I support your idea and think it is the most sensible thing to do at the current point. For the interface: Gerard will provide a table with data that we could play on. I can provide webspace of about 45 MB and the domain of www.wikispecies.org.
The earlier we have an initial interface and something like a trial- version, the better. Any pho-people who want to try it?
Benedikt
I understand Mav's reservations, even though I'm for a wikispecies. Why don't we simply have a trial w-species on that wikispecies.org site, try out a few interface designs, and back-end stuff, and see if it'll work?
That
way, it won't be a wikiproject, but it will still exist and let people
use
it, see if it's popular/used enough, and if it gets the go-ahead from Media-Wiki, move whatever was done over to Media-Wiki.
James
-----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Benedikt Mandl Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2004 5:07 AM To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Developers needed!
--- Benedikt Mandl benedikt.mandl@gmx.at wrote:
The defined target refered to the question whether wikispecies should
cover
all species that were described or not. It would be wonderful if this
was
possible, but yet it is too big of a project to define - others have
done
that before and failed (see the busted http://www.all-species.org/).
Daniel Mayer wrote: OKay - you first state that others have tried and failed.
Great - then let's have a look why "ALL species" failed: 1.) They started with a lot of noise, collected a lot of money and
several
people as full term staff 2.) They rented offices as head quarters and hired experts to do some programming for a search engine 3.) They wasted money on meetings, conventions and media events without realising that they were - due to their organisational structure -
totally
dependent on financial confidence 4.) The donations decreased after the dot-com crash 5.) Their targets were simply insane - a website for every existing species within a human generation sounds nice in "New Scientist", but lacks of feasibility 6.) They busted - much ado about nothing
I don't see any mistake that Wikispecies would make in a similar manner. Another thing we can learn from www.all-species.org: there is a whole
list
of the most eminent taxonomists, all of them supporting the idea of a central database of species, indicating an urgent need for that. They
all
took on the patronage (whatever that means in "ALL species" terms). Mav: HOW MANY OF THEM DO YOU THINK SUPPORT A GENERAL ENCYCLOPEDIA? How many of
them
already support the ToL in public?
We need a seperat approach to the species project in addition to wikipedia. This is the only way to attract specialist authors and users. Mav, you made it clear that you don't like wikispecies. Many other people disagree
with
you and I think you should respect their wish for a wikispecies without coming up with inappropriate brabbling about a "war".
Benedikt
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