[reccom] discussion of proposed change to our rules

[David Wheeler]

Hello everyone,
 
I apologize ahead of time for my tedious delving into this topic, but I fear our way of voting could be improved.  I have pleaded for someone more eloquent than myself to tackle this issue in the past, but no one has stepped forward.  I hope this is not because I am missing something obvious and that my suggestion is a waste of everyone's time.  Below, I make a suggestion for a proposed modification of our voting form, followed by my defense of said change.  I realize this is putting the cart before the horse, but that's just the way I wrote it.  I leave it to those more clever than myself to determine if the bylaws themselves need to be modified as well, as I hint at in the final paragraph.  Of course, a discussion of this issue should precede an actual vote, and your thoughts are hereby solicited.  I am very interested in what you all think.
 
PROPOSAL:  I would like to formally propose that we modify our voting form to allow us a choice to vote "accept--but record does not meet criteria to include on official list" (or some equivalent thereof).  This would:
 
1)  allow us to vote on the merits of the submission irrespective of the official status of the species, 
 
2)  record our votes on the merits of the record irrespective of its status, and 
 
3)  better preserve such records for later reevaluation.  
 
I think this would allow us to better serve our role as evaluators of records without having to default to an unhelpful, if correct, comment of "Record doesn't meet criteria for a first-state record as prescribed by the bylaws".  A vote of NO followed by that statement does not shed any light on the merit of the actual submission, and conveys such a submission to the dustbin of rejected records, stigmatized with all that the (virtual) stamp of REJECTED implies.  Such a record becomes, at least to some degree, lost to posterity, irrespective of its merit.  Are we not "burying" useful data?  I think the voting form/categories as it/they now stand get in the way of acknowledging a record having merit & scientific relevance, based solely on our "rules" rather than an actual review of the record.  I think if we were allowed the choice I described above, we could vote our opinions on the merit of the submitted record without compromising the important "purity" or "sanctity" of our official list.  We could, as has been described before, also place such a provisionally accepted species in some sort of sublist or substatus, if we should later decide to do so.  After all, once a species is accepted onto the list because someone once had the good fortune to have a good camera handy, we would consider every subsequent report of that species without summary dismissal.  So a record is evaluated completely differently simply on the basis of whether previous records met our criteria.  It seems to me that we should separate the question of the likelihood of a record being true (i.e. the reported species) from the different question of whether this record should result in that species being included onto our official list (a procedural consideration).
 
Maybe I am missing something, but I am not sure what happens to records which are rejected with the phrase "Record doesn't meet criteria for a first-state record as prescribed by the bylaws."  Are they kept aside in a "provisional file" somewhere for later review?  If not, shouldn't they be?  I do not see how they could be unless we accept the record in the provisional manner I described above.  Currently, the acceptance criteria for our official bird list inadvertently bias species which are harder to photograph (say swifts, swallows, etc.).  That may well be unavoidable, but it also means sightings of these hard-to-photograph species will be rejected more than easily photographed species.  If we at least put the "good" (but unsupported by photographs) records into a "provisional" category, as was done in the past, these records could then be fully rehabilitated into full standing once the species met our acceptance standards due to a subsequent record with better physical documentation.  Currently, I am not sure that someone could/does rummage about in the rejected records file once a species is accepted to see what previously rejected records for that species should be resurrected for reconsideration.  If memory serves right, recent records rejected on procedural grounds, or in mortal danger of being thus rejected, include the Gilded flicker, Blackburnian warbler, Pacific Slope Flycatcher.  My question is, unless we are allowed to vote on the merits of a species not on the official Utah list, why even consider records like the Logan Mississippi kite record, other than to see if we should even vote on it?  I strongly urge us to do so, but only if we have the ability to provisionally accept.
 
Thank you very much to those who made it this far in my ramble,
 
David
 
 

>>> Milt Moody <miltonmoody at yahoo.com> 5/8/2008 1:43 PM >>>
Review Page:
http://utahbirds.org/ReviewBirds/UnderReview.htm 

A record for a Mississippi Kite has been posted and is ready for your review.

Any nominations for Records Committee Secretary?  I haven't received any yet.

Milt


      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Be a better friend, newshound, and 
know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it now.  http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ 
_______________________________________________
reccom mailing list
reccom at utahbirds.org 
http://utahbirds.org/mailman/listinfo/reccom
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://secureserver.securesites.net/pipermail/reccom/attachments/20080509/4bef4f47/attachment.htm