*Searches for "wiki" on ZT*

I have noticed that on ...<project>... a number of questions are being asked by about every other new volunteer.

In Asteroid zoo this, to me, turned out to be a real downer. Initially I did not mind answering some of those basic newbie FAQ questions. But after a wile you just realize that there is actually no real point in doing so, as those questions just keep popping up with every new batch of new users. And ..., in the case of Asteroid zoo, those questions are also generally posted as Set-comments instead of talk posts. In addition. The fact that you, as a somewhat more involved user, can't do anything about this, is ... well, kinda like insult to injury.

Based on the fact that other regular Azoo users also don't answer these kind of questions (and why would they), I assume they have run into the same demotivating issue.

Also something that seems to ask for something wiki like, it that more in-dept questions/answers in generally just disappear in the belly of the forum posts. And as a former MediaWiki admin I truly think this is a serious wast of information. And it kinda baffles me why there is nothing on zooniverse that resembles some user-driven wiki-system (although that is strongly related to my personal Azoo experience. Azoo which, in my view, might be the currently worst socially-run zooniverse hosted project.).

Why (in general) I think:

• Basic new users FAQ questions keep out performing most other questions.
• • Because "Start classifying" is promoted before "Learn more about ...", or "Go here & there, if you have questions".
• Set-comments, instead of forum posts, keep being used by newbies to post those basic FAQ questions.
• • Because the Set-comment field is just about the first thing that is offered to write something in (to newbies). As such its virtual irresistible to not use it for asking basic FAQ's.

(I don't really expect anything useful to come from this. As such I mainly wrote this to just get rid of some frustrations. ... To bad its generally just a short term fix.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV8VJMMtjlk&spfreload=1
(ie: VPRO BlackLight Documentary: The renewable energy breakthrough!.)

One of my favorite (dutch: TegenLight) documentary series.

Thought about adding some related VPRO/BlackLight links, but ... although there intentions are good, there skills at running good websites kinda sucks.

(some site's/pages kept asking for cookie permissions, over and over again ... to finale crash the browser. A other is in a target-subject transition. And last but not least, I'm getting a "not available in your country" on there 'BlackLight' videos. VPRO is dutch, and so it the ground my computer is sitting on, so ... WTF ???. And, to add 'insult to injury', YouTube is of course not saying for which countries a particular video IS available. ie: that's a bit like a debugger that's telling you your code has a error ... somewhere between the fist and the last line.)

This might be better posted in a talk forum for the project involved with bats (Arizona batwatch) or Chicago urban wildlife (Chicago Wildlife Watch) but I can tell you a bit...

Firstly if a bat has been resting in an exposed open position for four days I suspect it is not too healthy. There are many bat diseases and they are vulnerable to many injuries. Some of those diseases are transmissible to humans so care should be taken to avoid contact with the bat or its feces. SARS and MERS are both bat corona viruses (though from other regions of the world) - still our local bats have their own viruses which is one of the things people studying bats are interested in. Bats can also carry rabies as well, though infection rates for humans are very low - usually infected bats and people do not meet let alone bite each other....

If the bat is sick or injured there is little you can do for it but let nature take its course. Life is precarious and often cruel for many of our fellow creatures.

In Chicago there are seven species of bat: the big brown bat; little brown bat; silver-haired bat; eastern red bat; hoary bat; evening bat; and tri-colored bat. Of these the big and little brown are the most common - to a lay person they appear similar except for size - they are small relatively uniformly -- wait for it --- brown bats.

I would be surprised if any organization studying bats would follow up with you though someone local may be studying their diseases and be interested in a sick one.. A few mentions to people who will know better than I:
@llehrerlpzoo.org @mason_UWI

I've got a related question and I am hopeful that @Pmason has already written a script for it (hi Peter!). I'd like to create a new subject set within Cedar Creek: Eyes on the Wild comprised of specific images that have already been uploaded into different seasons. More specifically, I'd like to pull every image that has been marked as containing bison in any of our first 10 subject sets and put them all and only them into a new subject set, which we will then run through a new workflow. We can easily have all the zooniverse-specific subject ID numbers for the pics we want in a CSV, so I'm hoping there is a snazzy script-y way for me to use that CSV to make this new subject set and avoid having to re-upload the images to zooniverse. If I'm understanding your response to @mnmarjadi above, this would just be a modified version of option 1. Peter - do any tools like this, for linking specific subjects to a new subject set, already exist in your library??

p.s. after some physical injuries and general life mayhem, we are again making progress on Woodpecker Cavity Cam, you'll maybe be happy to know! hopefully in beta soon, thanks in no small part to you and your scripts!!

Any of the moderators should be able to delete these spam comments and anyone, even yourself, can add to the most recent legitimate thread to put it back "on top" on the main Talk page.
Any user can also "report" comments which places them on a notification list to the moderators (problem with report is the mod's have to actively click a link to see the list of the issues).

Update: I should be more clear - mod's can delete the discussion thread a comment appears in -not just the comment of injury - fortunately these spam comments are not in a thread of value

Just adding in case I wasn't clear (mind jumping between too many things): pmason said earlier in this thread

Update: I should be more clear - mod's can delete the discussion thread a comment appears in -not just the comment of injury - fortunately these spam comments are not in a thread of value

Actually, a moderator can delete either a whole thread or an individual comment. Although as far as I know, the only way to delete an individual comment is when the comment is reported, and the moderator "processes" the report. As a moderator in one project, I have never seen any kind of command appear that would allow me to delete a comment other than via a report. And a moderator cannot edit/modify someone else's comment. (Of course they, and all of us, can edit or delete their own talk comments.

If people get annoyed by a spam post and reply with off topic complaining, or if the spammer replies to keep the thread "active", the whole thread may as well be deleted. If someone posts an offensive message in the middle of an on-topic thread, the right thing to do is delete only the offensive post.

That happened not long ago, perhaps a month, here on one of the Zoo talk boards. Someone posted a reply in a couple of threads that included a link whose URL included "porn". I was subscribed to one of the threads so the comment flagged up a new notification. I reported it, and then clicked through to the user's profile to see that they had posted the same thing in some other Zoo Talk threads and in several other projects. It was the weekend, but someone was alert, because the comments were all deleted within the hour.

@am.zooni : Sorry for being unclear ... currently I need 2 clicks to classify a simple yes/no decision, while I rarely have the need for "talk". I'd like to have immediately reacting [yes]/[no] buttons and suggest the checkbox to divert to the talk page instead of the next subject.

That would lessen my risk for a repetitive strain injury of the hand joint and probably speed me up a tiny bit ...

I've mentioned the Android app because it's mostly that way there (besides of the diversion to talk)