Wikispecies is a

wiki A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or l ...

-based online project supported by the

Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (WMF) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, and registered there as foundation (United States law), a charitable foundation. It is the host of Wikipedia, th ...

. Its aim is to create a comprehensive

open content Free content, libre content, libre information, or free information is any kind of creative work, such as a work of art, a book, a software, software program, or any other creative Media (communication), content for which there are very minimal ...

catalogue of all

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

; the project is directed at scientists, rather than at the general public.

Jimmy Wales Jimmy Donal Wales (born August 7, 1966), also known as Jimbo Wales, is an American List of Internet entrepreneurs, Internet entrepreneur and former Trader (finance), financial trader. He is a Founders of Wikipedia, co-founder of the non-profi ...

stated that editors are not required to

fax Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (short for telefacsimile), is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a printer or other out ...

in their degrees, but that submissions will have to pass muster with a technical audience. Wikispecies is available under the

GNU Free Documentation License The GNU Free Documentation License (GNU FDL or GFDL) is a copyleft license for free documentation, designed by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for the GNU Project. It is similar to the GNU General Public License, giving readers the rights ...

and

CC BY-SA 4.0 A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work". A CC license is used when an author wants to give other people the right to share, use, and bui ...

. Started in September 2004, with

biologist A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual Cell (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...

s around the world invited to contribute, the project had grown to a framework encompassing the

Linnaean taxonomy Linnaean taxonomy can mean either of two related concepts: # The particular form of biological classification (taxonomy) set up by Carl Linnaeus, as set forth in his ''Systema Naturae'' (1735) and subsequent works. In the taxonomy of Linnaeus th ...

with links to

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...

articles on individual species by April 2005.

History

Benedikt Mandl coordinated the efforts of several people who were interested in getting involved with the project and contacted potential supporters in the early summer of 2004. Databases were evaluated and the administrators contacted; some of them have agreed on providing their data for Wikispecies. Mandl defined two major tasks: # Figure out how the contents of the data base would need to be presented—by asking experts, potential non-professional users and comparing that with existing databases # Figure out how to do the software, which hardware is required and how to cover the costs—by asking experts, looking for fellow volunteers and potential sponsors Advantages and disadvantages were widely discussed by the wikimedia-I mailing list. The board of directors of the

voted by 4 to 0 in favor of the establishment of Wikispecies. The project was launched in August 2004 and is hosted at species.wikimedia.org. It was officially merged into a sister project of the Wikimedia Foundation on September 14, 2004. * On October 10, 2006, the project exceeded 75,000 articles. * On May 20, 2007, the project exceeded 100,000 articles * On September 8, 2008, the project exceeded 150,000 articles * On October 23, 2011, the project reached 300,000 articles. * On June 16, 2014, the project reached 400,000 articles. * On January 7, 2017, the project reached 500,000 articles. * On October 30, 2018, the project reached 600,000 articles, and a total of 1.12 million pages. * On December 8, 2019, the project reached 700,000 articles, and a total of 1.33 million pages. * On January 8, 2021, the project reached 750,000 articles, and a total of 1.5 million pages. * On April 16, 2022, the project reached 800,000 articles, and a total of 1.67 million pages. * On September 17, 2023, the project reached 850,000 articles, and a total of 1.87 million pages. * On January 17, 2025, the project reached 900,000 articles, and a total of 2.03 million pages. As a database for taxonomy and nomenclature, Wikispecies comprises taxon pages, and additionally pages about synonyms, taxon authorities, taxonomical publications, type material, and institutions or repositories holding type specimen.

Policies

Wikispecies has disabled local upload and asks users to use images from

Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons, or simply Commons, is a wiki-based Digital library, media repository of Open content, free-to-use images, sounds, videos and other media. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation. Files from Wikimedia Commons can be used ...

. Wikispecies does not allow the use of content that does not conform to a free license.

References

External links

* {{Wikimedia Foundation Biodiversity databases Biology websites Botanical nomenclature Internet properties established in 2004 Multilingual websites Phylogenetics Taxonomy (biology) Wikimedia projects Zoological nomenclature Creative Commons-licensed websites

History

Policies

See also

References

External links