EOLv2 review by Rod Page at iPhylo
The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) has been relaunched, with a new look and much social media funkiness. I’ve been something of an EOL sceptic, but looking at the new site I think I can see what EOL is for. Ironically, it’s not really about E. O. Wilson’s original vision (doi:10.1016/S0169-5347(02)00040-X)
— Rod Page, 9/14/11
Thoughts:
- Rod has been a member of the extended EOL family since the project began back in 2007, and we pay close attention to what he has to say, even when he’s being a sceptic. Actually, especially when he’s being a sceptic.
- Achieving what Dr. Wilson called for in his 2002 article and 2007 TED Wish speech is still very much in our sights. Getting there will be a journey of many steps and multiple releases. With this recent release, our design goal was to build a product that was dramatically more engaging, accessible and personal than the prior version - in part because that’s what the majority of our users were asking for, but also because those are prerequisites to some of the requirements that Rod would like to see us address. I won’t go much further than that because I’m not a believer in making roadmap promises before they’ve been fully vetted and approved.
- My colleague Dr. Cyndy Parr, director of the EOL group responsible for acquiring content, wrote a very thoughtful response to Rod that you can read in the comments associated with his article (link below).
- He’s right in saying that we’re still working to get the social elements of the new site tuned. We’re especially focused on how comments get propagated, how collections are managed and shared, and how users can find what they want in all of those. And yes, we’re even looking at various social media integration points, including OAuth integration. So there’s plenty of room for progress. But… I think we nailed the core mechanic of EOL Collections, which we had to do in order to launch.
