Pete/Pcb21 wrote:
Just to clarify, I think that wikispecies is not overlapping with the encyclopedia in any significant way,
Looking through all the messages in this thread, I think you are very much in the minority by saying that.
Other posters seem to have suggested that a) there would be overlap, and it would be a good thing or b) there would be overlap, and it would be a bad thing.
What makes you think there would not be an overlap?
Well, I should clarify what I meant by "any significant way". Obviously, there will be overlap in a sense, since articles about species are perfectly valid.
But the point I meant is that the overlap is not significant because it is the same _sort_ of overlap (or non-overlap) as we have between wikipedia and wiktionary.
Compare: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Economics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics
These two are markedly different, as well they should be, because an encyclopedia is not a dictionary.
An encyclopedia is also not a species directory.
Consider: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger
This is a perfectly normal and typical species article. It's pretty good if you ask me.
But notice that it links to [[Siegfried & Roy]], and discussed Rudyard Kipling and William Blake's perspective on the tiger. Calvin and Hobbes is discussed, as is Tigger, Winne-the-Pooh's friend.
These things are all perfectly appropriate for a tiger article _in a general purpose encyclopedia_. They do not belong in a species directory.
To further illustrate the difference, compare: http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.cfm?genusname=Carcharodon&... with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_White_Shark
Notice that our article (quite properly) discusses the movie Jaws, and links to Steven Spielberg. Fishbase does not, and again, quite properly.
I see a species directory as a significantly different *kind* of resource than a general encyclopedia. They can be mutually reinforcing and supporting, as with wikitnary and wikipedia. But they are not the same thing.
--Jimbo
that it is not a fork, that it is a perfectly appropriate use of our resources, and that this discussion should end pretty soon.
Much of "this discussion" has been about how the two projects could scratch each other's backs in the best way. Clearly that needs to be ongoing.
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