[Wikipedia-l] Re: What is the purpose of this mailing list ??

[Stan Shebs]

Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:

>
>To further illustrate the difference, compare:
>http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.cfm?genusname=Carcharodon&speciesname=carcharias
>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