At this rate, extinctions may be outpacing postings

Encyclopedia of Life up, but empty

Posted by biodiversivist (Guest Contributor) at 9:59 AM on 04 Mar 2008

Read more about: biodiversity | websites

Photo: Eddy Van 3000 via Flickr A tip from Canis sent me to the Encyclopedia of Life, which came online last week. I posted on this project about nine months ago. I was skeptical that it would amount to much back then, so I was curious to see if I had missed the mark (as usual). I typed in a bunch of species and found nothing but placeholders for them. The site is still an empty shell, about 99.999 percent short of its goal. They have the categories in place, ready for armies of professional, hand-selected curators with nothing better to do than volunteer their free time to fill in the information.

Yes, I'm still skeptical. The whole idea behind Wikipedia is bottom-up data acquisition. In a sense, it is analogous to a free market: iterative and imperfect, but productive and useful. If every article in Wikipedia had to pass muster from an appointed expert on each subject, there would be no Wikipedia. The EOL will never see the success of Wikipedia with its present top-down, command-and-control structure.

To make the progress needed to attract the public's attention, at some point they will have to stop micromanaging the data input and let the millions of potential contributors get busy. The priesthood is going to have to open its doors. As it is presently organized, the project looks more like a politburo than an information market. If they would just let us upload them, there would already be dozens of photos of various species from me and probably millions of others. But no. Their plan for later this year is to allow the ignorant hordes to upload stuff for consideration by an anointed curator ... dun dun dunnnn. Take a look at the insect photos at the Flickr Commons site.

Later in 2008 we will set up a mechanism for anyone to contribute species-related content (photos, drawings, text, video, etc.). The curator(s) of the species will consider the submissions for incorporation into the authenticated species page.

First, they will need to find these thousands of curators willing to volunteer inordinate amounts of time. Next, they will need to find millions of contributors willing to take the time to upload stuff without any assurance that it will ever be reviewed, edited, or displayed. It's just like writing a letter to The New York Times -- why would you bother?

It wouldn't matter if I uploaded what I thought was a photo of an eastern painted turtle that turned out to be wrong. It would still most likely be a painted turtle. It wouldn't matter if it were a crappy photo. Someone with a better photo would just be motivated to replace mine with a better one with his or her name on it. There would at least be a picture for people to look at. What they need is some kind of code to indicate whether or not the post has a curator's blessing and what level of blessing. A fully blessed post could be locked up. An unchecked upload has a higher probability of not being as accurate, and everybody would know that. It would also be great to have a format for volunteers to follow, such as including a map to indicate where the photo was taken.

I don't think there will be much to see on that site for decades, and therefore there will be very little public interest (or support) if they don't get a little less anal about the initial purity of the data. The site is presently generating a lot of hits by the curious, but that will wane pretty quickly because there's really not much to see. Of course, I could be wrong.

For story: At this rate, extinctions may be outpacing postings
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middle ground

yeah, it's a mammoth task which requires opening up the gates, but for something like this they really have to make sure they don't get the guys who spend their days posting "giraffes.... are totally gay"

by gzuckier at 10:15 AM on 04 Mar 2008

E.O. Wilson's vision (?)

Sorry, BioD, that I have not got around before to commenting on this supremely sensible criticism of yours.

The position of Science in our civilization (one of the four great paths to truth, and categories of accomplishment, along with Art, Religion and Philosophy) has become startlingly ironic. It ought to be the MOST democratic, and the LEAST bound by personality and exclusivity and hierarchy and authority. And yet, because "doing Science" nowadays requires a lot of basic intelligence, plus lots and lots of time and money to invest in an advanced degree, plus lots and lots of charm and cleverness to keep the grants money coming, plus lots of defensiveness to keep the pronouncements of the Scientists pure and unpolluted, it has indeed become exclusive and hierarchical and authoritarian.

(And one of the most profound Puzzlements of our Civilization is that none of us, no matter how thoughtful and intelligent, can really conceive of the Nature of the Universe, unless we have spent a lot of time and money and effort getting advanced degrees in Cosmology-oriented Physics and Math.)

And that is a great shame. Because all of us are Scientists (just as all of us are Artists and Religious Thinkers and Philosophers), and our impulse to do Science ought to be encouraged. You know what I am saying?

I had thought that that was what E.O. Wilson was doing. And I still that that is what he wants. And specifically, regarding the Encyclopedia of Life, I think he would prefer the kind of contributory Wikipedia-style system that you recommend.

In "The Creation," he writes (starting on page 119):
<<
To see the potential of this enterprise [analogous to Linnaeus's taxonomy, and the "moon shot," and the Human Genome Project], imagine an Encyclopedia of Life, with an electronic page for each species of organism on Earth, available everywhere by single access on command. The page contains the scientific name of the species, a pictorial or genomic presentation of the primary type specimen on which its name is based, and a summary of its diagnostic traits. The page opens out directly and through links to other databases. It comprises a summary of everything known about the species' genetic code, biochemistry, geographical distribution, phylogenetic position, habitat, ecological traits, and, not least, its practical importance for humanity [hmmm -- vaguely anthropocentric-sounding, but let's let it go for now].

The page is indefinitely expansible, and its contents are continuously peer reviewed [!!] and updated with new information. All the pages together form the encyclopedia, the content of which is nothing less than the totality of comparative biology.
>>

From what he has written elsewhere, he definitely encourages the contributions of committed amateurs (in the true, best sense of that much-abused word: "people in love"; ignore that homophobic silliness about "giraffes are so gay," those are not the commenters that Wilson has in mind). He envisions teams of amateurs, led by a professional leader, going into little-explored ecosystems and making a careful record of the living creatures that they observe.

But there seems always to be a professional hierarchy. And I wonder if he has thought through to the consequence that that hierarchy may stifle contributions from the very people whom he wishes to encourage.

I have not spent much time thus far on the Encyclopedia of Life website. I recently had a Gristmill-related occasion to look at what they had up on African elephants -- a number of good links, actually, but not a complete article just yet. I noticed that they were prominently advertising on the sides a number of (presumably fresh-water) actinopterygian fishes, but I did not look carefully at any of those pages.

As you would say, BioD: "My bad."

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 3:19 PM on 06 Mar 2008

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