Chimp & See Talk

URL hacking

  • MimiA by MimiA scientist, moderator

    Hi everyone!

    As always, a MASSIVE Thank you to everyone who is volunteering at chimp&see, the science team is infinitely grateful to you all for any and all time you spend with us helping to annotate the videos 😄

    We noticed that there has been some "URL hacking" going on - which is when people are discovering videos they haven't classified by changing the URL of the video they are on. Unfortunately, because of the way that zooniverse is set-up there is no way we can stop this but we'd like to discourage it for a few reasons:

    1. if you have already seen a video it biases your classification when/if it comes up in your classifications which isn't great for the science we are trying to do
    2. it takes time away from tasks that are really important for analyzing the videos (like classifications and chimp matching)
    3. it does take the fun away for people who are working hard on classifications but then see that all the videos have been discovered already

    There is of course some grey zones, if you find a clip and want to find the other 4 parts of that clip, playing with the URL letter in sequence can help you find the next one(s), and this really isn't a big deal and can be quite helpful sometimes. We are more concerned about finding brand new videos and tagging them before you got them in classification. The system isn't perfect but it would be wonderful (in our opinion) if you can focus your efforts on

    1. doing more classifications
    2. hashtagging the videos you get through classifications
    3. contributing to chimp matching discussions (even just giving your opinion if you agree is great!)

    We hope focusing on this will help us get through more videos,faster so we can load up some really cool new central African sites we have waiting in the queue!!

    Of course, the number 1 thing is that you are here and having fun while helping us! This is just to give those of you interested a little insight of how we would hope things could work 😃 Thank you so very very much for your participation!!!

    In other news - we got some new users last week, so a big HELLO and WELCOME to the new Chimp&Seers and thanks to EVERYONE for the increase we saw in classifications! Looking to finishing this year off on a high note 😄

    enter image description here

    -The C&S Science Team

    Posted

  • MimiA by MimiA scientist, moderator

    hi everyone

    we have been talking among the mods and we can't find a consensus on this URL hacking topic

    I would love to get feedback from you guys who are regularly on Talk, some guiding questions below but please feel to bring up any points you may have!:

    What motivates you to go through the videos by changing the URL (if you do)?

    What's your reaction when videos are already "discovered" that you find through classification?

    Do you think URL hacking is an issue (does it reduce your participation in Chimp&See?) or not at all?

    There are no right and wrong answers here, its simply that URL hacking is not the way we had envisioned Chimp&See working and we want to get some feedback on if this is a net positive or negative development. If its a issue, I would love to discuss it so we can move forward with maximal fun and maximal scientific output and if its a non issue maybe we can develop it more to make it accessible to everyone!

    Thanks so much everyone and Happy Holidays!
    Mimi

    Posted

  • yshish by yshish moderator

    Thanks for opening the discussion, Mimi! I am glad we can discuss that openly with everyone.

    What motivates me to go through videos by changing the URL?

    When I classify a video where only a part of an animal is visible or where not enough key features are visible, then I make my best guess for the classification and then go to the Talk. If there is a chance to see it better in a neighbouring sequence, then I use URL hacking to figure out what it was. Usually I go back to the video I classified and put the correct tag in a comment. It doesn't affect the unclassified video as I don't comment on it. But I do see the neighbouring part before it gets to me through the classification. Well, I can get to videos I haven't classified but others did and commented on them through the Talk anyway, even without URL hacking. The difference is that these videos have already been classified by someone.

    What's your reaction when videos are already "discovered" that you find through classification?

    It depends. Usually, it is very exciting to discover something cool. And it is way more exciting when no one else has seen it before. This is not different out of C&S. It also may be very exciting to identify something new, I mean a species we haven't seen in the data set before. You perhaps noticed that I love ID challenges, especially in birds 😃. I love the process of discovering the correct species even when it takes hours to get to it. But there are also cases when I'm happy to see someone else has identified the animal already, like when I'm not feeling strong about the ID myself. Or when I'm lazy, especially with red duikers 😄 And for me, it is also with ID of individual chimps (I'm not usually able to recognize who is who) and it is a bit relief when someone else did it and it's not up to me 😃

    Do you think URL hacking is an issue (does it reduce your participation in Chimp&See?) or not at all?

    Yes. I do think URL hacking is an issue. It doesn't reduce my participation in the project itself but it may be reducing the time I spend by the classification. Why I find it an issue? When it is used instead of going through the classification, it leads the attention on a wrong path. The main purpose of every Zooniverse project is to analyze the data through the classification. The data set won't get finished before each video/subject gets the needed count of classifications. When someone goes through the videos using URL hacking and puts comments everywhere or just to every cool video, then it may seem that everything has been seen/discovered by someone else already and it stops being as much fun. When I see comments to every single video I classify it maybe does reduce the time I spend by classifying. But I haven't measured that anyhow and I haven't thought about that before. Anyway, I think it might have some effect on me.

    Hope my answers will be helpful and will motivate others to join the discussion. I'm curious what others think and how they feel about it.

    Cheers,
    Z.

    Posted

  • Boleyn by Boleyn moderator

    Thank you @MimiA for bringing this up. I think it's quite an important topic.

    Thanks to @yshish's elaborate answer I don't have to write too much myself because I fully agree with her - well maybe except for the birds 😄

    I used to hack URLs myself in the beginning of my time at C&S but I soon realized that it spoils the fun - not only for myself but also for others, escpecially with the chimp videos. I think it's quite a nuisance when all videos in one minute are tagged by one single person merely by URL-hacking. I even sent one or two users a message and begged to not do it and they fully understood. It might happen that I sometimes do it just to explore a specific place a bit further but I do not anything with the videos found. Sometimes it's hard - especially when I realized of how many videos Aged-Violet exists and how seldom we get chimp videos to classify at AV. But I stopped even this. Instead I'm trying to help even more in the talk section or try to accomplish some more matches at closed sites.

    I think it's already good that most of the 1-min-sequences are not entirely in a row anymore as they used to be before. Other than that I can just suggest to point this problem out in the guidelines.

    What I really like is going to the recent section and have a look at what others found. In very hard to decide on clips I think pointing out another video of the same sequence is no problem as it helps to get more experienced.

    Posted

  • AnLand by AnLand moderator

    Hi all,

    I agree that the URL hacking can be a problem. Although a hashtag is an absolutely valid data point for later analysis, it does not help to get the video retired. All videos need to go through classification to move forward with the project. This classification by multiple volunteers to assure correct data is the principle of all zooniverse projects.

    It might be that the science team’s wish to get everything hashtagged misled some people to just hashtag and neglect the classification step. In my opinion, it should be emphasized more and repeatedly that all progress we do with the research sites is via classification, not hashtagging (and URL hacking).

    I can also relate to complaints that hashtagging all the cool videos via URL hacking takes away the fun from people spending their time with actually classifying. This should be sensibly discouraged, while also acknowledging that different people have different interests and I see for instance no problem in the fact to look for the other three videos from the same sequence and hashtag them.

    Nevertheless, I do not think that we have an actual problem here at Chimp&See. Many people don’t do it at all and some enthusiasts could be asked in private messages to slow a bit down and help with other tasks here. I am very sure that volunteers are only here to help and don’t want to spoil the fun for others. It is enthusiasm and probably well meant.

    I certainly do not think that we should take measures to disable this altogether. It makes sense that videos from the same minute as well as from the same camera are in immediate vicinity. Only this makes it possible to check unclear species and attachment of the correct hashtag, as @yshish mentioned. Also the broader environment of the video (the fact that videos from one camera and the same perspective are together) helps to answer certain questions, like about that bump in the tree (a sleeping animal?) or which animals had been interested in that bee hive at Muddy Frost. We can also roughly approve time stamps as we can check for day/night agreement in the stream when there are any doubts. This detective work, which we all love, wouldn’t be possible with a random stream.

    And in my opinion, all this shouldn’t be possible only for moderators (or even only for the science team in case of a totally random stream). Everybody interested should have the possibility to find out for him/herself. This is a citizen science project based on the work of volunteers and I would certainly be repelled when I would not be able to check out interesting things myself.

    Sorry, Mimi, that ignores mostly your questions, but is my opinion about this minor problem that could be solved with communication. In general, I would neither totally forbid the URL hacking nor technically disable it, but I would also not encourage it.

    Cheers, Anja.

    Posted

  • MimiA by MimiA scientist, moderator

    Thanks to everyone so far - this makes a lot of sense to me, I really look forward to hearing from the other regulars here 😃

    Posted

  • Snorticus by Snorticus

    Good reminder that classification is the primary goal and proper protocol is important. I don't feel url browsing is a problem but I take your point.
    In the early months of the project we got a fresh infusion of new chimp faces and new species to work with fairly often. Working on two sites with very large numbers of clips for the last 10 months (and thousands of cute duikers) has required some dogged work that the earlier sites did not. As a mental break I have indulged in some random url browsing and I received a tactful message from our mods reminding me of why straying too far was counterproductive which I then heeded.

    We do need to be able to do some browsing for the purposes of correctly tagging. If we are denied access to all the "clues" it would be impossible to properly ID and correctly tag both chimps and other animals we are working with. Satisfying curiosity is a prime motivator for me for volunteering on the project so blocking access would be very discouraging.

    I don't think classification numbers are down in December because of url browsing but rather due to the holidays and the fact that we have been working on the same sites for many months. There is bound to be a lag of enthusiasm while working through large sites with so many duiker clips as in Aged Violet. We will get through it. On the plus side, spending so much time on Restless Star has enabled us to really "get to know" individual chimps and has upped the number of ID-ed individuals which is very satisfying and important.

    I don't know how the queuing decisions are made in terms of the science but knowing that humans "crave novelty" it may help production levels to load sites with lower clip counts in tandem with high clip count sites. It seems we always have a surge in participation when new sites are loaded.

    Posted

  • MimiA by MimiA scientist, moderator

    Thanks so much @Snorticus and @Boleyn (and @AnLand and @yshish for your continued input too!)

    I feel right now the consensus is that as long as the URL hacking/browsing doesn't stray too far from a video that needs further investigation then its a non issue - which is great! and in general we agree that focusing on classifications is a main goal.

    I think in the new year I'll look more into seeing if we can adjust the retirement rules to cycle through the videos faster and see if we can get some smaller sites up in tandem (thats a great idea @Snorticus!)

    Thanks so much and please anyone else that would like to provide feedback, please do, at any time 😃

    Posted

  • Batfan by Batfan

    Hi,
    In response to your questions MimiA:

    What motivates you to go through the videos by changing the URL (if you do)?
    I don’t do it often, but do have to admit to the occasional bit of URL hacking. I’ve used it mainly to confirm (or otherwise) my uncertain ID of a distant or partially seen animal that I have just classified, in the hopes that this will help polish my ID skills for future occasions. I do also have to confess to occasionally doing it just because I wanted to see what happened next after a particularly interesting clip. On a couple of occasions this has led me to accidentally finding a new chimp clip but I can, hand on heart, say that I have never hashtagged anything that I have found this way, so these clips are still waiting there to be ‘discovered’ after someone has classified them.

    What's your reaction when videos are already "discovered" that you find through classification?
    Not a huge issue for me. Although I obviously get a buzz if I’m the first to find a good clip, it’s also useful to see other people’s comments as a means of checking that I have classified correctly.

    Do you think URL hacking is an issue (does it reduce your participation in Chimp&See?) or not at all?
    Difficult one! Although it uses time that could theoretically have been spent classifying, and therefore a potential issue, I feel that being able to occasionally follow up something interesting actually keeps me more motivated. I would say that, for me at least, the odd bits of URL hacking that I’ve done have actually caused my sessions to go on longer than they would have otherwise have done and so have not taken up time that I would have spent classifying. I haven’t yet become involved in chimp ID as I still feel a bit daunted by it all, but I do keep looking at other people’s comments in order to develop my skills, and occasionally find that looking at the clips at either side of video helps me better understand what people are talking about.

    Posted

  • ksigler by ksigler moderator

    One thing that's unique about our current situation, and what I believe has made this a more obvious issue is that Aged Violet data has been split and not all of it is active. Maybe not everyone realizes it. So, it's very difficult to know whether the clip you're looking at via a URL hack is active or inactive. And once one person tags/posts/collects it, that clip becomes "fair game" for everyone else... meanwhile, no one realizes that it wasn't even supposed to be in circulation yet. And that's gotten us into trouble lately. Normally, it serves no purpose other than curiosity to dig into inactive clips. But for AV, it has actually made the difference between being able to match chimps or not. (Of course, the matches can still be made eventually when the rest of the clips are activated if we're patient.)

    In response to Mimi's questions:

    1. I'm pretty much in agreement with what's been said already as far as when & why I use the URL hack - to confirm a classification or see what happens next.

    2. When I classify a clip that already has a lot of discussion/tagging, I have mixed feelings. On one hand, I think, "great, I don't have to tag it." On the other, and this is mostly because I've been busy/slacking and haven't classified as much lately, it's a little discouraging to feel behind in the game. I can deal with that, though.

    3. As I said, I do think it's an issue, and sort of wish it wasn't even possible. It dampens the thrill of the hunt for me and I have to find other motivations to keep me going. I also worry (without evidence) that it corrupts the science of citizen science. For me, part of the work we're doing includes finding out if this process works. Even without URL hacking, discussions in Talk expose us to details about clips that we otherwise might not have. But when full sequences (and especially inactive clips) are instantly available in the comments or discussion boards, it makes it a lot easier to taint my understanding of what is happening in the clips I classify. Therefore, when I classify, I may be tempted to use more information to make my decisions than is actually available in the clip. At that point, the result of my classification is no longer a pure indicator of the level of accuracy the current classification process allows. Of course, for Chimp & See's sake, we want to use everything we have available to us to give them the best data possible. This is just a big picture principle that drives my thoughts on this issue.

    Overall, I think people have the right idea for allowing it while respecting the spirit of the project. Dig around if you'd like, but if you start going outside your current sequence, don't tag or post about what you find. Unless you find a clip where a chimp eats a leopard while riding a bicycle (or something equally as scientifically significant), try to stifle your excitement/ego as payment for the freedom to URL hack. For personal collections, I'm on the fence. If you do dig around and want to save something, it then basically makes it "available" for anyone browsing your collections. But I guess it's a fair a compromise, as long as the other rules are respected.

    Along with Snorticus' suggestion of having a large site and small site open at the same time, I'd like to suggest/request that we try not to split sites like we did with AV in the future, if possible. As she said, having one huge site that takes forever does make things boring after a while, but I'd rather find a way to deal with boredom (just my opinion). I realize these suggestions rely on the availability of sci mods to support the discussions, so we may need to discuss these or similar options further.

    Posted

  • AnLand by AnLand moderator in response to ksigler's comment.

    It is actually not the case that Aged Violet is a special situation here. In the whole project, there are always 20,000 video clips active. That's the threshold set up by zooniverse. Since I joint the project at the end of Cool Silence, all sites have been bigger than 20,000 clips - some of them considerably bigger. So, we always had at the same time active and inactive videos from a site. When sites are overlapping, it becomes even more so. There is nothing special about Aged Violet and the "problem" has not been bigger than before.

    I still think - also after what other volunteers said here before - that there isn't a problem at all and everybody is super responsible about their work here. Thanks for this!

    One more remark about @ksigler's last point (3). I really don't know how we can classify in an unbiased way and be expected to participate in the matching discussions (and - for the moderators - help volunteers with questions) at the same time. Of course, I've seen in the Recents and in matching discussions videos that I myself will only classify later. On that point I already know that this is Jazz or Tyra and will classify "chimp adult female" even if I do not see any indication about that in the video. But this does not make the data worse or unreliable. Quite the contrary, the data will be more correct.

    I haven't thought this entirely through, but I am not sure whether it creates a problem for the data when we have at the same time people who classify without any prior knowledge of the clips and some who have this prior knowledge. I think it is not much different from the situation of having prior knowledge of more species and more experience with size comparisons. I think that the really independent classifications are far more important for the cosmological / astronomical projects at zooniverse or other climate projects when there is not a "correct / incorrect" answer because it is about judgment and you shouldn't be biased there. Maybe that's also different at, e.g., counting penguins at Penguin Watch. At Chimp&See - at least on the species level - we have always a correct answer; in principle even if we can't see the animal well and cannot assure the species ID. So, the project is less about independent judgment and with that also not so much about singular discoveries. The context of clips - e.g., behavior, matching, group composition, spatial and temporal rhythms - is in my personal opinion far more important for Chimp&See than the "discovery" of another cute infant. This distinguishes the project from other zooniverse projects, even from the other ecological projects. We do things differently in many ways, e.g., with the hashtagging and tag group collections and we should emphasize these connections more; while also making it clear that all progress goes through classifications. 😃

    Posted

  • ksigler by ksigler moderator in response to AnLand's comment.

    You could be right about the past sites. Maybe it's just a combination of the huge site, with none others active, and the growing public use of URL hacking as part of our processes that makes it seem bigger now than in the past. I think we're mostly in agreement on the bias and C&S data quality points. What I meant by the science of citizen science is more like, is classification an accurate way to collect data (across any project)? Or are the tags more accurate (we know the answer to this)? Are tag groups crucial to the success of a Zooniverse project? What do people prefer, and what is most useful? Which methods improved by using them together? If people read comments but not discussions, are they less biased or informed, etc.? That is where independent data is important. To evaluate the thing as a whole, we should know when agreement is based on understanding and collaboration, or totally independent analysis, or many people just going along with what a couple people have already said. Again, not saying this is a problem here. We seem to be doing pretty well in this regard. It's just a different angle of CitSci in general that is interesting and important to me personally. 😃

    Posted

  • MimiA by MimiA scientist, moderator in response to Batfan's comment.

    Thanks for answering @Batfan! Those are great comments and points!

    Posted

  • MimiA by MimiA scientist, moderator

    @ksigler - if a chimp is eating a leopard - no bicycle needed 😉

    i think you made a great summary!

    i have NO idea id zooniverse would go for it - but how would the chimp matchers (including potential chimp matchers in training 😉 ) feel if for the big sites we paused them after X number of videos and opened another site and then went back to the site at a later time? This might also be nice for the sciemods to get a break from stuff too...On the other hand i wonder if stepping away makes it harder to come back (i certainly have this problem with Quiet Wood) and we overall accomplish less?

    Do people find it more fun (or the same or less fun) when more than 1 site is open?

    On another note - its the last day of this year! I want to wish you all a Guten Rutsch into 2017 (The Germans really have some nice expressions for feelings/events, Rutsch means to slide or travel and evokes like a rebirth at the stroke of midnight (https://expatsincebirth.com/2013/12/31/guten-rutsch-what-does-this-german-wish-really-mean/)). Thank you all so much for being here and working on Chimp&See with us. I hope you guys know how amazing you are! You wow us daily with your keen observations, excellent questions and various insights and dedication in Talk. The Science Team is MASSIVELY grateful to you guys and we hope you guys have even half us much fun as we do discussing African wildlife together!

    I'm really looking forward to 2017 with you all and hope to get some new "faces" here too so we can get through even more videos 😃

    Thank You, Dankeschoen, Merci, Gracias, Grazie, Děkuji!!!

    -Mimi

    Posted

  • Snorticus by Snorticus

    Interesting to read everyone's comments in this thread which demonstrate the fact that we each bring varied life experiences and skills and concerns to the project. I think of this as a plus for our common (citizens and scientists) overarching goal of discovery.

    Regarding aspects of citizen science projects - here is a quote from: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cobi.12706/full

    "The online forum created by the Galaxy Zoo project manifests a design decision that allowed for participants to provide valuable new insights and contribute beyond simply classifying images. Because discoveries resulted from one individual going beyond the assigned task, an open question is how many discoveries went undetected because other participants failed to notice particular features (given the prescribed task) or noticed but failed to post on the site's forum. Based on examples such as this one, we argue that data quality in citizen science is much more than data accuracy.

    Because citizens generally lack formal scientific training, they view problems and issues in light of their own knowledge and interests, creating fertile ground for discoveries. This perspective – that citizen scientists view problems differently than scientists – means that the quality of data should be defined as more than simply consistency with data collected under scientific protocols. Quality of data also includes the extent to which the design of a specific project facilitates citizens’ abilities to spot something interesting, unexpected, or novel. Rather than seeing inexperience and lack of formal scientific training as threats to data quality, we suggest these characteristics improve data quality, provided that researchers are able to understand how to take full advantage of them."

    Kind of a long quote but I think this project has been well designed to take full advantage of citizen science: classification has strictly designed tasks which go toward data accuracy, and talk allows for analysis and observations of novelty. The third area of identifying chimps must necessarily involve analysis and I think having the group working on that has had success. The act of viewing thousands of clips produces some level of expertise and improves the classification section of this project and the chimp and species identification. That all seems like a benefit to me and I don’t see more expertise as damaging to the data accuracy. The first clip viewed is the only one we view without the taint of context. Even that is not without taint if we consider that some citizens have worked with or observed these animals in the wild or in zoos.

    In short - I think we are doing a good job together on a great project! I also think we do a good job of staying on task for the most part with a nudge now and then.

    We’re working on two large sites in tandem now. My thought was that in the future a large site is paired with a smaller site. Of course if the scientists need to split sites and return to them in order to step away for other work that is your prerogative. My preference is to stick with and finish a site because we build up a knowledge bank of chimps and it takes time for me to call that back up - I’m sure that’s not the case for others though - so your call on that, of course.

    Happy New Year to all and extra kudos to the mods who do so much to keep things going, thank you!

    Posted

  • luca-chimp by luca-chimp

    Happy New Year to all of you. My English is not very good, but I try to give my part to the discussion: In fact I was slightly shocked, when I read the opening of the thread. Becuse I didn't know that that what I did to participte in this project was "URL Hacking" ... so first: Im sorry ...

    When I startet with C&s, I was so exited ...and confused ... had no idea about the differences of classification and/or tagging. I started to reaf all the different threads of ...how to do this and not that 😃
    And classified one duiker after the other. And made a lot of mistakes with doing this ... for example: When I see a chimp, I HAVE to classify maybe a gender or age ... often enough I knew, that it was to short of sequence to see sth proprely. My first idea (of learning and helping myself) was to go (after the classification) into the tagging-part ... and than one day, I found the possibility to "wander" through the clips ... and felt it more efficient to tag what I saw and UNDERSTOOD ... I never felt, that it was wrong, because I thougt, all would do that in this way 😃 because, this made sense for my understanding of science. When I spent a lot of my time I always split the time in classification duiker for duiker, but flipped into "url-hacking" when my mind was too bored for doing this any minute longer ... it is thrilling to find a loose thread of a chimp-clip and follow the Story" ...and if this would not any more be possible, I think, it would be no longer "bind" me to spent my time ...

    After reading all your opinions, I unserstand, that my sight wasnt right ... but ... isnt that "science" beside all the pure-data-collecting to give all this clips a special quality? With OUR sight as we are no scientists ...

    And no, I never felt "betrayed" when I found clips which have be seen before by others ... I love to flip through the "recents" to see what others found. This is essential to recognize any individuals ... its like looking clips of a festivity of thousands of people ...only with classifing I never would be able to be helpful with finding so again. (and it would be boring)

    So ...I hope n´my "stammerin" 😉 makes some sense for you.

    Posted

  • MimiA by MimiA scientist, moderator

    Thanks Snorticus and luca-chimp, that makes a lot of sense to me! I also LOVE going through the recents and seeing what everyone has written 😃

    and thanks for the feedback on splitting sites @Snorticus sounds like not breaking things up is the way to go! 😃

    Posted

  • lauraklynn by lauraklynn moderator

    When I first began attempting individual chimp IDs, I noticed people would list video sequences following individuals and so I started doing the same. If it weren’t for such discussions, it may not have occurred to me that URL hacking was even an option. I know just because everyone is doing it doesn’t make it OK, but perhaps there should be stronger, more obvious postings/alerts discouraging it if we really don’t want it to happen.

    While I don’t do a lot of URL hacking, I definitely do it when I find an identifiable chimp (or chimps) and want to find the rest of the video sequence to post to the discussions. I also occasionally see something interesting in the recent objects and do a little hacking to follow the clip. I have sometimes tagged something during such an exploration, but I will refrain from doing this from now on. Rarely, I will stumble on a clip while browsing/hacking that has an identifiable chimp and either has or has not been tagged as such. I can see why jumping on untagged clips that I haven’t encountered in the classification might ruin the fun for others and mess with the science a bit and I try not to indulge very often.

    All that being said, I do think that URL hacking has some value, both in maintaining interest and enhancing ID skills, and I think it would be a shame to see it banned entirely. Might it be possible to allow URL hacking for active clips, but prevent it for inactive ones? Is it not possible to lock people out of inactive clips or somehow alert taggers to the fact that a clip is inactive? I was unaware until now that certain clips were inactive, but I would certainly respect a notification of inactivity and not do any tagging, nor would I be offended if I was locked out of the viewing of inactive clips entirely.

    Posted

  • MimiA by MimiA scientist, moderator

    thanks @lauraklynn for your reply

    after everyone's comments, I don't think we need to discourage the URL hacking that you describe: where you're just searching within the context of the viewed clip - it seems that is very useful and helpful!

    Unfortunately we can't restrict access to the inactive clips but i think that if we see that happening some gentle nudging from everyone to discourage it will be enough 😃

    thanks to everyone again!!

    Posted

  • luca-chimp by luca-chimp

    Silly question ...how do I know which clips are inactive??

    Posted

  • AnLand by AnLand moderator in response to luca-chimp's comment.

    Hi @luca-chimp,

    you don't. The moderators and scientists can check the status of videos and of the sites in general. This was actually one of our discussions, because once a video is tagged or discussed on a board, everybody assumes that this is a legitimately classified video. So, I personally find it difficult - for instance for the best-of videos - to forbid some videos. The same is also true for videos collected by volunteers. We have many volunteers who never come to talk, but flag videos as their favorites. These are classified and OK, but you can also collect manually and these videos are not necessarily classified. So, it's complicated. That's why we had this discussion here.

    But my impression is that most people, like me, don't really see it as a major problem. Cheers!

    Posted

  • luca-chimp by luca-chimp

    Ah, okay. Thanks. Honestly, I do not really grap the problem ... because some/one day all of the clips are classified, because ...when I'm in the classify-modus I cannot see, if thera are any tags ... so I do my job in classifying ...

    But I now will do as ever ... and only when s.o. shouts me off 😉 I will pull me back ...

    Posted

  • squish5 by squish5

    1.What motivates you to go through the videos by changing the URL (if you do)?

    I was trying to id a leopard, didn't know about URL hacking due to laziness to be honest, when I saw the word hacking I immediately thought of my computer getting hacked, didn't realize I would be the one doing the hacking!!. But it did feel a little unfair on other volunteers as I went on.

    2.What's your reaction when videos are already "discovered" that you find through classification?

    If the video is more common then I hope its tagged already, but like most others I do enjoy being the first to tag the more interesting ones. Really busy clips with lots of chimps can be a bit scary so I hope those are also tagged. Its also good for confidence being able to double check.

    3.Do you think URL hacking is an issue (does it reduce your participation in Chimp&See?) or not at all?

    Well I'm only a beginner but I feel that URL hacking would be more productive on a man hours basis (I worked in retail then aviation). At the same time I cant imagine the buzz of a significant find being multiplied x4 using URL hacking. Therefore the excitement available to everyone is decreased a little. I wont be doing it again but it wouldn't bother me to see it happening. If you asked me to sort out 1000 duikers it wouldn't bother me either, just enjoy trying to help out and learn (didn't think it would be this interesting).

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  • Boleyn by Boleyn moderator in response to squish5's comment.

    Hi @squish5 I really like your attitude on this! It's great to have some more enthousiasts like you around. ...doesn't bother to sort out a 1000 duikers..... ROFLMAO

    When you've read all the posts in this thread I think you'll find answers to all your questions. Or in short: It's sometimes useful to find the entire sequence in order to be sure about a trait and a match proposal but it's not needed to tag the other videos you have not classified yourself so you do not spoil the fun of the others. (my goodness, what a sentence, sorry! 😮)

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  • squish5 by squish5

    That's ok lol, Thanks a million @Boleyn, and for sure I will be using the system to help id or even just to have a look. Ill just avoid any hashtags while I'm snooping next time 😃 😃

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  • MimiA by MimiA scientist, moderator

    Hi @squish5 - thanks so much for your feedback and an even bigger THANK YOU for your enthusiasm, great attitude and kind words 😄 We're so happy to have you here!!!

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  • squish5 by squish5

    Thanks @MimiA glad to help.

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  • zoogirl1 by zoogirl1

    Hi All, late to the party.

    1.What motivates you to go through the videos by changing the URL (if you do)?

    I rarely do it but when I do it is to look for the rest of the sequence. I don't usually comment or classify on them. Fact is, I don't have much luck because I can never seem to find the sequence. Not in an order that I can follow. I understand how the numbers are sequenced (a-z, 0-9) but it is rare I actually find the next or previous. I have become a really good at staring at the clip until I get it.

    2.What's your reaction when videos are already "discovered" that you find through classification?

    I guess I would say I am a little disappointed, especially when it is a really special clip. You always hope you are the first but I think everyone comments on the good stuff and not always on the duikers. Recently I would say there are a lot of clips without comments because there are fewer people looking. Lots of chimp matching going on.

    3.Do you think URL hacking is an issue (does it reduce your participation in Chimp&See?) or not at all?

    Yes I have followed this discussion so I was aware of it but it in no way reduces my participation. Many hours go by without realizing it and always looking for the next great clip. I do tend to classify more than match but I do that as well.

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  • yshish by yshish moderator in response to zoogirl1's comment.

    It is never late 😃 Thanks for your feedback! We are glad that you enjoy the project.

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  • MimiA by MimiA scientist, moderator

    Thanks @zoogirl1 for the feedback 😃 I'm happy to hear it!

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