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Numerous countries have already banned April fools, the Republic of San Serriffe being the latest.
Its time we did the same.

Not if the plug has an earth pin its not (the French type, used in many other European countries).

The German (Type F) plug is far more common, and does indeed allow turning a grounded plug 180 degrees. As well as allowing an ungrounded plug (Type C) to be used in a grounded outlet.

https://wikitravel.org/en/File...

The only system which seems to have been designed with some consistency and attention to clearance is the British 3-pin.

Then again, in older British houses, ground is often earth, which causes Big Scary Problems when trying to use a converter plug or connecting the earth socket on a radio or receiver to earth...

Why don't you look at a map, and lear to read a map.
The first poster mention this "north thing" was just nitpicking, but you behave rather dumb.

http://wikitravel.org/en/Antar...

Oh the nitpickery again ...

Every direction straight awya from the south pole is north, oki ... and how does that help you to navigate there? Not at all.

Hence if you look at a map of Antarctica it is usually displayed like on this site: http://wikitravel.org/en/Antar...

And in their wisdom scientists, interpret that map just like any other ordinary map with north up, south down and west to the left and east to the right. Most notable: Antarctica is divided in east and west Antarctica and some names regions like the Ross Ice Shelf and the Anvers Island.

So the northern peninsula they talk about must be either Anvers Island (wich would be north west, obviously) or one of the very small peninsulas at the "upper edge of the map" which non nitpicking people call: north.

Here are my solutions:
If I need, I ask before what the price will be . I know this is not exact, but will indicate it. If you do a search before, you will know what to expect.
This means asking others what the expected price will be. Internet has this info available for most places.
The tipping part is valid for everything. This has nothing to do with taxis by itself. You will more likely be in more places where you might need to tip besides taxis.
So till now the trick is to be informed about the country you travel to. Wiki Travel is very helpful for this.

Yes, a decent app would be great, just like getting a pony. As not even public transport is one, it is very unlikely this will ever happen in the near future. I also do not see it as a huge issue. It is a 'nice to have' thing, not a 'must have'. And reading up on a place you visit, even if only for a business meeting, is a good thing to do.

The taxis I take in Europe are from/to the airport, if I have more than carry on. Otherwise I will take public transport as it is way cheaper and in busy cities not much slower and sometimes even faster. Again http://wikitravel.org/en/Main_Page will be very helpful for almost all major cities. It will take away a lot of the uncertainty of how much you need to pay.

let alone makes a stopover, you still are subject to US customs inspection.

Another US peculiarity, which is a major problem for many people daily.

Making it worse, the US considers Canada and Mexico part of the US for visa purposes.
So a 4-month visit to Canada, transiting the US both ways, is considered a 4-month stay in the US and so ineligible for ESTA and needing a full visa with interview just to transit.

Here is some help to avoid US transit:

https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki...

http://wikitravel.org/en/Avoid...

Registered mail is for tracking a package. If you're sending your tax returns on the day of the deadline and want proof you did your part on time, you send it registered mail. If the package contains valuable, unique and irreplaceable goods, being able to track down who lost it or even receiving insurance compensation won't help you - you're still out the irreplaceable goods.

You don't want to be sending such packages via postal mail, or even via UPS / FedEx / DHL. Instead, you want to buy the person sending it a round trip plane ticket from their town to yours. That way they can hand-carry the package as carry-on baggage and deliver it to you in person. Toss in a few night's hotel and rental car expenses as a courtesy, so they can do a bit of sightseeing before flying back.

The next step down from that is using an air courier. The shipping company pays a random person to escort your package from airport to airport, while they handle the legs from sender to airport and airport to destination. But this is usually done for time-sensitive materials (important docs, live cargo, etc). As it doesn't offer the much protection above regular package delivery service. The only added protection is that the air courier won't get paid if they don't deliver your package. It can still be lost by the shipping company before or after the air leg, or by the airline (if checked in).

One of two islands that make up the country of San Serriffe.

Though given that much of the non-populated near arctic is tundra on top of granite I am not sure how feasible that really is.

Is it really worse than Svalbard? People live there too. Longyearbyen may not be much today, but it is likely to expand, if more habitable areas elsewhere become too crowded.

Though given that much of the non-populated near arctic is tundra on top of granite I am not sure how feasible that really is.

Is it really worse than Svalbard? People live there too. Longyearbyen may not be much today, but it is likely to expand, if more habitable areas elsewhere become too crowded.

"Amtrak's passenger services are sparse compared with Europe's. But America's freight railways are one of the unsung transport successes of the past 30 years. They are universally recognised in the industry as the best in the world."

http://www.economist.com/node/...

From Das Wikipedia [1]

Amtrak's financial situation is not its only problem. While tens of thousands of kilometers of railroads criss-cross the North American continent, virtually all the lines that Amtrak uses are owned and maintained by private freight companies. While Amtrak has a legal right to be given priority over freight trains, in many instances Amtrak services are disrupted due to freight trains which have been given priority over them. Many rail lines are not double-tracked, and passing places are often few and far between.

Freight is awesome in the US simply because the deregulated rail ownership allows for companies to prioritize freight, even over passengers.

[1] http://wikitravel.org/en/Rail_...

Yes, lets get this idea of In Transit in front of your Average American. In most countries, you can land at an airport and 'not be in the country' - you are in transit. You don't have to show your passport, you don't need a Visa, you don't need much except directions to the next flight.

In the current Soviet States of America, you may need all of those things and some additional paperwork.

The upshot is that Snowden is likely just connecting to somewhere else without the annoying hassles he would if he tried it in the US. Russia isn't necessarily the good guys, it's just that the US is turning out to be the obese 1600 pound poorly trained gorilla.

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.

As a long-time contributor to Wikitravel, I'm very glad to see Wikivoyage managed by Wikimedia. Internet Brands, the organization that took over Wikitravel some time ago, has been turning their site into a classic example of ham-handed monetization; compare intrusive travel booking banners and horrendously limited search to their respective alternatives. For a while, they were even several versions behind the MediaWiki platform itself. I abandoned contributing to Wikitravel last year, and I'm very happy to have a new place to which I can contribute content. More importantly, I suspect I'm not the only one.

As a long-time contributor to Wikitravel, I'm very glad to see Wikivoyage managed by Wikimedia. Internet Brands, the organization that took over Wikitravel some time ago, has been turning their site into a classic example of ham-handed monetization; compare intrusive travel booking banners and horrendously limited search to their respective alternatives. For a while, they were even several versions behind the MediaWiki platform itself. I abandoned contributing to Wikitravel last year, and I'm very happy to have a new place to which I can contribute content. More importantly, I suspect I'm not the only one.

"Wikitravel is not a Wikimedia project"
http://wikitravel.org/en/Wikitravel:List_of_related_projects#Wikipedia
http://wikitravel.org/en/Wikitravel:Cooperating_with_Wikipedia

Wikipedia and Wikitravel have distinct goals, and forking large amounts of content from one project to the other creates wasteful duplication, and can actually stifle the development of creative, original content. In most cases, linking from one to the other would be a better choice.

As a rule, any significant copy-pasting of Wikipedia text to Wikitravel is not permitted, while borrowing the odd single turn of phrase when your writers' brain is stalling is allowed.

Now that they've been forked, Wikitravel might as well close up shop.
All the eyeballs that ended up on their website will be landing on wikipedia instead.

"Wikitravel is not a Wikimedia project"
http://wikitravel.org/en/Wikitravel:List_of_related_projects#Wikipedia
http://wikitravel.org/en/Wikitravel:Cooperating_with_Wikipedia

Wikipedia and Wikitravel have distinct goals, and forking large amounts of content from one project to the other creates wasteful duplication, and can actually stifle the development of creative, original content. In most cases, linking from one to the other would be a better choice.

As a rule, any significant copy-pasting of Wikipedia text to Wikitravel is not permitted, while borrowing the odd single turn of phrase when your writers' brain is stalling is allowed.

Now that they've been forked, Wikitravel might as well close up shop.
All the eyeballs that ended up on their website will be landing on wikipedia instead.

Except Tomothy Lord is an employee of Andover.net with a specific employment contract and policies that he has agreed to follow.

In the case of the admins of WikiTravel, there were no policies governing their use of the mailing lists and administrative tools... other than "use common sense" and "don't be an ass". Those are hardly contractual requirements to avoid at least suggesting that all of the admins have moved on to another website and it would be nice if they would follow along. There were policies about the interaction with users in regards to deleting content, but those were mainly guidelines anyway. Most wikis (even Wikipedia) has pretty loose policies in regards to administrators and expects them to be mature and not doing things rashly.

In this case, apparently the WikiTravel admins did come to some sort of group consensus and if the Migration FAQ is any indication, the group e-mails did have a sort of official standing.... from the group of admins who had been running the site previously.

In fact, if you want to read a really interesting page (until it gets deleted), I'd suggest reading this:
http://wikitravel.org/en/User_talk:IBobi

This is apparently the current "bureaucrat" in charge of the site. Note that several of the previous bureaucrats had even desysoped this user (an employee of Internet Brands apparently) and it sort of is the current hotbed of discussion... or at least what is left.

The sad part: I think this particular person is also going to become a bit of a scape goat for Internet Brands. It will be interesting to see where this goes.

...made posts stating that 'WikiTravel (a trademark) was moving to WikiMedia'.

I doubt that's what they posted.

Posting the trademark symbol next to the word WikiTravel on August 18th, 2012, is illegal and it's a finable offense. The filing of the trademark only occurred on August 22nd, 2012, coincidentally just four days after the alleged incident. And no, pay no attention to "FIRST USE: 20030724. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 2003072", that part won't help them.

The fine for falsely claiming a Trademark is pretty significant. I don't think it's a mistake they would have made. You'll notice that the current site doesn't even have the trademark symbol anywhere yet, although technically they now have the right to use the symbol since August 22nd.

29. For example, on August 18, 2012, Holliday improperly and wrongfully emailed at least several hundred of Wikitravel members, purporting to be from Wikitravel and informing members that the Wikitravel Website was “migrating” to the Wikimedia Foundation. Upon information and belief, the number emailed is far greater.

I'll assume that this is still their interpretation and their paraphrasing of what happened, since there are no quotes that are used except for one single word.

So moving right along...

30. Specifically, Holliday’s email contained the Subject Line, “Important information about Wikitravel” and its body stated, “This email is being sent to you on behalf of the Wikitravel administrators since you have put some real time and effort into working on Wikitravel. We wanted to make sure that you are up to date and in the loop regarding big changes in the community that will affect the future of your work! As you may already have heard, Wikitravel’s community is looking to migrate to the Wikimedia Foundation.”

Ok, now we're getting somewhere!

They're finally quoting the people they're suing. Please note the careful wording inside those quotes: "on behalf of the Wikitravel administrators" and "Wikitravel's community is looking to migrate to the Wikimedia Foundation."

Is anything of this really untrue?

It seems to me like Internet Brands only started clamping down on its unpaid volunteer administrators only after they sent this message out, so they were still formally volunteer admins at the time? Right? That's the problem of giving volunteers unfettered access to your mailing list and web site. You can't just accept the benefit of all their work, you have to also accept all the downside that could possibly come from giving them such privileges (especially if they're not getting paid by you).

Plus, it's not like Internet Brands can't have the final word in all of this. I'm sure that they promptly locked down their mailing list and possibly locked down their wiki site as well, thus possibly locking out even more existing volunteers from participating in the discussion, and then sent follow-up emails telling their own side of the story.

In the end, owning the actual mailing list and the actual site gives them the final word. And the people that were contacted will have to make up their minds whether the community is still mostly with Wikitravel, or migrated elsewhere. That being said, I'm not a lawyer, and this is only my layman opinion regarding the reported Trademark claim made in the parent post. Perhaps the other claims they're making have more teeth to them, those other parts I really know nothing about.

But it's not content theft; the volunteers who are forking via Wikitravel via CC-sa are obeying the license that the source site uses; it's even on the original site right now:
"Wikitravel uses a copyleft license for all text, images, and other content on the Web site. Anyone can use Wikitravel content according to the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license."
via: http://wikitravel.org/shared/Copyleft

Already, three major cities in Japan have been turned into an uninhabitable
nuclear wasteland, where no life can exist for millions of years, and you want to continue this trend? Already, Europeans have done the right thing and are starting to go along in banning radiation and nuclear. Germany is closing all its existing reactors. Do you want to be worse than Germany?

It is not a perfect fit for what you want, but check the Wikitravel article on "retiring abroad" for info on various places that are cheap to live and that do encourage immigration: http://wikitravel.org/en/Retiring_abroad

Much the best of the many China expat forum websites is: http://raoulschinasaloon.com/index.php There are an almost infinite number of English-teaching jobs in China, and any foreigner here will get offers to tutor people. However, many contracts forbid outside work; it is quite common to cheat on this and employers often overlook it, but you cannot count on that. For an overview of overseas English teaching in general, see: http://wikitravel.org/en/Teaching_English Getting one of the teaching certificates they discuss might help a lot if you want that sort of work. As someone said in another post, many of the best-paid teaching jobs are at schools that are joint ventures between a foreign and a Chinese institution. For jobs in IT, the best pay & conditions are at foreign companies. There is not a lot of demand for foreign developers and engineers, though there is some, but project managers are in great demand. In some cases, anyone who speaks English well enough to talk to the clients will be given the title "project manager"; in other cases they want real management skills.

"Although the government of Cuba permits U.S. citizens to visit, the U.S. itself restricts its citizens from travelling there, except with a license issued by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control [1]. The specific restriction is against spending money in Cuba. However, U.S. authorities consider any visit of more than one day to be prima facie proof that one has spent money there. Furthermore, OFAC also holds that U.S. citizens also may not receive goods or services for free from any Cuban national, eliminating any attempts to circumvent the regulation based on that premise."

From http://wikitravel.org/en/Americans_in_Cuba , although the citation is broken.

To answer your question, yes. It's hard to even enter Saudi Arabia if you don't have a valid reason. While you would PROBABLY be ok tweeting something like that and then visiting, simply because of signal-to-noise ratio making them unaware you even posted it, I wouldn't recommend going. In fact, the post you just made even as a question would be enough to get you arrested and deported, if not killed. You never know if they have systems like the USA that are constantly scanning the internet for comments and indexing them for later use.

I have absolutley no need to travel to another continent. Driving, and in some cases trains, are perfectly acceptable to me. Unfortuantely if Napolitano has her way, train passengers will soon be treated like airline passengers and that'll no longer be a travel option either.

Regardless, in the rare even I needed to travel to another continent there are these things called ships, which are made to travel across the oceas and seas from one continent to another. If you don't need to be there in a hurry you can get good rates and a unique experience as a passenger on a cargo ship.

One man's experience

Freighter travel wiki

In China, "safe driving" equates to "don't hit anything and don't get hit by anything."

"However, this does not come cheap: as rough rules of thumb, you can expect to pay four times the normal economy fare for business, and eleven times for first class! " from http://wikitravel.org/en/First_and_business_class_travel (I donno how legit that site is)

I'm in Australia. Every time I fly to Canada, I cross US air space, so I'm forced to undergo a US groping, fingerprints, retina scan etc. just to enter Canada.

Once we were made to exit the plane, immigrate to the US, go round the corner (queue up) and depart again because our plane made a stopover in Hawaii on the way to Vancouver. Nobody remembers the term 'In Transit' any more?

You might have to dig a bit, but there's a trend towards avoiding the US entirely while flying, for those of us who don't see the need to be groped by the country we didn't want to visit in the first place.

My last trip to the US was about five years ago (we arrived the night before The Bathroom Chemistry Incident), and while there are some reasons I'd like to travel there again in the future, none of them warrant the expected treatment we would endure (much less what *might* happen if we're unlucky and get a TSA agent with a chip on their shoulder)

When the US wants tourism again, they'll get their ducks in a row.

That's more than just "scary," considering that

1) I do NOT smoke at all
2) This "tiny cigarette smoke exposure" is farther-reaching than 1 mere nearby cigarette I can outrun. Tokyo is 200 kilometers away,
a) that's 6 hours away by bus
b) and 2 by Shinkansen (bullet train).
3) You can outwalk smokers more easily than you can up and "skip town", sell your house, take your stuff AND get a new job if things get bad.
4) It's not "ONE cigarette" that is proven to cripple and kill a smoker. It's constant exposure. See #3.
5) Nobody ever got evacuated by a government team for smoking a cigarette. Evac teams in a 20 mile radio around ground zero thinks things are a bit worse than mere cigarette levels.

No cigarette ever comes with exclusion zones. This AC would not even be allowed nearby. Pretty easy not being "scare-mongered" when he's just got constant electric power (not like eastern Japan) to even be reading radiation stats half a world away.

o it would be worth $30-$40 for someone to show you around for a couple of hours.

In vegas, I'm told the cab drivers perform this function. Seriously.

And, on the internet, theres a wiki for everything:

http://wikitravel.org/en/Main_Page

Wikipedia can't be the solution to every information-gathering problem. And despite some slogans to the contrary, it clearly doesn't want to be. It has policies of Notabiliy, No Original Research, and Neutral Point of View that effectively make it unsuitable for certain information. If you want in-depth, exhaustive information about other topics, you consult a more specialized resource, such as drum and bugle corps, Star Wars, Star Trek, garden flowers, movies, Pokémon, Peter Pan, travel, alternate realities, etc. Wikipedia even has a mechanism for interwiki linking to many of these resources, recognizing them as independent specialty resources.

Wouldnt you take a train if it was competitive to car?

It depends on the destination, truthfully. If I were to go to Washington, DC or NYC, for instance, I would certainly take the train preferentially over driving, since parking is virtually unobtainable.

Going anywhere that's not set up for public transportation (my own city, Richmond, VA, for instance) would be foolish - you'd be able to stand around the station or maybe take a cab to a sightseeing spot or two, but without subways or other intra-city transportation, you'd be stranded.

In my particular case, Richmond's main train station is 8.4 miles/13 min from 'downtown', and a cab ride would be $20-$25.

Despite over 700 replies to this point, I don't think anyone mentioned West End theatres http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_End_theatre/ or alternatively http://wikitravel.org/en/London/West_End/. It's been a while since I was in London, but we discovered that a half-hour before showtime, there were deeply discounted tickets available to shows trying to fill the house. We had a great time going to whatever was available. Definitely worth a shot, since as everyone else has noted, you should try not too plan too much, and just go for it. Have a great trip!

I'd definitely take a laptop for a 2 week trip as it makes planning and locating touristy things that much easier. Try and stay in a place with free wifi - hostels will usually have free wifi, hotels usually charge. Free wifi options: http://londonist.com/2007/05/free_wifi_in_lo.php

For getting from Heathrow to London - if you're staying near Paddington I'd suggest the Heathrow Connect instead of the expensive Heathrow Express. They both run on the same track but the Connect is less frequent (every 30m and has a couple of stops so takes 10 mins longer) but is almost half the price. Alternatively take the tube (subway) if you've got the time to spare or aren't staying near Paddington.

Transport: the tube is usually the easiest option, though often it's quicker walking if only one stop. If staying out, tubes stop around 00:30 (earlier on Sunday nights) but there are nightbuses - see http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk/ for planning a bus route to/from your hotel. For tubes/buses: you can buy a (pay as you go) Oyster card when you get here (£3 refundable deposit).
Cabs: you can only hail black cabs. Other cabs (usually cheaper) are called "minicabs" and can only be booked by phone. Addison Lee is the biggest minicab company but not the cheapest.

http://www.ianvisits.co.uk/calendar/events/ is good for London geeky events - worth checking out when you're here to see if anything interests you. Other people have covered the museums so I won't bother.

Worth a read: http://wikitravel.org/en/London

Buy a copy (in London) of Time Out London (weekly events/gigs/film/tv/theatre etc listing magazine) and also one of their London guidebooks. They're the best guides. May also be worth picking up a free "TNT" magazine (they're everywhere) for gig/party listings - is popular with backpackers/younger people.

Try some markets in London too: Borough Food Market on a Sat morning; perhaps Camden Market ("alternative" but rather tired) on Sat afternoon. Spitalfields on a Sunday (trendy junk). Columbia Road flower market on Sunday morning is very good too (for something a bit different). There's Christmas markets in Hyde Park and by the O2 (North Greenwich tube).
Main deparment stores are between Oxford St tube & Marble arch tubes - just walk along Oxford St. Selfridges is more popular with Londoners than Harrods. If you want a shopping mall then there's Westfield (Google for locations).

Get a single ticket on a boat to Greenwich to see the meridian line, naval observatory, painted hall etc. But don't take a boat back as it takes forever - instead get the tube back.

Out of town: Brighton is also worth a weekend trip (train is 1hr from Victoria or London Bridge). Sat/Sun are best for the shops on the lanes. It's the closest seaside town to London - though take a map so you know how to find the lanes (on left hand side as you walk from station to seaside). December won't be so great but it's still worth a visit.

You can go to Oxford, Brighton etc on the bus but I prefer the train (quicker, more comfortable). I'd recommend pre-booking at least a day in advance - when you book you can choose to pickup the ticket from a machine at the station. http://www.eastcoast.co.uk/ is a good site for getting an idea of rail fares - if they're too expensive then take a bus (most buses leave from the coach station near Victoria station).

Cheers,
-j.

Try Pitcairn Island.

If Iraq is anything like Sudan, there is affordable, extensive wireless coverage but the bandwidth is crap - Skype breaks up badly in remote areas. In Khartoum it's pretty good. We use MSN text chat with video. The video tends to be a bit laggy but you can at least see each other's faces. We were told that the mobile phone we bought here would work in Sudan but it didn't, needed to buy one locally with the correct frequencies. It's quite expensive. The UN provides phonecards which may be used on the UN network for subsidised personal calls. try this page for info http://wikitravel.org/en/Afghanistan#Mobile_phones

I've never done around-the-world, but I've backpacked abroad for several weeks at a time, and the best computer for my purposes was (at the time) a Psion Series3 PDA. The key features for this use were its size (that of a few checkbooks stacked together) and weight, good apps, decent built-in keyboard, and the fact that it ran for weeks at at time on standard AA batteries (which can be purchased almost anywhere in the world where electricity is found). It was useless for getting online (which in the 90s was a dodgy proposition on the road regardless of your gear), but in most parts of the world today internet cafes are more common than wifi hotspots anyway. I used it for my journal, keeping track of plane and train bookings, converting currencies, and logging expenses. The Series3 is an antique by modern standards (I've long since replaced it with a newer machine with fixed rechargeable-if-there's-an-outlet-handy batteries), but if I were going back out into the world with a pack for an extended period of time, I'd scour eBay for one.

Unrelated to the original question, but a suggestion: Check out Wikitravel.org, an open-content wiki devoted to meeting the information needs of travelers. You may find useful information about many of your destinations, and your contributions both on the road and upon returning home will certainly be appreciated.

• I don't want my comp to be taken untill somone desides I can havit back.
• I don't want to sponsor a warmongoring government
• Getting a visa is a major PITA compaired to other countries.

According to wikitravel if you can find a job that promises to pay you at least 45k euro then you don't need a work permit, or if you are under 30, then you only need a job that promises to pay you 33k euro.....

Why people insist on using GFDL? There are projects which are doing just fine with publishing the content under one of CC licenses (WikiTravel) or even putting the content into public domain (Hikipedia).

Aaron DeVore, portland oregon, wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pingveno, digg http://digg.com/users/pingveno, wikibooks http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Pingveno, deviantart http://pingveno.deviantart.com/, wikitravel http://wikitravel.org/en/User:Pingveno, wikimedia http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pingveno, last.fm http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pingveno, personal blog http://pingveno.blogspot.com/.

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"Or, you have the recent American Illness of demanding immediate returns with no thoughts toward long-term performance. I call it Stockholder Syndrome. Wait till the XBox 360 comes out and see what happens."

And you can't seem to remember that the XBox 360 shipped about 6 months ago. I call this Airhead Syndrome.

Well, I guess you could be in some country nobody has ever heard of. Otherwise your post makes no sense.

I'm also very concerned to see whether or not the Aboriginal peoples [hreoc.gov.au] of Australia will be forced to carry this card.

A few points:

1) Aboriginal means "Original inhabitant." If you're going to use that term, please prefix it with "Australian" (lest we think you're talking about the Orang Asli, Samis or other aboriginal cultures.

2) Noone is being forced to carry the card (at least noone is suggesting that yet - you will just need to possess this card to access certain government provided services.

Try not to rely on slashdot summaries - they're frequently extremely misleading.

Indeed, geo-coded data services will be the key. Wikipedia, Wikitravel and Wikicompany look like the first steps to creating these services.

All these Wiki projects already have some geo-coded articles, eg: Air Wales and its maps

What you really would want is a dump of WikiTravel

They still could have done something with a wiki, just not a wiki of a single editorial.

I wonder if wiki might actually be usable on editorials. For it to work, it could go something like this:

1. LATimes posts editorial
2. LATimes encourages reader participation:
   1. readers more-or-less agreeing with wiki-editorial encourage to refine the editorial (cleaner phrases, better arguments, better examples, whatever), BUT
   2. readers NOT in agreement with initial wiki-editorial encouraged to create (linked to the original) new counter-editorials, which in turn could be worked on by more-or-less like-minded individuals

There are of course any number of issues that would still need to be worked out: while trying to strengthen their own arguments, might some "editors" also go in and weaken arguments in the other wiki-editorials, etc.

(related to vandalism issue:) One of the nice things about e.g. wikipedia and wikitravel is they let the reader view each document's history. The LATimes experiment wouldn't let you see the editorial's history until you started the process of going to edit it -- removing what should have been a valuable factor in the decision of whether or not to edit in the first place (like to undo vandalism by another "editor"). In essense they hobbled at least one of wiki's self-correcting mechanisms.

And yes, I'm going there next week. :P

Cheers,
-j.

Columbus, OH
Columbus

I'll have to figure out how to combine that into one. Columbus, OH is better, but the good stuff I added (like where to eat and drink) is in the Columbus one.

As an ardent Wikipedian, I am really excited about our reaching 300k articles. I'd like to see the same success for another Wiki project: WikiTravel - Same basic principles, same potential. Get busy people, and you'll never have to pay to update your Lonely Planets ever again!