Daniel Mayer wrote:
One question:
Is the level of detail in this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_the_Zion_and_Kolob_canyons_area
appropriate for Wikipedia? Or would it be better to have such an article in a
Wikigeology project? I would certainly hate to see similarly detailed [[Biology
of ...]] articles not be created for species in Wikipedia because the same
content is in Wikispecies. Or worse, for them to exist in both and thus half
the contributor base working on each of them.
The article is perfectly suitable for Wikipedia, which is why it's a
Featured Article. No doubt that's the conclusion you intend for us to
draw. What I would expect to have in a Wikigeology project is more data
rather than prose. Things like precise measurements of different strata
and substrata at various precise locations, or results of radioactive or
carbon dating from specific samples (the exact data might be different,
I'm just guessing and I'm no geologist). The data could be meaningful
regardless of language, though presumably some agreed standard language
would be necessary for a framework.
This is similar to my understanding of Wikispecies will be. Indeed, that
is what Wikispecies will have to be in order to succeed, and even then
success is not guaranteed. If Wikispecies does not establish an
independent justification for existence, it simply will not attract
enough interest because the bulk of contributors will not bother to redo
their Wikipedia work elsewhere.
The community's real decisions are often not made in these discussions,
or in the pronouncements of the Board, but because people "vote with
their feet", or in this case their hands at the keyboard. That is why
all this debate, however acrimonious, is not really decisive in saying
there is or is not a consensus for Wikispecies. The consensus will only
be seen over time, and is sometimes easier to find by listening and
watching than by arguing. Our representatives on the Board try hard to
do that, though perhaps they might have deliberated a little longer and
done more to prepare the ground for this new project.
--Michael Snow