Dear list members,
My name is Ivan Lanin, and I'm a bureaucrat from Indonesian Wikipedia. We're currently cleaning up our encyclopedia articles. Some of the articles regarding cities or areas in Indonesia that we have contains too much details (such as lists of good restaurants, addresses of public government office, etc.) to be contained in an encylopedia article. At least that what most of us think.
There have been a discussion in local "village pump" [[w:id:Wikipedia:Warung Kopi]] discussing this matter. Initially the suggestion was to set up Indonesian Wikitravel and move the content there, under the false assumption that Wikitravel is one of the Foundation projects. That idea was withdrawn when people found out that Wikitravel is not part of WMF's projects.
Instead, we were discussion of creating a "travel" book inside Indonesian Wikibooks. We haven't seen any other wikibooks using this, neither we see any other wikibooks holds information about travel. We understand that Wikibooks are for "free textbooks contents", but we think if we format the content just like a book, we could make it a "traveler's book".
May I ask what the list members think about this? Do any of you have the same experience as we have. Please share.
Thank you
Hoi, There are more travel wikis than just Wiki travel, there are more wikis that would be a good place to host this type of information. The Wikimedia Foundation has a specific aim for its projects and indeed this type of information does not belong in a Wikipedia. However it does not belong in Wikibooks either.
By refusing this type of information in a wiki outside of the Wikimedia Foundation, you allow for this type of information to be deleted at all. That is not a great idea.
Thanks, GerardM
On 6/1/07, Ivan Lanin ivanlanin@gmail.com wrote:
Dear list members,
My name is Ivan Lanin, and I'm a bureaucrat from Indonesian Wikipedia. We're currently cleaning up our encyclopedia articles. Some of the articles regarding cities or areas in Indonesia that we have contains too much details (such as lists of good restaurants, addresses of public government office, etc.) to be contained in an encylopedia article. At least that what most of us think.
There have been a discussion in local "village pump" [[w:id:Wikipedia:Warung Kopi]] discussing this matter. Initially the suggestion was to set up Indonesian Wikitravel and move the content there, under the false assumption that Wikitravel is one of the Foundation projects. That idea was withdrawn when people found out that Wikitravel is not part of WMF's projects.
Instead, we were discussion of creating a "travel" book inside Indonesian Wikibooks. We haven't seen any other wikibooks using this, neither we see any other wikibooks holds information about travel. We understand that Wikibooks are for "free textbooks contents", but we think if we format the content just like a book, we could make it a "traveler's book".
May I ask what the list members think about this? Do any of you have the same experience as we have. Please share.
Thank you
Ivan Lanin
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 6/1/07, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
However it does not belong in Wikibooks either. By refusing this type of information in a wiki outside of the Wikimedia Foundation, you allow for this type of information to be deleted at all. That is not a great idea.
I do agree that this type of information should not be deleted. What I'm trying to seek now is whether we can still maintain it *within* Wikimedia projects. And Wikibooks is the most suitable place, at least that's what we think.
Regards,
Ivan Lanin wrote:
Dear list members,
My name is Ivan Lanin, and I'm a bureaucrat from Indonesian Wikipedia. We're currently cleaning up our encyclopedia articles. Some of the articles regarding cities or areas in Indonesia that we have contains too much details (such as lists of good restaurants, addresses of public government office, etc.) to be contained in an encylopedia article. At least that what most of us think.
There have been a discussion in local "village pump" [[w:id:Wikipedia:Warung Kopi]] discussing this matter. Initially the suggestion was to set up Indonesian Wikitravel and move the content there, under the false assumption that Wikitravel is one of the Foundation projects. That idea was withdrawn when people found out that Wikitravel is not part of WMF's projects.
Instead, we were discussion of creating a "travel" book inside Indonesian Wikibooks. We haven't seen any other wikibooks using this, neither we see any other wikibooks holds information about travel. We understand that Wikibooks are for "free textbooks contents", but we think if we format the content just like a book, we could make it a "traveler's book".
May I ask what the list members think about this? Do any of you have the same experience as we have. Please share.
Thank you
I would note that this issue has come up on English Wikibooks as well, where some travel related books have been up for discussion on the VfD pages. The best example of this is a Wikibook about London which can be found here:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/London
The VfD decision was to keep this book on English Wikibooks. And the discussion has come up from time to time on the Staff Lounge as well, with the general prevailing concensus is to keep these kind of books on Wikibooks, even though we don't openly seek or advertise development of content like this, at least by having a seperate bookshelf of content like this. London is currently on the "Miscellenaous" bookshelf (a cataloging term for finding content on en.wikibooks): http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Miscellaneous_bookshelf
The "Travel Guide" category clearly is something that has been thought up here as something that would be legitimate for additional Wikibooks. Certainly the Wikitravel website has pulled most of those who might want to write content like this, even though it is not a Wikimedia website. I think this is why it may be harder to find travel guide information on Wikibooks or why more projects like this havn't been started before.
I hope that helps.
Robert Horning
On 6/1/07, Robert Horning robert_horning@netzero.net wrote:
... even though we don't openly seek or advertise development of content like this, at least by having a seperate bookshelf of content like this. London is currently on the "Miscellenaous" bookshelf (a cataloging term for finding content on en.wikibooks): http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Miscellaneous_bookshelf
Ah, that's why I can't find it in the first place :) Thanks for pointing it out.
The "Travel Guide" category clearly is something that has been thought up here as something that would be legitimate for additional Wikibooks. Certainly the Wikitravel website has pulled most of those who might want to write content like this, even though it is not a Wikimedia website. I think this is why it may be harder to find travel guide information on Wikibooks or why more projects like this havn't been started before.
There. Since there's nothing like Indonesian Wikitravel (for example) yet, I guess the case is a little different for us. As long as we stick to the "free textbooks contents" context and could attract people to contribute, we can use Wikibooks, can't we?
I hope that helps.
It sure helps. A lot :) Thanks.
--- Ivan Lanin ivanlanin@gmail.com wrote:
As long as we stick to the "free textbooks contents" context and could attract people to contribute, we can use Wikibooks, can't we?
Indeed - Wikitravel is better suited for this type of thing and has an emerging critical mass of material and contributors (thus having this type of thing on Wikibooks will be naturally self-limiting). It will be rather natural for them to have better coverage in this area than Wikibooks.
Given that, and the more strictly educational focus of Wikibooks (compared to Wikitravel), it is uncertain in my mind if the foundation will continue to allow this type of thing in the future if a lot of Wikitravel-like content shows up in Wikibooks.
At the very least, any Wikibooks travel guide should focus on the things that Wikitravel does not seem to intend to do particularly well; have a tour guide that can be used to *learn* about a city/place *through* visiting it vs simply having fun in a city/place by using a guide that only superficially concerns itself with teaching about the city/place. In other words, treating a place as a forum for learning about it vs treating a place as somewhere to get in, eat at, see and get out.
In short, think of this difference: Visiting a place as a tourist = Use Wikitravel Visiting a place on a self-guided field trip = Use a Wikibooks travel guide
-- mav
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On 6/2/07, Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
In short, think of this difference: Visiting a place as a tourist = Use Wikitravel Visiting a place on a self-guided field trip = Use a Wikibooks travel guide
Noted. Thanks.
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