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Wikitravel

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For the travel guide operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, see Wikivoyage.
Wikitravel
The Wikitravel logo includes a stylized blue-grey compass rose
Type of site
Wiki travel guide
Available inInitially English, now with 20 additional languages: Arabic, Catalan, Chinese, Dutch, Esperanto, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish[1]
OwnerInternet Brands
Created byEvan Prodromou
Michele Ann Jenkins
URLwikitravel.org
CommercialYes[2]
RegistrationOptional
Users~500 active users (at least one edit in the past 30 days)
Content license
CC-BY-SA

Wikitravel is a web-based collaborative travel guide project, based upon the wiki model, launched by Evan Prodromou and Michele Ann Jenkins in 2003.[4][5] In 2006, Internet Brands bought the trademark and servers and later introduced advertising to the website.[6] This move met opposition from users, with many German and Italian editors leaving for a newly established wiki, Wikivoyage.

Wikitravel received a Webby Award for Best Travel Website in 2007.[7] That same year, Wikitravel's founders began Wikitravel Press, a now-defunct project which published printed travel guides based on the Web site's content.[8] The first print guides were released on February 1, 2008.

In 2012, a large portion of the editing community, including the founders, left and brought their contributions to the Wikivoyage project, which was relaunched as a Wikimedia Foundation-hosted project in January 2013.

Description

Using a wiki model, Wikitravel is built through collaboration of Wikitravellers from around the globe.[9][10] 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.

Wikitravel is a multilingual project available in 21 languages, with each language-specific project developed independently. The English-language version leads in terms of number of articles with over 24,500 in April 2011.[1] While the project uses the MediaWiki software, Wikitravel is not a Wikimedia project (and is in direct competition with Wikimedia's Wikivoyage project). It was begun and is operated independently.[11]

Wikitravel travel guides are available under a free content license; while Internet Brands owns the web site and associated trademarks, contributors own the content they contribute and they agree to license that content for free use.

Content

Wikitravel content is broadly categorised as Destinations, Itineraries, Phrasebooks, and Travel topics.[12]

Destinations

Geographical units within the geographical hierarchy may be described in articles, based on the criterion, "can you sleep there?"[12]

The hierarchy includes:

  • Continents
  • Continental sections (like Southeast Asia)
  • Countries
  • Regions within countries (provinces, counties, states, groups of states etc.)
  • Cities of any size, including fairly small villages if they are tourist destinations
  • Districts within large cities
  • National parks provided they have accommodation for the traveler

Attractions such as hotels, restaurants, bars, stores, nightclubs, tour operators, museums, statues or other works of art, city parks, town squares or streets, festivals or events, transport systems or stations, bodies of water and uninhabited islands are listed in the article for the place they're located.

Itineraries

An itinerary describes a group of destinations according to a temporal division rather than a spatial one and will list destinations and attractions to visit during a given amount of time, with recommended durations of stay and routes to follow.

Itineraries may cross geographical regions, but will usually have a well-defined path.

Phrasebooks

A phrasebook will comprise:[13]

  1. An overview of the language, giving a brief history, scope (where it's spoken, how many speakers), alphabet or symbol set, and any other general info on the language.
  2. A pronunciation guide, with a description of each written symbol in the language (that is, its alphabet), and a pronunciation note for each symbol.
  3. A phrase list. Each entry in the phrase list should include the word or phrase being translated, the spelling in the local language symbol set as it would be seen written down, and a pronunciation cue.

Travel topics

Travel topics are articles that deal with a specific topic of interest to travelers that is too large or detailed to go in a specific travel guide destination page, travel tips that are so general that they apply to nearly all destinations and do not need to be in each specific travel guide, major events that occur in different places, and specialist travel information such as regional guides to Scuba diving sites.[14]

History

Annotated map of the 1st arrondissement of Paris generated for a guide to travel of Wikitravel from OpenStreetMap data

Wikitravel was started in July 2003 by Evan Prodromou and Michele Ann Jenkins, partly inspired by Wikipedia. To allow individuals, tourism agencies, and so on to make free reprints of individual pages more easily than permitted by the GNU Free Documentation License (used by Wikipedia at that time) it used the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license. Since both Wikipedia and Wikitravel are now licensed under the Attribution ShareAlike license, appropriate content can be shared between the two so long as licensing requirements are met.

Wikitravel does not have a neutral-point-of-view requirement, as it is written from the point of view of a traveler and, instead, encourages editors to "be fair".[15]

Wikitravel encourages original research in its content, and therefore does not generally require citation,[16] but it does require contributions to comply with its Manual of Style, to provide an easily recognised and consistent layout and appearance,[17] and to avoid touting.[18]

On April 20, 2006, Wikitravel announced that it and World66—another open-content wiki travel guide founded in 1999—had been acquired by Internet Brands, a publicly traded corporation.[19] 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. In response, many authors of the German language community chose to fork the German Wikitravel, which was released on December 10, 2006, as Wikivoyage. The German language Wikitravel remains active. On April 1, 2008, Internet Brands added Google advertising to Wikitravel, with an opt-out procedure for registered users.

On May 1, 2007, Wikitravel received the Webby Award for Best Travel Website. On June 16, 2008, Wikitravel was named one of the "50 Best Websites of 2008" by Time magazine.[20]

On August 3, 2007, Prodromou, Jenkins, and long-time contributor Jani Patokallio started Wikitravel Press, a company that produces and sells print guidebooks based on material contributed to Wikitravel. The first Wikitravel Press guides, Chicago and Singapore, were officially launched on February 1, 2008.[21] Content in these guidebooks was available under the same Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license under which Wikitravel material is licensed. The Wikitravel trademarks were licensed to Wikitravel Press, but there was otherwise no connection to Internet Brands. Wikitravel Press ceased to operate in 2011.[22]

On January 1, 2010, the content of Wikitravel was migrated to the updated Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 license.

In mid-2012, a proposal was floated by members of the editing community to fork their work at Wikitravel (forking in this context means to move editing activities and current content to a new host, in accordance with the site license) and re-merge with the travel website Wikivoyage—itself a fork of German and Italian language Wikitravel some years previously—and to then seek hosting of the merged sites by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation (see Community fork, 2012 below).[23][24] Internet Brands opposed this move and sued one Wikitravel contributor and one Wikipedia contributor, alleging trademark infringement, unfair competition and civil conspiracy, a move opposed by both individuals and the Wikimedia Foundation as being an example of a SLAPP lawsuit—one undertaken without plausible legal grounds with a primary intent being to deter, overwhelm, or frustrate persons engaged in fully lawful actions.[25]

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.
  • May 1, 2007: Wikitravel wins Webby Award for Best Travel Website.
  • February 1, 2008: publication of first printed Wikitravel Press guides.
  • June 16, 2008: Time magazine names Wikitravel one of the "50 Best Websites of 2008".
  • November 22, 2008: 20,000 articles on the English version.
  • August 21, 2009: 50,000 articles and 50,000 users across all versions.

Community fork in 2012

In 2012, after a lengthy history of dissatisfaction with Wikitravel's host and owner Internet Brands, it was proposed that the community at Wikitravel fork (split off) their work and editing activities from Wikitravel and Wikitravel Shared and—together with the existing sites at Wikivoyage—merge to create a new travel wiki to be hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, the owner of Wikipedia and a large range of other non-profit reference sites based upon wiki communities.[26][27][28] The dissatisfaction related to long standing discontent at poor hosting, poor site updates, and excessive over-monetarization and advertising, and eventually, interference by Internet Brands in the community's activities in breach of prior agreements and understandings.[29]

After lengthy discussion by users of all three communities and comments by their respective hosts, and confirmation by the Wikimedia Foundation that it would host a travel project if users wished, the majority of administrators and bureaucrats at Wikitravel decided to fork their existing work to Wikivoyage.[30][31][32]

The contents of Wikitravel and its related 'Commons' (images, video and other media files) in all languages and of Wikitravel Commons were downloaded as a 'database dump' in preparation for such a migration on August 2, 2012 and as the starting point for the existing wiki. Forking is a normal or anticipated activity in wiki communities and is permitted by the Creative Commons license in use on sites such as Wikitravel; the wiki software used for Wikitravel included that facility, although Internet Brands disabled the function shortly after this date to forestall the attempt at data migration or forking.[29] The community discussion at Wikimedia ended 23 August 2012 with 540 votes in support and 152 votes in opposition of the creation of a Wikimedia Foundation travel guide project.[33] The wiki text was moved to Wikimedia Foundation servers on November 10, 2012.

A significant part of the editing community including most of the administrators at the time, and the existing Wikitravel content for most languages resumed under the 'Wikivoyage' name as www.wikivoyage.org, as an ad-free and not-for-profit reference site in early 2013.[34][35]

On August 24, 2012, Internet Brands filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court against Wikitravel administrator Ryan Holliday and Wikipedia administrator James Heilman involving claims of trademark infringement and unfair business practices. In September 2012, the Wikimedia Foundation filed a complaint in San Francisco County Superior Court on behalf of Holliday and Heilman asking the court to declare that "forking has and remains a legal activity."[36] In February 2013 the parties settled their litigation. The terms of the settlement were not reported.[37]

References

  1. ^ a b "Multilingual statistics". Wikitravel. Retrieved April 4, 2011.
  2. ^ Dealbook. "Unit of Idealab, Still Dabbling in Bits, Tries I.P.O." New York Times.
  3. ^ "Wikitravel.org Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved April 1, 2014.
  4. ^ Turnbull, Giles (April 12, 2004). "The DIY travel guide". BBC News. Retrieved April 4, 2011.
  5. ^ O'Connell, Pamela LiCalzi (February 12, 2004). "Online Diary". The New York Times. Retrieved April 4, 2011.
  6. ^ Tedeschi, Bob (April 24, 2006). "Everyone's an Editor as Wiki Fever Spreads to Shopping Sites". The New York Times. Retrieved April 4, 2011.
  7. ^ Coyle, Jake (May 30, 2007). "On the Net: Web Sites to Travel By". Fox News Channel. Associated Press. Retrieved April 4, 2011.
  8. ^ Doctorow, Cory (February 19, 2008). "Wikitravel to publish up-to-the-month print editions of its guides". Boing Boing. Retrieved April 4, 2011.
  9. ^ Tedeschi, Bob (June 26, 2006). "As Online Ads Grow, Eyeballs Are Valuable Again on the Web". The New York Times. Retrieved April 4, 2011.
  10. ^ Jesdanun, Anick (September 26, 2004). "'Wikis' provide window on the wisdom of groups". USA Today. Associated Press. Retrieved April 4, 2011.
  11. ^ "Wikitravel:Cooperating with Wikipedia". Wikitravel. Retrieved April 4, 2011.
  12. ^ a b "Wikitravel:What is an article?". Wikitravel. Retrieved December 16, 2011.
  13. ^ "Wikitravel:Phrasebook Expedition". Wikitravel. Retrieved December 16, 2011.
  14. ^ "Wikitravel Travel topics". Wikitravel. Retrieved December 16, 2011.
  15. ^ "Wikitravel:Be fair". Wikitravel. Retrieved April 4, 2011.
  16. ^ "Wikitravel:Tips for new contributors". Wikitravel. Retrieved December 16, 2011.
  17. ^ "Wikitravel:Manual of style". Wikitravel. Retrieved December 16, 2011.
  18. ^ "Wikitravel:Don't tout". Wikitravel. Retrieved December 16, 2011.
  19. ^ "Internet Brands Picks Up Two Travel Sites". The New York Times. April 20, 2006. Retrieved April 4, 2011.
  20. ^ Hamilton, Anita (June 17, 2008). "Wikitravel – 50 Best Websites 2008". Time. Retrieved April 4, 2011.
  21. ^ Glow, Justin (February 19, 2008). "Wikitravel to publish hardcopy editions of its guides". Gadling. Retrieved April 4, 2011.
  22. ^ "Wikitravel Press: Seven lessons from a startup that failed". Gyrovague. December 18, 2012. Retrieved March 20, 2013.
  23. ^ The Case of Wikitravel and Wikivoyage Governance Across Borders, July 2012
  24. ^ "Wikipedia parent to launch travel guide with Wikitravel rebels". Skift.com. July 13, 2012. Retrieved March 20, 2013.
  25. ^ "Wiki travel dustup tests open copyright licenses". Thomson Reuters News and Insight. September 7, 2012.
  26. ^ "Wikivoyage – Meta". Meta.wikimedia.org. Retrieved March 20, 2013.
  27. ^ [1], Travel Guide proposal on Wikimedia meta-wiki(Revision as of 20:12, 24 August 2012)
  28. ^ [2], Wikivoyage Migration FAQ (Revision as of 23:15, 26 August 2012)
  29. ^ a b Migration FAQ at Wikivoyage, 25 Oct 2012
  30. ^ [3], Discussions (towards the bottom) on Wikitravel's Travellers' Pub regarding the migration to Wikimedia/Wikivoyage (Revision as of 01:16, 26 August 2012)
  31. ^ Part of the discussion at Wikivoyage, of move to WMF 25 Oct 2012[dead link]
  32. ^ Analysis of the situation, findings, discussions, and resolutions by the Wikimedia Foundation and its user community: comprehensive resources at Wikimedia.org, as at 25 October 2012
  33. ^ [4] Request for Comment on the Travel Guide proposal at Wikimedia meta-wiki, version at time that discussion ended
  34. ^ Wikimedia.org website 25 October 2012: states "In preparation of Wikivoyage becoming part of the new Wikimedia travel guide..." and "Wikivoyage e.V. plans to hand over its domain and the responsibility for operating the Wikivoyage project to the Wikimedia Foundation. A corresponding resolution has been made by the general assembly in June 2012."
  35. ^ See also Wikivoyage mailing list by Wikimedia Foundation] as at 25 October 2012: "The mailing list for Wikivoyage, a planned Wikimedia project"
  36. ^ Noam Cohen. "Travel Site Built on Wiki Ethos Now Bedevils Its Owner". New York Times.
  37. ^ Musil, Steven (February 17, 2013). "Wikimedia, Internet Brands settle Wikivoyage lawsuits". CNET. Retrieved July 12, 2013.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikitravel&oldid=602212408"