Template:Wikitravel: Difference between revisions

'''Wikitravel'''—a [[wiki]] [[:Category:Travel guide|travel guide]], founded in [[:Category:FoundedIn2003|2003]] by [[Evan Prodromou]] (and others), now currently owned by {{tag|Internet Brands|Internet Brands, Inc.}}, is an [[:Category:Advertising|ad]]-supported ([[:Category:GoogleAds|GoogleAds]]) free, [[:Category:Earth|world]]-wide [[:Category:Travel|travel]] guide in many [[:Category:Wiki Language|languages]]. They have several thousand destination guides, and other articles written and edited by [http://wikitravel.org/en/Wikitravel:Wikitravellers 'Wikitravellers'] from around the globe (some of whom just sit at home describing what's good about their surroundings). <!-- Wikitravel wikis support the [[:Category:OpenID|OpenID]] universal log-in. -- well it did until the March 2013 software upgrade-->

One of the more interesting [http://wikitravel.org/en/Wikitravel:Goals_and_non-goals project goals] is to create destination guides which are useful as printouts, i.e., not always linking to sub-pages, but distilling the most useful information about each travel destination. For a good example see the "destination of the month" on the [[Wikitravel (en)|English Wikitravel]] [http://wikitravel.org/en/Main_Page main page].

In April 2006, Wikitravel and [[World66]], both [[:Category:open content|open content]] wiki travel guides, were acquired by Internet Brands, Inc., an [[:Category:United States|American]] commercial 'for profit' company that operates a number of consumer information websites. [http://web.archive.org/web/20080308215814/http://investors.internetbrands.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=274198] Following this acquisition, Internet Brands have progressively alienated their core Wikitravel editors, by placing increasing amounts of adverts on wiki pages, by failing to provide technical support and software upgrades, and by denying database downloads of user-submitted content. As a result, a group of German Wikitravel editors [[fork]]ed their [[Wikitravel (de)|German-language Wikitravel]] to a new site which they called [[Wikivoyage]]; with other language versions subsequently doing the same.

As of early 2013, [[:Category:Wikivoyage|Wikivoyage]] has become an integral new project of the [[:Category:Wikimedia Foundation|Wikimedia Foundation]] (WMF)—and whilst the two sites (Wikitravel and Wikivoyage) still co-exist, Wikitravel has declined in its quality of editing. As a seemingly act of desparation, on the main front page of the English Wikitravel, there is a prominent claim—''"(Wikitravel) ... is the premier travel wiki on the Internet"''—with a link to an off-site publication, namely Time.com. However, the content contained within that Time link is extremely stale and out-dated; it was published in 2007 under the title: "50 Best Websites 2008"! [http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1809858_1809957_1811566,00.html]

*[http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/WikiTravel Meatball Wiki article on Wikitravel]

*[[JAMGuides]]&nbsp;– a mirror of Wikitravel which uses the [[:Category:JAMWiki|JAMWiki]] engine [http://jamguides.com/travel/en]

*[[Wikivoyage]]&nbsp;– a fork done by some German Wikitravellers in 2006, which aims to be a non-commercial alternative with transparent and democratic internal structures, along with their plans in 2012 to [http://web.archive.org/web/20121101112005/http://www.wikivoyage.org/general/Migration_FAQ migrate] to the [[:Category:Wikimedia Foundation|Wikimedia Foundation]]