Wikitravel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wikitravel is a project to create an open content, complete, up-to-date, and reliable world-wide travel guide. Although it uses a wiki model to create the guide and to deliver it on the World Wide Web, the project is also aimed towards production of printed guides. Wikitravel is built in collaboration by Wikitravellers from around the globe. Articles can cover any level of geographic specificity, from continents to districts of a city. These are logically connected in a hierarchy, by specifying that the location covered in one article "is in" the larger location described by another. The project also includes articles on travel-related topics, phrasebooks for travelers, and suggested itineraries.
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[edit] History
Wikitravel was started in July 2003 by Evan Prodromou and Michele Ann Jenkins, inspired in part by Wikipedia. [1] The project uses the MediaWiki software, which is also used by the Wikipedia. However, Wikitravel is not a Wikimedia project; it was begun independently, and is now owned by Internet Brands. This company sells automobiles, real estate and is a travel company. Unlike Wikipedia, it uses the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license rather than the GNU Free Documentation License. Among other things, this more easily allows individuals, tourism agencies, etc. to make free reprints of individual pages. Although both Wikipedia and Wikitravel are free content resources, because of the incompatible licenses, content cannot be freely copied between them. Wikitravel's different objectives have also resulted in different policies and content guidelines. For example, rather than a strict neutral point of view requirement, Wikitravel encourages editors to express their personal opinions with the requirement to "be fair".
On 20 April 2006, Wikitravel announced that it and World66 – another open-content travel guide – had been acquired by Internet Brands.[1] The new owner hired Prodromou and Jenkins to continue managing Wikitravel as a consensus-based project. They explained that Internet Brands' long-term plan was for Wikitravel to continue to focus on collaborative, objective guides, while World66 would focus more on personal experiences and reviews.
[edit] Milestones
- 23 December 2005 — 10,000 articles across all versions
- 11 June 2006 — 10,000 articles on the English version
- 29 September 2006 — 20,000 articles across all versions
[edit] Languages
Wikitravel is a multilingual project available in 13 languages, with each language-specific project developed independently. In order of launch:
- English Wikitravel
- Romanian
- French
- German
- Swedish
- Japanese
- Dutch
- Portuguese
- Spanish
- Polish
- Italian
- Esperanto
- Hungarian
[edit] References
- ^ Internet Brands (20 April, 2006). Internet Brands Acquires Wikitravel And World66 Online Travel Guides. Press release.