Just wanted a "show of hands" to indicate who would be interested in contributing to a Zoo Wiki ? The idea would be to create a knowledgebase of information about zoos and possibly the animals they contain. Exactly what we create and how we do it would be largely up to the community ... we would need to decide what we would focus on - and how much information we want to gather (it could become huge !!). If you don't know what a Wiki is ... have a good look at Wikipedia, in particular the About Wikipedia page
Not wanting to put a damper on things, but: a) how relaible do you expect the information on here to be?; and b) do you think there would be many more contributions that wouldn't bea readily available elsewhere on the net? I have to admit, it seems like it could lead to a lot of duplication, possibly with unreliable information in it. As readers to this forum have probably gathered, I'm very opposed to people documenting "facts" sometimes without much real knowledge behind them. Much better to go to the source - one of the hundreds of reliable sites. However, if you are looking for somethig for zoo freaks (and I mean that in a nice way!) who don't have anything else to do, then go for it! And as a discussion forum for zoo freaks, I think this one serves it's purpose really well. My 2 cents worth.
It all comes down to what we want the site to be. There is something to be said for accumulating information in a single, easily navigable site - Wiki's are great at allowing you to cross-reference information in a way that other sites simply can't do. It's about adding value to the information ... not just duplicating it. Perhaps we start with something pretty straight forward and document information about Zoos around the world ? There are plenty of Zoo databases around, but none of them are particularly comprehensive or up to date ... I figure if we all work together we can create something pretty special ... particularly if we get more contribution from people in other parts of the world.
I have been researching the growth and status of the jabiru and lesser adjutant in captivity. I could e-mail it to you when I'm done
i think a zoo wiki is a good idea - but maybe not in the "zoo" sense you guys are thinking about. more so, a user contributed online encyclopedia for all life on earth could be a definate interest. but as zoopro said, possibly innacurate and highly plagiarised. still their is very little info out there on more obsure species and the ability to source images and ifo worldwide seems appealing. i suppose wikipedia already encompases animals though anyway....
I'm thinking that we should focus on things we are good at ... for example - cross referencing animals and zoos. I think it would be good to have a database of zoos and the animals they hold (or have held if we want to cover historical info too). Something where you can easily answer the questions "which zoos have species X ?" and "what species does zoo Y hold ?" This info wouldn't be covered by Wikipedia.
thats true, as long as we dont go putting on more educated stuff, like phase out species, which most now are known to us lists of species, new exhibit, history, ad even a little future would be good, we start with austraian zoos and work around
I think it's a good idea, I would be willing to do Banham Zoo, Africa Alive!, Thrigby Hall and Amazona Zoo.
If someone builds it... ...I have no doubt we will all come. In droves. Seriously, I would be happy to contribute what bird knowledge I've accumulated. I can also contribute some history on parks that no longer exist, or which have been so deeply (and badly) modified they may as well no longer exist.
I think, in my two cents worth, that the zoochat site should have a reference page for each zoo we have. An easy way to do this to take stress off you Sim, is to get people to do research on zoos and send you the info and you upload it as a reference page. You could have everything on it, there could be species, general info, etc. Therefore it becomes better then wiki in a way that no one will be able to change it.
I did realise this thread is nearly three years old LOL! But ZooChat is a large and popular website! So... maybe the idea is worth revising?
I just sort of summarized every exhibit on the Cincy Zoo wiki page. I think this was a great forum idea
