What is up with ebird...?

[Clip]

Check out this rare bird alert for Brevard County, Florida: https://ebird.org/alert/summary?sid=SN35606 Pay special attention to the reports for the Common Eider. Note all the several days old unconfirmed that have photos. Many are good photos. Then check out the only one dated Feb. 5 2022. Note it has been marked confirmed. Then look at the description. Then consider my husband and I were there on the Feb. 5 2022. Our checklist shows we were there for 2  1/2 hours. We ate lunch there and looked out over the water way where the bird had been seen, off list. We birded the area again without starting a new list. We did NOT find the Eider. I'm 95% certain that the Eider was not there on the 5th.  Even my easy going husband's response to this was "that's just BS". He didn't use the abbreviation. 

[Birding Boy]

Sure looks like the guy on the 5th put a lot of effort into his rarity finding and description (not). Kinda weird the ones with photos aren’t confirmed before this one. One thing that might be happening is the reviewer knows this guy, sees his name, and clicked confirm. I dunno. Maybe he didn’t have time to confirm the others. The description put down on Feb 5 sure doesn’t rule out literally every other duck in Florida though. 

[Clip]

32 minutes ago, Birding Boy said:

Sure looks like the guy on the 5th put a lot of effort into his rarity finding and description (not). Kinda weird the ones with photos aren’t confirmed before this one. One thing that might be happening is the reviewer knows this guy, sees his name, and clicked confirm. I dunno. Maybe he didn’t have time to confirm the others. The description put down on Feb 5 sure doesn’t rule out literally every other duck in Florida though. 

Plus I am more than reasonably sure the Eider was not there on the 5th. There were a couple of other birders there also that thought a Northern Gannet was the Eider but they must have eventually decided it wasn't because they did not report seeing it.

[chipperatl]

At 54:20 this reviewer walks through the review process.  I noticed one of the entries shows deferred.  

 

[Clip]

25 minutes ago, chipperatl said:

At 54:20 this reviewer walks through the review process.  I noticed one of the entries shows deferred.  

 

It is too bad he doesn't go into what deferred means.

[chipperatl]

31 minutes ago, Clip said:

It is too bad he doesn't go into what deferred means.

My assumption is that is the sightings that disappear from Rare bird alerts.  

[TCG]

I too was frustrated at birds that were confirmed with minimal description and no photo.  A few years back I viewed a Loggerhead Shrike, at the right time of year and the right habitat, and it was never confirmed!  I’ve been birding for 51 years and I took it personally that someone questioned the validity of my sighting!  Now after reading some of the previous posts I understand the challenge volunteers have with the volume they are dealing with.  In the grand scheme of things it’s not worth sweating the small stuff.  Thanks for clarifying. 

[DLecy]

On 3/16/2022 at 5:51 AM, chipperatl said:

My assumption is that is the sightings that disappear from Rare bird alerts.  

It's actually the opposite. "Deferred" leaves sightings in the review queue, which leaves it in the RBA for others to follow up on. The purpose of deferring a record is that you are hoping to leave it in the RBA for others to investigate, or if more info is needed.