About Wikimapia
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User's Guide
About Wikimapia
What is Wikimapia
WikiMapia is an open-content collaborative mapping project, aimed at marking all geographical objects in the world and providing a useful description of them. It combines an interactive web map with a wiki system. Both registered users and guests have already marked over 20,000,000 objects and this number grows every day. Currently over 1,500,000 people have joined the Wikimapia community. All content added by users is available to re-use under Creative Commons license Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0.
Wikimapia's Philosophy
Wikimapia is an editable, interactive map which provides open-content data through collaborative efforts. The goal of Wikimapia is to create and maintain a free, complete, multilingual and up-to-date map of the whole world by compiling as much useful information about all geographical objects as possible whilst enabling free access to our data for public domain. Wikimapia intends to contain detailed information about every place on Earth.
Wikimapia is a place where anyone can create place tags and share their knowledge. It should be plain and simple so that anyone without prior experience with maps can easily access interesting descriptions.
One of the main characteristics of Wikimapia is that it's constantly changing; striving to be correct and up-to-date through all information sources available to it.
Principles
Wikimapia's contributors come from many different countries and cultures. We have many different views, perspectives, opinions, and backgrounds, sometimes varying widely. Treating others with respect is the key to collaborating effectively in creating a free, complete, multilingual, up-to-date map of the whole world.
Principles of Wikimapia:
- Share your knowledge
- Assume good faith
- Be civil
- Be polite
- Do not ignore questions
- Do not make misrepresentations
- Do not enforce non-existent rules
- Work towards agreements
- Recognize your own biases, and keep them in check
- Argue facts, not personalities
- If another disagrees with your edit, provide good reasons why you think that it is appropriate
- Concede a point when you have no response to it, or admit when you disagree based on intuition or taste
- Be prepared to apologize. In animated discussions, we often say things we later wish we had not. Say so!
- Forgive and forget
(more to come...)
Neutral point of view
A neutral point of view (or "NPOV") is paramount to any description of a place in Wikimapia. Places that are not neutrally described, and do not provide a neutral source of information if challenged, may be edited or even deleted. The reasons for this are clear: any two people may not agree on their feelings and emotions about a place, and therefore editing the places may become a repetitive cycle that strains the resources of Wikimapia as well as the patience and goodwill of the Wikimapia community.
A NPOV is not always possible in the physical world in which we live, as there are many internal and external forces that affect our opinions and the way we perceive truth as individuals. Yet, in the world of cyberspace, and more specifically, within the confines of Wikimapia, it is unfair and unproductive to provide a slanted or skewed view of places when describing them to others.
What NPOV is not
Since Wikimapia's maps and the information contained therein, are not a forum for discussion, places must be added with extra care. This is especially true of places that are sensitive and controversial in nature. Therefore, brevity is sometimes preferable over verbose information because the temptation to pad out descriptions with opinions and promotions of personal interest is lessened. Typical verbiage to be avoided includes:
- Feelings, opinions, experiences. Words which display a personal bias or agenda
- Politics
- Religion
- Publicity or advertising.
When in doubt, follow the old saying: If you do not have anything nice to say do not say anything at all. Non-NPOV descriptions shall either be removed or updated to reflect objectivity in compliance with Wikimapia's NPOV policy.
Advertising
Wikimapia only allows advertising through its Ad service. Advertising made through any of Wikimapia's other services (i.e. map tools, object comments section, forum etc.) is forbidden. This means that you cannot use non-Ad services for commercial, self-promotional or propaganda purposes.
We understand that it can be tempting to tag your projects, company or business, and we do not forbid you to do that, but please remember that a neutral point of view is essential to any description of a place in Wikimapia. In other words, no one will mind seeing factual information about your business eg. company name, address, what you do or sell, how long has the company existed, a link to its website etc.
For promotional opportunities please use Wikimapia Ads instead.
Policies
Wikimapia Guidelines
The Wikimapia Guidelines are actually the official rules for Wikimapia and should be adhered to strictly and regarded as the official regulations which supplement the Terms of Reference.
Terms of Reference
The Terms of Reference set out the contractual terms which one must agree to abide by in order to use Wikimapia and its services. It also covers the Terms of Use, Copyright Notice and Privacy Notice in greater detail.
Forum Guidelines
Main article: Forum Guidelines
The Forum guidelines are a set of community rules which must be adhered to by users participating in Wikimapia's forum discussions.
Photo policies
Main article: Photos
A photo (or photos, photograph(s)) are images that assist in describing places in Wikimapia that words cannot accurately express. We encourage you to upload photos that will help describe places, and make Wikimapia tags even more worthwhile and interesting. However, we do have some rules, mainly because Wikimapia does not wish to, nor allow its users to violate copyrights; nor should photographs and images be used to bypass Wikimapia's philosophy of Neutral Point of View.
You are free to upload any photo you took yourself. If you want to contribute a photo you found on the web, however, you must first determine whether it is protected by copyright. If the website you got the photo from states that their content is copyrighted, you must gain permission to use that photo, or follow their usage guidelines. Once you have uploaded a photo you grant Wikimapia license to use and distribute it according to the Wikimapia Terms of Reference.
Personal photos (in close up) which do not show an object clearly or are taken elsewhere, images hurtful to someone's feelings, pictures inciting national, religious or political discord, pornographic images, pictures advertising goods or services as well as images that are not relevant to the place itself should be deleted. For further clarification please see Photos.
Comments deletion policies
Main article: Comment Guidelines
Comments which do not comply with Wikimapia's guidelines will be removed by the Advanced Users or by the Wikimapia Team. If you find comments which may be controversial, please refer to the comment guidelines. If you find comments which breach comment guidelines, please report them for removal in this thread of the Wikimapia forum, providing a link to the place where you found the inappropriate comments.
Restrictions/banning policies
Restrictions and banning policies are applicable to users who infringe Wikimapia's policies. For the purpose of simplicity, a user who commits violations shall be called an infringer.
Banning is the act of restricting an infringer's account, and therefore the privileges it offers, by Advanced Users and Wikimapia Administrators. Although, Wikimapia Administrators reserve the right to ban any user, Advanced Users can only ban an infringer as per the ban reasons listed under section 4. of the Wikimapia Guidelines.
The Restrictions/banning policy comprises of four core modules:
- Wikimapia Guidelines
- Terms of Reference
- Banning Guidelines
- Ban Moderation
Banning Guidelines
The Banning Guidelines are provided by the Wikimapia Administration to guide Advanced Users on the process of determining and banning an infringer.
Ban Moderation
Ban Moderation is a supplementary guide for AUs on the process of banning.
Interpretation
Please note, the meaning of policies and rules should be read literally (i.e. as written) and not subjectively (i.e. what the reader believes is intended). That said, however, there is no sure way to apply an absolute definition to the words of any regulation or requirement and so there will always be a margin for interpretation involved. In situations where you are unsure about a correct or acceptable interpretation or construction, you should:
- use sound judgment
- discuss the point with Advanced Users
- contact the Wikimapia Administration
