Wikispecies is a

wiki A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pu ...

-based online project supported by the

Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best kno ...

. Its aim is to create a comprehensive open content catalogue of all

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of ...

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

Jimmy Wales Jimmy Donal Wales (born August 7, 1966), also known on Wikipedia by the pseudonym Jimbo, is an American-British Internet entrepreneur, webmaster, and former financial trader. He is a co-founder of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikip ...

stated that editors are not required to

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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 simply 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 r ...

and

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. 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, a multicellular organism, or a community of interacting populations. They usually speciali ...

s around the world invited to contribute, the project had grown 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 t ...

with links to

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articles on individual species by April 2005.

History

Benedikt Mandl co-ordinated the efforts of several people who are interested in getting involved with the project and contacted potential supporters in early summer 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 to 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 with a total of 5,495 registered users. * On September 8, 2008, the project exceeded 150,000 articles with a total of 9,224 registered users. * 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. 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

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

References

External links

* * Species Community Portal * The Wikispecies Charter, written by Wales. {{Wikimedia Foundation Biodiversity databases Biology websites Botanical nomenclature Internet properties established in 2004 Multilingual websites Phylogenetics Taxonomy (biology) Wikimedia projects Zoological nomenclature Advertising-free websites

History

Policies

See also

References

External links