An Idea, the/our NFS travel guide?

[Ben]

An idea occured to me today on the plane on the way back to the Uk for a few days (I always feel inspired on planes!) - I thought of asking everyone that reads the blog and contributes to the forum to suggest their favourite places in and things about Spain - the idea would then to make a big list that could be downloaded as a pdf for all of us and visitors to the site to use/keep for free.

What do you think? I know this may open up the Spain wiki debate again, but I still feel wary of wikis - so much work to administer and keep spammers away from - but we could start by putting all our ideas into an NFS favourites pdf/web page, what do you think? It could include recommendations on beaches, towns, hotels, food and so on and could grow over time (again, this suggests a communal wiki...) Thoughts very welcome!

Ben

[djS]

pdf file not bad but how would you add to them ?

jurdy

[saiguanas]

I think that is an awesome idea!

I think for it to be easily usable it may be a good idea to seperate by regions and cities and then maybe have an overall Spain section.

Would you be able to police something like that? To keep Barcelona tips out of the Sevilla category?

I think it would be great if afficionados on particular cities or subjects would give their "back doors". You know, the tours that no one knows exists, the bars and restaurants that don't make the big time guides. Wine guys could give a rundown of different wineries around the country. Shoppers could give those shops that are just around the corner from where all of the tourists stop.

Maybe cover "this is how things are set up and are supposed to work and this is how they actually work." Like "Understanding Gloriettas for Americans."

I don't know how much time you actually have but I just got really excited when I read your post.

[outpostbabu]

I agree its a good idea. Even better would be to make it searchable so that users could generate a custom list (for example, "the best restaurants in Sevilla" or "cities with gothic cathedrals") and then save that (as PDF or whatever). I don't know that anyone here uses google earth or google maps, but you could even produce the list as KML so that people could visit all the sites virtually. This could lead to custom travel itenaries, with directions to each place, in the future... though the info would have to be quite accurate for this. Anyway, just to further the idea...

[deecree]

What do you think? I know this may open up the Spain wiki debate again, but I still feel wary of wikis - so much work to administer and keep spammers away from - but we could start by putting all our ideas into an NFS favourites pdf/web page, what do you think? It could include recommendations on beaches, towns, hotels, food and so on and could grow over time (again, this suggests a communal wiki...) Thoughts very welcome!

Ben

Ben, if you abandon the quasi-hippie ideal of making a wiki completely open and editable by all, the idea becomes easily implementable, easily maintainable and vastly more useful/dynamic/up-to-date than any PDF or FAQ file could ever be.

If the wiki-contributors were to authorised/added/given permissions to add to the the wiki by you, you'd have control over the content and keep a very tight lid on the spammers. This is not in any way restrictive, I don't think, as there are dozens of people here who'd have a little or a lot to contribute who you could invite to and give an administrative account to. New contributors would be lifted from the forum - if they register and contribute here then they'd be the ones who'd contribute anyway. The chances of random people arriving from the wild web and contributing anything useful is next to nil. Joining the forum and becoming part of the community first is the way it would happen anyway.

I think such an idea would be your next big thing. You'd have your own World66 (http://www.world66.com/) for Spain.

[eldeano]

It seems to my little brain that you're making a lot of extra work for yourself when all (or most) of your answers are already somewhere in the forum (or could soon be added). A downloadable pdf would need to be updated and, as saiguanas said, some would want 'customised' files - for areas, cities etc.

Would it not be easier to have a single 'index' page that provides the links to any relevant threads/posts? Visitors to this site could then select the elements of the posts that fit their need and, for example, cut and paste into their own documents.

OK - blow it out of the water. :rolleyes:

[Ben]

You are right, creating extra work for myself is not an option at the moment as frequent trips to the UK to see an ill mum mean we are stretched to the limits time wise and may be for some time to come - I just think it would be nice to pool all our favourite Spain tips somehow... a wiki will mean work and I don't think the interface is all that accessible to all, the mark up is pretty tricky... hmmm... what I envisage in the end is an NFS guidebook written by all of us for all of us, the question is, how to manage it?

[richardksa]

FNAC and a few other bookshops in Madrid (and probably other capital cities throughout Europe) are selling a book called "A guidebook you write Yourself". A sneak peek may reveal how they arrange the data for the owner to fill in. In organising my writing of the various places I have visited I just shove each file of facts, figures and rough draft in directories named after each place. It's a bit like having a wiki discussion with myself, until the final piece is written.

[eldeano]

It's a bit like having a wiki discussion with myself,

The mind boggles.:)

[outpostbabu]

There are plenty of wiki packages out there such that you shouldn't have to do much of the implementation yourself. The problem with most of them is they do the one or two things you need and a zillion other things you don't. I don't know how you've got the backend of the site running, but the pdf idea would be easy enough to maintain without a wiki, if it were generated from a database rather than maintained by hand. All you'd have to manage is the input to that database. Another avenue may be some of the "Web 2.0" services that are popular right now, though none for this specific purpose come immediately to mind.

[Ben]

OK, I've had an idea of how to have a good first shot at this. At the moment I think the wiki thing is still too much hard work and that it would be good to do something that we can do within the current NFS framework that involves all of us. So this is what I have come up with:

Let's try and put together a series of our favourite things about Spain under the title "500 things to do in Spain before you die" ... I know the 'things to do before you die' idea has been done a million times but I think it is a great title for pooling our absolute favourite things about Spain!

So, I will write a post on the blog and a new thread here inviting people to submit their suggestions (via the forum, email and blog comments). We can split the topics into region, e.g. Catalonia, Andalusia (e.g. sit on the giant dunes at wild Bolonia beach and gaze across the straits of Gibraltar to Morocco), and cities if necessary and topic areas such as Transport (e.g. Take the AVE from Madrid to Cordoba to see the endless olive covered mountains on the way) and food.

I can ask other Spain bloggers and site owners to contribute their ideas and help promote the idea. I can put one or two of our ideas a week on the blog. But best of all, I can put the final list as a static webpage for all of us to browse, AND, put the whole lot into a book that can be bought by people as a real book or pdf download from lulu.com with all monies going to a charity of our (meaning you lot and us) choice. Finally, we can make the whole thing a competition, with the best 'thing to do in Spain before you die' entry at the end of the competition month winning an iPod shuffle with a cd of Spanish music to put on it (both provided by me and Marina).

What do you think? Who's up for it!!? Can we make 500 in a month? I'm really excited about this, if just one of you agrees I'll put it into motion today or tomorrow and we can all start adding our 'things to do in Spain before you die'! We can get back to the wiki idea in the future, but I think this is a nicely rounded, compact and achievable thing we can all go for now as a starter.

[eldeano]

Who's up for it!!? Can we make 500 in a month? I'm really excited about this, if just one of you agrees I'll put it into motion today or tomorrow and

You can count me in. ;)

[Marina]

... and me!

[Ben]

Ok great. I'll set the ball rolling mañana :)

[Ben]

Here we go, let's get cracking!! Send in your entries!! (http://www.notesfromspain.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2085)