[Wikipedia-l] mail WikiSpecies

[Angela]

The wiki is there to allow discussion to take place and to evolve what
features are needed. Like the Wikimedia Commons, the software does not
yet match what the project needs, but we felt it would be beneficial
to start with a wiki for discussion on the project until the time that
the needed features can be implemented.

This is most definitely not a fork of Wikipedia. Wikispecies is more
about collecting data than writing articles. This data will be saved
in a way that allows all Wikipedias, not just the English one, to use
the data. As a project, Wikispecies has different aims to Wikipedia.
It is aimed at the needs of scientific users rather than general
users. Integrating Wikispecies into Wikimedia prevents a fork.

We believe the project may have a good impact on the way we are
perceived by academics, which according to another thread on this list
right now, a lot of people seem to think would be a good thing.

The board met at the start of this month, and the notes from this
meeting are on Meta and the Foundation wiki. Four members voted to
support the following points:

1.	We set up the WikiSpecies wiki for biologists to begin organizing
the project.
2.	We ask that Benedikt transfer the domain name to Wikimedia.
3.	We propose that as the software is developed, it should work to
strongly support integration with wikipedia, to help avoid duplication
of effort.
4.	We ask the participants on wikispecies to particularly think about
how their work should differ from a generalist encyclopedia

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Board_meetings/5_September_2004

I apologize to those who had not seen the above report already.
Perhaps we need to find a way of ensuring that people who do not
follow either of those wikis are aware of meetings that take place
such as this one.

Angela