Thanks Kelly, for what is probably the best e-mail on this yet.

No, you probably won't see the AOU codes in a paper. But if you bird band, as I do, you'll use them and see them everywhere. You even "talk" in them (AMRO or American Robin, is pronounced as it looks, "Am-row"). And if you do point counts or wetlands monitoring, as I also do, you use the same codes, going into the computer and everything. All of my notes are done that way, as are all of my fellow biologists this year. THAT is what I meant by the scientific community. And because they are so useful to me, I don't just hit the "erase" button in my brain and get rid of them. I keep using them. (Personally, I think the numeric codes stink, because they are not as user-friendly; the bird codes at least generally follow a particular set of rules that are easy to figure out. There seems to be little rhyme or reason to the plant codes). And birds are so extensively studied, that there is an actual, universal list (or at the very least, hemispheral, as there are over 2100 birds on th!
e AOU
list I have). It is not just made up by a few of us bird geeks to piss off everyone else.

So yea, that comment was not kosher by me, and I would rephrase it if done over. Still, I think that the dissenters should know that a lot of the people who use this list with them use the codes frequently. Those of us who do, should try to be more cognizant of those who don't. But in either case, if people would just use their delete key instead of going ballistic, the whole list would be a happier place. I delete at least 50% of all tweeters e-mails without reading them (usually due to geographic-specific info I don't care about at that time), why don't others use the same method to save aggravation?

Brett A. Wolfe
Seattle, WA (in San Joaquin Valley for summer 2005)
m_lincolnii at yahoo.com


Kelly Cassidy <lostriver at completebbs.com> wrote:
Brett Wolfe writes:
"I just wish more birders were open to it, but most birders are not in the scientific community and want to keep it that way."

OK, I'm in the "scientific community." When was the last time you saw a paper in a peer-reviewed journal that used the 4-letter AOU codes? Sure, people use codes in their research for short-hand notes and computer files. I've used codes for plants, herps, mammals, birds (based on scientific, not common, name), numeric codes for vegetation communities, codes for plot types, you name it. Two weeks after I finish a project, the codes start fading. I'm currently using the AOU codes on a project so I (sort of) know them. For this year.

I say, use codes if you want. It's a free country. I delete the code-heavy posts without puzzling over them. Life is too short.

Kelly Cassidy
Pullman, WA
mailto:lostriver at completebbs.com


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