Trip Reports - The Fine Print:
Frequently Asked Questions

Urs Geiser, ugeiser@xnet.com, May 27, 2001

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Why is this website suspended?

A number of reasons have led to my decision to freeze this website. First of all, this website is over five years old, and I have grown tired of the job. I need a rest. Second, I have become busy with other projects, some bird-related, job-related duties, and family affairs that have taken an increasing amount of time. Last, but not least, there has been a trend of trip report authors submitting their reports to multiple websites. It has become increasingly annoying to find out that a trip report that I spend much time formatting and editing has just been posted on someone else's (possibly commercial!) website. Some websites have even incorporated pieces of this one in a frame of theirs - very annoying!

If I ever decide to resume the posting of new reports, I will require from the authors that they not submit it elsewhere. Furthermore, I will at that time include coding that will prevent the direct linking to individual reports from outside this website.

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What's the purpose of this collections?

Birding is one of my major hobbies. Traveling to see birds is one of the highlights of every birder's life. To get the most out of birding trips, birder rely on the information on previous travelers. Trip reports are one of the way to preserve the traveling birder's experience and to guide

When I joined the internet birding community a few years ago, I realized that the contributed trip reports were always well received, but news groups and mailing lists were ephemeral, and their archives often difficult to access. Then the WWW came along. I was one of the first birders with my own WWW birding site. I quickly carved out two niches: local birding information for the greater Chicago area and this trip report collection (the latter moved in 1999 from XNet.com to its current location). Mainly because of a sentimental attachment to the Old World (I am originally from Switzerland), and since the Americas were already covered at that time, I concentrated first on Europe, then also included the other Old World continents.

These reports are presented here because I think they are useful, because I think the WWW is an excellent medium to present them, and because I learn a lot about world birding - places that I can only dream of visiting ever in person - while preparing these reports for the WWW.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to all the trip report authors who have contributed to this collection.

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Is this a commercial site?

The trip report collection is strictly a personal hobby of mine. I derive absolutely no income from this website.

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What about trip reports by commercial birding tour operators?

I don't really feel like subsidizing commercial operators with the effort it takes to put the trip reports up, no matter how worthwhile their business. So far, I have rejected with great regret such advertising trip reports. However, if they have their own WWW site with trip reports, I will link to their site.

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Where do you get these trip reports?

There are three main sources:

Note that currently no more reports are being added to this website. Unsolicited reports will be rejected.

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Do the authors know that their trip reports are on the WWW?

Unless the reports were directly contributed with the intent of being posted here, I always contact the authors and ask for their permission to post their reports on the WWW. The law is somewhat murky about the amount of copyright protection that a contribution to a mail list or news group has. The authors agree that these reports are available for non-commercial access by anyone. I will oblige if an author asks me to remove his/her reports from the WWW.

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Are the trip reports exactly in the form submitted, or do you edit them?

In order to publish a document on the WWW there is always a certain amount of editing that needs to be done. I receive documents in many different formats, some of which adapt more easily than others to the WWW. However, I will not edit the content, except for the most blatant errors. The following are the most frequently applied changes:

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What are the geographical areas covered?

When I started this project, there was a WWW site that actively collected trip reports from North, Central, and South America. Therefore, I decided to concentrate on the rest of the world, i.e., Europe, Africa, Asia (split into the Mideast and everything else), Australia, the Pacific Islands (including Hawaii), and Antarctica. The only exceptions were reports that were written by myself or personal acquaintances. The collector of the other trip report WWW site subsequently changed position. While she managed to copy her extensive collection to a new site, she has not added any new trip reports. However, Blake Maybank has now taken up the effort with the American trip reports at his website.

There is some duplication with the EBN-CH WWW site: Trip reports gleaned from EBN are also stored there.

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Are you going to expand coverage of the Americas?

No - I don't have the time to duplicate Blake Maybank's effort. I will keep referring submitters of American trip reports to Blake. (Exception: my own reports.)

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I would like to submit a trip report. What should I do?

Currently, no more reports are being added to this website. Unsolicited reports will be rejected.

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This page served by Urs Geiser; ugeiser@xnet.com; March 2, 2003