WikiReef.net - looking for volunteers
 

Hey everyone,

http://www.wikireef.net


I started up an ambitious project titled WikiReef.net. I'm attempting to create a wiki on reef aquariums and I'm looking for other people to help creating articles. No wikipedia experience is required because wiki's are very easy to edit.

Initially I'm going to need 2-3 people who can dedicate a few hours a week or more to writing articles.

I need people to create articles on the following:

• coral species
• invertibrate species
• fish species
• equipment and technology
• general husbandry

Also if anyone out there wants to take part in the organization of the project let me know.

It follows a GNU copyright, thus making all articles free to copy. Articles must cite sources whenever possible. I will be initially going through wikipedia and copying articles from there since it's open source writing and going through my own books to create new articles.

I'm excited about the project and it would be great to see other people help out with it!

I'll help.

Sounds like a great project.

sweet :)

I've started working on it's first article: Lighting

Just go ahead and start creating articles. It's an open project :)

I'll see what I can come up with this weekend.

Good idea....there is already a similar website called www.ReefPedia.com

There are some differences in the way I'm envisioning this project compared to reefpedia. Reefpedia has a ton of unfinished articles. on WikiReef the table of contents will only contain finished articles. A separate page will contain todo's so that users can browse the site without hitting a bunch of unfinished content.

Plus lots of his pages can't even be viewed unless you're registered. Not a pleasant experience for the casual browser.

And it'd be great to get some experience in creating a social networking site from scratch :)

finished an article on the percula clownfish to provide an example for fish species articles

I want to help but I am not good in writting :redface:

ok I've created a mission statement:

"The mission of WikiReef is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational reefkeeping content under a free content license or in the public domain."

pretty snazzy huh? ;);)

I am sure there is something else you can do. Photos?


I like the mission statement. I wandered on over the page before my midterm and I like it so far.

did a lot so far. made some templates, wrote some help files, wrote the disclaimers and copyright notices n such.

Here's are some of the articles so far:
http://www.wikireef.net/index.php?ti...la_Anemonefish
http://www.wikireef.net/index.php?title=Sarcophyton

it'd be great to get some of the experienced reefers on board assisting with the articles too :)

Ok created a few templates and a bunch of articles. Things are going quicker now that lots of the groundworks are done.

Still looking to see if more people want to help out.

I'd love to help, I can maybe write some anemone articles ... except I'm really kinda bogged down right now, I'm not sure how timely I can get you something. But I'll tag along on this thread for now and see what I can do when I get a chance..

Your comment was nagging at me in the back of my head for a while, and I did some looking and went "AHA!"

I figured out where reefpedia's different. They've copyrighted every article. I'm not a big fan of copyright laws, and so wikireef's open source writing, just like wikipedia.

There's no monetary return on investment, like reefpedia's probably hoping for, but instead it's a good service for the community. Benefits everyone.

yeah time's a big issue. I've got a stretch of free time for the short term but I don't know how long my free time will last. I wish we could trade acorns for time. I'd be time rich!

woot! I've written 18 articles so far! I'm on fire!:biggrin:

Hey, if ya need somebody to go through and organize the to do list, and suggestions, ive got enough time to help out with that, but i dont have time to write articles. I might be able to do tha odd one but not really time available for that right now, but id be glad to answer questions from people and basically be a director.. if yad like some help that way. :) Gimme a shout. PM me to make sure i get it.

Thank

The Slip

if you can do that that would be great. organization is not my "forte" so there's a good chance you'll do a much better job at that than I

Cool Cool.. Im registered :)

Cool, I'd be willing to help out, Sean. I'm just wondering, when you're writing the articles....how are you getting your information? Is it legal to copy information from other websites (liveaquara.com, for example) if you give them credit in the endnotes?

it is legal to "cite" it. as for copying an entire article verbatim you must read their copyright agreement. you can't copy n paste an entire article usually. you can only reference small snippets as support for your argument. The idea of a well researched article relies on thorough research that references other texts.

now wikireef's own "copyleft" agreement can interfere with some articles "for educational use" agreements. wikireef is not "for educational use" it is "for ANY use, as long as you allow any use as well for your iteration." just like wikipedia. somone can take a wikipedia article, print it on paper and sell it for $100 a piece. perfectly legal. but you can't copy a "for educational use" article word for word into wikireef then print it out from wikireef and charge money for it. you have to respect the original copyright's terms.

now there is writing out there that is "open" or "copyleft" such as wikipedia for instance. as a rule of thumb you can copy and paste an entire article from wikipedia as long as you copy the sources too.

have a look at some wikipedia.com articles and you'll understand what you can do within the laws. quite a lot actually :)

short answer: you can copy snippets from other writings as long as you cite it at the bottom, and if you've copied any sections word for word, use quotations.

ie:

Making positive identifications of coral species is "difficult for average aquarists because corals often can not be identified from photographs" (1).

(at bottom of article)
(1) Author, Some. "Some random publication", Publication name, V3 Sept 2005. Accessed Nov 11, 2007.

Oh and you don't have to cite common knowledge. don't have to find a reference that saltwater aquariums have salt in them, that corals need light and that metal halide lights require ballasts. stuff like that. If most of your audience knows it you don't have to cite it.

A-hah. Ok, disregard my PM :)