Scott and Cobirds, Here is an informed response I received from Ken Ostermiller, volunteer eBird hotspot reviewer for Ohio. I am totally ignorant of the pros and cons of portals, so I asked Ken what value they might hold. Ken is an experienced and savvy eBirder and has some information about very recent (October 7) news about eBird setting up a Colorado portal at a cost of: FREE. Ken is very generous with time devoted to helping birders with things like this. I am not sure who would take the time to set up a portal, which seems to be a huge task. I am a huge fan of CObirds and the CFO County Listing website and feel that those excellent resources meet the needs of Colorado birders and visitors. But Scott describes how a state portal can do other tasks, so this is just FYI.
from Ken Ostermiller: <<Hi Joe I looked into setting up a portal for Ohio and found that eBird needed partners to contribute significant funding to pay for the web development of such a portal -- I don't remember the exact amount but it was over $10,000. I didn't see any way that would happen! So, instead I have worked on a web site describing all the Ohio eBird Hotspots. http://ohioebirdhotspots.wikispaces.com/Birding+in+Ohio <http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fohioebirdhotspots.wikispaces.com%2FBirding%2Bin%2BOhio&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNEfAZD8UFfOuBQNfS0lpQqDFtdRpA> Others heard about what I had done in Ohio and I have helped set up similar sites in Missouri, South Dakota, and New Hampshire. Unfortunately, the wiki service we have been using, Wikispaces, has recently discontinued offering free wikis for non-educational use. They will be shutting down the free wikis on November 15. *That prompted me to discuss with Chris Wood whether we could get Cornell to set up a free wiki based on their higher education connection. Just today they got one set up* and I am in the process of moving three states there -- Missouri, Ohio, and South Dakota. There is room for more states in the wiki, so if someone in Colorado wants to set up a section on Colorado, we could do that. Here's a link to the new wiki -- most of the links in the state areas are not yet active. I'm working on Barry County in Missouri next. http://ebirdhotspots.wikispaces.com/ <http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Febirdhotspots.wikispaces.com%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNEFMflU5tk-k5doDXpFvpxB2m1cNg> The Ohio web site is getting used by Ohio birders. I'm getting 300-400 unique visitors each day on the site. It is good for tourism as well as birders. Another birder has set up a wiki in New York. It is organized quite differently. http://ebirding-nys.wikispaces.com/Birding+in+New+York <http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Febirding-nys.wikispaces.com%2FBirding%2Bin%2BNew%2BYork&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNHS3nb3JQeoGdACXahAnhpHxoqJdw> Probably more than you wanted to know! >> Joe Roller, Denver -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/CAJpZcUBd4U2dhAQjhL9yr_HB4RUspxwaoRjZ0hZD_Nm4GAPTZA%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
