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Quality Control

Here's two suggestions that I think would improve the quality of BugGuide by making its pages more consistent, better documented, and generally more beneficial to users:

1. Give new editors the ability to edit existing pages only.

Many existing pages are blank, so there's lots of work to be done here. More info on more pages would benefit everyone.
Once a new editor has contributed appropriate info to, say, at least two sections on each of, say, ten existing Guide pages, give them the ability to create new pages.

2. Make it mandatory for certain sections of new Guide pages to be filled out.

I propose two for starters: Identification + Internet References. We all have Internet access, so it shouldn't be difficult to find one or more web references/images for most species/genera/families. If no web references are found, say so in writing. The same could apply to the Identification section; if no ID description is found on the web or elsewhere, say so. In cases where an ID has been made by someone with expertise in that area - and you've been unable to find an ID description - give the name of the person and indicate (preferrably, by linking to) the image that was used in the original ID.
Of course, completing more than two sections would be preferable; the more info that's added, the more helpful a page becomes.

Number 2 by itself would help but would have no effect on existing pages that need fleshing out.

Contributed by Robin McLeod on 3 October, 2005 - 4:02am

Guilty

I was just reminded to check out this forums discussion. I know what I'll be doing for a while, filling in the info section of blank pages I have out there. At least the timing is good, with the cold weather approaching, there's not much to go out and see now.

I did the info page on Acadian Hairstreak, and want to make sure it's ok before doing too many more. Acadian Hairstreak

… tom murray, 9 October, 2005 - 11:53am

Info

I am going through the Lepodoptera and adding info to the guide pages. Here are a few examples:

Common Wood Nymph
Cabbage White

I want to make sure I am citing them correctly before I edit too many pages.

… Matthew Roth, 7 October, 2005 - 2:25pm

Hi Matthew

You have made a good start. My thoughts are that Guide pages should contain far more information. One should include any variation in the species that often occurs when there are 2 or more broods in a year, preferably with thumbnails. It should also include comments on sexual dimorphism again with thumbnails of the males and females. For Lepidoptera, thumbnails of the caterpillars should be included. There should be a paragraph on similar species, again with comparative images of all the species. There is at least 1 look-alike for the Cabbage White, i.e., P. napi. Some white females of Colias spp. can also be confused with the Cabbage White.
I would suggest that my page on the Baldfaced Hornet is a good example of an Info page.http://bugguide.net/node/view/2890

… A.W. Thomas, 7 October, 2005 - 4:17pm

Tony, you've set an incredibly high standard -

not that there's anything wrong with that. However, with 2811 species pages, and 5618 guide pages to work on (as of today), it's going to take us 35 (as of today) editors a while to provide this kind of information on everything.
I have personally set myself a very modest goal, which is: Not to send anyone to a guide page that doesn't at the very least have a link to point them towards more information on their bug.
I consider that my subscription fee for the daily fun of playing "name that bug" in ID Request. :)

… Hannah Nendick-Mason, 7 October, 2005 - 8:33pm

Hannah thanks, so we should

start immediately! It's only 80 species/editor. Charlie Covell just reprinted his Field Guide to the Moths where he covers 1,300 species; Dave Wagner's caterpillars of Eastern NA covers 700 species. Both these authors had to "find" their images. We have our images here. I would prefer to do just a few pages thoroughly rather than many pages that would be considered mediocre. Referring to a link that has more info. is fine, but why not also summarize the important info. and add that info. to the Guide page? I would like to see BugGuide as a useful and serious resource on "bugs" but I fear it is mainly a show case for photographers - for which I am guilty too.

… A.W. Thomas, 7 October, 2005 - 11:02pm

Actually we would say it's the missing link

Not just a showcase, but the connection between the image and the scientific name. This past summer we were at the Field Museum in Chicago waiting in the library for a meeting and spotted a new spider book. We thought we would try to find the orb weaver formerly listed as Alsine-like, and came up with Araneus iviei. When we got home we searched the web for iviei and found lots of info, but no images which would help confirm our ID and so were forced to leave it as alsine-like. Recently Terry Thormin did ID it as A. iviei and now anyone searching as we did for images will find BugGuide as a link between the name and the image. There's not much info on the guide page. Maybe Terry will fix that. But there's lots of info on the web that people can now access because BugGuide has made the link to the scientific name.

… john and jane balaban, 8 October, 2005 - 10:13am

filling in Guide pages

The reason I add info & web links to a Guide page is partly to verify identification, but mostly to bring everything together onto one page and save others from doing the same work I've already done.

Anyone who is not aware of this is likely to immediately go Googling and spend 10-15 minutes or more searching for the same info they could get in 1 minute by looking at a "completed" Guide page. This duplication of effort by who-knows-how-many people is a waste of everyone's time, and the situation won't improve as long as editors continue to create blank Guide pages.

In the time it took to write this message, I could have been searching the web and filling in sections of a blank Guide page, but right now I think my time is better spent in trying to communicate the value of filling in Guide pages. It's like the saying: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

… Robin McLeod, 8 October, 2005 - 9:42pm

I stand corrected

Yes, it is an excellent resource for connecting a scientific name and an image. Such an association is incredibly useful for the more obsure taxa, but I'm not sure that it adds anything extra for the more well-studied groups such as butterflies, moths, odonates, and perhaps others. In these latter taxa I think we would better serve the curious scientifically-minded individual not by presenting more images of the same species but by giving a detailed account of a species biology/ecology as I outlined for the Hornet.
I feel that the Cabbage White page gave minimum information and that it could easily be made far more useful with very little effort. I could do it but I really want to finish all the yellowjackt pages.

… A.W. Thomas, 8 October, 2005 - 10:41am

Thanks!

Thanks for the help! I think that the common species should have more info on them. I am going to add some info and then come back later and fix the most common ones.

… Matthew Roth, 8 October, 2005 - 7:21pm

Looks like what I'm doing,

except on your Common Wood Nymph page I actually put the number after the information (assuming you got that info from that internet site you referenced) just like on the Cabbage white page....then at the bottom I put a one in front of the internet reference. Then your pages look exactly the same whether you are citing a book or an internet page. However, I see other people do it different ways. Here's an example of one of Patrick's info pages.... Polyphemus Moth

… Lynette Elliott, 7 October, 2005 - 2:37pm

Inconsistency my doing!

The "print references" and "Internet references" fields were my idea, really. Troy had installed his very spiffy sequential citation system, still in place. On some guide pages I was writing, I wanted to list sources cited or list sources the reader could go to for more information in two places--on the Internet or in print. I considered these to be bibliographies, and not just reference lists. I also usually try to annotate the reference, where there are notable photographs, for instance, I note it. I also think a lot of people will print out individual guide pages, and this will give them a nice reference list.

Problem is, this leads to inconsistency in the sequential citation system that Troy programmed so elegantly. If you are not careful, you will get the print reference list with numbers jumping all over the place. Furthermore, some Internet sites have citation numbers, and one can even cite a bugguide page. Those are really useful features. I don't know what the solution is--probably just for whoever is writing to be careful, and for us to live with some inconsistencies. I would say eliminate the reference fields, but I feel they are useful places to compile information.

I guess I understand what you are doing, Lynette, but I guess your manual numbering might not hold up if somebody else edits the guide in the future.

Patrick Coin
Durham, North Carolina

… Cotinis, 11 October, 2005 - 6:47pm

I don't have any set way,

I just started doing it that way because it was easy. If someone could give a standard format to base new pages on....that would be very helpful. It would be nice if all the pages were done the same.

… Lynette Elliott, 11 October, 2005 - 7:22pm

Guilty

I'm working daily to catch up on creating info pages.

… Lynette Elliott, 5 October, 2005 - 7:32pm

These seem reasonable...

I would agree with both of Robin's suggestions, and think they seem reasonable (and I personally will hold myself to them (including updating umpteen guide pages, since I am a "junior" editor, and the fact that there are so many that do need updating or filling in)).

I fear I am the culprit for at least two pages like this (I'm sorry!), where the specimen had been submitted a contributor with very good credentials, and they had the specimen identified by an expert outside of the bugguide.net environment. I added the page, but knew virtually nothing about the specifics of that particular species. I have questioned the "hows" of the ID for certain species, and we are currently getting information (a simple key, etc.) which hopefully will be available in the near future.

For instances like this, I also would recommend asking questions to the submitter (when & where was it found, how did the expert ID it, and what were the discernable characteristics required for the ID) and add this to the guide page. My experience has been that these contributors are more than happy to assist and get answers from "their" experts (since it is a learning experience for all involved).

I also agree with Eric's recommendation about being careful about the choice of websites to reference. It's almost "amusing/sad" what some people pass for facts...

… Christopher Hunt, 3 October, 2005 - 2:20pm

Latrodectus pages

I spent some time filling out the Lactrodectus (Widow spiders) pages. There is still some additional work I need (want) to do, especially at the species level (range of sizes, distribution maps, etc.), but I thought I would start to solicit any comments or criticisms (please post them here rather than on the actual guide page). :) BTW: I am still proof-reading them, so please excuse possibly awkward wordings, or unusual grammatical "Chris'isms".

Latrodectus
   +-- L. mactans
   +-- L. variolus
   +-- L. hesperus
   +-- L. bishopi
   +-- L. geometricus

Should we create an additional forum topic, say: "Guide pages completed and/or to be reviewed"? This way we can see examples of what others have done, and comment/correct/review the pages.

For example: I like the Balaban's A. aurantia narrative, it's visually informative and is enjoyable, whereas I tend to be more clinical (e.g. - factually dry) in my approach. I think both are good approaches to guide pages, but unless you knew to specifically go to either page, you would not see the variety.

… Christopher Hunt, 11 October, 2005 - 10:01pm

In regard to commenting in forums not on pages:

It seems the comments on the info pages are, often as not, occasional visitors saying "I have this bug at my house", which doesn't make for a very professional-looking info page. Sometimes visitors leave questions there, too, which don't usually get replies. For those reasons, I'd like to see the comment option on info pages disappear. It was useful when each guide had a single author (last year), and only they could make changes, so if someone saw a problem or wanted to add a reference, they had to leave a comment right there. Seems like now most of the people leaving comments would be editors and could insert changes themselves, or comment in a forum designated for that purpose.

… Hannah Nendick-Mason, 12 October, 2005 - 6:06am

In regard to comments on guide pages

I too would like to see the comment option on info pages be removed. Take a look at the info page for spiders - it has a a ton of comments on "I have a spider in my house."

… Christopher C Wirth, 12 October, 2005 - 7:42am

Internet References, Personal bios.

I would caution that Internet links to other sites be ".edu" and ".gov" only, with a few ".net" exceptions. Many commercial sites contain errors in information, if not outright lies and misinformation (especially true for Jerusalem crickets and "camel spiders"). Second, it should be mandatory for anyone making identifications on 'this' site to state their credentials in their personal biographies. You know who you are:-) Thank you.

… Eric R. Eaton, 3 October, 2005 - 12:32pm

site choice for links

I'm guessing that you're referring to the sites of educational institutions and governments in general.
(As far as I know, web addresses ending in .edu and .gov refer to sites in United States only. Allowing reference links to only those sites would exclude all university and government sites in Canada and elsewhere in the world. I'm not sure whether that's what you're proposing, but I have my doubts.)
It's true that some commercial (.com) sites contain bad/wrong information, but there's also a good number that are reputable. I think we could probably do okay as long as we use discretion when choosing what to link to.

… Robin McLeod, 3 October, 2005 - 8:47pm

Hmmm...

I wonder if you are taking exception to the "Ask Dr. Bug" site I just added under Jerusalem Crickets? In my defense I chose it because it had quick clear info which seemed to answer a lot of common questions, which I didn't immediately have time to cover in the guide page (my computer time is snatched in few-minute increments). However, I do see that this would be a useful general rule and would be happy to edit my submissions to abide by it if we get a consensus.

… Hannah Nendick-Mason, 3 October, 2005 - 1:25pm

Robin, Hannah

No, I did not mean we should restrict linked sites to U.S. only. No, I was not taking exception to "Ask Dr. Bug," though I'll go have a look at that site:-) There is at least one site that essentially considers the Jerusalem cricket to be the bug from hell, and it is NOT the site you are talking about. I consult on Whatsthatbug.com, but I would not recommend linking to that site because it is still prone to errors (the webmaster is getting much better, though). We just need to be really careful.

… Eric R. Eaton, 4 October, 2005 - 12:54pm

Guide

I think that the order and some of the important family pages should have more information. Like wolf spiders, for example.

… Christopher C Wirth, 3 October, 2005 - 10:32am

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