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Wikispecies

Wikispecies

URL	http://species.wikimedia.org/
Commercial?	No
Type of site	Species directory
Registration	Optional
Owner	Wikimedia Foundation
Created by	Benedikt Mandl (proposed project in 2004); Jimmy Wales and the Wikimedia Community
Launched	August 2004

Wikispecies is a wiki-based online project supported by the Wikimedia Foundation that aims to create a comprehensive free content catalogue of all species (including animalia, plantae, fungi, bacteria, archaea, and protista). It is aimed at scientists, rather than at the general public. Jimmy Wales, chairman emeritus of the Wikimedia Foundation, has said that editors are not required to fax in their degrees, but that submissions will have to pass muster with a technical audience.^[1]^[2]

Additional recommended knowledge

Guide to balance cleaning: 8 simple steps

How to quickly check pipettes?

Essential Laboratory Skills Guide

Started in August 2004, with biologists across the world invited to contribute,^[3] the project had grown a framework encompassing the Linnaean taxonomy with links to Wikipedia articles on individual species by April 2005.^[2]

In May 2007, the project exceeded 100,000 articles.^[4]

Wikispecies is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.

References

^ (2005-02-18) "Calling all taxonomists" (PDF). Science 307 (5712): 1021. doi:10.1126/science.307.5712.1021a.
^ ^a ^b "WikiSpecies", American Scientist Online, Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, 2005-04-25.
^ Mark Peplow. "Species list reaches half-million mark" (PDF), Nature, Nature Publishing Group, 2005-03-14. (archive)
^ Wikispecies statistics