About
From TSMWIKI
What is Concharto?
Concharto is an online encyclopedic atlas of history and happenings that anyone can edit. It is a geographic wiki. It looks like Google Maps and works like Wikipedia. It has the all of the illustrative power Google Maps and all of the strengths and weaknesses of Wikipedia.
Concharto gives you simple and elegant answers to hard questions like "What interesting things happened near where I am driving? What happened near our hotel in Paris? What is happening near my town and surrounding areas? What was New York City like from 1858 to 1869?"
How does Concharto work?
Concharto is a Geographic Wiki. Unlike virtually all other mapping sites on the internet today, Concharto is not about places - it is about events. Unlike Wikipedia, it is about small discrete bits of information, rather than comprehensive articles. Like Wikipedia, there is a complete history of changes to events. Anyone can add or edit information.
How can I help?
Share your knowledge!
- Add some events to the map. Make the world a smarter place.
- Edit and make corrections. Be bold - improve the map.
Some guidelines
Wikipedia has shown how to harness the energy and intelligence of large groups of people in order to improve human knowledge. Because the aim of Concharto is similar, we don't have to re-invent all of the innovations of Wikipedia. Instead, we emulate them and follow their policies and guidelines where possible. The most important of the Guidelines are:
Creative Commons Licensed
Concharto licenses all content under this Creative Commons License. This license allows the content to be used freely by any organization or person for any non-commercial purpose.
Concharto will always be free
Concharto is free to anyone in the world. All content is available to anyone under this Creative Commons License.
What software does Concharto use?
Concharto uses specially a designed geographic wiki created for this purpose. Most of the software is written in java and uses Google's mapping software, among other things. At present the software is not available for reuse, but in the future we will offer community, academic and commercial licenses.
How can I contact Concharto?
We would love to hear your ideas and suggestions for improvement. Use our feedback form to contact us.
Who's project is this?
The software behind Concharto is the work of Frank San Miguel. Frank was one of the original creators of Mapquest and has dreamed of creating something like this since the 1990's. Back then, the idea was implausible and impractical. Since then things have changed such that Concharto is not only practical, but inevitable. Frank has benefited from the generous advice of many individuals including Bill Muenster, Eva Vyas, Daniel Theobald, Alex DeJong, and Rob Lee.
Will there be advertising?
At this stage in the development of Concharto we do not use online advertising. If we ever do have advertising, it will be limited to tasteful, non-obnoxious advertising. No popups, spyware, pop-under ads, etc.
Is this a not-for-profit web site?
Concharto is a for-profit organization that is dedicated to creating a lasting freely available atlas of history and happenings. Its organization is patterned off of other commercial organizations that create a public good without being registered as a Not-for-profit company. Some notable examples include: Firefox, CraigsList, WikiHow, Wikia, Wikitravel.
