Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
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.
Where I think you'd get into trouble is pointing at some specific piece of FishBase data and saying "this is too detailed for Wikipedia, must go elsewhere". So far as I know, not a single word of WP ToL material has ever been rejected for excessive depth. So while conceptually one can talk about species content beyond what WP allows, in practice we haven't actually set any limits on WP. On the contrary, the bird people are well on the way to documenting every bird species in detail, so it would be pretty hard for a wikispecies to have anything new to offer in that area, and if it's OK for birds, why not for beetles?
Without an agreed-upon rule about what species data may not be included in WP, then what reason is there for me not to import every single wikispecies addition into WP also?
Just as an experiment, let's try it; somebody please point out a specific piece of FishBase data for a fish species that they think is too detailed, I'll write it into WP and we can see what kind of reaction it gets.
Stan