Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-10-30/News and notes
Sex and drug tourism—Wikivoyage's soft underbelly?
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/Cascari1.jpg/240px-Cascari1.jpg)
- Wikivoyage on Tijuana, Mexico: "The primary purpose of most visits to the Zona Norte involves prostitution. ... The usual rate is 200 Mexican pesos (sometimes 150 pesos, especially for locals) for a 20-minute session, with rooms costing 40-70 Mexican pesos. ... [The Hong Kong bar's] major attraction (besides the ladies themselves) is that they regularly have shows where two ladies perform lesbian acts while covered in shaving cream. Occasionally there will also be a show where a male audience member is brought onto the stage where two ladies perform sex acts on him."
- Wikivoyage on Vietnam: "prostitution is abundant in Vietnam, ... Many massage parlours and other businesses provide sex services at very low rates".
- Wikivoyage on Cambodia: "Heroin is very high grade in SE Asia and foreigners requesting cocaine are sometimes provided with it instead. ... enforcement tends to be on the lax side and many guesthouses are permanently shrouded in purple haze ... Marijuana in Cambodia is also often of much higher quality than elsewhere in SE Asia and sold for extremely low prices. While not overtly advertised, a quick ask at most bars, restaurants, or guest houses can generally get you what you need with little hassle."
- Wikivoyage on the Netherlands: "alcohol and weed can be a very nice and trippy experience, especially for people who don't feel enough from just smoking weed."
- Wikivoyage on Amsterdam: "Regardless of the strength, your first experience [with cannabis] can be quite a sensation at first, but will quickly decrease in intensity. You may want to plan to return to your hotel and "hole up" for a couple hours until you become comfortable with the feeling. ... The first time you try [magic mushrooms] should always be in a familiar and trusted environment, not on the streets of an unfamiliar city. Never take more than one packet of mushrooms—usually half is good for your first time."
The Signpost has frequently covered the Wikimedia Foundation's newest sister project, Wikivoyage. Among the coverage have been reports on the complicated and expensive migration of the site from the commercialised WikiTravel.org site and the non-profit German site that forked from it, which has given its name to the new WMF project. We have brought to you reports on the legal action taken by the corporate owners of WikiTravel.org, Internet Brands, against two editors (also covered in the mainstream press), and the Foundation's legal "victory" in the matter. Wikivoyage now has 15 language sites, although all but the English and German versions are small and only marginally active.
In January we raised several potentially troublesome issues for the Wikimedia movement in taking on Wikivoyage, including the apparent inadequacy of the English Wikivoyage sex-tourism policy, hurriedly strengthened against mention of child sex after our inquiries. However, both sex-tourism and illegal-activities policies remain equivocal about how the site should treat entries about sex tourism more generally, and drugs that are classed as illicit in almost every country. The Signpost has found it remarkably easy to locate material in Wikivoyage that violates both the spirit and the letter of these policies.
Two relevant policies
The sex-tourism policy states:
“ | we prefer not to include information on purchased sexual services on Wikivoyage, including: locations or listings of brothels or bars that sell sexual services; pricing info for prostitution; tips for picking up prostitutes; "quality" information on prostitutes in different destinations.” This is followed by text that cannot help but send ambivalent messages: "Writers are welcome to describe other kinds of sex-related venues on Wikivoyage … such as: strip clubs, adult-oriented stores, pornographic cinemas, fetish clubs, LGBT venues ... Descriptions of locations or areas where prostitutes may be found—so-called "red light districts"—may be useful to non-sex tourists. ... This applies whether or not prostitution is legal in the destination. ... Do not use euphemisms for sex or prostitution ... in favour of direct language. ... [Reformatted here to save space] | ” |
Back in January, Wikivoyager Pashley told the Signpost that these policy areas are "tricky", that Evan Prodromou "was really uneasy about allowing this sort of material on the site at all" when he came up with the sex-tourism policy ten years ago. "There have been arguments for both a looser and a stricter policy." DerFussi, chairman of the German non-profit that hosted Wikivoyage until two years ago, told us: "The community has an eye on all edits."
The companion piece to Wikivoyage's sex-tourism policy is its illegal-activities policy:
“ | articles should not give advice for: ... obtaining, transporting, providing or consuming alcohol, narcotics, medication or other substances in violation of local law. ... / ... "If travellers are likely to encounter illegal activity by others, and knowing about this would be useful to them, information should be provided on in the Understand or Stay safe section of the destination guide. Examples include: ... warnings about areas where travellers might encounter the illegal drug trade, and other illicit business. ... supply [such information] if it is likely to be useful to a traveller. ... a Wikivoyage article should discuss illegal activities where [they are] an important or integral part of the reason people visit the destination, such as destinations famed for their drug supply. | ” |
The policy concedes that the site "needs to tread a fine line about giving information. The test is that information should be provided for a traveller's safety, rather than solely to promote illegal activities. When writing about safety issues with illegal activities, Wikivoyage articles must always emphasise that that activity is a crime when mentioning safety issues. ... Wikivoyage articles should avoid giving information about illegal activities that is useful only to those seeking it and which is not motivated by safety concerns."
Formulaic "warnings"?
The policies themselves reflect the sometimes contradictory aims of the travel site to provide free, balanced information to people in a wide range of demographics who are engaged in a highly consumerist leisure pursuit. The ambiguity underlines the blurred interface between informing, warning, and encouraging on the site. Whether by design or accident, many edits appear to introduce information about prostitution and drugs with a formulaic "warning" added. Random examples of the mixed messages that result are:
- "Always ask for an ID from the prostitute to confirm her age." "... If you intend to be a patron of the Red Light District, be wary of women who beckon you towards their kamers and invite you in without discussing a price." (Antwerp)
- Prostitution is illegal in Vietnam. The age of consent is 18. Vietnamese penal law proscribes penalties of up to 20 years in prison for sexually exploiting women or children", but then, "prostitution is abundant in Vietnam, ... Many massage parlours and other businesses provide sex services at very low rates." (Vietnam)
- "As with any other sex destination, there are some tourists that hire minors. Prostitution with minors (less than 18 years old) is considered a crime in Costa Rica." (Costa Rica)
- "The age of consent in Cambodia is 15. Prostitution is theoretically illegal but widespread. ... Cambodia has gained some notoriety as a destination for paedophiles", but then, "under Cambodian law the penalty for sex with minors can be up to 30 years in prison" (Cambodia)
- "Too much alcohol or 'special' or 'happy' shakes which can contain cannabis, magic mushrooms or any manner of substance are not a good idea if you plan on going back in the river. ... Consuming these drugs on the premises is fairly safe, although drugs are illegal in Laos and nothing is totally safe. ... Aside from the drugs already mentioned it is inadvisable to attempt to purchase any other substances not freely available on the 'magic menus' around town. The dangers of most drugs should be well known to travelers, and additionally there is also a police presence." But then: "Southeast Asian 'crystal meth' is known as yabba and is available in both pill and smokeable forms. ... Yabba is an epidemic due to its highly addictive qualities. Manufactured locally, the drug can be cut with any number of substances." (Vang Vieng, Laos)
- "Cannabis possession in this city outside of University of Michigan property is only a 25 dollar fine, making this one of the most liberal cities in Michigan." (Detroit)
- "The scenery is best experienced while not high on cannabis ..." (Monahans, Texas)
It is an open question whether these warnings actually function to caution travellers' behaviour beyond providing eligibility for inclusion under the policies.
Depictions of women
Another issue raised by the material is its potential to be perceived as treating women with a casual objectification, under an implicit assumption that readers are not women ("Classy little hostess bar ... A place for single men and loose ladies ... no pool table or food to distract you from the lovely ladies" ... "There are dozens of girlie bars ... Freelance girls are picked up at establishments like [several names provided]").
There is occasionally evidence that some contributors have taken offence, and that there has been an element of push and pull over the years about the inclusion of sexual content (e.g. "Sorry, but I thought the comment comparing Downtown Eastside prostitutes to cheap parking prices was a little offensive. I didn't realize this article was a guide for sex tourists"; and "Isn't there a Wikivoyage policy against including 'sex tourism' related topics on Wikivoyage? If so, why is there a section of this article titled, 'Prostitution'?").
However, on the other side, as one Wikivoyage administrator wrote in February: "Policing travelers' personal moral choices is not one of Wikivoyage's goals". The Signpost believes that there are only two or three female editors on the English Wikivoyage, not all of them active.
External drug-related hyperlinks
A number of articles link to external pages that deal explicitly with drugs such as cannabis. Among these are Utrecht where "mainly psychedelics, cannabis and energetic herbs" in the "Buy" section contains a link to a Dutch-language advertisement "Cooking with dope". Seattle gives good airtime to the annual two-day cannabis festival, with an external link that beckons readers to "become a member" and "party with hempfest all year!" Similarly, Ann Arbor provides an external link for its annual Hashbash that advertises ancillary products and asks for political donations.
Editorial resources and the competition
Whether directly in breach of the site’s policies or just deserving of deep community discussion, some material on the English Wikivoyage suggests that—contrary to Fussi's claim—Wikivoyagers don't "have their eye on all edits". But does Wikivoyage have the editorial resources to police the input of sex- and drug-related information? And just as central to the site's use of the Wikimedia Foundation's trademark and brand reputation is its ability to monitor commercial spamming. Of 56 listed admins who migrated from WikiTravel at the start of the year, only 23 are active; the list includes seven bureaucrats, of whom only two are active. Edits to Wikivoyage have declined by almost a third since June, from more than 34,000 to just over 18,000 in October (the latter figure is the Signpost's estimate from sampling the "Recent changes" list. This compares with more than 25,000 for Wikitravel.
One editor, who spoke to the Signpost on condition of anonymity, said:
“ | The readership is actually static with rolling hills and troughs. It's just that it should be topping Wikitravel—that will never happen unless and until they adopt proper search engine optimisation. ... At Wikitravel the automated spam attacks have reached truly appalling dimensions. The result is that WV is relatively free of spam bot attacks because our readership is so tiny compared to Wikitravel. | ” |
The Signpost has noted an upswing in the creation of increasingly strange articles at Wikitravel, still a heavily commercial site in which google advertisements appear as side-bars on every article. Recent examples of such articles, which display thematically related advertisements, are Hair dryer tips and tricks for problematic hair, Bridging loans and its advantages [sic], and Jailbreak iPhone and its benefits. There are virtually no active admins on WikiTravel. Despite the lack of proper administration and evidence of the fusing of editorial and commercial content, WikiTravel is now ranked 2417 globally, up from 3162 in late July. Wikivoyage is a disappointing 20,451, even though up from 32,586 in late July. Its page views have dropped 12% from the levels in January when the new site was launched. Yet given the poverty of the competition, there appear to be many opportunities for Wikivoyage to boost its presence in the crowded market for online travel advice.
In brief
- Bounty, Reward boards: The English Wikipedia's long-lasting Bounty and Reward boards have been proposed for deletion.
- Wikimedia LGBT: A proposed thematic organization that would revolve around content of interest to the LGBT community is currently canvassing for members, although the invitation was initially removed from the Wikimedia Ukraine page by Ahonc. Ahonc, who is an administrator and OTRS agent on the Wikimedia Commons, gave as his edit summary "у нас ніби всі нормальні". By a rough Google Translate, that comes across as "we all like normal."
- Foundation report: The Wikimedia Foundation's monthly report for September 2013 has been published on Meta.
- Wikimedia contributor's Kickstarter: A prolific photo contributor to the Wikimedia Commons has been given coverage for his attempt to use Kickstarter to fund his exploits, which include many of the top-listed images of video game consoles.
- Wikimania jury: Applicants are needed for the Wikimania 2015 jury, which will decide where the conference will be held.
Discuss this story
Objectivity?
Considering that a siteban was proposed for Tony1 on the English Wikivoyage, that does call into question the objectivity of this story: voy:en:Wikivoyage:User ban nominations/Archive#User:Tony1 --Rschen7754 21:47, 2 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
A discussion of whether Wikivoyage's policies on illegal activities, drugs, etc need updating, and how to improve monitoring of edits for problems, would be welcome at voy:Wikivoyage talk:Illegal activities policy. However, I would ask that anyone who is concerned about this issue to please read the relevant section(s) of the articles that are being referenced, as some of the quotes used in the Signpost article seem to lack context - for example, the quote from the Amsterdam article is three sentences here, but those three sentences come from different places within a six paragraph section in voy:Amsterdam#Cannabis and other drugs, and those six paragraphs are strongly slanted towards addressing safety concerns for the large number of visitors who choose to experiment with available drugs there. -- Ryan • (talk) • 22:04, 2 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) This article on WikiVoyage is a rotting load of holier-than-thou tripe. All the puritan attacks on Commons sexual content were not enough. I suppose there is still a need to go all tut-tut on the fact that -gasp!- people do pay for sex and like to smoke pot? What about instead dealing with it, and acknowledging that we're not all Boy Scouts? I don't do drugs nor I hang out with hookers, yet I do not feel the need to judge who does or to censor information that they may find useful. --cyclopiaspeak! 23:58, 2 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"This user has been a thorn in our side almost from Day 1". Wow, WikiVoyage is becoming a trolling den more and more, as it's hate of Wikipedia and Wikipedians, as well as of any criticism, keeps on growing. In this case I don't support censorship, but it's a very interesting issue that Tony should be commended for bringing more light to. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:52, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I too want to express my appreciation to Tony for taking the time to write a detailed, interesting article about this WMF project. I also want to add that that the claim that a "conflict of interest" might exist in this situation is totally wrong - such a claim is based on a misunderstanding of what underlies COI: two or more different roles, such as parent and employer, or newspaper columnist and spouse. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 17:18, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Bounty and Reward Boards
Its good that the mention of these two boards being up for deletion are on here. I personally called to have both closed. Though with this, there can be more discussion so progress can be made towards the final outcome. GamerPro64 21:14, 2 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
signpost being used as a stick to beat other projects with
I'm kind of getting tired of all these attack the sister project stories on the signpost. Now please don't get me wrong, there are important issues involved, and its important to discuss them. However this type of one sided editorializing does not do this. Combined with the other lets beat on the sister projects with a stick articles that the signpost has published in the past (but never a negative article about wikipedia using this type of tone) seems mostly to foster an us vs them mentality then anything else. Bawolff (talk) 23:13, 2 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
VW page views
Stating "Its page views have dropped 12% from the levels in January when the new site was launched" needs to be put into context. I would say it is a sign of just how well WV has done. In January WV was getting international media attention. After that its viewership fell and now is nearly back to the level it was when it was getting this attention. That this occured after only 6 months is amazing. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 23:48, 2 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
And what is wrong with sex/drug tourism, exactly?
Everyone seems to be taking it as a given that something wrong is happening here. So long as nothing illegal (both de facto and de jure) is going on then more or less everyone benefits from sex and drugs tourism. Women are lifted out of poverty, relatively speaking*, and drugs are either provided by the government in a couple of countries, or are cannabis - and the two obvious places to go for cannabis are either Christiana in Cophenhagen or most of the Netherlands.
I actually find this cultural imperialism of red state us hypocritical puritanism much worse than any so-called exploitation.
*yeah, they may still have pretty unpleasant living conditions by western standards, but relatively speaking it's a pretty decent deal.
Egg Centric 01:17, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This really should have been an op-ed
This raised some interesting points, and it's not as bad as the Farmbrough piece in the Arbitration Report a while back, but The Signpost really needs to do a better job drawing the line between articles and opinion pieces. Furthermore, it was a breach of basic journalistic ethics for Tony to not disclose his personal involvement here. I understand that The Signpost has a lot of work to do with relatively little resources, but I expect better than this. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 01:48, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The search engine problem
As the unnamed editor indicated, Wikivoyage is not attacting enough readers and new editors because search engines virtually always rank its articles below Wikitravel's. And it's not just Google. Until that changes, WV will struggle. Can the wider WMF community not help with this? Nurg (talk) 03:12, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't want to make suggestions, but my research on the site led me to think that centralising advice on prostitution and drugs rather than allowing it to scatter all over the place would be a way of controlling the message. And the message does need to be controlled by responsible hands in the English Wikivoyage community, given the sensitivities of those topics. Centralised advice is offered on other matters at the site.
Once you get over the initial anger and personalised attack stage, this and other possibilities of making the guidelines more functional might float to the surface. Thank you. Tony (talk) 05:38, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Vikivoyage
Excuse me Viki Voyage, your Freudian slip is showing. Nurg (talk) 03:17, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We do need more editors on Wikivoyage
And this is so immediately apparent here. Even though we are not @Wikivoyage, the same usual stuff crops up which has nothing to do with advancing Wikivoyage but a lot with fixed personal agendas and (hurt?) personalities. This is becoming boring like an old sitcom - very predictable, with the same characters and writers out of ideas. So, we have:
This sitcom is not "Golden Girls" and it's not getting any Emmys, it's just sad and boring.
So, if you're reading this and have absolutely no idea what's going on, just head over to Wikivoyage and start contributing. Despite all the negativity above, by and large it's just fun, rewarding and very easy. Once there are more of us, the sitcom becomes just an old TV rerun channel nobody watches. For now, it's getting undue prominence and gives the project a bad image. PrinceGloria (talk) 05:27, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
In response to some of the above comments
I am the Wikivoyage administrator who initiated the discussion on Tony's user block. I'm also responsible for the quote "This user has been a thorn in our side almost from Day 1", with which another editor above took issue. I stand by that quote, as well as my decision to nominate him for a user ban.
I'd like to address some of the comments that have been made here. Tony was not banned for censorious reasons. He was banned, if you'll pardon my bluntness, for being a dick. Civility is a fundamentally important part of user interactions on any wiki, and if Tony had expressed his concerns and suggestions regarding the direction Wikivoyage is taking in a civil manner, he would have had a much more receptive audience among his fellow Wikivoyagers. As other commenters have pointed out, these are frustrating times at Wikivoyage—and if anything, we heartily encourage helpful suggestions about how to make our site better, drive up traffic, and so forth. We do not, however, encourage disruptive and uncivil behavior. Many Wikivoyage administrators went out of their way to urge Tony to adopt a more civil tone in his discourse, but received hostile responses for their troubles. Blocking Tony was the only reasonable course of action we had. In point of fact, Wikivoyage policy states that user bans are a last-resort solution for dealing with problem editors, and we did not regard Tony's case as any different—especially given his fairly distinguished track record at Wikipedia and on other WMF projects. A thorough perusal of Tony's contributions at Wikivoyage will bear out everything said here.
It's worth mentioning that the writing of this article can reasonably be seen as the follow-through of a veiled threat Tony made to smear Wikivoyage in the Signpost upon his nomination for a user ban. Needless to say, we at Wikivoyage do not cotton to strong-arm tactics of that nature. And, also needless to say, all of the above-described baggage Tony has on Wikivoyage points to such a massive conflict-of-interest issue that it's frankly dubious what, if any, value this article may have. That's really a shame, because if Wikivoyage's policies on sex tourism or illegal activities are problematic, they ought to be rectified.
-- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 08:43, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"Yes, they are all boys"? Oh no, they aren't!
Tony1 is presenting himself as someone very familiar with the foul conditions at WV which makes me wonder why he makes this strange (sexism?) claim. For the record, there are several female frequent contributors and admins at WV. Might be they are invisible to Tony1's eyes, because they try to concentrate on other parts of WV work, like adding content, filling empty articles, and making the site up-to-date and attractive to readers rather than escalating academic arguments about spelling.
I would like to avoid generalizing, so I speak for myself, but maybe it is also something to do with female pragmatic approach to work on wiki projects, that we are not so prone to getting involved in feeding the trolls? Danapit (talk) 13:01, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Reject censorship
The first few batches of quotes above are not disturbing in any way. Wikivoyage should accurately portray the conditions that tourists will meet. We should not forget that these are sovereign nations that have the power to crack down on prostitution effectively, or the right to legalize it entirely: we are not the judges either of their citizens or of the foreigners who visit their country. It is true that they should avoid a discriminatory tone against women as described later, because that tone does nothing to advance their educational purpose, but I hope those are merely rare random abuses found in crowdsourced content. Where legally necessary to avoid potential accusation of collusion in illegal activities, Wikivoyage may be forced to enact restrictive policy to preserve its mission, but we should recognize that that is "sacrificing a doctrine to save the church", not a slope we should want them to roll down to the bottom. Wnt (talk) 00:28, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Editor's thoughts
Thanks to everyone for your comments. I have been unavailable to comment since this article was published as I was on vacation and in no mood to look at Wikipedia; I'm now just catching up with all this. I greenlighted a Wikivoyage story in September, because while I'm certain that information on finding prostitutes and/or drugs is helpful to some people, I'm equally certain that they don't appear in reputable travel guides—which is what Wikivoyage is striving to be. As such, this topic is one of public interest, and we enjoy fostering healthy debates (good example) when they appear. Wikivoyage's editors are, of course, free to choose their own path. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 03:32, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I offered a few positive things to consider, somewhere above, but no one has taken them up; these included centralising the messages about prostitution and drugs so the message is coordinated, avoiding putting women off and normalising certain ways of thinking by young males about their travel activities (thinking that may not always lead to positive experiences for them or others). Many travel-guide outlets—newspapers in particular—don't touch sex or drugs and manage to be stimulating and insightful for readers (and if they do, they do not talk in terms of "girlie bars" and "pick ups"—that can be really offensive to women). I'm no prude and I'm happy to see the topics treated in WV, but I got the feeling on researching the site for this story that the policies and the treatment both need to evolve. A centralised advice page—even if it gave information about prostitution or drugs in each country/city—could contain health information, advice as to best and safe behaviour, and legal warnings. At the moment it's all over the place: the entries of dozens of casual/anon editors need to be audited.
I'm pleased to see that Ryan has chimed in above with substantive points; I hope this prompts others into debate, which is what the Signpost expects and hopes of its coverage. Debate cannot proceed on WV itself, since that is likely to lead to blocks by the alpha males; on a big wiki such gratuitous blocks—documented with casual arrogance that disregards the notion of justification—would result in action against the admin. Tony (talk)
As for some of the other comments here, I'd like to extend an invitation to all editors to use my talk page, my email, or the Signpost's suggestions page to point us towards positive stories that are coming out of the Wikimedia sister projects. As I said on my talk page earlier today, we're well aware that the bulk of the stories coming from the movement are positive ones. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 07:00, 5 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Alternative proposal
Rather than censoring information, Wikivoyage should address issues of this kind by adding more information. For example, in the case of prostitution, editors should ensure that the article describes:
The articles also should, of course, be properly sympathetic to all persons, including the sex workers, and avoid any snarky, dismissive language meant to denigrate them. Wnt (talk) 15:31, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Inaccuracies and mischaracterizations in the en.voy piece
Editorial guidance I'm surprised and disappointed in how negative and inaccurate the Wikivoyage story is. E.g. the claim that there aren't active Wikitravel admins (e.g. me--I perform maintenance there multiple times a day) or the fact that the spam articles that Tony1 mentioned are almost immediately deleted. There is a serious spam issue at Wikitravel but it's being addressed with heavy moderation (not the best possible solution but it's something). This could have been fixed easily by having someone verify his claims. I blame the lack of editorial guidance on this site more than the author. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:15, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You say: "With respect to the WT lawsuit, I don't see how that is relevant to a discussion of Wikivoyage's policies on drugs and sex tourism, but should anyone want to discuss that issue then ping me on my talk page and I would be happy for any opportunity to again express my deep gratitude to the amazing people at WMF for their assistance". The relevance is that you've turned out to be a block-happy bully on Wikivoyage, turning off editors and perpetrating a nasty environment. Why did we support you? Tony (talk) 06:00, 5 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We rightly supported Ryan and Dr Heilman because they were victimised and persecuted by Internet Brands and to clarify that forks are a legitimate (final?) response to the wilful and egregious breaking of both implicit and explicit agreements with their editor community. Yes, it is a pity that some folks don't learn from the lessons of history (pacé Sabras and Palestinians?) but I still think it was the right thing for the WMF to have done and I do hope that the "old boy's club" mentality of some of the current EnWV admin corps mellows and becomes more welcoming of new editors and less accusatory so that those dollars turn out to be well spent. Yes, Ryan is one of those most resistant to change, but he's a thoughtful guy and should prove capable of learning some lessons so that admin discussions may take place more publicly and on-Wiki(voyage) in future... --118.93.67.66 (talk) 07:02, 5 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Never mind Tony1, did you see what happened to Burmese Days? Sure he should have been more patient when discussing his point of view about black and white images and huge sizes but, bearing in mind his terrific contribution record, did it really have to get to the point where he felt so hounded out?(off topic and too personalised)Wikivoyage
I did not read all the comment here, but it seemed like some people have missed this point: That some of the articles there can be viewed as facilitating sex-tourism/drug-tourism is illegal in many places possibly including the United States. Wikimedia still have to observe US law, mind you. WMF will have to take a look at this, I am afraid.SYSS Mouse (talk) 16:45, 5 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
of which you are an illustrious member. I know it can be very difficult to stand out against your mates, but why did you not block PeterFitzgerald for a token 60 seconds when he began flouting "community standards"? If you had, he might have paused for earnest self examination and subsequently not have painted himself into such a corner that he felt forced to take his ball home in a sulk.Please remove the gratuitously sexualized image
Please remove the gratuitously sexualized image used to illustrate the Wikivoyage article. It might be excusable to use that image if it was actually used to illustrate a sex tourism related article on Wikivoyage, but it's not. This is precisely the kind of unthinking sexism that turns off women editors; it takes a lot of work to manage to offend me but you've done it with that image. I don't look to the Signpost for cheap tabloid journalism. Risker (talk) 21:13, 5 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That I went onto the site in January to research this and other themes on the English Wikivoyage with a view to covering them in the public interest should surprise no one. That Ryan, Andre Carrotflower, Lt Powers, and other bullies conspired to issue a punitive three-day block during my research is surprising. But hey, if you're not prepared for twists like that when you investigate, you shouldn't be in the game of writing journalism. Tony (talk) 07:07, 6 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Further, the tone of the article is very aggressive. The tone of every comment you have made here is even more aggressive and confrontational.
ALLEGED
For example, the paragraph before the Vietnam quote read "Prostitution is illegal in Vietnam. The age of consent is 18. Vietnamese penal law proscribes penalties of up to 20 years in prison for sexually exploiting women or children, and several other countries have laws that allow them to prosecute their own citizens who travel abroad to engage in sex with children." (It has since been reworded to remove the ambiguity.)
This changes the tone of the information but you omitted it from your quote.
It should also be mentioned that, while not the article itself, you have gone on to assert a "bully-boy mentality among powerful editors" on Wikivoyage without providing any evidence.
Move for retraction
This article appears to be all froth and no substance