Hi Wim,
Interesting idea, although I'm unsure how to incorporate your idea into
the boundaries of a wiki. However, if you want to ellaborate on this new
idea you should first start off at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/
(Meta-wiki), which serves as a coordination for all the Wikimedia
projects, and a place to discuss new ideas. If you want to propose a new
project, then you might want to post here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposed .
Kind regards,
Kempm
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All,
Bringing up a database of species is one thing:-|.
But what about setting op two pools of data: Objects on the one hand,
and keys on the other.
For *objects* I’d say the Wikispecies-I may serve as (one of) the
startingpoint, if objects get extended with properties describing them
(e.g. Not just /Paris quadrifolia/, but also data on flower, leaves,
biometrics…). I explicitly don't refer to them as species (because then
the matching with a key -see below- apparently was already done, and my
suggestion is to draw a line between these two)
For *keys* I think a whole new Wiki-project needs to be created, e.g.
Wikikeys, consisting of key-engines that can be elaborated by Wiki-users.
So on the one hand we have the *collectors* (filling Wikispecies, but as
far as I’m concerned it may also apply to stamp-collecters…), on the
other hand the *classifiers*, developing keys (in Wikikeys) to classify
those objects.
And now comes the hard part: For Wikikeys to work it should be construct
where the key-developers enter (sets of) rules (may even be programs)
that can evaluate into a likelyhood of Yes or No. E.g. if item’s
property flower-colour = Red, offering this specimen to the
Flora-dichotomous-Linnaeus-key will encouter it with a rule on
flower-colour which rules out /Paris quadrifolia /for 99%
I can elaborate on this but it may be usefull to first stick to this,
check how much sense I made and if there’s anybody interested to pick
this thread up.
I'm new to wiki, and please let me know if I have to address other people.
Cheers
Wim