[Taxacom] Completion of 'The Plant List'

[Roderic Page]

Dear Paul,

>
> Either you have not used Wikipedia much or you are very
> unobservant?

I don't think I've been entirely unobservant (e.g., my "Wikipedia as  
an encyclopaedia of life", http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/ 
s13127-010-0028-9, preprint available at http://hdl.handle.net/10101/npre.2010.4242.1 
  ).

I guess we have rather different views on Wikipedia, see also the  
recent news piece in Nature "No rest for the bio-wikis" http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/468359a 
  .

> Even the casual user will have noted that many
> pages with topics that depend on a good photograph or
> illustration do not have this photograph or illustration (or
> a very poor one), because those who hold the rights to such
> material have (wisely) decided not to donate their material
> to all comers, who can then do whatever they like with it.


Wikipedia's licensing isn't quite equivalent to "who can then do  
whatever they like with it". Typically Wikipedia content is available  
under a Creative Commons BY-SA license, which specifically requires  
people making use of that content to:

1. give attribution

2. if they redistribute work based on Wikipedia, they must use the  
same (or compatible license)

You may feel sharing under these conditions is unwise. Under what  
circumstances would you recommend it?

Regards

Rod

---------------------------------------------------------
Roderic Page
Professor of Taxonomy
Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine
College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences
Graham Kerr Building
University of Glasgow
Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK

Email: r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk
Tel: +44 141 330 4778
Fax: +44 141 330 2792
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Home page: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html