Requests for comment/Travel Guide: Difference between revisions

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This is a subpage; for more information, see the Requests for comments page.

Proposal: That we as the Wikimedia community ask the Wikimedia Foundation to approve a Travel Guide project and allocate resources to support any technical aspects of starting the new project. This work would combine efforts on many free knowledge travel sites, some of which (e.g., Wikivoyage) want to migrate completely with their content and communities to the new travel guide project.

Please be sure to read over Travel Guide and Talk:Travel Guide for more background on this proposal.

Votes

Latest comment: 14 years ago442 comments356 people in discussion

Initial votes and comments moved from Talk:Travel Guide. (Initial votes yet to be moved from Travel Guide/supporters)

Support

Support. ExplosionRadiative (talk) 16:43, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support: Why not? Isn't a travel guide in book form a similar form to books, we are using for creating our articles for example in the german topic biology. So I cannot imagine not taking those travel guides in book form and bringing it to a similar form like wikipedia articles. Of course we can also add information not mentioned in those books, and that's what this platform will be. But on the other hand we do not want to advertise specific hotels and other accomodations. So it should be a short description about the place. Currency, language, maybe some sentences and words, dangers, sights, maps, climate, history, just the most important information needed for traveling there. But there should be no prices at all. --Marco74 (talk) 23:32, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
1. I see great potential, but I think we should allow articles about hotels. Personally I don't see it as advertisement if there is relevant information and both positive and negative information (like "the hotel is located next to a noisy road" or "The rooms are cleaned only once a month"). Imagine if you can get information about nearly every hotel in the world! And with free photos of the rooms. I agree about the prices, but there could maybe be some sort of scale so that you can compare other hotels in the area, like cheap, expensive, or somewhere in between. /abbedabb^talk 09:24, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
There is discussion on how Wikidata could help organize this sort of content. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:32, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support and Suggestion as we merge WikiTravel and WikiVoyage, we could also make use of google maps when we develop contents for different travel destinations. Apart from images or videos ... the google3d maps features will greatly improve the user virtual travel experience. Guitaristrock (talk) 14:12, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
1. I have to object to the suggestion of using Google maps. Geo-tagging is one thing and using that data on Google maps is the reader's choice, but if an online map is to be used, I think OpenStreetMap makes more sense because of its (CC BY-SA) licence. I personally support this idea in part because I see it as having a great deal of potential for reinforcing existing WM activities, such as WikiProject Geographical coordinates, Wiki Loves Monuments and others. There is also the benefit of consolidating more wikipower under one roof. This could certainly make the next Wikimania more interesting. (I am user U5K0 on english wikipedia) --84.41.86.38 20:21, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
2. Yes, Images from Google Maps are not free, but Open Streetmap is. It would be great to implement geotagging, just as on Wikipedia, so that the articles pop up as icons in a layer on Google Maps or Google Earth. /abbedabb^talk 09:27, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Yes travelers love maps and hopefully this new initiative will lead to improvements to Wikipedia's maps as well. Are that we should use open maps.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:34, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support A good sister project that a lot of Wikipedia articles should be able to link to. Wikipedia editors who add content more suitable for a travel guide than an encyclopedia won't need to be directed towards a non-Wikimedia wiki (Wikitravel) anymore. Images from Wikimedia Commons should make it look attractive. I am curious about whether it would be expected to have a NPOV and if more informal language than is permitted on Wikipedia would be allowed.--Simon Peter Hughes (talk) 09:31, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support A very useful project would be! A wonderful idea!--Илья Яковлев (talk) 07:33, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support It must be a great program for people who love travelling!--Jack No1 (中文/English) (talk) 07:11, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support This will be a great successful and useful wiki. Travelling is one of the best methods of learning. If supported by a Travel Guide, the trip will be really great. Though there are many existing travel guide web portals, one like wiki is necessary for a relaible and expanded information. I hope it will be successful like wikipedia. There are many encyclopedias online, but there is no match for wikipedia. It can help in learning about various specialities of different locations and chosing the correct destination that suits the user. All that is needed is support from the people and active contributors. At the same time we should ensure that it doesn't become an advertisement site. Let us do this. --Jayabharat (talk) 04:16, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support This proposal will have benefits for the WM movement through expanding our community. As travel is educational in nature and thus a travel guide an education resource this is in line with our mission to: " empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content" --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:16, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
Support Humans are natural explorers. We read and contribute to WM in order to explore new ideas and learn about new people, artefacts and places. But sometimes reading is not enough and the only way to truly understand a subject is to experience it first-hand. en:Great Barrier Reef is a good article, but what will it cost me to see this wonder for myself, how do I get there, where do I stay, who can I trust to take me on a diving tour that will not damage the reef? Those are questions that an encyclopaedia can never answer, but a travel guide can. --NJR ZA (talk) 05:20, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
Support WM is a natural home for a wiki-based travel guide, and the Internet community is not well-served by having such an educational resource hosted in less-friendly hands. -J1729 (talk) 10:52, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
Support A travel guide wiki certainly fits into the Wikimedia Foundation's mission of making educational content available worldwide and for free. WMF gets an existing and mature wiki with a well-developed culture that is compatible with Wikimedia's own. The Wikitravel and Wikivoyage communities get the benefit of an established host, and the sum of the world's knowledge is improved in the process Ravikiran r (talk) 17:06, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
Support, provided that the new project be founded in a way that makes it possible for the Wikivoyage community to join in a merger of equals. By and large, I think Wikimedia projects could gain a great deal by including a travel guide. As "Wikitravel" already is a registered name, I suggest to call the new project "Wikimedia Voyage", or "Wikivoyage", if the Wikivoyage community agrees.--Aschmidt (talk) 21:40, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
Yes would be happy with Wikivoyage and definitely see the two groups joining as equals.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:05, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think we are discussing naming yet, but I would be quite happy is we simply call it Wikimedia Travel with travel.wikimedia.org as url. --NJR ZA (talk) 16:20, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
Support. As has been pointed out by others, a travel guide is complementary to the educational mission of WMF and fills a niche that falls outside of the encyclopedic goals of Wikipedia. -- Wrh2 (talk) 02:32, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
Support I really need dumps of WT, and the current host of WT does not want to release dumps. Nicolas1981 (talk) 05:24, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
Support. No doubt, that travelling is education. Why so many people watch documentations about foreign cultures? And I strongly agree Wrh2. There is a niche in the WP content. We often see discussions about content that should be removed from WP and fits better to a Travel Guide. Can not estimate how many usefull information are shredded already. The WT/WV contributors are keen on providing geo referenced information as well. This can be an important input for the Wikipedia and Wikidata. I would love to se Wikivoyage as the project's name. -- DerFussi (talk) 06:00, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
Support As mentionned above, I believe a travel wiki brings a new perspective to Wikimedia's educational purpose and that it definitely falls under our mission of making knowledge accessible. notafish }<';> 08:14, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
Support I think User:Ravikiran r set out the reasons perfectly for why this is a good idea. Mike Peel (talk) 08:15, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
Support As mentioned above, travel information is practical knowledge and education. This is also the reason why the Wikivoyage association is supported by the German tax authorities. --RolandUnger (talk) 09:31, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
I support the proposal based on the arguments I gave on the wikimedia-l mailing list. Travelling is one of the ways, if not the most important ways, of acquiring and dissemination of free knowledge, and in this perspective a travel guide fits well into our Mission. I had specific objections which may be relevant for the realization (for instance, I do not believe in the universal travel guide which is equally useful for everyone, in real life one always have different types of the guides which target specific audiences), but I do not think we should discuss these objections at this stage.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:49, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
Support I see a fit in our missin and a huge benefit for all involved parties here. I already look forward having Collection Extension available on the new wiki-based travel guide... --Manuel Schneider^(bla) (+/-) 11:27, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
Support Clearly within the scope of the Wikimedia movement, and the benefits for all the involved would be many: the project would get a world-leading hosting platform and a continuously up-to-date mediawiki installation; two communities with the same goal could be re-joined to work together, making the whole endeavor more efficient and productive; the community could grow with a fresh influx of new editors; Localization support would be greatly improved, leading to a truly global wiki travel guide project; not to mention the other benefits listed at Wiki Travel Guide#Benefits --Waldir (talk) 14:08, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
Support. A major lump of knowledge that is not covered by any other Wikimedia project at present, and an extremely useful one at that. SpinningSpark 16:50, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
Support The communities of Wikipedia and Wikitravel have strong links for a long time. Rein N. (talk) 21:23, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
Support. The project is in scope for Wikimedia and seems to have good potential, especially with the freely-licensed material that is already available. Jafeluv (talk) 07:56, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
Support. I would also support this including guidebook-type information for locals and citizens of communities, as well as for travellers. Let us assimilate the city wikis!--Pharos (talk) 19:35, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
Yes! Great idea. NYCwiki has been mentioned at Wiki Travel Guide#Educational in nature, but making this more explicit and generic, inviting all city wikis to join, would be great. --Waldir (talk) 09:24, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
Support. Absolutely, this seems like it would be beneficial to everyone. the wub "?!" 20:00, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
Support. Contributors, readers, and re-users of Wikitravel (which of course includes many Wikimedians) will benefit from accelerated feature development, bug fixes, and database dumps; Wikimedia will benefit from an enlarged contributor base and readership; and there are tons of potential synergies to exploit (collaboration on map-making is a great example—check out all the original maps being made at Wikitravel!). As Wikitravel and Wikivoyage are established, mature wiki communities, this project should be a guaranteed success in terms of organization, content, and contributor base. And for lovers of warm fuzzies, moving forward with this proposal would offer us the happy possibility to reunite our splintered communities, and forge a new, stronger one in the process. --Peter ^Talk 21:25, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
Support With a travel and aviation background, it has always miffed me why WMF projects didn't tackle this area long before. Well-travelled people are generally well-informed people, and this goes to the very basis of what WMF projects are about -- encouraging people to be better informed. So absolutely support. Russavia (talk) 22:33, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
Support I think this is the best solution for all three communities concerned. -- MarkJaroski (talk) 04:50, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
Support As others have said, travelling and travel information is educational, and there are existing communities and information to get this off the ground and make it a success. - Shaundd (talk) 04:46, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
Support. The existing WT/WV content is a great educational resource not only on travelling, but also about culture, history and geography. - Cardboardbird (talk) 14:03, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
Support If the existing WT/WV communities like the idea of joining us, we should welcome them! --trm^ger 19:20, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
Support Travel is definitely educational in nature, and this will be a great complement to our existing geography coverage. Calliopejen1 (talk) 03:37, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
Support. Wikitravel fits into the Wikimedia Foundation's mission: educational content available worldwide and for free. And whoever visit other countries before know that traveling is knowledge! Benoit Rochon (talk) 05:00, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
Support. Mutually beneficial, especially considering the spinoff effects to other Wikimedia projects. MER-C (talk) 11:58, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
Support. This proposal would greatly enhance the Wikimedia family. Yann (talk) 12:42, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
Support. Would be great if this could help to integrate WT/WV and bring them back together; the project fits well with our other projects. —Nightstallion (?) 12:58, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
Support A welcome member of the family. Main concern is the reliability of the info, knowing how dodgy a site as tripadvisor is. Night of the Big Wind (talk) 17:17, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
Support I'd always hoped this day would come, and am glad to see it might arrive soon. PhnomPencil (talk) 20:23, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
Support for many of the above reasons. It will enhance the diversity of "products" and opportunities in the WM family of communities. Imzadi1979 (talk) 20:44, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
Support Hopefully the new travel wiki community will grow fast as soon as all Wikimedia sister projects will be interconnected for everyone's benefit. Fogg (talk) 00:13, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
Support. As a longtime bureaucrat/admin on Wikitravel who has pretty much given up editing due to the current owners' neglect of the site and a Wikipedia user of nearly 10 years' standing, I fully welcome this long-overdue move. Jpatokal (talk) 11:50, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
- Wikitravel is very glad to have you back, now that the 1.17 site upgrade is complete and new features are being added. If you have any concerns about the site, please feel free to contact an active admin -- I'm sure they will tell you how well the site is running!--IBobi (talk) 20:45, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. I think it's a useful complement of existing wm projects. --ArséniureDeGallium (talk) 16:06, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
I Support the proposal, first and foremost as an avenue to save Wikitravel, which has been running on fumes for quite some since the brand owners lack even the most basic understanding of how the collaborative web works, and besides doesn't seem to be all that interrested since the expected revenue streams have not materialized - This has cost the project some its of most valued editors and adminitrators. Coming under the Wikimedia umbrella is the only avenue I see where we can escape the current mismanagement with meaningful editor retention, and hence save thousands of hours of work voulenteers have contributed to the project in the exact same spirit as most of us to do other wikimedia projects. Secondly two quotes from these discutions clearly shows why a travel wiki has a place under the said umbrella; "Travel is an avenue of education, possibly a more important one than an encyclopedia" and "Frankly, every single time I've read a travel guide.... I've learned something". Besides as administrator on wikitravel I have read more wikipedia city articles than most, and there clearly is a need for an alterntive place to put destination related content than in the current encyclopedic form of those articles. Stefan Ertmann (talk) 21:02, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
Support. A wonderful complement to the existing Wikimedia projects. Fits well and there is certainly no good reason not to. Serves the Wikimedia Foundations Goal and Vision. Plus it's been far too long since a new project has been started :-) Dovi (talk) 10:17, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
Support. I don't find the arguments about NPOV that convincing and they smack heavily of Wikipedianism (at Wikinews and Wiktionary and other projects, eager Wikipedians have to be reminded that they are no longer at Wikipedia!). I'm a big fan of inter-wiki collaboration (when it works), and building out a travel guide is something where being tied in with the other wikis is useful. Think of it as tourism-related portals onto the existing wealth of Wikimedia content. Take a city like London or Paris and think: we've got interesting Wikipedia articles about that city, we've got a whole wealth of photos, we've got work being done by the GLAM partners, we've got Wikinews, we can link it into Wiktionary for local dialects... a non-commercial port/fork/recasting of Wikitravel that melds more freely into the other WMF projects could be extremely useful. The other way to deal with the NPOV concerns is like this: think of the articles as a series of if-then statements, and just apply something like Wikipedia's UNDUE weight. "If you are a business traveler, then x", "if you are an impoverished student, then y", "if you love art, go to museums a, b and c" etc. That doesn't eliminate the NPOV issues, but it certainly reduces them quite substantially. Then you develop community consensus on what are 'valid' if-then statements that the guide answers. Travel guides that exist on the market already cater for different types of people: there are budget or student travel guides, gap year travel guides, walking or cycling guides, guides for people who want to party, guides for people who love bookshops and culture, guides for gay/lesbian travellers... you name it, there's a different frame you can put on the concept. —Tom Morris (talk) 22:29, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
- Wikiravel uses a price index for hotels, restaurants etc. How about Budget, midprice and luxery as index? --Rein N. (talk) 06:52, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
Support. I know very well from running my own Mediawiki projects that 1. a few people systematically maintaining many such projects requires much less work/overhead than many people managing many projects; 2. WMF's people are much more skilled and professional at it than a random webmaster, especially when it comes to scaling; 3. WMF projects naturally get more editors and more interwiki links than external wikis, because of global accounts, because editors trust them more, and because editors get a greater boost to their reputation for editing a WMF project than an external one. These are all very good things for Wikitravel. Will it "save" Wikitravel from falling into decay? That remains to be seen, but I think if they promote some good admins and get cooperation from devs on necessary settings changes, they can take any necessary measures to preserve the active content. Dcoetzee (talk) 23:27, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
Support; this is an opportunity to reduce some of the duplication of effort (vis a vis images and maps, and technical improvements) on Wikitravel. How many times have I wished I could just link to a Commons file instead of downloading and uploading it? Technical support from the site's current owners is sparse at best, and they are learning MediaWiki as they go. Waiting for them to figure out how to operate a wiki is killing the community. LtPowers (talk) 01:19, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
- Small note: including Commons files in any Mediawiki wiki is as simple as turning on InstantCommons. Dcoetzee (talk) 20:32, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
  - Sadly, Wikitravel is currently running under MediaWiki: 1.11.2 (r24791), not MediaWiki 1.16 (r59428). Slow updating of Mediawiki is only one of our problems with our current host, IB --Rein N. (talk) 06:09, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
  - Yes, what Rein said. IB claims to be in the midst of an upgrade, but we'll all believe it when we see it. If we can get InstantCommons turned on, great. LtPowers (talk) 14:32, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
    - Next week we can try it out after the update to Mediawiki 1.17. Rein N. (talk) 15:26, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
      - The upgrade was completed and Commons is active and functional, as is the rest of the site!--IBobi (talk) 20:41, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. As a WT contributor (:en and :ru), I feel that joining WM would be an excellent opportunity for invigorating the very idea of free travel guide. The detailed reasoning has been laid out earlier in this thread, so I simply add my voice and look forward to working on the new project! Atsirlin (talk) 15:21, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
Support. I'm one of two founders of Wikitravel, and I think the project would do well with the WMF. --Evan (talk) 12:20, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
Support. Agree with most that has been said above :-) --Globe-trotter (talk) 23:56, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
Support. Very interested in the possibility of a Wiki Travel Guide among WMF projects. One question is what kind of technical support it really will get? Obviously, I think it would be much better than the current situation, but then sister projects like Wikisource sometimes get a bit neglected when it comes to tech support and especially feature requests. But then volunteers can get involved with the tech stuff and I think there are number of Wiki Travel techies and others who can help. Aude (talk) 16:35, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
Support. As a new contributor to the Wikitravel community, I can see how IB is tearing the place apart. Their tech support is abysmal, and it's causing the wiki to lose many editors/admins, which will result in the loss of viewers. This is a great opportunity to save the ailing Wikitravel content and community. JamesA 11:30, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
- I hope you have a chance to test drive the new site, and view firsthand how quickly and comprehensively technical issues and feature requests are being responded to; in fact this has been the case for over a year, but now that the MW upgrade is complete I think you'll see a whole new site. Enjoy it.--IBobi (talk) 20:49, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
1. Yes, I have had a chance, and I have experience the usual slow loading speeds. I have also noticed nothing being done about the feature requests, plus the huge number of bug reports, especially the login/create account issue which really irritates me. JamesA (talk) 10:59, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. Author on german Wikipedia and german Wikivoyage. --Dirk Schmidt (talk) 12:32, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
Support Sounds like a useful complement for the Wikimedia universum. Raymond (talk) 14:28, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
Support. Author on german Wikitravel - The german Wikitravel has no aktiv Admins since January 2012 -- Knut 84.58.154.137 20:13, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
Support Ruud Koot (talk) 00:04, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Support Let's create a Wiki Travel Guide that's really good. Grauesel (talk) 08:16, 13 June 2012 (UTC) (WP:de and WV editor)
Support A good complement to the existing Wikimedia projects. --Wvk (talk) 20:58, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Support (lately rather inactive) admin on WV and member of Wikivoyage e.V. - Having been at WV almost since the beginning and being aware of the situation at WT, I think becoming part of the WMF would be beneficial to all involved parties. It would re-unite WV and WT, allow to complement each other as far as language versions are concerned and allow a more direct and efficient collaboration with WMF projects. This of course just in addition to all other main advantages already mentioned. --Mulleflupp (talk) 13:13, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
Support Sounds like a fine complement to our projects. --Holder (talk) 18:53, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
Support - a dream can come true. We hoped for years to be able to create a travel guide that is not only free but also part of the wikimedia movement. So why waiting any longer. Admin on Wikivoyage - we are ready. --Der Reisende (talk) 11:15, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Support - finally! I'm one of two founders of Hitchwiki and asked for a database dump of Wikitravel back in 2004 :) Guaka (talk) 21:01, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
Support: Good to see this possibility coming to light. This is a chance to save wikitravel that struggles under the management of it's commercial owners. It makes sense for a wiki travel guide to exist under the Wikimedia umbrella. Having a wiki based travel guide would also be well within wikimedia's educational mandate. --Keithonearth (talk) 19:40, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
Support Admin on Wikitravel en:, pt:, and es:. I've been hoping for this for years. IB's neglect has caused Wikitravel's once vibrant communities to largely fall apart. It will be great to have a fresh start in a more supportive environment.Texugo (talk) 03:41, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Support I was a very active admin and supporter of the project, and left entirely due to the project falling into the hands of Internet Brands. Stuck it out for a good while, but it quite simply isn't going to ever flourish in its current setup. Let's change that. – cacahuate ^talk 03:50, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - Semi-regular user on Wikipedia and Wikitravel. Agree with everything above. Eco84 (talk) 04:26, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Support with a reservation - I am an administrator on Wikitravel and a longtime user and sometime editor on Wikipedia. I approve of the Wikipedia project, which I see as a revival of the medieval concept of collective authorship for the computer age, complete with marginalia (the talk pages), and I definitely see the advantages of Wikitravel being brought under the Wikimedia umbrella. However, I do not think making it NPOV would be useful to travelers. So let's please talk more about NPOV. Wikitravel does not have an NPOV policy, nor do I think one would be beneficial. Travel guides have to have some degree of appraisal built into them, in terms of which things are deemed as attractions (e.g.: the Raffles Hotel in Singapore gets a photo, whereas the Holiday Inn does not) and which restaurants and hotels are and are not listed. If Wikitravel is taken under the Wikipedia umbrella, would we have to use some circumlocutions - "if, then" statements as per Tom Morris' remarks - to get around an NPOV policy that would be imposed on Wikitravel? Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:49, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
See #NPOV below: Wikimedia has made it clear that Wikitravel will be allowed to retain existing policies, including "the traveller comes first". Jpatokal (talk) 23:42, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. Reservation withdrawn. Fully support. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:33, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - Quite new contributor on Wikitravel. Would love to see the guide as part of WM. Jjtk (talk) 07:15, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. Waiting for this for a long time. Admin on Wikitravel en:, Vidimian (talk) 20:56, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. I have come very close to walking away from WT many times due to considerable frustrations with the functionality of the site. A considerable body of contribution time has been lost to server errors and similar frustrations. It is a great project in principal and offers a considerable asset to travellers. However we must be careful to ensure the outcome, (or the quest for it) does not break the project. The proposal may offer the opportunity to improve or enhance both the WP and the travel related project. Some discussion might be appropriate in regard to the different culture of consensus and conflict resolution apparent in the two separate domains. WT and WP have a quite different culture in that regard and I am sure other editors here who contribute to both projects will be familiar with the different outlooks and style in seeking 'consensus'.-- Felix505 (talk) 07:59, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. Formerly an active admin and contributor to Wikitravel en:. Basically, what cacahaute said above. Gorilla Jones (talk) 15:00, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. Former admin on Swedish Wikitravel (http://wikitravel.org/sv/Anv%C3%A4ndare:Jonas_Ryberg) who dropped out when WT has handed over to Internet Brands, currently adding information regarding rail travel to English site. I fully support this move, it's long overdue. Jonas Ryberg (talk) 20:21, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
Support, It will be pleasant to work with upload times that don't allow me to make a cup of tea while I wait, or crash and lose my edits. Ok to be fair that can also happen on WP, but the difference in speed and frequency is very noticeable when uploading large files. Also I prefer to upload only once to Commons. Cheers! Pbsouthwood (talk) 15:15, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
Using files that are available on Commons is already possible after the resent Mediawiki upgrade on Wikitravel, without the need of reupload. Rein N. (talk) 10:43, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
- Read and upload times are very good since the upgrade, actually.--IBobi (talk) 20:53, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Support, Emperyan-message/ileti-WMTR 13:00, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Amazing idea. W.D. (talk) 14:01, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Very good idea. I am in support if it should there enough potential contributors to such a wiki. LouriePieterse 15:03, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Support- A great idea and useful project. I have no problems with this. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 15:05, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. A Wonderful project to start.--Shijualex (talk) 17:03, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. Complements existing Wikimedia projects, large potential to further mission&vision moreso than would occur if main forks outside Wikimedia. Mike Linksvayer (talk) 17:18, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Absolutely! --Iketsi (talk) 17:22, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Ja natuurlijk/selbstverständlich!, Oui biensur!, Sì va benissimo!, Yes of course! etc.
Kind regards, Klaas ‌ V 18:18, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Support This seems like a great way to complement Wikipedia. Argos'Dad (talk) 19:40, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
For. I've been lookin' for free travel guides for a while; this is pretty much it. 68.173.113.106 21:55, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Support, as proposed. Craig Franklin (talk) 00:17, 7 July 2012 (UTC).
Support - there are things existing projects say they're "not", and travel guides is one of them.--Jasper Deng (talk) 01:53, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - So long as Wikitravel is the project being absorbed - would not support a duplication. --108.80.181.47 15:29, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Fully support. Saint Johann (ru) 21:22, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - sounds like a project perfectly matching our designs. Pundit (talk) 21:45, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. mabdul 21:51, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Support, with Philippines backing up. --Exec8 (talk) 02:32, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --Dede2008 (talk) 05:44, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Support This is definitely more than a travel guide on Wikibooks. :)--Nickanc (talk) 18:22, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Support I like using WT I think its a great site, but I have only ever edited there half heartedly because I hate the idea of a for profit organisation benefiting monetarily from something I'm giving for free to other readers, and from the reaction from the WT community commenting here that others feel th same.--KTo288 (talk) 19:36, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Support sounds good to me. --Claritas (talk) 19:45, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
This has long been the most obvious hole in the family of sister projects. Courcelles 22:02, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Support A great positive step forward for everybody. -- Elelicht (talk) 23:03, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Support, and I intend to be an active member of the project.-Gadfium (talk) 23:41, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Support as it falls within the scope of our movement -free [travel] knowledge for everyone in their own language. --Jewbask (talk) 02:11, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Support This would be a great contribution to the Wikimedia community, only strengthening it as a whole. -- Forty Seven Nine (talk) 01:03, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - our two communities evoluated until now quite independantly but by sharing the same vision, so it’s great to fuse. By seeing some comment about city wikis, I’m not sure it would be desirable for all city wikis (I’m thinking for instance to Wiki-Brest or Wiki-Rennes who are acting as a local website for local history). ~ Seb35 [^_^] 07:07, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. A quick look around on Wikitravel shows that its community morale is low, and spam is rife. I think that a Wiki Travel Guide project on WMF will be a great addition to our family of projects, and what's more, it will hopefully bring with it not just one, but two existing communities of editors. Much better than starting from scratch! This, that and the other (talk) 07:26, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Support, per many of the arguments above. WT/WV and its community have achieved good things, and supporting them to do more is well within the scope of our mission and a worthwhile use of our resources. Andrew Gray (talk) 10:50, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. Wikitravel is a great resource, and if the community behind it thinks this is a good move, I can't see any reason not to do it. -98.209.136.52 12:57, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - we need a new project after about 7 years. This will be a valuable addition. WikiTravel has lots of valuable content.--Kozuch (talk) 15:38, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Support I think rejoining of wikitravel and wikivoyage and geting it truely free is a good case.--Saehrimnir (talk) 15:47, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Strong Support. Suspending the issue of technical limitations, this would be an amazing addition to the WMF family. The travel resources currently available on the Internet are highly commercialized, so a freely licensed travel wiki with a NPOV policy would be a great asset to Wikimedians and society in general. As an expert in travel & tourism, I would personally be interested in contributing to such a project (currently I'm turned off by the commercial nature and administrative neglect of WikiTravel). As for naming, my !vote goes to WikiVoyage, since the word "voyage" lends itself to multilingualism better than "travel." Jmajeremy (talk) 19:11, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Will be a great addition to the WMF projects. David1217 (talk) 15:19, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Support, as a non-commercial, global travel guide is highly useful. Hope to see parallel versions in all the languages of other Wikimedia projects. A. Mahoney (talk) 19:24, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Support, and also particularly endorse taking a more generalized "location guide" approach.--Pharos (talk) 20:11, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - this will definitely benefit a lot of people who don't know where to go for travel tips. I'm just a tad bit worried about how editors will be neutral enough on travel guides, though. The only thing not to be neutral about are travel advisories, but we'd seriously need some NPOV users. --Jeffwang (talk) 20:40, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - as a way to reunite Wikitravel and Wikivoyage under the WMF, in order to create a repository for travel information.Yutsi (talk) 01:14, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - For myself, i will be more than happy to contribute to a travel project on WWF and write about place i've visited. I will never do that on web site like WT, for the obvious commercial reason. -- ChristianT (talk) 15:51, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Support This would be great. I am a wikitravel admin and have been contributing since 2004 Elgaard (talk) 20:46, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Support—this just makes sense to me. Imzadi1979 (talk) 06:57, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Support of course Przykuta (talk) 12:07, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
support MichChemGSI (talk) 14:13, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Seems a good idea. ^Email Vaibhav ^Talk 16:15, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. Win-win outcome. Don't worry about editorial viewpoint after the merger: each Wikimedia project is allowed their own set of content policies anyway. Der yck C. 16:16, 12 July 2012 (UTC) ((Edit conflict.) This is so popular that I got an EC while voting.)
Support. Seems like a very interesting project, and Wikimedia Commons could benefit from the content of the Wikivoyage media repository (and possibly WikiTravel Shared). InverseHypercube (talk) 16:45, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
It has only to be free content! Who says, free content must be follow the NPOV? Wikitravel is not Wikipedia. Marcus Cyron (talk) 00:59, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. Win/win/win (for Wikimedia/Wikitravel/Wikivoyage). This should help resolve an already existing fork, and fill a major gap in the Wikimedia stable. Without meaning to cast aspersions on the existing content, I think the most important thing Wikimedia stands to gain here is the communities of editors who have decided (and may yet decide) to move over, and their years of experience building such content. --Avenue (talk) 05:26, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. A WMF sponsored travel site will be a useful addition. At Wikipedia, it is impossible to recommend hotels, restaurants, places to see etc. in a tourist article, without risking a violation of NPOV, NOR, (insert a 3 or 4 letter policy here), etc. EngineerFromVega (talk) 07:24, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. Travel is a domain where good information is really useful, even if when we start out it is piecemeal. I'm really interested to see if we can achieve a broad perspective on what it means to visit a place. For example, in Baltimore, I encourage tourists to go anywhere but the tourist district, since they pay their employees badly and a lot of the money doesn't filter back into the city. This is the kind of information I'd hope we could include. Some POV might be inevitable and we need to be prepared to handle that. Groupuscule (talk) 12:30, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
- Have you checked out Wikitravel:Baltimore#Districts? I've been doing a ton of work on that lately, but am a little burnt out. We could use help especially with the North and Southeast articles for information on Hampden, the Johns Hopkins area, and Greektown in the Southeast. Check the other adjacent district article maps for an idea of what the boundaries are. This is all if you're interested, of course ;) The site does seem to be down right now, though—sigh... --Peter ^Talk 14:15, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. A travel project fits well into the WMF mission. --denny (talk) 14:18, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. I'm a normal editor on Wikitravel (not an administrator). Used to be more active but lost interest due to constant technical problems as well as too far-going commercialisation plans. I always loved the idea of an open, free travel guide and Wikimedia seems like the perfect environment. I've always considered traveling one of the most educational activities possible. As a traveler, I keep switching between Wikipedia and Wikitravel, in order to have both the practical (tourist) information ánd the deeper knowledge and backgrounds on places and sights. It will be great to have them closer together and I'm sure it will encourage people to learn even more about the places they visit. Justme2 (talk) 14:21, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. Das fehlende Puzzleteil. Liesel (talk) 14:30, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. Willkommen in der Familie. ;) MichaelSchoenitzer (talk) 14:35, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Support I'm really looking forward to become a contributer to the Wikimedia Travel Guide. --David Ludwig (talk) 15:30, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Chaddy (talk) 17:19, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Suport Another kind of knowledge collected in a collobrative process. Perfectly fits the Wikimedia Movement. Sebastian Wallroth (talk) 18:05, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Suport --Michail (talk) 18:22, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - don't see any reason to oppose if those communities are sure about their favourite future -- Achim Raschka (talk) 18:40, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --Wvk (talk) 19:27, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --El Grafo (talk) 19:33, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --Jan Luca (talk) 19:43, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --Joergens.mi (talk) 22:19, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Strong support --Morten Haan (talk) 22:26, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --Mauerquadrant (talk) 00:41, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --Prolineserver (talk) 01:23, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --Peter.C (talk) 02:16, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - It will be interesting to see how we can maintain a neutral POV on this project, but it's worth trying at least :-) Ajraddatz (Talk) 04:07, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Yes agree there are a number of challenging including this one ahead of us. However if we have a large community of people using common sense and consensus I am sure that it can be overcome. Wikipedia too only works in practice and not theory.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:58, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, and I'll also do whatever I can to help. As someone who does travel often, this project interests me and I'll gladly contribute to it. Ajraddatz (Talk) 19:48, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --Ayacop (talk) 06:44, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Support -- Balou46 (talk) 09:47, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --Timmaexx (talk) 10:51, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --Tobias talk · contrib 12:17, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Support The project will fill an information gap that we currently can't address on other project. Yes, there are issues but they're not impossible to overcome. --Dimi z (talk) 15:43, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. It would be a great idea and helpful in may ways. It will increase the mobile users of the Wikipedia as well. Waiting for the approval, and will contribute the to the Bengali version. Cheers. Nasir Khan Saikat (talk) 16:53, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. Overlaps a bit with Wikipedia and is too big for Wikibooks. Nice pictures are also good for Wikimedia Commons. The project will get more public attention. --Headbreak (talk) 18:15, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. as Wikivoyager. --J. Patrick Fischer (talk) 19:08, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --Patkenel (talk) 23:46, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. There are people who are enthusiastic about joining and sharing their content with us - we would be quite stupid to turn them and their content down.--Poupou l'quourouce (talk) 00:32, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. How often do we have to revert in Wikipedia telling the contributor "WP is not a travel guide!" Now we know where to send this contributor to the benefit of both sides. Wikitravel won't be the first NPOV project. Wikiversity, or Wikibooks aren't either. I would even like to see differnt POVs presented in Wikitravel, because not all travelers are alike or have the same preferences. --Wuselig (talk) 01:35, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
Exactly and one of the proposals is the use of Wikidata to allow travelers to sort listing based on what kind of traveler they are.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:07, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. you're welcome. --NatiSythen (talk) 04:39, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. --Don-kun (talk) 09:01, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. Good idea. -- Alan ffm (talk) 09:49, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Andim (talk) 10:56, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Krokofant
Support --Stillhart (talk) 14:08, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --ST ○ 15:36, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --Digr (talk) 18:00, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
Support -- Common Good (talk) 18:30, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
Weak support People have been comparing Wikitravel with Wikipedia, but I think that this is wrong: Wikitravel should be compared with Wikibooks instead. In Wikitravel, you get instructions on what to do as a tourist at a specific location. In Wikibooks, you get, for example, instructions on how to use a specific product. I have compared a Wikitravel page (wikitravel:Stockholm) with a Wikibooks page (b:A Beginner's Guide to MS Windows Optimization) and both seem to contain the same level of w:WP:OR and w:WP:NPOV. I guess that this is the way you would normally write an instruction manual: you have to violate some Wikipedia policies. However, Wikipedia policies are designed for Wikipedia, and I assume that it is fine to violate them on other projects. Thus, Wikitravel seems to fit the Wikimedia concept of educational websites. I am concerned about the performance of Internet Brands' server: I often notice that it is extremely slow when I try to access Wikitravel. I rarely make any edits there, but when I have tried doing so, I have sometimes noticed that I am suddenly logged out without notice and that I am suddenly editing as an IP. Then I go to wikitravel:Special:UserLogin and try to log in only to notice that I am already logged in, so I click on "Show preview" in the edit window. Oops, logged out again! Not a big issue for me, but Wikitravel admins might not be happy if lots of users accidentally end up using IP sockpuppets due to server errors. I feel that something has to be done, but I am also afraid that the community might split so that some users remain at the old site whereas other users move to Wikimedia. --Stefan2 (talk) 21:50, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
Conditional Support -- I think it may be true that we will get more editors, and it is definitely true we will get more content and make travel information on the Internet not suck. I am concerned that the Wikimedia Foundation appears to have ignored their little projects such as Wikibooks, Wikiversity, Wikisource. Wikiquote, Wikispecies. This project will probably in short order joint them. If they are to be brought into the fold, I propose they be added to the goals for 2015 for the foundation, that they all have their own individual plans for development and growth for the future, and that funding and technical resources be allotted to them for their further development, which will inevitably bleed over into Wikipedia improvements.Judgesurreal777 (talk) 14:18, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
At last check 32 Wikitravel admins and a whole lot of Wikitravel users have committed to moving over, so there will most definitely be new editors joining. Jpatokal (talk) 03:21, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
Support -- Avantenor (talk) 23:43, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. I'm a long term contibutor to Wikitravel. I strongly agree with what Wuselig said. --Inas66 (talk) 00:22, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Support -- Hubertl (talk) 05:29, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --Berthold Werner (talk) 09:31, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Hinkelstein (talk) 11:25, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --Enst38 (talk) 12:28, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Support There are serious costs to this but the benefits far outweigh them. I am particularly persuaded by the opportunity to attract new users from existing travel projects. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:32, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Support This could be a great addition to the WMF projects --Michael Sch. (talk) 14:54, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Support: This projet will be a great addition for Wikipedia, because many aspects of travel guide are misplaced in Wikipedia and would violate the WP:NOT rule. Wind (talk) 15:45, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Support: I'm convinced by the proposal analysis of the educative value of the project. The set of rules and the licensing policies are correct and in adequation with other Wikimedia projects standards. A discussion is needed for a standard domain name. --Dereckson (talk) 17:48, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
Strong support: There is no sense in having various projects - Wikipedia anyway is mostly the starting point for many tourists to search information about destinations (talking about experiences in the travel business). It is better to keep one strong project than various weaker ones. We are considering to create a group within a motorbiker's network that would be interested in exactly such a project to support, so learning about Wikimedia talking about a travel guide was really good.--Sabine (talk) 09:07, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --gildemax (talk) 10:30, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
Support: A travel project would fit well into WMF, and there are historical ties between the projects anyway (see Evan's vote). --zeno (talk) 13:17, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - Here is my thinking. Wikitravel is HUGE–more popular than Wikiquote, Wikibooks and Wikisource. The increased viewership could be a huge asset for increasing Wikimedia's brand awareness. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 19:33, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - God, I dread this. The multiplication of sub-guides will almost certainly make rabbits look like monks. But I can also easily see that it might draw a few more people to become editors in general, probably including a fair number of people from smaller areas, and that would probably be a good thing. And, yeah, if other existing sites want to merge into one here, that will provide a reasonably sound basis for a start. But this might make the English wikipedia look like an easy project to manage. John Carter (talk) 00:51, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support simply, it will be very useful for people around the world , so i'm supporting it . — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mr AkRaM (talk)
Support - It will be better if the local designation will have an allowance by supplying mapping and facts. However, will make disadvantages through misguidance. Jonas'VM ☼ 9:18 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - I hope to be a quality such as Wikipedia. --Vhorvat (talk) 01:57, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - I can understand opponents' concern for this proposal. But, I believe in power of this community. We can do it.--かぬま (talk) 02:01, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - Would be a great addition to the WMF. --J36miles (talk) 02:05, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --Jivee Blau (talk) 02:11, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support -Jean.julius (talk) 02:19, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - --Soyescritor (talk) 02:27, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - Evad37 (talk) 02:47, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - Umarfarooq111 (talk) 02:58, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Not so bad, do it. but I have no money to travel to other country. :P --Yodamgod (talk) 02:54, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
We hope to also have content to help people travel around their own communities. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:05, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - This is a nautral way. Vinicius Siqueira (talk) 03:33, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - I like the idea behind Wikitravel, and I like the WMF. Join alliances. Maximilianklein (talk) 03:38, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support The project would attract lots of people from the tourism industry. Karthikndr (talk) 03:57, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Would be a good addition. -- Laberkiste (talk) 04:17, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support I like travel.--Qa003qa003 (talk) 04:19, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Suport—I don't think it is relevant whether we can import WikiTravel and WikiVoyage with the click of a button. The simple fact is, there is a sector of knowledge not covered by our existing projects, and this is our chance to cover it. If the new project garners the expected interest, the editors will be able to import WT and WV manually over time, if necessary. —Ynhockey (talk) 04:22, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support as it really bugs me that the existing Wikitravel is a for-profit entity. I'm reluctant to contribute to that site when I know that someone is profiting off of my work.--Bdell555 (talk) 04:29, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Slight support - Yeah, it can be helpful and gives a completion to WMF projects, particularly related articles in WP. Though we already have links to it, wikification of WT is necessary and becomes possible quickly when it comes under the WMF umbrella. I also worry about the following
- I hope that the info given in WT would be reliable enough. We can give WB as an example for not having refs, but here it is slightly different.
- This is about personal experiences and will provide a good mask for efficient trolls. This can be experienced effectively as the project gets bigger.
It seems that many of those who support are deeply interested in having more editors. Some are just very excited to hear about a new project. I think the current editors at WMF and WT/Y have very different styles. Getting a large number of editors with these styles is different from getting inexperienced editors. Vanischenu (talk) 04:25, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Strong support We are utilizing existing infrastructure of WikiTravel, WikiVoyage, and NYCwiki. This project is completely in line with the foundation's mission and could quite possibly increase editorship in other projects.Ryan Vesey (talk) 04:42, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - But Wiki should not compromise with its reliability quotient and it should not be a advertisement platform. Appropriate rules should be made. Anyway Travel wiki is a welcome step ahead.--Bharathiya (talk) 05:01, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Good idea. --Stryn (talk) 05:14, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Strong Support This is a great idea. A travel guide would be a great expansion to the Wikimedia Foundation. Hadger (talk) 05:55, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Good idea, since ad-free. --Olli (talk) 06:31, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --DILIN (talk) 06:47, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support.amazing idea.--Geronimixxx (talk) 06:57, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Let's make something really good!! Octavius 909 (talk) 07:06, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support High demand, good synergies with other wikimedia-projects, opportunity to win more participiants also in other projects.--Karsten11 (talk) 07:56, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support All my articles about roman and italian buildings and churches could be packed together in a good way for travellers. --Capaci34 (talk) 08:11, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support: As active user both in ru.WP and WT.ru, I believe that it would be a much needed and useful addition to WP and other WMF projects. --Л.П. Джепко (talk) 08:55, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Good idea. –ElmA (Talk – My contributions – E-mail) 09:01, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. I've consulted Wikitravel fairly often, and I've even edited it a few times. For all its shortcomings, Wikitravel does have some excellent content and a fairly active, if small, editor base. Thus, we've seen that a wiki travel guide can work. A Wikimedia-backed project would be far more technically reliable than Wikitravel, and would attract more editors from the various other Wikimedia communities. In particular, the new project would need experienced administrators, bureaucrats, and other functionaries, which Wikitravel seems to lack. szyslak 09:04, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Good Idea and helpful in many points of view. --IlSignoreDeiPC (talk) 09:18, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Good idea.--David1010 (talk) 09:57, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Good idea to put information inside that is not "relevant" as most says for articles -- P.oppenia (talk) 10:03, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support It will be really helpful for traveling... Slaven Kosanovic (talk) 10:09, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Very-very good idea! --►Safir yüzüklü Cekli^mesaj 10:28, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --Hydriz (talk) 10:28, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Traveling is best education for understanding the world and its people. --Benreis (talk) 10:44, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Travels are a part of the culture. It is important to join force to do the best. Pamputt (talk) 11:21, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Noritaka666 (talk) 11:23, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Travellation. Great idea. Wish we've done this a long time ago yet and of course to quote a famous American leader: "Yes, we can!"
Kind regards, Klaas ‌ V 11:34, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Go ahead!! rursus (talk) 11:36, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Good idea! Yes, of course! Rajasuu
Support Wikipedia cannot cover every possible tourist destination in minute detail. - Presidentman (talk) 12:31, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Grekube (talk) 12:59, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Atlasowa (talk)
Support Thumbs up! As mentioned above, travel information is practical knowledge and education. I never learned so much other than during my travels. Benoit Rochon (talk)
Support LightBringer (talk) 13:34, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support I would support this project, as a tourism lover and as a Tourism student. Maybe local tourist boards want to dump some of their info into this new site and, anyway, W'pedia already hosts a lot of tourist vaulable information. --Schumi4ever (talk) 13:38, 19 July 2012 (UTC) Sorry, changed my mind...
Support I will support and defend this project because I believe it would be great for the community. It will also, I hope, expand the Wikipedia/Wikimedia project, make it better.Steve92341 (talk) 14:00, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Very good idea!Duval (talk) 14:05, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support If the WT and the WV communities want to merge into a new Wikimedia project, I think we should welcome them. I vote for "Wikivoyage" to name the project, it's more multilingual than using "travel". Surt Fafnir (talk) 14:06, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support as a major contributor for articles about American places on jawp. Yassie (talk) 14:08, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. --פדיחה (talk) 14:37, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support.-- Cyrax (Comando) 14:47, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. בנימין (talk) 15:22, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support.-- Thumbs up.Sounds like a plan.BrightStarSky,19 July 2012
Support.-- Sounds great! --92.73.192.149 15:38, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. Excellent idea!! --Arzino (talk) 15:46, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. --Netha Hussain (talk) 16:04, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Cool idea... long as everyone who are giving support, be future editors :) --ProtoplasmaKid (talk) 16:08, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support, as long as neutrality is enforced. --NaBUru38 (talk) 16:23, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support -- Milad A380 (talk) 16:47, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. It's a great idea. This site will increase the world's knowledge. Gullit Torres (talk) 17:06, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. Bogdanpax (talk) 17:11, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support A very logical step. Joadl (talk) 17:16, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support interesting proposition. --Ne0Freedom (talk) 17:39, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support —Derschueler 17:43, 19 July 2012 (UTC) good idea!
Support B1mbo (talk) 17:46, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support it'll be a very useful project.--Àlex (talk) 18:00, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Find it a very interesting idea (as a former contributor on WikiTravel besides) --Floflo (talk) 18:04, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support' WikiTravel should have been assimilated by WMF long time ago. --Piotrus (talk) 18:06, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - I peek at Wikitravel occasionally, but it could really use some love; far too often, it's outdated, incomplete, or (if you're looking for accomodation, pubs etc.) biased towards a few businesses that you can't help but feel inserted themselves into the pages. Having a project like this under the WMF umbrella could bring in new contributors (and bring back old ones) and increase the content's quality, thus ultimately benefit everyone who makes use it. -- Schnee (talk) 18:21, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
'"Support"'- Would be very helpful and educational. If kept to the standards of the WMF and Wikipedia community, I'm definitely in. -- Edgehead1212 (talk)
Support --Nicor (talk) 18:50, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support! Long overdue IMHO! It fits thematically and would be a strong statement against misguided commercial interests on the back of a volunteer community. --Boris Marinov (talk) 18:55, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
--Pelz (talk) 19:08, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --Derzno (talk) 19:11, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Broaden the community! Bill D (talk) 19:16, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support! the arguments of the opposers let me say yes. A Travel Guide is good for education. The influence of Advertisement is overestimated.--Mdarge (talk) 19:44, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --Skizzik (talk) 19:48, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --Bin im Garten (talk) 20:20, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Very interesting idea!--Алексей Гоманков (talk) 20:47, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --Kdkeller (talk) 20:54, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support -- ترجمان05 (talk) 21:13, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Very good idea --Mbs z (talk) 21:18, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support ToBeFree (talk) 21:26, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support I was going to oppose this as a duplication of Wikitravel, but if a majority of that project's admins and all its contributors who responded are interested in migration to WMF, that's a very good thing. The project is already developed, and its content can be moved here without substantial licensing issues. Why not? Nyttend (talk) 21:29, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - Would by very helpful to have one strong base for all the active editors --Wivoelke (talk) 21:34, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - Kpjas (talk) 22:16, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --LZ6387 (talk) 22:17, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - Intriguing idea, very logical, Wikipedia is filled with pages of villages and townships and places people would never search for on an encyclopedia, such as this town, or this one or this little village, most of these would seem more belonging in a project dedicated solely to the topic. Pluto and Beyond (talk) 00:00, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --Generous (talk) 00:37, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support This will be a massive project, we are in we support it.--Maxwell gauss (talk) 01:47, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. I'm a co-founder of Wikitravel, a longtime MediaWiki developer and Wikipedia admin, and I support this proposal. --EvanProdromou (talk) 01:22, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support FrankyLeRoutier (talk) 02:01, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Denis Barthel (talk) 02:53, 20 July 2012 (UTC) Co-founder of German Wikitravel, Wikipedian, Wikimedian. Denis Barthel (talk) 02:53, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support: Why not? --MadriCR (talk) 03:33, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support: Not only be a support to all users of wikimedia, if not all travel agents who want to contribute their bit this project. It's a great idea. I fully support. --Juancameneses11 (talk) 06:44, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Strong support: Its a great idea. Hindustanilanguage (talk) 07:12, 20 July 2012 (UTC).
Support: Good idea --Feuerst (talk) 07:32, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --9xl (talk) 07:46, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - Good Move ---...Captain......Tälk tö me.. 09:23, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - C'est une très belle idée. Mulunda Selenge Bienvenu (talk) 09:29, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --BambooBeast (talk) 10:49, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support -Stauffenberg (talk) 11:12, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support: Sounds like a great new idea and it goes well with the WMF's other projects. Spread the knowledge, even if it's in a travel guide format. --Rev-san (talk) 11:16, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support: --Tkarcher (talk) 12:24, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support': after careful consideration of arguments on the talk page Teemeah (talk) 12:37, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. 88.176.129.199 12:40, 20 July 2012 (UTC).
Support': Somebody read my mind! --Sefer (talk) 12:42, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support good idea. Ramesh Ramaiah^talk 12:59, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Yes, strengthen the Wikimedia super-community. Good prospects for success. --Ettrig (talk) 13:42, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Have always wished that this community was part of Wikimedia. +1 for new blood :) Seddon (talk) 14:35, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support why not. Lukas²³ (talk) 14:42, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support I am looking for a useful wiki travel guide for long time, Wikivoyage just has Germany and Italin version; Wikitravel is not so active as wikipedia. It looks like a difficult project to integrade Wikivoyage&Wikitravel into wiki Travel Guide, however, there some non-profit(or half)wiki sites have collapsed so as to waste plenty wonderful resources. It's worth starting the project by WMF rather than other wiki communities going to be in a dilemma. We deeply need nature knowledge as well travel guide.----Davisan (Talk 留言) 14:57, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support As a long-time bureaucrat/admin/contributor to Wikitravel and Wikitravel Shared, I can only support this idea. Internet Brands haven't been able to take care of the site, and the stalwart users, such as myself, are rapidly loosing interest. The recent MediaWiki upgrade was a welcome action by Internet Brands, but I fear it is a bit late. Actually, I suggested a move like this last year. Riggwelter (talk) 15:12, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Strong Support. Most of the people who will write in such a project are not the same as those who are writing in wikipedia just now. But if they get involved in one of the wikimedia projects it is more likely they will get involved in other wikimedia projects. Additionally they will advertise for wikimedia distribute the understanding what’s going on here. Greetings from Germany Lutz Hartmann. 217.245.252.81 15:16, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --Katarighe (Talk) 15:29, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support - Фаренгейто (talk) 15:31, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support The fit is quite good - we have wikipedia and wikibooks already, in style this could fit between the two, and this should be a good way to gain contributors for both projects. ChrisHodgesUK (talk) 16:04, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support Shoot, why not, especially if we are capturing all of those volunteers and content. Thats a way to add another part of to the community that will have interest in the movements success, Sadads (talk) 16:08, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support, it's a great opportunity both for WikiTravel/WikiVoyage and for the Wikimedia projects. Cdlt, VIGNERON * ^discut. 16:11, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support. I have always been reluctant to contribute to WT, because of its commercial purpose. A Wikimedia-supported travel site seems to be a good idea. BrightRaven (talk) 16:18, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support --MichaelK (talk) 16:29, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Support because it would be a much more acceptable place for certain kinds of content that people feel iffy about in Wikipedia, like minute trivia about places, information about famous local personalities and all those local businesses. Everybody wins! --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 17:26, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Oppose

Oppose Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, textbook, or scientific journal and Wikipedia should not be the one and only guide for everything. --Arcy (talk) 21:42, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Note that the proposal is to migrate content (and communities) from the existing Wikivoyage and Wikitravel projects to a new WMF site (similar to wikinews or wikiquotes); nothing has been proposed that would change Wikipedia in any way. -- Wrh2 (talk) 22:07, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a collection of quotes, but Wikiquote is. Wikipedia is not a dictionary, but Wiktionary is. The proposal is about starting a new project, not about changing Wikipedia in any way. /abbedabb^talk 10:50, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
~~Oppose~~ Very strong Oppose This isn't as simple as changing the URLs and calling it a day. I don't see it as being possible to do a seamless import, i.e. bring over all of the content, all of the editors, all of the policies, all of the page histories, etc., and leave nothing behind at the old domain. If that's not possible to do, then we're going to end up not doing an import, but a fork. In my opinion, forking a functional project at best creates one mostly functional project and one heavily damaged project, and at worst, creates two heavily damaged projects. Let's not break things that work. All of that being said, if this does go forward, I'd be willing to help coordinate the integration of Wikitravel Shared with Wikimedia Commons. Sven Manguard (talk) 04:15, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
The reason why this proposal exists is that WT is not functional. Yes we do not want to create two heavily damaged projects. We will hopefully be bringing in WV. Thus we will hopefully be bringing together a broken project, integrating it with a non-broken one and helping them both grow from there.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:25, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

The fork already happened when Wikivoyage started and Wikitravelists were pissed off by Wikitravel hoster. What we can do here is bring the dissolving community back together in one place. I read the comments from Wikivoyage folks here that way that if we do it right with Wikitravel then they would come and join us, too. So in the end we create a fork with people who want to fork anyway plus we may integrate another, already existing fork. If someone can do this, it is Wikimedia — of course it only works if the WT/WV community really want and support that. But it has been their initiative so far to contact us. So we should give them a warm welcome. --Manuel Schneider^(bla) (+/-) 06:31, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
By all means, I'd be quite happy if you prove my cynicism on this matter unfounded. Rarely is it unfounded though. Sven Manguard (talk) 17:58, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
I can vouch that it is near certain that WT admins will fork independently if this proposal falls through, as we were planning to before it became evident that moving to Wikimedia was a possibility. So yes, wikitravel.org will continue to exist without its defectors (and I think virtually all regular contributors will leave if a) this move happens, and b) they are aware of this move). The current hosts will likely lock down editing, chop articles into bits to improve SEO, increase space dedicated to advertising, and generally see the state of things degrade, as it has been even in spite of the effort we, the contributors, continue to put into the site. But, the choice is between welcoming the WT and WV folks to Wikimedia, offering the potential to re-unite those communities, increasing the likelihood that the WT crowd keeps its contributor base intact in the move, and to join them with Wikimedia's own—or seeing the travel wiki communities further fractured and with ever less support. --Peter ^Talk 19:25, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

@Manguard: When we decided to leave WT years back we wanted to keep the original spirit. We still might be a fork, but in the meantime most content is genuine WV (statistic in german). So we think that migrating our project (as we tried to suggested to WMF back in 2006)is not supporting a fork but integrating at least two communities into WMF projects. Therefore we bring a domain, a community and a large site under the roof of WM. WT de is without any administrator for months now. A lot of language versions just exist because they have been started once but are not living any more. Unfortunately so far none of the en WT community has joined our project before. But this time can be a major step forward to reunite the communities. Technical support on WT has been poor at least. We know that there seem to be old issues of the founding community which are based on our fork. But hurt feelings should not stop the project from beeing started. --Der Reisende (talk) 14:30, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
I find it disturbing that only one of the fifteen opposes tendered thus far has not solicited some sort of response from the support camp. On the projects that I'm active at that's called badgering, and it's looked down upon because of the chilling effect it has on discussions. The vast majority of the people commenting thus far have supported the proposal. You don't need to continue to respond to every single oppose, it's not helpful, it's not polite, and to me, it's not remotely acceptable. Therefore I've upgraded my opposition to very strong oppose. Sven Manguard (talk) 01:00, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
This is a public discussion, and in public discussions it is expected that users will discuss the topic at hand. RfCs are not just a strict vote, they are a request for comments from a wide variety of perspectives - and as such, it is expected and normal that people of opposite viewpoints take time to refute arguments presented by the other side. Thank God that not all Wikimedians share enwiki's unproductive view on discussions occurring with these sorts of things. Also, I hate to mention this, but adding the word "strong" to before the oppose changes absolutely nothing about the argument you presented and won't be counted any more than it would have been before. Ajraddatz (Talk) 01:33, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
As Ajr said, this is a discussion, not a vote. Just because there are 10 supports to every 1 oppose, it doesn't mean one side is "winning". We are simply trying to discuss the issues the opposition has and point out our opinions. We are not copying and pasting the same response every time. If the opposition feel the burning desire to respond to some of the supporters comments above, nothing is stopping them. JamesA (talk) 06:37, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose - For anyone with a question about the full functionality of Wikitravel, including its software, infrastructure, community and host, my response is simple: go visit. http://wikitravel.org/en/Main_Page Make some edits. Add content. Come to the world’s largest travel wiki, and see why seven million other travelers will do the same this month, viewing and printing 18 million pages to take on a trip, adding listings of their own and contributing to this unique resource. This community ought not be deprived of some of its finest administrators, editors, curators and writers. The Traveler Comes First.--IBobi (talk) 00:13, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
(Note: IBobi is one of the employees at Wikitravel) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:04, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
Clarifying: ibobi is an employee of Internet Brands, rather than an active WT community member – cacahuate ^talk 03:52, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
(Note: clarifying: ibobi is an employee at Internet Brands and user of Wikitravel)--IBobi (talk) 19:19, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
I invite readers to examine IBobi's contributions on Wikitravel and decide for themselves. Jpatokal (talk) 04:25, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

I think he made IB's point of view clear to all. Literally censorship is on the way (understandable for a company who might loose the cow that can be milked). --15:02, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
In reviewing this RFC, I thought to respond to IBobi's suggestion to check out the Wikitravel site. Thinking I would create an account and make a few edits to get a feel for what they have, I decided to login using OpenID. Unfortunately, the response after following the provided link said "No such special page". With all due respect, something is definitely not working over there. Cindamuse (talk) 13:32, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose wikitravel: exists. I see no need to replicate something that already exists within wikis. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:52, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
All of Wikitravel's most active users see a very real need for just that. Have you spent much time on Wikitravel? LtPowers (talk) 17:30, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Then why is that information omitted from the RFC? The RFC is pretty blank about why not enhance one of the existing travel sites, or what is the enhancement over the existing wikis. If the part of the argument is about either the unsustainability or the issues of other ventures, then it would have been helpful to have these raised in the RFC. My opinion/vote is solely based on the existing proposition and my use of the existing site that I quoted, and my perception of the benefits of another travel wiki. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:33, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
We would be rejoining two communities of editors (WV and WT) and the subsequent site would be free of adverting. WV split off because of the commercial issues. I know that I myself would not be here writing for Wikipedia if it was run by a for profit company.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:30, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose - Don't see the point of a whole new project. Why not set up a travel guide section on Wikibooks, and migrate their content to that instead? Seems like a waste of resources to have 2 wikiprojects with content that could happily fit into one. BarkingFish (talk) 19:06, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
One could say the same thing about Wikipedia and Wiktionary. Why not set up an encyclopedia section on Wikibooks? LtPowers (talk) 02:21, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Have you discussed your idea with other wikibooks editors to see how they feel? The German Wikivoyage project is 60% the size of all of German Wikibooks. Travel doesn't obviously fall within the wikibooks notion of 'textbook'. I see that you have worked on 'edge case' projects within Wikibooks: the cookbook and wikijunior. Both are cool, but have at times had their status on the project debated. –SJ talk 20:51, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose. One point that people don't seem to have brought up is that the WMF, as it stands, has scaling difficulties supporting the projects we do have. This is a natural outcome when you have so many variations on a theme run by such a small org. During his Board of Trustees Q&A at last year's Wikimania, Jimmy made the point that he doesn't think we should add additional projects until we can support the ones we have, and I agree with him. Wikitravel will invariably have individual and independent developer needs that the WMF will be expected to meet, and we can't promise they will be met. Ironholds (talk) 19:16, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
At their meeting this Wednesday (July 11), the Board will decide whether they are willing to support the project. Opposing this just because you think they might say no seems a bit odd. Jpatokal (talk) 11:22, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
You don't seem to have read my comment; I'm not opposing because they say no. I'm opposing because if they say yes, we have another project to add to the list that cumulatively outstrips our ability to technically support. Most of our developers are focused on the Wikipedia model, which is understandable, because it's our flagship project and is currently in the doldrums, technically speaking. This is great. I think we should be focusing on Wikipedia. But I also appreciate that there are a lot of other projects that are also worthy and will need technical support and customised software, and that we don't have the resources to support all of them. Until we do, adding another one seems silly. Ironholds (talk) 12:09, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
A number of people who are with WT have programing skills so hopefully they will join our volunteer programing team to improve Media Wiki. This new site also has a good possibility to bring in extra funding and thus allow the WMF to increase technical support for all projects.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:30, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose 1) Per Ironholds, and 2) Doesn't seem like the kind of project the WMF would want anyway... Everything else is verifiable, encyclopedic, news worthy, etc. but Travel stuff could be so opinionated. Further, if this is just supposed to be a database of places and attractions, it may serve better as a WikiProject on ENWP, not its own Wiki. AndrewN (talk) 06:47, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
A Wikitravel travel guide is considerably more than a "database of places and attractions", and even for those places and attractions Wikipedia's goals explicitly rule out core travel information like prices, opening hours, directions for getting there, contact information, etc. Also, the vast majority of the world's hotels, restaurants, nightclubs etc do not meet WP's notability requirements. Jpatokal (talk) 11:22, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
I invite you to glance over these examples; The Star Articles, our Destinations of the Month, or the Off the beaten path places, for a taste of the aspirations. It is not just a database of places, many sites do that, probably better than Wikitravel too, its writing true travel guides anyone can edit that is the unique part of wikitravel. Sertmann (talk) 18:06, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose Unfortunately. A travel site would fit nicely in the WMF remit. However this travel site is not a good fit for our culture; there is resistance to basic things like removal of advertising (I suggested to a secondary reviews portal on the mailing list, where it would be more utile, but to no avail), increased use of (or encouragement of) source material. WikiTravel, in these circumstances, would not be a useful free resource. In addition I have read the talk page discussions related to this proposal; I am concerned that the WT people are interested in the WMF for its technical support (which is fine) but are unwilling to adopt some of the basic tenets of the movement - particularly worrying was the discussion over "BLP" which is such a core facet of our movement, but which they seem to have no understanding of in context, nor how it would apply to WT. There seems no established mechanism for investigating copyright violations. The WT admins who are pioneering this movement have made claims that most of the users will move to this new project; but have not substantiated this with any explanation. Details on how many active users there are, how aware they would be of this change, etc. would be critical for my support. Looking over the recent changes; a lot of contributions seem to be spam or advertising - and there is no apparent strategy to combat this in the future; a critical tenet of the movement is that there is no advertising. --ErrantX (talk) 08:49, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
The horrendous spam and advertising is a result of the poor technical support of the current host, Internet Brands. For awhile, there was no CAPTCHA mechanism when signing up for an account; the block tool didn't even work for a few days! A WMF-run site would allow the introduction of bots to prevent obvious spamming, along with a multitude of other basic ideas that IB never bothered with. Plus, there would also be an influx of returning admins (who've voiced their support and interest) to the WMF-run site to help with maintenance and vandalism-removal. JamesA (talk) 11:11, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

I presume that by "advertising" you mean spam? The Don't tout core policy addresses this head on. The present problem with spam being entered faster than it can be reliably removed is partly because Wikitravel's present owners have managed to drive away most of the active users who used to do the janitorial work, but mostly because they have been extremely slow in implementing any of the countless technical anti-spam measures pioneered by Wikipedia. Shifting to the WMF and simply applying the same filters, bots etc that are used for other WMF wikis would drastically cut down on the problem.

Also, BLP has not been much of an issue on Wikitravel to date, simply because individual living people are virtually never covered by its articles. But as already stated in the discussion, Wikitravel admins have no objections to applying the policy to the Wikimedia fork. Jpatokal (talk) 11:20, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Patrolling WT is a nigtmare due to slow speed. This makes getting rid of the advertising more difficult, so in spite of the policy against it it has become more difficult to keep up with the touting. Blaming the editors and admins for this is not particularly fair, and there has been a decline in numbers due to burnout and frustration with the (lack of) support. BLP is pretty much a non-issue, so has never really needed to be addressed. The no-recognizable photos of people rule is probably far more restrictive than the BLP policies on Wikipedia. Adding BLP rules would have about as much impact as forbidding fish the use of bicyles. 41.243.200.45 18:16, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
We have enough neglected, inactive projects. Let's focus on what already needs to get done. Our limited resources, in my opinion, could be directed toward more worthwhile endeavors. Blurpeace 17:36, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
As all of the Wikitravel and Wikivoyage admins would be signing up to the new project, the resources would come right along with them. One of the exciting things I see happening is the rejoining of those two communities, and the return of former invaluable contributors who have been driven off by advertising, poor tech support, and other concerns about hosting and data integrity. They (er..., we) also would become much more involved in helping out with the other WMF projects, especially Commons, which is what I was getting at in mentioning synergies above. Expectations for what tech support looks like are not high, only because the bar has been set so low in the past, and we'd be thrilled just to have the permissions so that skilled members of our community could work on feature development. --Peter ^Talk 21:59, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
There is increased efficiency in volume which is why we see corporations involved in similar businesses merging. A travel guide would hopefully improve our revenue and thus result in better technical support for all projects.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:12, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Wikimedia struggles to maintain most non-Wikipedia sites, such as Wikinews, Wikisource, et al. I cannot see how WMF will manage to make this last much longer than a couple years before the entire structure of a travel wiki fails. Frood (talk) 23:37, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
I guess I have more faith in the abilities of the WMF than you :-) I think these non Wikipedia sites are having trouble maintaining their communities of editors rather than their infrastructure. And it is the community of editors that makes a site succeed or fail. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:24, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
So, by that logic, if somebody were to build a store, and provide basic utilities, customers would go to the store and put their items on a shelf. WMF needs to try to get editors, not just provide the bare necessities of technical stuff. Frood (talk) 01:42, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
The Wikimedia movement is the one who needs to get the editors. While the WMF may be able to help with this I do not see it as their primary purpose. The WMF is to keep the lights on. Getting editors is exactly what this proposal is going to accomplish. What we have here is at least another 50 dedicated contributors who wish to join the WM movement. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:52, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
If a WMF travel site languishes in the future then by all means a discussion should take place about whether it should be transitioned to another hosting provider (after all, the content is open source). However, your opposition (and that of several others here) seems to pre-suppose failure, and given that the project has already survived for nearly a decade it seems that the existing evidence is that it stands an excellent chance of being successful. -- Wrh2 (talk) 03:40, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
We already have at least 40 people willing to contribute to the English-language version. That makes it a more worthwhile endeavour than a couple hundred small projects. Besides, if it isn't active, we can close it down. Projects are closed all the time around here... Why not even give it a try? Ajraddatz (Talk) 04:31, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

~~Mild oppose.~~ The Travel Guide strikes me as a great project that's beyond the immediate scope of the WMF; I also have concerns about NPOV and resource allocation. GChriss (talk) 16:55, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Undecided. More discussion needed + a revised, comprehensive proposal. I like the idea of a location guide + wikidata. GChriss (talk) 04:58, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Additional explanation here. Sincerely, GChriss (talk) 02:02, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose - Against further Wikimedia scope creep and empire building. Wikimedia runs on donations, it's lean enough as it is, and I'm not convinced that the proposed travel vertical would bring in any significant new audience, engagement or revenue for other Wikimedia projects. The argument for would be more convincing if Wikitravel/WikiVoyage came from a position of strength. They don't. The WMF is not in the business of catching falling knives. People donated to keep Wikipedia free, not to bail out/subsidise travel guides.
And it's not one wiki fits all, you can't just throw WMF/mediawiki at it and expect it to be a success - just look at wikinews. Travel is so clearly not served by mediawiki software, to get travel right requires mapping, recommendations, localised listings, booking/payment systems. Mediawiki software is so deficient in this regard, and it always will be if its main concern (which it will be) is Wikipedia.

There's an argument about commercialisation above, but that's just totally irrelevant. I really couldn't care less that editors would be put off editing a travel guide if it were run by a for-profit enterprise, no one should. Wikia has clearly shown that there are legions of editors out there who would, and it continues to innovate (such as the editing interface) without having to deal with the red tape consensus that plagues WMF projects. Wikipedia doesn't even allow users to sign in with Facebook (due to NPOV/advertising issues I assume) regardless of its benefits, yet Wikia does.

In conclusion, Mediawiki will not serve the travel vertical well, and so the audience will remain negligible. A travel project would be better served by a for-profit company which is free to innovate and deliver the features that vertical needs. If the Wikitravel guys had any sense, they'd be cap in hand on Sand Hill Road, not at the WMF's doorstep. And if they can't do it, Wikia should. - hahnchen (talk) 03:05, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Wikitravel is owned and operated by a for-profit company, which has focused for the past 5 years on maximizing ad revenue at the expense of everything else, and the whole reason for the fork is that it's quite demonstrably not working out at all. As for "negligible audience", Google's estimates for Wikitravel traffic in May 2012 are as follows:
Unique visitors (estimated cookies): 4.6M

Unique visitors (users): 2M

Page views 8.3M

By most measures this is larger than all existing WM projects except Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Wikibooks, plus there's an untold number of websites that mirror or remix Wikitravel content (Triposo, Offbeat Guides, you.travel, etc etc). Jpatokal (talk) 06:42, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
If the Wikitravel and Wikivoyage editors wanted to edit under Wikia's terms they would already be doing so. Your advocacy lacks understanding of the people involved. We do not want a commecial host, we have been tolerating it for want of something better, It has become almost intolerable, and as a direct result, WT has been losing editors and admins. Your suggest that the donors to WMF would not want the money spent this way, but how many have you asked? I have donated to WMF and I suppoort this proposal. I guess you also donate to WMF and dont support it - that balances us out. The others have not been consulted as far as I know. 41.243.200.45 18:29, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikitravel was acquired by Internet Brands 5 years ago; advertisements were not even placed on the site for 3 years after that, and have not changed since. Meanwhile over the past year-plus, feature requests have been completed, and an enormous software, hardware, and database upgrade has just finished, resulting in a Wikitravel that is the best it has ever been, by a significant margin. There's daily engagement between the WT administrators and IB technical and community support teams.

It's unfortunate that the timing of this upgrade coincided with the WMF fork proposal, which was first made two months after the upgrade began; this has resulted in a number of "support" votes that are based on outdated information about the site's technical capabilities. It's simply a different situation now, and presumably the WMF board will take this into consideration. Thank you.--IBobi talk email 18:49, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
The advertisements have changed since their introduction. I took the lead personally in pushing for a durable consensus to introduce Google text ads, as we hoped that ad revenue might lead to an interest on the part of IB to take tech support and feature development seriously. That engagement did not happen, and IB unilaterally, overnight, without any advance notice or discussion introduced image ads, which remain in violation of our advertising policy. IB maintains plans to introduce further commercialization over community objection. Even the ads that the community have approved have turned away would-be contributors uncomfortable with the for-profit status of Wikitravel's host.
The clash of a closed, secretive, corporate culture with our open, pro bono publico culture has been nearly as big a problem as neglect and restricted access. This is why we think the WMF is a much better fit, as we share the same ethos as the various Wikimedia projects—indeed, our project was inspired by them and directly modeled after them. --Peter ^Talk 19:56, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose A travel Wiki would be an open forum for promotion of commercial interests (spam) personal opinions (POV), and as such, would be impossible to police as the commercial interests of travel and hospitality sector would likely to conflict with the non-commercial mission of the Wikimedia Foundation. There is already an going conflict between these interests in Wikipedia, where there is an ongoing debate on whether topics or content should be allowed to be added on the basis of "notability" (where significant coverage from reliable secondary sources is required) or some other inclusion criteria, such as the desire to provide a comprehensive coverage of every single aspect of human existence (such as the travel). Limiting the inclusion of topics and content on the basis of notability has the effect of excluding content that is purpose is purely to promote a political, commercial or personal interest, whereas it is not possible to exclude promotional content such as spam or private fueds about hotel service if the criteria for inclusion are not objective enough to be applied in consistent way that results in balanced coverage. --Gavin.collins (talk) 14:31, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose Wikipedia and its sister projects like Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Commons and so on (except of Wikispecies, which I don't support either) are not dedicated to one single field, but rather are different forms of presenting knowledge about various topics. To me, this integrative aspect seems to be crucial for Wikipedia and its sister projects. With establishing a travel wiki this strategy will be abandoned. This probably will give rise to a lot of other topic-related wikis under the umbrella of Wikimedia. Everyone has to judge by himself or herself if this is a desireable way. I don't think so. --OnkelDagobert (talk) 09:06, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
I tend to disagree that a WMF travel wiki would be a "topic-related" wiki and not fit in with the Foundation's scope and direction. Although it is true that Wikitravel is about travel, it is not merely a travel encyclopaedia where we have hundreds of articles about travel-related things. The site is designed to provide information to benefit the traveller, and this is done through listing practical information, experiences and listings. This is a unique way to present knowledge, and is different to the thousands of wikis you see on wikifarms like Wikia who simply write all the info they can think of about particular topics or items. JamesA (talk) 03:18, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose, unless some very stringent rules are put in place to restrict what can be included. A travel guide is inheretently littered with opinion, which wikiprojects have been very bad at handling at. I can see value in making available on a wiki actual travel information: public transport, roads, public healthcare information, locations of government owened tourist information. This is only part of a travel guide. The important parts are opinions on quality of hotels/hostels, restaurants, which are the 'good' sights to see, what are the 'fun' things to do, where to go for drinks, where you can find good private tour operators etc. etc. These are all POV, and - apart from the spam problem it would have - it would also have a large foundation in opinion. Keeping all opinion in sets some serious challenges for what to include and what not to include on a policy level. Leaving it out leaves you with a crippled and virtually useless travel guide, being better served by other sources. This is a project I don't think the foundations knowledge model can accomodate. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 11:34, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
The model has been successful so far. And WMF already has wikis that don't have an NPOV policy. LtPowers (talk) 11:52, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose for the reasons stated by OnkelDagobert. The proposed project is strongly thematic and belongs to places like Wikia, not Wikimedia. --eugrus (talk) 19:31, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose All the Wikimedia projects have a somehow educative, scientific or rational - however you prefer to call it - approach. A travel guide is the opposite of that. Policies like NPOV which are good guidelines for those science-based projects are at least meaningless for a travel guide. The wikimedia projects so far reproduce kind of canonical knowledge, that's why i call it "scientific". A travel guide however ist based on highly personal evaluations of "good", "nice" or whatever leisure-related categories. I really don't seeany affinity between wikitravel/Wikivoyage and the wikimedia projects beyond the technology used. Btw: Anybody remembering the ban of videogame guides from wikibooks? Quite similar to this case i think.--Wiggum (talk) 20:19, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
The content of a travel guide is rational. Where a hotel is, how much a hotel costs, and if a hotel is open is all factual content and are the key components to a travel guide. No personal evaluation needed.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:25, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
No it is not. Open a travel guide, you'll have plenty of subjective comments wherever people liked or not the place for different reasons: too dirty or really clean, staff welcoming or not depending of the mood of the traveler, good drinking atmosphere,... When I open a travel guide, I don't want a Encyclopedia with rational stuff, I want advices and tips from people who did travel their on their own.Kormin (talk) 02:11, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Also, which hotel should be chosen if there are many in an area? I can see this potential project as creating so much chaos and argument that the negatives far outweighs the positives. Sp33dyphil (talk) 07:38, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose There is already Wikibooks for that --★ → A ir on Ĉ 00:49, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Given the nature of the proposed content, it would be highly subjective. If it only consisted of hotel names and prices that would be great, but it's not going to happen. Travel opinions will abound and I for one believe that is beyond the scope of Wiki. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 00:52, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
The travel guides are not only hotel lists. The main aim is to help and explain sites for travelers of all kind. See for instance: Bashandi. Bashandi itself is a really small village unimportant for an encyclopedia (not yet mentioned at any Wikipedia language branch). But we give here a complete explanation of the Greco-Roman tomb chapel which goes fare behind the needs of an encyclopaedia. That's my idea of travel guides. --RolandUnger (talk) 05:32, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
In response to Airon, I believe this has already been discussed; this sort of travel wiki does not fit into Wikibooks at all. WT gives destinations their own articles, whereas Wikibooks attempts to merge them into one big book. We have over 25,000 articles at WT, and it'd be a disaster merging them into Wikibooks. Already, the travel guide genre has proven to not work on Wikibooks; from looking around the site, I can count the travel destination guides on one hand, and they are not structured well at all. JamesA (talk) 06:32, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Don't care: POV opinions/spam is not tolerated in Wikimedia's projects. NPOV Travel guide book should stay in WB (even if there are more than one billlion pages). Leave this project to wiki farms as Wikia (which have a wiki for everything useful and useless) --★ → A ir on Ĉ 11:43, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose Per Ironholds. And as for the argument that it'll get more editors, well, we need to focus on keeping the editors we have right now instead of putting a lot of effort into gaining new ones. --Kangaroopowah 01:57, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Strong Oppose Like Wiggum and FoCuSandLeArN: a travel guide isn't for educative purpose. A travel guide is ALWAYS subjective, depending on the person who used the service, their experience, the moment they used it, the condition, etc... This project is a good idea, but I do not think it should join Wikimedia projects. --Kormin (talk) 02:06, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Strong Oppose Waste of time and money. Articles will always have an opinion bias, and interest groups will attempt to hijack it. Travel experiences always also depend on the money spent, respectively one intents to spend. Then there is the issue of providing references, ... Not worth the trouble. 121.218.143.50 05:20, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose I strongly believe that this proposal falls outside of the scope of Wikipedia. Furthermore, absorption of such a project would only bring unnecessary complexity to the foundation. Hence, I am VERY opposed to the "Travel Guide Project". Ltr,ftw (talk) 05:51, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
- Just to be clear, do you mean "outside the scope of Wikimedia"? Wikipedia's scope is not relevant to this RFC. This, that and the other (talk) 07:24, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose subjective (en:Travel literature), too many variables (money spent, services chosen, weather), plus, as mentioned above, biased groups will surely attempt to promote their products and/or services. Also mentioned by Blurpeace, let's channel all the funds into some of our inactive projects. Sp33dyphil (talk) 07:34, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose No open doors for promotion of commercial interests and personal opinions (POV), no support for tourism, which is simply a branch of economic activity not interested very much in the locals. Wikimedia is a means of education. - All in all contradictory to our aims, which hopefully are still the same. Admin and author, german Wikipedia, --Hans-Jürgen Hübner (talk) 07:43, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose I just oppose for setting up any new project now, even the wikipedia project isn't active enough. In Chinese, a word called "heat for three minutes" (meaning brief period of enthusiasm).--Wangxuan8331800 (talk) 08:26, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose I don't think a travel guide is within the scope of the Wikimedia project; also I think the efforts ought to go towards other stuff nowadays. Also I'm worried about neutral POV. Finally, I agree with a comment above: "Wikimedia is a means of education" - Wikitravel is not.--Arnaugir (talk) 08:53, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose. Per Hans-Jürgen Hübner. Bibi Saint-Pol (talk) 09:30, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose As a casual user I found Wikitravel most helpful when I needed it and therefore oppose any website infringing on its terrain. It's a point of not fragmenting knowledge across the web. --User:BjKa@Wikipedia-en/de 09:30, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose - My feeling is that such a project is out of the wikimedia philosophy. Its relevance would be to remove promotional content to WP articles. But in my humble opinion, it would be more valuable to link relevant content (educational ones like small places, monument, etc) from the WikiData project (which was launched some weeks ago by the german WP IIUC ?) in each WP article ...... Genium (talk) 09:33, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose All the Wikimedia projects, at least in theory, are educational and neutral. Once we start writing tour guides, we're explicitly making ourselves a repository for the value-judgements of anyone who happens to come by, quite aside from the spam implications. To be frank, this proposal looks like English Wikipedia trying to create a fresh dumping ground for their problem editors, now that Wikiversity and Simple English Wikipedia have finally begun refusing to act as en-wiki's penal colony. Mogism (talk) 10:22, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
( Oppose) Very strong Oppose Wikimedia is a non-profit-organisation. Each person, which will travel round the world, in a country, is able to look into WP and will get all informations, which is needed. Wikimedia is to give informations into the project-sites. More than only travel-informations. Zabia (talk) 10:48, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose As has been stated many times above, a travel guide is always going to be a collection of subjective viewpoints. Putting aside the issue that this would lend the authoritative weight of Wikimedia to the viewpoints put forth, the very nature of the subjectivity would undoubtedly cause much heated debate as to each entries content and validity. Entries would be constantly edited to remove contentious opinions, which would undoubtedly harm the reputation of Wikimedia as reliable reference source. Jim0thy (talk) 11:59, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
1. Agree: What if a place wants to be in the routine? If I add my home in the Beijing Travel Guide, will wikitravel accept that? --王小朋友 (talk) 12:08, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose: Wikimedia should concentrate on more educational projects. Don't be like MS and Google. They tried to occupy every eara. Now Google is deleting it project and try to concentrate on search and social metworks. Entertainment, like Travel, is a Wikia thing. Rather than Travel Guide, I will support if wikimedia import more educational projects like rationalwiki. (I don't mean science. Religous wikis are OK.) But if Travel Guide is established, I will take part in too.--王小朋友 (talk) 12:08, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose Waste of time and money. SallesNeto BR (talk) 12:36, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose No comercial support in WP. Why we shold help traval & tourism? Their are already many platform within the www. --194.113.59.80 12:52, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose Waste of money.--TheAnnoymousUser (talk) 13:10, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose Bad idea, difficult to implement. We will face a lot of spam and we will have to dedicate resources to a failing project.--Louisbeta (talk) 13:16, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose At first sight, it looked a marvelous idea to me. But WikiTravel gives only a very restricted choice of adresses etc. and therefore adresses chosen are publicity. If the choice means a judgment of quality, that is also not for encyclopedia wikipedia. And what is good today, is bad tomorrow. Or does wikipedia want to turn commercial? --Havang(nl) (talk) 14:09, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose --[[kgh]] (talk) 15:45, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose, for the same reasons as all the other opponents. Wikitravel is perfect enough. Why can't anybody ignore the ads? And besides, Wikitravel can get rid of it's own spam, but good editors leaving the site just exacerbates the spamfest. Wikitravelers who want to leave, leave. I don't care. I think this project is going to be a problem. I may be wrong, though. (Note: I am Wikipedia contributor Hillcrest98) 174.95.254.215 15:57, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Yes however this is an opportunity to bring Wikivoyage and Wikitravel editors back together and improve the non commercial philosophy of the editing community. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:33, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
In point of fact, nobody even needs to ignore the small number of advertisements on Wikitravel; since the moment they were added to the site a few years ago, a user preference "Do not show ad column" has been available to all users. You can just turn the ads off and you will never see them.--IBobi talk email 21:29, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose I think the WMF could over-stretch itself with this. Cloudbound (talk) 17:52, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose Why is this even being debated? This is outside the mission statement of the WMF to "develop educational content". A Travel Guide will fundamentally involve the organization and processing of opinionated statements. Jason Quinn (talk) 18:22, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose In my opinion a travel-project doesn´t fit with WMF / Also this project opens doors to advertisment / It cannot be objective. Bodhi-Baum (talk) 18:52, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Yes, let's try to become the only site on the 'net! - Nabla (talk) 19:18, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose Besides the already mentioned problems ("Out of wikimedia's educational scope", "May lead to fragmentation", "Costs too much ressources") of the previous opponents I think that Wikipedia contains already far more touristical information than the two "old" wikis Wikivoyage and Wikitravel - and IMHO also more information that the new wiki will ever have.
Wikitravel english version has currently 26'000 articles, German wikivoyage (the largest language version there) has 12'000 articles. For comparison, if you search in en:wikipedia for tourism, you get 45'000 hits ("Tourism in Israel", "Ecotourism", "Climbing", "Tourism in metropolitan Detroit" are some of the top 50 hits).

Most of the articles in both wikivoyage and wikitravel seem to be places (countries to towns). Quite many of these containing only a table of contents or general information which can also be found in wikipedia. For comparison: en:wikipedia contains alone 140'000 articles about cities (tool "categorycount" on category "cities by country" with search depth 4). Even if you count only every fourth article (to exclude double entries and touristically irrelevant cities) you would have more articles than wikitravel with all its additional articles about counties and countries.
And the wikipedia articles are often already quite useful for planning a vacation. For example I used it for planning a trip to London. In wikipedia you find the climate diagram, information about how far the airports are from the city centre and how to get from there to the centre, as well as information about when the Birmingham Palace is open to the public.

So either the new Travelguide wiki would copy all this information (and every future change would have to be done twice: in wikipedia and travelguide). Or you try to separate the content - touristically relevant information in travelguide, other information in wikipedia. But how would you define "touristically relevant" and how would you enforce wikipedia editors to not enter "touristically relevant" information?

And even if you decide that travelguide shall only contain information that is irrelevant for wikipedia, it won't work. For example if you decide to turn travelguide in a hotel database, it is hard to offer more entries than commercial sites. For comparison: wikivoyage has information about 10 hotels in London with one rating per hotel. booking.com has 1000 hotels in London with more than 100 ratings per hotel.

So the main question is what travelguide really should become and how it will differ from wikipedia and its city articles on the one side and commerical rating sites / hotel databases on the other side. I think between these two poles there is only few space for project travelguide.

A first step could be to create a special wikibook ("Travelguide to England" or an equivalent to "1000 places to see before you die") to get a feeling for the complexity of creating a free travelguide for the whole world in more than 10 languages. --Torsch (talk) 19:55, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Travel guides? Aren't they all about personal preferences and tastes? The Wikipedia can strive for functionality since its ideals would be stripping the contributors off their irrational likes and dislikes. Travel guides wouldn't. The point of a travel guide is deciding someone else's course of action. Such project begs for being overtaken by some segregated group of pov-pushers, by definition. 128.72.151.88 20:13, 19 July 2012 (UTC)^{this comment was written by ru:Участник:Легат Ская}
No, they are not "all about personal preferences and tastes" There may be some content that is personal preference or taste, but most of WT and WV is factual, though often not citable, as there is a considerable amount of original research, which is not allowed on WP, but is allowed on some wikimedia projects. The point of WT and WV is to provide information to allow the traveller to make their own informed choices. That is the whole point of this proposed project. Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 10:17, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Per reasons outlined above, just doesn't seem like it would work. Things about scope are more iffy, but without the resources to support existing projects effectively, adding another is a pile of unfortunateness waiting to happen. -— Isarra ༆ 20:24, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Very strong oppose/Tre forta kontraŭstaro: It is better to integrate the travel information into the existing Wikipedia than to use ressources for a new mostly redundant project/vojaĝinformojn en la ekzistantan vikipedion ol foruzi energion kaj fortan por nova plejparte redundanta projekto!DidiWeidmann (talk) 20:45, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Much of the most valuable travel information can not be integrated into Wikipedia as it is in conflict with No Original Research. Original research is vital for a travel guide, otherwise it will always be out of date. Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 10:17, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose Empires fall when they extend their reach further than they can handle. WikiEditor709 (talk) 00:10, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
By that logic, we're already extended too far (take a look at hundreds of inactive projects), so we might as well take on an active project which would only further Wikimedia's readership. It also really doesn't take much resource-wise to run a wiki... The big issue is editors, and we have plenty of those planning to join. Ajraddatz (Talk) 00:14, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose. A travel guide would not fit well at all as a Wikimedia project. Adding this would eliminate boundaries to what could become a Wikimedia project. Right now we have a reasonable number of projects dealing with large categories of education content. (Okay, we also have Wikispecies, but I think it's a reasonable expectation that that will be merged with Wikidata or something at some point.) A travel guide would simply be a collection of opinions about a small area of knowledge, unlike the other Wikimedia projects. --Yair rand (talk) 22:11, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Have you actually looked at the content of the better travel guide articles? Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 10:17, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose. Wikipedia has enough problems keeping the main site running. And why should I donate money to help tourists? I would support it if it would finance itself, but not if it's based on donations like Wikipedia now! --Newsflash (talk) 22:40, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose : from France ==> Wikipedia est une encyclopédie ! Pourquoi en faire un guide de voyage ? C'est ridicule ! Sg7438 (talk) 07:04, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Il ne s'agit pas de Wikipédia. Le but de e vote est d'ajouter un nouveau projet soutenu par la fondation Wikimédia. On aurait ainsi Wikivoyage à ôté de Wikipédia, du Wiktionnaire, de la Wikiversité, de Wikinews, ... Pamputt (talk) 08:02, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
oppose: there is Wikivoyage with a free license. --Dktz (talk) 08:58, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
The Wikivoyage people decided that they want to join Wikimedia. So all existing Wikivoyage content as well as the community would be part of this new project - it might be even named Wikivoyage. -- Arne (akl) (talk) 09:45, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose. I think that a new project should not be created unless the answers to these questions are "Yes": Is there already some content which will be moved to the new project? Does the Wikimedia Foundation already own the domain where the different language editions will be located? (In this case the answer to the last question is certainly "No" because the name of this Travel Guide is still under discussion.) For example, Wikijunior (a collection of textbooks for children until the age of 12) might be created right now because there is already some content for it (see here for the English language, but also note all the interwikis) and because the Wikimedia Foundation seems to own the domain wikijunior.org.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 09:28, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
In answer to your questions:
Yes there is already some Wikipedia content which would fit better in a travel guide. Why is this relevant? There is also a very large amount of information available from other travel guides which is far more relevant.

Several possible domain names are already owned, but why is this relevant?

What has this proposal to do with other possible proposals? All should be judges on their own merits.Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 10:17, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
~~Oppose ~~Very strong oppose~~~~: Undoubtedly is an awesome project. But visibly the Wikimedia hasn't a clear plan to improve, and even to think of improvements to other projects outside Wikipedia^[1] (with the exception of commons which has direct link to wikipedia). Wikimedia is good at creating a free encyclopedia, but was not successful in other segments which was proposed. If keep a multilingual project is summarized just to give some money to maintain the servers, leaving the rest with the editors and continue thinking about improvements only for Wikipedia. So no, thanks. And this election is rhetorical, because who does not know the stance of wikimedia when it comes to think of improvements for projects not related to Wikipedia(wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikinews, wikivercity, Wikiquote etc) will vote positive, then this is already a question answered. --Raylton P. Sousa (talk) 13:23, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Oppose: At first I voted for the Travel Guide, but after a deeper look into the topic, I have decided to change my mind. I guess the plans are creating a new W'media site, which would use economical and technical resources. Given the World's economy, I do not think W'media should spend money on that when, if we/they want, it is possible to dump Wikitravel's information into W'pedia. Wikimedians also should look for their/our interests, Wikipedia already hosts far more tourist info than Wikitravel. If I look for Wikitravel page about my city, I can only find a Tourist's Yellow Pages. Given the fact that both licenses are nearly the same, I think Wikitravellers should just dump missing yet adequate and relevant information into the different Wikipedia language editions. I think that would make everyone happy. --Schumi4ever (talk) 13:41, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Oppose Users must improve their articles, not a new travel guide. --Nightfly85 (talk) 13:59, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Oppose: Out of the scope of the Foundation, imho. Pymouss Tchatcher - 16:04, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

~~Comments~~
~~Discussion about this RfC should take place in the talk page~~
~~References~~

~~↑ this can be confirmed here, where the name Wikipedia is quoted several times while the other projects are rarely mentioned.~~

[test-1] this can be confirmed here, where the name Wikipedia is quoted several times while the other projects are rarely mentioned.

[1]

@@ Line 394: / Line 394: @@
 # {{support}}. I have always been reluctant to contribute to WT, because of its commercial purpose. A Wikimedia-supported travel site seems to be a good idea. [[User:BrightRaven|BrightRaven]] ([[User talk:BrightRaven|talk]]) 16:18, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
 # {{support}} --[[User:MichaelK|MichaelK]] ([[User talk:MichaelK|talk]]) 16:29, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
+# {{support}} because it would be a much more acceptable place for certain kinds of content that people feel iffy about in Wikipedia, like minute trivia about places, information about famous local personalities and all those local businesses. Everybody wins! --''[[User:Wwwwolf|wwwwolf]]'' ([[User talk:Wwwwolf|barks]]/[[Special:Contributions/Wwwwolf|growls]]) 17:26, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
 ===Oppose===

Wwwwolf (talk | contribs)

Revision as of 17:26, 20 July 2012

Votes

Support

Oppose

Comments

References