[Foundation-l] Fwd: FishBase and a Wikipedia

[Jelle Zijlstra]

Hello all,

I asked FishBase (http://www.fishbase.org; there are articles about it in 
nl:, en: and de:) to share their data with us to write articles. 

I think we can have a productive cooperation, but I'm not sure yet about the 
exact things. I forward their mail for your information.

Cheers,

Jelle Zijlstra
(Ucucha from nl.wikipedia)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rainer Froese <rfroese at ifm-geomar.de>
Date: Sep 14, 2005 9:34 AM
Subject: RE: FishBase and a Wikipedia
To: jelle.zijlstra at gmail.com
Cc: "Pablico, Grace (WorldFish)" <g.pablico at cgiar.org>, Nicolas Bailly <
n.bailly at cgiar.org>, "Sven Kullander (Sven Kullander)" <ve-sven at nrm.se>, 
"Eli Agbayani (Agbayani, Eli)" <e.agbayani at cgiar.org>, Sven Mohr <
sven.mohr at web.de>

 Dear Jelle S. Zijlstra,

Collaboration between FishBase and Wikipedia is indeed a good idea. As a 
first step we can deep-link from FishBase to all pages in Wikipedia that 
contain information on fishes. All we need for this is a list of the 
scientific names and the respective Wikipedia URLs. We would expect similar 
links from Wikipedia into FishBase. We can provide a respective list of 
scientific names and FishBase URLs. I am not sure how that would then be 
implemented in Wikipedia. Given that we are talking about 29,000 species 
manual editing is not an option.

 A next step would be to create new species pages directly from FishBase as 
new postings in Wikipedia. We can create a routine that would put together 
the respective information. Again I am not sure how that would then be 
incorporated in Wikipedia, as again manual entry is not an option. Maybe you 
can establish contact to colleagues who have direct access to the database 
behind Wikipedia?

 I copy this to some colleagues who may have additional ideas or 
suggestions.

 Greetings

Rainer

 Dr. Rainer Froese
Leibniz-Institut für Meereswissenschaften
IfM-GEOMAR
Düsternbrooker Weg 20
24105 Kiel
Germany
Tel. +49 431 600 4579
Fax +49 431 600 1699
rfroese at ifm-geomar.de
www.fishbase.org <http://www.fishbase.org>
http://filaman.uni-kiel.de/ifm-geomar/rfroese/
 
   -----Original Message-----
*From:* Jelle Zijlstra [mailto:jelle.zijlstra at gmail.com] 
*Posted At:* Saturday, 2005 September 10 3:18 AM
*Posted To:* fishbase_cgiar_org
*Conversation:* FishBase and a Wikipedia
*Subject:* FishBase and a Wikipedia

Hello,

I am user Ucucha from the Dutch Wikipedia (http://nl.wikipedia.org). 
Wikipedia, as you may know, is an online encyclopedia under GNU-FDL that can 
be edited by anyone.

I think we have too few articles about fish in our encyclopedia. I think it 
might be possible to make pages automatically from the FishBase database.

Such a page should not include too much information, I think. A good start 
would be a taxobox (see for example 
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwarte_dwergmeerval), author, distribution, and 
a link to the full record in FishBase.

It's my opinion that this will be good for both FishBase and Wikipedia. For 
FishBase, because this will make FishBase better known under our many 
visitors. For Wikipedia, because it's important for us to have articles 
about all subjects, so that we can cover a broad range of subjects. 
Furthermore, this will make these fish species better known, which is 
probably a common goal of ours, isn't it?

Yours sincerely,

Jelle S. Zijlstra
jelle.zijlstra at gmail.com
Oegstgeest, The Netherlands