No Clements Updates This Year (1 Viewer)

[Nightjar61]

Many of us look forward to the annual updates to the eBird/Clements Checklist in late July or early August. Unfortunately, it won’t be happening this year.

From the Clements Checklist website:

“Although we usually release a new version of the Clements Checklist in August, unfortunately we will NOT be able to issue an update in 2020. Instead, the next release of an updated eBird/Clements Checklist will be sometime in early 2021, although the date of this release is not yet scheduled.

This delay is driven by technical considerations. The Lab’s database management systems are being overhauled throughout 2020, and we will not be able to implement any taxonomic revisions in the eBird/Clements Checklist until we complete this database work. We apologize for the delay, and we look forward to being ready to release an update again next year.”

Dave

 

[Paul Clapham]

That sounds like a major overhaul -- over six months of work! But the eBird database is growing at a tremendous rate, and it took nearly a week to apply the 2019 taxonomy update to the database, so I can certainly see that upgrading it is a high priority.

 

[Steve Lister]

Some functions on the eBird site have already been lost as a result of the overhaul. I have always printed off a Year Report using 'Summarise my Observations' but that is no longer available.
Something else might appear to replace it in time I am told.

Steve

 

[njlarsen]

Some functions on the eBird site have already been lost as a result of the overhaul. I have always printed off a Year Report using 'Summarise my Observations' but that is no longer available.
Something else might appear to replace it in time I am told.

Steve

That is also my impression. Your "my ebird" page also has a new layout.

Niels

 

[Paul Clapham]

Your "my ebird" page also has a new layout.

That's a feature which could also cause heavier use of the database -- many of the new numbers you see there may be recalculated every time you open that page.

 

[Snapdragyn]

Edit: It seems they've just moved the function. It is now under Explore > Alerts (used to be under My eBird).

(It seems they've also removed the ability to see recent sightings of species you 'need' in an area.

First step to becoming another once-great program that I'll stop using. :/ )

 

[Nightjar61]

I presume one of the reasons for the delay is merging the data in the Lynx Ediciones/HBW checklist into the Clements Checklist. Now we’ll have to see if many of the species recognized on the HBW list will result in splits and be incorporated into the Clements Checklist, or (my fear) if those species will be lumped into the Clements Checklist.

Dave

 

[njlarsen]

Edit: It seems they've just moved the function. It is now under Explore > Alerts (used to be under My eBird).

(It seems they've also removed the ability to see recent sightings of species you 'need' in an area.

First step to becoming another once-great program that I'll stop using. :/ )

I still receive my alerts. I have not looked for where the ordering of those happens.

Niels

 

[raymie]

The update intended for 2020 was supposed to release in early 2021 - where is it? Or are they just going to wait until August and implement two years worth of updates at once?

 

[njlarsen]

The update intended for 2020 was supposed to release in early 2021 - where is it? Or are they just going to wait until August and implement two years worth of updates at once?

From what I hear they are expecting August 2021. Likely, the major overhaul of the underlying systems took longer than they initially expected.
Niels

 

[jts1882]

I suppose it means that they have a bit more time to integrate the HBW Alive information.

 

[Steve Lister]

It will be interesting to see how much influence the HBW/Birdlife way of thinking has affected the Cornell/Clements stance, especially as the IOC is rapidly accepting many of the HBW splits. The three lists may be a lot more similar by the autumn.

 

[Paul Clapham]

It will be interesting to see how much influence the HBW/Birdlife way of thinking has affected the Cornell/Clements stance, especially as the IOC is rapidly accepting many of the HBW splits. The three lists may be a lot more similar by the autumn.

Well, the principals of those lists are all members of the task force whose job it is to produce a unified bird list (a.k.a. One List to Rule Them All). So don't be surprised if that's how it goes.

 

[opisska]

Currently, over 1% of my IOC lifelist is not split by Clements, including quite old questions like American Herring Gull and Green-winged Teal. No matter how many new splits they accept, unless they also get the old ones, there won't be any meaningful convergence ...

 

[Melanie]

I think the postponement is largely depend on the current COVID 19 situation.

 

[Mysticete]

I think the postponement is largely depend on the current COVID 19 situation.

Stuff I have heard from behind the scenes puts it more with the ebird overhaul. I imagine they reached a point of delay where it just made better sense to do one big one in August than do two updates a short period of time apart.

 

[Jeff Hopkins]

Cornell has been in session on campus this entire school year. As far as Covid is concerned, there was little impact on academics, at least for US-based students

But there was a strict restriction on visitors to campus. Since the eBird overhaul is likely being done by contractors, those restrictions could have impacted the eBird work.

Unfortunately, until someone from Cornell addresses it, everything is speculation.

 

[Mysticete]

Cornell has been in session on campus this entire school year. As far as Covid is concerned, there was little impact on academics, at least for US-based students

But there was a strict restriction on visitors to campus. Since the eBird overhaul is likely being done by contractors, those restrictions could have impacted the eBird work.

Unfortunately, until someone from Cornell addresses it, everything is speculation.

I would imagine a lot of the overhaul work could be done remotely. As a university professor, though, I can 100% confirm Covid has had a major impact on academics: converting "regular" classes to online only or even worse hybrid courses is an immense amount of work, as just running the course is. Which I think is counterintuitive for people, but true. I would say COVID has added an entire extra hour a day of just emails alone, not to mention that teleconferencing sucks up more time I find that face to face interactions with students. That's not even taking in account all the hurdles its placed on research.