According to the article [[meta:mailinglist]] the purpose of the Wikipedia-I mailing list is: "for issues concerning more than one Wikipedia, but not concerning the sister-projects".
Therefore I fail to see why the ToL, which is an en: resource, would serve as reason _not_ to start WikiSpecies. When people think that it takes away from the ToL, they fail to consider that the effort that goes into WikiSpecies may not be effort that does not go into en: but that it may take effort away from nl: or de: or fr:
They fail to remember that the first taxobox with the {{regnum}}, {{species}} syntax was brought to you in [[nl:Pos]] and translated for you as [[en:Ruffe]]. The point being that the potential for better cooperation with other wikipedia was brought to the en:ToL. When it was asked to discuss the look and feel of the Taxobox to make it pallatable for the de:, fr:, nl: and other wikipedia, the answer was NO, see our history we do not want that, democratic decision.
One argument used is that: forking is not wanted. The argument that a server with loads of diskspace exists that can be used to host something like WikiSpecies will propably only get a "well that is ok, because it is outside wikimedia, nothing to do with us".
Conclusion: *The arguments against are en: based have little or no relevance to other wikipedia and are, because of its purpose, of litle relevance to this list. *WikiSpecies will be a sister-project and as such it is not for this mailing list to decide what is going to happen. *The danger of forking outside Wikimedia is real, this to happen is the worst case scenario, because it will mean that a potentially valuable resource will be lost to all wikipedia not just to en:. *When a fork happens, ask yourself did it have to do with you, and are you comfortable with it?
Thanks, GerardM
On Wednesday 25 August 2004 11:05, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
*WikiSpecies will be a sister-project and as such it is not for this mailing list to decide what is going to happen.
up to now a Wikipedia sister-project meant that its content is (mostly) disjoint with the content of any other Wikipedia project. That means that an article is either in A or in B (or = exclusive or).
The proposed project "wikispecies" will have a huge overlap with existing Wikipedia articles. Therefore using the term sister-project is IMHO wrong, and calling it a "partial fork" is much closer to reality.
best regards, Marco
Marco Krohn wrote:
On Wednesday 25 August 2004 11:05, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
*WikiSpecies will be a sister-project and as such it is not for this mailing list to decide what is going to happen.
up to now a Wikipedia sister-project meant that its content is (mostly) disjoint with the content of any other Wikipedia project. That means that an article is either in A or in B (or = exclusive or).
The proposed project "wikispecies" will have a huge overlap with existing Wikipedia articles. Therefore using the term sister-project is IMHO wrong, and calling it a "partial fork" is much closer to reality.
best regards, Marco _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Which wikipedia articles are you talking about? en:articles de:articles ? Should nl: articles not be written because they have an overlap with de: or en:? WikiSpecies will if anything provide a resource for all wikipedia.
Thanks, GerardM
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Which wikipedia articles are you talking about? en:articles de:articles ? Should nl: articles not be written because they have an overlap with de: or en:? WikiSpecies will if anything provide a resource for all wikipedia.
Sister projects are Wikipedia-Wikisource-Wikiquote-Wikibooks-Wictionary. The different languages have nothing to do with sister projects, every one of the project may be available in different languages.
The Wikispecies has overlap with both the Wikipedia and Wikisource project. The problems I see so far: - The plain language description, photos, range maps, taxonomic classification are territory covered by Wikipedia - The original description of the taxon like the one you posted in another thread, as well as a (complete) list of references would not fit into a the Wikipedia, such better fit into something like Wikisource - For obscure taxons the Wikispecies article would only contain such source information, in Wikipedia it'd be something like a stub without any hope of growing (until someone researches that taxon), thus it'd clutter the database and might be better as a redirect to the upper-level taxon. - Something similar applies to one-child taxons like living fossils, where a species is is only one of a family. All the upper level taxons only have the taxonomic data as contents. - And we have the searching enhancements which are specially needed for the taxnomic database to be useful for professional use. It might be possible to generalize them to make them usable outside the ToL-articles, so no harm in creating them in Wikipedia as well. - At least in some languages it has fixed common names assigned to a species (or higher taxons). Yet in Wikipedia we can only use those for interwiki links once it already has the target article - an ugly way to put them into the article before would be interwiki-links hidden by HTML-comments.
I second Mavs concerns about forking, yet including all of the Wikispecies contents (as I understand it) into Wikipedia would be stretching the rules as well. One possible (but not really beautiful) way I could see is to put the source and database stuff into the separate Wikispecies, but put the plain text stuff and basic in Wikipedia - and of course closely link the two.
However I am not sure if this discussion in the mailing list is really the best place - meta might be better. Not all ToL contributors, especially not those from the other languages, are ready the mailing list.
[[User:Ahoerstemeier]]
--- Gerard Meijssen gja.meijssen@chello.nl wrote:
Which wikipedia articles are you talking about? en:articles de:articles ? Should nl: articles not be written because they have an overlap with de: or en:? WikiSpecies will if anything provide a resource for all wikipedia.
Ergo the proposal to put taxoboxes and other shared data on Wikimedia Commons.
-- mav
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Marco Krohn wrote:
The proposed project "wikispecies" will have a huge overlap with existing Wikipedia articles. Therefore using the term sister-project is IMHO wrong, and calling it a "partial fork" is much closer to reality.
Just to clarify, I think that wikispecies is not overlapping with the encyclopedia in any significant way, that it is not a fork, that it is a perfectly appropriate use of our resources, and that this discussion should end pretty soon.
A species database is just a different kind of reference work than a general interest encyclopedia. This is not materially different from efforts at wikibooks, wiktionary, etc., to generate other kinds of reference works.
By supporting Benedikt Mandl's proposal in-house, rather than being persnickity and forcing him to go outside for support, we guarantee such things as long-term software and content compatibility, etc.
When fully developed, a wikispecies directory will be a delightful resource work as a standalone *and* a nice foundation for *some* encyclopedia articles. But the two are not identical.
--Jimbo
--- "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Marco Krohn wrote:
The proposed project "wikispecies" will have a huge overlap with existing Wikipedia articles. Therefore using the term sister-project is IMHO wrong, and calling it a "partial fork" is much closer to reality.
Just to clarify, I think that wikispecies is not overlapping with the encyclopedia in any significant way, that it is not a fork, that it is a perfectly appropriate use of our resources, and that this discussion should end pretty soon.
How the hell is it not a fork?! Have you been reading this discussion? Esp important has been talk about how to incorporate the database functions into MediaWiki so that everything Wikispecies-type functions could be performed. Use of the upcoming Wikimedia Commons to store such data was also a great idea.
A species database is just a different kind of reference work than a general interest encyclopedia. This is not materially different from efforts at wikibooks, wiktionary, etc., to generate other kinds of reference works.
None of the data proposed to go into this fork could not be incorporated into existing Wikimedia projects.
By supporting Benedikt Mandl's proposal in-house, rather than being persnickity and forcing him to go outside for support, we guarantee such things as long-term software and content compatibility, etc.
If in-house means within existing projects, then yes I agree.
When fully developed, a wikispecies directory will be a delightful resource work as a standalone *and* a nice foundation for *some* encyclopedia articles. But the two are not identical.
Our current category system could be extended to create such a directory *within* Wikipedia. Dividing our biology contributor base between two separate projects that have a great deal of overlap is a HUGE mistake.
-- Daniel
_______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win 1 of 4,000 free domain names from Yahoo! Enter now. http://promotions.yahoo.com/goldrush
Dividing our biology contributor base between two separate projects that have a great deal of overlap is a HUGE mistake. >
-- Daniel
I think you made your point very clear in several e-mails and there are other people who support your point of view - but on the other hand I think it has become obvious that a big number of people supports the wikiSpecies. Your arguments didn't convince them and repeating them again and again won't change that.
WikiSpecies will evolve. I understand your worries and will respect them, please respect other people's ambitions to create wikiSpecies.
Benedikt
--- Benedikt Mandl benedikt.mandl@gmx.at wrote:
Dividing our biology contributor base between two separate projects that have a great deal of overlap is a HUGE mistake. >
-- Daniel
I think you made your point very clear in several e-mails and there are other people who support your point of view - but on the other hand I think it has become obvious that a big number of people supports the wikiSpecies. Your arguments didn't convince them and repeating them again and again won't change that.
Neither will repeating of your same arguments. It is you who want to do something new, so the onus of proof is on you, not me.
WikiSpecies will evolve. I understand your worries and will respect them, please respect other people's ambitions to create wikiSpecies.
Please respect what work has already been done and improve that instead of forking off functionality that could be used to improve what we already have.
-- mav
_______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win 1 of 4,000 free domain names from Yahoo! Enter now. http://promotions.yahoo.com/goldrush
I wouldn't mind having the current wiki catergory system expanded to include (for biology) the various taxonomic categories of a life-form (Kingdom, Phylum, Sub-phylum....Genus, Species). That would (I think) allow someone to search for a creature or article based on its scientific name. I don't, however see it as dividing the biology base, but rather, allowing them to create a basic directory, which the wikipedia expounds upon, with links from the wikispecies article on, say, felis domesticus [having basic scientific information], linking to the wikipedia article for more prosaic style, distribution around the world, role in mythology, cat-worship in ancient Egypt, etc.
James
-----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Daniel Mayer Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2004 11:57 AM To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] What is the purpose of this mailing list ??
--- "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" jwales@wikia.com wrote:
[[snip]]
When fully developed, a wikispecies directory will be a delightful resource work as a standalone *and* a nice foundation for *some* encyclopedia articles. But the two are not identical.
Our current category system could be extended to create such a directory *within* Wikipedia. Dividing our biology contributor base between two separate projects that have a great deal of overlap is a HUGE mistake.
-- Daniel
_______________________________ 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
--- "James R. Johnson" modean52@comcast.net wrote:
I wouldn't mind having the current wiki catergory system expanded to include (for biology) the various taxonomic categories of a life-form (Kingdom, Phylum, Sub-phylum....Genus, Species). That would (I think) allow someone to search for a creature or article based on its scientific name. I don't, however see it as dividing the biology base, but rather, allowing them to create a basic directory, which the wikipedia expounds upon, with links from the wikispecies article on, say, felis domesticus [having basic scientific information], linking to the wikipedia article for more prosaic style, distribution around the world, role in mythology, cat-worship in ancient Egypt, etc.
The "science stuff" needs to be part of the Wikipedia article as well. This makes Wikispecies redundant.
-- Daniel
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Daniel Mayer wrote:
--- "James R. Johnson" modean52@comcast.net wrote:
I wouldn't mind having the current wiki catergory system expanded to include (for biology) the various taxonomic categories of a life-form (Kingdom, Phylum, Sub-phylum....Genus, Species). That would (I think) allow someone to search for a creature or article based on its scientific name. I don't, however see it as dividing the biology base, but rather, allowing them to create a basic directory, which the wikipedia expounds upon, with links from the wikispecies article on, say, felis domesticus [having basic scientific information], linking to the wikipedia article for more prosaic style, distribution around the world, role in mythology, cat-worship in ancient Egypt, etc.
The "science stuff" needs to be part of the Wikipedia article as well. This makes Wikispecies redundant.
I think the point is that yes, we can include everything into wikipedia, but then we'll have * normal people bored and scared away by a flood of dull data * scientists (who are to be considered borderline-normal people;-) taking their field so seriously that they'll simply refuse to work on an article about cats that links to [[catwoman]]
The proposed solution therefore is * let normal people have their encyclopedia article, with an "in-house" link to the dull, boring flood of data at wikispecies * let scientists work on the cool, exciting data at wikispecies, amongst their own where they are comfortable, and provide a link to the "other stuff" at wikipedia
Magnus
--- Magnus Manske magnus.manske@web.de wrote:
I think the point is that yes, we can include everything into wikipedia, but then we'll have
- normal people bored and scared away by a flood of dull data
- scientists (who are to be considered borderline-normal people;-)
taking their field so seriously that they'll simply refuse to work on an article about cats that links to [[catwoman]]
This is already taken care of through the use of summaries linked to more detailed articles on the topic. For example all the [[Geology of ...]] articles I've been created for geographic areas. There is *no* reason why [[Biology of ...]] articles cannot also be created and in fact there are already many [[evolution of ...]] articles.
The proposed solution therefore is
- let normal people have their encyclopedia article, with an "in-house"
link to the dull, boring flood of data at wikispecies
As Jimbo's example clearly shows it is not just data but prose as well. This detail should be in Wikipedia. If any part of an article is too detailed, then it should be summarized and spun off into a daughter article. This is done all the time and is the natural way to deal with our differing audiences.
- let scientists work on the cool, exciting data at wikispecies, amongst
their own where they are comfortable, and provide a link to the "other stuff" at wikipedia
Draw scientists away from Wikipedia you mean.
-- mav
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Daniel Mayer wrote:
--- Magnus Manske magnus.manske@web.de wrote:
- let scientists work on the cool, exciting data at wikispecies, amongst
their own where they are comfortable, and provide a link to the "other stuff" at wikipedia
Draw scientists away from Wikipedia you mean.
Yes, I would rather draw scientists to a wikipedia sister project within the wikimedia realm than see them repelled by "cat religion" stuff and don't work on species in a free wiki project at all.
For the record, yes, there are several scientists who work on wikipedia and are not scared away (myself included). But, at the moment, they are the minority of the scientific community. If we can attract the "remaining" majority to a wikispecies project, they might, in time, start working on wikipedia as well. Most of them will *not* directly jump on the wikipedia bandwagon.
Magnus
--- Magnus Manske magnus.manske@web.de wrote:
Daniel Mayer wrote: Yes, I would rather draw scientists to a wikipedia sister project within the wikimedia realm than see them repelled by "cat religion" stuff and don't work on species in a free wiki project at all.
For the record, yes, there are several scientists who work on wikipedia and are not scared away (myself included). But, at the moment, they are the minority of the scientific community. If we can attract the "remaining" majority to a wikispecies project, they might, in time, start working on wikipedia as well. Most of them will *not* directly jump on the wikipedia bandwagon.
Creating good content will attract more, not starting over. We have already established that this would be a fork and nothing in this proposed project could not be put into Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Commons.
-- mav
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Daniel Mayer wrote:
Dividing our biology contributor base between two separate projects that have a great deal of overlap is a HUGE mistake.
* Biology is a little more than a species directory :-) * We (wikipedians) can directly incorporate data from the big data dump that wikispecies will become, where demmed appropriate * _If_ it turns out that we have a huge overlap, wikispecies can be integrated into wikipedia at any point, if there is consensus
IMHO there's a chance for a development boost in this project. Think of it as an evolutionary step. We had a mutation step from HTML to wiki, where the wikipedia and its software have become a very successful model. The wikispecies project, however, has demands that are a little different from "normal" wikis and wikipedia. We have a chance to introduce new functionalities (database-like functions, tree diagrams) and smoothen the old ones (categories, templates) into the software on a "blank page" testing field. They will be in the MediaWiki software and in the pages. Once these have stabelized and proven useful, we can take these successful concepts back to wikipedia, and some day, maybe the contents as well, if we (people in both projects!) see fit.
Magnus
Magnus Manske a écrit:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
Dividing our biology contributor base between two separate projects that have a great deal of overlap is a HUGE mistake.
- Biology is a little more than a species directory :-)
- We (wikipedians) can directly incorporate data from the big data dump
that wikispecies will become, where demmed appropriate
- _If_ it turns out that we have a huge overlap, wikispecies can be
integrated into wikipedia at any point, if there is consensus
IMHO there's a chance for a development boost in this project. Think of it as an evolutionary step. We had a mutation step from HTML to wiki, where the wikipedia and its software have become a very successful model. The wikispecies project, however, has demands that are a little different from "normal" wikis and wikipedia. We have a chance to introduce new functionalities (database-like functions, tree diagrams) and smoothen the old ones (categories, templates) into the software on a "blank page" testing field. They will be in the MediaWiki software and in the pages. Once these have stabelized and proven useful, we can take these successful concepts back to wikipedia, and some day, maybe the contents as well, if we (people in both projects!) see fit.
Magnus
I totally agree with Magnus on this. I also think it is important that mediawiki develops not to be used by wikipedia only.
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales 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?
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.
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.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
[Tiger/Great White Shark]
To be fair though, those ultra-well-known animals are the exception rather than the rule.
To pick a more typical example at random from Josh Grosse's recent contributions page - how should wikimedia treat ''Naegleria fowleri''?
Pete/Pcb21 wrote:
To pick a more typical example at random from Josh Grosse's recent contributions page - how should wikimedia treat ''Naegleria fowleri''?
In a fully comprehensive and encyclopedic manner including adherence to NPOV and links to relevant other areas of knowledge that may interest the reader.
If Naegleria fowleri makes an appearance on The Simpsons as a dancing mailman from Perth, Australia, we should discuss that in the encyclopedia article, although such a fact ought to be omitted from a scientific reference work.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Wikispecies is a species directory; these are not the same thing.
--Jimbo
--- "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Wikispecies is a species directory; these are not the same thing.
And yet the only example you have given shows fairly clearly that that info should be in Wikipedia. Directory structures can and should be developed through the use of categories.
-- mav
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
--- "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" jwales@wikia.com 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.
Jimbo - *all* the info at http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.cfm?genusname=Carcharodon&... should be in our corresponding Wikipedia article (along with the other stuff you mention). *Why* in the world would we want to 1) Not have that info in Wikipedia but have it it a separate project 2) Have it in both places and thus have to maintain it in both places
The "general purpose" aspect of Wikipedia in reality means that we have a great deal of info on various different aspects of a single topic. There is zero reason to have a specialized project when specialized info is already most welcome in Wikipedia (usually in the form of summaries that lead to more detailed treatments on separate articles).
Every example I've seen about what the entries in this proposed fork will consist of could be incorporated into one of more current (or in the case of Wikimedia Commons) planned Wikimedia projects.
-- mav
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Daniel Mayer wrote:
Jimbo - *all* the info at http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.cfm?genusname=Carcharodon&... should be in our corresponding Wikipedia article (along with the other stuff you mention).
Absolutely.
*Why* in the world would we want to
- Not have that info in Wikipedia but have it it a separate project
I don't think anyone has suggested that we should not have such information in Wikipedia. We should.
- Have it in both places and thus have to maintain it in both places
This is clearly a point against WikiSpecies, but I don't find it a very compelling point. The kind of scientific information in WikiSpecies does not change that rapidly for most species, and in any event, it will be very simple for contributors to copy from one resource to the other...
It is important to understand that we don't control the question of whether or not WikiSpecies will exist. It will. We can either do it in-house, in which case the task of updating from one to the other can be greatly simplified by software and common culture (i.e. Wikispecies contributors will be Wikimedians, we will all know each other, we can find common solutions).
There is zero reason to have a specialized project when specialized info is already most welcome in Wikipedia (usually in the form of summaries that lead to more detailed treatments on separate articles).
We have testimony from biologists who are eager to work on the project that they would find it useful. Presumably, they understand that a general purpose encyclopedia will cover much of the same ground and more besides. It's just a different _kind_ of work, with a different _purpose_ and a different _audience_.
Every example I've seen about what the entries in this proposed fork will consist of could be incorporated into one of more current (or in the case of Wikimedia Commons) planned Wikimedia projects.
Is wiktionary a fork because the content in wiktionary could be incorporated into wikipedia? I don't see how. It's a different sort of work, and it is valuable *even if* we could legitimately have a full encyclopedia article about every word in every language, including such information as etymology, pronunciations, etc.
--Jimbo
--- "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" jwales@wikia.com wrote:
- Have it in both places and thus have to maintain it in both places
This is clearly a point against WikiSpecies, but I don't find it a very compelling point. The kind of scientific information in WikiSpecies does not change that rapidly for most species, and in any event, it will be very simple for contributors to copy from one resource to the other...
That is a fork! You have stated several times that you would not support internal forks of Wikimedia projects. Why in the world are you moving from that position? Forks divide the userbase between two different projects, meaning that updates to one will have to be propagated to the other. But this will not always happen and if it does it takes time - time that could have been spent improving more content.
It is important to understand that we don't control the question of whether or not WikiSpecies will exist. It will. We can either do it in-house, in which case the task of updating from one to the other can be greatly simplified by software and common culture (i.e. Wikispecies contributors will be Wikimedians, we will all know each other, we can find common solutions).
What kind of logic is that? What we need to do is improve our software and use the Wikimedia Commons so that the functions that the Wikispecies people want to do can be done *without* creating a fork.
We have testimony from biologists who are eager to work on the project that they would find it useful. Presumably, they understand that a general purpose encyclopedia will cover much of the same ground and more besides. It's just a different _kind_ of work, with a different _purpose_ and a different _audience_.
What? The content will be the same and Wikipedia's audience is already everybody. There is no justification for a fork. None.
Is wiktionary a fork because the content in wiktionary could be incorporated into wikipedia? I don't see how. It's a different sort of work, and it is valuable *even if* we could legitimately have a full encyclopedia article about every word in every language, including such information as etymology, pronunciations, etc.
See my other email about how that is a total and irrelevant strawman. It also directly contradicts something you just said a few posts ago: that Wikipedia wants to have articles on every single species (something I agree with - although many will be combined into genus articles).
-- mav
_______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win 1 of 4,000 free domain names from Yahoo! Enter now. http://promotions.yahoo.com/goldrush
On Wednesday 25 August 2004 18:16, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
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
Jimbo, I don't consider this as a strong indication that there is much overlap between wikitionary and wikipedia. We are not talking about article _names_, but about the _content_ of the articles. If you compare the content they are not even close to being similar. A small correction in the Wikipedia article about "economics" would in 99% of the cases not lead to a need to correct the corresponding article in wiktionary and vice versa.
For other articles this is even more obvious, e.g.,
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Building http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building
which is just one example from about 10 articles I compared.
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.
Agreed, but as Pete already pointed out these are just "those ultra-well-known animals". This is nothing against the ten-thousands of articles we talk about and which we need to keep in sync in case of a partial-fork.
IMHO a closer comparison than a sister-project is another language, like "en" and "de". But this time the difference is that we risk to lose a lot or even all experts of the field to a more specialized project. I don't see who then will sync these articles with Wikipedias. And I don't see why we should duplicate effort before we are sure that there is no way around it. I would much prefer a technical solution, where our user base is not forked.
The only argument I consider valid so far in favour of wikispecies is that a spezialized project could attract more experts from the field in a shorter time frame. This is probably true for every subproject, like physics, mathematics and so on. And I already can see that wikispecies will eventually divide into more subprojects using the same arguments. I really am not sure if such a fragmentation is a good thing.
best regards, Marco
--- Marco Krohn marco.krohn@web.de wrote:
Jimbo, I don't consider this as a strong indication that there is much overlap between wikitionary and wikipedia. We are not talking about article _names_, but about the _content_ of the articles. If you compare the content they are not even close to being similar. A small correction in the Wikipedia article about "economics" would in 99% of the cases not lead to a need to correct the
Exactly my point that this was a total strawman.
IMHO a closer comparison than a sister-project is another language, like "en" and "de". But this time the difference is that we risk to lose a lot or even all experts of the field to a more specialized project. I don't see who then will sync these articles with Wikipedias. And I don't see why we should duplicate effort before we are sure that there is no way around it. I would much prefer a technical solution, where our user base is not forked.
Great point. There is no reason to create a fork since that would divert development effort away from Wikipedia and other existing Wikimedia projects.
-- mav
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
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
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
When fully developed, a wikispecies directory will be a delightful resource work as a standalone *and* a nice foundation for *some* encyclopedia articles. But the two are not identical.
The Tree of Life project's aim has always been to write about all species. I think that ambitious aim has been part of the reason for its success in becoming the largest wikiproject (tens of thousands of articles), with the most contributors.
I am personally disappointed that you want to put a stop to that - presumably coming up with some guideline so that *some* species are allowed articles, but not all.
It also rides against the overwhelming consensus of this thread, as mentioned in my other post. Whatever their position on wikispecies, on-one has suggested crippling wikipedia.
Pete/Pcb21
Pete/Pcb21 wrote:
The Tree of Life project's aim has always been to write about all species. I think that ambitious aim has been part of the reason for its success in becoming the largest wikiproject (tens of thousands of articles), with the most contributors.
I fully support this, as I think it is an absolutely excellent thing to be doing.
I am personally disappointed that you want to put a stop to that - presumably coming up with some guideline so that *some* species are allowed articles, but not all.
Huh? Why would we put a stop to that? Why would we come up with guidelines to prohibit some species from wikipedia? I do not support any such thing.
It also rides against the overwhelming consensus of this thread, as mentioned in my other post. Whatever their position on wikispecies, on-one has suggested crippling wikipedia.
Especially not me! I wonder if you misunderstood something I said, because I absolutely agree that Wikipedia and the Tree of Life project should have a very ambitious goal of every species.
If anything, it makes more sense to say that I think that WikiSpecies should be "crippled" in that it should not have references to Tigger and Jaws, because it is not a general encyclopedic reference work but a specialized database. But I don't accept that this amounts to "crippling" anymore than wiktionary is crippled by our insisting that a dictionary is not an encyclopedia.
--Jimbo
Mav is right about wikispecies, and I propose also that we should say his logic should apply to wiktionary. We don't need a wiktionary, since all that information is in the wikipedia already. It's a duplication of efforts, and dilutes our efforts and contributors's time. Let's get rid of it.
James
PS - I'm joking
-----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2004 1:30 PM To: wpmail@pcbartlett.com; wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: What is the purpose of this mailing list ??
Pete/Pcb21 wrote:
The Tree of Life project's aim has always been to write about all species. I think that ambitious aim has been part of the reason for its success in becoming the largest wikiproject (tens of thousands of articles), with the most contributors.
I fully support this, as I think it is an absolutely excellent thing to be doing.
I am personally disappointed that you want to put a stop to that - presumably coming up with some guideline so that *some* species are allowed articles, but not all.
Huh? Why would we put a stop to that? Why would we come up with guidelines to prohibit some species from wikipedia? I do not support any such thing.
It also rides against the overwhelming consensus of this thread, as mentioned in my other post. Whatever their position on wikispecies, on-one has suggested crippling wikipedia.
Especially not me! I wonder if you misunderstood something I said, because I absolutely agree that Wikipedia and the Tree of Life project should have a very ambitious goal of every species.
If anything, it makes more sense to say that I think that WikiSpecies should be "crippled" in that it should not have references to Tigger and Jaws, because it is not a general encyclopedic reference work but a specialized database. But I don't accept that this amounts to "crippling" anymore than wiktionary is crippled by our insisting that a dictionary is not an encyclopedia.
--Jimbo _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
--- "James R. Johnson" modean52@comcast.net wrote:
Mav is right about wikispecies, and I propose also that we should say his logic should apply to wiktionary. We don't need a wiktionary, since all that information is in the wikipedia already. It's a duplication of efforts, and dilutes our efforts and contributors's time. Let's get rid of it.
That is a total strawman since Wiktionary defines *all* words or *all* languages. There are only a small handful of words in Wikipedia that have articles about them but they are *not* dictionary definitions, they are encyclopedia articles.
Any other weak arguments?
-- Marv
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Jimmy (Jimbo Wales originally wrote:
a wikispecies directory will be a delightful resource work as a standalone *and* a nice foundation for *some* encyclopedia articles. But the two are not identical.
Hmm, I think I mis-parsed this original comment. I took it to mean that only *some* wikispecies articles could be imported on Wikipedia, and that others should not be. Your next response makes clear that it is not what you meant. Sorry about that.
However as you have said to mav, all the information in a typical fishbase entry would be welcome information on the equivalent WP entry. Here you've said that every species would be welcome.
Thus this means that *all data* in a wikispecies project is ripe for inclusion on WP. Hence wikispecies is effectively a subset of WP - that is much much more of an overlap than the limited overlap between wiktionary and wikipedia!
Thus wikispecies is essentially about providing a different layout or "skin", and omitting some "pop culture"-style information.
With all this in mind, I think it is obvious why mav (strongly) and I (cautiously) have been ranting on about the dangers of two databases and duplicated effort. It really does seem to me that *some* solution along the lines of "one data, two display filters" is the way to go.
Having the common data (taxobox info) on WikiCommons with fancy new import capabilities - each project imports in a different way is one appealing suggestion. Making such data language-independent and providing a set of filters
"English Wikipedia filter" "Dutch Wikipedia filter" "Wikispecies scientific filter"
would do wonders for internationalization.
Pete/Pcb21
p.s. I take your point - it is possible that one day Naegleria fowleri will appear on The Simpsons, or perhaps some other popular animated series, but the truth is that for the vast majority of "boring" species (this has got to 99%), the only people interested are scientists, and the only facts known are scientific ones.
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
Pete/Pcb21 wrote:
The Tree of Life project's aim has always been to write about all species. I think that ambitious aim has been part of the reason for its success in becoming the largest wikiproject (tens of thousands of articles), with the most contributors.
I fully support this, as I think it is an absolutely excellent thing to be doing.
I am personally disappointed that you want to put a stop to that - presumably coming up with some guideline so that *some* species are allowed articles, but not all.
Huh? Why would we put a stop to that? Why would we come up with guidelines to prohibit some species from wikipedia? I do not support any such thing.
It also rides against the overwhelming consensus of this thread, as mentioned in my other post. Whatever their position on wikispecies, on-one has suggested crippling wikipedia.
Especially not me! I wonder if you misunderstood something I said, because I absolutely agree that Wikipedia and the Tree of Life project should have a very ambitious goal of every species.
If anything, it makes more sense to say that I think that WikiSpecies should be "crippled" in that it should not have references to Tigger and Jaws, because it is not a general encyclopedic reference work but a specialized database. But I don't accept that this amounts to "crippling" anymore than wiktionary is crippled by our insisting that a dictionary is not an encyclopedia.
--Jimbo
--- Marco Krohn marco.krohn@web.de wrote:
On Wednesday 25 August 2004 11:05, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
*WikiSpecies will be a sister-project and as such it is not for this mailing list to decide what is going to happen.
up to now a Wikipedia sister-project meant that its content is (mostly) disjoint with the content of any other Wikipedia project. That means that an article is either in A or in B (or = exclusive or).
The proposed project "wikispecies" will have a huge overlap with existing Wikipedia articles. Therefore using the term sister-project is IMHO wrong, and calling it a "partial fork" is much closer to reality.
Exactly. What we need to do is add database functionality to our current projects. This is already badly needed.
-- mav
_______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win 1 of 4,000 free domain names from Yahoo! Enter now. http://promotions.yahoo.com/goldrush
--- Gerard Meijssen gerardm@myrealbox.com wrote:
Therefore I fail to see why the ToL, which is an en: resource, would serve as reason _not_ to start WikiSpecies. When people think that it takes away from the ToL, they fail to consider that the effort that goes into WikiSpecies may not be effort that does not go into en: but that it may take effort away from nl: or de: or fr:
Many different Wikipedia language versions have their own ToL WikiProject. What we need is something that has all the supposed benefits of Wikispecies but none of the disadvantages. The most recent discussion has been moving in this direction.
Conclusion: *The arguments against are en: based have little or no relevance to other wikipedia and are, because of its purpose, of litle relevance to this list.
Wrong. See above.
*WikiSpecies will be a sister-project and as such it is not for this mailing list to decide what is going to happen.
It is a fork of a very large part of Wikipedia, so it is *most* relevant.
*The danger of forking outside Wikimedia is real, this to happen is the worst case scenario, because it will mean that a potentially valuable resource will be lost to all wikipedia not just to en:.
Wrong again. We want to improve Wikipedia so that it has many of the functions that a separate project would have without forking our own content. What others do is beyond our control but what *we* do is not.
-- Daniel
_______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win 1 of 4,000 free domain names from Yahoo! Enter now. http://promotions.yahoo.com/goldrush
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org