On 0, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net scribbled:
Keith Old wrote:
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/05/08/ap3699046.html
In a whale-sized project, the world's scientists plan to compile everything they know about all of Earth's 1.8 million known species and put it all on one Web site, open to everyone.
The effort, called the Encyclopedia of Life, will include species descriptions, pictures, maps, videos, sound, sightings by amateurs, and links to entire genomes and scientific journal papers. Its first pages of information will be shown Wednesday in Washington where the massive effort is being announced by some of the world's leading institutions. The project will take about 10 years to finish.
Two foundations have given $12.5 million to pay for the first 2 1/2 years of the massive effort, but it will be free and accessible to everyone.
I know of one organization that could have done just as well or better for a fraction of the price. :-)
Ec
That's actually a good question. Somone mentioned, I think, that Erik might know why they aren't basing it off WikiSpecies (which I'd heard was remarkably underappreciated and comprehensive).
If they don't have any specific ideological objections, I do hope they use WikiSpecies's database - it always distresses me when I see things like Project Gutenberg and WikiSource: they're doing such similar things, and even with the duplication of work and other inefficiencies, they're already doing great work. Imagine what they could do after they merged!
-- Gwern Inquiring minds want to know.