Encyclopedia of Life: Better Than Wikipedia?
Duncan Riley
40 comments »
Formally announced during the week with funding of $12.5 million, Encyclopedia of Life aims to be an online reference source and database for every one of the 1.8 million species that are named and known on earth.
Encyclopedia of Life is a collaborative effort. Tens of thousands of citizen scientists with expertise around the world are responsible for the creation of content.
The Encyclopedia will be developed by bringing mashups of content from a wide variety of sources. This material will then be authenticated by scientists so that information listed is vetted and known to be authoritative. Data is then supplemented when and where new data is discovered in the field – from scientists across the globe – to ensure it stays current. Software tools will mine scientific literature in order to provide regular updates from external sources.
Encyclopedia of Life is being developed to serve as a comprehensive resource for everyone; scientist, teacher, student, media, any interested party. The Encyclopedia’s goal is to become a valuable learning and teaching resource for anyone who has an interest in life on Earth.
But is it better than Wikipedia?
Thomas Goetz writes at Epidemix that Wikipedia “sucks when it comes to Science topics”, not for being inaccurate, but unapproachable. “On science, there’s a oneupmanship going on, and a topic will be honed to an ever-greater level of expertise. That’s great for precision and depth, but horrible for the general user”.
Without seeing more than screen shots of ,the final product at Encyclopedia of Life it’s difficult to judge decisively whether the new comer will be superior to Wikipedia on Science, and yet it sounds far more approachable in terms of readability. Visually Encyclopedia of Life wins by a country mile.
Will Encyclopedia of Life be better than Wikipedia? Share your thoughts in the comments.
As a biology major, I appreciate what the founders are trying to accomplish here. There is far too much false information on the Internet when it comes to biological species and evolution, *especially* on Wikipedia.
It seems this website will attempt to bring order to the biological hierarchy once and for all. No small task.
Bravo, I hope this company is extremely successful!
- Andrew
I think neither of them are the better, or maybe Wikipedia is the better,
’cause it covers far more topics than EOL.
But just as it said by Thomas Goetz, WE DO NEED some better Wiki-like sites which are more focused and far more accurate and reliable regarding its contents.
I guess I will still be dependent on Wikipedia when looking for something I don’t have a clue of. But when I intend for some Life, I’ll definitely drop by the EOL site.
When will EOL launch? I read an article about it a few days back and said it would take them around 10 years to complete the encyclopedia (the content). But when they launch, I don’t know..
This is very nice. The video does a wonderful job of showing the scope of the project. This could easily become a very a dependable resource.
A small note to the company though - I’d highly suggest reducing the amount of jpg compression on your front page and others. My eye jumped straight to that when I first loaded the page.
Heh, this is really ridiculous to consider this site with 6 photoshop images of their vision for future wikipedia competitor or defeater. Where were these scientists so many years and who will read their boring articles?
Inasmuch as the Tree of Life project ( http://www.tolweb.org/tree/ ) has been covering exactly this same mission for over ten years, and already has content, why not just compare IT with Wikipedia?
Interesting site.
A huge effort nonetheless.
Will it be better than wikipedia? As you’ve said, hard to judge by screenshots and the little info that’s out there. But i’m happy to see them taking this segment of the online world to the next level. It’ll be interesting to see how wikipedia is going to react in terms of development. The ones benefitting from this healthy competition will be the end users.
Well, if nothing else, that is a fantastic concept video. Any idea who put it together for them?
@osama. I am pretty sure they were heavily inspired by the web2.0 video (the machine is Us/ing Us)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE
A good resource for endangered species is Arkive (not open source web2.0, but free as in beer).
http://www.arkive.org/
I happen to like the Wikimedia Foundation’s WikiSpecies:
http://species.wikimedia.org
Osama, seems that Avenue A RazorFish put together the video and probably the UI Desgin as well … Indeed, an excellent. Any more input on this guys?
I heard this piece on NPR.. This is truly the power of the Internet age. A neat project with untold possibilities.. LIke the gentleman said .. we have barely scratched the surface of all the species on this planet … not to mention other planets and civilizations … .. ok maybe just this planet.
Beautiful piece. Thanks for posting it.
Don
@Ivan
“…who will read their boring articles?”
How about almost every biology student for starters…
Better Than Wikipedia? No way - not in a serious collaborative community way. I mean, sure, throw money and an agency at this stage of a product and it can look great - but that doesn’t mean anything. Even if they implement and it still looks as it does on their funky video, it doesn’t mean anything. They have to build the sense of community and then let the community build. I’d take a small guess, from their language of ’scientists and the rest of you’ that it’s not going to be much fun for the rest of us. There’s a big question - why? Why do it? It looks like a big ticket publishing venture.
Of course, it might just work out. But its no more likely to than hundreds of other projects that don’t have funky videos to impress us with.
Better than wikipedia? yes and no. Yes if u see that the data being scrutinized for authenticity by scientists all over the world. No, scientific data are not wide enuff on EOL. Species data just wont cut it compare to wide scientific data compared to wikipedia
Coming from a critter geek who knows too many species names and posts too many insect macro shots to flickr (for no good reason) and who can’t leave a log unturned during a hike looking for something new, this project makes me a bit teary-eyed. I absolutely love it. I can’t wait to contribute.
@#11 - I believe Arkive.org is partnering / merging content with EOL. you’ll notice it in the demo vid.
Good service…This one has an advantage with Wiki with its scientific encylopedia.
It sounds like a great concept, but with a “completion date” of 10 years in the future, I have to wonder about the project. Who even can imagine what the web will be like in 10 years?
No.
The Wikimedia Foundation is represented in EOL’s Institutional Council; I am the representative and attended the recent launch meeting. We do not view the projects as being in competition at all; both aim to contribute to a commons of knowledge. We are exploring licensing options and tools that will allow both projects to interoperate and share content.
what’s the revenue model?
What if I write EOL founder was a member of flower power, tree hugger, and sexually married pretty flowers?
I am not sure the question is really valid. The Encyclopedia of Life has a different audience, and different goals. Wikipedia is targeted at a more general audience. While there is a certain minimal standard that should be maintained, Wikipedia articles should link out to vertical wiki’s (Wikia/EoL) when more depth is required on any subject.
I hope this one is also controlled by power hungry moderators who have nothing better to do as well!
I agree with Deepak. The one greatest flaw with wikipedia is its greatest strength, “open community”. Just for a second imagine if history could be re-written by a “open community”. Crazy to even think about it. But EOL has its place, just like vertical searches has their place in the “google world”.
When it comes to scientific data and analysis, that cannot however be left to the masses, regardless of what you think thats the truth. I was in the process of creating an advertisment for wikipedia, where a doctor is performing a operation, runs into a problem then he pulls out his laptop and does a search on wikipedia for the answer.
The answer was however modified by his 17 year old son and instead of removing the lung, he removed the heart. hahahaha
how crazy would that be?
Th blogs are very benifit ,that is great to hear the subscribers
maybe better than wikispecies too. I ‘m glad it wasn’t my 12.5 million.
Also note that EOL seems to be based on Semantic Web technologies, enabling far better query possibilities than wikipedia.
More technicals aspects here :
http://eolinformatics.mbl.edu/.....ework.html
Johann
The Biomimicry Institute is working on a database/wiki to improve access to relevant biological information - organized by design and engineering function. Innovators working on desalination, for instance, could learn about how nature filters—mangrove roots, kidneys, and sea bird salt glands.
http://www.biomimicryinstitute.org/edu-portal.htm
Of course:The encyclopedia of life is better that wikipedia.Has very useful scientific information for the students
I’m not sure that it’s an apples-to-apples comparison. Wikipedia isn’t trying to be the end-all resource for every topic. Its focus is more on breadth than depth. Don’t get me wrong; it is an admirable undertaking.
If you want to know about a particular species, EOL will be better, hands down. I’m hoping to see a lot of link-over and reference to EOL on Wikipedia.
One thing that I think will make EOL “better” for its subject matter is its content contributors. We won’t see as much corruption as we see on Wikipedia now. Wikipedia is becoming the new DMOZ. People that “own” the content are becoming a little too Nazi for my tastes…
I hope that EOL does a better job than Wiki because numerous times I’ve helped my kids with homework and the information in Wiki about animals was painful to digest.
Here’s hoping competition brings a better product to both of them!
hi
I am user of Wikipedia and I like it very much. The point of wikipedia is also multilanguage - I could find a lot of usefull things in my native (slovenian) language and others, not english languages (portugues, croatian, … )
I agree with somebody here who said :
The Encyclopedia of Life has a different audience, and different goals
I should add :
it is only english
If you can make it multilanguage (like Wikipedia) I am sure much more
people should visit this site.
cheers
@Rado Z. — watch the video again, they show a dropdown listing different languages
Wikipedia is great for defacing. They call it vandalism, but I don’t see that.. If I can get someone to do a book report with completely incorrect information then my job has been done.