Started in September 2004 with biologists across the world invited to contribute3 the project had grown a framework encompassing the Linnaean taxonomy with links to Wikipedia articles on individual species by April 2005.2 Contents 1 History 2 Policies 3 See also 4 References 5 External links History

Benedikt Mandl co-ordinated the efforts of several people who are interested in getting involved with the project and contacted potential supporters in early summer 2004. Databases were evaluated and the administrators contacted some of them have agreed on providing their data for Wikispecies. Benedikt Mandl defined two major tasks: Figure out how the contents of the data base would need to be presented  by asking experts potential non-professional users and comparing that with existing data bases. Figure out how to do the software which hardware is required and how to cover the costs  by asking experts looking for fellow volunteers and potential sponsors.

Advantages and disadvantages were widely discussed by the wikimedia-I mailing list. The board of directors of the wikimedia foundation voted by 4 to 0 in favor of the establishment of a Wikispecies. The project was launched in August 2004 and is hosted at species.wikimedia.org. It was officially merged to a sister project of Wikimedia Foundation on September 14 2004.

On October 10 2006 the project exceeded 75000 articles. On May 20 2007 the project exceeded 100000 articles with a total of 5495 registered users. On September 8 2008 the project exceeded 150000 articles with a total of 9224 registered users. Policies

Wikispecies has disabled local upload and asks users to use images from Wikimedia Commons. Wikispecies does not allow the use of content that does not conform to a free license. See also Catalogue of Life Encyclopedia of Life Tree of Life Web Project List of online encyclopedias The Plant List References "Calling all taxonomists". Science 307 (5712): 1021. 2005. doi:10.1126/science.307.5712.1021a. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/307/5712/1021d.pdf.  a b "WikiSpecies". American Scientist Online. 25 April 2005. http://www.americanscientist.org/template/SiteOfTheWeekTypeDetail/assetid/43122.  Mark Peplow (2005). "Species list reaches half-million mark". Nature. doi:10.1038/news050314-6.  External links Official site Species Community Portal The Wikispecies Charter written by Wales. v d eProjects of the Wikimedia Foundation Wikibooks  Wikimedia Commons  Wikinews  Wikipedia  Wikiquote  Wikisource  Wikispecies  Wikiversity  Wiktionary