[WikiEN-l] Encyclopedia of Life

[Erik Moeller]

Hello all,

I am indeed a member of the Institutional Council of the EOL project
and am in Washington DC right now. I will attend the public press
conference tomorrow. Today I've been giving their Board a lot of
background on licensing issues, an overview of wiki technology, and
background on our projects.

EOL will use NameBank for the taxon names, which has ~9.5 million
records. I doubt, honestly, that Wikispecies is of much use to them in
its present form, but have given a brief summary of the project
regardless. The mock-ups contain references to Wikipedia, and they are
very interested in using Wikipedia articles as part of the
encyclopedic component. I've strongly pushed for making changes
directly in Wikipedia wherever possible, and we'll see where that
leads. And, as you can expect, I've also made an argument for
permissive (WMF-compatible) licensing. Beyond that, I cannot say much
about the content of the discussions for confidentiality reasons.

This is a very exciting project and I'm glad that we've made a
connection. I am very optimistic about its future.

On 5/8/07, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
> Folks,
>
> Associated Press is reporting on plans to establish an Encyclopedia of Life
> combining what is known about every known living species.
>
> http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/05/08/ap3699046.html
>
> In a whale-sized project, the world's scientists plan to compile everything
> they know about all of Earth's 1.8 million known species and put it all on
> one Web site, open to everyone.
>
> The effort, called the Encyclopedia of Life, will include species
> descriptions, pictures, maps, videos, sound, sightings by amateurs, and
> links to entire genomes and scientific journal papers. Its first pages of
> information will be shown Wednesday in Washington where the massive effort
> is being announced by some of the world's leading institutions. The project
> will take about 10 years to finish.
>
> "It's an interactive zoo," said James Edwards, who will be the
> encyclopedia's executive director. Edwards currently helps run a global
> biodiversity information system.
>
> If the new encyclopedia progresses as planned, it should fill about 300
> million pages, which, if lined up end-to-end, would be more than 52,000
> miles long, able to stretch twice around the world at the equator.
>
> Two foundations have given $12.5 million to pay for the first 2 1/2 years of
> the massive effort, but it will be free and accessible to everyone.
> More in story.
>
> I wonder what its licensing arrangements are or will be.
>
> Regards
>
>
> Keith Old
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-- 
Peace & Love,
Erik

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