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{{background}}__NOTOC__
'''Hitchwiki''' is a collaborative website for gathering information about [[hitchhiking]] and [[train hopping in the United States|other]] [[boats|ways]] of extremely cheap ways of transport. It was inspired by [http://en.wikipedia.org Wikipedia] and by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]. At Before it had 100 articles, at some point it was left abandoned by its founder, and found and adopted by [[User:Guaka|Guaka]]. As a hitchhiker you're encouraged to read ''and'' write this guide, by adding your knowledge, improving existing articles and starting new ones! Anyone is allowed to edit - you just need to log in.
Hitchwiki is gathering all sorts of relevant information about good hitchhiking spots, knowledge about hitchhiking possibilities in different countries, general know-how about [[what to pack]] and [[when to go]], [[what to eat]], and [[how to stay safe]].
The legal entity behind Hitchwiki is [[abgefahren e.V.]].
== How to contribute ==
If it feels a bit awkward, you can practice in the [[Sandbox]].
There are also some [[Help:Contents|help]] pages for people who are editing a wiki the first time, or check out [[:Category:To do|to do]] and [[:Category:Tech team|tech team]].
== Background ==
The project started 14th of April 2005, even before the name ''Hitchwiki'' existed. However, the person (''Teppo'' from [[Finland]], he was also running a website for the [https://www.facebook.com/groups/liftarit/ Finnish hitchhikers community] at time) who started didn't respond when the wiki was constantly being spammed. Consequently, on December 17th [[User:Guaka|Guaka]] moved the wiki to Wikicities (now [http://www.wikia.com/ Wikia]), a migration that was completed on the 19th of December 2005.
[[User:Guaka|Guaka]] organized the relaunch with a first English version of the wiki. A second and final relaunch was done at ''hitchwiki.org'' (registered on November 22nd 2006) by [[User:MrTweek|MrTweek]] and Guaka - thanks to Wikia's availability of the database dump. In 2007 Spanish, French and German versions were added, in 2008 Russian and Finnish versions and 2009 brought a Bulgarian language version. More and more versions have been added since (see [http://hitchwiki.org/ the front page] for an overview). [[User:Mikael|Mikael]] joined Hitchwiki in 2008 after he had done Finnish version and migrated it to Hitchwiki.org. Mikael wrote new maps system in 2010 and is responsible for the layout, among other things.
In the winter 2013—2014 a group of people led by Mikael, [[User:Remigr|Rémi]] and [[User:Omelnyk|Olexandr]] started a complete rewrite of the wiki and the maps. As of 2019 it's ''almost'' done but we can probably assume it will never be completely done ;) Currently the core team doing the majority of technical tasks is [[User:MrTweek|MrTweek]], consists of [[User:Guaka|Guaka]] and [[User:Mikael|Mikael]]. Many [[Category:Tech team|more people]] have been working on Hitchwiki over the years. There's also a bunch of actives working on mobile apps for Hitchwiki.
Same people are also running [http://nomadwiki.org Nomadwiki] and [http://trashwiki.org Trashwiki.org]. Kasper and Mikael are also co-founders of [https://www.trustroots.org Trustroots.org] (Dec 2014). Both of them worked also on [https://www.bewelcome.org BeWelcome.org] and Kasper on [https://www.couchsurfing.com CouchSurfing.org] in the past.
