VoyageForum Guides

Overview of VoyageForum Guides

The VoyageForum Guides are collaborative travel guides based on the wiki principle and written by members of the VoyageForum community. They already contain over 23,000 pages, more than 8,000 photos, a detailed world map where you can locate over 13,000 places to see, as well as several other tools designed to make trip planning easier.

Whether using the destination guides or the thematic guides, the goal is to cover not only all destinations worldwide (countries, regions, cities, etc.), but also all aspects and types of travel, whether solo or organised, for a few days or several months, close to home or on the other side of the world.

Like all collaborative projects, the VoyageForum Guides are constantly evolving, and many new pages will always need to be written. It is an immense, never-ending project that is continually improved by contributors as well as through technical developments carried out by the VoyageForum team.

Access to all VoyageForum Guides is free and unrestricted.

Structure and Navigation in the Guides

The pages of each guide are grouped together by an automated detailed table of contents (see, for example, that of the guide "United States"); this table of contents is the guide's entry page and allows you to easily see its structure. Also, on each page, a hierarchy as well as various menus and tools help you navigate according to your preferences. It is also possible to browse the guides using the map of guides and by clicking on the locations shown on the map.

Note that red links in the guides point to pages that have not yet been created.

Searching for Information

There are several ways to search for information in the VoyageForum Guides. You can use:

• The "Search" function. (This feature is not yet online).

• The destination index if you are looking for information on a country, city, or region. This is accessible from the VoyageForum Guides homepage.

• The theme index for any other topic. This index is also on the Guides homepage.

• The Guides Sitemap, accessible via the menu on the left of all guide pages. Presented in a hierarchical format, it allows you to quickly access all available pages in the guides.

Usage Rights and Copyrights

The VoyageForum Guides are written on a collaborative principle, meaning each contributor graciously allows their contributions to be subject to constant modifications by others. In the same vein, contributors agree and commit to publishing only original content in the VoyageForum Guides—content that has not already been published elsewhere or is under copyright.

Regarding content already published in the Guides (texts, photos, tables, graphs, etc.), no partial or full reproduction is permitted without the explicit written authorisation of VoyageForum, except for reproductions published directly on the voyageforum.com site or for strictly personal and private use. The use and/or partial or full reproduction of any page of the Guides may therefore neither be commercialised nor used for professional purposes or in a context competitive with VoyageForum's activities on any medium.

Note that VoyageForum reserves the right to refuse or remove any content that appears to violate copyright or seems suspicious.

Limitations

Like any source of information, the VoyageForum Guides may contain errors, even though its participatory nature allows anyone to correct a contribution at any time. The VoyageForum team does not systematically verify or update the information found there. It is therefore recommended to cross-check the information you gather and use with other sources. If in doubt about the content of a page, it may be helpful to check the page history or discuss it with other travellers in the site's forum.

While most errors are unintentional, they can sometimes result from "acts of vandalism" or contributions concealing commercial intentions. If this seems to be the case, you can report it to the moderation team using the "Report" button at the top of each guide page.

Finally, the VoyageForum Guides have no contractual value. VoyageForum cannot be held responsible for any consequences resulting from errors, inaccuracies in the content, or technical issues preventing or limiting access to the Guides.

Contributing to the Guides

Member contributions to the Guides' texts will begin in stages once the situation allows on the VoyageForum team's side. Initially, a "selection" of active members on the forum will be able to contribute to the guides, and the pool of contributors will expand over the coming months. The idea is to ensure everything works correctly technically and that all contributions are moving in the right direction before opening it up to other members.

The VoyageForum team will post the contribution guidelines and details on the gradual selection process for contributors here at the appropriate time.

Editing/Adding to an Existing Page

Online when member contributions begin.

Writing Tips

Online when member contributions begin.

Formatting

There are a few tags to know for creating or modifying a page's layout, making links, creating a table of contents, and other elements used for formatting a page:

• See the formatting tags

FAQ

Online when member contributions to the Guides begin.

Guides Sitemap

The structure of all the Guides can be easily visualised using the:

• Guides Sitemap

This sitemap is also accessible in the left-hand menu on all guide pages.