This is the old BIRD, which will remain here at swifft.net.au/bird for a year or so. You almost certainly want the new BIRD at bird.net.au

BIRD

From BIRD: linking the biodiversity community

Categories: How BIRD works

BIRD stands for Biodiversity Information, Resources and Data. It is a place where people and organisations with an interest in biodiversity can pool knowledge. Being a wiki, anyone can contribute to almost any part of it. BIRD contains information about biodiversity groups, issues, and goals.

Who owns BIRD?

BIRD grew out of a pilot project designed to promote the objectives of BEN, the Ballarat Environment Network, and BEN remains the owner of record. In practice, BIRD is open to any individual or organisation with an interest in biodiversity, subject only to overall compatibility with BEN's goals (which you will find are probably very similar to the goals of your own organisation). BIRD is funded by BEN in association with SWIFFT. Direct costs, however, are very small.

Who is responsible for maintaining it?

You are! There is no chief editor, no master designer. Everyone with an interest in biodiversity preservation and enhancement shares equally in creating content. Overall policy is set by BIRD contributors (that's you!), subject only to broad compatibility with the aims of key stakeholder groups such as BEN and SWIFFT. Technical issues and day to day administration are taken care of by the Webmaster and the wiki administrators.

What content is appropriate?

Biodiversity news
Coming events
Information about stakeholder groups
Information about fauna and flora
(add your suggestion here)

Can I post information about my organisation here?

Please do! If your organisation has aims that complement our aims, then you are very welcome here. If you don't belong to an organisation yet, just contribute anyway. We welcome any content related to the preservation and extension of biodiversity.

What areas does BIRD focus on?

BIRD was established to promote biodiversity in the southwest region of Victoria — a very vaguely defined area stretching from around Melbourne west to about the South Australian border. In reality, nature does not respect lines on maps and neither do we: we welcome content that is relevant to any part of Australasia.

How much detail is appropriate?

As much or as little as you want to contribute. Wiki is not paper and there is no practical limit to the size of BIRD. Server space is cheap, and there is no reason not to add anything that is relevant to our goals.

Why is it called BIRD?

Because we wanted a name that was short, easy to remember, and not already registered. The name itself came first, of course, and coming up with an acronym to fit it required a little thought!

Who holds the copyright?

In general, text is freely available to all under an open Creative Commons licence. If you have an original document that you want to publish here, but you need to retain the copyright to (for example, because it was produced by the department you work for) then you can do that too. Simply add an appropriate copyright message to the text.

Image copyright usually remains with the original creator. See the appropriate Help:image description page for licencing details of each image. Some content (text or images) is re-used from other sites under an existing open licence, such as the GFDL or a Creative Commons licence. (For more detail, see Help:Copyright.)