Wikimedia Foundation Launches Wikivoyage 47
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."
Re:To be clear... (Score:2, Interesting)
As a long-time contributor to Wikitravel, I'm very glad to see Wikivoyage managed by Wikimedia. Internet Brands, the organization that took over Wikitravel some time ago, has been turning their site into a classic example of ham-handed monetization; compare intrusive travel booking banners [wikitravel.org] and horrendously limited search [wikitravel.org] to their respective [wikivoyage.org] alternatives [wikivoyage.org]. For a while, they were even several versions behind the MediaWiki platform itself. I abandoned contributing to Wikitravel last year, and I'm very happy to have a new place to which I can contribute content. More importantly, I suspect I'm not the only one.