Astrobiology Wiki:Background to this encyclopedia

Scope of this encyclopedia

 * Astrobiology in its broadest sense.


 * Not Biology in general - e.g. extremophiles only if of special interest to astrobiolgy. Origins of life but mainly as it relates to abiogenesis, or ideas of astrobiology.


 * Not SETI. Except in as far as it relates to the biology of extra terrestrials.


 * Not fictional treatments of astrobiology in science fiction movies / books / TV series.

Re-use of the material
Much of the material here originates in Wikipedia and is attributed to them as required. The re-used material has to be licensed under the same license, so any content here that originated in Wikipedia is automatically under the same license, CC by SA, that it can be re-used by anyone, for any purpose, including commercially, so long as it is attributed correctly.

That includes Wikipedia itself of course. They are welcome to use any of this content back in Wikipedia so long as it is released with a suitable license, as is the case for all the material that originated there.

Guidelines for editing
If you've wanted to make encyclopedic articles about astrobiology but find Wikipedia frustrating as an editor, this may be useful. The main differences are that it's a small wiki and I expect only a few people will work on it, and that it will be run on a basis of a high level of mutual respect for each other's content.

Otherwise similar to wikipedia - mainspace articles to be reasonably encyclopaedic, well sourced. And in the main space, the aim is to present the full range of views on any topic.

Why I made a new encyclopedia
Wikipedia has lots of great content contributed by people who knew their subject well. However as it matured, many left Wikipedia and large areas of the encyclopedia have stagnated. That's especially true of astrobiology. Many of the articles have had few substantial edits for years. Some of the remaining editors do bold but careless edits. I set this up after the original for Possible Present Day Habitats For Life On Mars was deleted from Wikipedia. None of those who voted to delete it seemed to know that searching for such habitats and for signs of extant life in them is one of the top science goals of NASA and ESA!

It can be a similar situation sometimes for minor fixes and contributions. And sadly, this doesn't seem likely to change any time soon. Indeed, in my case, I have been indefinitely blocked from editing Wikipedia at all. For how that happened, and more about the background see my Easy To Improve On Wikipedia In Topic Focused Encyclopedias (Ours: Astrobiology, Microtonal Music, Doomsday Debunked & Buddhism). This can make editing Wikipedia a frustrating experience, and in my case, now impossible. So, I've copied the material over into this new wiki where we can work on updating the material and add new articles, without this issue that your material may be deleted at any time by people who are unfamiliar with the topic.

For more about the background, with an analysis of numbers of articles per active wikipedia editor and how I figure out that a few people can often do a better job of actively curating even several hundred articles than Wikipedia editors, see editing wikipedia

Blogs
I've also set up a test blog, where one can post original research or opinions and points of views. , whatever one wants related to astrobiology:
 * Robert Walker's Blog

I haven't decided how to do it yet - may have a special "Blogs" namespace or may put it in user space. Either way, idea is to link to your blog from the main page.

Robertinventor (talk) 00:53, 30 August 2018 (UTC) 