Whether you love or hate Wikipedia, its goal of being a great encyclopedia of information is a pretty sweet idea, and it really does try to be accurate, accountable, and verifiable.
When it comes to turtles and tortoises, there is a group called WikiProject Turtles that tries to help bring all chelonian articles up to a high standard. You can go to any turtle species page and click on the 'Talk' tab on the top left and see the Projects scorecard for the species.
Sadly, lots of the tortoise articles are rated pretty low, and it really is kind of a pain in the neck to do the legwork needed to make a really good article...
But- we have lots of really smart people here with a love of tortoises and a decent reference library behind them!
I challenge us, here, to look at the scores of our favorite species, and see if there is anything we can do to help raise that score.
Good Wikipedia articles do not directly help us, and we cannot put a lot of links to the Forum in the articles, but think of how much easier some posts would be if we could link to an AUTHORITATIVE, well-done article on the species... if people thinking about a species could easily find a decent article that had links and references to good books and sites, etc.
I spent a couple weeks on the red-footed article. It ain't done yet (I am hoping to get a good range map posted, and a few other minor points), but it was nowhere near as tough as I thought it was going to be! (The article is currently rated as a C based on the old version, I have asked for a reassessment.) [UPDATE- OK, so doing the citation to a high degree of authoritativeness is a PAIN!]
No fame, no fortune, no medals... but it is a pretty cool thing to do!
When it comes to turtles and tortoises, there is a group called WikiProject Turtles that tries to help bring all chelonian articles up to a high standard. You can go to any turtle species page and click on the 'Talk' tab on the top left and see the Projects scorecard for the species.
Sadly, lots of the tortoise articles are rated pretty low, and it really is kind of a pain in the neck to do the legwork needed to make a really good article...
But- we have lots of really smart people here with a love of tortoises and a decent reference library behind them!
I challenge us, here, to look at the scores of our favorite species, and see if there is anything we can do to help raise that score.
Good Wikipedia articles do not directly help us, and we cannot put a lot of links to the Forum in the articles, but think of how much easier some posts would be if we could link to an AUTHORITATIVE, well-done article on the species... if people thinking about a species could easily find a decent article that had links and references to good books and sites, etc.
I spent a couple weeks on the red-footed article. It ain't done yet (I am hoping to get a good range map posted, and a few other minor points), but it was nowhere near as tough as I thought it was going to be! (The article is currently rated as a C based on the old version, I have asked for a reassessment.) [UPDATE- OK, so doing the citation to a high degree of authoritativeness is a PAIN!]
No fame, no fortune, no medals... but it is a pretty cool thing to do!