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