User:Nicholasjf21/Wikivoyage:Wikivoyage and Wikitravel

In 2003 a website called Wikitravel was launched, which sought to allow travellers and others to share travel information freely. In 2006 the site was bought by a company named Internet Brands (IB), a commercial for-profit organisation. Following the acquisition by IB, members from both the German and Italian sites forked, forming a separate site named Wikivoyage. That is to say, they copied the freely-licensed content across from Wikitravel to the newly-formed Wikivoyage, where it was edited and altered independently.

The communities of other language sites continued at Wikitravel until late 2012, when much of the English community (along with other language versions) chose to leave Wikitravel and create another fork. Their major concerns were excessive monetisation of the site (a plan to put links to a booking engine on every page was one example) and the poor technical support offered by the site's owners (an out-of-date software version and slow server response, for example).

In the process of creating the fork, other issues were addressed:
 * merging with the existing Wikivoyage
 * joining the larger community at the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), a non-profit, charitable organisation which runs many wikis including Wikipedia.

Both those goals were accomplished. On 15th January 2013 Wikivoyage was relaunched: reunited and reinvigorated. The site is now hosted on WMF servers and we are part of a large WMF community. That has a number of important effects. We get many new users from our sister wikis, many of them experienced wiki-editors and some of them experts at writing and running various improve-the-wiki scripts. We also get access to powerful multi-wiki tools such as the huge shared image repository at Wikimedia Commons and the WMF cross-wiki anti-spam infrastructure.

Despite the intervening period and some changes along the way, Wikivoyage still aspires to the same principles that were outlined ten years ago: to provide a site where travellers and others can share travel information freely and openly.

Differences
Following the projects' divergence, there are now many differences between Wikivoyage and Wikitravel, some examples of which are listed in the table below.

Do Wikivoyage and Wikitravel work cooperatively?
Not currently. Internet Brands took legal action (dismissed before trial) against two Wikivoyage volunteers, and removes any links to or mention of Wikivoyage from any discussion pages on the Wikitravel site. The Wikimedia Foundation has also taken legal action against Internet Brands, resulting in a settlement in which the rights to establish this travel site were confirmed.

Can I copy content between Wikivoyage and Wikitravel?
Content from Wikivoyage can be used as long as the conditions of relevant copyright licenses are complied with. Internet Brands has confirmed that the content of Wikitravel is under a CC BY-SA licence. However, as Internet Brands and the WMF have engaged in litigation, please discuss before moving content from Wikitravel to Wikivoyage. Moving content from Wikivoyage to Wikitravel may not be possible as any mention of Wikivoyage is banned on that site, precluding correct attribution.

Can I read more?
There are several blogs and news stories that covered the fork, and the surrounding events, where you can read more if you are interested.
 * http://gyrovague.com/2012/07/12/wikitravel-editors-abandon-internet-brands-join-up-with-wikipedia/
 * https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/09/05/wikimedia-foundation-seeks-declaratory-relief-in-response-to-legal-threats-from-internet-brands/ (kept updated)
 * http://davidgerard.co.uk/notes/2012/09/06/internet-brands-sues-people-for-forking-under-cc-by-sa/
 * https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/business/media/once-a-profit-dream-wikitravel-now-bedevils-owner.html
 * http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/29/lessons-from-the-dramatic-slow-motion-death-of-wikitravel/
 * http://gyrovague.com/2013/01/14/free-travel-guide-wikivoyage-comes-out-of-beta-and-is-already-kicking-ass/
 * http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/15/a-victory-for-wikivoyage-and-free-knowledge/
 * The Signpost coverage:
 * w:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-04-16/News and notes
 * w:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-04-23/News and notes
 * w:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-07-09/News and notes
 * w:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-08-27/News and notes
 * w:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-09-10/Special report
 * w:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-10-01/News and notes
 * w:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-10-22/Technology report
 * w:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-11-12/News and notes
 * w:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-01-14/Investigative report
 * w:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-02-18/News and notes