Couchwiki.org:Community portal


 * Feel free to leave questions and comments here. Also see project:tech for technical issues.

The "Sue Gardner" font
So I found this "Sue Gardner" font and thought it was a good joke to use it for article titles. Not sure if we want to keep this. What do you think? (I already tried limiting the font to articles of the CouchSurfing category but that was too much work.) guaka (talk) 21:51, 17 April 2013 (CEST)
 * Well, looks kind of funny and I'm OK with it. The only thing that should be checked: Is it also readable for people with bad eyesight? Midsch (talk) 23:47, 18 April 2013 (CEST)
 * Funny but not so readable for me --PabloBD (talk) 23:07, 22 June 2013 (CEST)

Flagcounter or: do we want to enable external images?
For use a visit counter (FlagCounter), how integrate the FLAGCOUNTER Code in a page CouchWiki ? Here is my code given by FlagCounter :  

This code never runs in CouchWiki  !!!! Thanks for your replies (bernard9277@hotmail.fr) or BERNARD9277 on CS. User:ROBERT48


 * I could enable the AllowExternalImages setting to enable this but let's get the opinion of some more couchwiki editors as there is a valid reason for not allowing external images. (Note that you can sign messages on talk pages with ~ .) guaka (talk) 16:05, 9 March 2013 (CET)


 * I strongly disagree with external pictures, especially if it's used as a snooping tool like here. A free and open projekt should not allow user snooping from third parties. (A simple access counter is at the bottom of couchwiki pages anyway.)Midsch (talk) 16:41, 9 March 2013 (CET)


 * I agree with the reasoning for disallowing external images. I always though these flag counters were a bit dodgy. I really don't think it is necessary. --Ashuri (talk) 16:06, 10 March 2013 (CET)


 * OK Midsch, I'm agree with you, but for us, this counter is not a snooping tool, but only for know if our city arouses an interest by presentation that's made, that's all !!ROBERT48 (talk) 18:31, 9 March 2013 (CET)


 * Well, if you're not paying for it you're the product. I'm sure this flagcounter company is making money by tracking people. But with $wgAllowExternalImagesFrom (which I just found now) we could allow this flagcounter and just this flagcounter. I'm personally okay with that, and people who care about privacy can use ghostery or other privacy plugins to block it. Midsch, what do you say? guaka (talk) 19:54, 9 March 2013 (CET)


 * Sorry for the late replay, I've had some login-issues here. But so was some time to think about it. I think we shouldn't open pandoras box and don't use third part pics and scripts. It is a snooping tool, if not for you, definetely for the flag counter company. That's why it's free. And honestly I can't see an use for this special one anyway: You already have a build-in counter on each page to see if people are accessing it, what's the benefit of (mostly wrong) ip-location guessing and nationalist flags? (BTW: I'd like to get rid of national flags in the country headers as well, but they've been easy to get and use when I and several others tried to get some structure here ...) Midsch (talk) 20:24, 13 March 2013 (CET)

Avoid Copying Wikivoyage and Duplicating information
WikiVoyage is a much more detailed and regularly updated source of general travel information. Avoid simply duplicating this information on your city or country page. Make your wiki information tailored specifically to travlers (on any of the hosp ex networks). Example - rather than giving a comprehensive list of every bar, every transport route, etc, give details on locals top favourite places, locals favourite things to do in your place, specific tips in travel in your region, etc. You get the idea. Get you local community to contribute suggestions. Include a list of frequently asked questions. Send people off to wikivoyage for detailed and general information. Once I have finished editing my local place page I can give an example. Some of the city groups have the right idea but I'm of the opinion that this wiki could be so much more!--Ashuri (talk) 21:07, 6 March 2013 (CET)
 * Although I agree with you about your arguments and goals, I'd also like to stress that we should use a more neutreal language regarding hospex networks. Your paragraph is using only CS as a reference. Off course CS is still the major player and some content is from the dead cs-only CSwiki, but some people contributing here don't use Couchsurfing (anymore). Local pages should off course have links to local groups and network related tips, but pages like [100 Things to Do in XY], or hints how to search hosts in a specific region are not necessarily cs-only ... Midsch (talk) 19:48, 6 March 2013 (CET)
 * That was my intention, although it may not have come off that way, hence I wrote that section under 'Example'. Of course the argument applies for any hospex network. I've wrote on other forums that the worldwide hospex community should really be 'tool agnostic' so I understand your point about the neutral language. I edited the orginal comment to make it more neutral. --Ashuri (talk) 21:03, 6 March 2013 (CET)


 * Cool. Let's write some Guidelines. Couchwiki was started in 2009 but only now it's coming off the ground. (And yes, I'm thankful to CSHQ for making this possible ;) guaka (talk) 00:09, 7 March 2013 (CET)
 * Sounds like a good idea - is there somewhere we can keep track of all the ongoing projects and current tasks needed on the wiki?
 * Tasklist was supposed to be a page for collecting this stuff. It's outdated though, as I just reacted on "recent changes" for quite a while. But if we get this wiki more a life, it's probably a good starting point. Midsch (talk) 16:41, 9 March 2013 (CET)

For different organisation
Here a page about using couchwiki for BeWelcome, Hospitality Club, BeLodged, Global Freeloaders, Servas etc...

Interwiki links
I'm trying to set up some interwiki links. But there always seems to be a caching issue. So far I've done hitch, trash, cs and csgroup, if you want any others, just let me know. guaka 15:43, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Sharewiki.org please Matrixpoint 05:43, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

BW groups please Midsch 19:50, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

wikipedia (probably active by default) and wikitravel please --Metal.lunchbox 20:39, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikivoyage would be nice --MrTweek 10:20, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

would it be possible to make a page about interwiki in couchwiki (brief explanation and how to use it ?) Bikepunk 01:13, 31 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia has a nice article about interwiki :)  Of course it could be useful to have an article here as well, feel free to start it, and note that this wiki is license compatible with Wikipedia, so you can copy parts from the Wikipedia article. guaka 10:42, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Job done !!! Bikepunk 03:27, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Guaka, Are you the only person able to make interwiki links ? If no, how can we do that ? Bikepunk 15:34, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Other languages
There's also a version of Couchwiki in French now :) The links aren't working properly yet.  I'll happily set up other languages if there's enough interest, (especially German, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian or Swedish).   We just need some people (or even just one person) who is willing to take care of it enough, i.e. put up a front page and check for spam regularly, and ideally make sure there are new articles every week.  guaka 20:27, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Feature request: Category sitemap in footer
If we could find an extension to display a context-sensitive sitemap based on the categories of a page, wouldn't that be awesome? Maybe this could even be done with jquery, so the browser could cache the category information between requests, and it doesn't add up to page size.

(maybe "sitemap" is the wrong term here, because I only want to show related stuff)

I could work on that when I have time.

--Lemon-head 19:03, 19 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Hey. Sure, could be nice. :) guaka 23:32, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Basic Organization of the wiki
Well there are a few pages and enough interest to start talking a little bit about how to organize the wiki. So far there seem to be 3 kinds of pages- location guide pages, pages about the wiki, and other pages. The later two will sort themselves out but the location guides follow an obvious logical hierarchy- World, region, country, (state,province), city, and extra pages attached to one of those levels like "Cycling in Germany" or "100 things to do in.." simple wiki links and templates could keep the pages organized according to the above logic and categories could help enforce it. does everyone pretty much agree on this?

I also want to say that generic categories like "Cities" or "country guides" are not useful and should be avoided. what do you guys think? --Metal.lunchbox 04:16, 24 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Hey Lunchbox! I agree.  Feel free to remove those generic categories. guaka 22:39, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually I like a category like Hamburg, as it keeps all Hamburg related stuff together. But obviously it doesn't make sense if there is only one page for a city. BTW: Heavy usage of templates makes everything look the same and clean, but it stops people from editing as it looks complicate at first. Midsch 19:52, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Shared user accounts and shared images
Now you can use your login on the English couchwiki also for the other languages (so far French and Italian). And you can use images that have been uploaded here in other languages as well. guaka 22:56, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

It's now possible to directly use images from Wikimedia Commons!
Just find the image you want to use and put it here, e.g. for  from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bandeau_France.png guaka  Almost all images on Wikimedia Commons have been checked on copyrights, and it's highly encouraged to use them, and also to upload your own work there and then use it here. :) guaka 23:35, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Main Page layout
The Main Page is getting messy and ugly : here is a first draft/attempt to make it a bit better. (I would like to know how to use the "class=" in mediawiki, I didn't find anything clear with google). What do you think about it ? Bikepunk 22:26, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I just moved the new layout to the mainpage, it's much better than before, but off course needs more improvement. Hey, css-gurus! Your turn! And the structure/navigation is also looking for some more improvement! Midsch 20:24, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Added cheat sheet from wikipedia - compatible licence?
I've copied across the Wikipedia cheat sheet to Help:Editing

Also needs a bit of a cleanup as templates in wikipedia aren't always here. --118.208.108.138 10th to 20th December 2009 (UTC)


 * It's totally fine to copy from Wikipedia, just add a template to indicate that it's copied from Wikipedia. guaka 16:03, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Copy across openid explanation from old plugin
@guaka: The previous version of the plugin Couchwiki had a better and easier to understand explanation for why OpenID was good. Please recover that explanation and put it in the new plugin.

In a related note is it possible to assume credit for edits done before the plugin became available? --daz 19:08, 12 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry, not on the top of my priorities right now. guaka 23:40, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki mobile plugin
Is there any interest in installing the mobile plugin that is being rapidly developed and used in WikiPedia? I want it but not sure if activity warrants it. On the otherhand this is a travel site so access to it in a mobile friendly format might actually increase activity. --daz 19:08, 12 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Could be nice, link? I'd probably first wanna try it at Hitchwiki though. guaka 23:40, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Not sure? You seem to be more in tune with the wiki community then me. Daz 15:14, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Data dumps
The availability of frequently updated XML dumps of the database (content only, no user data) would increase the sustainability and reusability of couchwiki. This seems to be listed as todo at Couchwiki:Tech. Will this be done in the near future?--Konrad 20:59, 11 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Finally did it. Check http://couchwiki.org/couch/dumps/ :) guaka (talk) 14:07, 3 December 2012 (CET)

Offline versions
In a discussion with Tim he mentioned the idea of an offline versions (e.g. in epub format) which might be handy for travelers. There is an MediaWiki extension for epub export but I have no experiences with it so far. --Konrad 20:59, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I used a web service like Web2FB to convert wikitravel pages for my ebook reader. While this is an easy solution, it might put more load on the server than necessary. --Tim 21:12, 11 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I've set up dumps for sharewiki, I'll look into setting it up for couchwiki as well. Not right now but get back to me in a month if I haven't done it by then. Also let me know if you want me to install a specific extension. guaka 22:31, 11 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Great! The dumps at sharewiki look fine. A dump every week (at share wiki there is one every day) would be even enough IMO if space becomes an issue.--Konrad 04:15, 12 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I just tried setting this up but ran into a "MediaWiki internal error." (with same script that works fine on sharewiki). I can look further into this if this is still wanted. guaka 08:02, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Merge into Wikimedia travel guide?
Wikimedia is likely to start a travel guide, mainly thanks to a group of Wikitravel admins who can't deal any more with Internet Brand. Considering the current status of Couchwiki it could be very interesting to see if it's possible to also merge Couchwiki into the WMF travel guide. Being non profit (forever) and about traveling it suits the spirit. It would be a big advantage in maintenance and it would also promote hospitality exchange (not just couchsurfing) to a larger audience that is hopefully more inclined to choose non profit hospex (especially the active editors). guaka 08:02, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * If we're honest, there is very little content here and I'd love to see it merged into a bigger/active project. So if the wikimedia project is really happening, let's go for it. Some active pages here like Guide_to_punk will get in trouble though. Also BeWelcome workpages - to bypass the rotten bw-wiki - won't survive the move. And the cynic in me is afraid in the german section of the wikimedia travelguide most areas will be white spots for not meeting the admins criterias of relevance ... anyway, it's time for a general travelguide wikistyle! Midsch (talk) 20:58, 13 August 2012 (CEST)


 * If couchsurfing finally takes the couchsurfing wiki offline today we'll probably have some more activity here :) and it's probably good to just keep it independent as it as. guaka (talk) 00:44, 14 December 2012 (CET)

Wikitravel links
Wikitravel was another nice project that was taken over by money. Meanwhile Wikivoyage has come up as a very decent alternative :) I was so free and changed all Wikitravel interwiki links into links to Wikivoyage. I hope nobody minds. If so, let me know and I'll see what I can do about it. guaka (talk) 16:31, 7 December 2012 (CET)