[Taxacom] Journal/Wiki publication and dissemination of a new taxon description

[Bob Mesibov]

Lyubo Penev's announcement seems to have gotten buried among the evolution education and odometer georeferencing threads. This is definitely worth a look:

http://www.species-id.net/wiki/Neobidessodes_darwiniensis

One way to see the species-ID wiki is that it's a Wikipedia variant, i.e. a Wikipedia species page with elements of Wikispecies and a lot more detail. Or maybe a vastly improved and liberated EOL page.

The thought that intrigues me is: what a fantastic resource the species-ID pages would now be for the first Linnean species, if only we'd had the Net and digital tools 250 years ago!

<irony>Anyway, since nearly all the world's *important* species are named and properly classified nowadays, we don't really need a species-ID wiki. It would be different if most of the world's *important* species were still undescribed, because we could use a species-ID wiki to build up knowledge about a whole range of new taxa using 'crowd-sourced' information.</irony>
-- 
Dr Robert Mesibov
Honorary Research Associate
Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, and
School of Zoology, University of Tasmania
Home contact: PO Box 101, Penguin, Tasmania, Australia 7316
Ph: (03) 64371195; 61 3 64371195
Webpage: http://www.qvmag.tas.gov.au/?articleID=570