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Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Wikispecies

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This is a proposal for closing and/or deleting a wiki hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. It is subject to the current closing projects policy.


The proposal is rejected and the project will be kept open.


  • Type: 1 (routine proposal)
  • Proposed outcome: closure
  • Proposed action regarding the content: some wikifarm (ideally Miraheze, as it supports all the WMF extensions by default)
  • Notice on the project: wikispecies:Wikispecies:Village Pump#Closure proposal
  • Informed Group(s): (Which chapters, wiki projects, and other community groups have been informed, if any.)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. Wikispecies is a failed project. It has failed at being multilingual: most of the pages are in English. It is redundant: most Wikipedia language projects have their own version of the "Taxobox" template. Take a look at this Wikispecies page. It is entirely in English, with info that is almost completely duplicated in the en.wikipedia taxobox, except for a "vernacular names" section, which is redundant to Wiktionary (specifically, the "translations" section on most pages). As Wikispecies still has an active community, however, I propose moving its content to a wikifarm, instead of leaving it to rot. Lojbanist (talk) 20:03, 7 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • You explained it yourself: Wikispecies is the source for many other wiki projects. How can that be a reason to close the project? Blankly: --Murma174 (talk) 20:21, 7 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • nope.Did the proposer considered the needs of other communities I.e.other Wikipedias before committing. No valid reason given, translation issues can be resolved, there is no time limit for an article on Wikipedia, neither should there be one for a translation. Strong oppose.--Cohaf (talk) 20:32, 7 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • strong oppose the proposer does not seem to understand wikispecies and how it is utilised at all. Not only is it used by many other projects, it is also utilised by many other databases outside of WMF. Last statistics I saw of usage had Wikispecies as a very high traffic project. We also provide a discussion pool of specialists to assist with taxonomic issues on Wikidata and the various Wikipedia's. It has also been raised as an informational site in current high level and international discussions on the management and development of international species lists, a discussion that includes representatives of CoL, ITIS, WoRMS and the ICZN, ICBN and IUBS. So I think the proposer has really underestimated the utility of this project. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 21:22, 7 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.