User accounts upgrade and awards

We've just updated user accounts and profiles, adding a lot of new features.

First of all, we are introducing new user levels system, based on the experience scores calculated from user actions. It now counts 8 levels and is visible on your profile pages. The higher your user level is, the less your activities on the map are limited in time and quantity.

Next are the awards.


There are sets of awards now for your work of adding and editing objects, drawing linear features and uploading photos. Each award comes in three grades, according to the score the user had achieved in a specific action. The full list of awards with details you can find on one of our here. These awards are given automatically by the system. The special roles given by administration, such as Advanced User, are now also visible on the owner's profile. From now on the history of receiving and withdrawing of this roles will be available on the its details pages.

To present these new features we gave user profile pages a new look, where all user details are now logically and more conveniently sectioned in tabs. You can also mention in the user statistics tab, that the lengths of linear features added by user are now divided into the existing features types.

Wikimapia 5th anniversary picnic

We would like to thank all participants of Wikimapia 5th anniversary picnic which took place 4th of June near Troitsk, Russia. We've spent a lovely day outdoors, making barbecue and talking. The users had their chance to ask us about several features, our future plans and development, and we were happy to meet our contributors in real life and know some of their concerns and ideas. You can find the photos from the picnic here. Keep in touch for the next Wikimapia meetup!

Changes in user ranking

Now users who have been banned and users who did not visit Wikimapia for more than 3 months do not participate in the ranking.

New ban (limitation) system

We are opening a new ban system, the old one was inflexible and was lacking in functionality and was not aimed to educate users.

What’s new:

• 3 types of limitation: full ban, limitation to edit map, limitation to send messages and write
  in the forum
• Different ban length: 6 hours, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, permanent ban
• Single Advanced User may apply a ban
• Detailed information about every ban is stored in history and available for viewing
• User receives information message with the details of his ban/unban.
• Only advanced users can see who initiated the ban.

All information about the new banning system can be found at banning guidelines. We will monitor the use of new banning system closely. If necessary, we will update the banning system and guidelines.

The idea of "describing the whole world" has spread throughout the Internet and has found millions of admirers. We thank our users, registered or not, who have been so great at adding unique information about different places on Earth and sharing it with other people.

In order to celebrate reaching this important milestone, Wikimapia has become fully open by offering all of its data under the Non-Commercial Creative Commons license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ ). All data is available through the Wikimapia API.

We are grateful to have all of you with us and we look forward to the benefits of bringing free knowledge to all mankind. Every new user and every new added place brings Wikimapia closer to its goal.

Let's describe the whole world!

From your Wikimapia team.