Forwarding from Wikimedia-l.
Cheers Yaroslav
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Wikivoyage: Chance, bore, or hazard Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2013 23:00:08 +0100 From: Ziko van Dijk vandijk@wmnederland.nl To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Reply-To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Dear colleagues,
Since November 2012, Wikivoyage is a part of the Wikimedia movement. I have come to some thoughts about this old/new project, both from the perspective of a collaborator and from the perspective of the movement.
Chance: Wikivoyage has a huge potential; it may open the movement for new collaborators who were not attracted enough by Wikipedia. There is still low hanging fruit, and there are working chapters - and the WMF - to support the new family member. Integrating Wikivoyage is also a challenge for the movement, it has to prove that it is capable to do so. (And recommend itself for other wikis to join.)
Bore: But, if Wikivoyage fails to make use of its potential, it will be one more Wikimedia wiki rather small and limited in range, such as Wikiquote or Wikinews. A community grown over the years may be good in binding (linking the existing members to each other), but less in bridging (being open for new members and contacting others). We see the same phenomenon (that new people find it difficult their way, or are even expelled more or less explicitly) also with Wikipedia, but on a much higher level. Also Wikipedia loses community members slowly, with difficulties acquiring new ones.
Hazard: Wikipedia developed a lot of rules over the years, often after heavy debates and scandals. For example, the Seigenthaler incident and other cases of calumny led to the policy about Biographies of Living People. Wikivoyage has still a rather limited set of rules, and wishes to remain so. Wikipedia is neutral, Wikipedia uses references, while Wikivoyage allows to criticize e.g. a restaurant and does not require a source. But where is the limit between exercising one's freedom of speech and libel? Scandals can backfire to the whole movement.
In my humble opinion, this is a good moment for Wikivoyagers (old and new ones alike) to engage in discussions about style, limitations, good practices, and improve the site to make it newbies easier to join. With the good will from all sides, Wikivoyage should become a chance for the movement rather than anything else.
Kind regards Ziko
Regarding _criticizing restaurants_, the relevant Wikivoyage policy is " "Avoid negative reviews"[1] which says:
"Sometimes a restaurant, bar, hotel, or other attraction has such grave defects that it's just not worth going to. If this is the case, it's best to just leave it out of the destination guide for the place it's in. There's no reason to clutter up a guide with lists of places travellers shouldn't go. "The exception to this rule, however, is when travellers may be led to the attraction by other information sources."
(See the policy for details.) This serves the overall Wikivoyage guideline that "The traveler comes first."
If need arises we could modify the "Avoid negative reviews" policy, but it has worked thus far.
The "See also" section of that policy links to the following four other policies that inform the tone of the policy:
Tone Be fair The traveller comes first Don't tout
[1] http://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Wikivoyage:Avoid_negative_reviews
Roger
A closer communication between the language versions is very important. That's why the association is applying as a Thematic organisation and the association is about to become more international now. A new association's wiki is starting now and we welcomed international new members already.
Concerning the rules. We on de: think we should not draft a rule just to have it. We cleaned up and reduced our project namespace two years ago and we decided not to create new or more detailed rules. There are two reasons to think about more policies.
- An incident occurs (fortunately never happened on de: and it:) - and endless dicussion or edit war accurs and we need a rule for future
Concerning welcoming: I dont like these automatic welcome messages that are common in other wikis. Real people should welcome new users. It's some more work but its worth.
Yesterday I talked with the city council of a town in Lower Saxony. We are going to start a project. The result will be a kind of template: a complete set of articles (town, region, thematic articles about events, cycling...). Till now we just worked on our articles without feedback from outside - in our small WV/WT world. This collaboration is a chance to work with official institutions (town government, german cycling association ...) that support the idea of free knowledge as well.
2013/1/13 roger@rogerchrisman.com
Regarding _criticizing restaurants_, the relevant Wikivoyage policy is " "Avoid negative reviews"[1] which says:
"Sometimes a restaurant, bar, hotel, or other attraction hassuch grave defects that it's just not worth going to. If this is the case, it's best to just leave it out of the destination guide for the place it's in. There's no reason to clutter up a guide with lists of places travellers shouldn't go. "The exception to this rule, however, is when travellers may be led to the attraction by other information sources."
(See the policy for details.) This serves the overall Wikivoyage guideline that "The traveler comes first."
If need arises we could modify the "Avoid negative reviews" policy, but it has worked thus far.
The "See also" section of that policy links to the following four other policies that inform the tone of the policy:
Tone Be fair The traveller comes first Don't tout
[1] http://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Wikivoyage:Avoid_negative_reviews
Roger
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