[Taxacom] Google, Wikipedia, and Fungi

[Stephen Thorpe]

Hi Cyndy,

>Is there a problem with inviting the scientific community to be involved in the process of sharing that knowledge?
No (but see below*)
>There is no reason why compilers of knowledge on either Wikipedia or EOL can't be the generators of that knowledge
I agree, and I didn't (mean to) suggest otherwise! What I did say was that if generators of knowledge are wearing their compilers of knowledge hats, then they are out of a context in which there are any issues relevant to intellectual property rights. However, you go on to say:
>EOL sensu stricto is not designed to be a forum for new and unpublished information, though I for one am open to that
I think you are being a bit vague about an issue of considerable importance. End users will see EOL as a far more attractive proposition (more so than Wiki) if they THINK that it is a forum for new information. I hope you are not being deliberately vague about it in order to make EOL seem more attractive to end users? Surely not! :)

*
>It could also be argued that to deliver a quality product for end users, focus on contribution and curation is necessary
>Is there a problem with inviting the scientific community to be involved in the process of sharing that knowledge?
My suspicion is that EOL is "really" more about supplementing the income of scientists, and less about providing quality product for end users. In my experience, this would not be at all unusual. I am not even suggesting that it is unethical or wrong, and certainly not illegal, though I do personally find some of the propaganda associated with selling such projects to funders and end users to be a little distasteful. I am mainly though just making the point that Wiki, by contrast, is totally about providing quality product to end users.
>I'm not sure how this results in lower information quality
Lower info quality can result from too much of an emphasis on channelling money into the scientific community, and not enough emphasis on quality control (including keeping info up-to-date and FIXING errors). It is a question of relative priorities, that's all.

So, I think EOL needs to be clear about its scope (synthesis of published knowledge, or forum for new knowledge), and not try to sell itself as higher information quality just because the compilers are recognised authorities on the taxonomy of the groups for which they are the compilers, and be honest about the relative difficulty of EOL over Wiki in being able to fix errors and keep things up-to-date. At present, if I browse EOL and other projects like GBIF, I see a complex infrastructure, but (at present, anyway), very little actual information, with most pages being effectively little more than "stubs". Realistically, projects like these will not be trying to become "complete" any time soon, because then most of their staff would no longer have a job! EOL is driven by economic reality, as indeed are most things. The Wikimedia foundation is no different, except that they do not control their content in quite the same way, and the content stands or falls on its intrinsic quality as seen by the community of end users...

Stephen


________________________________________
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Cynthia Parr [parrc at si.edu]
Sent: Friday, 4 September 2009 1:24 a.m.
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Google, Wikipedia, and Fungi

Stephen Thorpe says:

>  The fact that EOL explicitly calls itself an encyclopedia in its name, suggests that this is also the case for EOL.
> However, then I'm confused about you saying things like "those same contributors won't share their knowledge there", > and the relevance of CC licensing. To my mind, what contributors to Wiki or EOL do is compile knowledge that is
> already present (but scattered) in the public domain, not share their own intellectual property. Of course, if EOL is
> actually a forum for scientists to contribute new and unpublished information, that would be a whole different playing
> field altogether! EOL would then become some kind of "open-ended mega-journal".

I'd rather not get into semantic arguments (we're also mulling over
good ways to be "semantic," including adding Andy Mabbett's
microformats!). There is no reason why compilers of knowledge on
either Wikipedia or EOL can't be the generators of that knowledge. At
the same time there's every reason to expect that they often won't be
the generators of that knowledge.  EOL sensu stricto is not designed
to be a forum for new and unpublished information, though I for one am
open to that. There's clearly a vast amount of legacy knowledge still
to be gathered together, some of which is either inaccessible or
non-re-usable by the general public. Is there a problem with inviting
the scientific community to be involved in the process of sharing that
knowledge?

> I am not familiar enough with EOL to be sure how easy it is for anybody who notices an error or ommission to fix or
> flag it.

On EOL problems can be flagged (and commented on, and down-rated, and
hidden), but not fixed. Fixing has to be done at the source. That's
why it would be very cool to have people fixing Wikipedia, with those
fixes reflected on EOL, because it will be much easier than trying to
fix things in members-only databases.

> Clearly, however, the focus of EOL is on the contributors rather than the end users.

This is sort of a chicken and egg thing. It could also be argued that
to deliver a quality product for end users, focus on contribution and
curation is necessary.

 A previous taxacom post by you
> advertised an initiative whereby young, newly appointed scientists are being offered money to contribute to EOL. I am > not suggesting that there is anything inherently wrong with injecting more money into taxonomy by these means, but it > rather does make EOL into a very different beast from Wiki, with LESS (not none, but just less) emphasis on
> information quality for the end user, and more emphasis on injecting money into taxonomy...

Each early career (not necessarily young) applicant has a mentor who
is not early career, and, we hope, the engagement of other scientists
in their research communities. I'm not sure how this results in lower
information quality.Yes, we are investing in taxonomy and other
biodiversity-related sciences. And to those of you who have written,
yes we are seeking funding so we can offer mini-grants to established
scientists, too.

In fact, it would be interesting if someone proposed to spend their
Fellows time fleshing out and editing Wikipedia. Certainly I expect
many proposals to beef up *other* online sources that should be
discoverable via EOL.

We all know that a program like this is just a drop in the bucket. The
vast majority of online information about organisms will continue to
come either from enthusiastic volunteers, the blood-and-sweat of
scientific database builders, and scanning and digitization efforts.

Cyndy

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