I tried to search for other threads about this but didn’t see any.
I could very well get lost for weeks at a time in there, and may even work up the oomph to contribute some stuff. Anyone else a contributing member?
This looks as though it has great potential, if it done right, but I see ominous signs that it is not being done right:
[ol]
[li]If there is any way to browse it, it is well hidden.* (And Og knows it would be easy to implement! They have a ready made hierarchical classification system. The hard part is done already.) I would like to browse around and see what it is like, but I don’t seem to be able to.[/li][li]Why is there almost nothing (apart from the E.O. Wilson quote), either on the front page page or under the “about” link, to indicate what the site is supposed to be for, and how to use it. I had to go to the "press releases page and download a PDF to anything like a clear account of what it might provide. (And even then the PDF featured some black on black printing That’s smart!). Maybe you are supposed to just guess what the site is for from the title, but going by that it could be any sort of biological encyclopedia. This is getting to be a pet peeve of mine: so many expensively produced, impressive looking sites simply do not bother to tell you upfront what they are really about. My guess is that they mostly fail.[/li][li]Hi, Opal[/li][/ol]
OK, I found it eventually. I clicked on one of the images of organisms on the front page, and that took me to a page about that organism, with a hierarchical browse tree alongside it. Why the hell is that not on the front page! So far the data seems superficial, but i guess it will get filled out (it is meant to be some sort of Wiki, right?), but it is not clear who the intended audience is, biologists or the public (or schoolkids).
Yeah there are some bugs (pages with higher numbers of photos have the photo area trampling all over the text, at least in Firefox on a mac), and they are definitely under-utilizing their front page but, like you, I think it has great potential.
I followed them on twitter and found out that they have podcasts. Searching for ‘podcasts’ on the front page I found a network of much cleaner and crisper pages on an education.eol.org subdomain, including one geared specifically for ‘enthusiasts’. http://education.eol.org/enthusiasts
Well, sure. The insect pages alone should be incredibly numerous.
at Smeghead
I just joined their Forums and they have had a few web tech folks dissecting various issues on the site, though a good bit of that seems to just be bitching without offering to help. I don’t know how much of their code they are willing to expose to volunteers, but I’ve submitted a post for moderation to try and kick off a more constructive conversation to that end.
[quote=“njtt, post:2, topic:528106”]
[li]Why is there almost nothing (apart from the E.O. Wilson quote), either on the front page page or under the “about” link, to indicate what the site is supposed to be for, and how to use it. [/li][/QUOTE]
Most of the information is in the FAQ, which is to be found under “Using the Site” (rather than “About”). It wasn’t really that hard to find.
This is a very high-powered site, considering its main institutional partners, which include the Smithsonian Institution, Missouri Botanical Garden, Harvard University, and the Marine Biological Laboratory (Woods Hole).
They are moderating their forums and the (only) mod for the forum I’m posting in hasn’t logged onto the site since January 17th. I hope I’ve only been plopped in the walled garden because I’m a new user.
Fascinating site. Allow me a noob question: evidence seems to be piling up that some dinosaurs might be the ancestors of modern birds. How the heck will they work that out in the classification schemes if it is finally accepted?
That’s been settled and widely accepted for quite some time now.
Thanks for the link!
But it is not reflected in the site???