1 Reply by DGERC

  • DGERC
  • DGERC
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  • From: SWSEIC
  • Registered: 31-05-2006
  • Posts: 232

Re: Taxon dictionary puzzle

Just browsing the Taxon Dictionary (BIRDS) and noted some confusing behaviour. Here's an example...

Select Goosander - in the information pane on the right hand side, under 'Other Checklists' and you can see the 'JNCC collation of taxon designations' appears twice (at least it does on my system).  Click on one of the 'JNCC collation..' links and it brings up the statuses.  Click on the other and the list of statuses appears but it is slightly different, sorted in a different order and one of the values has a 'to:' date.

Now do the same with Greater Scaup and the two sets of status results after clicking the JNCC link are completely different!

Question is, what exactly is happening here?  Why does the 'JNCC list of...' appear twice?  Why are the list of statuses different?

This isn't just restricted to these species, I was just using these as an example. I haven't checked other dictionaries.

Also, sometimes after doing this and browsing other species in the dictionary the list of statuses appears immediately in the pain and the 'JNCC list of...' link is not present at all in the list of checklists (although I haven't yet found out how/when/why this behaviour occurs).

Not really a 'bug' as such but its not clear what's going on....

Mark
DGERC

Mark Pollitt
SWSEIC (formerly DGERC)

DGERC's Website

2 Reply by Lynn Heeley

  • Lynn Heeley
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  • Registered: 03-07-2008
  • Posts: 345

Re: Taxon dictionary puzzle

Hi Mark,

The 'To' date simply indicates that this status has been archived in this list. I think that what is going on in this case is that two versions of the JNCC collation are being compiled in the other checklists section and really it should only refer to the latest version (the JNCC collation was recently updated in the species dictionary and this was implemented by adding a new list and archiving the old one (which is why you only see one list in the drop down box). I think that implementing new lists in this manner in the species dictionary has implications for how the checklist info is generated which we will have to try and fix as its clearly misleading. I would guess that the first of the lists is the most accurate as this has the 'to' date however, checking this in the actual JNCC collation list the current version is the one without the 'To' date which is even more surprising.

Thanks for spotting this and letting us know - we'll get to the bottom of this and get it fixed.
Best Wishes,
Lynn