Would it be more efficient to move keys to species and genera to their own forum category, to clean up CLOG pages?

[bekateen]

Hi Jools,

Thinking out loud here. We have several genera with keys to the species here. Keys for some genera (like

Tetranematichthys

) are reproduced within the CLOG pages. Keys for other genera (like

Farlowella

) are reproduced at random places in the forums (either Science, or in the genus-relevant forum thread). Would it make sense to create a single forum thread where all keys are posted and then just add links to these keys on CLOG pages (as was done for Farlowella)? The pros are

• Forum threads allow for the insertion of images that might be linked to the keys (e.g., to show character states).
• Forum threads can be formatted moreso than CLOG pages.
• This shortens CLOG pages so that they don't have such long texts for species keys within generic descriptions.
• Keys can be edited by admins without having to do CLOG revision submissions.
• (This would not preclude typing basic info for genus identification or species identification)

The cons I envision are few, specifically

• A person would need to click a link to leave the CLOG page in order to get to the key.

Thoughts?
Cheers, Eric

[Jools]

Another con is that forum threads aren't shared across the network.

I prefer keys in the species side of the database (as opposed to the forum side) because they are data and if there then are easier to find and use. There is no guarantee a link to the forum will persist. An upgrade could break it. If we did put them all in the forum, I'd want to find a way to future-proof this.

That said, I completely agree that the block of text on the species page (e.g.

Tetranematichthys quadrifilis

) is horrible.

I'd tend towards a third way, introduce a key field in the order, family, sub-family and genus levels. It would need to take multiple keys as sometimes keys are provided for a group of species rather than the full gamut.

There are a lot of enhancements underway, let me park this one until we make some progress on the others but most happy to discuss further meantime.

Jools
PS As an aside, I would like to have a vote/poll for enhancements to help prioritise workload. That would help too.

[bekateen]

Hi Jools.

Thanks for considering it. I see your point about the risk of broken links if keys are in the forum, although since keys get updated when new species are added or when species are redescribed, I'm not sure I would call the key "data" in the same way as you mean it. But that's just semantics, so I see no reason to take issue with it.

If you can work out a third way, that would be great. I also like the idea of a poll. I hope you would get enough responses to provide insights.

Cheers,
Eric