EvoWiki is now a project of the RationalWiki Foundation, to learn how to participate please visit the EvoWiki project page.

From EvoWiki

Introduction

The Evolution Education wiki (EvoWiki for short) is a Wiki about evolution and origins. The focus is on evolution education, particularly addressing the arguments of Creationism and Intelligent Design from the perspective of science. It is inspired by webpages such as talkorigins.org and talkdesign.org, and the goal of EvoWiki is to complement rather than duplicate these online resources.

Some possible things that EvoWiki can be used for that are otherwise difficult or tedious:

• An encyclopedia of Evolution and Origins, with a glossary of related biological and religious terms.
• An encyclopedia of creationist arguments and counter arguments, with examples of research where relevant.
• Collaborative writing of a talk.origins (or other) FAQ or article (e.g. Peppered Moth)
• Accumulation of links, quotes and references on the above topics (e.g., transitional fossils)
• Archiving material from good posts from newsgroups (like Talk.Origins) or bulletin boards, so that you or someone else will be inspired to edit them into a more comprehensive article later on (e.g., there are many great t.o. posts that deserve FAQdom, but often it takes a long time for an author to revisit a topic and develop a FAQ)
• A place for developing and editing FAQs for hosting at e.g. talkorigins.org
• A list of biographies of all of the most influential and pioneer scientists in the fields of evolutionary biology and related sciences! (e.g. Gregor Mendel)
• ... whatever other creative uses you come up with.

Encyclopedia / Textbook type articles. These provide a good introduction to their subject and you should need little prior knowledge of the subject to read them. Any specialist terms used are either explained in the article or linked to a glossary page (see below). These may then go on to explain the subject in greater detail, and then link to relevant technical articles (see below).

Technical articles explore a specific idea, process, species etc in much greater detail than encyclopedia articles, and the reader will probably need to at least read a few relevant encyclopedia articles first, and good technical articles should suggest the relevant encyclopedia articles in a prologue or the introduction. Technical terms should still be linked to glossary pages.

Glossary pages are simply short explanations of terms, and some could potentially grow into encylopedia entries. These should always give a definition that laymen can understand, but may also go into greater technical detail.

See: Best of EvoWiki for some examples of pages that match these criteria!

A few guidelines

• EvoWiki is intended to present mainstream science. Antievolutionists who wish to present their views on a Wiki are encouraged to create their own Wiki via the free SeedWiki or another method.

• If you make significant contributions to a developing article, please include your name or pseudonym and a brief note about your contribution in the acknowledgments or contributors section at the bottom of the article, so that you get acknowledged (note: this excludes minor copyedits).

• If you have a particular plan/format/goal in mind for a particular page, please describe it at the top of the page in italics. For example, "This page is an annotated bibliography on immune system evolution." You can also discuss where the article should go on its talk page.

• The main purpose of Wiki is to allow collaboration. So, if you think that something you read here can be improved, go right ahead and improve it. It's OK, you don't need to ask permission or anything. That's the point of a Wiki. On the other hand, if you are very protective of your work and don't want others to edit it, then don't post it here in the first place.

• I understand that "vandalism" (abuse of Wiki to damage/delete articles) is quite rare, but if it occurs here leave a note on the vandalism page and the admins will fix it.

Thanks, have fun, and spread the word,

Nic Tamzek

Steinsky