One of the better longtime contributors on nl:wikipedia [[nl:Gebruiker:Roepers]] mentioned today that he is not willing to spend time anymore on taxoboxes. The time needed to create them takes too long and he said that somebody else can do it. If this does not happen he will not mind.
The reasons he gives are: "* There is no agreement among taxonomists about what is correct. It is hard to express these descrepancies. *Creating a taxobox is hard even for people with experience *They take up much room and they replace text. *New Taxobox technology continues to be created, the old ones are not upgraded to the latest version *Creating a taxobox is dreary work and, who is interested in them anyway."
Copying a taxobox from en: to nl: takes a lot of time. It would be best to have one taxobox that serves us all.
What is needed to create a truly standard Taxobox?
The Taxobox has to be language independent. The Taxobox has to be acceptable to multiple wikipedia The diverse wikipedia have to be willing to work together to create this standard Taxobox.
At this moment in time people turn there back on ToL things in other wikipedia because things are not as easy as they can be. At the same time we cry wolf because valuable resources may end up somewhere else.
My challenge to all wikipedia people interested in biology and the ToL: make taxoboxes so easy that it is just a matter of picking things up and dropping them in the appropriate place. Make it usable for great people like Roepers !!
Thanks, GerardM
--- Gerard Meijssen gerardm@myrealbox.com wrote:
Copying a taxobox from en: to nl: takes a lot of time. It would be best to have one taxobox that serves us all.
What is needed to create a truly standard Taxobox?
The Taxobox has to be language independent. The Taxobox has to be acceptable to multiple wikipedia The diverse wikipedia have to be willing to work together to create this standard Taxobox.
Very good point. Use of templates for the standard headings helps. Hosting taxoboxes on Wikimedia Commons and calling upon them from within Wikipedia would help even more. Then there will only be one copy to maintain.
-- mav
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
To make the Taxobox language-independent, why not use Latin? Isn't that what is the standard? Anything making the taxobox easier is welcome.
James
-----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Gerard Meijssen Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2004 12:34 PM To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Taxoboxes.
One of the better longtime contributors on nl:wikipedia [[nl:Gebruiker:Roepers]] mentioned today that he is not willing to spend time anymore on taxoboxes. The time needed to create them takes too long and he said that somebody else can do it. If this does not happen he will not mind.
The reasons he gives are: "* There is no agreement among taxonomists about what is correct. It is hard to express these descrepancies. *Creating a taxobox is hard even for people with experience *They take up much room and they replace text. *New Taxobox technology continues to be created, the old ones are not upgraded to the latest version *Creating a taxobox is dreary work and, who is interested in them anyway."
Copying a taxobox from en: to nl: takes a lot of time. It would be best to have one taxobox that serves us all.
What is needed to create a truly standard Taxobox?
The Taxobox has to be language independent. The Taxobox has to be acceptable to multiple wikipedia The diverse wikipedia have to be willing to work together to create this standard Taxobox.
At this moment in time people turn there back on ToL things in other wikipedia because things are not as easy as they can be. At the same time we cry wolf because valuable resources may end up somewhere else.
My challenge to all wikipedia people interested in biology and the ToL: make taxoboxes so easy that it is just a matter of picking things up and dropping them in the appropriate place. Make it usable for great people like Roepers !!
Thanks, GerardM
_______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
James R. Johnson wrote:
To make the Taxobox language-independent, why not use Latin? Isn't that what is the standard? Anything making the taxobox easier is welcome.
The current taxobox templates have names like {{Taxobox classis entry}}
The first word is a neologism specific to Wikipedia. The second word is Latin. The third word is English.
You are right - there is room for improvement in this area!
Pete/Pcb21
Pete/Pcb21 wrote:
James R. Johnson wrote:
To make the Taxobox language-independent, why not use Latin? Isn't that what is the standard? Anything making the taxobox easier is welcome.
The current taxobox templates have names like {{Taxobox classis entry}}
The first word is a neologism specific to Wikipedia. The second word is Latin. The third word is English.
You are right - there is room for improvement in this area!
Pete/Pcb21
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
The problem is not with these labels as they can be understood by a someone intrested in Taxoboxes.
When it is an animal it should be [[Animalia]] and not [[Animal]]ia . Vernacular names are also difficult to use. The point being we have to discuss this and we have to be willing to cooperate. I would really welcome one Taxobox that is acceptable and usable by all wikipedia.
Thanks, GerardM
--- Gerard Meijssen gja.meijssen@chello.nl wrote:
When it is an animal it should be [[Animalia]] and not [[Animal]]ia . Vernacular names are also difficult to use. The point being we have to discuss this and we have to be willing to cooperate. I would really welcome one Taxobox that is acceptable and usable by all wikipedia.
These are naming convention issues and are thus specific to each Wikipedia. On the English Wikipedia we use, well, English to name articles. Redirects should exist so that such a standardized taxobox would work on any language wiki.
-- mav
_______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win 1 of 4,000 free domain names from Yahoo! Enter now. http://promotions.yahoo.com/goldrush
Daniel Mayer wrote:
--- Gerard Meijssen gja.meijssen@chello.nl wrote:
When it is an animal it should be [[Animalia]] and not [[Animal]]ia . Vernacular names are also difficult to use. The point being we have to discuss this and we have to be willing to cooperate. I would really welcome one Taxobox that is acceptable and usable by all wikipedia.
These are naming convention issues and are thus specific to each Wikipedia. On the English Wikipedia we use, well, English to name articles. Redirects should exist so that such a standardized taxobox would work on any language wiki.
-- mav
_______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win 1 of 4,000 free domain names from Yahoo! Enter now. http://promotions.yahoo.com/goldrush _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
mav, This list is not about en:wikipedia, it is about cooperation between the wikipedia's. Your rants and raves are about the en:ToL; how great it is. Well, it is and it is provincial because the data in en:ToL is of limited use.
Scenario: WikiSpecies has a general usable and available Taxobox. There is a parameter to the Taxobox function that is provided on call time by the local wikipedia. The parameter holds the local vernacular name, it is optional. Your choise. See my point? Nothing lost to en:ToL no problems with naming conventions, big gains to all wikipedias.
Road ahead: We have to discuss taxoboxes, how can we make taxoboxes more usable. If you refuse to discuss it, it is not very wiki, not according to the cooperative spirit of this wikiworld. So naming conventions need to be discussed. Do you have a clue about why the French or German Taxoboxes are as they are, what revisions they use of nomenclature? Might there be something in there for en: too? Do you know ??
As you dismiss all arguments without seeing further than just en: you invalidate all your arguments. To me it is all more of the same. Unhelpfull, hiding what you stand for .. What do you stand for ? How is it helpfull to others, to me ?
Thanks, GerardM
--- Gerard Meijssen gja.meijssen@chello.nl wrote:
These are naming convention issues and are thus specific to each Wikipedia.
On
the English Wikipedia we use, well, English to name articles. Redirects
should
exist so that such a standardized taxobox would work on any language wiki.
mav, This list is not about en:wikipedia, it is about cooperation between the wikipedia's. Your rants and raves are about the en:ToL; how great it is. Well, it is and it is provincial because the data in en:ToL is of limited use.
Read what I wrote. I mentioned *specifically* that naming conventions are language-specific. Thus what each language Wikipedia decides to name any particular article is up to *them*. How is that a rant about how great ToL is on the English Wikipedia?
Scenario: WikiSpecies has a general usable and available Taxobox. There is a parameter to the Taxobox function that is provided on call time by the local wikipedia. The parameter holds the local vernacular name, it is optional. Your choise. See my point? Nothing lost to en:ToL no problems with naming conventions, big gains to all wikipedias.
This is a neat function that Wikimedia Commons should have (as I've stated about five times now already). Elementboxes used in WikiProject Elements articles would also benefit from this functionality as well as many other projects.
As you dismiss all arguments without seeing further than just en: you invalidate all your arguments. To me it is all more of the same.
As you continue to not listen or even consider alternatives that do not consist of creating a fork, you invalidate all your arguments and lose all your credibility.
Unhelpfull, hiding what you stand for .. What do you stand for ? How is it helpfull to others, to me ?
Being helpful would be to concentrate effort into Wikipedia and her sister projects for this, not creating a fork. Being helpful would be to develop functionality that would make this type of thing possible for other areas outside of biolgoy (such as the chemistry example I gave). What I stand for is preventing a huge drain of effort that is now used to create articles on species in Wikipedia. I also stand against forks.
Since you have not provided a single example where ToL and Wikispecies will not overlap, I'd say that you are being very unhelpful.
-- mav
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org