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) On Dec 8, 2018 10:02 AM, "Robert Righter" <[email protected]> wrote: 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 -- 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/0A585701-97CC-45FD-9D75-B32267218792%40earthlink.net . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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/CABpQ-FXMnMY572eqiCzKdHvmXqr0u%2BrU5WYs8%2B1a17UMgd852Q%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
