Povo is a wiki-based, collaborative guide to cities and neighborhoods, that aggregates collective local information, organizes it, maps it, and makes it available to everyone. Being a wiki, Povo depends on user collaboration to enter information, edit it to keep it current and correct, and interact to create a local community.

Yes. Boston is our first city, chosen because it’s where we’re based. We expect to roll out other cities in the near future.

In these cases just wrap what you are searching for in quotes to help Povo understand that it has to treat your phrase as one word. For example type "post office" instead of post office.

In a word – no. In fact it’s pretty easy. Anyone can do it. You rate an entry by simply clicking on one of the rating stars, from 1 to 5; you can edit or add listing “tags” by clicking on the “tag it” button above the rating stars; and to edit, update or add information or images to a listing, simply click on the “edit” button.

An edit toolbar at the top of the text box gives you an easy way to underline, bold, or italicize text. The “preview” button will show you what the wikitext will look like as content, but your edits won’t be saved and the copy won’t be changed until you click on the “save page” button at the bottom. Formatting problems are easier to see from the “preview” page than from the raw wikitext. You can make changes and preview the page as many times as necessary.

Users have the option of identifying any edit as a "minor edit". Checking the “minor edit” box implies that only superficial differences exist between the current and previous version: spelling corrections, formatting or layout changes, adding links, fixing obvious factual errors, or grammatically rearranging the text without impacting content. By identifying an edit as a “minor edit”, you believe there is no change to the meaning and the edit doesn’t need to be reviewed by anyway else tracking the page. On the other hand, a major edit to content or meaning should be reviewed to confirm that all those interested in the page content are aware of the change. Therefore, any change that affects the meaning of an article is not minor.

Certainly you can!There are two ways to add a business in Povo:

• The first and easiest way is to hover your mouse on the most left tab of your page that describes in which region you are and click "Add Business" on the pop up window that shows up. This is the easiest way because Povo will do all the work for you and will find in which block page your business belongs to.
• The second way needs some basic wiki experience. Click here to see how you can add a listing efficiently.

If only we could fix mistakes in real life as easily as we can in Povo. To return to a previous version of anything, click on the tab "Recent Changes" on the top left. Find the listing for your edit and click on "(History)". The top two entries on this page will be your edit and the previous version. At the end of the previous version listing will be a link to "(revert)". This will call up a page that shows you exactly what you're reverting back to and ask you to confirm the action. Clicking "Yes" will complete the Revert. Clicking "No" will abort it.

That's the information we're looking to our users to provide. If you have a great short description about a business, click on the "Edit" button to the right of the listing and add what you know. You can even add photos. And if you really have a lot to say, create a separate listing page. For ideas of things you can add to your listing, take a look at this example. To create a separate listing page, simply type "boston.povo.com/AnotherBusiness" into the address bar of your web browser. This will call up a page that looks like this:
Click the "Start a new AnotherBusiness article" link and it will open up an editing page to enter your information.

Use information, fun facts, opinions, preferences, and insights. Do you have the scoop on which neighborhood pharmacy delivers, which hot new restaurant is overpriced, which farmers market has the freshest produce? Let us know. Just remember, Povo is a public place that welcomes the whole community, so please don’t use language or images that aren’t appropriate for everyone. For further information see the Etiquette section.

Easy. Go to the listing you want to review and click on "write review".

When you edit a listing, it's usually to contribute some sort of factual information about the business that others might find helpful. In addition, you can add a quick overview of your experience, taking into account what others may have already written. Clicking "write review" gives you a page to write as full and lengthy a review as you like, which no one else can edit, that is your personal space. When a user clicks "read reviews" next to a listing, your review will be shown in the list of reviews along with any others that have been written.

You bet! Check out our handy cheatsheet.

This is a fairly common problem for people that are not familiar with the editing practices of Wikipedia. The answer is simple. For each paragraph of text that starts there can be no spaces before the first word. In other words, do not indent any paragraphs!

Let's say you want to create a page with all your favorite restaurants. You can just type {{Main:Boston:Appleton Street (1-10)#28 Degrees}} and this will go and get the content of the section 28 Degrees from the block page Appleton Street (1-10) in Boston.

A "Zine" is a set of Wiki pages that can be edited by a group of people. Typically, Zines are viewable by everyone, but you can also create Private Zines that are only viewable by members of the group. Zines have talk pages, like all other pages on Povo, and those talk pages can be edited by anyone. Zines also have separate image pages, which follow the same rules as the Zine pages.

No, anyone can use and edit listings in Povo whether or not they’re registered or signed in. However, if you’re not registered and signed in you cannot create a personal member page, add a personal review, or rate a listing, and any edits you make will list your IP address, rather than a user name, on the Edit History page.

Yes, you can invite as many people as you want. The more people contributing information, the better Povo becomes. Invite a friend now.

One of the benefits of becoming a Povo member is being able to track edits and updates to pages. When signed in, a “watch” tab will appear at the right top of every page. Click this tab on a page you would like to monitor. Click Preferences at the pop up window that shows up when you hover over the tab with your name at the lest top of the page. Click "Manage Watchlist" to manage your personal watchlist. You can even choose to receive email notification of changes made to the pages you are watching. These can be pages that you have edited or simply pages that hold content you are interested in.

When you are signed in, you will see a tab with your username at the top left of the page. Hover your mouse on the tab and click "Preferences" on the pop up window that shows up. This will take you to your account settings, which you can change at any time.

Your personal information is kept private. We don't share, sell, or give away any information about any of our users. We take privacy seriously.

This is very easy. Just type the following url:"http://www.povo.com/Member:YourMemberName/Shared/YourfriendsMemberName" in the address bar. The content of this page will be automatically created, feel free to edit it. This page is only viewable and editable by you and your friend. Think of this as your scrapbook, your weekend planning page, a list of your favorite streets, or whatever you want. You can put saved searches here, favorite pages, or anything else you put on a standard Wiki Page.