NA Holding Lists vs Zootierliste

[Dhole dude]

Thread split from here: Cetaceans kept in North America


Not to discourage your efforts, but population threads like these are quite redundant now that we Americans now have access to Zootierliste. ZTL is much more efficient than the population threads and is much easier to update, and therefore threads like these don’t really serve much of a purpose anymore. Adding onto that, all of the information here is already accessible on ZTL and can be updated much more frequently.

 

[Chlidonias]

Not to discourage your efforts, but population threads like these are quite redundant now that we Americans now have access to Zootierliste. ZTL is much more efficient than the population threads and is much easier to update, and therefore threads like these don’t really serve much of a purpose anymore. Adding onto that, all of the information here is already accessible on ZTL and can be updated much more frequently.

They really aren't. ZTL is not even close to being complete for North America, and compilation threads like these make it very easy to see all the holders of all the different species in a group at the same time. Also, not everyone on Zoochat looks at ZTL - this can be seen all the time on (for example) UK threads where people are regularly asking "what zoos hold X?".

 

[Austin the Sengi]

Well then, in that case; does this mean that I and several others can continue our efforts on maintaining our population/holder threads, even with the growing interference of ZTL?

 

[Dhole dude]

They really aren't. ZTL is not even close to being complete for North America.

Sorry, but I'm going to have to disagree here. Sure, ZTL isn't even close to being 100% accurate for North America, but it's only been eight days since they added North American Institutions and its quite unreasonable to expect everything to be added and accurate within such a short amount of time. I would think the majority of listings should be completed within the coming months.

compilation threads like these make it very easy to see all the holders of all the different species in a group at the same time.

Its really only takes one or two clicks to see a species holders on zootierliste. Their categories are also ordered taxonomically, making population threads negligibly easier to see all the holders of a species.

Also, not everyone on Zoochat looks at ZTL - this can be seen all the time on (for example) UK threads where people are regularly asking "what zoos hold X?".

The people who usually ask these question usually either aren't aware of ZTL or don't know they have an English version of the website. Comments like these are usually followed by someone either recommending or citing ZTL.

All and all, I really don't see the need for population threads now that Zootierliste exists for non-Europeans. This is coming from someone who has worked on multiple lists this this and has poured hours of work and research into them. Zootierliste is just much more efficient and takes much less effort to update and keep up-to-date.

 

[TinoPup]

Sorry, but I'm going to have to disagree here. Sure, ZTL isn't even close to being 100% accurate for North America, but it's only been eight days since they added North American Institutions and its quite unreasonable to expect everything to be added and accurate within such a short amount of time. I would think the majority of listings should be completed within the coming months.

Disagree. Look at how many errors there are. Also, compare it to something like the media galleries here, and how many zoos don't have one, or have one that's empty / hasn't been added to in a decade.

 

[Chlidonias]

Sorry, but I'm going to have to disagree here. Sure, ZTL isn't even close to being 100% accurate for North America, but it's only been eight days since they added North American Institutions and its quite unreasonable to expect everything to be added and accurate within such a short amount of time. I would think the majority of listings should be completed within the coming months.

ZTL is never going to be "100% accurate" for North America - it isn't even nearly accurate for the UK. North America is going to be even less accurate due to the lack of information for most of the zoos in the USA, and (without being rude) the - let's say "quality" - of some of the members who have already proclaimed they are going to be updating ZTL for the USA.

Its really only takes one or two clicks to see a species holders on zootierliste. Their categories are also ordered taxonomically, making population threads negligibly easier to see all the holders of a species.

I know how ZTL works, and to see holders for an entire group (say, cetaceans or parrots) you need to click through all the species - they aren't laid out in one "all holders in North America" list.

The people who usually ask these question usually either aren't aware of ZTL or don't know they have an English version of the website. Comments like these are usually followed by someone either recommending or citing ZTL.

No they aren't. There are people who are new to Zoochat, and there are people who have been on Zoochat for years and know full well how ZTL works. And it is also very frequent for a recommendation to look at ZTL to be followed by the caution that ZTL is very much not accurate for a lot of the collections in the UK (for various reasons).

 

[Dhole dude]

Disagree. Look at how many errors there are. Also, compare it to something like the media galleries here, and how many zoos don't have one, or have one that's empty / hasn't been added to in a decade.

Errors are to be expected in the first few weeks of any big update to a site like this. Again, I think its unreasonable to not expect there to be a slew of errors when something only just launched a week ago. I wouldn't expect this amount of errors to be around forever, and patience is necessary. I don't really see how the Media Gallery comparison makes any sense tbh, as this applies to both population threads and ZTL. ZTL is just much easier to keep track of and update than holders threads.

ZTL is never going to be "100% accurate" for North America - it isn't even nearly accurate for the UK. North America is going to be even less accurate due to the lack of information for most of the zoos in the USA, and (without being rude) the - let's say "quality" - of some of the members who have already proclaimed they are going to be updating ZTL for the USA.

I don't expect it to ever be fully accurate, but ZTL is still a much easier way to keep track of information in my eyes. With holders threads, you usually only have one person who updates them and they become outdated the minute they are posted, as people flood the thread with updates and corrections, making finding out what is and isn't held is a nightmare and quite confusing. With ZTL, all of the information is right there and the list can be manually updated if someone has a correction, making finding the correct information much easier than having to go through hours worth of discussion to find the information your looking for. This is why we don't see ANY holders threads for Europe, as ZTL is just a much more efficient resource. I don't really get what you mean by the "Quality" of some members? I understand that some members of this site (particularly newer ones) are quick to jump the gun and assume information, but does that mean they aren't "quality" enough to update ZTL? That is why sources are required for ZTL entries and errors can always be reported on ZTL's notice board (As I assume you already know)

I know how ZTL works, and to see holders for an entire group (say, cetaceans or parrots) you need to click through all the species - they aren't laid out in one "all holders in North America" list.

I understand, but the time difference is still negligible if you consider how inaccurate holders lists tend to be and how many pages one has to go through to find information that might be correct. I have personally found that finding a species on ZTL takes LESS time than trying to find it on a holders thread.

No they aren't. There are people who are new to Zoochat, and there are people who have been on Zoochat for years and know full well how ZTL works.

That is what I was trying to get at. I think I worded my sentence a little weirdly, so I'm sorry if that wasn't clear enough.

it is also very frequent for a recommendation to look at ZTL to be followed by the caution that ZTL is very much not accurate for a lot of the collections in the UK (for various reasons).

Mind telling me what these reasons are? I am genuinely curious.

I still don't see how holders threads are justified though, as even if Zootierliste is still quite inaccurate and incomplete, once the majority of information has been added it will be infinitely easier to keep track of and update when compared to the slow and usually equally inaccurate holders threads.

 

[Chlidonias]

That is what I was trying to get at. I think I worded my sentence a little weirdly, so I'm sorry if that wasn't clear enough.

How was that what you were "trying to get at"? You posted "The people who usually ask these question usually either aren't aware of ZTL or don't know they have an English version of the website."

I understand, but the time difference is still negligible if you consider how inaccurate holders lists tend to be and how many pages one has to go through to find information that might be correct. I have personally found that finding a species on ZTL takes LESS time than trying to find it on a holders thread.

I think you are missing the point I am making - I'm not talking about finding the holders of an individual species, say Bottlenose Dolphins, I'm talking about seeing all the cetaceans which are kept in North America all at once. On ZTL you could see on the cetacean list which species are listed for North America but you have to open every species individually to see which holders there are and which are current holdings.

There is also the additional benefit of a holding list which is the discussion. If someone is posting a bunch of false listings - say, if they are just blindly copying off USDA lists or old websites or whatever - they will get pointed out pretty quickly by people who know better, because they can be easily seen by everybody on Zoochat. On ZTL they will just sit there until someone eventually notices (or doesn't), or they will keep getting flicked back and forth by different people who think they know what they are doing.


At the end of the day, though, if people want to maintain a holding list they can - and if they don't then they won't.

 

[Dhole dude]

I think you are missing the point I am making - I'm not talking about finding the holders of an individual species, say Bottlenose Dolphins, I'm talking about seeing all the cetaceans which are kept in North America all at once. On ZTL you could see on the cetacean list which species are listed for North America but you have to open every species individually to see which holders there are and which are current holdings.

I personally don’t see this as much of an issue and I feel seeing all the holders of a species in one place just isn’t really that much of a benefit when it’s still the exact same information on ZTL. I guess this is just personal preference and there’s not much more I can say on the subject.

There is also the additional benefit of a holding list which is the discussion. If someone is posting a bunch of false listings - say, if they are just blindly copying off USDA lists or old websites or whatever - they will get pointed out pretty quickly by people who know better, because they can be easily seen by everybody on Zoochat. On ZTL they will just sit there until someone eventually notices (or doesn't), or they will keep getting flicked back and forth by different people who think they know what they are doing.

This is a good argument, And I agree they make it easier to point out errors, but I find the discussion on these threads, while usually helpful, adds to the clutter that contributes to them being so difficult to navigate at times. Also, considering how many more people are actively using Zootierliste now, there is a lower likelihood of large errors going unnoticed. I am still of the mindset that Zootierliste overall is still a far more efficient and, in the long run, superior way to compile this information and is much easier to keep track of, even if it has its flaws. After all, there is a reason such holders threads don’t exist for European zoos.

 

[JVM]

There is absolutely a matter of personal preference involved. In researching my upcoming UK trip, I have had a few holding questions responded with about "just check Zootierliste" even though in most cases, I already had but wanted a firsthand experience or double check, such as with Bengal slow loris in the UK for which I had conflicting information between two sources. I often find Zootierliste is most useful for starting research than as an end point.

I'm also very active in wikis and have been an administrator at multiple, so I am very informed on how public sourcing information works -- and while I am a strong advocate for these systems, one of the biggest drawbacks is that it can be hard for non-editors especially to trace the origins of a mistake and if the subject matter is prone to being overlooked (such as a more obscure species) it can remain persistent. As a young editor I once saw an awful, awful mistake on a wiki that was not even sourced end up becoming mirrored in official, licensed material and it has continued to travel as fact because it related to an obscure subtopic. In contrast, one perk of using Zoochat population lists is that individual members who post lists can be held accountable - both for their mistakes or for their discoveries - without disappearing into Zoochat as a host, so if there is a mistake the original poster can be questioned directly, rather than one of us having to message Simon and ask who did it and why. I don't know if Zootierliste keeps public records of edits.

Just my two cents!

 

[TeaLovingDave]

With holders threads, you usually only have one person who updates them and they become outdated the minute they are posted

And you think this isn't the case for all but the most well-known and frequently visited zoological collections on Zootierliste?

For instance, I would be willing to guess that other than myself there are perhaps one or two people at *most* who update the ZTL listings for Scottish Owl Centre here in the UK, and none as often or comprehensively as I do. Given how much more widely-dispersed collections (and zoo enthusiasts visiting them) are within the USA, I suspect the problem will be even more pronounced for North American ZTL listings.

Also, considering how many more people are actively using Zootierliste now, there is a lower likelihood of large errors going unnoticed.

Alternatively, there has been such a massive influx of enthusiastic but immature or poorly-informed new editors on ZTL that there is currently a *greater* likelihood of large errors going unnoticed amidst the masses of other edits.

 

[Animal]

How was that what you were "trying to get at"? You posted "The people who usually ask these question usually either aren't aware of ZTL or don't know they have an English version of the website."


I think you are missing the point I am making - I'm not talking about finding the holders of an individual species, say Bottlenose Dolphins, I'm talking about seeing all the cetaceans which are kept in North America all at once. On ZTL you could see on the cetacean list which species are listed for North America but you have to open every species individually to see which holders there are and which are current holdings.

There is also the additional benefit of a holding list which is the discussion. If someone is posting a bunch of false listings - say, if they are just blindly copying off USDA lists or old websites or whatever - they will get pointed out pretty quickly by people who know better, because they can be easily seen by everybody on Zoochat. On ZTL they will just sit there until someone eventually notices (or doesn't), or they will keep getting flicked back and forth by different people who think they know what they are doing.


At the end of the day, though, if people want to maintain a holding list they can - and if they don't then they won't.

My thoughts exactly. And to add to the question of this thread a famous quote: "Why not both?!"

 

[Great Argus]

A bit late to the discussion, but as someone currently responsible for numerous holder threads and contributing to ZTL, I'm going to throw some thoughts out there.

Well then, in that case; does this mean that I and several others can continue our efforts on maintaining our population/holder threads, even with the growing interference of ZTL?

Yes - currently there are several of us that will continue to update our holders threads. It may be a bit less regular in my case at least, but I still see a lot of value in them.

Errors are to be expected in the first few weeks of any big update to a site like this. Again, I think its unreasonable to not expect there to be a slew of errors when something only just launched a week ago.

It's certainly to be expected, yes. However, per my own observations the majority of the errors are attributable to people not double-checking themselves and/or wading into areas they are not knowledgeable.

ZTL is just much easier to keep track of and update than holders threads.

Largely true, however;

, considering how many more people are actively using Zootierliste now, there is a lower likelihood of large errors going unnoticed.

This exact fact is also the biggest reason most of the errors are occurring. There's been an all out rush to input information, and as might be expected when everyone has editing access, there has been a lot of overlap. I know a couple people that have been annoyed because they've had to repeatedly fix wrong listings for a certain facility they had accurate lists for. When something is inaccurate and needs removed, it first has to be spotted by someone, and then it has to go to an admin for removal. On a holders list, I can simply check and exclude without having to worry about someone else changing it again two hours later. There also seems to be a notable bit of group think going on once someone goes for a certain subspecies - and it has dominoed incorrectly in at least a few cases. I dare say there are a couple of people that are probably doing more harm than good. And hence this is a particularly good reason for continuing the holder lists -

In contrast, one perk of using Zoochat population lists is that individual members who post lists can be held accountable - both for their mistakes or for their discoveries

--

I personally don’t see this as much of an issue and I feel seeing all the holders of a species in one place just isn’t really that much of a benefit when it’s still the exact same information on ZTL.

It may eventually be all the same information, but it gets tricky when subspecies gets involved. I have gotten annoyed more than once trying to figure out whether I checked all the subspecies and trying to sort through them all. A discussion I've had with several people since the worldwide launch is how the seperate subspecies tabs make things way more confusing than just being able to look at one straightforward list. In many cases sorting out the appropriate subspecies to enter has also been a source of frustration (and one of the biggest error sources that I've seen). For example, I count eight headings for Corvus corax - three of which apply to NA and I know of a current individual from a subspecies which is currently not in the database. That just gets way more confusing than being able to look at a simple list of holders.

 

[birdsandbats]

It may eventually be all the same information, but it gets tricky when subspecies gets involved. I have gotten annoyed more than once trying to figure out whether I checked all the subspecies and trying to sort through them all. A discussion I've had with several people since the worldwide launch is how the seperate subspecies tabs make things way more confusing than just being able to look at one straightforward list. In many cases sorting out the appropriate subspecies to enter has also been a source of frustration (and one of the biggest error sources that I've seen). For example, I count eight headings for Corvus corax - three of which apply to NA and I know of a current individual from a subspecies which is currently not in the database. That just gets way more confusing than being able to look at a simple list of holders.

This. I thought this was a problem with Zootierliste even before it expanded. It's kind of too late to go back now but having to sort through all of the subspecies to add listings is very frustrating and although I try my best I guarantee I've added some stuff as generic that was probably somehow tracible to subspecies. I've tracked down a number of things to subspecies that are not options on ZTL right now, but it feels a little rude to come to the ZTL admins with a long list of obscure subspecies to add. (Like, does anyone really need to know it was Pitangus sulphuratus guatemalensis?).

 

[zoomaniac]

There are many valid critics against ZTL (specially since the inclusion of "the rest of the world"). However: I coundn't find anyone or any online site doing in better, although those who shout the loudest - without being rude - are free to do so.
I for myself would like to thank you very much here to all who working on ZTL (and its extension).

 

[amur leopard]

And it is also very frequent for a recommendation to look at ZTL to be followed by the caution that ZTL is very much not accurate for a lot of the collections in the UK (for various reasons).

it isn't even nearly accurate for the UK

I'm not sure I entirely agree with the above. If you're visiting a major collection, the listings are almost invariably near-perfect (as long as you don't assume everything is on show). If you're visiting a less frequented collection, it makes sense that there would be outdated listings but 1. ZTL still serves as a really good outline of the collection and 2. if you do notice errors you can make corrections.

As an aside, looking at it from an expected value point of view, the chances ZTL has an excellent overview of the collection are pretty high given the relative probabilities of visiting each zoo. In other words it's a system that depends on the people visiting these smaller collections making the necessary changes rather than complaining about it being dated (not saying you were, just to be clear, just that the wording seemed a bit over the top to me).

 

[15399]

This. I thought this was a problem with Zootierliste even before it expanded. It's kind of too late to go back now but having to sort through all of the subspecies to add listings is very frustrating and although I try my best I guarantee I've added some stuff as generic that was probably somehow tracible to subspecies. I've tracked down a number of things to subspecies that are not options on ZTL right now, but it feels a little rude to come to the ZTL admins with a long list of obscure subspecies to add. (Like, does anyone really need to know it was Pitangus sulphuratus guatemalensis?).

Indeed, the subspecies thing is what I am finding most frustrating about zootierliste. Typically with my lifelist I ignore subspecies (except in a few obvious cases- such as noting Amur leopards or subspecific tigers, or maybe noting a subspecies when I know the entire captive population is subspecific, for instance all roan antelope being cottoni), so at first there was a learning curve in paying attention to subspecies. It'd almost be nice if zootierliste put all subspecies together under a single list (with abilities to separate it out), but that's probably way too much work to change it now to be realistic.

 

[Animal]

I've tracked down a number of things to subspecies that are not options on ZTL right now, but it feels a little rude to come to the ZTL admins with a long list of obscure subspecies to add. (Like, does anyone really need to know it was Pitangus sulphuratus guatemalensis?).

Yes, we do need to know that. And it is not rude. We put in all requested subspecies eventually.

 

[TeaLovingDave]

but it feels a little rude to come to the ZTL admins with a long list of obscure subspecies to add. (Like, does anyone really need to know it was Pitangus sulphuratus guatemalensis?).

For more obscure subspecies like this one, including when unknown SSP animals are also held, there is an established precedent that it is acceptable to add the holding to the species-level holding and add a note within the entry reference to state the subspecies is known, like so:



Eventually, when the relevant taxon is added to the database, these entries can then be amended to pertain only to the species-level stock and all information relating to the subspecific animals can be imported into the new database entry.

If certain people weren't immediately bombarding the ZTL admins with requests to add dozens of historically-held subspecies to the database which will never be needed again, and rather approached the addition of this historical information like this until the workload reduced, I think that a) things would be much cleaner and easier to locate and b) the admins would have more time to handle the sudden increase in workload and get the errors, misinformation and duplicate holdings which are being made and then flagged up dealt with.

 

[birdsandbats]

Yes, we do need to know that. And it is not rude. We put in all requested subspecies eventually.

For more obscure subspecies like this one, including when unknown SSP animals are also held, there is an established precedent that it is acceptable to add the holding to the species-level holding and add a note within the entry reference to state the subspecies is known, like so:

View attachment 680189

Eventually, when the relevant taxon is added to the database, these entries can then be amended to pertain only to the species-level stock and all information relating to the subspecific animals can be imported into the new database entry.

If certain people weren't immediately bombarding the ZTL admins with requests to add dozens of historically-held subspecies to the database which will never be needed again, and rather approached the addition of this historical information like this until the workload reduced, I think that a) things would be much cleaner and easier to locate and b) the admins would have more time to handle the sudden increase in workload and get the errors, misinformation and duplicate holdings which are being made and then flagged up dealt with.

Both good to know, thanks. I've only been working on current holdings at the moment for precisely the reasons you mention.