This page provides a some short descriptions of common uses for the site followed by an overview of basic concepts used in the website.

Common Tasks:

1. Keeping Up with Changes - The default page for MushroomObserver.org is the 'Activity Log', it is also accessible through the 'Latest Changes' link on the left side of the screen. This page lets you know what the most recent changes to the site are. It lists new Observations and Species Lists as well as significant changes to any already existing ones. Additions of Images or Comments are considered significant changes to the relevant Observations. Changes to Names are also listed. The numbers at the top and bottom of the page let you look through older changes. Observations and Names created as a side effect of other changes are not separately listed.

   In addition, the latest changes can be tracked using the RSS feed provided by the site.

2. Searching - There are two interesting ways to search for information in the site. The simplest is to type a search string into the Search Box near the top of each page and click one of the buttons next to Search Box. This will give you a list of all the Observations, Images, Names or Locations that contain fields matching the given string.

   You can also browse all the names currently in the database by clicking on the 'Name Index' link on the left-side of the screen. It is now possible to propose multiple Names for a given Observation. This means when you browse through the Name Index, it lists all observations for which that name has been proposed. However, for example, the genus Agaricus only lists those observations that are in the genus, but have not been identified to species. It does not list all the observations that have been given the name of a species within that genus. On the other hand, if two Names are considered synonyms, then you can access observations for either from their Name Page. In the case of the Search Box, if you give 'Agaricus' then all observations whose name contains that string are listed so you get all observations that belong to that genus.

3. Getting Help with an Unknown - In order to get help with an unknown, you need to have a User account. These can be created easily by selecting 'Create Account' from the left-hand panel. See the discussion of Users below for more details.

   Once you are logged in, create a new Observation by selecting 'Create Observation' from the left-hand panel. Put all the details you can into the resulting form. You can leave the 'What' field blank or call it 'Unknown', or if you think you know the genus or family or other group, give that name followed by 'sp.', e.g. Russula sp. In the 'Notes' field provide information about habitat, odor, smell and anything else not clear from the photos. Once the form is as complete as you can make it, click 'Create'.

   You should now be looking at a page showing you the information you just entered. However, if you used a name that is not currently in the database, you will be asked if you want to add the name. This also gives you a chance to catch and fix typos. In addition, if you use a name that is considered deprecated, you will be given the option to use a preferred synonym.

   Once you have created the new observation, you can upload any images you have by selecting the 'Add Image' link on the right-side of the window. It is very important that it be either an image you took or that you have the explicit permission of the person who created the image to upload it to the site. If you did not take the image, please update the 'Copyright Holder' field to reflect the actual owner. This page also allows you to select the license you want to release the image under.

   When you add unknowns, the community will generally propose one or more Names for it within 24-hours. If you find any of the suggested names compelling, you should not hesitate to revisit your observation and vote on them. Please see the discussion below on voting, as well. Members of the community may also post feedback via Comments. By default your Account is set up to deliver comments posted about your Observations to you by email. If you are asked to provide more details on the collection, it is considered better to select 'Edit' and add them to the 'Notes' field than to just add another comment.

4. Adding Observations You Have Identified - Use the same process as 'Getting Help with an Unknown', except you provide your identification in the 'What' field. You are strongly encouraged to say something about how you arrived at the identification. We've provided a small set of checkboxes to make this easy (e.g. 'Identified by sight', 'Based on microscopic features'), but you are encouraged to elaborate on them in the provided text fields (e.g. list the references you used, or say 'sequenced the DNA and compared it against the data in GenBank'). Community members will often post Comments if there is some question about the collection or they would like clarification as to why you ruled out other Names.

5. Proposing Names - Members of the community are now allowed to directly propose new Names for any Observations. Click on an observation (e.g. from the Activity Log) and scroll down to below the observation notes. There should be a list of names enclosed in a thin black outline. Most observations will already have at least one name proposed (by the owner). From here you may either click on 'Propose New Name' or vote on existing names. In either case you will have to log in before you are allowed to do so.

   When you click on 'Propose New Name' you will be presented with a form much like the one used to create an observation. In addition to the name, you are required to choose a confidence level. This is your Vote, and you may change it on the Show Observation page at any time you like. As with creating an observation, you are strongly encouraged to give some explanation as to why you think your name applies to this observation (and the others don't). When you are finished, click 'Create'. You will be given a chance to correct typos or to choose an accepted name if you typed in a deprecated one.

   As a general rule, users are discouraged from proposing a name if someone else has already done so. The only reason to do so would be to describe alternative reasons for reaching the same conclusion. Instead use the discussion forum provided by comments to do this.

6. Voting on Proposed Names - Click on an observation, e.g. from the Activity Log, and scroll down to the proposed names box. Note that you must login before you can see or change any of your votes. Once you have logged in, you should see pulldown menus next to each proposed name. Your vote expresses the degree of confidence or agreement you have with placing that name on that observation. Everything above "Could Be" is considered a positive vote, everything below "Not Likely" negative. Choose "No Opinion" to tell it to delete your vote altogether. When you've changed all the votes you want to, be sure to click on 'Update Votes' to record your votes. Don't worry, if you forget and try to navigate away without casting your votes it will complain (unless you have Javascript disabled).

   Votes for a name are summed and then divided by the number of votes for that name + 1. This ends up favoring names with more votes, so vote early and often! The name with the highest score wins, and by default that name will be applied to that observation throughout the site. In the case where multiple synonyms are proposed for an observation it lumps the votes together, choosing each user's strongest vote within that group of synonyms. In the end, assuming that group of synonyms wins, the currently accepted name is used as the community consensus. If there is still debate in the scientific community about which name is appropriate for a given taxon, then it will use votes the best it can to decide between multiple accepted names.

   If you have a particularly strong preference for one of the names, vote "I'd Call It That". The website will attach that name to that observation wherever you go.

7. Adding Comments - When you are looking at an Observation you select the 'Add Comment' link near the top of the page. If you are not currently logged into a User account, you will be asked to log in. Once you are logged in, you will be given a form asking for a Summary and your Comment. Note that you can do some simple formating in the Comment section. This is briefly documented below the Comment section with a link to detailed documentation. You can also add links within a Comment using standard HTML formatting. The HTML gets automatically cleaned to avoid security problems like script injection, so try not to get too fancy.

8. Describing Species – Select Index A->Z from the left-hand panel and select a name or click any “About [name]...” link you see. Read over any notes that already exist for that name. If you know anything else about this species you want included, click ‘Edit Name’ and add your notes. You are encouraged to cite references including field guides and scientific paper. Short quotes from references are fine, but please don’t make extensive quotes without checking with the permission of the original author.

9. Working with Maps – Currently there are three types of maps available on Mushroom Observer: Distribution Maps (e.g., Distribution map for Craterellus cornucopioides), Location Maps (e.g., Salt Point State Park) and the Global Map.

   To get a Distribution Map for a particular Name, you go to the page for that Name (e.g., through putting the name in the search box and clicking ‘Name’) and then clicking the ‘Distribution Map’ link near the top of the page.

   Users can add to the Distribution Map for a name. The easiest way is when you create a new observation, use an already defined location. The auto-completion for the Where field will list all locations that are currently being used whether they are defined or not.

   You can also explicitly choose not to have an observation show up on the Distribution Map. This allows you to record observations of mushrooms in places like mushroom fairs, grocery stores or other places where you may not know where the mushroom was actually collected. When creating or editing an Observation there is a checkbox labeled ‘Is Collection Location’. By default it is checked. If you uncheck it, then that observation will not get put on the Distribution Map.

   When looking at observations, defined locations will be followed with ‘[Click for map]’. Undefined locations will be followed with ‘[Search]’. If you click on the link for an undefined location, it will do a search for observations that have that value in the Where field. The resulting page will include links at the top to ‘Define This Location’ or ‘Merge With A Defined Location’.

   Clicking a ‘Define This Location’ link will take you to a page where you can create that location. The first thing to review is the name of the location. You are strongly encouraged to end each location with country. In the USA you are also encouraged to include the full state name along with the county. Abbreviations are discouraged with the exception of ‘Co.’ for County. Thus a good name is Salt Point State Park, Sonoma Co., California, USA and a bad name is Salt Point, CA.

   For other countries, I don’t know enough to propose a concrete proposal, so I expect conventions will evolve over time.

   Locations are currently defined as a box that completely encloses the named location. Part of intention with making the locations an area rather than a single GPS reading is to not force people to reveal their ‘spots’ while still getting something that is at least accurate to the county. To define a location you enter the extreme north and south latitudes as well as the extreme east and west longitudes for that location. To help find the latitudes and longitudes, there are links to a couple of location finder pages near the center of each location creation/editing pages. These will open in a separate window or tab. You can then search for or navigate to the location on the map and read off the position.

   In addition to the position of the location, you can also provide a maximum and minimum altitude along with some notes if you have them. Note that the altitudes should be in meters not feet. Once you have filled out the form, click ‘Create’ to define the location. It does a bit of sanity checking to make sure that the values are reasonable and that the name of the location is unique. An existing location can be edited by going to the page for that location and clicking ‘Edit’. Anyone can change the information for a location, but previous versions of the map information is kept as a reference to allow easy recovery if someone puts in the wrong information.

   You can get a list of all locations in use by clicking the All Locations link from any of the location related pages. This page lists both the defined locations (on the left, sorted alphabetically) and the undefined locations (on the right, sorted by the number of observations associated with that location). One really helpful way to contribute to the site is by clicking on the undefined locations and defining them starting with the ones that are in the most widespread use. In some cases the same location has been given multiple names (e.g., ‘Point Reyes National Seashore’ and ‘Pt Reyes Park’). You can merge an undefined name with a defined name by clicking the ‘Merge’ link next to the undefined name. When you click a ‘Merge’ link it will do a quick search for any likely candidates and present those in one list and all the remaining locations in another in case it guessed wrong. Clicking on any of those location links will perform the merge.

   In theory it would be possible for the same location to be defined more than once (presumably by different people). If this happens, you can propose a merge by editing one of the locations and change the Where field to the value of the other location. This will not have any immediate effect, but a warning will be given and an email will be sent to the site administrators with the details. Merging defined locations is restricted since that could cause significant data loss.

10. Creating Species Lists - Select 'Create List' from the left-hand panel. Fill out the various fields. In the 'Species' field, you should give each species a Name on a line by itself. When you go to create the Species List each line will be checked to see if there is a match in the database. If there is no matching Name, then you will be asked if you want to add the unknown names to the database. This gives you a chance to catch and fix typos as well as a simple way to add missing names. Each name given in the 'Species' field or loaded from a file will create a completely new observation. The 'Species List Notes' are only shown when the entire species list is shown. The 'Notes for each new member' are actually added as the 'Notes' field to each newly created Observation.

    If you wish to collect a set of existing Observations into a new list, first create an empty Species List. Then go to each of the Observations you want to add and select 'Manage Species Lists'. This will given you the opportunity to add that Observation to any Species Lists you have created.

    If you visit another Species List before you create or edit another one, you will automatically get a checklist of species from the first list to select and add to the list you are creating or editing.

Concepts Glossary:

1. Comment - A User's comment on a particular Observation. Comments are the standard way to discuss an Observation or its associated Images. A given Comment is owned by a particular User. A Comment can only be edited or deleted by the owner or a site administrator. You can look up all Comments that have been made about Observations you own by clicking 'Comments for You' from the left-hand panel.

2. Image – A photograph or illustration of one or more mushroom species. Images are associated with one or more Observations. A given Image is owned by a particular User who may or may not be the copyright holder. Only the owner or a site administrator can remove an Image or edit the associated information. All Images in the site are required to be released under one of the Creative Commons licenses. If you dispute the given copyright or the licensing of an image you are the copyright holder of, send mail to the webmaster.

3. License - Images on the Mushroom Observer website are put under an explicit license. The current options are the Creative Commons Attribution, Share Alike License and the Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share Alike License. The primary difference is whether the image can be used in any potentially commercial setting. One of the side effects of selecting the non-commercial license is that your image cannot be used on Wikipedia. The license can be set on a per image basis. The looser, Wikipedia compatible license is the default for new users. However, you can select the non-commercial license to be your default by selecting it on your Preferences page and clicking 'Save'.

4. Location - A place in the world. Defined Locations associate a location name with the extreme north and south latitudes and west and east longitudes of that location. Defined Locations can also have a maximum and minimum altitude and notes. Undefined Locations just have a name. A Location is not considered to be owned by a particular User. Any User may change or define a Location, but all changes are associated with a User and are reviewed by the community. To help with this review process, copies of previous versions of a Location are kept.

5. Name - A name for some group of mushrooms. Most commonly this is the name of a species, but it can be any taxon (genus, family, variety, etc.). Names can also refer to groups that are not officially recognized scientific names such as common names or functional groups like Gasteromyces. A Name is not considered to be owned by a particular User. Any User may change a Name, but all changes are associated with a User and are reviewed by the community. To help with this review process, copies of previous versions of a Name are kept. Names can have an acknowledged author. The author is normally only given for scientific names. The author should follow the standard practice of listing the person who first correctly published the name. In the case of names at or below the species level, the author may also include the person who transfered the species to the current genus, e.g., (Singer) Jenkins.

6. Observation - A record of a single mushroom species at a particular time and place seen by a particular person. Typically associated with one or more Names along with some number of Images, Comments and Species Lists. A given Observation is owned by a particular User. An Observation can only be edited or deleted by the owner or a site administrator.

7. Proposed Name - A name as proposed for a given Observation. Any number of names may be proposed for a single observation by members of the community. No special treatment is given to any member's name. Community consensus is arrived at through the process of voting. Each proposed name for an observation is owned by a single user. However, even the user who proposed the name cannot necessarily modify or delete a name once other members of the community have cast votes for or against it. Fortunately you may always propose additional names. There is never any sort of penalty associated with proposing incorrect names.

8. Species List - A list of Observations. Includes a date, a location and a title for the list. A given Species List is owned by a particular User. Only the owner or a site administrator can change or delete a Species List. There are no strict rules for how Species Lists should be used. This is an area that is likely to change in the future as the community comes up with clearer ideas for how lists should get used.

9. User - An account on MushroomObserver.org created by someone. You are required to provide a valid email address when you first create an account. This allows the system to stop automated programs from creating bogus accounts. It also provides a way for other people to get in touch with you. However, your email address will never be revealed unless you request an email be sent to another User and then only to that User. If you are concerned about having your email address in the MushroomObserver.org database, once you have verified your account, you can go to the Preferences page and remove your address.

10. Vote - One user's vote on a proposed name for a given observation. Expresses a level of confidence or agreement with that name, with half the choices ("Could Be" and up) being positive and half ("Not Likely" and below) being negative. If you vote "I'd Call It That" on one of the names for a given observation, Mushroom Observer will use that name when showing you references to that observation. Note that you can only vote this way for one of the names for a given observation. Votes are owned by that user, and can only be changed or deleted by the owner or a site administrator.