Wikitravel
Wikitravel is a project "to create an open content, complete, up-to-date, and reliable world-wide travel guide." Although it uses a wiki model to create the guide and to deliver it on the World Wide Web, the project is also aimed towards production of printed guides. Wikitravel is built in collaboration by Wikitravellers from around the globe. Articles can cover any level of geographic specificity, from continents to districts of a city. These are logically connected in a hierarchy, by specifying that the location covered in one article "is in" the larger location described by another. The project also includes articles on travel-related topics, phrasebooks for travelers, and suggested itineraries.
History
Wikitravel was started in July 2003 by Evan Prodromou and Michele Ann Jenkins, inspired in part by Wikipedia [1]. The project uses the MediaWiki software, which is also used by Wikipedia. However, Wikitravel is not a Wikimedia project; it was begun independently. Unlike Wikipedia, it uses the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license rather than the GNU Free Documentation License. Among other things, this more easily allows individuals, tourism agencies, etc. to make free reprints of individual pages. Although both Wikipedia and Wikitravel are free content resources, because of the incompatible licenses, content cannot be freely copied between them. Wikitravel's different objectives have also resulted in different policies and content guidelines. For example, rather than a strict neutral point of view requirement, Wikitravel encourages editors to express their personal opinions with the requirement to "be fair".
On April 20, 2006, Wikitravel announced that it and World66 – another open-content travel guide – had been acquired by Internet Brands.[1] The new owner hired Prodromou and Jenkins to continue managing Wikitravel as a consensus-based project. They explained that Internet Brands' long-term plan was for Wikitravel to continue to focus on collaborative, objective guides, while World66 would focus more on personal experiences and reviews.
As a result, a small portion of the German language community decided to fork the German Wikitravel, which is released since December 10, 2006 as Wikivoyage.
On May 1, 2007 Wikitravel received the Webby Award for Best Travel Website.[2]
Milestones
- December 23, 2005 — 10,000 articles across all versions
- June 11, 2006 — 10,000 articles on the English version
- September 29, 2006 — 20,000 articles across all versions
- April 20, 2007 — 30,000 articles across all versions
- May 1, 2007 — Wikitravel wins Webby Award for Best Travel Website
Languages
Wikitravel is a multilingual project available in 16 languages, with each language-specific project developed independently. In order of launch:
- English
- Romanian
- French
- German
- Swedish
- Japanese
- Dutch
- Portuguese
- Spanish
- Polish
- Italian
- Esperanto
- Hungarian
- Catalan
- Finnish
- Hindi
References
- ^ "Internet Brands Acquires Wikitravel And World66 Online Travel Guides" (Press release). Internet Brands. 20 April, 2006.
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