Wikivoyage
 | |
 Screenshot of Wikivoyage's portal | |
Type of site | Wiki |
|---|---|
| Available in | 7 active editions (English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Russian, Swedish) |
| Headquarters | United States |
| Owner | Wikimedia Foundation |
| Created by | Wikivoyage e.V. association |
| URL | wikivoyage |
| Commercial | No |
| Registration | Optional |
Wikivoyage (German pronunciation: [vikivwaˈjɑʒ], English: /ˌwɪkiˈvɔɪ.ɨdʒ/) is a free web-based travel guide for both travel destinations and travel topics written by volunteer authors. The name is a blend of the words “Wiki” (an Internet based software system that allows change and extension of the text by any user) and “Voyage”, the French word for travel, journey, voyage, or trip.
The project was started as a fork of the German version of Wikitravel in September 2006 with the specific intent of avoiding commercial interests after Wikitravel was aquired by the for profit company Internet Brands. It was founded by the German association Wikivoyage e.V., and went live on December 10, 2006. Content is published under the copyleft license Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike.
In mid-2012 the majority of Wikitravel's English language version community, including most of the administrators, and most of the Wikivoyage community sought to reunite the Wikitravel and Wikivoyage communities under a new non-commercial project. They approached the Wikimedia Foundation to explore their interest in hosting, which sparked a successful travel guide proposal that was approved by the WMF in October 2012. The site was moved over to the WMF servers in December of 2012 and is to be officially launched January 15th, 2013.
Description
Using a wiki model, Wikivoyage is built through collaboration of Wikivoyagers 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.
Wikivoyage is a multilingual project available in 7 languages, with each language-specific project developed independently. The English language version leads in terms of number of articles with over 26,500 in December 2012. While now a Wikimedia project it was begun independently. Wikivoyage content is broadly categorised as: Destinations, Itineraries, Phrasebooks, and Travel topics.
Destinations
Geographical units within the geographical hierarchy may be described in articles, based on the criterion, "can you sleep there?"
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 traveller
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:
- 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.
- A pronunciation guide, with a description of each written symbol in the language (that is, its alphabet), and a pronunciation note for each symbol.
- 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 travellers 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 don't 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.
Organisation and operation
Mode of operation
Wikivoyage uses the same free MediaWiki software used by Wikipedia in order to allow an internet based use without registration for non-contributing users. The quality assurance occurs in the same way as on Wikipedia, through reciprocal control by users. The use of the same software is intended to facilitate familiarisation with Wikivoyage.
License
Wikivoyage uses the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license but not the GNU Free Documentation License. This is intended to facilitate the production of printed guides from a legal point of view. Media files are intended to be published either in the public domain or under multiple licenses (GNU, Creative Commons).
Information structure
The information is built up in a more structured way than usual for encyclopaedias. Articles belonging to a topic are grouped by the categories known from the Mediawiki software as well as through the so-called bread crumb trails which show the geographical connection between the articles.
Different name spaces are used to separate different topics. The main name space contains travel destinations within their geographical hierarchy. Two other important name spaces are reserved for travel topics and travel news, with the intent to allow a tight interconnection between travel destinations and topics.
The content design is decided by consensus of the community of authors, and not the association.
Languages
The content of Wikivoyage is available in German, Italian, English, French, Dutch, Russian, and Swedish languages.
Distribution
A distribution through mirrors or by other means of modern media is licit and also desired. For this purpose, up-to-date archives are provided on a weekly basis. The files contained in these archives are provided with all the necessary legal licensing information, e.g. the attribution of the authors. A technical extension related to the program concerning the mentioning of the image authors is in preparation.
The choice of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license is intended to allow simplified distribution by mention of the authors without the need to state the complete license text.
History
Wikivoyage's history dates back to October 7, 2004 when many of its authors and administrators built up the German content of Wikitravel. This was followed by disappointment when wikitravel.org was acquired by the for-profit Internet Brands, an operator of media and e-commerce sites, as announced on April 20, 2006. Additional discontent occurred due to the management style of the new owners and this led to the decision by most German administrators and authors to continue the project as a fork.
After half a year of preparation, the non-profit association Wikivoyage e.V. was founded and registered. It was both the owner of the domain names and operator of the servers.[2] On December 10, 2006, the project went live online with the initial data from the German-language Wikitravel. After seven months 40% of the articles were new, rising to 50% after 10 months.[3] At this stage there were still some major gaps in the coverage, but there were several articles for travel destinations like Egypt, Thailand and Switzerland and for the travel topic cycling.[4]
The Italian branch of Wikivoyage was launched on December 10, 2007. The organisation of media data and the administration of user access were already applicable for use in branches in other languages.
The project garners some press reports, particularly by Swiss radio and newpapers. TheTages-Anzeiger[5] from Zurich and the Swiss radio station DRS1 reported broadly on the project and discussed the still existing weaknesses.[6] The project is mainly supported by German and Swiss authors.
Migration to the Wikimedia Foundation
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 their work from Wikitravel and Wikitravel Shared and - together with the existing sites at Wikivoyage - merge to create a new travel wiki hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, the steward of Wikipedia and a large range of other non-profit reference sites based upon a wiki community culture.[7][8][9] After lengthy discussion by users of all three communities, comments by their respective hosts, and confirmation by the Wikimedia Foundation that it would host a travel project if users wished, nearly all administrators and bureaucrats at Wikitravel decided to fork their existing work to Wikivoyage.[10]
The contents of Wikitravel and its related 'Commons' (images, video and other media files) in all languages were downloaded as a 'database dump' in preparation for such a migration on August 2, 2012. This content became the starting point for the all languages excluding German and Italian which was already hosted by Wikivoyage. 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. 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.[11] The project began in beta on WMF servers in November 10th, 2012.[12] And is expected to launch fully on January 15th, 2013.
As part of the migration, it is planned that current owners and user body "Wikivoyage e.V." will remain in place as an associated organization affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation "at an organizational level". Wikivoyage stated that, freed of the need to maintain its servers, it would be able to benefit by increasing its work related to outreach, community support, discussion and information, and technical enhancements to the site's software.[13][14]
In September 2012 Internet Brands filed litigation against one Wikitravel administrators (Ryan Holliday) and one Wikipedia administrator (James Heilman) which it accused of trademark breach and commercial misconduct in the proposals affecting that site, with the defendants and Wikimedia rejecting the case as 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.[15] On Novemeber 19th, 2012 the claims by Internet Brands were dismissed by the United States District Court of California.[16]
See also
References
- ^ "Wikivoyage.org Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2012-12-15.
- ^ see the bylaws of the Wikivoyage association
- ^ Wikivoyage statistics page
- ^ The article distribution of Wikivoyage can be seen on aspecial page
- ^ Roger Zedi: Eine Sammelstelle für praktisches Reise-Wissen, in: Tages-Anzeiger from January 20, 2007, page 60
- ^ Daniela Huwyler: AllerWeltsGeschichte / Heute aktuell, DRS 1, February 21, 2007, 15:45 o'clock (local time)
- ^ "Travel Guide". Wikimedia Meta wiki. Retrieved 2012-11-09.
- ^ [1], Travel Guide proposal on Wikimedia meta-wiki(Revision as of 20:12, 24 August 2012)
- ^ [2], Wikivoyage Migration FAQ (Revision as of 23:15, 26 August 2012)
- ^ [3], Discussions (towards the bottom) on Wikitravel's Travellers' Pub regarding the migration to Wikimedia/Wikivoyage (Revision as of 01:16, 26 August 2012)
- ^ [4] Request for Comment on the Travel Guide proposal at Wikimedia meta-wiki, version at time that discussion ended
- ^ "Wikivoyage/Launch". Wikimedia. Retrieved 15 December 2012.
- ^ 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. Part of this resolution is the goal to keep Wikivoyage as an association, becoming affiliated with Wikimedia on an organizational level."
- ^ See also Wikivoyage mailing listby Wikimedia Foundation] as at 25 October 2012: "The mailing list for Wikivoyage, a planned Wikimedia project"
- ^ Cohen, Noam (2012-09-09). "Wikitravel, Once a Profit Dream, Now Bedevils Its Owner". New York Times. Retrieved 2012-11-09.
- ^ "Internet Brands Inc versus Ryan Holliday et al" (PDF). United States District Court of California. Retrieved 16 December 2012.
External links
- www.wikivoyage.org – Online travel guide
- Travel Guide on Wikimedia meta-wiki - Proposal for a Wikimedia Foundation travel guide on Wikimedia meta.
- Request for Comment/Travel Guide on Wikimedia meta-wiki - Request for Comments on the proposal, which garnered a lot of comments/discussion.