Requests for comment/Travel Guide: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 18:39, 22 August 2012

Revision as of 20:40, 22 August 2012

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# {{support}} I've been a Wikitravel user since 2008 ([http://wikitravel.org/en/User:AHeneen here]). I prefer to stay out of politics—a reason I haven't been an active contributor on Wikipedia and related wiki bureaucracy([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:IBstupid this] has been my WP account that I've yet to merge...IB is for the International Baccalaureate program I was in, not Internet Brands!!!). I have long desired for WT to be a Wikimedia project, mainly to gain a larger editing based (due to perceptions about its for-profit owner) and advertisements. However, the recent actions by IB to stem dissent make it all too clear that IB is a very bad host for the Wikitravel project. The reasons I support a WM travel wiki (a continuation of the Wikitravel project) is that the wiki serves a good purpose: providing a guide to the world free of commercial interests and bias from commercial entities (book publishers, travel agents, local/regional tourism promotion agencies, etc.) that anyone can edit or contribute to. Travel isn't merely commercial (with few exceptions like Las Vegas or Ibiza), but exploring the world and the great aura of cultures around the globe is very important for society...and certainly educational! There are often many years between editions of guidebooks. WT allows anyone to contribute useful information, providing instant feedback useful to travelers—a restaurant has moved, border crossing hours have changed, a hotel offers wifi, a national park now offers guided tours, prices of admission have changed. It's true that most of this is readily available in developed countries (US, Europe, Canada, Australia). However for much of the world (including regions I'm interested in such as Africa, the Caucasus, & Central Asia) the continuous user feedback WT provides is incredibly valuable. Language barriers may also hinder the availability of such info to travelers. To those concerned about forking the wiki, consider the sheer amount of WT admins & contributors have voiced there support (or more telling...how many have voiced opposition) and since nearly all the admins and regular users are fed up with IB, the future of WT is bleak and without constructive edits/discussions and regular policing of edits the quality, credibility, and usefulness of WT will decline anyways (to those concerned about forking a good wiki). The few reservations I hold against a move of the wiki to WM are related to new policies created by WM & WP users who may flock to the travel wiki shortly after launch and create policies resembling those on WP, giving little thought to the excellent policies WT has come up with over the years. It is very difficult to implement NPOV, mainly excessive negative remarks. For example, a mention critical of tourism on the environment is perfectly ok with me, but having 5 paragraphs on how the local government has polluted a forest & how Western tourists have commercialized natives on a National Park page is overkill. But a greater concern regards the negative views of commercialization voiced by opponents of a WM travel wiki. It is necessary to list businesses such as hotels, restaurants, attractions, taxi/bus companies and more as part of a travel guide. I feel current WT policy deals with "touting" effectively, by limiting the amount of fluffy language used in listings and the external links policy. A quick look at the [http://wikitravel.org/en/Wikitravel:Welcome,_business_owners Wikitravel:Welcome, business owners] page provides a good overview. The current WT community is small and it is difficult to police edits (especially in over-commercialized destinations like Orlando) to ensure all meet these criteria, although I think we've done a decent job with what few contributors there are. However, in time as the community grows larger it should get easier to police and remove all edits that run contrary to our Manual of Style. And finally, it is very difficult to provide references for everything on a travel wiki. Although not an issue in developed nations, mentioning that the only banks that there is only one bank that exchanges traveler's checks or the ___location of the only three ATMs in a city in a 3rd world country like Chad or Angola is very useful and should be included in the wiki, yet also hard to provide quality Wikipedia-level references. A good example would be [http://wikitravel.org/en/Niamey Niamey, Niger]. There's lots of necessary and useful information that would be hard to provide references for: porters & currency exchange at the airport; details on taxis; descriptive writing about markets & restaurants; and most of the info in "respect" & "stay safe" It might be a good thing to start the wiki, but set aside 1 month or so to work out policies before jumping into editing/creating destination pages. There are likely to be many differences between the small group of ex-WT editors accustomed to & understanding the reasoning behind WT policies and those used to WP & other WM wikis. [[User:AHeneen|AHeneen]] ([[User talk:AHeneen|talk]])

# {{Support}}. WT was actually my introduction to the wonderful world of wikis. And although I eventually ended up on WP:EN and havn't done any substantial edits on WT in years, it has pained me the way it seems to have stalled. If WikiMedia can help it rescue itself, I'm in favour. [[User:Chris j wood|Chris j wood]] ([[User talk:Chris j wood|talk]]) 18:39, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

# {{Support}} It would be great for Wikimedians who love to travel. --[[User:Rangilo Gujarati|Rangilo Gujarati]] ([[User talk:Rangilo Gujarati|talk]]) 20:40, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

===Oppose===