suggest a typo in need of correction? In the description for Warthog: "Its tail is think with a black tassel. "
    Perhaps "thick" was intended instead of "think"?

    Posted

  • DZM by DZM admin

    Ooh, yeah, I should get someone to fix that. 😃

    Posted

  • parsfan by parsfan in response to DZM's comment.

    Surely "thin" tail?

    Posted

  • DZM by DZM admin

    I guess it could be either!

    I've put through a bug report. 😃

    Posted

  • jacky0007 by jacky0007

    hello, i have a wild pig... but i can´t classifyt...becouse the animal isn´t in the list!

    Posted

  • tillydad by tillydad moderator in response to jacky0007's comment.

    What is the image number please? We can then look at it for you 😃

    Posted

  • tedcheese by tedcheese

    Cool media mention for Snapshot Serengeti! http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/01/150114-crowdsourcing-science-animals-wildlife-conservation-technology-citizens/ 😃

    Posted

  • Hunch1 by Hunch1

    Hi Snapshot Serengeti! I'm curious about this project and your community, please participate in a 5 minute survey so that I can learn more: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TWKRJQT

    For context, I'm a Human-Centered Computing graduate student at UMBC studying the many possibilities of citizen science! Thank you!

    Posted

  • akhalid by akhalid

    hello snapshot Serengeti, i'm a Tanzanian student in US. i signed up for one of your projects in my class yet my professor would love to know on how i will be reporting data in the project and how i can prove it to him that i did it at the end of the semester. i really love doing this project because i feel like giving back to my country after all that free education i received. please help me if there is any way thank you

    Posted

  • maricksu by maricksu moderator in response to akhalid's comment.

    Hi akhalid and welcome to help with this great project! 😃

    It is great to hear that you love to do this and the reason you have chosen this project. I think, this is a wonderful way to give back to your beautiful and unique country.

    This project works this way, every image is shown to several people until consensus reached. Many Zooniverse-projects work same way.

    It is important that if there are animals in image - don’t choose ’no animals’. Always give your best guess to all animals you see. No need to worry about mistakes, cause every image is shown to several people, until consensus reached. If not reached (very rare), those images are picked out for closer look by scientists. Every answer is equally important and valuable, also wrong ones that give e.g. info about how hard the image is.

    Information about ' How answers are turned into final dataset ' and e.g. ’ Why there is not I don’t know button ’ are explained in details e.g. in our Blog , links below

    https://blog.snapshotserengeti.org/2016/05/10/hot-off-the-presses-get-your-good-data-right-here/

    https://blog.snapshotserengeti.org/2012/12/14/we-need-an-i-dont-know-button/

    We don’t have any evaluation of persons in this project, because every answer is equally important and valuable. Thus the amount of classifications you have done is the proof to show to your professor that you have helped. You can see that amount by signing in Zooniverse site. Link to Zooniverse is on Snapshot Serengeti front-page in upper-left corner. When you sign in there, a box will appear with your project and the amount of classifications you have done. You need to show that yourself from there to your professor, because that is personal info and no one else can see it.

    While classifying you can post images to Talk (of course not all) but e.g. those you find interesting, beautiful etc. or when you are unsure of something and get feedback this way. It is also very useful to look at in Talk what others have asked and learn this way more.

    Have wonderful time and enjoy your classifying when doing this important and valuable work, we are really grateful for your help! 😃

    Posted

  • Dreamworld by Dreamworld

    Hi there!

    I'st time in Zooniverse!

    Posted

  • maricksu by maricksu moderator in response to Dreamworld's comment.

    Hi Dreamworld, and welcome to help with this great project! 😃

    Posted

  • tillydad by tillydad moderator in response to Dreamworld's comment.

    Welcome to the zooniverse, @Dreamworld but be warned that is highly addictive ! 😃

    Posted

  • tzdoc by tzdoc

    David Maybe I missed it but is there a way to type in an animal that is not on the list? There is a herd of goats on the photo I'm looking at. Ron Eggert

    Posted

  • maricksu by maricksu moderator in response to tzdoc's comment.

    Hi Ron, and welcome to help with this great project!

    On Classify-page you can use only the ID-list. After classifying and 'Finish', it is possible to click 'Discuss' that opens the photo, where you can type comment/question into a blue box. The photo will then be seen on Talk-page.

    Goats we classify as 'Cattle'. This Extended Survey season is special season and we see quite many photos also of domestic animals. We need to classify All domestic animals (cattle, sheep, goat, donkey, dog) as 'Cattle'. More info about this special season in Blog and also e.g. here https://talk.snapshotserengeti.org/?_ga=1.265139407.1394240084.1478376452#/boards/BSG0000006/discussions/DSG0001l9y 😃

    Posted

  • bob-dodge by bob-dodge

    I just came across a herd of GOATS!! Now what do I do???

    Posted

  • maricksu by maricksu moderator in response to bob-dodge's comment.

    Hi bob-dodge, and welcome to help with this great project!

    We have now special Extended Survey season in Snapshot Serengeti.
    All domestic animals (cattle, sheep, goat, donkey, dog) are classified as 'Cattle'. There is more info about this subject in previous comment above your question. You can also post question commented into photo, so the answer can be given directly to the photo 😃

    Posted

  • michele.mks by michele.mks

    Are we there yet? 😃

    Posted

  • maricksu by maricksu moderator in response to michele.mks's comment.

    I am not sure what you mean, but if you mean is the season done, not yet. At least my classify-page still shows images to classify. Probably quite soon (when looking that green line on front page), but until the images stop showing, we go on classifying.
    We all will see a sign-image on classify-page when season is completed 😃

    Posted

  • maricksu by maricksu moderator

    Well, now I see what you meant 😃 A few minutes later I got that sign-image on my classify-page. So yes, it means that we have succesfully completed Extended Survey season! Big thanks to all of you for your absolutely great work! 😃
    Hopefully we get more information very soon 😃

    Posted

  • smeinolf by smeinolf

    Hi, I am new to Zooniverse. I have been classifying images on the snapshot Serengeti, and was curious as to how is the data being collected and classified contributing to research studies? Have the classifications revealed any new or endangered species? Thanks, Steve

    Posted

  • maricksu by maricksu moderator in response to smeinolf's comment.

    Hi Steve, welcome to Zooniverse and to help with this great, longterm Snapshot Serengeti project!
    The discussion boards and Blog is full of interesting info to read. You may find e.g. these links below helpful to your questions.

    About the Snapshot Serengeti project :

    https://www.snapshotserengeti.org/#/about

    About the long way of images from the field to get here to us to classify :

    https://blog.snapshotserengeti.org/2017/03/10/the-data-game/

    The classifying works this way, every image is shown in random order to several people until consensus reached. Many Zooniverse-projects work same way.

    It is very important that if there are animals in image - don’t choose ’no animals’. Always give your best guess to all animals in image. No need to worry about mistakes, cause every image is shown to several people, until consensus reached. If not reached (very rare), those images are picked out for closer look by scientists. Every answer is equally important and valuable, also wrong ones that give e.g. info about how hard the image is.

    Information about ' How answers are turned into final dataset ' and e.g. ’ Why there is not I don’t know button ’ are explained in details e.g. in our Blog , links below

    https://blog.snapshotserengeti.org/2012/12/14/we-need-an-i-dont-know-button/

    https://blog.snapshotserengeti.org/2016/05/10/hot-off-the-presses-get-your-good-data-right-here/

    And some news about the great results and contribution to the science :

    https://blog.snapshotserengeti.org/2015/06/09/snapshot-serengetis-first-scientific-publication-today/

    https://blog.snapshotserengeti.org/2016/11/17/sciencing/

    https://blog.snapshotserengeti.org/2017/01/14/why-we-do-it/

    Hopefully you enjoy your classifying while contributing science and the future of this unique, wonderful nature 😃

    Posted

  • smeinolf by smeinolf in response to maricksu's comment.

    Thank you so much for the Links!! I really appreciate the great info as well!! I look forward to contributing to science and I will do my best to help. Thanks again!!

    Posted

  • davidbygott by davidbygott moderator in response to smeinolf's comment.

    Welcome! Just to answer your last question - The most endangered animals in Serengeti ecosystem include the Black Rhino (critically endangered), African Wild Dog (endangered) and the Cheetah (vulnerable), and we catch some of these on the cameras - cheetahs very often, rhinos less so, wild dog none yet (as far as I know).

    No new species have been revealed, Serengeti ecosystem has been pretty well explored during the past 60 years. We'get occasional sightings of species like Aardvark and Pangolin which are rarely seen by visitors because of their nocturnal habits. Comversely we have few or no sightings of some locally common animals such as Klipspringer, Hyrax, Oribi, Black-and-white Colobus and crocodile, because of the location of the cameras.

    An unusual sighting I can remember was of a melanistic Serval cat - very unusual in this habitat.

    Posted