Maine Birders Network Launched

I am proud to announce that the Maine Birders Network (MBN) was officially launched this afternoon. It is ready to go, and those who would like to use the discussion board may register now. 

There are no posts at this time, but with member usage, it should grow by leaps and bounds. Those who are from outside of Maine and will be visiting the state in the future, can interact with the members to get info on birding in Maine.

I will be working on the site over the next week to add features such as gallery software, which will allow members to have a photo album. I may add blogging software so members may have their own blog.

Future enhancements may include contests, a yearly MBN member get together and possibly MBN member bird walks.

We will see with time if this will become a hit or not.

Happy birding!

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Maine Birders Network

Recently, I offered a question on the Maine-BirdList: Who would be interested in a Maine birders discussion board? I would be the one to set up and maintain such a board if the responses favored such an endeavor. The overwhelming response was for such a discussion forum.

I am happy to report that on Sunday October 26th, 2008, the Maine Birders Network will be open to all Maine birders and others who wish to participate. I am testing and setting up the discussion board software and may give a sneak peak a few days before the launch date.

This type of forum for birders in Maine has been tried before in the years past and has failed due to the lack of participation. I am willing to take the risk of failure on the board that I will create. From the responses that I received from the mail list, I think we can make this work as long as birders participate in the discussions.

What is a discussion board?

A discussion board is a virtual tool that allows groups with the same interests to communicate online. A person can either reply to existing messages or post new messages. This is web-based, not an email enviroment. Discussions on a wide range of topics are possible. Members can even post images.

Anything related to birding and wild birds is appropriate on the forum. Topics that are particularly about Maine birds and birding are probably more appropriate on the mailing list (www.mainebirdlist.net/), but you can also post them on the discussion board if you like.

Why must I sign up for a membership?

There are people out there who like to ruin things. If an open forum without membership were to be found by any of these characters, all sorts of foul play would befall the board. Posting of spam, pornography and other illegal activity would make it an unpleasant place to be.

With a membership that requires logging in, we have control over such activity. Any instigators can be banned from ever participating again, they will not have access to the site.

When you register, you will be prompted for a user-name, password and email address. Please know that your email will never be given or sold to anyone. This information will be safely encrypted in the board database, retrievable only by the member who it belongs to.

Other benefits include the ability to post pictures, private messaging and emails, receive board notices and newsletters and to have your own photo gallery.

What can I do to help?

Moderators will be needed to help with activities on the discussion board. Now is the time to let me know if you’d like to volunteer to be a forum moderator. Here are the details.

What does moderation involve?

Basically you check the forums daily or every other day and use the built-in moderation functions to handle any problems that come up. You’ll automatically receive an email whenever a forum member reports a problem, so in many cases you’ll be alerted to problems before you even visit the site.

Your privileges will include the ability to delete, close/re-open, and move threads and posts. You’ll also be able to send private messages to members. The forums will require registration with an image-based verification process for all members, so you shouldn’t have to worry about automated spam attacks. Before the forums officially go live, I’ll personally work with the moderators to hammer out a list of forum etiquette rules, so basically your job will be to ensure that the community members follow those rules. Most of this will be pretty obvious — no spam, no sexual content, no harassing people, and so on. But written rules will ensure that all moderators are on the same page and the community has a fairly consistent moderation style throughout.

Depending on how many qualified people apply to be moderators and how popular the forums become, we could have multiple moderators per forum or multiple forums per moderator. I’ll aim to maintain a good ratio that keeps the moderation duties fairly light. On most days moderators shouldn’t have any problems to address at all. If you decide you no longer wish to moderate, you can quit at any time.

Why become a moderator?

Anyone who’s moderated a forum already knows how rewarding it can be. If your goal is to fill an ego-based need like status or popularity, you probably won’t make a good moderator. A good reason to become a moderator is that you love helping people and are looking for an outlet to contribute. Great moderators are active in their forums, and they love seeing their communities blossom.  An active moderator has tremendous influence over the type of community that evolves. If there’s anything you’ll get out of being a moderator, it’s that you’ll build stronger communication and leadership skills.

How to apply

If you’re interested in becoming a moderator, please E-mail me.

I’ve no idea how many people will apply, so I don’t know how selective I’ll have to be, but once all the moderators have been selected, I’ll train them in using the boards moderation features as needed (it’s fairly straightforward and easy to learn). And whenever everyone is ready, we will open the board and begin the discussions.  

I expect these forums will become very successful, not because of the particular topics but because of the people they’ll attract – people who are committed to learning about birds and birding. I’ve gotten to know many of you from the mail list, those who commented on this site and out in the field, and now I’m delighted that you’ll finally have the chance to meet new people and share the passion of Maine birding.

Any other questions about the discussion board may be submitted by commenting on this article.

Happy birding!

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Updating look and feel of the site

Over the next week, you will see some changes to the Birding In Maine site. This is necessary to keep ahead of spammers and hackers who continually try to hack this site without any luck.

You may experience the maintenance page, which alerts you to come back at another time. You may also encounter a jumbled page or two, but these situations will be brief.

We hope the changes will be to your liking. If you have any problem viewing any pages on our site, please let us know and be sure to include which browser you are using.

Here at the home front, a Red Fox greeted us this morning by drinking from our bird bath. I had no time to get the camcorder, crows had chased the fox away.

There seems to be a shortage of meal worms throughout the USA. The shortage is expected to last 2-3 months. The reason for the shortage: parasites. Sounds like these creatures are causing havoc these days. Wasn’t it a parasite that caused the death of billions of bees last year?

With the warm weather coming up, please remember to keep those hummingbird feeders cleaned. Every 2 or 3 days should suffice, but not any longer. The proper mixture for hummingbird nectar is 4 parts water to 1 part pure cane sugar. And please, NO RED DYE!!

Happy birding!

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Problems with this site

Sometime during the time we were in Pennsylvania for Sharon’s mothers funeral, this web site was hacked. The problem has been fixed with an update to Wordpress and the offending material has been removed, but not before Google dropped our site because of the links that the hackers added to our site.

I have sent in a request to Google to reconsider. They will reindex this site and without the offending links present, hopefully will return us to their search engine.

I want to apologize to those who may have seen the offending links. Nothing from our site was removed, that is nearly impossible to do. The problem was that comments that I normally have to approve, was approved without my knowledge, because of a glitch in the blog software. This has been fixed with an update to the software.

As far as the hackers are concerned, I hope for your sake, that we never cross paths in person.

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Moving to Bath

The time has come to move on. My wife and I will be taking up residence in Bath, Maine next month. The situation here in Biddeford is deplorable at best. Since moving here two years ago, we have had no fewer than 4 thefts of our property. Drunks and young thugs decide that 2:00 a.m. is the best time to pound their fists on metal street signs, making enough noise to wake up the dead! The straw that broke the camels back was when we had a brand new stainless steel grill stolen from our porch in broad daylight while we were at work. We had the grill only 20 days before someone thought they needed it more than we did. Of course, no one saw anything…. whatever, good bye and good riddance Biddeford.

We had the good fortune of finding a home along the Kennebec River, with a marsh and the river in our lower back yard. Basically a dream home for us. The map shows the general location of where we will live.

We will miss our regular birding loop, but I am absolutely sure we will discover a new one. Our back yard should be a haven for waterfowl, raptors and other birds. We noticed today that there is a crab apple tree in the back corner of the lot that looks as if it has yet to be discovered by Grosbeaks.

The back yard is terraced to the marsh/river edge and has the opportunity to be a great spot for a blind. During foul or bitter cold weather, a tripod with our scope attached, will be in the living room at the picture window looking out over the river towards Doubling Point Lighthouse. Several feeding stations and a water feature will be placed throughout the back and side yards. A new yard list will have to begin, with what I am sure will feature birds that have never graced any of our other yard lists.

I have even played around with the idea of a live bird cam pointed at one of the feeding stations.

This blog, of course, will continue. Until we get moved and settled in, the posts may be few and far between for about a month. Rest assured, we will continue as long as these fingers can type and click a shutter.

As a side note, BiddefordWeather.com will cease to exist sometime during the middle of February. My new weather site will be BathMaineWeather.com and should be up and operating before the end of February.

For those of you out there that have birded the Bath area and would like to share some favorite birding spots, please let me know via email or by commenting in this or future articles.

Happy birding!

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