Why has EOL created editors.eol.org?

editors.eol.org is a platform for collaborative content creation and editing. The development of this new facility reflects changes in how content is provided to EOL, and our efforts to adapt to those changes.

Most of the articles on EOL are 3rd party content developed and maintained by content providers around the world. EOL harvests this content from the partners’ servers and displays the most recent version. By comparison, over time a number of EOL contributors have expressed a desire to create text content for EOL specifically, and would like to work in groups to edit shared articles and keep them up to date. The editors.eol.org platform becomes the source for these “first party” articles, which are then harvested by EOL and displayed on the appropriate taxon pages.

Other contributors wish to create derivative works based on open licensed resources, such as the historic literature hosted by the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL). On editors.eol.org, we’ve added tools these communities can use to import source material directly from BHL and other content stores, track the necessary reference and attribution data, and collaboratively edit their new articles for publication to EOL taxon pages.

Over time some EOL content partners have experienced a loss of hosting services, which places their content in danger. In the past this content was often archived in offline storage, in the Internet Archive, or even in EOL itself. Unfortunately, communally-curated resources could not be edited or updated when archived in these states. Editors.eol.org can serve as a life raft where these communities can reassemble to maintain their orphaned biodiversity content and keep it current.

This post will be updated with links to FAQs, tutorials, and specific forum posts of relevance to users of this new platform.