How do we deal with Anonymous records from Birdtrack are we following the normal procedure?
But what happens if you query an Anonymous record who does it go back to?
Mark
Comments
Update
Following a recent meeting with BTO I can provide an update. First of all, I was mistaken in thinking that queried records do not get communicated to "anonymous" recorders. In fact, the anonymous setting arises from recorders on BirdTrack who have asked for their names not to be made public with their records. However, if you query a record from an anonymous recorder they will be notified.
In addition, we have now made a change so that where a record is marked as anonymous, the recorder name can be seen by verifiers, and will appear in the "Record details" pane on the right-hand side of your verification page, where it will be listed under Additional sample attributes - Additional info. The recorder name will still be hidden from public view on iRecord, and will not be included in your download, but is available on your verification page.
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Martin Harvey
My understanding is that these records will be a result of recorders on BirdTrack who have not given permission for their name to be passed on. Any query will not be passed on to the recorder, and no direct email address is available. If you do query the record it will be marked as queried and will allow you to add a comment, but the original recorder will not be notified and is very unlikely to see the comment.
We will raise this with BTO when we next meet with them but I suspect there will not be a solution to this, since we are unable to contact people who have not given permission. So for now at least verifiers will have to decide whether they are willing to accept anonymous records (I know that views on this vary between schemes and verifiers).