WikiVoyage forked to join the Wikimedia family of sites after WT's owner failed to keep its infrastructure up to date (30 seconds to make commit an edit). That the owners of WikiTravel (Internet Brands) literally sued contributors for this was less than helpful to WT's continued existence.

Disclosure: I was potentially an "unnamed co-conspirator" in the lawsuit.

This blog post of mine summarizes some of the key differences: http://gyrovague.com/2013/01/14/free-travel-guide-wikivoyage...

And this is my version of how the split came to be: http://gyrovague.com/2012/07/12/wikitravel-editors-abandon-i...

In hindsight, I phrased my question poorly -- sorry.

My question pertained more to branding. Why the name "WikiVoyage?"

I understand Wiki* namespace lock-in due to the Wikimedia relationship, but it doesn't seem like a great differentiator from WikiTravel. IMHO, I don't think the lay person gets the difference. Though "voyage" is a synonym for travel (and the word for travel in French), it associates closer to sailing and cruises.

That said, I did find your blog entries interesting. Thanks!

Because a) there was an earlier German fork set up under that name, and b) the community could not agree on a better name. Personally, I liked "Wikinomad", but them's the breaks.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikivoyage/Naming_Process