Yes WikiTravel has some poorly sourced pages that ramble on. However so does Wikipedia. The solution is to increase the size of the community and quality will increase with time. We did not always have strike referencing guidelines. To get this project to grow we need to get it based in an environment where it can grow.
The Spanish Wikipedia, if I remember correctly, threatened to split off in 2004 due to Wikipedia having no solid non profit foundation. Those are WT have the same concerns. They do not want all their volunteers efforts going to the bottom line of a for profit (Internet Brands). And would anyone blame them. If we within the Wikimedia Movement want to see this content improved we should welcome them into the WMF. We have 20 editors supporting this proposal as of April 10th, 2012. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Travel_Guide
I've been somewhat following this conversation - and this is totally trivial, but, I love WikiTravel, use it whenever I do travel, and actually, it was the first wiki I wrote content for (I used to only do gnomish things on Wikipedia).[1]
I still, to this very day, remember the first time I was given a compliment for my work on WikiTravel, by the co-founder, and that was before they had adverts. It's one of the examples I frequently use about how important praise on-wiki is. (It helped me stick around!)
I'd frankly be all about WikiTravel, and would really be interested in seeing it be a part of the Wikimedia community, especially so I can contribute to it ad free ;) . I know it'd open us up to a whole new can of COI worms, I think it'd make for a really valuable resource and give paid services and Frommer's/Lonely Planets a run for their "money."
-Sarah
[1] http://wikitravel.org/en/User:Missvain
On 4/10/12 1:27 PM, James Heilman wrote:
Yes WikiTravel has some poorly sourced pages that ramble on. However so does Wikipedia. The solution is to increase the size of the community and quality will increase with time. We did not always have strike referencing guidelines. To get this project to grow we need to get it based in an environment where it can grow.
The Spanish Wikipedia, if I remember correctly, threatened to split off in 2004 due to Wikipedia having no solid non profit foundation. Those are WT have the same concerns. They do not want all their volunteers efforts going to the bottom line of a for profit (Internet Brands). And would anyone blame them. If we within the Wikimedia Movement want to see this content improved we should welcome them into the WMF. We have 20 editors supporting this proposal as of April 10th, 2012. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Travel_Guide
James Heilman wrote:
The Spanish Wikipedia, if I remember correctly, threatened to split off in 2004 due to Wikipedia having no solid non profit foundation.
I don't think you remember correctly at all. The Spanish Wikipedia's history is covered here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Wikipedia. In 2002, responding to a proposal to add advertising to the site, members of the Spanish Wikipedia created a fork called Enciclopedia Libre. (The proposal was ultimately rejected, of course.) I believe this is what you're referring to.
If we within the Wikimedia Movement want to see this content improved we should welcome them into the WMF. We have 20 editors supporting this proposal as of April 10th, 2012. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Travel_Guide
I think it's fair to note that a large percentage of those 20 editors are Wikitravel administrators. The question is not whether members of Wikitravel want to be incorporated into a Wikimedia Foundation wiki, the question is whether a travel guide wiki fits within Wikimedia's scope. I'm not sure it does. The page on Meta-Wiki seems to lack any explanation of the educational value of such a project. It instead derails advertising and makes a few generic statements that would be true of any project addition ("increase the number of Wikimedians," etc.).
If you're serious about seeing it become the next Wikimedia sister project, I'd focus on making a better case for how it falls within Wikimedia's scope.
MZMcBride
If you're serious about seeing it become the next Wikimedia sister project, I'd focus on making a better case for how it falls within Wikimedia's scope.
MZMcBride
The scope has been extensively discussed in this thread, and a convincing answer has been given. This answer is that travel is an avenue of education, possibly a more important one than an encyclopedia (since visual impressions are the strongest), and everything which promotes educational travel thus falls within the scope of the movement.
There are however other issues which were also discussed.
1. The existence of two projects, Wikitravel and Wikivoyage, with unclear position of both communities concerning the unification in general, and the unification under the WMF umbrella in particular.
2. A good travel guide usually selects information. For instance, a list of all resturants in Paris is useless. A list with comments or a star-rated list is more useful, but the most useful is star-rated selection which only contains a very limited number of entries. It is not clear whether such selection is compatible with WMF principles, and if not, why do we want to have a useless project (which potentially will be dominated by the entries of the restaurants themselves). I note however that one of the functions of an encyclopaedia is selection of encyclopaedic information, and this is why we have these perennial battles about notability).
2a. A good travel guide caters to specific audience - e.g. backpackers, retirees, or adventure travelers. If it attempts catering to all travellers at the same time, it becomes useless.
3. My personal impression (of somebody who has an advanced knowledge of a subject) is that Wikitravel is just a very poor travel guide. For standard places like Paris it can not currently beat any of the major travel series. For non-standard places, it contains nothing. May be this is fixable, I do not know. However, the real reason I never contributed to Wikitravel are ads.
Cheers Yaroslav
Hoi, <grin> you are providing a perfect reason why you might contribute to a WMF based travel wiki... No adds </grin> Thanks, Gerard
On 11 April 2012 17:16, Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru wrote:
If you're serious about seeing it become the next Wikimedia sister project,
I'd focus on making a better case for how it falls within Wikimedia's scope.
MZMcBride
The scope has been extensively discussed in this thread, and a
convincing answer has been given. This answer is that travel is an avenue of education, possibly a more important one than an encyclopedia (since visual impressions are the strongest), and everything which promotes educational travel thus falls within the scope of the movement.
There are however other issues which were also discussed.
- The existence of two projects, Wikitravel and Wikivoyage, with unclear
position of both communities concerning the unification in general, and the unification under the WMF umbrella in particular.
- A good travel guide usually selects information. For instance, a list
of all resturants in Paris is useless. A list with comments or a star-rated list is more useful, but the most useful is star-rated selection which only contains a very limited number of entries. It is not clear whether such selection is compatible with WMF principles, and if not, why do we want to have a useless project (which potentially will be dominated by the entries of the restaurants themselves). I note however that one of the functions of an encyclopaedia is selection of encyclopaedic information, and this is why we have these perennial battles about notability).
2a. A good travel guide caters to specific audience - e.g. backpackers, retirees, or adventure travelers. If it attempts catering to all travellers at the same time, it becomes useless.
- My personal impression (of somebody who has an advanced knowledge of a
subject) is that Wikitravel is just a very poor travel guide. For standard places like Paris it can not currently beat any of the major travel series. For non-standard places, it contains nothing. May be this is fixable, I do not know. However, the real reason I never contributed to Wikitravel are ads.
Cheers Yaroslav
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