Hi Wild Me,
I know you’re aware of this issue but wanted to get it posted here for better visibility and tracking. The issue is that, previously, underscores and dashes were retained in image file names when uploaded to Wildbook. At some point that changed and the impact is significant to most, if not all, of our users.
Impacts include:
- exports do not use original image file names but rather the file name with the underscores and dashes removed. This means that users can no longer reconcile their online catalog with their offline one
- our users use a range of other software tools, many R based, which all allow for and support underscores and dashes in file names. By not supporting these characters, Wildbook is rendered incompatible with other ecology tech solutions
- poor readability of key info such as camera trap station ID included in file names which users reference when trying to confirm difficult matches
We communicated with @jason about this late last fall and we know that conversations were had about how to resolve it with a great re-direction from @Anastasia, I understand, which simplified the potential fix.
I know resolving this has stalled somewhat due to year end and new year challenges and changes (welcome, CXL, to the family!) but it’s still an urgent issue for our users. Not having a match between their original file names is a constant pain within the system and prevents them from being able to effectively use any exported data outside of the system.
Thanks!
Maureen
cc: @PaulK