Summarising participation 2007-2011

This entry was posted Tuesday, 25 October, 2011 at 10:32 am

On 21 Oct 2011, MigrantWatch reached 10,000 records in the database; and we thought this is a good occasion to summarise how we got here, and to express our appreciation for the participants whose efforts form the backbone of the project.

As you can see from the chart to the right, the total number of registered participants in MigrantWatch showed a big jump in the second half of 2008, and has been rising steadily since then. From January 2010 onwards, we have been getting an average of 12-16 new registrants per month. The total now (as of 17 Oct 2011) stands at 1,334.

Of course, not everyone who registers on the website actually participates by contributing sightings. In fact, only about 550 of those who have registered are actually contributors, having uploaded at least one sighting to the database. The rise in the number of such contributors has been relatively slow since January 2010, averaging about 1-2 every month.

The total number of sightings in the database has grown in fits and starts over the years, showing a jump in the second half of every year (that is, at the start of the winter migration season). The total now stands at a whisker over 10,000.

Who are the MigrantWatchers who have built up the database to this level? Many contributors have uploaded just a single sighting to MigrantWatch; and on the other end of the spectrum, a few have many hundred records under their belt. We would like to emphasise that all contributions are valuable, because they add to the storehouse of information about our birds. So we thank all contributors, regardless of how many sightings that have uploaded. But in addition, we wanted to highlight some particularly active MigrantWatchers – those who have contributed the most to this open pool of information. These star contributors are listed in the table below, in decreasing order of the number of records submitted to MigrantWatch, separated for First sightings of the season, Last sightings of the season, General sightings, and All sightings put together.

So these are the participants who have contributed the largest number of records to MigrantWatch. But what about regularity of reporting? Are there participants who have contributed consistently, month-by-month to the database? The most consistent participants are listed to the right. A consistency score of 1 means that a person has contributed records every month since joining MigrantWatch; and a score of 0.5 means that he or she has contributed records in 50% of the months since joining.

Again, thanks to all of you who have generously contributed your time and efforts to MigrantWatch. As the project begins to accumulate enough records so that interesting patterns emerge and new findings are made possible, we hope you will keep in mind that all this is made possible solely through your contributions!

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