PlanetCatfish.com

Whats up wiht Fish Base? When I try to get info on a fish it asks for a password. They never have before. Whats the deal?

I tried it as well. Password needed... and the strange thing is that they said nothing about how to get a password...

It is not the first time I have seen internet resources starting to request a password, and thereby making it impossible for most people to access the information.

One of the most important things for science and understanding of species is knowledge, which should never be restricted.

I will find out if this is an error, or something related to the human greed for money. I hope it is not like these pay tv channels; they show sport that should be available to everyone, but instead making a few people pay a lot, to view it...

What happens then, is that that sport, or hobby, maybe will get less fans, because of restricted access.

Of course our hobby will survive, but fishbase is an important tool.

I'll contact someone I know on monday, and maybe they will know why. Hope it is just an error!

xander wrote:When I try to get info on a fish it asks for a password.

Phew. You had me worried there. It seems to have been temporary. I've just tried fishbase in a number of different languages. None of them asked for any password. Hopefully it'll stay that way !

Yep, looks like all languages and mirrors are fine now. It does act a little funky at times, but you can always try a different mirror and you should be fine.

Doubt FB will go private, due to where they get most of their money (the European Commission and FAO).

Rusty

Finally it works here too... I was wrong in my bad suspicions luckily..Maybe I own them an apologise? And of course if Fishbase gets their money from the EU commission, they will not go private...

I'll go fishing! Base-ically..

spiny wrote:And of course if Fishbase gets their money from the EU commission, they will not go private...

I don't think they'd be able to. There are very many collaborators to Fishbase, most if not all of whom have done it in the spirit of free exchange of information. If FB started charging for access to this information I'm sure many of these would withdraw their contributions. Having spoken previously to some of the FB people they all just seem delighted to be a part of this, with no thoughts about commercialism.