[Wikipedia-l] Re: Not a fork!

[Mirko Thiessen]

Daniel Mayer wrote:

> Then what the hell is this:

> http://species.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification

> Looks like a fork of the English Wikipedia's article on scientific
> classification to me.


Of course things like that may happen as everyone is allowed to edit 
there. I guess the author of that article just was not aware of what the 
page should be about. When wikispecies is finally set up things like that 
are likely to be deleted.

My interest in such a project is setting up a species directory linking to 
all the language editions of the Wikipedia. Jimbo formulated a non-forking 
policy guideline and I have a great interest as well that the project 
won't have any overlapping with Wikipedia. I am active in the German 
Wikipedia and worked on several hundred animal articles there, and that 
will remain my main activity. If I would suspect the project of becoming a 
Bio-Wikipedia or something like that I would immediately vote to suspend 
the project. But now it is intended to work within Wikispecies on a 
concept for the project in order to not become a fork. Until then, I 
wouldn't take articles by single individuals (like the "Classification" 
article) seriously.

Benedikt Mandl is not a Wikipedian, but there are many long-time 
contributors to Wikipedia interested in the Wikispecies project. Do you 
think that they all want to damage Wikipedia? I believe that Wikispecies 
could work for the benefit of Wikipedia if it is done right. Otherwise I 
would never consider working on it.


Mirko