[Taxacom] iSpecies with Wikipedia

[Roderic Page]

Dear Andy,


On 26 Mar 2008, at 00:44, Andy Mabbett wrote:

>>
>>
>> I may add Flickr, but not Bioimages. I need APIs, and Bioimages
>> doesn't have one, which is why I use Yahoo image search. IMHO this is
>> the big obstacle to mashing up data -- the lack of web services.
>
> Again; fair enough (but see my penultimate comment, below).
>
> You could perhaps add a section for links to "third part sites" and
> include Bioimages in that.

I much prefer to have links that I know will return something.  
iSpecies is not a web directory, it's aim is to aggregate and  
redisplay information.

>
>>> Other possible links would be to the relevant entry on The National
>>> Biodiversity Network's Species Dictionary:
>
>>> and WikiSpecies:
>
>> Wikispecies is almost useless, and I don't want to make "blind   
>> links".
>
> How so? Do you think it is flawed, or just too incomplete?

Flawed because it isn't clearly separated from Wikipedia (which has  
greater traction), has a bizarre classification, and is demonstrably  
incomplete.

>
>>> I've mentioned the species microformat previously; it would be
>>> appreciated if you could also use that in your pages. Again, I'm  
>>> happy
>>> to advise further.
>>>
>>
>> Not yet convinced these are useful.
>
> Well, for one thing, they enable mash-ups without the need for an API,
> solving your previous dilemma!

I still would much rather have an API that returns XML or JSON,  
rather than extract tags from HTML.

Regards

Rod


----------------------------------------
Professor Roderic D. M. Page
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DEEB, IBLS
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