For some time, the contributors to Wikitravel have been in reasonably a mutinous mood. A proposal has been made on Wikimedia Meta referred to as Wiki Travel Guide which has requested the Wikimedia community to incubate and eventually run a travel information website.
But we discovered a approach. Amazon had not too long ago launched its own shopper-dealing with print on demand website CreateSpace , which is tightly built-in to the Amazon bookstore, together with key options like free delivery, same-day printing and, crucially for us, its own pool of pre-allocated ISBNs that might be retained by means of updates of the guide. In principle, you are supposed to vary the ISBN for each substantial change of text , but CreateSpace didn’t enforce this and we had been very happy to leap through the loophole.
The alternative of utilizing the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license comes out of this concentration on paper output (see the page Mav mentioned for particulars). The GFDL has some hefty requirements for redistribution, and we wished to lighten those. So, we went with the CC by-sa, as a result of it is about as shut as you will get to the copyleft spirit of the GFDL. The ultimate step for most wiki travel guides is the build-up of content material: it goes with out saying that a information written by customers needs users to write down. But the beauty of the internet is the limitless amount of space. The link on Wikibooks, I believe, took place as a result of someone there thought it might be a good idea to do a journey guide, and someone else pointed to the present Wikitravel, and then someone else decided it was associated. If somebody thinks it is not related, heck, take out the link.
w/r/t joining Wikimedia, I think we’ve talked about it before, however frankly we’re having a variety of enjoyable doing this as an independent challenge. We’ve received a good server, and we’re shifting to a colo facility quickly. I dunno if the Wikimedia admins need another service to help. Clearer separation between goal and subjective travel data. Wikis are nice for the prepare takes quarter-hour and prices $2.50”, but not so much for the pizzas are great and the music rocks”. Allowing a number of comments, evaluations or scores of some variety for listings is needed. These guides will be written by anyone, whether or not they’re an knowledgeable on all things Europe, or just know a factor or two about hiking in Russia. It’s a free-for-all affair that has the potential to overthrow the dominion of the guidebook. Printing on demand would remove warehouses, stock administration, returns and lots of other banes of a writer’s existence.
Text is available underneath the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ; additional terms could apply. By using this web site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. , a non-profit organization. Pulling off the company would have required 1) turning a free-for-all wiki into publishable content, 2) completely automating the transformation of that digital content material into printed books, and three) building a brand new solution to distribute these fresh however very perishable books. If any of those legs failed, the stool would topple over.