Citizen Science Website Adds Social Engagement Tools

Online, September 18, 2012 (Newswire.com) - Wildlife Sightings has expanded its' citizen science services for nature enthusiasts, educators and non-profit groups. Both the general public and registered members can rate, comment and contribute to wildlife sightings with new social engagement services.

The general public can now rate everyone's wildlife sighting submissions with a Like or Dislike. This feedback from the public will build a reputation of the member who submitted the sighting as grand totals of their Like's are accumulated and displayed.

"The Like system engages the public and encourages members to provide accurate sighting details and a good photo.", says Wildlife Sightings owner Paul Lindgreen. "Users who build up a positive reputation of many Like's will also have more credibility when suggesting other members' sightings are misidentified or when suggesting a finer taxon level.".

Registered members can now add a comment to other member contributed sightings. Comments can vary from a simple complement on the submitted photo, suggestions for a different identification, or asking questions about the sighting. "This feedback can help clarify a sighting accuracy or just might complement someone on a great wildlife photo", says Mr. Lindgreen.

Members can further engage other citizen science members by submitting a sighting with an unknown id. "Identifying wildlife is challenging for members of all levels, now they can ask other citizen scientist members to lend their expertise by commenting on their unknown wildlife sighting submissions. This also ensures more citizen science data gets published and not discarded" , Paul states.

During the social tools upgrade, citizen scientists will be pleased to learn Wildlife Sightings changed its' domain name to more user friendly address. "Our old address was simply difficult to remember, now everyone can easily remember it as it matches our website name", Paul concludes.