Palaeos:About
From Palaeos
Contents |
[edit] A Bit of History
The original Palaeos began in 2002 as the merger of the amateur paleo web projects of Toby White (ATW) and M. Alan Kazlev (MAK), resulting in the Palaeos web site (or Palaeos com or p.com as it is now sometimes referred to). The site quickly become a very popular source of information on the web regarding all things pertaining to the history of life on Earth. Alan was then pulled away by other projects, while Toby found the task of checking links, keeping the material current, and basic site update and maintenance to be increasingly time consuming and impractical, with less and less time available for writing new material. Not wanting to host an increasingly out of date website, he decided to take down the project.
Seeing expressions of regret in the blogosphere at the site's disappearance, and offers of support, Alan organised a list of recipients and proposed the transferral of Palaeos to Media Wiki format. This would be maintanied, revised, added to, and updated by the amateur paleo community as a whole, rather than by just one or two people, for whom the project is impossibly large.
Following further discussion, it was decided to restore the Palaeos com material as it was, at least temporarily, pending transferance to the wiki (Palaeos org), and then to maintain the two sites as interlinked projects.
[edit] Palaeos com (static site) and Palaeos org (wiki)
The current wiki is still very incomplete, but here is the plan of action. As with all such projects, these are just provisional guidelines, so if you have better ideas, let us know!
Palaeos com will be streamlined, but retain the informative and entertaining essays, the hierarchical directory structure and files to a certain level. All of the text on the site will also be copied over with or without modifications or editing, and additional lower level material added to, this wiki site. The new Palaeos com will require much less maintennace, and hence can be dedicated to important material. In this hybrid arrangement, each page in Palaeos com will link to the corresponding page in Palaeos org, and each wiki page would link back to the equivalent Palaeos page (if any, because there would be much more Wiki pages than Palaeos com pages), and vice versa. The Palaeos page for any subject can then also function as a "splash page" for the wiki pages that would spin off it. The Palaeos com pages would be occasionally updated if required, but otherwise remain as fixed pages. The wiki has the same relevant text, plus much more, and will be much more often updated, and more detailed in every way. All the links would be on the wiki pages.
So, to summarise
Palaeos Web: (Palaeos com)
- Very few editors/contributors (mostly Toby, less often others)
- Much less often revised (although still maintained and updated)
- Lots of graphics (artwork, photos, etc.), etc.
- Will eventually include only the more important pages
- Prominent link to the equivalent Palaeos wiki page(s)
Palaeos Wiki (Palaeos org - this website):
- Multi-authored, can and should be the work of the entire amateur paleo community
- Constantly updated, revised, edited, added to, etc.
- Only graphics where the owner of that material has specifically given permission for it to appear on a wiki, or which is public domain or has an appropriate license (GNU open document, Creative Commons, etc.)
- Can include even the smallest and most specialised pages - e.g., every species can potentially have its own page, and every clade and node, even a phylogenetic node mentioned in only a single paper (even if the pages are stubby). Also biographies of paleontologists, etc., and summarises of books, writeups on obscure paleo journals, etc.
- Current and updated links for that topic, there can be any number of links (in this way Palaeos Wiki can also serve as a portal to all other info on that particular subject)
- Discussion on talk pages
- Prominent link to the equivalent Palaeos com Web page
As each of the site develops, they will also evolve in their own way, while at the same time maintaining close connections through common material and inter-linking between all relevant pages
[edit] Contributing to Palaeos Wiki
It is not necessary to be a specialist in some arcane subfield of palaeontology (although if you are that is good, too!) Here are some of things you can do to help:
- Contributing original material
- Reporting and removing link spam and or vandalism
- Checking the accuracy of material others have submitted or copied over
- Copying (with or without editing) material over from Palaeos com
- Copying (again with or without editing) relevant material from Wikipedia
- Contributing graphic images
- Suggestions for design, layout, etc.
- Wikifying (adding wiki format, wiki links, etc. to other topics - see the help page for how to do this)
- Proofreading and spell- and grammar-checking
- Adding links, and checking that current links to other sites are valid
- Adding bibliographies, references, etc.
- Designing or adding navigation menus
- Adding cladograms (please put a [[wikilink]] (double square brackets) around each taxon)
- Linking Palaeos wiki pages back to the original Palaeos com pages if applicable
[edit] Current News and Projects
Palaeos org is still in the very preliminary stages. It is hoped that as the project and the site develops it will become both an important educational resource and something that is fun to read and to contribute, too. There is a lot of work to do, so if you would like to be on the Palaeos team, and help in creating the largest Paleo encyclopedia on the web, please sign up!
MAK060924
