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Wikimedia Foundation Launches Wikivoyage
jones_supa writes "The Wikimedia Foundation has marked its 12th anniversary by launching a Creative-Commons-licensed travel guide called Wikivoyage. Like other Wikimedia projects, Wikivoyage contains material written collaboratively by volunteers. The site has launched under the aegis of Wikimedia with around 50,000 articles and approximately 200 volunteer editors. Wikivoyage started in 2006 as a travel guide in German and Italian, backed by the German non-profit Wikivoyage Association. The transition to a Wikimedia project was initiated by contributors and the Association, and content is currently offered in Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish. The purpose of the Wikivoyage is to promote education and knowledge of all countries and regions in the world, as well as understanding among nations. There's a huge global demand for travel information, but very few sources are both comprehensive and non-commercial. That's about to change."
Mostly harmless.
Wikivoyage is largely a fork of Wikitravel, which has been around for years, but is under the control of a private business.
Your tourist site with ancient historical monuments is non-notable and the article has been deleted.
See our top article:Twilight Land
My little Linux and tech blog
Did you actually look at the site? Almost all the content was copied and pasted straight from Wikitravel. Maybe over time it will become another option, but for now the differences are very minor.
When this story broke a couple days ago the big question was: WHY did they create this site? There's already another perfectly good travel wiki. What's the motivation for creating a second one that has the same content? Why is this news? And why do all the articles about Wikivoyage neglect to mention Wikitravel?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Answer.
I'm not sure if your (good) questions are legitimate and about the site or rhetorical and about the quality of reportage. If it's the former, then:
WHY did they create this site?
They didn't. It was forked from Wikitravel several years ago.
What's the motivation for creating a second one that has the same content?
Free culture. This site is run on a non-profit basis. At the risk of sounding pedantic, it's worth it to have free alternatives. This is like saying, "We already have a newspaper, so why have alternative weeklies?"
And why do all the articles about Wikivoyage neglect to mention Wikitravel?
That's maybe your best question and providing context to these stories will help to clarify *why* this is news at all. The Wikimedia Foundation probably doesn't mention them in their press because of litigious threats and the fact that Wikivoyage has (and has had) its own identity, but news outlets should do their research and post background information making your questions redundant rather than simply parroting press releases.
As people before have noted Wikivoyage is a fork of the Wikitravel, and I thing this is a great thing for Internet freedom and collaborative work. For all the critcism Wikipedia has had, there is the goal to make knowledge free. Whilst Internet Brands abused the old wikitravel website, hopefully we can get a reformed great collaborative travel guide, and something to balance Tripadvisor
They have a mobile version of the web site. But I sincerely hope they make it possible to download offline packages for different areas. Pair it up with OpenStreetMap data , and you'd have a great app.
I'm certain they will -- that's one of the reasons for the fork of Wikitravel. Wikitravel made it very difficult to do a bulk-download of the content, which meant it was difficult to write an offline Android app, for example.
Offline version is already available: https://code.google.com/p/oxygenguide
Work is beginning on an Open-Source Android app to easily view/update this offline data: https://github.com/nicolas-raoul/OxygenGuide-Android