next message in archive
next message in thread
previous message in archive
Index of Subjects
All: Nancy's dilemma and suggestions on estimating numbers for eBird are important. I have been a frequent user of eBird, atlas, CBC, BBS, etc., over the years in estimating trends and patterns,. I believe the dictum of a statistician colleague that "a large number of bad numbers (as long as not biassed) are as good as a small number of good numbers" (a recasting of the "law of large numbers"). Even the casual reporting of numbers like "lots" or "common" on naturens are less useful for section editors of "NS Birds" than are estimates. Nancy suggests that a range of categories could be available on eBird 2-10, 11-50, etc., but the "users" of these numbers would still have to turn these into a single number for trend analyses, etc. I believe that an educated guess is better; Why not just take the rough number between 11 and 50, e,g., that you think might be better - 20 or 40? Another possible guide might be that used during the first (1980s) NS Atlassers of entering log categories 1-10, 10-100, etc. (natural logs even better). Then (as was done) the user (or indeed the observer) can use the geometric mean (about 3, about 30, etc.). Cheers, Ian Ian McLaren
next message in archive
next message in thread
previous message in archive
Index of Subjects