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COOL TRAVEL MAIL'S
TRAVEL TIPS
Tips & Adice for the Seasoned and Armchair Traveler Alike!
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http://www.CoolTravelMail.com
June 26, 2007
We live in a wiki world.
Computer users now generate and edit online entries to
encyclopedias, how-to manuals, product reviews and
compendiums of cultural trivia ranging from Yu-Gi-Oh! Cards
to Amy Tan novels.
Travel guides are no exception.
This week's edition includes:
* TRAVELING IN A WIKI WORLD
* WHY YOU STILL NEED PEOPLE LIKE ME
* TATTLING ON BAD DRIVERS
P.S. If you're interested you can now post comments on this
and recent issues on our forum at... Travel Tips Forum
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TRAVELING IN A WIKI WORLD
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Democracy, regardless of what world leaders say or do, is
alive and thriving. If you haven’t noticed, it’s because the
biggest democratic revolution of the 21st century hasn’t
involved politicians, armies or public relations spinners.
The symbol for this movement is Wikipedia
(http://www.wikipedia.com), the online encyclopedia that
lets anyone write and edit entries.
The concept was invented in 1994 by a computer scientist who
created a program called WikiWikiWeb as a way to share
programming techniques. He named his creation after the
Hawaiian word for fast.
It's a collaborative system that‘s served as the model for
many other sites focused on topics ranging from retail
shopping to online dictionaries.
WikiTravel (http://wikitravel.org) is the one readers of
this newsletter might be most interested in.
The site features nearly 16,000 destination guides and
articles contributed by volunteer wiki travelers around the
globe. Like Wikipedia, the site is self-correcting. The same
volunteers who provide travel details, edit in corrections
to inaccurate entries.
That's not the only difference between this site, which
appears to have no travel-related advertising, and the more
commercial guides travelers have grown accustomed to.
This week, the main page featured Shimla, the capital of
India's Himachal Pradesh as the destination of the month and
spotlighted Dalian, a Russian-built city in northeastern
China - two destinations that probably won’t be at the top
of your travel agent's list.
The advantage of wiki is democracy. That, unfortunately, is
also it's chief disadvantage.
The global army of wiki
volunteers write from personal experience, giving potential
travelers a street-level view of destinations. They
contribute without pay, so there are no obvious conflicts
that could skew information.
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WHY YOU STILL NEED PEOPLE LIKE ME
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So what are the potential pitfalls?
* Anything wiki, because it does not have a strong central
"editor" or "authority" is prone to bad information or out
and out fraud.
I remember reading one Wikipedia entry about a shopping mall
development in upstate New York that read like a company
press release until the middle, when it began talking about
how the developer hoped to arrange the second coming of
Jesus Christ for the mall's grand opening. The entry was up
for at least a week before someone in the volunteer wiki
army edited it out.
The more popular a Wiki entry is, the more likely users will
correct errors in a timely manner. The problem is, you never
know if what you’re reading NEEDS a correction.
Wikitravel, like anything wiki, is a great starting place
for travel plans and a wonderful resource for knowledge that
doesn't really matter. I would use a wiki fact about Shimla
in a casual conversation. I wouldn't use the site to make
definite travel plans.
* Wikitravel is limited by the people who choose to
contribute to it.
Not everyone who finds a wonderful destination is going to
write about it. That makes coverage of destinations - for
now at least - a strange patchwork that focuses extensively
on some areas more than others with no apparent reason.
The contributors also come with their own set of subjective
views. Although the site strives for the same neutral tone
used by Wikipedia, and gives writers a much stricter
template than other wiki sites, the likes and dislikes of
particular contributors can determine much of the
information provided.
When reading a Lonely Planet or Fodors guide, you kind of
know where the writer is coming from. The editorial
philosophy and focus is uniform throughout the publication.
On Wikitravel, you don't know where the information is
coming from. The smaller the entry, the more vulnerable you
are to a writer who thinks modern art museums are cooler
than unique dance clubs, or has an incredibly high tolerance
for dirty hotel rooms and bland food.
* It's only a matter of time before commercial forces learn
how to infiltrate the wiki democracy and post anonymous
entries aimed at herding readers to particular destinations.
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TATTLING ON BAD DRIVERS
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In researching this week's newsletter, I stumbled across a
couple of other user-generated Websites that could be of
interest to travelers. Check them out:
* Platewire.com
This site lets people tattle on potentially dangerous
drivers by posting the offenders’ license plates along with
a detailed description of his or her offensive behavior.
Somebody cut you off? Were you tailgated by a tractor
trailer? Stuck behind a 100-year-old Buick driver going 25
mph on a 55 mph, one-lane road?
Don’t give in to road rage. Get even.
Since its founding last year, Platewire has posted more than
37,000 license plates attached to vehicles that somehow
ticked off other drivers. The postings list the date, time
and location of the various outrages, which occurred on
roads, streets and highways across the country.
Mark Buckman, a software developer, launched the site last
year after a 17-mile commute from his job in Arlington, Va.
to his home in Fairfax, during which he was almost involved
in five separate collisions caused by other drivers. The
hazards included a guy who was driving with his knee while
rummaging in the back seat of the car and an elderly man who
made a right hand turn from the far left lane of the
highway.
"PlateWire intends to grow large enough to become a real
deterrent to unsafe driving habits," Buckman writes on his
site. "My goal is to bring awareness to bad drivers so they
become aware of the dangers associated with the aggressive
driving they have become accustomed to. So join in, vent
your rage, and let us all do our part to make the roads
safer."
* Caughtya.org
It's raining. The parking lot is nearly empty. You're only
dashing in for a minute.
If you, an able-bodied driver, park in a handicapped space -
just for a few minutes - who's going to know?
Maybe everyone.
Caughtya.org posts photos (Usually cell phone shots ),
license plate numbers and other information about vehicles
parking in spots legally reserved for people with
disabilities.
One of the featured entries this week was a police car
parked in front of a handicapped parking sign in Coolidge,
Arizona. Another shows a blue Pontiac Sunbird parked
diagonally across a disabled parking space in front of a
Borders bookstore in Crystal Lake, Ill.
The site also includes windshield notices that you can print
out and stick under the wiper of cars illegally parked in
handicapped spaces.
Well, that's it for this week, group. Thanks again for
reading, and please keep those comments, complaints and
questions coming in.
You can send me an e-mail message at: Email Pierce
Until next week, thanks for reading.
Your Tipmeister,
Pierce
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