[Taxacom] Google, Wikipedia, and EOL

Tue Sep 1 20:10:50 CDT 2009

Well, that's 2 potential "one stop shops" already - 3 if you add EOL :)

I still don't see why the wikispecies info cannot be entered directly into Wikipedia - obviously with the Danaus case mentioned and many many others, it is already happening. Perhaps I am missing something crucial here.

Regards - Tony

-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Thorpe [mailto:s.thorpe at auckland.ac.nz] 
Sent: Wednesday, 2 September 2009 10:17 AM
To: Rees, Tony (CMAR, Hobart); dyanega at ucr.edu; TAXACOM at MAILMAN.NHM.KU.EDU
Subject: RE: [Taxacom] Google, Wikipedia, and EOL

Hi all,
Wikispecies is "the place" for information on classification, nomenclature, references, and links to other sites. Wikipedia is "the place" for encyclopedic content, but needs to be coordinated with Wikispecies classification and nomenclature. As for links, they are easily added to Wiki pages, for example check below the references on the page http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Alloptidae , there are links to "Joel Hallan's Biology catalog", AFD, and GBIF. There is nothing on this family on EOL or TOL. All these links have poorer quality info than the Wikispecies pages.
Cheers,
Stephen

________________________________________
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Tony.Rees at csiro.au [Tony.Rees at csiro.au]
Sent: Wednesday, 2 September 2009 12:01 p.m.
To: dyanega at ucr.edu; TAXACOM at MAILMAN.NHM.KU.EDU
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Google, Wikipedia, and EOL

Hi all,

More impressive again (from a taxonomic viewpoint) is the entry at genus level, with the extensive synonymies for genera and species, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danaus_(genus) . However this does raise a few relevant questions, including:

- most of the latter content is stated to be sourced from another site, Nymphalidae.net, presumably via extensive manual re-working either re-keying, copy-and-paste, or a combination of the two)

- a lot of the latter should arguably be placed on the individual species pages, not on the genus page, or replicated automatically there (which is doubtless not possible owing to the limitations of the free text nature of the content)

- if the higher taxonomy of Danaus is changed, a lot of flow-on manual wiork is currently required to propagate those changes to relevant child taxa (and there is no guarantee that they will be in synch until fixed, if ever).

I think what this is pointing to is that a system that has the advantages of both will be the "killer app", but it is so far missing.

- Tony

-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Doug Yanega
Sent: Wednesday, 2 September 2009 9:44 AM
To: TAXACOM at MAILMAN.NHM.KU.EDU
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Google, Wikipedia, and EOL

Rich Pyle wrote:

>  > I am currently sitting here
>>  putting todays Zootaxa references on Wikispecies, e.g.
>>  http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Arsenurinae#References )
>
>I think this says it all...if, by "putting" you mean typing content on a
>keyboard.  We're moving towards a direction where journals like Zootaxa will
>produce XML output that can be automatically harvested by the likes of EOL,
>following TDWG standards, and put into proper context without a single
>keystroke by any human.  Will Wikispecies or Wikipedia ever be able to
>populate themselves automatically in that fashion?  Will they be able to
>automatically update a piece of metadata for a specimen in my Museum after
>it's been updated on our local server?  I can easily imagine a scenario
>where EOL can do that; but I'm not so sure the Wiki model will work that
>way.
>
>In my mind, efforts like EOL play the role of content
>aggregators/organizers, and Wikixxxx plays the role of providing an
>interface for content that is best added and edited by human fingers on a
>keyboard.

For most people, that extra value-added content that the Wiki allows
and - most importantly - makes easy to view and easy to edit, is
going to make it a lot more useful.

Just compare the entries for the Monarch butterfly in both resources
(I sincerely urge people to do so, so you can form your own opinions):

http://www.eol.org/pages/2922729

versus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarch_%28butterfly%29

Frankly, I think the latter is VASTLY superior - and, relevant to the
present discussion, just look at the taxonomic hierarchy each entry
gives:

EOL:

  Animalia +
     * Arthropoda +
           o Insecta +
                 + Lepidoptera +
                       # Name not in Species 2000 & ITIS Catalogue of
Life: Annual Checklist 2009

[Note: I would imagine that I'm not the only person who finds it
inconceivable that Danaus plexippus does not appear in Species 2000
or ITIS!]

Wikipedia:

Kingdom:        Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class:  Insecta
Order:  Lepidoptera
Superfamily:    Papilionoidea
Family: Nymphalidae
Subfamily:      Danainae
Tribe:  Danaini
Genus:  Danaus Kluk, 1780
Species:        D. plexippus

Binomial name
Danaus plexippus (Linnaeus, 1758)

Synonyms
Danaus archippus (Fabricius, 1793)[1]
Danaus menippe (Hübner, 1816)[2]

Wikipedia also shows a distribution map, indicates the subspecies,
lists adult host plants, talks about the taxonomic and nomenclatural
history (including etymology), and even discusses related species.
None of that appears in EOL. If no one told me which of these
projects was based on volunteer work, I'm afraid I would never
believe the truth. Maybe it's not as bad as comparing a video of a
baking-soda volcano versus the USGS page
(http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/), but still...

It may well be that EOL can have content added automatically, but if
that content is hopelessly skimpy and hard to display, then I'm not
sure what *function* it can serve the user community that Wikipedia
cannot. You raise the issue of specimen metadata - looking at the EOL
entry, I see no specimen metadata linked to Danaus plexippus. Am I
missing something? On the other hand, among the links on Wikipedia
are some that DO display specimen metadata. True, you have to click
on a link to access it, but in EOL you have to click on something to
see ANY information beyond the "introduction". And, speaking of
clicking, just look at how *massively* hyperlinked the text is on
that Wikipedia page: nearly every place name, person name, taxon
name, chemical name, and scientific term is hyperlinked (and,
conversely, there are 124 other Wikipedia pages that link *to* the
Monarch page). EOL will never have that level of functionality. What,
exactly, is EOL realistically ever likely to do *better* than
Wikipedia?

Maybe more to the point, if there are functions that Wikipedia
doesn't perform, like attaching links to XML documents, might it not
be a better investment of time and energy to sit down with the folks
at the Wikimedia Foundation and see if they could be convinced to
accept such auto-links, or whatever other features you think it
needs? After all, WP pages have auto-links to other Wikimedia sources
(e.g., "Wikispecies has information related to: Danaus plexippus" - I
doubt it would be too hard to have a similar box saying "GBIF has
information related to: Danaus plexippus", for example). If they've
got 90% of what you want from an online taxonomic resource, already
in place, then working with them to add some of that missing 10%
would seem an easier and more efficient course than engaging in a
massive - and costly - duplication of effort simply because they
didn't offer *exactly* what you want.

Sincerely,
--

Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314        skype: dyanega
phone: (951) 827-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82

_______________________________________________

Taxacom Mailing List
Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/mailman/listinfo/taxacom

The Taxacom archive going back to 1992 may be searched with either of these methods:

(1) http://taxacom.markmail.org

Or (2) a Google search specified as:  site:mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom  your search terms here

_______________________________________________

Taxacom Mailing List
Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/mailman/listinfo/taxacom

The Taxacom archive going back to 1992 may be searched with either of these methods:

(1) http://taxacom.markmail.org

Or (2) a Google search specified as:  site:mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom  your search terms here