Wikivoyage talk:List of related projects

BootsNall

Kudos for the BnA link-- good idea. (WT-en) Majnoona

Travelopedia

• It looks like a fake, they are trying to sell you stuff ... The wiki is only used to create links to commercial websites. --(WT-en) zeno 13:25, May 24, 2004 (EDT)
  • I removed the link, because the site is not available any more. --(WT-en) zeno 06:54, 19 June 2006 (EDT)

world66.com

Forgive me if this is a stupid question, or has been asked before, but I noticed that another collaborative travel project, world66.com, is published under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 1.0 license. Does this means that all their content can be posted here and vice versa? I would be grateful if someone could clear that up. Ta. (WT-en) Professorbiscuit 11:50, 28 Jul 2004 (EDT)

All our content could be posted there. I'm dubious about World66's content, since it was originally a GFDL site, and they switched over to by-sa without getting the consent of their contributors. If we copy any of their content here, and somebody reuses it, and one of their contributors who submitted under the GFDL sues our downstream reuser... well, I feel that we've done that reuser a disservice.

It's also worth noting that most of the images at World66 are downloaded from other Web sites through Google images, and aren't submitted by contributors.

So, in general, I'd be really wary about copying info from World 66 here. --(WT-en) Evan 14:38, 28 Jul 2004 (EDT)

I am also suspicious of the 10,000 destinations claim. I had a look at a couple of New Zealand articles I know are here, they are listed on World66 but have no content. They may have 10,000 destinations in their database but how many of those destinations have real content? At least Wikivoyage tell you how many real article exist and gives clear indications of article size and popularity. The World66 Top Destinations list also have no indication on how they are ranked, (or who is paying for the ranking). Finally, the image search serves copyrighted images, though it certainly provides a link to them. Interesting project. I wonder what will happen when they redistribute Wikivoyage content, which they must inevitably do if their destinations remain content poor. -- (WT-en) Huttite 07:44, 4 Jan 2005 (EST)

...So I registered on World66 ... I tried a few edits to see what I could and could not do. Mainly to bring the New Zealand content up to scratch. Compared to Wikivoyage I found World66 very frustrating to work with. Each destination appears to be a leaf on a destination tree, with a rigid structure that once created cannot be changed or even deleted, moved or otherwise modified. I also believe that it does not attribute copyright appropriately as I was able to claim as my own work, copy that had been submitted by anonymous contributors (me logged out). Anonymous contributors are not credited. There also appears to be a background proofing clique that is not apparent from the front of the website. I noticed that a large number of blank pages were seemingly created by people submitting things like internet cafes and the like. Thus an internet cafe creates an entry (to point to their website) and presto improves their pagerank - sounds like they have a spammer problem too - I wonder why - This would also be an answer to the 10,000 destination claim. -- (WT-en) Huttite 05:51, 10 Jan 2005 (EST)

Swept in from Project:Travellers' pub:

I came across this site http://www.world66.com, which is a commercial travel guide site which is user-editable (though probably not Wiki-based) and is licensed under Creative Commons. Yet all of the content seems to be different from WikiTravel. Most of the articles are large stubs with no listings, which were written up beforehand (i.e., not Wiki style). But there is one in place for practically every destination, so there are no conspicuous gaps like here. Interesting to see how this will develop, with World66 and Wikivoyage able to use each other's content. -- (WT-en) Paul Richter 02:31, 20 Apr 2005 (EDT)

World66 was originally a GFDL commercial guide, but it flopped, and the content was spontaneously relicensed under CC. The legality of this maneuver is somewhat questionable... also, they split each destinations in tons of tiny little stubs, making the thing much harder to read, navigate or print than Wikivoyage. See also Project:List of related projects for further discussion of this. (WT-en) Jpatokal 02:39, 20 Apr 2005 (EDT)

Wiktravel looks much better in my opinion... (WV-en) Felix

Having also contributed to World66, in my opinion, Wikivoyage is also much better to contribute to too.... -- (WT-en) Huttite 20:50, 23 Apr 2005 (EDT)

Studyabroad.com Wiki

I've just stumbled upon the recently released StudyAbroad.com Wiki - It looks like a mixture of guide and travelogue, aimed at students currently or planning to study abroad. It also uses MediaWiki but there isn't even a copyright notice to it. (WT-en) Rmx 15:03, 8 Dec 2005 (EST)

other complementary web sites

Swept in from the Pub:

Greetings fellow travelers. Moments ago I stumbled upon http://43places.com/ . It helps people who are going to the same place discover each other. So do you see this site as a competitor to Wikivoyage, or do you think collaborative links in both directions would be a good thing? --(WT-en) DavidCary 15:32, 9 Jan 2006 (EST)

Related Site Project: Wikiscuba

Swept in from the Pub:

(WT-en) I have started a wiki, http://www.wikiscuba.org, to describe scuba diving locations around the world. It was in part inspired by wikivoyage and I thought there could be some wikivoyagers interested in participating in the wikiscuba project as well. There is a discussion on Talk:Scuba diving between myself and Jpatokal. We initially disagreed as to whether this warranted an entirely different wiki, but I think we've come to the conclusion that a separate wiki with technical information about diving sites for divers might be preferable over the inclusion of more technical scuba information in wikivoyage. In any case, it would be great to have as much 'cross-talk' as possible. I'm sure there are travellers who would benefit from having links to scuba diving information when planning a trip and many divers planning a diving trip would like to find information about the local culture/attractions.

I guess at this point, what I'm fishing (no pun intended) for is any suggestion on how best we could make the dive location wiki interface with wikivoyage. Also if anyone is interested in participating in that project, leaving me a message on my talk page would be good. The database at wikiscuba was mostly a try to get acquainted with setting up the wiki. I wouldn't go and create accounts just yet.

Note that there's also another scuba diving wiki that is starting with general technical information about scuba diving (I didn't secure both the .org and .com domain names in the beginning, so ironically it's hosted at http://www.wikiscuba.com/wiki). Although that wiki is probably not interesting for most wikivoyagers, it might be of interest to people who use wikiscuba(.org). I'm in the process of discussing with the instigator of the wikiscuba(.com) project to see if he would be open to fusing both projects together.(WT-en) Charles 17:23, 6 Feb 2006 (EST)

From what I read at the discussion page it looks like User:(WT-en) Jpatokal is still in favor of keeping scuba diving information here on Wikivoyage. -- (WT-en) Mark 04:44, 7 Feb 2006 (EST)

That would be correct. Of course I wish Charles the best of luck if he wishes to set up something entirely new, but I hate to see the wheel reinvented and the synergies to Wikivoyage seem, to me, pretty obvious. (WT-en) Jpatokal 04:52, 7 Feb 2006 (EST)

Thanks for correcting me. I'm not trying to take anything away from wikivoyage. I think divers who are preparing an actual dive want more specific information about specific dive sites (depth, water temp., typical visibility, etc.). I don't think this information should be included in wikivoyage. There have already been several discussions (about scuba diving, golf, etc.) and my feel is that detailed technical information shouldn't be on wikivoyage. In that sense, I don't think it's reinventing the wheel. Call me stubborn, but I still fail to see how detailed scuba information would fit in wikivoyage. I would love to see interaction and redirects between two wikis, of course. I think it would be beneficial to both. (WT-en) Charles 10:11, 7 Feb 2006 (EST)

Yes, similar to the thoughts you had on Scuba, I was thinking about how information for golfers could be slotted in. Personally, I would much rather these (and other) areas could be kept within WikiTravel to avoid duplication of effort, rather than as seperate sites (wikigolf, wikiscuba). However, I am worried about possible conflicts with the goals/non-goals of wikiTravel. I would like somewhere to read/write details about any particular golf I would be travelling to (even tinpot local courses), however it they would likely not be important enough to list in the Do section, and I am hesitant to create a Golfing in xxx section for every location with a golf course (which is pretty much everywhere). This was why I was starting and appending courses to the Golf section, intending possibly to split it up later when we had multiple course information for a particular region.(WT-en) Hkpatv 01:24, 8 Feb 2006 (EST)

My feeling on the matter is that there is a place for more specific activities on Wikivoyage. For example, a general discussion of Bali might mention diving issues of interest to a general audience ("there will be a lot of divers here" or "if you ever wanted to learn to dive, there are a lot of good shops here"), but a more specific Diving in Lovina Beach would cover the more technical issues (depth, water temperature, things to see, etc.).

That said, I think there's more to say about scuba than would fit in a travel guide (equipment, safety, etc.) and there's definitely room in the world for a specific diving wiki. (Same goes for golf, surfing, offroad driving, or other targeted activities). So good luck on Wikiscuba (and wikigolf!) and let's make sure we keep lines of communication open. --(WT-en) Evan 10:58, 8 Feb 2006 (EST)

Search will find every occurance of "golf" or "scuba" on Wikivoyage and present each pagename. So if golf or scuba info is put on a subpage of the city page it is nearest too, for example San_Francisco/golf, that will display nicely in the Article title matches section of the Search results. Note that because there is a "golf" page in the (Main) namespace hitting ruturn (Go) takes you there instead of to Search results. So you must click Search instead of hitting return.

English teachers' Wiki

As of May 1, 2006, there is a new Wiki [1] specifically for English teachers.

Their section on travel suggests contributing general travel information to Wikivoyage instead, putting only ESL-specific information on their new site.

TripAdvisor adds wiki

Swept in from the Pub:

While writing up this week's Wikipedia Signpost news roundup, I saw that high-profile travel website TripAdvisor has added a wiki called the "Inside Pages" to its site, allowing visitors to write articles about travel destinations and so forth ("TripAdvisor imitates Wikipedia"). They're doing beta testing on U.K. and California information right now; I don't see any obvious notice of the copyright/license terms for the info. Thought you might like to know, and I'd like to know what you think; it's possible we may write more about this in the Signpost next week. -- (WT-en) Catherine)

Hi Catherine, thanks for pointing this out. While it's an interesting development (and the sincerest form of flattery...), Evan and I think there are a couple of important points to keep in mind:

• Their community features are poor, as well as their personal identity features, and thus the main motivators for people to contribute to a wiki are missing.
• There doesn't seem to be any participation whatsoever by users in policy, style, or process. We also don't see clearly delineated goals. In other words, there's no feeling of community ownership of the site.
• We think that our Creative Commons license gives contributors an idealistic goal for creating Open Content guides. TA leaves the license unspecified, and their reputation as a "roach motel" for user contributions suggests that they won't be making any changes along those lines in the near future. --(WT-en) Majnoona 10:49, 17 April 2006 (EDT)

Wikimapia

I just heard about Wikimapia [2] . Seems like cross-purposes from Wikivoyage. Plus, I sort of like the interface and I sort of hate it. Thoughts? Should there be links between "us" and them, as in Wikipedia?--(WT-en) Justfred 17:11, 2 October 2006 (EDT)

Interface sucks -- and you can't edit a location, just the text associated with the location. Also, while it tends to be more comprehensive, it's actually less useful. Want to find a hotel? Plan on clicking every school, grocery store, business, somebody's house, park, bridge, lake, etc until you find one. There's a lot of entries for the city I live in (Fremont, California) and it isn't even useful to me. -- (WT-en) Colin 17:26, 2 October 2006 (EDT)

Airnav

Airnav [3] lists information for general aviation pilots, with relevant airport information but also local restaurants, hotels, etc of interest to private pilots. If there's a way to link to them from airport codes, this might be useful; would be best to create a meta tag for this, somehow, I'd think.--(WT-en) Justfred 17:19, 4 October 2006 (EDT)

I've started to add airports in the format:

Harris Ranch (3O8[4])

airport name (code[http://www.airnav.com/airport/code])

Codes prefixed with a K such as Santa Monica (KSMO[5]) show the K.

If a meta were created it'd be a lot simpler; it could even be in the right-side nav links box {Airnav|KSMO} --(WT-en) justfred 23:30, 5 October 2006 (EDT)

I totally understand why you want to do this, but it sure looks like an violation of the current Project:External links policy to me. But let me ask you some questions about it. First, given the airport code (which we absolutely should include in the text), is it hard for a pilot to lookup more information about the location? Is it really that necessary to link to airnav as opposed to letting the pilot google it himself? Just trying to understand more about you issue, thanks -- (WT-en) Colin 00:21, 6 October 2006 (EDT)

No, it wouldn't be that hard, but this seems to be the authoritative location for this information. I would think that a best-case would be an agreement with them. But for the moment I think it would be better to leave it out; I'll go change the two I did. However, there should be some format for airport codes, since they're very useful; perhaps a mini-template for that alone?--(WT-en) justfred 00:25, 6 October 2006 (EDT)

I've been considering this, and I think there should be some designator for the aiport code. These are ICAO ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICAO_airport_code ) codes, so it could be (ICAO:KLAX) which would make searching for them a lot easier. Unless there's a better way to code it; most readers don't care to see the "ICAO:". And I would think these would tend to be online, rather than article-wide - for example Los Angeles might have several suggested airports; many metro areas have multiples. This is in contrast to the familiar three-character IATA codes (LAX); in non-US the IATA and ICAO are very different.--(WT-en) justfred 12:38, 10 October 2006 (EDT)

It appears this is how it's already done, sometimes. (IATA:LAX, ICAO:KLAX). Bob's your uncle. Still makes me wonder what happens when we find some fine site to link all these to, or change them to a tag, how will a bot find all of them.--(WT-en) justfred 13:39, 10 October 2006 (EDT)

Wikevent

So, Wikevent is getting pretty close to being useful so I'm going to add it to this page. I'd love at some point to do interwiki links, especially considering that one of the motivations for starting Wikevent in the first place was to provide a way for Wikivoyage to link to events. -- (WT-en) Mark 04:05, 3 January 2007 (EST)

Mark's done some pretty amazing things with this and I too would like to see some interwiki work done in the future. -- (WT-en) Andrew H. (Sapphire) 01:05, 4 January 2007 (EST)

Two things: can we start Project:Cooperating with Wikevent? Also, please post the request for interwiki stuff on wts:technical requests. I'll especially need to know how the URLs are supposed to be formatted, and whether there should be links for other language versions. --(WT-en) Evan 12:49, 4 January 2007 (EST)

Wikipedia fork, Citizendium

Archived from the Pub:

From Slashdot, 16 September:

• "Larry Sanger, first editor-in-chief of Wikipedia, plans to fork the project. In Berlin he announced the start of Citizendium — the citizen's compendium. Main differences: no anonymous editing, and experts will rule the project. Members of Wikipedia were not amused."

The wiki is not up yet, but there is a home page [6] and several mailing lists.

How does this affect us? Methinks we need a {{Citizendium}} tag at least. I want it mainly because I'm in China and, unlike Wikipedia, Citizendium isn't blocked here yet. (WT-en) Pashley 02:25, 18 September 2006 (EDT)

Citizendium also doesn't seem to have any articles yet. One possibility for the firewal problem is to have our "Wikipedia" interwiki link point to a local Special: page, which in turn redirects you to a Wikipedia mirror of your choice (or wikipedia, by default). --(WT-en) Evan 08:52, 18 September 2006 (EDT)

They've had a pilot project running for a while, opened for public viewing today. (WT-en) Pashley 16:19, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Main_Page (WT-en) Pashley 16:21, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

Citizendium doesn't appear to be an actual fork of Wikipedia... more like a tine, borrowing a little (at least for now), but otherwise starting almost from scratch(!). It may be a while before it's complete enough for us to assume that it even has articles for most Wikivoyage destinations; at present it has only 16 (seemingly random) articles in their geography category that correspond to ours. Between the lack of common content, and CZ's lack of content overall so far, I think we should treat them as distinct resources, to be linked to separately. (BTW, the fact that their "experts" began editing the article for the UK with an argument over whether the article should instead be called "Great Britain" is not a good omen, methinks.) - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 18:38, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

Have they changed their strategy then? When it was launched it was supposed to be a "progressive fork". — (WT-en) Ravikiran 23:49, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

Change of strategy. Apparently the prevailing opinion was that expert authors would be more eager to write their own articles rather than proofread existing Wikipedia articles. Of course the WP articles are still available for cribbing if any CZ author chooses, and many CZ articles had already been based on WP articles when this course-change was made, but that won't be the default. - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 15:00, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

Given that Citizendium is now clearly distinct from Wikipedia, and will probably grow to have articles worth linking to, in the interest of fairness I've created Project:Cooperating with Citizendium. The details about how to link back and forth still need to be worked out. - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 09:16, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

TravGuide

I received the following email today:

Hi, Denis,

I think you mentioned on wikivoyage some time ago that you have some info and reviews about hotels, restaurant, etc. that you were not encouraged to enter on wikivoyage.

Anyway, just let you know that we just released a site, TravGuide.org, which is travel wiki specifically for reviews and guides. You may want to enter data over there, and we certainly appreciate your support.

Thanks.

Jay Fang

TravGuide.org

The project forked some of Wikivoyage guides some time ago, and licensed some restaurant reviews from [chefmoz.org ChefMoz project].

I am not very sympathetic with the project, still some important observations:

• they allow video--it really help to tell on travel activities, for example
• they intentionally allow reviews on restaurants and hotels as well as summarizing description
• they provide space for deals from businesses -- at least it gives space for providers to submit exactly what they have instead of spamming listings

I feel like I've noticed something else, but don't remember now. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 16:48, 24 October 2007 (EDT)

Wikiversity brainstorming

Swept in from the pub:

There is an article at wikiversity about cheap independant travel. Its about thinking cooperatively about the cheapest methods. Please add links from wikivoyage to this wikiversity page

Seems like a good project, but the page is somewhat bare right now and I think we have enough on our plates writing for this site. Just my thoughts --(WT-en) Matt ^Talk 22:12, 24 August 2008 (EDT)

Hitchhiking.org

Perhaps hitchhiking.org may be added ?

Librilang.org

I have a project I would like to submit. It is a wiki-based project which aims to translate works in the public-domain in other languages, using collaboration; you can find it here: http://www.librilang.org Does this qualify as a fellow-traveller project? If so, I will add an entry! Thanks --(WT-en) ChrisHughes 11:53, 29 August 2008 (EDT)

Since no-one has objected, I will add this to the list. --(WT-en) ChrisHughes 08:47, 1 September 2008 (EDT)

Wikimmigrant

Swept in from the Pub:

I wanted to ask the Wikivoyage community for a little help with a wiki that I'm trying to get launched - Wikimmigrant. I'm hoping that Wikimmigrant can complement Wikivoyage by providing detailed immigration/visa rules and regulations for every nation on Earth and, possibly one day - Mars. A detailed account of explaining the application process and visa fees for every nation is obviously going to fall way outside the scope of Wikivoyage's goals to provide relevant travel information, but for those of us in the world that want to up and go to Poland, Canada, Singapore, Mongolia, or India from the comfort (or discomfort - that's why Wikimmigrant will help explain obtaining refugee status in different countries) of our native lands, we should have a way to access that information in a central place.

Yes, there are expat websites that can give a person information and guidance on obtaining a work or residence permit for Country A, but, as we know with travel information, information can change quickly. So, if the parliament of Country A changes it's immigration laws, then the MediaWiki software will allow anyone with that knowledge to update Wikimmigrant and that information would be instantaneously available to the world, which is not true for many expat websites.

Anyhow, I could specifically use help developing policies, templates, and articles. I'd especially appreciate any help from someone with knowledge of CSS to design a spiffy main page. -- (WT-en) Sapphire • (Talk) • 21:42, 5 October 2008 (EDT)

Does this need a "co-operating with ..." page? Mention in an index? (WT-en) Pashley 09:58, 27 December 2008 (EST)

Hitchwiki redux

It begins to look as though Hitchwiki may be viable -- not automatically true for all of the "projects" listed here -- and it clearly complements, rather than duplicates, our goals and articles for Wikivoyage. Is it time for us to pay it due respect by adding it to the "Other sites" list than can show up on the left-hand side of the page? -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 10:54, 28 December 2008 (EST)

partnership with TripAdvisor?

Swept in from pub:

I wonder whether we (or WikivoyagePress? Or IB?) ever considered any kind of partnership with TripAdvisor?

The idea is straight simple: they have much more(?) experts with local knowledge, tons of (very unstruсtured) content--while Wikivoyage has bullet-proof community guidelines and tons of organized content. Business reasons and politics aside, such a partnership would seem very logical.

Yes, it's a flame bait--but I'm still serious :-) --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 10:38, 20 October 2009 (EDT)

Would be a nice concept being able to freeload on tripadvisor, but they own the copyright to all the user contributions over there, and they would never allow those to be freely licensed. It's their bread and butter. --(WT-en) Stefan (sertmann) ^Talk 10:54, 20 October 2009 (EDT)

I had a look at their "terms & conditions" text. Looks like their licensing is utterly incompatible with ours.

The content and information on this Website ... as well as the infrastructure ... is proprietary to us. You agree not to otherwise modify, copy, distribute, transmit, display, perform, reproduce, publish, license, create derivative works from, transfer, or sell or re-sell any information, software, products, or services obtained from or through this Website. Additionally, you agree not to:

• (i) use this Website or its contents for any commercial purpose;
• (ii) access, monitor or copy any content or information of this Website using any robot, spider, scraper or other automated means or any manual process for any purpose without our express written permission;
• ...
• (v) deep-link to any portion of this Website for any purpose without our express written permission; or
• (vi) "frame", "mirror" or otherwise incorporate any part of this Website into any other website without our prior written authorization.
• (vii) attempt to modify, translate, adapt, edit, decompile, disassemble, or reverse engineer any software programs used by TripAdvisor in connection with the Website or the services

Also, on the "about us" page "TripAdvisor® Media Network provides travel suppliers with graphical advertising opportunities and a cost-per-click marketing platform." That may be where IB is heading, but it does not match our current policies.

I cannot see that such a partnership would be either possible or desirable. (WT-en) Pashley

Currently they have some number of articles (attached to destination) which are awful in content and duplication. We could provide texts for that section, and simplify cross-site user authorization so that users authorized at TA could easily contribute to the articles. The rest at AT could remain as it is now (to begin with). --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 11:20, 20 October 2009 (EDT)

I think I've said elsewhere a few times that I wouldn't trust WT's Sleep and Eat sections, I always go to tripadvisor for accommodation, and local reviews for eat. We all know that outside of the fifedoms, most of the accommodation and restaurant entries are entered by vested interests. The WT content is usually great for attractions and logistic info. As far as cooperating with tripadvisor, they are free to take our content anytime they like. They could do it right now, if they wanted to. I doubt IB hold any bargaining chips for a partnership. If they did, I think it would be a good thing. I'm not sure what we can do to improve the situation with eat and sleep listing within the wiki framework, but we could have start by being a little tougher on vested interests. Tripadvisor at least start with a policy of not allowing business owners to write their own reviews. We do pretty much the opposite--(WT-en) inas 05:32, 21 October 2009 (EDT)

If we can't trust our Sleep and Eat (as you say), and if we can't resist pressure from apartment agencies and hotels in some articles, maybe it's time to revisit our "welcome business owners" policy? --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 13:05, 23 October 2009 (EDT)

Yes, seems to do little to assist with good contributions, rather perpetuating the attitude taken by some business owners that they have a right to place their advert on wikivoyage. Much to the detriment of the site, IMO. The source of a strong consensus for that article in the first place also seems to not be apparent. --(WT-en) inas 14:45, 3 November 2009 (EST)

It's a very long established policy with over two years of practice holding it up. I'd still be happy to relook it, though. We didn't have the problems with business owners back then that we do today—I'd wager at least half of contributions from non-regular users are coming from business owners and their employees... And I should say that I'm not at all pessimistic about our ability to judge who's who—I can practically smell them on recentchanges. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 23:45, 3 November 2009 (EST)

What is the purpose of this article?

Don't get it at all. Is it intended to be a list of other travel guides? Or just Wiki travel guides? --(WT-en) Burmesedays 21:38, 17 January 2010 (EST)

As i understand it: just wiki travel guides. Not strictly sticking to the "referenced by others" as wikipedia. This page of course is about somehow related projects.

I feel that nobody administrating/moderating is reading these. (12:26gmt, 16-03-2011)

Mobile counterpart

Why the mobile counterpart's "m.wikivoyage.org" content differs from the original Wikivoyage? How its content is created? Why here there is no reference anywhere to this counterpart? Or is it a different site? Who hosts both sites? (a contributor - 11:47am 7-Mar-2011)

WikiOverland, the encyclopedia of overland travel

It was suggested I move this discussion here from Talk:Country Article Template

I would like to start a discussion with regards to linking to WikiOverland from within wikiTravel country pages.
First, what is WikiOverland?
It's new community wiki specifically for people traveling across multiple countries with vehicles (commonly called traveling Overland. The people are called Overlanders, who are Overlanding).

It's designed to supplement wikiTravel with the very detailed information needed by travelers with a vehicle.

It currently includes things like customs paperwork and fees, the process at the border, extending a stay, exiting with a vehicle, vehicle insurance, up-to-date gasoline prices (in any currency and unit the reader chooses), gasoline frequency and quality, camping, roads, checkpoints, bribery, vehicle shipping, maps, navigation, vehicle maintenance, buying and selling vehicles and much, much more.
It uses the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 license for content.

WikiOverland has a page for every country, much like wikiTravel. WikiOverland currently links to wikiTravel for each country.
By linking here WikiOverland does not need to worry about all the standard travel information available here and can focus on specializing in the huge amounts of detailed information required by those traveling with vehicles.

I believe it makes sense for wikiTravel to link to wikiOverland in the "by-car" sub sections, as wikiOverland is designed to be extraordinarily specific with regards to traveling with a vehicle - exactly the information those sections are supposed to include.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on the idea.

Thanks (WT-en) Dangrec 19:47, 29 November 2011 (EST)

I think the new site definitely deserves a mention on this page, the List of related projects. You might want to drop a note at Project:Fellow traveller Expedition, which is usually where we have discussed collaboration with other projects. (WT-en) LtPowers 10:35, 30 November 2011 (EST)

Thanks. I've created a discussion at Project:Fellow traveller Expedition -(WT-en) Dangrec 13:39, 30 November 2011 (EST)

Adding WikiOverland to the list of related projects, and linking to it

Swept in from the pub.

I've added a note to Talk: List of Related projects about adding WikiOverland, the encyclopedia of overland travel to the list of related projects and linking to it from appropriate articles.
Please have a look and add your thoughts.
Thanks (WT-en) Dangrec 22:14, 29 November 2011 (EST)

Per Project:External links it wouldn't make sense to link from within articles, but in the past these sorts of integrations have been handled via interwiki links (see for example Project:Links to Wikipedia). However, it looks like WikiOverland is still in the very early stages - [7] shows 27 articles so far, and there don't seem to be any contributions prior to 25-November - so it probably makes sense to wait a bit longer before considering a significant integration. Hopefully that seems reasonable. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 23:48, 29 November 2011 (EST)

Thanks for the reply Ryan. I noticed the external links policy on Project:External_links#What_not_to_link_to, specifically the part that says:

"We should avoid links to other travel guides, to ensure we have travel information in Wikivoyage, not linked from Wikivoyage."

In the case of WikiOverland, I'm not sure this is very applicable. WikiOverland contains an extremely detailed amount of information for people traveling with vehicles - so much so I honestly don't think WikiTravel would ever want to include this level of detail (for example - I show up at the border of Peru with my Canadian-plated vehicle, the information I'd like to know is 1. What paperwork do I need? 2. What is the process? 3. How much will it cost? 4. Do I need to buy insurance? 5. How much does that cost? etc. etc. etc.).. I don't think wikiTravel aims to include this level of detail, does it?

The fact that WikiTravel has sections like Get in-> By car and Get around -> By car show that these are areas of interest for travelers reading WikiTravel, but they are severely lacking or non-existent for many countries. It's clear the value of wikiTravel in these specific areas could be improved today by linking to WikiOverland, but including the information into wikiTravel would be a huge undertaking.

You also mention that WikiOverland is in it's early stages - and you are 100% correct. Note, however, that a lack of articles does not mean a lack of useful information. One of the goals of WikiOverland is to include only the information that people traveling with Vehciles need, and can't readily find elsewhere in guide books or online. (For example, WikiOverland will never include information on languages spoken, visa requirements, currencies, airports, etc.) Because of this goal to be to-the-point and up-to-date, I anticipate WikiOverland will never contain more than around 150 articles. With respect to age, you can see from the public logs we've been building it up Since May 2011.

Thanks again. -(WT-en) Dangrec 00:47, 30 November 2011 (EST)

Sorry, I looked at the recent changes on your site for the past 30 days, but forgot to also change the number of revisions displayed, which is where the 25-November date came from. That said, given the vast amount of work it takes to prevent Wikivoyage from becoming a nest of external links I think it will be an uphill battle to find a way to include links from WikiOverland from within Wikivoyage articles (see the discussions on Project:External links for history), so my personal opinion is that interwiki links make the most sense, but preferably when WikiOverland has gotten a bit larger. Hopefully others can provide their opinions - Wikivoyage tends to be extremely conservative when it comes to external links, but consensus drives the decision making so it would be good to get additional opinions. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 01:11, 30 November 2011 (EST)

Wikitravel

From the department of questions that nobody imagined having to ask: is there a need for a policy on links to Wikitravel? (WV-en) Gorilla Jones (talk) 02:07, 10 September 2012 (CEST)

We have a more general policy on links to other travel guides... we don't do it because we want the info here. Wikivoyage: External links favours primary sources. K7L (talk) 01:45, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Travellerspoint

Swept in from the pub

This site seems to have quite a lot of wiki travel articles, similar to ours, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0. Worth a look and perhaps co-operation? --Nick (talk) 00:31, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

They certainly already seem to be aware of us [8] [9]. —Ruud 17:37, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

I guess a good question to ask would be, how active or well-known a community is this? They are a competitor, after all. Who stands to gain more from a cooperation - them or us? -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 05:37, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Travellerspoint, Part II

Swept in from the pub

This group is doing work very similar to us. Have we reached out to ask if they are interesting in collaborating yet? Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:51, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Their terms of use are not extremely restrictive, however I would say restrictive enough to prevent much collaboration.

My amateur take would be that unless they also adopt a creative commons license then any such collaboration would be difficult. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 13:27, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

This is CC BY SA [10] Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:08, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

It seems articles have the creative commons logo at the botton of each, but there is no reference to creative commons in the terms of use.

Is the presence of a logo (and nothing else) sufficient? (I really don't know the answer) Andrewssi2 (talk) 05:09, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

The example page at least now has the text "Except where otherwise noted, content of this article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License" by the logo. Has it been added later? --LPfi (talk) 07:51, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm all for collaboration here! It may not score as high on Alexa, but it's got a lot of convenient information. I'm thinking about WikiTravel, too - which ranks much higher than WikVoyage. Any ideas? Cheers, Horst-schlaemma (talk) 16:35, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Please read Wikivoyage:Wikivoyage and Wikitravel. That's a website which has engaged in frivolous and vexatious litigation against our volunteers in the past, so does not represent a possible collaboration partner. Sorry. K7L (talk) 16:43, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Alright, I see. A wondered for a while what this Wikivoyage-Wikitravel oxymoron is about. Well, then they should just dump it, huh... Horst-schlaemma (talk) 11:37, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Building a free/open (Wikimedia/OSM style) community for reviews

Swept in from the pub

Hi Wikivoyagers,

I wanted to let you know about a project that I'm working on: https://lib.reviews/ . As the front page notes, the goal is to build a free, open, non-profit community dedicated to reviewing anything -- including restaurants, tourist attractions, and the like. I think this could become a natural complement to the information provided on Wikivoyage.

Reviews are inherently subjective, but we will support the notion of teams (similar to WikiProjects) that have defined standards and rules. So you could have a team "Paris Vegetarians", for example, to identify the best vegetarian restaurants in Paris, France, with membership rules like "You must have visited a restaurant three times to write a review". There will be other features to mitigate against abuse.

As with Wikimedia, support for many languages is important. The software is already fully localized into German, and you can translate all content (try changing the language on the front page and notice how some content is now German). If you want to help with localization into a new language, we can already get started on that right away (we're not on translatewiki.net yet, but I'll look into making that happen).

The license for reviews is CC-BY-SA, and for metadata CC-0 -- identical to Wikivoyage and Wikidata, respectively. Right now we identify things to review by URL (e.g., a restaurant's official website); over time I hope to build adapters for OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, and so on.

At this point, you can write reviews, and you'll soon be able to start teams. Contributors and collaborators of any background are welcome, as long as you're willing to deal with bugs/rough edges/missing core features. Until I'm confident in anti-spam measures, an invite-code is required -- you can email me through my user page, or follow the instructions on the front page.

I hope this project will fill a void in the free culture ecosystem. Happy to answer questions here directly, and hope to see some of you get involved. :-) --Eloquence (talk) 23:10, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Interesting experiment! Not easy but I hope you will be able to design a system that works... be sure to let us know your findings after like a year! I just sent you an email requesting an invite :-) Syced (talk) 13:45, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Looks like a great initiative. I'm excited for the possibility of downloading reviews for offline use, complementing the Wikivoyage ZIM. Carlelliss (talk) 16:50, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Useful site

Swept in from the pub

See here How can we incorporate this info here? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:16, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Interesting tool! I think Wikivoyage already has a lot of this data in prose? The rest depends where the traveller comes from, which we can not tell as we are intended to be usable as a book too. I don't really think it would be a great idea to link to them either, per our external links policy. Cheers! Syced (talk) 07:35, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

But yeah, quite a nice tool! Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:16, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

It is indeed quite a nice tool & the site is not infested with advertising. I think we should link to it somewhere.

He says there will be an app "probably open source" for it & an API. We should track developments & when they reach a good point, look at integrating the app with WV apps, adding WV links to their app, and/or using the Basetrip API here. Pashley (talk) 12:31, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

There's a really good argument to be made that linking this site somewhere is in the interest of travelers and that for that reason, we should make an exception to our usual policy on external links. But where would you suggest linking it, other than in an app? Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:00, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

@Ikan Kekek: Maybe in the infoboxes? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:14, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

You mean for each country? Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:15, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

@Ikan Kekek: Yes. It would only be relevant for country-level data, of course (you don't need a passport to get into Indianapolis). So maybe a line that says "Passport info" and a link to this site by way of a template. If the site changes its architecture or goes down, then it can be easily removed by a bot and it will be excluded from print versions. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:26, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Seems like a good idea to me. What does everyone else think? Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:28, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

If we decide to link to the site, the infobox or Understand would be the best places to put that link. Normally we want to have the information here rather than in some other guide, but that would mean a lot of writing (even without including all the embassies). ϒpsilon (talk) 04:57, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Possible integration

Email from the author I don't think this is confidential, so I am reproducing what the founder of the site sent to me:

I have a question though - it says "The rest depends where the traveller comes from" which is not quite true - if you remove the "From" thing you get this (the same minus the comparisons), for example for France - https://www.thebasetrip.com/en/france-travel-information

There is also a pending (not online yet!) blog post which should maybe clear some doubts about monetization/ads etc. - https://www.thebasetrip.com/en/blog/unexpected-launch

In case we decide to go forward, I think this is relevant. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:37, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

If they charge or press people for contributions or subscriptions, I don't think it would be Wiki-like to link them. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:57, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

@Ikan Kekek: Agreed that we should only link to and promote free culture and knowledge. The entire idea that Evan and Maj had was that we could all get together and share knowledge for our mutual benefit. What a beautiful thing. Some amount of "can you please give your time or money so we can stay afloat" is fair--that happens here as well. But real monetization or locking down the site to be proprietary is unacceptable. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:33, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

We are in agreement. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:11, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

A relevant Humble Book Bundle

Swept in from the pub

See here This may seem a little tout-y but I don't have a horse in this race. This is relevant for us as those interested in travel but also because Humble Bundles have given a lot of money to the Wikimedia Foundation (and you can often choose that as a charity but it appears not in this instance). —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:17, 7 September 2016 (UTC)