Of course, great numbers of people, great people (in the main) and interesting topics. Well done all!
Can I suggest a (sort of) downside to the large numbers of threads? I will stress that I'm talking mainly, perhaps entirely, about the
invertebrates forum. There is, in my view, a problem that there are so many posts that some get overlooked.
This is partly because the 'invertebrates' get one forum and yet there are many more species, genera, families of invertebrates than all the other animals and plants put together.
Obviously, you can't have beetle, butterfly, fly, myriapod fora for various reasons - most obviously because people sending in the queries don't know what they've got (whereas they can tell a bird from a mammal from a fish ... ).
But in many cases people
can tell a these apart and, indeed, recognise families - hoverflies, ladybirds &c..
So, would it be possible to introduce some sort of division in the invertebrates forum - sub-fora (subdirectories) for the more obvious groups (butterflies, beetles, bees ....)? I've raised this matter before and everyone who responded thought it a good idea ... but it doesn't seem to have been considered on high
I think that having sub-fora/sub-directories would actually be useful for people posting enquiries
but it will also be extremely useful to those of us who answer most of the queries on our select groups of insects!
I do respond fairly well to queries about insects and, especially try to give opinions regarding beetleins and, certainly, lady and ground beetles. No problem, this is easy enough in the winter and I wish to do whatever I can to encourage other people to look at beetles and other insects. I know I'm not alone in this - we have some serious entomolgical experts here -
but I, and I suspect, other people will not be available on a regular basis during the summer months. I certainly am (1) away from my computer, (2) very busy and (3) have to prioritise my minutes during the summer ((4) I also have holidays
) so, based on last year's experience there will be no way that I can track all the invertebrate queries - until November anyway, which is not helpful for people sending in queries. On the other hand, it would not be too difficult for me to scan through a sub-directory of 'Beetles' ..
So, can we have a discussion on this? Can the Invertebrate forum have separate sub-directories? What should those divisions be? I think most sensible to go for recognisable (to novices) groups such as butterflies (or butterflies/moths?), hoverflies, ladybirds, rather than subtly different groups such as Lepidoptera, Diptera?
What do people think
