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(a)Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Benedikt Mandl
Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2004 5:07 AM
To: wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Developers needed!
--- Benedikt Mandl <benedikt.mandl(a)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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