Essentially I want to match this key with records previously (and legitimately) downloaded from Gateway and keep track of them so that I can report of data usage. I don't really want to go through that process every time I get a download of open-licensed data.

Dave

Steve

RISC and ALERT Marine Non-Native Species (Chinese Mitten Crab, Wakame and Carpet Sea Squirt) Records

and

Verified Marine records from Indicia-based surveys

uploaded on the 9th Dec appear to be identical - is this intentional or was it a mix up?

Refresh the page, and eventually I am told 'An issue has occurred on the NBN Gateway which means we are unable to satisfy your request. If you continually see this message, please notify us using the NBN Forums.

You are being notified.

Maybe our new shiny ALS will help?  That loads, at least, but as for trying to get the information that I want, not a hope - at least not without a magical mystery tour through a site that would get a gold medal for unhelpful design.  That looks like yet another useful function we had in G4, which somehow escaped elimination in the development of G5, but which now seems to have been junked in ALS.

Fortunately, WoRMS will save me from wasting any more time before I get the task done.

M.

Can we please have clarity on whether updates to the UKSI dictionary are being implemented on G5?

I hope that we are not being subjected, not only to a further 5 months minimum of dreadful Gateway performance, but also to an incomplete and out-of-date dictionary on the rare occasions when the Gateway actually works.

M.

Try this:
https://data.nbn.org.uk/Search?q=Recording+scheme

First page says "Showing 1 to 25 of 57 entries"

Click on "Next" and it says "Showing 0251 to 57 of 57 entries" and Next button is enabled but does nothing, although Last works.

Alternatively refresh the search and click on "2" and it says "Showing 26 to 57 of 57 entries" but only shows 26 to 50 and, again, Next button is enabled but does nothing.

This is a very long-standing bug.

The Gateway pages are not loading, and of course all the sites that link to Gateway maps are similarly compromised yet again.

M.

Provision to GBIF from NBNG was then summarily suspended, without reference to data managers.

I was assured last year that the connection with GBIF was about to be restored, after I had given all the necessary permissions.

Our current NBNG datasets are still not showing there.

Please tell us why there is continuing delay in implementing this, and when you expect the data will again be displayed on GBIF

Murdo

(which means that it can be used as  feed)

Apart from structure and navigation that makes even G5 look transparent, there is a further loss of functionality from G5, and no replacement of the functionality that we had in G4.  Try it and see.

The most bizarre features (these were notified to NBN long before the launch, but are still there) you will find in the download file of taxon records.

Of the 41 fields, no fewer than 5 tell you what species is involved (2 vernacular, 3 scientific); just in case you did not know how a binomial was constructed, another field tells you the Genus; 12 fields are of no relevance to the ordinary user.

If you were hoping to use the OSGR, you had better have a convertor program handy, because although all the records (in the example I am looking at) were uploaded as OSGR, ALS provides only lat-long coordinates.  Where did these come from?  Converted from the original OSGRs, of course!

If you are one of these eccentric individuals who likes to judge the robustness of a record from the name of the determiner, ALS is not for you.  Even for sets where that field is available to all users, it is not downloaded.

You can see both OSGR and determiner, one record at a time, on the site itself, however, so if you really want them, you can always spend hours copying and pasting into the download file.  I would find it difficult to believe that editing the export routine to include these fields in the download, and deleting all the irrelevant ones, would take more than a few minutes.

This early warning to the rest of the UK might encourage our non-Scottish colleagues to shout loudly so that these glaring faults (and the rest) are removed before any more atlases are launched.  I wish you better luck than we have had N of the border.

As Christine wrote: "We are really not very interested in the glitzy Living Atlas platform, all we want is a simple interactive system that gives us access to the information we need. We keep asking, you tell us you're listening, but we seem to be speaking different languages".

Murdo

Christine Johnson
OHBR

M.