Hitchwiki:Community Portal/2009-2012

Copying from Wikipedia
Is there any sort of process for this? I tried a straight copy paste as suggested, but it didn't work out. Really what I want to get is the exit/service station list for:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahn_96 so I can add comments on my experience at one of the service stations on Sunday. I see that for example:

http://hitchwiki.org/en/A8_(Germany)

has a list which presumably came from Wikipedia, but formatting is different. Is there an auto method for this?
 * Looks like they are using a lot of templates for everything (like BAB-AS, BAB-Tunnel, BAB-Parkplatz), so we need to copy these templates first. Might be a little work, but probably worth it. I'll see if I can find time for this. If you want to do that: they are stored in i.e. here. Just copy the whole page(s) to hitchwiki under the same name. Don't forget to add to the end of any article that you copy from Wikipedia. --MrTweek 07:40, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Question about Maps - Gas Stations

 * Hey! I was wondering if it wouldn´t be nice to have the point-option "petrol station" on the hitchwiki map and assign it another picture than the hitchspot-circle? I already saw, that a few started to point them out as hitchspots, but that makes the map a little bit lesse readable in my opinion.

Warning: Unresponsive script
A script on this page may be busy, or it may have stopped responding. You can stop the script now, or you can continue to see if the script will complete. Script: http://maps.gstatic.com/intl/en_ALL/mapfiles/285c/maps2.api/main.js:75

Since a while now, if I login maps.hitchwiki.org, I'm getting the error message above and cannot use/edit the maps. Too bad :'(
 * Did you try clicking continue? On slow computers, the site might load a while, as there are way too many hitchhiking spots for the browser to handle. What browser do you use?
 * We are currently working on a completely new map which is way more efficient. You can already try it out here, but it's not finished yet. --MrTweek 19:49, 16 November 2010 (CET)


 * It actually does not depend if I'm logged in or not. "Continue" seems to work but I have to click sometimes over 10 times to get the map and it takes ages... I'm using firefox 3.6.12 on a netbook.
 * I'll have a look on the new map right now. Thanks for your work ;) Bikepunk 14:20, 17 November 2010 (CET)
 * Yeah, looks like the old maps are not really netbook compatible :/ --MrTweek 14:23, 17 November 2010 (CET)

Google Maps extension
I've been playing a little bit with the Google Map extension on Trashwiki. Check Amsterdam and Trashwiki:Trashcan. I think it could make sense to see if we can migrate maps.hitchwiki.org towards this extension. What do you think? guaka 10:23, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, looks pretty cool. The question is, how can we migrate the old data from maps.hitchwiki.org? We would have to split one big database into many small ones. Any ideas? --MrTweek 11:14, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Would could set up a bot based on pywikipediabot that tries to insert t_points into articles. I'll first set up mirror.hitchwiki.org so we can play with it there.
 * The bot should probably also be able to create a .kml file. And maybe it's possible to hack OSM into the extension.  With that we would have all current features covered, right? guaka 11:48, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Partwise. Markers in areas for which we don't have articles will get lost. However, they would still exist on the main map, so not a real loss. But I think, the main goal should be to have only one database.
 * Maybe we can make a mix of both extension, thus allowing to edit markers inside the wiki but still having them in one big database.
 * Not so easy. I'll think about it. --MrTweek 12:15, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed. Tricky issues.  Also, it would be nice to have spots in many articles, so maybe the approach of the extension is not right for what we want.  But maybe there's a way to build something on top of the extension so that people can edit map stuff directly from inside the wiki. guaka 14:17, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Should not even be too difficult. I think I started something like that some time ago, but eventually forgot about it :/ --MrTweek 14:45, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Google street view
It would be nice to had google street view to Hitchwiki maybe by the maps it's really useful to see how look a spot or to find one, ok only in some part of France and a lot of the us so it's probably can wait.


 * Would definitely be nice, at least for the future. But might also be very hard or even impossible to implement. Also, I don't trust google :/ --MrTweek 10:23, 23 January 2009 (UTC)


 * As far as I know, members who create a page could also insert a link to the appropriate Streetview. I did this on the Amsterdam page so you can see what I mean; []clint.hotvedt 13:13, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Drivers
Hey, we dont have drivers section!

First of all, I want to be also included in the drivers category, and than, secondly, we need an info board - I am going that way and I am looking for hhikers. Just instead of going into every petrol station and checking it out ;)

I know there are other sites specified in exchanging this kind of info (covoiturage and so) but it is about sharing car and costs, not for free-hhiking.

Love, see you on the road! Driver Mirto 15:18, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi! We have Picking up hitchhikers, but yeah, it would be good to have a bit more.  I'll be sitting next to Marc this week, and me we can hack set up something in Drupal.  For now, maybe we can have a wiki rideboard? guaka 01:07, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Wiki Extensions
What do you think about the idea to use the Collecion Extension for Mediawiki? So you could create your personal Hitchhikers guide for travelling. You just mark the pages you need in the wiki, and then you can export your collection as pdf or odf). You can see it at Wikivoyage how it works. Good for the travellers who don't take any PC while being on the road.


 * It looks interesting, though it takes more than 10 seconds to see how it works at Wikivoyage... guaka 18:30, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, sounds good. I'll try to install it tomorrow when I'm sober again --MrTweek 21:14, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

GFDL -> CC-BY-SA
GFDL 1.3 was released. With that we can move to the Creative Commons ShareAlike Attribution 3.0 license! guaka 17:29, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I think we should take that chance. We mainly have GFDL to be compatible to wikipedia, if I remember correctly. Now that Wikipedia seems to switch...
 * How can we do it? I've got some questions there: What about the changes that were made after November 2008? We should probably give anyone the chance to give their opinion. Maybe with a discussion page – maybe one per language – that we advertise with one of these annoying global messages that get shown on top of each page? MrTweeeak... :-) --Speckmade 10:43, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Jep, I'm for! Wasn't there a discussion about this somewhere on the wiki already? Can't find it back...anyway, what about a discussion/vote on hitchwiki asap (according to what Speckmade said here)? --Platschi 14:32, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I think its high time for a licensing change here at Hitchwiki. (A little background: For a limited period of time - til august this year - the most recent version of the GFDL offers the one-time chance to switch to the similar Creative Commons license Attribution-Share Alike. This seems to be the more reasonable thing for wikis as comapred to the GFDL that is designed especially for documentation of software. Wikipedia has finally decided to move, which removes our main reason to stay with GFDL here.)

The clock is ticking. How do people feel about it? Should we also go for double licensing like Wikipedia?--Speckmade 14:36, 4 June 2009 (UTC)


 * My proposal is to switch to Creative Commons completely. Does anybody disagree? If not, I will do this some time in July. --MrTweek 14:51, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with this change (double licensing as in WP)--Kimdime69 19:41, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry, for being not clear enough. I prefer CC-only and completely dropping GFDL. Otherwise we would need to mark each articles according to the licence.
 * If we copy stuff from CC or GFDL sites, it can't be double licensed. I think that's too much hassle for most users (even I don't want to do that).
 * If wikipedia switches to CC, I guess there won't be many GFDL sites left anyway. --MrTweek 20:48, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, I got it;)--Kimdime69 22:33, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

start page redesign
I'm doing some work on the start page, feel free to join and discuss. guaka 02:43, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

we want to write in Chinese!
Some Chinese hitchhiker here would like to use their native language here,Ok?


 * Great! I think MrTweek can set it up.  Simplified or traditional?  Or both?
 * I've hitchhiked in China and I'm very curious about Chinese hitchhikers :) can you write a bit about yourself? guaka 15:07, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

both is ok
 * Yeah, I will be happy to do that. However, I'd a little help from you, as I don't speak any chinese. Would you do that? Do you have, Jabber, ICQ, or MSN, or can I email you? --MrTweek 15:18, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

msn:wang-paul@hotmail.com


 * This is amazing !!! :) --Platschi 12:25, 9 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Fantastic! Great work! --Quarim12:41, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Polish version of hitchwiki
It will be wonderful, if we have the polish Hitchwiki. I think me and other polish hhikers can help expand it. Poland, as a very friendly country for hitchhikers, should have its own version of Hitchwiki. --Strzkrzysiek 10:46, 10 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Done a while ago :) guaka 11:34, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Hungarian Hitchwiki
Hi Everyone

I'm writing to you form Hungary and I would like to ask you how would it be possible to create a Hungarian Hitchwiki site. I would be more than happy to expand the site with a new language. Please write me how I should begin?

thanks a lot

Greg


 * Just wait for MrTweek :) He'll probably set it up this week or so. guaka 11:34, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I can do that. Do you have any kind of messenger? --MrTweek 20:08, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Serbo-Croatian Hitchwiki
Along these slavic-speaking lines: I am fluent in croatian, and offer to start translating from english to croatian anytime. I also speak swedish fluently, and would do the same, but going by personal experience here, most swedes have a pretty decent understanding of english so I don't know how urgent a wiki like that would be. (Username here: Vrana)

Images from Wikimedia Commons
After setting it up on Couchwiki and Trashwiki I also just enabled the possibility to directly use images from Wikimedia Commons here on Hitchwiki. It's really nice for a few reasons: Enjoy! guaka 23:58, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
 * it saves bandwidth (well, on hitchwiki's side :)
 * we have access to many many more images, without too much effort
 * which is especially cool for generic stuff such as flags and such!
 * if you upload your hitchhike images there they can also be used in Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects


 * One thing, re-using hitchwiki images (at least *jpg from English version) in the Russian wiki works fine (see ru:Шаблон:Фотогалерея), but if I want to use a *png (e.g. Image:Good.png) in the russian hitchwiki, it redirects the image automatically to wikimedia, which is not that usefule (see ru:Image:Good.png). Uploading the Image to the Russian Wiki is not possible, even when renaming it tells me it's a duplicate and uses the wikimedia commons image instead. Help! --Platschi 13:03, 6 December 2010 (CET)


 * Weird. I've checked LocalSettings.php and couldn't find any obvious things to change in order to fix this. guaka 15:09, 6 December 2010 (CET)

Turkish Hitchwiki Page
Hey folk I would love to expand the site with Turkish language. how I should begin?thnks! gj della mer
 * I've sent you an email! --MrTweek 11:20, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Special characters Å and Ø
I would like the "insert special chars" option underneath the editor window to feature the letters å and ø in upper case.

Or, even better: As people also need other special characters from time to time, why not add a box with a whole lot of special characters like in Wikipedia?

--Scandinaïve 16:45, 25 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Hey, added the two missing chars. And true, a bigger box would be awesome, but we should decide which char-set we're going to use. If we also add cyrillic chars, thai or even chinese it's gonna be way to huge. Maybe the main latin special chars might be just fine. But maybe somebody with better wiki-skills should add something, maybe a box to show/hide if needed. --Platschi 17:42, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

https
It would be nice to have a secure login - in that case I would be more likely to tell people about the possibility of using Hitchwiki as their OpenID provider :) This blog post could be a good starting point. guaka 11:45, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Tutorial
Hey everyone, I just copy&pasted and adapted the wikipedia tutorial to the hitchwiki (see results here. It's still not complete, but I guess the main idea is to keep it as simple as possible for new people to understand the basics of the wiki. I would appreciate it if the more experienced hitchwiki contributors could have an eye on it and eventually edit it where necessary, to make it as simple as possible for people to get the (boring) syntax-editing-story. Also, of course, feel free to add new tutorials (missing one on images, e.g.) and help us bringing more people up to edit the wiki! :) Any suggestions are welcome, of course. --Platschi 22:48, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Links to Wikipedia and Trashwiki
Lately I am seeing links to Wikipedia and Trashwiki articles that should be in sideboxes on the left side of the screen don't show up properly, and appearing in seemingly random lines on articles instead (check, for example, the last line of Jerusalem article to see how Trashwiki link appears). Is this deliberate, or just a technical problem? If it is deliberate, should they now go to a "See also" kind of section to avoid them messing up the articles? Vidimian 17:44, 10 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Definitely a tech issue. guaka 18:08, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Still occurring, somebody with knowledge on the issue maybe could have a look at it? :) --Platschi 10:14, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I tried, but I've no clue, why they don't work anymore. I guess I'll try again soon %) --MrTweek 11:48, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I fixed it. It's in languages/Names.php, which gets overwritten at upgrades.  I added a function to LocalSettings.php, that can be called from Names.php.  Unfortunately it doesn't work by just doing the stuff from LocalSettings.php, but maybe I didn't try hard enough.  Now added trash, couch and share, did I miss something? guaka 11:55, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I started UPGRADE.txt to keep track of things that need to be done or checked while upgrading. guaka 11:57, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, great, that did it :) I also added wikipedia. --MrTweek 13:12, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Piwik
I had set up tracking with Piwik (we don't and won't use Google Analytics here!) a while ago. It stopped working, and then today I fixed it again, through a proper MediaWiki extension. Which comes with an added bonus: Special:Piwik, showing some interesting stats - available right now to all sysops of Hitchwiki. In case you want to have access - we're pretty liberal with sysop rights, so if you've been contributing some good stuff, just mention it here or on my or MrTweek's talk page. guaka 17:58, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Does this work for you? I keep getting JSON syntax error. Tried it on various browsers/machines. --MrTweek 09:03, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Works for me. Maybe it's also necessary to be logged into piwik.guaka.org, in which case the access for all sysops is not going to happen I guess :) guaka 20:06, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Yep, it's all iframes from piwik.guaka.org... guaka 20:16, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

http://twitter.com/hitchwiki
I just set up a a twitter for hitchwiki, and also some twitterfeed action to pull in recent changes - mostly as an attempt to more quickly get changes indexed in Google. But of course, feel free to follow :) guaka 13:22, 20 March 2010 (UTC)


 * And if twitter is too proprietary for you, there's also http://identi.ca/hitchwiki :) guaka 15:19, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Romanian translation of hitchwiki
its possible to create a Romanian language page in Hitchwiki? Tried to create one - but I guess I have not enugh admin rights ;) index 10:47, 17 April 2010


 * MrTweek usually sets up new languages, I'm sure he'll happilly create one in Romanian :) guaka 07:49, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Yep! I've sent you an e-mail. --MrTweek 08:10, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * have replied to it already. Index 11:06, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Book Creator?
It could be nice to have Wikipedia's Book Creator running here as well :) guaka 13:41, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Fixed digi:
digi: is now a quick way to link to digihitch from the side again. You can also use it with a colon, like this if you want to leave the link in the page itself, e.g. digihitch : digihitch. guaka 21:38, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

blog help...
hey

I already have a blog with wordpress

http://gratefullost.wordpress.com/

im still new to this blog stuff... but it seems with the hitchwiki blog i have all the same options and then some... Is there a way to move my other blog over to htichwiki without loosing everything I have already...



thanks!! :)

P.s. wavesporter(a)gmail.com

Profiles listed at Country Pages
Would it be hard and or considered nice to make a list of thumbs of users that are said to be based in a specific country, listed on the country-page or even maybe city-page? --Robino 01:30, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

T shirts?
I want a Hitchwiki t-shirt! :) How to make it happen? guaka 13:13, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Someone design it.
 * 2) Use spreadshirt or something similar
 * 3) Profit!
 * --MrTweek 13:21, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
 * MrTweek, the southpark nerd :) A T-shirt is a good idea. However, we don't even have a good logo yet (it looks like a work-in-progress-draft). I liked these thumb-rohrschachs, but I don't have time to try to design something like that at the moment... maybe someone else? --Kb 13:25, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * wanna have one! --Quarim 14:43, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * wanna have one! --Quarim 14:43, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

It would also be a nice idea if me make some flyers and stickers for hitchwiki. i always meet other hitcher on the road who don't know about hitchwiki. for example this saturday i meet a guy from spain hitching all over europe and want to found a spanish hitchhikers club but don't know enough people. i always write a paper note with the url of hitchwiki, i do it so ofter. i want to have some flyers which i can store in my backpack. stickers would be also nice because we can put them on the hitchhikers spots and people read it and come to hitchwiki. "this spot is adviced by hitchwiki.org ;)" lets make hitchwiki the number one :) --Quarim 08:01, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Flyers would even be quite cheap to produce. Anyone want to make one? Any ideas on how to pay for it? Anyone has experience with flatter? --MrTweek 08:19, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I really like the idea of leaving stickers at spots where you hitch from... I usually try to leave a message for fellow hitchers anyway so they don't feel so lonely ;-), and that would be a good way to draw attraction to my message, too - I don't think anybody ever read one of them^^. Anyway, how about a round yellow-orange-ish sticker about 10 cm in diameter with the logo (which is quite okay, as long as we don't have anything better), the url and maybe a cool slogan along the lines of "uniting the world's hitchhikers"?--Zenit 19:05, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
 * P.S.: It might also be helpful with recreating (to a certain extent) the kinds of billboards/road side art/hitchhiker's pop culture on the road that existed in the 60es in the US on popular hitching spots. If that should be anybody's priority. Just imagine every hitchhiker would leave a piece of mind, a poem or a quote at every spot they hitched... wouldn't that be kinda cool?--Zenit 19:14, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

RSS feed
I use the RSS feed as a bookmark in my browser. If one page is changed several times by the same user, the feed creates only one entry for that (which is handy), but this entry only shows the last change done by the user. I'd like to see all the changes of the user with one click on the RSS feed. Can we change this? --Kb 13:37, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks like this is more a feature request for MediaWiki. At least I can't find anything like that in the documentation. --MrTweek 14:18, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Italiano?
Se vuoi hitchwiki in italiano, si puo fare, ma meglio scrivere un po piu. :) 17:14, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Mr Tweek, where are you? ;-)--Zenit 19:06, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Oops, I totally overlooked that :/ Still any interest? E mi Italiano non e bene. --MrTweek 21:54, 8 November 2010 (CET)

Winter warning on Northern countries?
I just saw this idea and it seemed a good one, so shouldn't we maybe put a very small disclaimer box at the top of the articles of Northern countries such as Canada or Sweden linking to Winter? Or is that too patronising and stuff? I also thought that could replace the already existing parts about winter hitchhiking we already have in articles like Canada. Btw, if there is a better place to discuss things like that, please let me know :-)--Zenit 23:35, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Consistent naming of flags PNG's
Can we do something about the very inconsistent naming of file names for the flag files. There are currently two formats:

 Flag of Whatever.png Flag Whatever.png 

It would be nice if we could decide upon one standard format (I'd suggest the one without "of", it saves typing) and change everything to that format - yes, I volunteer to help with this effort. It would also be nice if all flag files could be optimized, they are used in many, many, many pages. I have already done quite a few, but we should really consider pulling the .SVG files from Wikipedia and render them again, followed by an optimization phase using Ken Silverman's PNGOUT.

For what it's worth, saving a flag like the Dutch in a 396x594 format results in a 317-byte .PNG file containing just 3 colors, while saving it in a 400x600 format results in a 527-byte .PNG file with 5(!) colors... And no, it's not because it's bigger, as rendering it in an even bigger 402x603 format results in a 321-byte .PNG file.

A horrible example of rendering even simple non-rectangular shapes is the Japanese flag: it contains just two colors, red and white, but my 396x594 rendering of the Wikipedia .SVG in the GIMP has 202(!) colors: pixels are square and it's pretty hard to make a circle out of squares without dithering!
 * Yes, I agree that we should use a consistent naming scheme. Flag Whatever.png is fine for me. Although SVG would be even better, if we can get all flags in that format. --MrTweek 21:21, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Have a look at Hitchwiki:Start_Page. I just replaced all the flags there with SVGs from wikimedia commons. Maybe we should do that everywhere? What do you think? There is always a risk in using 3rd party images (they can change them and we won't notice), but I think wikimedia is quite reliable, at least with flags. --MrTweek 21:30, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Offer/find hospitality through Hitchwiki
It's just a stub, but check Category talk:Can host, add your ideas and add to your user profile :) guaka 22:37, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Survey addressed to the drivers which takes hitchhikers
Hi, I like hitchhiking a lot. I work in small statistic company and I'm interesting of statistic. I'm going to make some survey addressed to the drivers which giving me a ride. Such survey can explore connections between many different factors which can decide of taking a ride by somebody, for example amount of siblings. I'm quite new here and I just realized that I can make an international survey with help on this community. If there are people interested of my idea I will willingly share the questionnaire and form to input data and after some time the results of the survey. Don't have project of the questionnaire finalized yet but I'll make it next week, I will share it here and will could discuss it before making pdf and printing. Are anybody interested? :) User:MusX


 * We have a page about statistics, not with very much info, but maybe the existing data (like e.g. Prino's can be useful, and I'm sure more people will be interested as well. guaka 16:25, 19 September 2010 (CEST)


 * See the new page, Keeping statistics about what I keep track of to eventually produce my statistics. You may also want to have a look at the old (but apparently still running) survey Bernd Wechner ran, The Suite 101 Hitch-hiking Survey. Prino 22:01, 19 September 2010 (CEST)

Blogging

 * moved here from User talk:Guaka

Why is this not/no longer enabled. Given the (current) situation of Digihitch, I'd like to put my stories somewhere else, and this would be the most appropriate place, but on Hitchwiki Blogs you get "Registration has been disabled." message. :( Prino 08:48, 20 September 2010 (CEST)


 * Although I recently upgraded WP MU + extensions, MrTweek has mostly been doing the blog stuff. I think signup was disabled because there was too much spam but we can definitely enable sign-up for a day or even a week to see if it doesn't get overspammed. guaka 11:07, 20 September 2010 (CEST)
 * No, we can't unfortunately :( As soon as we open the registrations, a lot of spam bots start their blogs and spam it completely. There were more than 900 blogs, containing nothing more than chinese spam. I really wish we could find a way, but it seems very difficult at the moment. We can still create blogs manually. I will make one for you. Do you want prino as username and blogname? --MrTweek 11:58, 20 September 2010 (CEST)
 * prino as user- and blogname will be OK, thanks! Prino 15:40, 20 September 2010 (CEST)
 * Maybe a prominent link on the blogs to a page here that will tell people how to get an account? :) guaka 15:51, 20 September 2010 (CEST)
 * My first blog is there, can you also add me to the Blogroll on Hitchwiki Blogs
 * Yup, added you to the Blogroll and to the hitchwiki planet. Happy blogging ;) --MrTweek 23:21, 20 September 2010 (CEST)

Hitchability per Country
...is determined how exactly? Right now, it looks like it's just one random opinion that's represented there. I'd propose that we do kind of an invisible count and put the average of all the different opinions that should gather. Do you think that doable/too much hassle/a good idea/something else?--Zenit 09:28, 21 September 2010 (CEST)
 * Definitely a good idea. We have been thinking about that, but we'd have to write a plugin for that. Not too much work, but it is work. Hope someone will find the time for it ;) --MrTweek 10:18, 21 September 2010 (CEST)
 * How do you define hitchablity? Is it the average waiting time - I've remove all countries with less than 10 rides:

+--+---+---+---+ +--+--+-+--+--+-+--+--+-+--+ +--+--+-+--+--+-+--+--+-+--+
 * | Wait <= 1 hour           | Wait > 1 hour             | Total                     |
 * Cnty |   # |    Time | Avg wait |    # |    Time | Avg wait |    # |    Time | Avg wait |
 * Cnty |   # |    Time | Avg wait |    # |    Time | Avg wait |    # |    Time | Avg wait |
 * A   |   11 |    5.11 |  0:28:16 |   13 |   36.08 |  2:46:46 |   24 |   41.19 |  1:43:18 |
 * B   |  135 |   53.47 |  0:23:54 |   26 |   42.44 |  1:38:37 |  161 |   96.31 |  0:35:58 |
 * D   |  272 |  138.48 |  0:30:37 |  159 |  285.31 |  1:47:45 |  431 |  424.19 |  0:59:04 |
 * DK  |   37 |   16.15 |  0:26:21 |   12 |   20.01 |  1:40:05 |   49 |   36.16 |  0:44:24 |
 * F   |   12 |    5.46 |  0:28:50 |   24 |   74.37 |  3:06:32 |   36 |   80.23 |  2:13:58 |
 * GB  |  471 |  210.17 |  0:26:47 |  138 |  242.24 |  1:45:23 |  609 |  452.41 |  0:44:36 |
 * GR  |   20 |   10.41 |  0:32:03 |   21 |   48.20 |  2:18:06 |   41 |   59.01 |  1:26:22 |
 * I   |   46 |   27.54 |  0:36:23 |   27 |   48.36 |  1:48:00 |   73 |   76.30 |  1:02:53 |
 * L   |   10 |    3.46 |  0:22:36 |    4 |    6.34 |  1:38:30 |   14 |   10.20 |  0:44:17 |
 * LT  |   57 |   24.32 |  0:25:49 |   14 |   25.11 |  1:47:56 |   71 |   49.43 |  0:42:01 |
 * N   |    8 |    4.03 |  0:30:22 |    9 |   18.42 |  2:04:40 |   17 |   22.45 |  1:20:18 |
 * NL  |  146 |   58.40 |  0:24:07 |   37 |   69.19 |  1:52:24 |  183 |  127.59 |  0:41:58 |
 * PL  |   57 |   26.16 |  0:27:39 |   34 |   72.11 |  2:07:23 |   91 |   98.27 |  1:04:55 |
 * S   |   55 |   28.40 |  0:31:16 |   32 |   72.20 |  2:15:38 |   87 |  101.00 |  1:09:39 |
 * SF  |   13 |    5.36 |  0:25:51 |    2 |    3.44 |  1:52:00 |   15 |    9.20 |  0:37:20 |
 * TR  |   22 |    8.48 |  0:24:00 |   11 |   21.38 |  1:58:00 |   33 |   30.26 |  0:55:20 |
 * YU  |    7 |    3.49 |  0:32:43 |   16 |   48.29 |  3:01:49 |   23 |   52.18 |  2:16:26 | Old pre-breakup YU!

Or the average length of the ride - again I've cut out all countries with less than 10 rides:

+--+--++ +--+--++ +--+--++
 * Cnty |   # |  Avg L |
 * A   |   18 |   75.8 |
 * B   |  144 |   47.9 |
 * D   |  419 |  150.9 |
 * DK  |   57 |   49.8 |
 * F   |   17 |   43.8 |
 * GB  |  706 |   86.7 |
 * GR  |   63 |  117.4 |
 * I   |   81 |  137.6 |
 * J   |   16 |   29.7 |
 * L   |   12 |   17.4 |
 * LT  |   85 |   52.4 |
 * N   |   23 |  110.2 |
 * NL  |  182 |   36.5 |
 * PL  |   80 |  125.4 |
 * S   |  108 |   87.4 |
 * SF  |   19 |   69.0 |
 * TR  |   41 |   98.2 |
 * YU  |   25 |  233.2 | Old pre-breakup YU!


 * Standard deviation would be interesting as well.
 * The reachability and quality of hitchhiking spots also counts I think. On top of the people, the roads in the North of Italy are pretty bad for hitchhiking as well.
 * Looking at these stats, I notice two interesting things: L is actually pretty bad for hitchhiking, except for the gas stations on the highway.  I personally find F a great country to hitchhike, so I find it odd that it has the highest average waiting times after YU... guaka 13:09, 22 September 2010 (CEST)
 * It makes a difference if you are not alone as hitchhiker, those lifts should be removed too i think. are they? --13:25, 22 September 2010 (CEST)
 * I think waiting time is more important than length of lifts - at least that is my personal perception. I am more happy about short waiting times than about long lifts in general. I also find France a rather hard country to hitchhike. --MrTweek 16:30, 22 September 2010 (CEST)
 * This makes me think the languages spoken by the hitchhiker should also be taken into account... At least for locations where this matters, such as gas stations. guaka 18:59, 22 September 2010 (CEST)


 * Re: Standard deviation: That's available in the "Totals per country" pages of the output of my stats programs, but far too big to post here, unless I cut out some selected countries. Germany is below, feel free to ask for others.

+---+--+-+--++--+-+--+ +---+--+-+--++--+-+--+ +---+--+-+--++--+-+--+ +---+--+-+--++--+-+--+ +---+--+-+--++--+-+--+
 * Wait |    # |    Time |       W= |      % |   #C |   CTime |       W= | Second half of the table are the cumulative values.
 * - W= |  268 |  134.48 |  0:30:11 |  62.18 |      |         |          | 268 waits up to the average, average of those
 * - 1SD | 106 |  142.07 |  1:20:27 |  24.59 |  374 |  276.55 |  0:44:26 | 106 between average and average + one standard deviation, average of those
 * - 2SD |  41 |   88.19 |  2:09:15 |   9.51 |  415 |  365.14 |  0:52:48 | etc
 * - 3SD |   8 |   24.03 |  3:00:22 |   1.86 |  423 |  389.17 |  0:55:13 | etc
 * 3SD + |   8 |   35.02 |  4:22:45 |   1.86 |  431 |  424.19 |  0:59:04 | etc
 * Total | 431 |  424.19 |  0:59:04 |        |      | SDev    |  0:49:47 |
 * Re: France: The only time I zipped through F was in June 2008, in the company of an attractive young lady who had never hitchhiked before, we did Porto-Luxembourg in 53:08
 * Re: Being alone or not: It might make a difference. I've had 2386 rides, my guess is that I was hitching alone for somewhere around 99% of them, so I do not think they have a great influence on the overal stats.
 * Re: Language: That helps, and it probably does have a measurable effect, but I speak Austrian (aka German) and my waiting times in A are well above average, whereas I don't speak Lithuanian, but my waiting times in LT are well below the average! Prino 00:24, 23 September 2010 (CEST)
 * Wow to the effort everybody puts in this project! I personally doubt we can actually measure hitchability mathematically, because there is a lot of things playing into it that can't really be measured or fluctuate. Also, how would we find the "right" formula? Things that are important to consider, IMO: waiting times (combined with a car per minute count!), length of rides, readiness of people to pick up hitchhikers, number of cars that can actually pick up a hitchhiker compared to the population, languages people speak (as opposed to languages a hitcher speaks, because we have to calculate from a common denominator which would probably be close to a person that only speaks English), laws and how cops and also people in general react not only to hitchhikers as such but also to "alternative people" like hippies etc., if you have to pay for lifts and how much, etc., etc. Maybe we should do a thing like what they used to do on digihitch and split "hitchability" up into several fields such as a) waiting time b) length of rides c) friendliness... although I think in the end, it's a very subjective thing (because, except of Prino, I don't think anybody has stats that are close enough to an empirical study), so what I would propose is simply that every user should have the possibility to enter their subjective opinion (on the current scale from 1 to 5) once (with the future option of up- or downgrading it). Oh, and France rules :-)--Zenit 19:02, 24 September 2010 (CEST)

Ey, is there nobody interested in this anymore?--Zenit 19:06, 23 October 2010 (CEST)

hello there!
just stumbled upon your website, and as an avid hitchiker myself, i think it's a marvelous idea! i would be more than happy to contribute my time to translate a hebrew wiki, so if you would like to, contact me at dizinteria@walla.com


 * שלם, MrTweek will probably set it up this week :)  ואני רוצא לילמיד יברית guaka 13:33, 25 October 2010 (CEST)

Managing News
I've set up a managing news installation for Hitchwiki. It's pulling in recent changes from Hitchwikis in different languages. The main point was to keep an eye on inactive languages. But it could do much more... I can add more feeds to it as well. It could also replace our planet. It's very easy to add more feeds. And it gives out KML feeds :) guaka 20:52, 28 October 2010 (CEST)

Serbo-Croatian Hitchwiki
Not at all sure if I'm doing this right, I already posted something along these lines in the Community Talk, but I did not recieve a reply, and since I am horribly inept at any sort of wiki-editing (this will change), I have decided to try it once again, like this. (What I already posted once)

"Along these slavic-speaking lines: I am fluent in croatian, and offer to start translating from english to croatian anytime. I also speak swedish fluently, and would do the same, but going by personal experience here, most swedes have a pretty decent understanding of english so I don't know how urgent a wiki like that would be. (Username here: Vrana) "

Cheers


 * Are there any other people around who speak Serbo-Croation? I might be able to help out a little bit, but not too much.  guaka 13:31, 14 November 2010 (CET)
 * Yeah, sounds great. Do you have any kind of messenger, where I can contact you? ICQ, MSN or Google Talk would be great. Otherwise, e-mail would be ok as well. --MrTweek 10:46, 15 November 2010 (CET)
 * Don't know if there are a lot of Serbo-Croatian speakers around, but I can think of at least one or two anonymous users.
 * No messeger. I could get one though. Email is all I have a the moment.--Vrana 14:13, 15 November 2010 (CET)

Wikilinks between Hitchwiki and Trashwiki
We already kinda have a tradition on Trashwiki to add a wikilink to Hitchwiki when a new location article is created on Trashwiki (even if there is no brother-article on Hitchwiki yet). I would like to ask you, maybe you guys can do the same, too? That would save some time fishing out the articles for wikilinking afterwards. Right now almost all location articles on Trashwiki link to brother-Hitchwiki pages, but very rarely there is a link back to Trashwiki. (I understand that Hitchwiki is 3 times bigger and therefore there are more chances that a wikilink on Hitchwiki would link to an empty page, but the wikis grow every day after all...) --Sigurdas 00:14, 17 January 2011 (CET)
 * Done. I wrote a script that has set interwiki links to all existing Trashwiki-articles :) --MrTweek 14:06, 17 January 2011 (CET)


 * Awesome!
 * Would be good to log the bot in as Lanigiro, now there are tons of edits from an IP... guaka 15:24, 17 January 2011 (CET)
 * Yeah, I tried, but for some reason it doesn't work. I am using wikipediafs and some quickly hacked shell scripts for that. --MrTweek 15:26, 17 January 2011 (CET)

Why is inclusion of links to Trashwiki articles now broken? They appear at the end of the page instead of in the sitebar like they did a few weeks ago. CRCulver 19:45, 4 March 2011 (CET)


 * Because of a MediaWiki upgrade... Some stuff does not easily go into MW's LocalSettings.php and has to be manually added to languages/Names.php after every upgrade. Easily forgotten of course.  I'm fixing it now. Would be better to find a more durable fix of course... guaka 22:48, 4 March 2011 (CET)

Spammers, everywhere
Looks like we are kind of under attack by spambots. There were 17 until now, they solved the capture and created pages with job search links and similar stuff. I am not sure wether someone's doing this manually or if someone managed to crack the captcha. We are using the very popular recaptcha, which makes it more likely that it is targeted by crackers, but also more likely that they will fix it very soon. They come from completely different IPs and subnets, so no chance to ban them that way. What I did so far:
 * added rel=nofollow to all external links. This means that google & co ignore external links, which basically makes the spammers work worthless. I don't know if they realize that, though.
 * Disabled Account Registration. I'll turn it on again tonight. We might be lucky and scare them away with this, but of course this is not a permanent solution.

Any other ideas, what we could do?

--MrTweek 14:06, 27 January 2011 (CET)
 * Update: I just checked the logs. They even use different IPs for each page access, so it's almost definitely a well distributed botnet. --MrTweek 14:19, 27 January 2011 (CET)

CloudFlare

 * I've set up CloudFlare on cultwiki and casarobino 2 days ago, no spammers have been on there since. It also seems to make sites slightly faster and it's completely free.  If I'm still happy with it in a week or so we should consider setting it up here as well.   guaka 17:59, 16 December 2011 (CET)

Password reset for blog not working
Besides the fact that I have big trouble with a mixed case username of the blog and a lowercase one for hitchwiki, the password reset for blogs gives me an "Sorry, that key does not appear to be valid." message when I click on the link in the email that I get when I ask for a new password. What am I doing wrong? Help!!!!!!

$wgMaxCredits broken
$wgMaxCredits = - 1 but it doesn't work: every page has "Based on work by different users of the hitchwiki community." now :/ guaka 00:39, 21 April 2011 (CEST)

Cannot login in Community
I've tried to log in "Community" with my hitchwiki.org account and I'm getting : ERROR: Invalid username. Lost your password?

--Bikepunk 15:32, 15 May 2011 (CEST)
 * The problem remain. --Bikepunk 12:05, 4 June 2011 (CEST)

Discussion directly on Hitchwiki:Community Portal?
I guess it could be clearer to have discussions not on this talk page but directly on Hitchwiki:Community Portal? Then it's only click away from any other page. Often it seems that it's not clear to people they can use this so they go to user talk pages instead. Which works as well, but I think some people might just leave it with that and not write down what's on their mind - plus it's easier to just "watch" one page to stay updated. I propose to have at least 4 discussions directly on the portal, and move the finished discussions to archived pages. Whaddayathink? guaka 15:54, 28 May 2011 (CEST)
 * ACK: Also I'd propose to merge the main page talk into it by archiving and re-directing, as it seems to be kind of "general" talk as well.--Zenit 20:52, 28 May 2011 (CEST)
 * I do agree Bikepunk 00:23, 30 May 2011 (CEST)
 * Cool if no one thinks this is a bad idea we can do this in the next week or so... guaka 14:19, 3 June 2011 (CEST)

Why do you hitchhike?
This one can use some more additions :) guaka 14:19, 3 June 2011 (CEST)

Merged article on crossing from UK to continental Europe
I think we need an article which would serve as joined source of information on how to cross UK<->Europe, including all the different options: Channel Tunnel/Ferry, Folkestorne/Dover, Calais, etc, because now everything is spread over at least 4 articles. --Ignas
 * Yup, I absolutely agree and you are very welcome to do so ;). I'd propose create a new article called English Channel (same name as on wikipedia), collect all the information there and link/redirect the old articles. Let us know, if you need any help with this. --MrTweek 22:19, 6 June 2011 (CEST)
 * K, I will try to do that at some point later .) --Ignas 16:29, 12 June 2011 (CEST)

Cheap and safe travel from Europe to India and New Zealand
Hi, Could anybody recommend cheap and safe travel from Europe to India and New Zealand? I never been outside of Europe. Country like Iran, Iraq seems to be very risky. Is there any good path to follow to get to India from central Europe? After some time in India I would like to travel to New Zealand, any flights seems to be very expensive. Any good option for that travel maybe?

Thanks in advance! :)

"Hitchability"
Hey, everybody,

please check out what I wrote about the current system of hitachbility ratings here. I'm not very happy, and I don't think a new system would be very hard to implement and to make public. Thanks for your attention :-)--Zenit 22:51, 31 August 2011 (CEST)

Top menu bug
I don't know where to write it... so probably here...

Top menu (left part) doesn't work properly, only bottom side of the links works. Tested in Chrome and older Firefox. --Kundrt 11:40, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * It's been bothering me for a while now. Thanks for getting me onto this again. I kinda had to move the "personal" links on the top but at least the links on the left are working properly now. Check the changes - and feel free to comment or suggest other improvements. guaka 00:31, 29 October 2011 (CEST)
 * (You may have to refresh the page to see the change. Ctrl-R does that on many browsers.) guaka 00:35, 29 October 2011 (CEST)
 * I was playing with styles in Chrome now. Try to change absolute position #p-personal from left: 0; to right: 0; and set also #p-personal width to 50-60%. And delete your last changes - width+margin in /* making sure hitchwiki links in top left aren't masked */. In Chrome it works (that left part is on the left and not masked, and right part on the right. I can't test it in other browsers now. -Kundrt 16:49, 29 October 2011 (CEST)


 * This didn't do it for me though, also in Chrome:

width: 50%; right: 0; position: absolute; } So I tried to change that - watch (ctrl+r) and please check it in other browsers I have to go for a beer, already late... -Kundrt 20:03, 29 October 2011 (CEST)
 * 1) p-personal {
 * I just made you sysop so you can edit MediaWiki:Monobook.css yourself as well, please fill in your userpage and don't abuse your newly found powers ;) guaka 19:24, 29 October 2011 (CEST)
 * Thanks for trust. I'm making my profile slowly :) And why it doesn't work, it's caused by left: 0; in main.css. When you write later right: 0; it doesn't cause switching-of of left: 0; So finally I've found how to do that -> left: auto;
 * Thanks, it also works in FF and Konqueror. That (+Chrome) covers way more than half of Hitchwiki's visitors :D guaka 20:13, 29 October 2011 (CEST)

Liquid threads
Would this be a good thing to install? -- 15:51, 28 November 2011 (CET)
 * Why do you think we need this? I didn't see anyone complaining about our discussion structures. But if many people want it, I'll be happy to install it --MrTweek 13:02, 4 December 2011 (CET)

See Rationale -- 12:07, 7 December 2011 (CET)


 * I think it could be a good extension to have, as it would be easier for more people to take part in discussions or even just to ask questions. (And it won't be needed to suggest ~ signing to newbies anymore :) guaka 00:10, 8 December 2011 (CET)

hitchhiking website in the news
hey, i wonder what is the connection between that ridesharing website and hitchhiking, except for the name? i'm not sure if to handle that as spam/advertisement or relevant to the purpose of hitchwiki. --Platschi 18:34, 3 December 2011 (CET)
 * Ride-sharing is not hitchhiking. I would consider it link-spam and if I were in charge it would be gone by now... Prino 20:23, 3 December 2011 (CET)
 * Yes, I guess we all agree that this is not hitchhiking. I think the only place for such pages should be Rideshare and maybe personal pages, but this definitely does not belong into the news. Also, they claim that it's free but in fact, the one who offers the lifts choses the price, so this is not even anything special amongst all the other ridesharing websites. --MrTweek 13:00, 4 December 2011 (CET)


 * All right, thanks for deletion. Prino, you didn't get deletion rights yet? --Platschi 21:15, 7 December 2011 (CET)

Where to sleep while on the road
Hello. I want to propose a new section/page for information about where/how sleep while hitchhiking.

It started by this thread in the CS groups (you might need to be login). There there's a lot of common information, thinks that most of us do and new tips that only came from experience. I wrote there:


 * I see recommendations divided into wiki pages, like "Train Station", "Beach", ... And a more general one with some of the community knowledge found here. We could also make a page for each place and put detailed information of the places we slept.

What do you think ? Juan Manuel 13:16, 6 May 2012 (CEST)


 * Sure, feel free to just create a page about sleeping. We are not that bureaucratic, you can basically do what you want here, as long as it's not complete nonsense and somehow related to hitchhiking. We already have information about sleeping in many city articles, but a generic one sounds good to me. ;) --MrTweek 16:05, 6 May 2012 (CEST)

IP address blocked - give admin rights as workaround?
ı have many contrıbutıons to make to thıs websıte but everytıme ı try ı get blocked. please help me!

my name ıs seankng123

...

but now ıts workıng! never mınd, but ım stıll confused


 * Hi Sean. We've had many spammers on this site - and we try to block these. This also includes the IP addresses that were used by the spambots. And you might be using such an IP address.  Marc had the same problem and we resolved it by making him admin here...  I think this could be a way to do it.
 * I'm fine with giving admin rights on Hitchwiki to any hitchhiker who's willing to make good contributions here. The only soft condition would be for people to have a real user page (ideally with a link to another network and/or full name). There are enough active folks to check if admin rights aren't abuse in any way. What do other people think? --guaka 13:28, 23 May 2012 (CEST)