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Wikivoyage is a free web-based travel guide for travel destinations and travel topics written by volunteer authors. It is a sister project of Wikipedia and supported and hosted by the same non-profit Wikimedia Foundation (WMF). Wikivoyage has been called the "Wikipedia of travel guides".
The project began when editors at the German and then Italian versions of Wikitravel decided in September 2006 to move their editing activities and then current content to a new site, in accordance with the site copyright license, a procedure known as "forking". The resulting site went live as "Wikivoyage" on December 10, 2006, and was owned and operated by a German association set up for that purpose, Wikivoyage e.V. (which continues to be its representative association). Content was published under the copyleft license Creative Commons.
In 2012, after a long history of problems with their existing host, Migration FAQ at Wikivoyage, 22:09, December 25, 2012 . Retrieved January 16, 2013. the English-language version community of Wikitravel also decided to fork their project. In a two-way move, the English Wikitravel community re-merged with Wikivoyage under the Wikivoyage brand. In addition, all Wikivoyage language versions moved their operations to be hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization hosting several of the world's largest wiki-based communities such as Wikipedia. The Case of Wikitravel and Wikivoyage Governance Across Borders, July 2012 Following agreements by the various communities involved and the Wikimedia Foundation, the site was moved to the WMF servers in December 2012 and the whole of Wikivoyage was officially re-launched as a Wikimedia project on January 15, 2013, the day of the 12th anniversary of Wikipedia's launch.
Wikivoyage is a multilingual project available in languages, with each language-specific project developed independently. While now a Wikimedia project, it was begun independently. Wikivoyage content is broadly categorized as: destinations, itineraries, phrasebooks, and travel topics.
The hierarchy includes:
Attractions such as hotels, restaurants, bars, stores, nightclubs, tour operators, monuments, museums, statues or other works of art, city parks, town squares or streets, festivals or events, transport systems or stations, landscapes, bodies of water, and uninhabited islands are listed in the article for the place within which they are located, but they do not get their own articles.
In the German-language version, different name spaces are used to separate different topics. The main name space contains travel destinations within their geographical hierarchy. Two other important name spaces are reserved for travel topics and travel news, with the intent to allow a tight interconnection between travel destinations and topics.
The content design is decided by consensus of the community of authors.
The top ten Wikivoyage language projects by mainspace article count:
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike allows distribution through mirrors or by other means of modern media. Up-to-date archives are provided on a weekly basis. The files contained in these archives are provided with all the necessary legal licensing information, e.g. the attribution of the authors.
After about six months of preparation, the non-profit association Wikivoyage e.V. was founded and registered, as both the owner of the domain names and operator of the servers.See the bylaws of the Wikivoyage association. On December 10, 2006, the project went live online with the initial data from the German-language Wikitravel. After seven months, 40% of the articles were new, rising to 50% after 10 months. At this stage there were still major gaps in the coverage, but there were several articles for travel destinations like Egypt, Thailand and Switzerland and for the travel topic "cycling".The article distribution of Wikivoyage can be seen on a special page
The Italian branch of Wikivoyage was launched on December 10, 2007. The organization of media data and the administration of user access were already applicable for use in branches in other languages.
The project garnered some press reports, particularly by Swiss radio and newspapers. The Tages-AnzeigerZedi, Roger (January 20, 2007). "Eine Sammelstelle für praktisches Reise-Wissen". Tages-Anzeiger (Zurich). p. 60. from Zurich and the Swiss radio station DRS1 reported broadly on the project and discussed its weaknesses.Huwyler, Daniela. "AllerWeltsGeschichte / Heute aktuell". DRS 1, February 21, 2007, 15:45 (local time). The project was mainly supported by Germany and Switzerland authors.
The contents of Wikitravel in all languages and its related Commons-equivalent site (for images, video, and other media files) were downloaded on August 2, 2012, as a "database dump" in preparation for such a migration. This content became the starting point for all languages excluding German and Italian, which were already hosted by Wikivoyage. Forking is a normal or anticipated activity in wiki communities and is expressly permitted by the Creative Commons–Attribution–Share Alike (CC BY-SA) copyright license in use on sites such as Wikitravel. MediaWiki, the wiki software used for Wikitravel, included that facility, although Internet Brands disabled the function shortly after this date in an attempt to prevent the data migration. The community discussion at Wikimedia ended on August 23, 2012, with 540 votes for and 152 votes against the creation of a Wikimedia Foundation travel guide. The project began in beta on WMF servers on November 10, 2012 and was re-launched on January 15, 2013.
As part of the migration, it is planned that current owners and user body "Wikivoyage e.V." will remain in place as an associated organization affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation "at an organizational level". Wikivoyage stated that, freed of the need to maintain its servers, it would be able to benefit by increasing its work related to outreach, community support, discussion and information, and technical enhancements to the site's software. Wikimedia.org website October 25, 2012 : states "In preparation of Wikivoyage becoming part of the new Wikimedia travel guide..." and "Wikivoyage e.V. plans to hand over its domain and the responsibility for operating the Wikivoyage project to the Wikimedia Foundation. A corresponding resolution has been made by the general assembly in June 2012. Part of this resolution is the goal to keep Wikivoyage as an association, becoming affiliated with Wikimedia on an organizational level."See also Wikivoyage mailing list by Wikimedia Foundation as at October 25, 2012: "The mailing list for Wikivoyage, a planned Wikimedia project"
In September 2012, Internet Brands filed a lawsuit against one Wikitravel administrator, Ryan Holliday, and one Wikipedia administrator, James Heilman, accusing them of trademark breach and commercial misconduct in the proposals affecting that site, with the defendants and Wikimedia rejecting the case as an example of a SLAPP lawsuit—one that is undertaken without plausible legal grounds for the primary purpose of deterring, overwhelming, or frustrating people engaged in fully lawful actions. On November 19, 2012, the claims by Internet Brands were dismissed by the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
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