[Wikimedia-l] Travel Guide Wiki

[rupert THURNER]

I am not to deep into this, so please bear with me if it already was
mentioned before: what are the main issues you face with the current
setting?
Am 12.04.2012 08:53 schrieb "Mark Jaroski" <mark.jaroski at gmail.com>:

> Hi all,
>
> I'm a long-standing editor/admin/etc. at Wikitravel, though I've been less
> active in recent years, mainly due to work and family.
>
> I have, however, been participating in discussions among Wikitravel admins
> about our dissatisfaction with our current hosting provider, and what we're
> going to do about it. As you know, one of the ideas which has been floated
> is to attempt to join WMF. One of the parties to that discussion started a
> new Wiki proposal on Meta, and a discussion here.
>
> I'm glad to have the chance to jump in before the discussion gets very far
> along. There are some important points to be made:
>
> First, NPOV would probably be a deal-breaker. The travel wiki community
> (usually working at Wikitravel) have long used Traveller's Point of View.
> This point of view is not neutral at all, but favours the traveller.
> Hoteliers, restaurateurs, etc. have different points of view, but for us
> it's the traveller's that counts. We're under the impression that there are
> other Wikimedia foundation projects which don't use NPOV, and so those of
> us favouring approaching WMF have been able to argue that we wouldn't be
> forced to use it. If that's wrong then we should probably just give up this
> line of exploration and go find another solution.
>
> I personally don't think that a creative interpretation of the concept of
> NPOV to make it look like TPOV would do, but of course I'm just one voice.
> Still there are others who feel even more strongly on this point.
>
> Second, this is a fairly old and established community, with its own
> habits, mores, etc. As with other communities it makes some sense perhaps
> to learn about ours a bit before visiting. I think some of our fellow
> travellers are a bit concerned about being swamped by the shear size of the
> communities involved in other WMF projects (Wikipedia) and rightly so. They
> worry that the travel guide community runs a chance of quickly losing
> editorial control, and that this will lead not to the desired
> consolidation, but rather more unhealthy splintering in the collaborative
> travel guide space.
>
> All in all I think there's a pretty good chance that a WMF travel guide
> Wiki would stand a good chance at attracting a large part of the community
> under the right circumstances. But - it's important to recognize that that
> community already exists if one wants to attract it.
>
> thanks!
>
> -mark
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