Searchable perfection take 2 (apologies for take 1)
David Pilling (Wed, 05 Aug 2015 04:29:55 PDT)
Hi Paige,
On 05/08/2015 08:04, Paige Woodward wrote:
Like many on this list, I long for searchable, accurate, sound data.
But I think we may have to settle for searchable.
I am aware of cases where the data on the PBS wiki is correct and that
on other large well funded professional sites is wrong. I'd not bet that
way but there is no accurate source.
People may long for sound data, but few have contributed it.
PBS message archives are searchable but they seem not to be edited to bring them up to current scholarly consensus.
Post a message "hey guys did you know this is the current scholarly
consensus...".
the wiki, inconsistency, anecdotal evidence, unfounded assertions, unchallenged nomenclature
Inconsistency is a problem. For some entries a lot of effort has gone
into getting things right, but there are others which are wrong.
We have no standard armature for presentation of taxa.
We're currently thinking along the lines of standardising some
information on wiki entries.
We often find out who contributed an image, but it’s rarely plain who
contributed text.
True. There is an effort to phrase entries to provide this information.
I could make the edit history available to the public.
It’s socially difficult to challenge what someone else contributes to the wiki. We have no higher tribunal.
I can give you a password, you can change stuff, and see what happens.
in my searches on species nowadays, PBS images are more likely to pop up than PBS text
Google rankings change depending on what else is available.
Google has said that it has changed rankings on mobile devices to
reflect how mobile friendly websites are. The PBS site is currently
ranked as unfriendly and I am supposed to be producing a mobile friendly
version.
--
David Pilling
http://www.davidpilling.com/
_______________________________________________
pbs mailing list
pbs@lists.ibiblio.org
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/