Wikitravel Press

From Devwiki

Jani Patokallio

Wikitravel Press publishes travel guidebooks using free Wikitravel content. This presentation covers three broad challenges the company has faced: 1) how something as fluid and unpredictable as a Wiki can be turned into a professional-grade, competitive guidebook; 2) how free community dynamics change when paid editors join the fray; and 3) how the marketplace grapples with the content of printed Wikis as books.

Wikitravel Press is a pioneering project pushing the boundaries of what can be done with Free content and the MediaWiki software, working in collaboration with one of the largest Wiki communities outside Wikimedia. The presentation will be divided into three thematic sections describing various challenges. Questions to be answered include:

Technological challenges

   * How to reliably parse essentially random Wiki content
   * How to produce high-quality output from constantly changing input
   * How to maintain Wiki's critical edge of being always up to date
   * How to enable editors to do their work without disrupting the site

Social challenges

   * How the community has reacted to the idea of paid editors
   * How the users chosen as editors have adapted to their new role
   * How to introduce the idea of Wikis to editors/writers outside the Wiki sphere

Commercial challenges

   * How traditional publishing does not work with constantly changing content
   * How most on-demand publishers fail to really support it either
   * How to handle book distribution and the ISBN system