Sex and drug tourism—Wikivoyage's soft underbelly?
- Wikivoyage on Tijuana, Mexico: "The primary purpose of most visits to the Zona Norte involves prostitution. ... The usual rate is 200 Mexican pesos (sometimes 150 pesos, especially for locals) for a 20-minute session, with rooms costing 40-70 Mexican pesos. ... [The Hong Kong bar's] major attraction (besides the ladies themselves) is that they regularly have shows where two ladies perform lesbian acts while covered in shaving cream. Occasionally there will also be a show where a male audience member is brought onto the stage where two ladies perform sex acts on him."
- Wikivoyage on Vietnam: "prostitution is abundant in Vietnam, ... Many massage parlours and other businesses provide sex services at very low rates".
- Wikivoyage on Cambodia: "Heroin is very high grade in SE Asia and foreigners requesting cocaine are sometimes provided with it instead. ... enforcement tends to be on the lax side and many guesthouses are permanently shrouded in purple haze ... Marijuana in Cambodia is also often of much higher quality than elsewhere in SE Asia and sold for extremely low prices. While not overtly advertised, a quick ask at most bars, restaurants, or guest houses can generally get you what you need with little hassle."
- Wikivoyage on the Netherlands: "alcohol and weed can be a very nice and trippy experience, especially for people who don't feel enough from just smoking weed."
- Wikivoyage on Amsterdam: "Regardless of the strength, your first experience [with cannabis] can be quite a sensation at first, but will quickly decrease in intensity. You may want to plan to return to your hotel and "hole up" for a couple hours until you become comfortable with the feeling. ... The first time you try [magic mushrooms] should always be in a familiar and trusted environment, not on the streets of an unfamiliar city. Never take more than one packet of mushrooms—usually half is good for your first time."
The Signpost has frequently covered the Wikimedia Foundation's newest sister project, Wikivoyage. Among the coverage have been reports on the complicated and expensive migration of the site from the commercialised WikiTravel.org site and the non-profit German site that forked from it, which has given its name to the new WMF project. We have brought to you reports on the legal action taken by the corporate owners of WikiTravel.org, Internet Brands, against two editors (also covered in the mainstream press), and the Foundation's legal "victory" in the matter. Wikivoyage now has 15 language sites, although all but the English and German versions are small and only marginally active.
In January we raised several potentially troublesome issues for the Wikimedia movement in taking on Wikivoyage, including the apparent inadequacy of the English Wikivoyage sex-tourism policy, hurriedly strengthened against mention of child sex after our inquiries. However, both sex-tourism and illegal-activities policies remain equivocal about how the site should treat entries about sex tourism more generally, and drugs that are classed as illicit in almost every country. The Signpost has found it remarkably easy to locate material in Wikivoyage that violates both the spirit and the letter of these policies.