Wikivoyage:Travellers' pub: Difference between revisions

From Wikivoyage
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Content deleted Content added
Line 952: Line 952:
:I have tested this out of [[Sydney/Upper North Shore]] which is currently protected from Brendan. Looks half good, except the link needs to be fixed. <font face="BlinkMacSystemFont">[[User:SHB2000|SHB2000]] <small>([[User talk:SHB2000|talk]] <nowiki>|</nowiki> [[Special:Contributions/SHB2000|contribs]] <nowiki>|</nowiki> [[m:User:SHB2000|meta.wikimedia]])</small></font> 11:10, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
:I have tested this out of [[Sydney/Upper North Shore]] which is currently protected from Brendan. Looks half good, except the link needs to be fixed. <font face="BlinkMacSystemFont">[[User:SHB2000|SHB2000]] <small>([[User talk:SHB2000|talk]] <nowiki>|</nowiki> [[Special:Contributions/SHB2000|contribs]] <nowiki>|</nowiki> [[m:User:SHB2000|meta.wikimedia]])</small></font> 11:10, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
::I feel like it's not worth protecting any article from that guy because it's so easy to just roll back his edits. [[User:Ikan Kekek|Ikan Kekek]] ([[User talk:Ikan Kekek|talk]]) 21:29, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
::I feel like it's not worth protecting any article from that guy because it's so easy to just roll back his edits. [[User:Ikan Kekek|Ikan Kekek]] ([[User talk:Ikan Kekek|talk]]) 21:29, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
:::SHB, would you ''please'' stop importing templates from other wikis? Our goal is the fewest number of templates possible. Also, by using that template, you've inadvertently created categories (the ''actual'' categories, not the visible page – MediaWiki's weird about the structure of cats) that we don't need and didn't want.
:::As an exercise, if it's safe in your area, I suggest that you show a handful of non-editors that page and ask them what they think those blobs up in the corner mean. I bet that none of them will guess correctly. The page is locked for everyone who sees it? (No, most active editors can still edit it.) The page is finalized? (No, it's just as much "in progress" as every other page.) This template basically decorates articles with a icon that is only meaningful to the one-in-a-quarter-million people worldwide who have spent significant time editing the English Wikipedia. This is not helpful. [[User:WhatamIdoing|WhatamIdoing]] ([[User talk:WhatamIdoing|talk]]) 02:19, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Revision as of 02:19, 3 August 2021

Welcome to the Pub

The Travellers' Pub is the place to ask questions when you're confused, lost, afraid, tired, annoyed, thoughtful, or helpful. To start a new topic, click the "Add topic" tab, so that it gets added at the bottom of the page, and sign your post by appending four tildes (~~~~)

Before asking a question or making a comment:

  • Have a look at our Help, FAQ and Policies pages.
  • If you are a new user and you have any questions about using the website, try the Arrivals lounge.
  • If you have a question or suggestion about a particular article, use the article's talk page to keep the discussion associated with that article.
  • If you'd like to draw attention to a comment to get feedback from other Wikivoyagers, try Requests for comment.
  • If you are wanting travel advice on a specific matter see the Tourist Office.
  • If you have an issue you need to bring to the attention of an administrator, try Vandalism in progress.
  • If you are having a problem that you think has to do with the MediaWiki software, please post that on Phabricator instead.
  • If you want to celebrate a significant contribution to Wikivoyage by yourself or others, hold a party at Celebrate a contribution.
  • Discuss issues related to more than one language version of Wikivoyage in the Wikivoyage Lounge on Meta.
  • Anything that is Nigeria-related is now meant to go in the Nigeria café instead. This includes announcements, initiatives and celebrations as well as issues with certain articles.
  • Anything that is Kosovo or Albania related is now meant to go in the Kosovo and Albania café instead. This includes announcements, initiatives and celebrations as well as issues with certain articles.

Pull up a chair and join in the conversation!

Click here to ask a new question

Experienced users: Please sweep the pub

Keeping the pub clean is a group effort. If we have too many conversations on this page, it gets too noisy and hard to read. If you see an old conversation (i.e. a month dormant) that could be moved to a talk page, please do so, and add "{{swept}}" there, to note that it has been swept in from the pub. Try to place it on the discussion page roughly in chronological order.
  • A question regarding a destination article should be swept to the article discussion page.
  • A discussion regarding a policy or the subject of an expedition can be swept to the policy or expedition discussion page.
  • A simple question asked by a user can be swept to that user's talk page, but consider if the documentation needs a quick update to make it clearer for the next user with the same question.
  • A pointer to a discussion going on elsewhere, such as a notice of a star nomination or a request to comment on another talk page, can be removed when it is old. Any discussion that occurred in the pub can be swept to where the main discussion took place.
Any discussions that do not fall into any of these categories, and are not of any special importance for posterity, should be archived to Project:Travellers' pub/Archives and removed from here. If you are not sure where to put a discussion, let it be—better to spend your efforts on those that you do know where to place.

Very large number of photos nominated for deletion

Hi, everyone. Such a large number of images used in some form or other (though not always on the page) on this site have been nominated for deletion on Commons today that I cannot review them all tonight. Please, if any of you are energetic and have the time, look for the recent posts of User:Community Tech bot, check on whether the images in question are visible on the page, and if you think there's a chance they might be good and important enough to be worth possibly uploading them locally under this site's fair-use exception rule, start a discussion on the relevant talk page. Thanks! Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:37, 30 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

For the murals, the nominator hasn't got a clue of copyright in Commonwealth nations. I just checked commons for some of them, and they're still not copyrighted. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 07:59, 30 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for arguing against those nominations, but there are various kinds of issues being brought up in different nominations, so we'll have to look at all of them, but I need to mellow out and get some sleep for now. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:14, 30 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'll check all of them. Sleep well. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 08:33, 30 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the list, if anyone wants to have a look:

See also * c:Commons:Village_pump/Copyright#Philippine_buildings_from_1951–1972_-_anew which may affect a couple of these. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:13, 30 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much! When is FoP scheduled to start applying in the Philippines? This fall, I seem to remember? Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:41, 30 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
i.e. September to November ish. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 02:05, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It would be great if we could stall until then. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:37, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not a Commons expert, but I believe their response will sound like "Make a list and request undeletion when it happens". WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:10, 3 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That would be the response of some of them. There is no uniform practice when it comes to files where standard information (author, source, licence) is deficient or the legal situation is unclear. Many admins hesitate to close a deletion request if there are unclear circumstances, and a date changing the legal situation will certainly get many admins to leave the discussion alone until that date. One admin is of course enough to close it, so making the list makes sense. –LPfi (talk) 07:03, 3 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In all seriousness, we need to locally upload any file that's likely to be deleted that we believe is important enough in illustrating a destination that it merits the use of our exception rule. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:09, 3 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In all seriousness, uploading all of them would be on the safe side, but some aren't really needed. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 01:28, 5 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Was it not clear that I agree with you? What do you think "that we believe is important enough...that it merits the use of our exception rule" means? Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:31, 5 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── A Commons user with nearly 300,000 edits there was replacing an image (presumably for similar reasons to those above), so I’ve invited him/her to participate in this discussion. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 20:06, 5 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

To my surprise, the Canadian mural pics were just deleted "per nom", with the deleter not explaining how their knowledge of Canadian copyright law was superior to those who argued for retention. We'd better upload photos we want quickly. To anyone who hasn't responded to threads on the talk pages of the various articles to questions of whether photos are good or important enough to upload locally, please do so as soon as possible. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:04, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Ikan Kekek: They followed assuming this was an artistic work, not a work of artistic craftsmanship. The section says murals are not works of artistic craftsmanship, which seems natural in most cases. I don't think anyone made a strong argument about these murals being work of artistic craftsmanship (and I haven't seen them), so I cannot criticise the administrator, but one could try an undeletion request if somebody knows Canadian case law or these murals were obviously in that category, perhaps best after having built consensus on changing the section on the Canadian law, with due consensus. Do you have reason to believe hosting the murals was legal? –LPfi (talk) 18:31, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I understand their interpretation of the Canadian law in question, and I will not argue for undeletion. You missed my points, which are: (1) that it is legal for us to host such images if we feel it's important to use them; (2) I was surprised by the deletion per nom because the detailed quotations about Canadian law and an interpretation of it in a court case had not been posted to the thread I was referring to (they were posted later in another thread about Australia, but maybe with similar laws and interpretations), so it was entirely unclear why that photo was actually a problem; and (3) sentiment in the threads in question suggested to me that there was a strong possibility of winning the argument. Similarly, it recently happened that sentiment was 100% against a user who nominated a photo of the Tabriz Bus Terminal for deletion on the invalid basis that since it was relatively small, he thought it was not shot by the uploader. Nevertheless, the photo was deleted - because there is no freedom of panorama in Iran, something that hadn't been mentioned by anyone in the thread. In that case, I was able to appeal to the admin who deleted the file for enough time to download the photo and upload it here, because I had been expecting a win, and he undeleted it for 48 hours, but I think we can't count on that, and we should probably assume that any photo nominated for deletion on any or even no ground might be deleted for a totally unrelated reason. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:58, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Ikan Kekek: I think there are two issues to keep separate. There is a huge backlog because of too few admins compared to the workload, and some do cut corners to cope. Those that do can of course be very effective, and desysoping them will not be done lightly. My impression is that this makes them feel overly confident in their own interpretations. The result is that many files that could be kept are deleted. There are processes in place, such as undeletion requests, and if you know the system (and notice the deletion) you can often save the file. The other thing is about fair use. There is consensus that copying for fair use should be allowed, if needed by temporary undeletion, like you got. It was not just the goodwill of the admin, but the expected process. I think there should be a grace period between closing a DR (VFD) and actually deleting the file, but it should be handled by some program magic to let it happen with only one administrator action. –LPfi (talk) 09:09, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the additional context. Maybe you should suggest on Commons that a bot handle a grace period, if you haven't already done so. I don't think anyone's suggesting desysopping any Commons admin, though. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:39, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Ikan Kekek: If deletion would be handled by a bot, what would need to be a bot with admin power, an idea many would frown upon. I don't know how to solve the problem, and I have not been much involved in proposal processes on Commons, at least any where I felt comfortable with the process. I would suggest desysoping one or two admins over there if I were more familiar with the process and thought I had any chance to get them take the threat seriously (I suppose they would get much support instead). I am not involved enough to take serious action. –LPfi (talk) 06:12, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The idea would be to empower a bot to make the deletion 48 hours after an admin put up a "Delete" decision. The decision to delete would remain the responsibility of an admin. Bots take care of nominations for Quality Image and Featured Picture once those nominations are decided. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:19, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

WikiVoyage map correction

The "go" template below shows the correct position of the new Union Station Bus Terminal on the WikiVoyage map. However, just north of the railway tracks, the WikiVoyage map shows the now closed "GO Union Bus Terminal" and the old and also now closed Union Station Bus Terminal, which both closed in December 2020. (Both were one and the same terminal.) Is there a way to erase these two old terminals from the map, and better still, label only the new location of the Union Station Bus Terminal? Thanks. TheTrolleyPole (talk) 00:43, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • 1 Union Station Bus Terminal (GO bus terminal), 81 Bay St (interior pedestrian connection to Union Station rail & subway services). Union Station Bus Terminal serves GO Transit, Megabus, and TOK Coach buses. Like an airport, there are no predetermined bus platform assignments. Check display monitors for the bus departure zone; 10 minutes before departure, monitors will display the bus departure gate. The bus terminal moved to its new location on December 5, 2020; Maps might still indicate the older, now closed bus location; the new location is south of the railway corridor. Union Station Bus Terminal (Q7886117) on Wikidata Union Station Bus Terminal on Wikipedia
@TheTrolleyPole: If this is an issue with the map itself, it's an issue with OpenStreetMap, the software Wikivoyage uses for its dynamic maps. You can create an account on OpenStreetMap (I have one) and edit similar to wiki-editing here. Once you make a change, wait a few days and you'll see our dynamic maps update automatically. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 00:51, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It sounds like our marker is in the wrong spot. Slightly adjusting the lat/long numbers in the listing template should fix it (to move a marker southwards, you need a slightly smaller latitude number). WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:15, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@WhatamIdoing: The GO Union Bus Terminal, when I last checked, was still present on OSM, so I think s/he's referring to the dynamic map. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 15:20, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
(Union Station Bus Terminal — the road is labeled GO Union Bus Terminal — but according to TheTrolleyPole the two are the same.) --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 15:21, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If you click the red [1] button here, you'll see the map in a pop-up. The marker is north of the railroad tracks on the map, which sounds like it's the wrong spot. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:07, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The red [1] button in the go-template points to south of the railway tracks. TheTrolleyPole (talk) 18:24, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm confused. Is the terminal closed entirely, or is only the northern station closed? The station, according to the marker included within this discussion, is south of the railroad tracks. The station shown to the north of the tracks is a point on the OSM. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 16:19, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@SelfieCity, WhatamIdoing:On December 5, 2020, the Union Station Bus Terminal moved from the north side of the railway tracks to its south side. (See: w:Union Station Bus Terminal) Both Google Maps and NSM still show the old bus terminal (which they shouldn't). Google Maps does show the new bus terminal. I have modified OSM to erase the name of the old bus terminal, and to fix the name of the new terminal. Before I did this, I noticed that the OSM copy of the map was different from the WikiVoyage version. Maybe someone else was trying to update OSM?TheTrolleyPole (talk) 18:20, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed a few hours ago that it was fixed. Thanks! The Wikivoyage map might take a couple days to update. As many sites use OSM you’ll probably see other map based websites update as well. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 19:14, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Major changes to Template:RegionStats

Currently, {{RegionStats}} does not have a row on rural areas. Unlike phrasebooks, or itineraries, rural areas belong to one country, but did not have its own row. Due to that reason, a new template has now been created, called {{RegionStats/WRA}}. Over the next 40 days, I'll try and convert all templates over to the new one, but until then, there may be slight disruption in the templates used.

In a nutshell, I'll be changing all expeditions to the new template, which contains a row for rural areas. In which the current template does not.

Here's just a list on how many expeditions have been converted, in particular, the Nordic countries expedition has had quite a change.


Left to do:

None left. But i may have missed one.

--SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 11:08, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea. This covers many articles missing in several countries' Expeditions. Portugal has no articles classified as rural areas. Given the country's size and 100% coverage by municipalities, I find that city, park, and region articles handle destinations of interest fairly well. I guess other editors have felt likewise. Nelson Ricardo (talk) 17:49, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Rural areas are the newest article type on WV (maybe a year old), so many places don’t have rural area articles yet, or existing articles haven’t been moved to the new status. However, rural articles aren’t appropriate for many regions of the world where cities are the focus of points of interest, and if they don’t suit Portugal’s orientation, that’s okay. However they may be some rural interior valleys that would be suited for rural area articles if the whole of a rural area offers the traveler more than the sum of its parts? --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 19:11, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In the case of Portugal, I expect that some of the islands in the Azores might be rural areas, but I haven't looked in detail. AlasdairW (talk) 22:28, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Even though rural area articles are quite new, there's about 51 of them for Nordic countries (although I have to say, LPfi and Yvwv wrote most of them.) SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 23:47, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Next steps

The next steps here are to check if I've missed any expeditions in the list. Hopefully I haven't missed any. In 37 days time, I will redirect the new template to the old name, and thus, the old one will be no longer in use. If after this date, any expedition is missed, just move all the variables by 6 and are after the "Total Dive". Thanks! SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 02:26, 7 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No reports of any missed expeditions? Because I'm moving the new one to the old one in 16 days. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 22:12, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Confirmed Board Election Candidates

Hi everyone,

The 2021 Board of Trustees election opens 4 August 2021. Candidates from the community were asked to submit their candidacy. After a three week long call for candidates, there are 20 candidates for the 2021 election.

The Wikimedia movement has the opportunity to vote for the selection of community-and-affiliate trustees. The Board is expected to select the four most voted candidates to serve as trustees. Voting closes 17 August 2021.

The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees oversees the Wikimedia Foundation's operations. The Board wants to improve their competences and diversity as a team. They have shared the areas of expertise that they are currently missing and hope to cover with new trustees.

How can you get involved? Learn more about candidates. Organize campaign activities. Vote.

Read the full announcement.

Best,

The Elections Committee

Zuz (WMF) (talk) 16:26, 5 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Summer of Wikivoyage 2021 Kosovo and Albania

The Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group is organizing its annual campaign Summer of Wikivoyage 2021 Kosovo and Albania to improve the content on these countries on Wikivoyage in English, during the month of July.

The campaign will take place 7 July - 1 August and lead to the online/offline editathon to be held on the weekend of 31 July and 1 August.

Here are the Albania and Kosovo expedition pages. We will focus on the mountainous region of northeastern Albania but you may write about any destination.

The editathon online will take place on Jitsi.

You can also edit without joining the call. Please register for tracking the contributions on the campaign page on Outreach Dashboard. --Arianit (talk) 13:11, 7 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, @Arianit. How can we support you and your group? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:20, 7 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Great to see another editathon start! We'll do what we can to help on articles and work with the new users. Looking forward to it. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 17:31, 7 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@SHB2000: maybe it would be a good idea to set up a discussion page such as the one set up for Nigeria? --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 17:33, 7 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Great! Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:21, 7 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yep. Sounds like a good idea to me. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 00:20, 8 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@SelfieCity, Ikan Kekek: Yes Done. See Wikivoyage:Kosovo and Albania café. Took the design off the Nigeria cafe SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 01:15, 8 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Joined. Won't be doing too much content related, but I'll be able to help out the new editors, similar to the Nigeria expedition. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 01:53, 8 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oops, I accidentally joined thinking it was for tracking. Is there a way to unregister? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 01:54, 8 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@SHB2000, SelfieCity: Thank you! No other specific help needed at this time. We look forward to the results! —The preceding comment was added by Arianit (talkcontribs)
No worries. p.s. don't forget to sign your comments with four tildes at the end (like this:~~~~) SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:46, 10 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

How fast are buses?

Have a look at bus travel (or rather its edit history). What should we say about the top speed of buses, if anything? Hobbitschuster (talk) 10:51, 8 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

110. I've told you in my edit summaries that I understand that most buses in Europe go 100, but there's a whole lot of countries outside of Europe. Having done some research, most countries have their rural speed limits around 110, especially some South American ones. I've also gone 110 on buses in Asia as well like Japan on a tour bus (although it was at night and it was speeding). SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:29, 8 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
But if you really insist. Revert me. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:38, 8 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
But also, I changed this:

Almost all buses are designed for top speeds no higher than 110 km/h.

That's not about how fast they go, that's how fast they're built for. A 100km/h bus would be built for 120 minimum, and a 110 would be 130 minimum. If you state that it's designed to go 100, then that is a clear indication that it would go no more than 80. But I've let your way and reverted it, so we don't have another Frankenstein debacle again.
--SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:43, 8 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Why? Why would you build a machine for performance that is not only not required, but often outright outlawed? Hobbitschuster (talk) 11:45, 8 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That's a similar question to why do we build cars up to 260km/h. Most of the time, we don't even go 120 that frequent. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:46, 8 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
German Autobahns have a speed limit of shrug emoji and then there are racetracks. How often are buses found on racetracks? Or any road where they are allowed to exceed highway speeds (German highways have a blanket 100 km/h speed limit for most buses and even 80 km/h for older models) Hobbitschuster (talk) 11:48, 8 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Back when these existed in Australia, buses were able to drive any speed limit. Most often went 130. But they don't exist anymore. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:51, 8 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't want to travel 100km/h in a vehicle designed for 100km/h max speed :-) Sometimes you want to safely overtake, sometimes you get wind in your back or go downhill... 10-20% safety margin is definitely the minimum I'd want, and even with 30% the thing shouldn't start to disintegrate immediately :-) -- andree.sk(talk) 08:14, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In my experience in several countries, the answer to the title question is invariably: "too slow".--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 19:54, 8 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

TT, I believe that "too slow" is the average speed, but there are also moments of "much too fast", e.g., around sharp curves or along the side of a cliff.
This Quora discussion suggests that 100 mph (160 km/h) could be expected. However, this doesn't seem to take into account the speed rating for the tires, which can be as low as 75 mph (120 kmh) on heavier vehicles in the US market. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:17, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If a 100 km/h bus would be built for 120 minimum, and buses designed to go 100 would go no more than 80, then I suppose the issue here is semantics. As extension to what SHB2000 writes, a bus designed for going 80 km/h on highways would be designed to keep that speed also going uphill, also having deteriorated somewhat by time, and not breaking (even over time) if surpassing the speed when going downhill. SBH2000 seems to be talking about design margins and Hobbitschuster about the nominal design top speed. I don't know whether buses in Australia and parts of Asia are intruding on the design margins, whether "all" buses are designed for the Australian speed, or whether buses for the Australian market are constructed differently (does somebody know how to check?). In Finland we did the rounding for metric railway gauge differently than in Russia, but trains go over the border relying on design margins, like micro SIM cards rely on design margins of the original full-size SIMs (the micro SIMs are thinner). We might try to find a wording that takes the design margins into account without emphasizing them. –LPfi (talk) 14:33, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The (top) speed of buses is an interesting piece of trivia, but only that for most travellers. Discussing a top speed in bus travel seems fairly theoretical to me, since the actual travel speed is first of all dictated by traffic. More practical info in that section is perhaps a comparison to other modes of transport (for instance recommending rail travel at rush hours) and moving the Travel speed section towards the end of the article, as done in Tips_for_rail_travel#Speed_of_travel. D'Lemelo (talk) 17:14, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

IP block exemption

This is probably the worst place to ask this, but I'm a little out of luck.

While editing categories for a pagebanner to Plant City I was informed that I was part of a locked IP range. The issue is present on Commons, Wikidata, and Meta Wiki, and I can't even post to my user talk page or email a user. What does one do about this? How do I get an IP range exemption? --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 17:11, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think the best way to do this is to email stewards@wikimedia.org (see the Meta page on global IP block exemptions). If there is a better way someone knows, please let us know. Antandrus (talk) 17:18, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
meta:SRGP or just ask a steward over IRC/Discord. Leaderboard (talk) 18:04, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Leaderboard, I have applied at meta:SRGP. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 18:26, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Users with the status of patroller, admin, template editor and so forth shouldn't ever be subject to IP blocks while logged in. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:38, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Makes sense. I have that status here, of course, and maybe patroller or some equivalent status Wikiversity, since I've been able to edit there since June 26, and I use CropTool to create new files at Commons, but I can't otherwise edit there. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 20:41, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Ikan Kekek: Actually only admins and those with local IPBE (which admins can assign to anyone). See Special:ListGroupRights. Leaderboard (talk) 20:43, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I have this issue where my neighbour's immature teenagers vandalise Wikipedia on all of the surrounding wifi connections available. My other neighbour who was a former WP editor was also affected, but I haven't been bothered to ask since I have retired from WP now. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 01:22, 10 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Now available: A bundle of changes related to adding templates to a page and removing them

Just a quick note that the changes announced in June have just been deployed to your wiki. Our team would love to hear your thoughts on these talk pages: finding and inserting templates & removing a template.

Regarding the template search, I'd like to highlight a feature that already existed before, but might be more visible now with the more powerful search: Template descriptions are shown in the search results, if you add descriptions to your template in TemplateData (example). (By the way, we are also planning to make managing TemplateData easier within the next few months.) -- Best, Johanna Strodt (WMDE) (talk) 12:35, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Adding FOP

Hello. If this suggestion of mine conforms to the policies of this Wikimedia site, can anyone add brief mentions of the concept of freedom of panorama at Modern and contemporary art#Respect and Visual arts#Respect? Or can anyone create a Wikivoyage version of freedom of panorama article, should this also fits your Wikivoyage standards and policies? Thanks for reply. JWilz12345 (talk) 01:31, 14 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think Travel photography#Share is the best place for this. I added a paragraph on copyright, with a link to Commons:Copyright rules by territory. We could expand the discussion, but we cannot handle the specifics here – Wikipedia and Commons have much better expertise and more suitable scope. –LPfi (talk) 11:26, 14 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@LPfi: that's a good start actually. There is no need for urgency of that section; what is important is that a mention of FOP now exists in at least one article of Wikivoyage project. JWilz12345 (talk) 17:46, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Having an article status assessor?

This came to my mind right now, but I was thinking whether we could have an article status assessor for some new users who are reluctant to ask a single person. I'm not suggesting that it to be made mandatory (unless it's usable to guide), but to also explain how an article can be improved, introduce a user to star and guide articles of that kind (e.g. let's say park, then we'd point out some of our best park articles). This way, we have a formal process, unlike just upgrading it to see when it fits. It's similar to Wikipedia's good article nomination process, except on a much lower scale. Any opinions about this? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 02:54, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Also just to clarify further, this only applies to new users (who have less than 1 month and 200 contributions), excluding new accounts that previously edited under an IP address. (like Ikan or myself). SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 02:55, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't really fully understand what you're suggesting, but whatever it is, I think you just volunteered yourself for it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:05, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
What he said ^^ 😄
What problem is this aiming to solve? It seems like extra bureaucracy for the same outcome.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 07:50, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think key is "reluctant to ask a single person". If you think "your" article might be usable, but do not dare to change the status yourself, you might want to ask. But whom? The traveller's pub might feel scary (though it shouldn't be). Do our patrolling work well enough that a new section on the article talk page will be enough? Otherwise we might need a template putting the talk page into a maintenance category. Or perhaps a new parameter in the outline templates would be a good solution (something I proposed to replace the Needsimprovement template). –LPfi (talk) 08:05, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, a new section on the article's talk page is enough when there's doubt. But there's no rush to change article statuses, anyway. What's the big deal? Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:08, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think a new user having written an article would like to get usable status confirmed – having made just a fleshed out outline does not give the same satisfaction. Changing the status is a good way to encourage the user, and giving a user a means to get that support is beneficial to the project. –LPfi (talk) 08:29, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's what I was thinking about. Let me use the example of Edriiic here, who was one of the contributors to the Nigeria Expedition. So when he asked whether it would be an outline or usable, I gave him some feedback, and he was happy, and he was motivated. I feel like that works and is a good way to get motivated.
I'll also bring up on what I think why myself and LivelyRatification (not certain, but here's my predictions) have chose to stay here. We were both starters in February. But we got help from some admins. Now we both have a star article.
Later, LPfi also started to assist me with technical things as well. Now, after enough mentoring, I was able to become a sysop. It's this sort of mentoring that often helps people stay.
Now if I bring up an example of why I retired on Wikipedia (en, not simple or na) and Wiktionary (en, not na), for Wikipedia, I was editing articles but no one knew me well (although editing articles about politicians don't get much attention). It was only in April where the first other Wikipedia user knew me well, and that was Antandrus. For Wiktionary, the first word I added was deleted. That is what drives people off WMF projects. (harassers driving people away from WMF projects is another story).
Enough of my personal experiences, but it is this which makes sort of why Wikivoyage is one of my favourite WMF projects (Wikibooks being the next). If the experienced editors give the new users some support, and say "yes" the article has passed a certain standard, it gives a good feeling, and like an editor matters. It also gives them a peace of mind, and not "did I upgrade it. is one of the admins going to punish me. oh no!" feeling.
--SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 09:19, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It's great to know the perspective of someone who's started Wikivoyaging recently and has become such a valued member of the community in a short space of time. But doesn't your experience here (and Edriiic's) suggest that new users can already get the help they need when upgrading articles without us creating a formal role or help page? The only criticisms you've made apply to Wikipedia and Wiktionary, not Wikivoyage. I don't really understand what problem you're trying to address, and also I'm not clear on what exactly your proposal is.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 09:54, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that he had to actually go up to someone's talk page, (this is not just with Edriiic btw), and ask them to individually review the article. If there were just a page where people who lave less than 100 contributions and 1 month of contributions could go up to, a) anyone would be reviewing it, and it's not just the pinged user. b) that user may be less nervous and feel less guilty. Just in the last month alone, I upgraded about 200 articles from outline to usable. Now, I only comfortably did that since I was well aware of the policy. But if I had did that in Feb, I'd have been somewhat hesitant to even upgrade one article. You'd have probably noticed that I was asking whether my article can be upgraded in random places all over that reflecting on it, makes no sense to me. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:12, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I also feel like sometimes Ground Zero having to end up doing all the work that would ideally be split up evenly. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:34, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, I'm always pretty nervous to upgrade one of my own articles. I'm not sure if this proposal is necessary, the status quo has worked for me, but it's always good to have a second set of eyes have a look. --LivelyRatification (talk) 09:59, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@LivelyRatification:, btw I'm sure you're quite experienced now that no one will judge or criticize you for upgrading articles. Just as long as it fits policy SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:12, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think we need any extra bureaucracy. Heavy processes don't work here.
However, there is a problem with people (a) thinking their improvements have changed the status of the article, (b) caring about that, and (c) not feeling like they can/should plunge forward with changing the status themselves.
I think the way to address that is to expand Wikivoyage:Article status to make the key points in a clearly labeled section:
  • For stub/outline/usable, you are strongly encouraged to update the article status yourself.
  • If you're not sure, or if you don't feel comfortable judging your own work, then you can ask on the article's talk page and/or at the pub.
  • Don't ever edit war over borderline cases. Someone might rate the page a little generously or a little stingily, and the borderline cases are just not important.
I think that's all we need to say? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:59, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that a community the size of Wikivoyage—small but dedicated—needs the level of bureaucracy found at Wikipedia. However, perhaps we can find a way to better leverage and advertise Wikivoyage:Requests for comment. Would {{welcome}} and similar templates become too overwhelming if we mention RFC in addition to the pub? Nelson Ricardo (talk) 21:58, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── So, I just did a mock up draft which can be found at User:SHB2000/Upgrading articles. Anyone who's autoconfirmed can edit it. And to all those who think it's bureaucracy. No, this is not governing or forcing new users. This page is just there for those who would want to get a second eye to look at their article before upgrading it. It may be particularly designed for new users, but that doesn't mean a new user must use it. It's just, what LPfi said, those who want a piece of mind.

People who are quite new are sometimes, sadly, reluctant or nervous to come to the pub, although it shouldn't be, and I'm hoping that this is a better way to reduce that nervousness or hesitancy when it comes to upgrading articles. This is also not a place to criticize articles as well, just to improve. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 06:44, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think writing a note on the talk page of the article is easy, and if creation of talk pages is always noticed by enough people, that's the easiest way. A bonus is that using article talk pages is our standard scheme for any questions, and thus there is no need to learn one more procedure, to have one more procedure described on help pages, and to have one more page or category to watch for us who can help.
I think that the only problem with talk pages is that new users might not trust the note to be noticed. Telling it will be is easier than telling about another scheme.
(The proposed format requires understanding template syntax. This is a significant barrier – when WMF tells us that even editing basic wikitext is too difficult. Filling in the template may seem easy, but already knowing that the <-- --> should be removed together with the instruction text is non-obvious for those not knowing SGML/HTML).
LPfi (talk) 07:59, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think the proposal above by WhatamIdoing is the way to go. I think some work should also be done to help find your way between the WV space pages involved, I remember I had problems finding what I needed. Now I remember the names of the pages I need and don't need to find the links, nor understand the scope of each, the two things I remember as confusing. –LPfi (talk) 08:08, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
[Edit conflict:] I feel like we should encourage people to plunge forward and upgrade articles themselves, if they meet the Wikivoyage:Article status guidelines. I fear this page will cause us lots of unnecessary work instead of really encouraging newish users to take on more responsibility. Therefore, if we are to have this kind of page, I feel strongly that instead of potentially discouraging phrasing like "You can upgrade it yourself if you want", I would like to substitute "Everyone is encouraged to plunge forward and upgrade the status of any article themselves, if the article seems to you to meet the guidelines shown at Wikivoyage:Article status or more specifically at the Wikivoyage:City article status, Wikivoyage:Region article status, Wikivoyage:Country article status, Wikivoyage:Itinerary status, Wikivoyage:Travel topic status, Wikivoyage:Phrasebook status, Wikivoyage:Park article status or Wikivoyage:Airport article status pages. However, if you prefer to have a second pair of eyes give look at an article and give you their opinion on whether it is ready to be promoted from a stub to an outline, usable article or guide-level article (etc.), don't hesitate to post below, unless you want to nominate an article to be a star, which you should do at Wikivoyage:Star nominations." I don't like the idea of "your new completed piece of work" on a Wiki. No article is ever complete and it's problematic for people to feel too much sense of personal ownership over "their article". Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:20, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I plunged forward and expanded Wikivoyage:Article status#Changing status, trying to include the proposal above by WhatamIdoing. Do the current wordings seem suitable? Something about notices on talk pages really being noticed by other users should be added somewhere, but probably not on that page. –LPfi (talk) 09:12, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm basically in agreement with Ikan Kekek, except that I'm on the side of "this page isn't needed at all", rather than "if we are to have this kind of page, then..." People can upgrade articles themselves up to 'Guide' level and should be encouraged to do so. If they get the status wrong, there's no harm in someone with a bit more experience correcting it when they spot the error; after all an erroneous article status isn't really a big deal outside of site management, unlike e.g. factual errors or poor grammar in the article text which are a problem for travellers on the ground and for Wikivoyage's credibility. Furthermore, I see no evidence of a tendency for new users to have any trouble doing this for themselves. For anyone that does, there are numerous help pages out there that they can already make use of, first among them the article talk page and the Arrivals lounge. User:LPfi's additions are the right idea and will empower to make these decisions for themselves in the vast majority of cases.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 10:02, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, "If we are to have this kind of page" is a fallback position for me. I don't favor it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:07, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The change to Wikivoyage:Article status looks reasonable to me. I oppose adding any extra bureaucracy around these assessments; I agree with those above who say that would be unnecessary. —Granger (talk · contribs) 17:35, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This looks like a good starting point for us. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:58, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Having acronyms in article names

I know you'd think that I should know this by now... but is that allowed or not? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 13:51, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Most acronyms are for businesses and therefore don't constitute an article (for example Amtrak). If there's an acronym for a region, I don't see why we can't use it for an article. EU and UN redirect to the full spellings. We have Scuba diving, which is an acronym, though not capitalized like one. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 14:04, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
it's for RFDS tourism. no one uses its full name. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 14:07, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The longer the acronym, the less sense it makes to spell it entirely, so I would support that title for that article. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 14:12, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
One thing with acronyms is that outsiders have a hard time making sense of the title or memorising it. The articles are mostly intended also for those not familiar with the name, and thus an acronym is a problem. However, as SC says, a long name is not much better, so what we need to do is to put more work than usual in ensuring the article can be found via any plausible search path. –LPfi (talk) 15:28, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I did put the full name in the first line, so the full name isn't hard to find. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 22:49, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Redirects can also help.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 09:28, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, spelling out the name and making a redirect are good steps. Still, if the name is awkward, we might lower the bar slightly to get it listed in places where travellers might search for it. –LPfi (talk) 09:57, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It seems awkward for me to have Royal Flying Doctor Service tourism to me, but that's probably because I'm used to it. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:21, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It seems even more awkward to me, not being familiar with the term. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 11:26, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There is a place for acronyms in article names, e.g. we use UNESCO World Heritage List and UFOs, but I think we should use them sparingly and only when they are very well known. I had no idea what RFDS stood for and I suspect only a small minority of people would know. We all get very familiar with our local jargon and shorthand and can forget that the rest of the world won't know it. I did already know what the Royal Flying Doctor Service is. I think this one is better spelt in full. Nurg (talk) 11:40, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Nurg. The reason why the name in full feels awkward to you is that you're used to the acronym. Those of us who don't know it are not used to it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:14, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There'd probably be only about 10 million who'd know what that initialism means so: Are we just going to redirect RFDS to Royal Flying... or the other way? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 23:21, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Probably that way. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:56, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
tbh, in my opinion, most people who've only lived in big Australian cities often haven't heard of RFDS either, so maybe after all the full name is the way to go? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 00:02, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
IMO it's not important. Pick one and redirect the other. People either arrive here via their web search engine (in which case, they know what name they put in their search engine) or by typing something in our search box (in which case, both the title and the redirect will be available to them). If they're still confused, the very first sentence will spell it out. Deciding which way is "perfect" is therefore just not that important. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:34, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think it should be named Royal Flying Doctor Service tourism. Moving it to that can leave a redirect from the other name. Having the name in full makes it a little simpler to link to it from other articles. Nurg (talk) 21:33, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

So... the Japanese government banned all spectators. I have just updated the banner and ticket information. But how should we proceed with the contents in the rest of the article? OhanaUnitedTalk page 14:33, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

According to FiveThirtyEight (scroll down), nearly 4 in 5 people in Japan support canceling or postponing the Olympics, so are we even sure this event will go ahead? --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 14:42, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think we can be very sure that they're not going to cancel within a week of the Olympics being due to start. As for what should become of the article, we could think about adding places to watch the games (i.e. big screens in parks and what have you) in countries that are opening up, or we could just admit defeat and give up on trying to cover these games. Either way, all the venue and Japan-specific information probably needs to be removed if the article is going to stay in main space.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 14:54, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Even if the games were going ahead as normal, few would be planning their trip only one week before the start - I bought my tickets for London 2012 nearly a year before the games. I think we should keep the article and the list of venues. The Olympics will still be a major TV event and people may see coverage of a venue and think it would be nice to go there in 2024 (or 2030?). AlasdairW (talk) 15:10, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Can someone take a look at the hidden comment about copying the calendar from en.wp template? How does the command to remove the links work? OhanaUnitedTalk page 08:05, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Should the template be copied to the page (with links removed)? If there is consensus on that, the sed part should be easy. It looks like a valid regular expression, although I suppose there are sports with a blank (and perhaps other non-anticipated formats), which would fool it. There are also other things in the template, such as citation templates, which perhaps are easy to remove, but does that mean I misunderstood the hidden request? –LPfi (talk) 11:46, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It's beyond my skill set, but if someone is willing to do it, I support. Nelson Ricardo (talk) 19:31, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I recognize it's some sort of expression. But it's beyond my skill set to automate the process. OhanaUnitedTalk page 21:51, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
sed does the substitution line for line, for all lines ("g"= global). It is just sed -e "s/from/\1/g", with "from" a regular expression and "\1" the part of it in parenthesis (the thing after the pipe). If you have a Unix/Linux/POSIX command line, just paste the command, press enter, paste the template code, and you (should) get the tidied template on standard output. Make a similar RE for the citation templates (with d instead of s or "" instead of "\1", I suppose) and repeat the procedure. I'll do it in a few days unless somebody is quicker or doesn't want the template. –LPfi (talk) 06:20, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It did not work out of the box. I ended up modifying the expression slightly for perl, and doing another for the refs. My perl is rusty also, but it worked, I hope. –LPfi (talk) 20:16, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
And now also the Paralympics' schedule is in place. This time I only needed to change "O" to "Para" in the RE, paste the source, paste the result, edit the intro lines and edit away the categories etc. from the end. –LPfi (talk) 12:18, 23 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oops: a few redlinks remained: the opening, two sports with parentheses, one with hyphens, and a "n/e" template. –LPfi (talk) 12:24, 23 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sea levels

NASA predicts record flooding a few years hence. I do not think we need to say anything about this yet, but keep it in mind. Eventually, perhaps add a comment at Retiring_abroad#Housing or anywhere else that discusses buying propery. Pashley (talk) 04:44, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I added a paragraph in Retiring abroad. Pashley (talk) 05:01, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
And I did the same at the end of Second homes#Concerns. –LPfi (talk) 06:13, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Would this also have to be mentioned in any low level lying countries where people move to retire? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:32, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
For example, on the Florida coast many people buy property in vulnerable areas with flood risk, particularly near the Intracoastal Waterway. I’d always be concerned about rising sea levels (won’t be there in 30 years?) and flooding from hurricanes, but fortunately as soon as you get off the island the elevation is several feet higher. Bad property risk on the beach but on the other hand I think it’s the wrong image for us to advise people where to live; our readers might not see it as our business. So I’m 50/50 on this. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 10:49, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Wikivoyage gives all kinds of warnings and cautions without being legally responsible for the specifics. This is another good example. It would be much weirder to ignore the clear threat, nay guarantee of flooding. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:33, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think we want those warnings in country articles. People who want our advice when buying property should read Retiring abroad and Second homes. If they are made aware of the flooding risk in general, they should be able to check it locally by themselves – they can do it for a specific neighbourhood, which we cannot. –LPfi (talk) 19:39, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If we add by destination, we’ll have thousands of articles with sea level rise warnings, because thousands of travel destinations are by the beach. Putting the information in the retiring abroad articles and places already underwater would be the best idea in my opinion. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 20:03, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Any more Wikivoyage banner deletions by A1Cafel

I really never wanted to do this, but A1Cafel has had enough warnings on commons such as c:Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard/User_problems#"You_may_be_blocked_soon" and c:Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard/User_problems#A1Cafel_and_yet_more_abusive_deletions. Would it help if we went as a community to tell him that if he ever nominates a banner for deletion, they must upload that banner locally to whichever language wikipedia it is. Because speedy deletion a banner for deletion is unintentional vandalism, whether like it or not, it affects the readers view. I and Ikan Kekek have already wrote a harshly worded message to him on commons, but what actions should we take as a community? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 03:52, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

See below - edit conflict. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:07, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes Done left a message on that page. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 04:12, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for this message. I have the same problem with this user as well. I have two non-banner, but travel-related images that are requested to be deleted by this user for being small and lack EXIF data. I will comment on that Commons page as well. OhanaUnitedTalk page 20:31, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

For anyone also interested, if would be nice if we can get your opinion at c:COM:ANU#Special_user_rights. Cheers, SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 23:13, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal never to nominate images for speedy deletion merely for FoP issues on Commons

I've just about had it with zealous deletionists on Wikimedia Commons deleting files we are using and nominating at least two pagebanners so far for speedy deletion just because of Freedom of Panorama issues that don't need to be enforced so rigorously on this site, Wikipedia or other wikis. It's very hard to get any participation in talk page threads on Commons, but I started this thread and request your participation: Proposal never to nominate images for speedy deletion merely for FoP issues. Any of you who are active on Wikipedia or other wikis may want to publicize this thread there, too, because this deletionism is a problem for various wikis, and en.wikipedia is the biggest wiki, and therefore the one that presumably has the most clout. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:05, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Would Wikibooks be affected as well. I'll go publicize this up on the English Wikibooks as well. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 04:38, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Site map?

I just found a page in my user space whose existence I'd forgotten & that was last edited in 2015. User:Pashley/Site_map was an attempt to provide an index to all pages on the site. I'm not certain now that this is a particularly good idea or, if it is, that I'd found the right approach.

Does anyone like the idea and want to develop it? Pashley (talk) 08:48, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

simplewiki has something half of that. I'm not exactly a huge fan of that, as in my opinion, all these maintenance pages should be hidden from public view. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 08:54, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I was not thinking of it as a maintenance page, but as an index to help readers navigate. I'm not certain it is very useful for that, though. Pashley (talk) 09:02, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Is it similar to w:Wikipedia:Contents/A–Z index in Wikipedia? When I set up the Japanese Wikivoyage, it wasn't created because it wasn't in the English Wikivoyage. I think index is usefull for readers, but I think it's too late for that now because there are too many articles. --Tmv (talk) 09:54, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Not exactly a maintenance page, but it's mainly the "How to pages" section that's putting it down. But apart from that, looking good. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 13:29, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
My understanding is that site maps are primarily used to allow site visitors to get a grip on the logic of the page hierarchy and find pages which were not easily found through the site's normal means of navigation. I think we should explain our geographic hierarchy, with the continents etc. just a complement. There is a try at explaining main namespace pages outside the hierarchy, but it needs to be developed. Then there are policy and help pages, which should have links to index pages (do we have complete help and guideline indexes?), the user namespace, files and templates. The category system, with a few top categories listed, could be a great help. A sitemap should be complete, I don't know whether we have any means to check whether it is. A complete list of pages would be much too long even if broken up in some way. –LPfi (talk) 13:58, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Copyvio warnings?

I had just read voy:fr:Discussion utilisateur:Luchy04, which led me to question whether we should have some sort of copyvio templates. Wikivoyage:Deny recognition won't work here, because we want the contributor to not copy from other sources, so I was maybe thinking Wikipedia style warning boxes? It doesn't work all the time (as with Luchy04) but it may help with new contributors copying from external sites. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:15, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've created one: {{Copyvio-1}}. For those who want to see how it'll turn out. The warning is mostly just a translation of one of User:Omondi's warnings. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:17, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Or, something less fancy (i.e. without the border) to go with the likes of {{welcome}} {{tout}}? I fiddled with the wording in your version slightly.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:29, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The sole reason for the border is to differentiate ourselves from frwikivoyage and enwikipedia and resemble something more like meta. I wonder what eswikivoyage uses since they don't seem to have a deny recognition policy from what I know, unless I haven't searched properly. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:39, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I detest the big warning boxes of Commons, but I haven't made up my mind here.
I think we should be very careful about the wording, as a template will have the same wording everywhere it is used, also in situations different from the typical ones. I note that the current wording may be understood to mean that copying from Wikipedia & al is fine, that any other source isn't (with some confusion on own texts), and a warning that is unjustified if copyright issues are in order, which they may very well be. It also says nothing about our wanting original text, regardless of copyright.
LPfi (talk) 13:45, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure this would work. There is a risk, for one, of us becoming like WP, where templates are used to avoid real communication. Impersonal warnings are followed with blocks in a way that could be done by a robot. The response to a copyvio, instead of trying to resolve the individual situation and correct the problem, becomes to add a template. When I received my welcome message here on WV, I ignored it, because I assumed it was automatically added to new users' talk pages and therefore had no relevance to me. Copyvio warnings could take the same route. As each copyvio is different in nature and source, template copyvio warnings would be much worse than welcome messages, which aren't followed by a block.
There's also the concern of too many templates here, and that is valid. WV already has a learning curve due to formatting and template requirements, and I think we need to avoid making the curve even larger, given the challenges faced by new contributors such as from our recent expedition. While good-faith new users eventually learn the policies and guidelines here, we have to draw the line somewhere between no guidelines and too many, and more templates could discourage new users from taking on administrative tasks, which shouldn't be quite the "soulless functionary" roles to which they are sometimes referred, in jest. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 17:19, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
We already can easily post "Please read Wikivoyage:Copyleft" to user talk pages. I oppose the use of this new template and especially dislike the border. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:33, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • To quote the “you may be blocked soon” thread over at Commons, “Copyright is complicated. We should treat uploaders according to COM:AGF, recognising that many innocent errors can arise in this. We should work with uploaders to try and resolve these issues. If something needs to be deleted because it's not freely licensable here, then so be it - but we should never turn this into an excuse for witchhunting editors and trying to collect scalps. There are very few times when this template would be justified – this was not one of them, and it's a regular occurence.” (Andy Dingley) --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 20:40, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It's a different story on commons, but these warnings are for obvious copyright violators who've just blatantly copied the text off. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 21:44, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"Obvious". It is up to the person using the template to judge, and I suppose it will be used when somebody "blatantly" copies their own (or PD) text. Those who do violate copyrights mostly do it because they don't understand copyright law, or are used to copyright law not being something ordinary people have to care about. –LPfi (talk) 06:46, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That's not always the case though. Luchy04 was blocked on fr.voy for a week for copyvios and yet still continued added copyvios, and they're still doing that on nl.voy now. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 06:49, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Past research on warning messages (focused on the English Wikipedia) indicates that the more the message appears to be a normal, hand-typed message from a real human, the more effective they are. Fancy boxes get ignored as just something that the website posts automatically.
Also, the text is wrong about copyrights. Copying from Wikipedia to here requires attribution (unless it's something you wrote yourself), but copying from a US government website doesn't.
SHB, you seem to be on a template-creating tear. Why are you doing this? Wikivoyage's goal is having the fewest number of templates. If you haven't already typed a message by hand a dozen times, we probably don't need a template for it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:06, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I have typed "Please read Wikivoyage:Copyleft" way more than a dozen times. I could support a template, but we have to be careful about what it says and how it looks. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:08, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
See {{Copyvio-1-alt}} for one without the border. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 00:39, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
So first, the most common plagiarism I see that doesn't just require deletion and an indefinite block is from Wikipedia without credit. Second, though, this doesn't explain how to make copyrighted text available. It's a complex process with important implications for the copyright-holder. So I would support omitting it from any template. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:03, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. I'd say key is advice on paraphrasing and adapting, to get text without copyright issues and suitable for Wikivoyage. Wikivoyage:Copyleft doesn't say much about that; we might want to create a page to link, which explains that we want text adapted specifically for Wikivoyage, and how to treat usable text from elsewhere. There is some advice spread around, which is valuable but hard to link in a way getting the target audience to read it. –LPfi (talk) 06:57, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. I also think it's important for summarized or paraphrased content from Wikipedia to still be credited in an edit summary. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:05, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Time to revive WV-shared?

In the bad old days of Wikitravel, when we weren't part of the Wikimedia Movement, we had our own repository of images, Wikitravel-Shared. I just had to locally upload yet another photo that will be deleted from Wikimedia Commons for lack of freedom of panorama, this time a U.S. Army photo taken in 2010 in Gaborone that has over 2,400 views on Flickr and quite clearly hasn't been objected to by the Botswanan government in 11 years, yet of course Commons has to follow their precautionary principle even when it conflicts with common sense and necessitates work I really didn't aspire to when I volunteered to be an admin here.

At this point, I think Commons is a very unreliable host of images for us to use. Is there a way to mass-upload all the images we use in one fell swoop with a bot and host them all locally? This manual local uploading of one image after another really risks becoming too much work, but when we don't do it, we lose the use of the images in most cases. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:16, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Also, if we do this, is there any way to deal in all the other Wikivoyages? It's an even bigger problem when files on those sites are threatened with deletion, because their membership is so much lower than this Wikivoyage. If we make this kind of decision, we should probably discuss it at the Interlingual lounge and make sure we can benefit all language versions. And hell, I'd reach out to the Wikipedias, too, etc. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:20, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose a Wikivoyage shared is out of question. Such a solution was probably discussed for the Wikipedias when Commons was launched, or when EDPs were made mandatory for local upload.
I suppose the main issues are the ones of freedom of panorama. We could add instructions on checking FoP when making banners, and have a bot check country of origin (or more simply: country of article), and copy those that may have issues (no FoP + prominent new architecture). There are tools for copying to Commons, and possibly for copying to en-wp. Those could be adapted for uploading batches of such files to the Wikivoyages.
LPfi (talk) 08:48, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
in my opinion, I would like to do Ikan's suggestion of uploading all FoP issue related files here, and not never export an image to commons again, unless it's something CSS or Javascript related where the image must be on commons. I'll bring this up on the Wikivoyage lounge, and we should probably go from there. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 09:15, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
We shouldn't be aggressive towards Commons. They are doing a great job, even if there are some overzealous admins – and disruptive non-admins, such as perhaps the ones you commented about. There is enough of a conflict between en-wp and Commons, part of it just prejudice or personal frustration. Keeping real copyright violations at bay is a difficult and daunting task, and fair use images should not be hosted at Commons to begin with. Let's keep focused on our factual problem, without expressing hard feelings in external forums (venting them here at Wikivoyage is not a big problem). –LPfi (talk) 09:26, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I Brought it up on the lounge since this affects the entire Wikivoyage family, and not just envoy. But to say, fr.voy hasn't been affected yet. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 09:28, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@SHB2000: What does "not never export an image to commons again" mean?
I'm not fussed one way or the other on this, but if you invite too many wikis (outside Wikivoyage) to this venture then there could be all sort of issues such as the perception that you're launching a competitor to Commons inside the WMF. Also, the more diverse communities that join, the larger the site (portal?) would need to be and the more maintenance it would require. Who's going to be responsible for that? Wouldn't there need to be rules that governed which images were allowed, leading to policies that were similar to those on Commons? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 09:34, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
My suggestion was merely to have a repository of images we use and invite users of other wikis to use them if they like. But I certainly think that at least all other Wikivoyages should have easy access to the photos we need to host here. If there's a way to program a bot to move only images in use with potential freedom of panorama issues, that would be great, but we need to facilitate other Wikivoyages being able to use them. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:57, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@TT, I mean that if a file is deemed to be free, we keep it here to avoid further complications. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:02, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, SHB2000.
@Ikan Kekek: Isn't Commons "merely a repository of images" when it boils down to it? You'd still need rules governing its use, and that would require people to run it. Wouldn't it? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 10:23, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
true... except there's people like me who are more than willing to run that site. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:26, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
We already have images hosted locally. We'd just have more of them. The rules would be that these are photos that are hosted locally because of possible DoF issues related to architecture, public art and the like, we're hosting them, and other Wikivoyages can link to and use them as thumbnails on their guides if they like. Just as is the case now, if they're not used in any article, they will be nominated for deletion if they are deemed unfree images. Or we could have a shared repository of fair-use images for all Wikivoyages that registered users on any of them could upload to. The way to police it will be through patrolling, just as we police any other edit. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:57, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If we do program a bot, we have to keep in mind that photos of outdoor murals in Canada have been deleted from Commons, based on their interpretation of Canadian copyright law (which, from the excerpts they provided, seemed reasonable) and murals in Australia will also be deleted, and public sculptures are also an issue in a number of countries, including the U.S., Japan and Botswana (the case I led off with). Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:01, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
All you need is the url-upload right (or even without, though preferable). Then mass upload can be done using the MediaWiki API and some work. Leaderboard (talk) 10:01, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Adding that logos of transit systems might also be issues; some have been nominated for deletion. Thanks, Leaderboard. I don't know how to do that, but it's good to know there's a method. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:04, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
SHB2000, if a file is definitely unproblematic, it's fine for Commons to host it. But it's hard for us to keep track of what will cause a nomination for deletion. I think they've been wasting lots of time purging Commons of photos of buildings and public sculptures in the Philippines that will have to be restored in a few months when the Philippines is likely to put a freedom of panorama law into effect. Common sense would have seemed to dictate putting those deletions on the back burner and dealing with more urgent problems, but common sense seems to be in short supply among some of the deletionists on Commons. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:07, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The answer to that is, at the start, it's not, but then. It will. Often I just upload most of my images onto commons without problems since FoP doesn't affect my photos. But once we get to a global perspectives, half the world doesn't have FoP laws, meaning that it gets tricky. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:12, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Ikan Kekek: Have you seen wikibooks:Using_Wikibooks/Scripting_and_the_MediaWiki_API? Similar procedure for any other wiki. Leaderboard (talk) 10:08, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I hadn't seen it. It looks a bit complicated to me, but I may try looking at it again later. I think it will be much easier for a more technically knowledgeable person to use that method. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:59, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Probably for DannyS712 or Wauteurz who are our most technically advanced users here. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:01, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I would support continuing to move any files from Commons to local if they are nominated for deletion. I think we could loosen our policy of what we upload locally. However, importing all images from Commons that are used on WV is a big step which I’d oppose unless the situation over there got much worse. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 12:20, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

[undent]: A user in the Interlingual lounge explained that files uploaded to en.wikivoyage locally for fair use cannot be linked to by any other language version of Wikivoyage, and that they would have to be downloaded and then uploaded locally to their Wikivoyage. I feel like there should be a way to enable other Wikivoyages to link to such files, if any technical-savvy person would like to work on that. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:40, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, what AC said is true and there is no way to link files just to other language Wikivoyages unless through commons or wikidata, which means that other WMF projects can also be affected by this, and thus, be nominated for deletion by, uh hum... A1Cafel. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 06:45, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not a computer programmer, but way more complicated things have been programmed than enabling sister Wikivoyages to be able to link to photos on this Wikivoyage. I'm completely sure it could be done. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:08, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Nope. Can't be done. Unless of course, someone chooses to change up www.wikivoyage.org SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 07:17, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It would be technically easy – for the developers. It cannot be done by us, as Commons is treated as a special case, and files on other Wikivoyages cannot be accessed by the [[File:...]] construct. It is simply not looking for files on them. To point to a file on a sister project, you need to say [[:xx:File:...]], and that is just a link, not an inline image. You'd need to expand the list of sites that are searched for the file – at the MediaWiki configuration. To change that list you need WMF acceptance for the idea, which invokes the "alternative Commons" issues. WMF doesn't want to have a fair use repository making the freedom of images a non-issue for contributors. That is not WMF being stubborn, but the Wikimedia movement wanting to promote free content. –LPfi (talk) 08:27, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure the developers could do it, but they won't, because WMF requires non-free files to be hosted locally on wikis that have an EDP for policy reasons, not technical ones. Powers (talk) 03:23, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There is a logic to all the Wikivoyages having their own common fair use policies and all the Wikipedias having their own common fair use policies, etc. That seems like a good policy reason. Maybe it would be worth bringing up somewhere. I'd be tempted to just suggest someone savvy go around it, but we don't want our users to get in trouble with the Wikimedia Foundation. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:57, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Why is this page not archived by a bot?

Title Leaderboard (talk) 10:16, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I asked this question a while ago, and the answer is we sweep it to the relevant talk page. If there's a problem with let's say a listing, then we sweep it to Wikivoyage:Listings. That way, it's all there on the relevant talk page. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:19, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Leaderboard: I just swept one discussion to Talk:Eger. That's usually how we do it. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:23, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@SHB2000: Why not just use a bot instead of complicating matters with all the sweeping and stuff? Leaderboard (talk) 10:26, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Leaderboard: Because if it ever to become relevant in the future, it'll be on the appropriate talk page and not somewhere hidden in the archives. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:36, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Sweeping is also not that hard, and easier done than said. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:36, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
One of the other reasons why I'm not a huge fan of the French Wikivoyage's café is because of how they just archive it instead of sweeping it. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:43, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]


Universal Code of Conduct News – Issue 2

Universal Code of Conduct News
Issue 2, July 2021Read the full newsletter


Welcome to the second issue of Universal Code of Conduct News! This newsletter will help Wikimedians stay involved with the development of the new code and will distribute relevant news, research, and upcoming events related to the UCoC.

If you haven’t already, please remember to subscribe here if you would like to be notified about future editions of the newsletter, and also leave your username here if you’d like to be contacted to help with translations in the future.

  • Enforcement Draft Guidelines Review - Initial meetings of the drafting committee have helped to connect and align key topics on enforcement, while highlighting prior research around existing processes and gaps within our movement. (continue reading)
  • Targets of Harassment Research - To support the drafting committee, the Wikimedia Foundation has conducted a research project focused on experiences of harassment on Wikimedia projects. (continue reading)
  • Functionaries’ Consultation - Since June, Functionaries from across the various wikis have been meeting to discuss what the future will look like in a global context with the UCoC. (continue reading)
  • Roundtable Discussions - The UCoC facilitation team once again, hosted another roundtable discussion, this time for Korean-speaking community members and participants of other ESEAP projects to discuss the enforcement of the UCoC. (continue reading)
  • Early Adoption of UCoC by Communities - Since its ratification by the Board in February 2021, situations whereby UCoC is being adopted and applied within the Wikimedia community have grown. (continue reading)
  • New Timeline for the Interim Trust & Safety Case Review Committee - The CRC was originally expected to conclude by July 1. However, with the UCoC now expected to be in development until December, the timeline for the CRC has also changed. (continue reading)
  • Wikimania - The UCoC team is planning to hold a moderated discussion featuring representatives across the movement during Wikimania 2021. It also plans to have a presence at the conference’s Community Village. (continue reading)
  • Diff blogs - Check out the most recent publications about the UCoC on Wikimedia Diff blog. (continue reading)

Thanks for reading - we welcome feedback about this newsletter. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 02:53, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Redirects

Is it actually a policy to redirect everything with insufficient content? I am aware that we have a number of users who are rabid about their desire to redirect everything at the expense of usability and ttcf, but redirecting every article with little or no content is a bad idea. Recently User:Ground Zero redirected Shiroishi to Saga (prefecture) citing that the article had no content. This was clearly done without any research or consideration of the traveler given that there is another, more travel-oriented Shiroishi in Miyagi Prefecture that a traveler searching for Shiroishi is much more likely to be searching for, but also not considering that the redirect only creates frustration for the traveler even if they are looking for the Saga town. It feels like redirects for the sake of redirects under the guise of "not seeing bad articles". It's counterproductive to our goals and basic site usability. The site's philosophy used to be to leave articles (unless they were mass-created without content) to allow people to add content. Is this redirect out-of-line? In-line? Do we have a solid philosophy about this anymore? If it was really agreed upon that articles with little or no content are so egregious, that we must never have any, it would serve the traveler better to delete the article than to redirect articles, especially when users have no clue about any of the destinations, like in this case. Redirects shouldn't be made based on the content of the article but rather the merit of the redirect. ANY PLACE could be created without content, so with Ground Zero's thinking, any place is just as worthy of redirecting and not having an article as any other. I don't find that to be a good attitude regarding redirects nor do I think redirecting everything "until someone makes an article" is sensible either. These ways of thinking are focused on site management and aesthetics; We should be focused on the traveler/user when considering redirects and avoiding thoughtless redirects that will only frustrate and anger the traveler. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 12:30, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I do this as well, just what GZ does. If a traveller just goes and sees nothing there, they may as well just be redirected to the relative page where there'd be more travel content there. (p.s. is it just me, or is this directed at GZ here) SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:34, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think SHB2000 answers the issue of relation between ttcf and redirect policy. Stubs and weak outlines are sometimes redirected to mechanically, as a combination of ttcf (the region article has more relevant content than the stub) and the policy not to delete articles on real places. For the region article to be relevant there must be enough information on the place in it. Good region Get around info may be useful for the traveller, but often the region article is mostly a list of places, not including the redirected one, or not really telling anything about the place. Even telling in what region the place lies can be useful, but as CW notes, there is no guarantee the redirect directs to the right region. I suppose what we need is a good guideline. Without that admins will often handle places they know nothing about in a less than ideal way, following policy and practice. –LPfi (talk) 13:11, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
One relevant question is whether redirects are needed for readers to find our region articles and articles about nearby cities. If a place really is handled in another article, a redirect is clearly useful. But turning redlinked cities in a region article into redirects back to the region article makes it hard to see what articles need to be written (could we have a tool for that, like sv-wp has for disambigs?), and I hope our search tools are able to find those redlinks and thus the region article. I think we need some analyses of important use cases, where a redirect is or is not useful. –LPfi (talk) 13:20, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In saying that, I have also wondered the same. I've wanted to redirect this article to some other town, but can't (nearest town in the same region is 78km up a mountain) and there's no PoI's here. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 13:25, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
SHB2000 This is not directed at Ground Zero. It is directed at everyone who is making these kinds of redirects that are managerial and/or for site aesthetics rather than because the redirect is sensible and beneficial for the traveler. It's impossible to cite an example without an editor, though, and this one happened to be Ground Zero. I do think this edit is indicative of the general way in which this is done, though.
To me, if the point is to eliminate stubs or articles without content, the articles are best deleted. Just return them to square one. No inadvertent harm, confusion, or anger can be caused by this for someone searching for the city/town. The article will just show as a redlink where it is linked, which let's users know we don't have an article.
For redirects, I think the discussion should revolve around the destination itself rather than the article or its content. Lack of content may cause someone to question the city's ability to hold an article but lack of content itself doesn't equate to lack of destinations or inability to hold an article which are the useful and proper reasons to create redirects. I think redirects being created for the traveler and not the editors is the core of my complaint. I don't think we should create redirects for the editors' sakes. We should just delete them, if we really have decided content-less articles should not exist. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 14:06, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Empty skeletons should be deleted, no problem. And I don't think this is about readers vs editors: what we do for editors is to make them create content for the traveller. The problem arises when there is enough content that you don't want to simply delete the page. Somebody (GZ?) has started putting the redirect line in front of the article, allowing recreating it without going via the history. Sometimes the content is merged to a nearby town or into the region article. The question then is how much needs to be told about the place in that article to warrant a redirect. Usually the place should at least be mentioned. It seems you, CW, would put the threshold considerably higher. How much content should there be for you to merge and redirect rather than delete? –LPfi (talk) 14:42, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Expanding on ChubbyWimbus' comment, I think that if it's possible to create a decent article, then we shouldn't be redirecting. Instead, I'd rather see a sentence added that says something like "For more information, see the regional article" (with a link, of course).
It's very hard for a newcomer to add information to a redirected page, and to the reader, it seems to me that it signals that the place you're looking for wasn't important enough, or didn't have any potential. I've nothing against redirecting places that aren't likely to be viable articles, but if there's potential, I think we get more from leaving the page visible. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:57, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No, it's not, and it's fully directed at GZ here, and that was an honesty question here.

Is it actually a policy to redirect everything with insufficient content? I am aware that we have a number of users who are rabid about their desire to redirect everything at the expense of usability and ttcf, but redirecting every article with little or no content is a bad idea. Recently User:Ground Zero redirected Shiroishi to Saga (prefecture) citing that the article had no content. This was clearly done without any research or consideration of the traveler given that there is another, more travel-oriented Shiroishi in Miyagi Prefecture that a traveler searching for Shiroishi is much more likely to be searching for, but also not considering that the redirect only creates frustration for the traveler even if they are looking for the Saga town. It feels like redirects for the sake of redirects under the guise of "not seeing bad articles". It's counterproductive to our goals and basic site usability. The site's philosophy used to be to leave articles (unless they were mass-created without content) to allow people to add content. Is this redirect out-of-line? In-line? Do we have a solid philosophy about this anymore? If it was really agreed upon that articles with little or no content are so egregious, that we must never have any, it would serve the traveler better to delete the article than to redirect articles, especially when users have no clue about any of the destinations, like in this case. Redirects shouldn't be made based on the content of the article but rather the merit of the redirect. ANY PLACE could be created without content, so with Ground Zero's thinking, any place is just as worthy of redirecting and not having an article as any other. I don't find that to be a good attitude regarding redirects nor do I think redirecting everything "until someone makes an article" is sensible either. These ways of thinking are focused on site management and aesthetics; We should be focused on the traveler/user when considering redirects and avoiding thoughtless redirects that will only frustrate and anger the traveler. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 12:30, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

That's all the highlighted points into what I think is a personal attack, and has been mentioned below. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 22:10, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
SHB, I have no idea what you're trying to say by copying and striking out most of CW's comment. Are you saying that the question you struck out, "Is it actually a policy to redirect everything with insufficient content?", is a personal attack? Or the sentence you put in bold, "It's counterproductive to our goals and basic site usability"?
I'm also not sure what you're saying at the start. "No, it's not" – but what's "it"? No, it's not very hard for a newcomer to add information to a redirected page? No, it's not a problem when there is enough content that you don't want to simply delete the page? No, it's not not directed at Ground Zero? (That was three comments ago.) No, it's not something else? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:28, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
When I meant "No it's not". I meant that CW was lying about it being not directed at Ground Zero here. The text in bold is just what should have been rewritten into a more civil manner, and is disruptive and uncivil. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 23:29, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think it would be better – more civil, in its original sense of "building up the group" – if you removed this (and two my comments about them, too). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:28, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

At the moment, I am not going to engage with the substance of this discussion. I will leave the discussion to other contributors, and will take a break from editing.

I will comment on the tone, however. The heading "Redirect Cult" and the rest of ChubbyWimbus's comments make it clear that this is going to be a heated and contentious discussion, and I don't want to deal with that aggravation at the moment. It is pretty clear that CW is agitated and is looking for a fight. I'm not.

I have been working on the list of short articles for weeks now. I have not deleted any articles about real places because of our policy of not deleting articles about real places. I have created redirects instead. This is the first objection I have heard. No one has questioned me or asked me to slow down, or raised any questions about what I've been doing. Getting blasted like this by CW is not making this a good day for me.

Writing "This is not directed at Ground Zero" doesn't change the tone of comments like "without any research or consideration of the traveler", "creates frustration for the traveler", "redirects for the sake of redirects", "thoughtless redirects that will only frustrate and anger the traveler", "create redirects for the editors' sakes".

I am always prepared to discuss WV policy, and accept the decision of the community. But if CW does not believe that I am here to build a travel guide for the benefit of travellers, there isn't much basis for discussion. Ground Zero (talk) 15:31, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hear, hear. I'm not engaging with a discussion founded on personal attacks.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 16:24, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
And, since I have been accused of having:
"redirected Shiroishi to Saga (prefecture) citing that the article had no content. This was clearly done without any research or consideration of the traveler given that there is another, more travel-oriented Shiroishi in Miyagi Prefecture that a traveler searching for Shiroishi is much more likely to be searching for"
I will point out that the total content of the Shiroishi article was "Shiroishi (白石町) is a town in Saga Prefecture, Japan." There was no disambiguation or any other mention of Shiroshi, in Miyagi Prefecture. That is not my fault. I did not create that stub article. If CW thinks we should have an article for that town, he should create one. Ground Zero (talk) 16:58, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose we should change our policy to allow deleting such articles, unless the user starts working on them. This is were to_be_checked=date (in {{outlinecity}} & al) could come in handy, as the article is seen in RC when it is created, but then disappears from sight. Can we trust a new user not writing more than that to have gotten it right? One could check Wikipedia and add some basic information, but I for one prefer to choose what articles to work on over working on a laundry list by users who do not care to do a minimum by themselves. –LPfi (talk) 17:47, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The specific example included a Template:Routebox, a page banner, and coordinates.
I'm pretty sure that I asked about all these "skeleton" pages a few years ago, very likely on this page, and was told that the community wanted to keep them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:28, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It had the default Mena-asia banner. The routeboxes are problematic, as removing one of the articles will break the chain. One of the neighbours was a similar content-less outline. Both are from the WT days. Perhaps the routebox and coords make them worth keeping, as somebody using the routebox navigation can at least see where they are going and add content if they happen to stop there (and building routebox trails is some work). Somebody searching for the place in other ways will be disappointed. –LPfi (talk) 20:10, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Deleting non-vandalistic articles about real places would be a major policy change for this site and should be discussed at Wikivoyage talk:Votes for deletion. I think it opens up a big can of worms, and I would not support it. If we changed that policy, we'd have undeveloped articles about major cities deleted just because someone didn't know that the article title is actually a major city that merits an article. We've already had such articles be nominated for deletion and/or redirection, though I can't recall specific titles at the moment. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:16, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Otherwise I don't understand creating articles without adding content into them, but for a routebox trail it makes sense. I'd also be tempted to create articles for intermediate destinations. Redirecting an article with a routebox should not be done without reconstructing the trail, as ending up in the prefecture article when following the routebox trail is very confusing, and there is no easy way out. You are probably right on cities in less known countries being in danger, something worth a reminder every now and then. –LPfi (talk) 20:30, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In saying that, often I've created articles because I've wanted to work on them, but due to my lack of time due to offline issues, it's remained as an outline. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 21:47, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Personally I'm neither a fan of redirecting outlines of valid destionations nor outright deleting them. It becomes very hard to recreate and expand the redirects as they appear blue and the reader who clicks on the link will end up getting confused (the redirect is often to a fairly distant city or broad region). Deleting is somewhat less misleading but can still make a city disappear, especially redlinks are often removed on the site and so the trail to the deleted city has gone. It's worse when an outline with some information (no listing but has 1 or 2 sentences apart from the lede) is redirected or deleted because actual travel-related information has been removed from the site, and I've seen that happen unfortunately. It doesn't matter how limited the information is. If a city has one line about the main airport serving it or the major road connecting it to the rest of the country, the article should be expanded rather than redirected/deleted. Gizza (roam) 04:47, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'd support that stand, were it not for some users creating too many weak outlines. A few are no problem, but if you are interested in an area and mostly find weak outlines, you'll go elsewhere. With those being redlinks or non-links instead, you'd see what we actually have, which may be enough, or you'd be able to use that information and look for other destinations elsewhere. We need some means to keep the proportion of weak outlines to usable articles under control. The means may be unlinking, redirecting or deleting those outlines, but I am open to other suggestions. We might of course give up, and just wait for the outlines to be fleshed out at some point, possible in distant future. –LPfi (talk) 09:24, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, we've got far too many of those. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 09:36, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If there's a single user makes tons of skeletons and then disappears, I support deleting those skeletons. But if there are outlines due to other reasons, it would be better to set up a Collaboration of the Month/Expedition/Edit-a-thon and grow the articles. All of the CotMs and edit-a-thons we've had have been successful, most recently the Nigeria one. Right now there are 1082 city articles that are less than 1000 bytes. The articles are just under 1000 tend to have some useful information. The truly useless ones are probably half that number. If we can set up a few more tailored edit-a-thons bringing in external editors as well as encourage the long-term editors here to expand those particular articles, even if they only focus on countries they are interested in, we should be able to expand most of them within a year. Gizza (roam) 13:15, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Gizza, I wonder if you have a sort of "statute of limitations" on making tons of skeletons and disappearing. If someone made tons of skeletons ten years ago (let's say that person did nothing else), but isn't active now, would you delete them now?
(I'm personally in favor of discouraging people from mass-creating any more skeletons. An occasional one, sure, but not hundreds.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:30, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@WhatamIdoing: to be fair and consistent, I don't think there should be a statute of limitations as such. But I also don't expect many of these mass-produced skeletons created many years to still be around. The empty articles post-fork were deleted so there could be a bunch from after 2013 but we've usually discouraged editors to go on an article creation frenzy and they usually listen or if not, get blocked. Gizza (roam) 04:37, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If an article becomes a redirect, then I think that there must be something about the redirected place in the target article. If Nearville is redirected to Smallville, then a search of the Smallville article must show a listing or a sentence that relates to Nearville. Otherwise the reader is going to be confused. As an example of this not being done, look at Genoa (Victoria) - there nothing about Genoa in the article that it has been merged into, so a reader clicking on the links from Gippsland will think that something has gone wrong. When redirecting please also look at "What links here" and adjust or delete incoming links appropriately - in the extreme case avoid creating a loop. AlasdairW (talk) 22:52, 23 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

And you don't want to add a minor countryside attraction (or the countryside Get in or local service station café) to an article on a city with a ton of word-class attractions. Thus merging those nearby destinations is not the way to go. You can link to the city from Get in, though, and that would handle most things that a redirect would tell the reader. –LPfi (talk) 08:34, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I began working on Special:ShortPages at the beginning of May and this is the first discussion there has been. I chose this project because I think a lot of readers, like me, are annoyed by links that take me to pages that provide no information. I think these links turn readers off from Wikivoyage. A lot of these articles say nothing more than "Larson is a town in Western North Dakota." These useless articles do not make Wikivoyage more usable for readers. Keeping these articles because we hope that some day someone will expand them does nothing for our current readers.

I have not been taking a "managerial" approach to this, but have been working to build Wikivoyage into a better travel guide.

Where I think that the place should have an article, I've expanded it using text adapted from other language Wikivoyages and Wikipediae. Here are some examples from the past three weeks: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, and 31.

Where the short pages are disambiguation pages, I've left them alone.

In most other cases, I have redirected the article to the region, and deleted the link to the article from the region page to avoid "creating a loop", which User:LPfi and User:AlasdairW are concerned about.

Some of these short articles were created for really small places: Mustang (Texas) has a population of 21, Almont_(North_Dakota) has 89, and Cilybebyll has "a dozen houses". I have come across a couple of articles created for the purpose of listing a single restaurant, which has since closed. I don't think Wikivoyage should have an article on a tiny place just because someone who passed through Wikivoyage 14 years ago created one (what LPfi called a "laundry list").

I've only been redirecting short articles that have been sitting for years with no substantive edits. Shiroishi, for example, was created in 2007, and has had no information added to it since then. There were a lot of short articles created by User:Texugo in 2013. They continued to edit in Wikivoyage until 2020 without ever going back to expand those stubs.

When I find a short article has been created recently, I ask the creator if they are planning to expand, as I did here: Talk:Columbus (Nebraska). That served as a reminder for the article creator who then turned it into a worthwhile article.

If there is just one interesting thing mentioned in the article, I will move that to the region article, and redirect the article there so that the reader gets the information without having to click through. This article was created to list a water park in a suburb of Fort Worth, and had no other information. I redirected the article to Fort Worth (and expanded/updated the listing) because I think it is more useful to readers than in a separate article.

I had not considered the route boxes issue that User:WhatamIdoing raised. I think that redirected articles should be removed from route boxes and replaced by the next available blue link.

Whether I redirect or expand an article depends on a number of factors, including population (User:Ikan Kekek: I wouldn't redirect a major city, or a even a small city), availability of information from other sources, and my mood. I'm doing the work, so I will use my discretion.

If any other editor thinks that a particular article should be expanded rather than redirected, they are free to expand the article, and will hear no objection from me.

Also, I am changing the title of this discussion in line with keeping WV a civil, friendly place. Ground Zero (talk) 11:42, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for changing the title as well as making the English Wikivoyage a better place for readers :) SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:48, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There is a rather long earlier discussion that overlaps this one considerably, starting at Wikivoyage_talk:Deletion_policy/Archive_2014-2019#Deleting_NEW_empty_articles and continuing into later sections of that page. Everything I would want to say here, I already said there. Pashley (talk) 12:57, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that link. There are four things we can do with short articles:
  1. delete
  2. redirect
  3. expand
  4. leave them alone
It does seem that we have failed to get consensus about deleting short articles, although in the case of a page-creation vandal, I think there may be support for doing so.
I have been doing a combination of redirection and expansion. Those who support expansion over redirection are welcome to expand any articles I have redirected. By commenting out the structure, I have made it easy to do restart the article.
For reasons explained above, I don't think that short articles that have been lying around for years without content provide any benefits to readers, and diminish their experience on Wikivoyage.
As I started with the shortest articles and have been progressing to slightly longer articles that have at least a little travel content, I am finding that I am doing more expansion and less redirection. Ground Zero (talk) 19:15, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate your work and generally approve of what you're doing in redirecting articles when that seems best. I mentioned that there's been at least one nomination to delete a stub article about a significant city because I oppose deleting articles just because of lack of content. You're not doing that. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:14, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I see merit in the argument for deleting stubs, but I don't see much support for it, so I am working within existing policy as I understand it. Ground Zero (talk) 22:20, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think some redirects are unnecessary & harmful.
For example, SHB2000 wrote above: "I've wanted to redirect this article to some other town, but can't (nearest town in the same region is 78km up a mountain) and there's no PoI's here." Then he or she did redirect it.
My comment is at Talk:Khancoban. Other opinions solicited. Pashley (talk) 01:23, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I've commented on Talk:Khancoban. FYI: I'm a he (not a she). SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 03:13, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Also Pashley, if I may bring this up, but this is about the language used here in "unnecessary & harmful". Ground Zero also brought this up at vfd before.
  1. It may seem unnecessary to you, but not to anyone
  2. I think calling my actions as harmful would be an overstatement. How is it harmful? As I mentioned, it may seem harmful to you, but not everyone. Please explain how it is harmful?
--SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 01:37, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Pashley (and DaGizza). I generally don't like redirecting real destinations and feel that it should be avoided as much as possible. Sometimes it does make sense, but for sure some redirects are indeed unnecessary and/or harmful (and we need to be able to express such sentiments without being language-policed). For the Shiroishi redirect: The Shiroishi redirect is harmful in that the linked article has no relevant information about the town and there is another city of the same name of greater fame located far away, so the redirect is inaccurate and confusing for a traveler looking for that destination. Redirects that are inaccurate, confuse rather than helpful, or take you to pages that don't have information on the redirect all qualify as "unnecessary and unhelpful". I should not have said "Ground Zero's way of thinking" in my initial post, beause I see this "way of thinking" as being beyond any one user however, his response highlights the issues I brought up in my other points (which are about what I see as a faulty way to create and think about redirects, not about him). The person creating the redirect is obviously not responsible for the lack of information in the article, but redirecting articles is a choice, so I think if a user makes that choice, there needs to be some consideration and work involved to make it work. A user who doesn't have any knowledge about a place should absolutely do some research outside of WV if they're going to try and create a redirect, and failing to do so is creating a "thoughtless redirect". Citing the lack of information in an article that you want to merge for that very same lack of information as the reason for making a harmful redirect doesn't make sense. Research, consideration of the destination, consideration of what information is being lost or a commitment to moving all information in the article to the target redirect should be seen as requirements in order to redirect. Otherwise, just leave the article alone. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 12:24, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to stop participating in this thread due to the high level of uncivil comments here. Calling my and Ground Zero's redirects as harmful really takes the cake here. Could you please explain how? I just like GZ a few days back, will take a break from doing major editing, and will only do some minor edits. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:31, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Think about this from the perspective of the traveler. You want to go to place A. You go to Wikivoyage and search for place A. And Wikivoyage says "How about place B instead? It's only two hours' driving away from the place you wanted o visit".
Reasonable people could hold different opinions about what's best, but it is not unreasonable to say that getting sent to a place B when you searched for place A is providing something worse than just giving people place A (which had a link to place B). Doing something worse is "harmful". It may not be significantly or importantly harmful, but it's still making things worse (according to some people's opinions), and making things worse is technically "harming".
As for it being "unnecessary", surely you don't want to claim that it was absolutely necessary to redirect that page. Some people might say that it was a good decision, but I doubt that even its most ardent supporters would claim that it was truly necessary. Nothing was going to break, nobody was going to get sued, nobody was going to get sick if we left those pages alone. Therefore, even if it was a "good" action, it was not, strictly speaking, a "necessary" one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:55, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If I am interested in going to Place A in Region B, I would rather be taken to an article about Region B than to an article that says nothing more than "Place A is a town in Region B". The redirect improves the reader's experience in Wikivoyage: it means one less click, and does not leave the reader with the impression that Wikivoyage articles are a waste of their time. Ground Zero (talk) 18:34, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I redirect articles in the same reasoning as GZ mentioned above. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 22:05, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I have responded to CW on my talk page, but the key point remains that the tone of his comments, and calling what SHB2000 and I have been doing a "cult", demonstrated that he was looking for a fight, rather than trying to engage constructively. He has at least acknowledged that I am a constructive editor, despite what he wrote above.
I have demonstrated that the premise of his post was false, i.e., that we are "redirecting every article with little or no content". So the whole discussion is a waste of time.
As I noted above, when there is a little bit of information about a place, I transfer that to the redirect article so no information is being lost.
With respect to Shiroishi, the article that I redirected had no information beyond its location in a region far away from "another city of the same name of greater fame". It sat there for 14 years without being improved or corrected. The creator of the article obviously knew nothing about the place (or chose not to share what they knew). Redirecting it was an improvement in the reader's experience.
ChubbyWimbus could improve the redirect or create an article, which would be even better than the redirect I created, but instead came to the pub to create ill-will with a false accusation and inflammatory language.
Colloborative projects work when contributors pool their knowledge and work together. They do not work by having everyone stand back and wait for an expert to do something. As far as I know, CW is the only Japan-based contributor we have, and waiting for him to take care of it hasn't improved the article.
Name-calling and false accusations are not constructive behaviour. When we call out ChubbyWimbus for this, instead of retracting and apologizing, he complains of being "language-policed". Whatever. There are lots of places on the Internet where he can vent his rage. Let's try to keep Wikivoyage fun. Ground Zero (talk) 18:34, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

(indent) Can we agree then that redirects should not be created on the basis of the articles simply lacking content? My intent was to raise the bar for when we create redirects to require some research (or personal expertise) in order to justify why the intended redirect is the best place for information about the town/city that is being redirected. I disagree with Ground Zero that the region article is more helpful. As I said before, I think we need to think about the destinations themselves and not whatever content is currently in the article in order to redirect. This is a difference in approach, so the discussion is not moot. Others have also stated similar feelings or other feelings about our redirecting approach. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 11:04, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that "lacking content" is not a sufficient reason (by itself) to redirect an article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:54, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No, of course we can't agree. Several others have said this too.
CW began this discussion with a false accusation, ascribed untoward motivations to me, and made a personal attack. That is no basis for coming to any sort of agreement.
He is continuing with his false premise that I have been redirecting "on the basis of the articles simply lacking content". I have created articles for places that I believed warranted them, and redirecting others. I provided links to more than 30 short articles that I have expanded in the last three weeks alone. CW has not contributed content in the last month, so I don't need my work to be directed by him.
His comments obviously don't describe my work: "without any research or consideration of the traveler", "redirects for the sake of redirects", "thoughtless redirects that will only frustrate and anger the traveler", "create redirects for the editors' sakes". My work shows that I am here to build a better travel guide, not just to argue about stuff.
I get that he disagrees that Shiroishi (Saga) is more important than Shiroishi (Miyagi), but his complaint is with the editor who created the article before abandoning it in 2007, not with me. I would fully support him creating an article about Shiroishi (Miyagi), or even changing the redirect, but he is not interested in doing so.
I will continue to work to improve this guide by adding content, improving formatting, and yes, redirecting pointless articles about tiny places that have languished for years without any useful information for travellers.
I would encourage CW to focus on adding content to article instead of throwing stink bombs into the pub like this.
I ask our editors what they think about CW's unconstructive behaviour. Ground Zero (talk) 21:41, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Still no apology to GZ. To CW: Don't make the same mistake as what to AC made 3 years back in not apologising. Just apologize instead of trying to defend yourself. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 21:49, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I support the contributions of Ground Zero, SHB2000 and others. If one or two redirects shouldn’t have been redirected, these should have been treated as individual cases. I have faith that both of these users are well-intentioned and use redirects to concentrate and develop content in article-worthy destinations. This helps us achieve our various geographical expeditions. These editors need their contributing efforts viewed as a whole; often two outlines are turned into one usable article, and that’s a good thing. If a redirect is used, in many of these cases whether or not the redirect was a good idea, the end result had better travel content than before. Such edits are a net positive and should be viewed as progress within the travel guide. If CW would like to restore a redirected article such as the one mentioned and write an article for it, that would however be an excellent way to resolve this debate. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 22:04, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
To put this nonsense to bed, I redirected Shiroishi to Miyagi, and added a brief description so that someone who searches on Shiroishi will find some info about the town and the Wikidata link. And I fixed the route boxes. It took a few minutes. ChubbyWimbus could have done this a week ago and avoided a lot of aggravation and wasted time, but he's going to focus on what he enjoys. Ground Zero (talk) 00:16, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ground Zero "but he's going to focus on what he enjoys." I do not "enjoy" any of this. This discussion actually does have a purpose that was not about your or Shiroishi. I did not start this discussion to call you out. As I said on your talk page, I was not even aware that you were the only one doing these edits. I acknowledge that some of my words and phrasing made it seem otherwise and I do apologize for that.
SHB2000 I did apologize on his talk page, and I believe you commented on that same thread. I apologized here just above, as well, if it's better to attach it here directly.
Selfie City I, too, support the contributions of Ground Zero. This was not meant to be a discussion about GZ as a contributor. It was meant to be about improving our redirect policy. I do regret that my wording muddied the waters. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 14:47, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If it is not about the work that I have been doing, or about Shiroishi (the only example cited), is there even a problem here? I have been using my discretion to determine which articles I will expand (and have expande lot of them), and which articles I think should be redirected. I don't think that my discretion is faulty.
If you disagree with any if my decisions about redirects, you can prove me wrong by adding content to an article, and Wikivoyage will be better. Ground Zero (talk) 15:19, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A proposal

This is how I should have started this to begin with. In my understanding, we have allowed (or encouraged?) redirecting articles based on having little-to-no content. It is not a "falsehood" about GZ, because it is not about GZ. It is about what seemed to be a soft consensus prior to this discussion. GZ's edit information when he made Shiroishi into a redirect stated "Redirect until there is some travel information here". That showed that it was a redirect created for lack of content (re: travel info). Since it didn't seem clear before: I do NOT think he was acting against our redirect policy. On the contrary, I think he WAS acting according to policy and that's what I wanted to change in this discussion, the POLICY. That's why simply making Shiroishi an article (which I may do, but didn't want to do during this discussion) doesn't address what I see an issue. WhatamIdoing agrees, and I think Pashley and possibly other agree with that, as well. I think it may be helpful to include REASONS to redirect (and possibly not to redirect) on Wikivoyage:How to redirect a page, so that we can hopefully avoid future discussions of this nature since there do seem to have been other times where we've had the same sorts of redirect discussions that don't seem to be adding clarity. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 14:47, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that we need a guideline on when an article should be (merged and) redirected. –LPfi (talk) 15:02, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Are we creating a guideline where there isn't a problem? The only redirect I created cited as a problem has been fixed.
I will change the explanation I use to make it clear that I am redirecting because I believe a place to be too small or uninteresting to warrant an article. And I invite other editors to prove me wrong by adding content to a redirected article to make the article useful for travellers. (That is why I comment out the skeleton rather than deleting it.) Ground Zero (talk) 15:19, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Has somebody analysed what categories of articles there are that get redirected? The articles we now discuss are mostly weak stubs, but what cases are clear, and in what cases is there disagreement about whether to redirect? –LPfi (talk) 15:06, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
To me, I don't think "weak stubs" is necessarily a clear reason to redirect, either. My thoughts are that redirecting real places should only be done if someone knows or researches enough to say with some level of certainty that the city/town could not sustain its own article and that the targeted redirect will be sensible and helpful for the traveler. If one of those is not met, I think the article, even if it's an ugly stub, should be left alone. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 15:24, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It is not a clear reason, but is there a problem with other articles being redirected? I think what we need is a guideline on what weak outlines should be redirected.
I think the problem is for regions like Päijänne Tavastia. There are now five useful bluelinks, one linked weak outline (Sysmä, with just a campsite) and six redlinks. I think that is OK. If somebody makes the redlinks weak outlines there will be a problem. After clicking two or three of them a reader will get frustrated (at least if they do not hit any of the useful ones). We had a regular turning redlinks to such weak outlines in a few other regions of Finland. I did expand most of the outlines in two of them (I think), but I don't want to have an outline creator direct my work.
The outlines in one of the regions were taken to VFD, but as we don't delete real places, they became redirects. The result was Finland Proper having bluelinks only, most of them pointing back to the region article. I would have deleted them instead, to keep it clear for readers what places we do have information on. That was a region I was working on, so only a few of the redirects remain redirects (and I have unlinked those in the region article), but I think this destroyed the region article for the time until I had written the articles. The little useful information (see Rymättylä and Velkua as by the creator) either was in the region article already, could have been added there, or could have been put on the talk pages at time of deletion, to be added when somebody creates worthwhile articles.
In these cases I think the articles should have been deleted rather than redirected or kept – the places are found in the region article by anyone who searches for them. We should also discuss the threshold for keeping an article. I think a few weak outlines per region is OK, and creating several articles to be worked on a bit later is also acceptable, But a majority of articles in a region being weak outlines that nobody is working on is a real problem – for the traveller who tries to use Wikivoyage.
The obvious case for a redirect is when an article is about several places (cf Rural areas). Redirects to a region is sensible when the place is not mentioned as redlink, but perhaps as part of a redlinked city or other destination in that region, or there is some worthwhile information about the place. I don't have much experience about these cases, so I hope somebody can expand on them.
LPfi (talk) 16:59, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
With the regard to the proposal that "redirecting real places should only be done if someone knows or researches enough to say with some level of certainty that the city/town could not sustain its own article and that the targeted redirect will be sensible and helpful for the traveler", we do not impose such a requirement on article creation, which is why we end up with articles that say nothing more than "Shiroishi (白石町) is a town in Saga Prefecture, Japan." Having a higher standard for redirection than for article creation is backwards to me.
Also, creating a policy because one user disagreed with one redirect done by another user (the only example provided) is not a good use of time. Let's address these issues on talk pages.
To answer User:LPfi's question, "Has somebody analysed what categories of articles there are that get redirected?", I can have described my process for deciding whether to expand or redirect an article, or to contact the article's creator, in the discussion above. I redirect in a way to make it easy for someone to create a useful article if they think there should be one.Ground Zero (talk) 17:08, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
See Rymättylä and Velkua (links repeated from above) for pages I don't think we need any research other than a look at the content and the region article (where they are linked) to tell they are not useful. If local knowledge is required, such bare outlines will remain in areas none of us knows. Even when there is online information, doing the research is time-consuming, and I don't think creating such an outline can put an obligation on anybody to do that research. Redirecting may not be the solution, though. –LPfi (talk) 17:29, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
These articlrs were created by a problem user. I don't know whether Vkem qualifies as a mass article creation vandal. I asked Vkem on their talk page to stop creating skeleton articles and I believe they did stop. In retrospect, deletion may have been a better approach, but I am not sure if policy allows it. Thanks to you for creating articles for these places. Creating those articles made Wikivoyage better. Ground Zero (talk) 17:40, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Based on the interpersonal conflict above, I think we might benefit from a greater level of clarity and/or process.
Here's my take on the goals:
  • Don't redirect a place solely on the basis of the current content. (Why? Because it'd be silly to redirect a large city just because there wasn't any content on the page yet.) This means that if you want to redirect a page because it's got no content, then you need two reasons: your first no-content reason plus any other plausible excuse.
  • Do redirect a place that you believe is unlikely (i.e., "in your personal opinion, less than 50% chance of") to become a well-developed article even if someone took an interest in it. (For example: zero or only one place to sleep and eat, and there's a plausible target for merging = consider a redirect).
  • Do redirect a place that could be more easily or sensibly described in the context of a larger article.
In terms of process, my thoughts are:
  • If you're fairly sure, then plunge forward.
  • If it might be controversial, then propose a merge.
  • If someone redirected a page that you think was not the best candidate for redirecting, then revert it and either expand it enough to show why you think it shouldn't be redirected, or propose a merge on the talk page to determine consensus (in this case, you'd be proposing an 'unmerge', but I think the process can stretch that far).
The other part of the process is the hard part: we needs to be not being overly blameful towards anyone whose judgment happens to differ from our own. That may need to be a work in progress. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:07, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Also, you are all allowed to disagree with me! If you think we need different goals or different processes, please say so. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:07, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds like a good starting point for a policyguideline. I think articles should be redirected upon the basis of wiaa. If a place has nowhere to stay (or if the only options are awful and in short supply) a redirect makes sense as this is not a valid travel destination (particularly if also short on restaurants and other attractions). However a poorly developed article for a city with tens of thousands of people, attractions, and hotels should be improved as there is potential. This policy would be fairly in line with current practices while also supporting maximum content development. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 21:28, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I would caution that "Can you sleep there?" is neither a necessary nor always a sufficient reason for an article; it's merely a rough guideline. Otherwise, I think your rule of thumb is sensible. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:49, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think most of what is said above sounds reasonable. I would add something to the affect of: "Don't redirect if you cannot find a proper/helpful target article (even if you are sure the city/town can't hold its own article).
I also question whether our advice to redirect to the region article is sensible or helpful in practice. Is there an article where that has been done well? LPfi above talks about it "destroying" a region, and I also think this tends to mess things up more than solve things. If we look at his example of Päijänne Tavastia, I agree that someone making all of the redlinks into content-less articles would be bad. But if someone did that and then those were all redirected back to Päijänne Tavastia, I think that would also be a problem. A region article with some cities linked but also with listings from random cities (that may be on opposite ends of cities with listings within the region) is difficult to edit/curate, and difficult to navigate and understand for readers. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 10:30, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In a sparsely populated US county, I'd expect to find most of the information at the county level. (There are ~3,000 counties in the US, and some have with fewer than 1,000 residents.) Redirecting the tiny towns/villages/wide spots in the road to the county level would not be unreasonable. I would expect the same thing in a rural area. Don't send me to "Tinyville, pop. 239"; send me to "Rural area, pop. 810", with a redirect to Tinyville. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:11, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

First, I want to thank User:WhatamIdoing for trying to resolve this in a constructive way. I am amazed, though, that any random passerby is free to create any article with no useful content, but we need an elaborate guideline for redirects, and that redirecting skeleton articles is even an issue. Harrison (Michigan) was created in 2006 with the text "Harrison is in Michigan." Over the next 15 years, it was expanded to read "Harrison is in Clare County, Central Michigan." It is a place with fewer than 2,000 people, and no apparent points of interest. Folowing my usual practice, I have redirected it to Central Michigan, and removed the selflinks from the region article so it doesn't lead readers in a loop. I have also adjusted the route box. There are no larger places nearby for which a redirect makes sense to me. If someone wants to change the redirect, they should plunge forward and do it.

I don't object to anything in User:WhatamIdoing's version, but this really comes across like a solution in search of a problem. Ground Zero (talk) 11:48, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I like the status quo, but I think we need a guideline (not a policy) on the matter. I don't see how redirecting Harrison (Michigan) would be a violation of WhatamIdoing's guideline/policy. As I see it, the proposed guideline does not change the status quo significantly, and sets standards similar to the de facto procedure. By putting these in writing, we can hopefully avoid debates as to the guideline on the matter.
If a "random passerby" creates a mainspace page that is an outline with no content besides the lede paragraph, we should explain to the user that this is not an acceptable article and allow for a redirect if the new page fails wiaa. If the random passerby creates enough outlines, then this activity should be classified as disruptive editing, because this makes work for other contributors. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 12:11, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I should have been cleaer: if a random passerby created a skeleton article 8, 12 or 15 years ago.... For new articles, I take it up with the editor as I did on Talk:Columbus (Nebraska). We ended up with a good article because of that. Ground Zero (talk) 12:26, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that was a problem when those skeleton articles were created. But I believe many of them were deleted? See Wikivoyage talk:Article status#Progress in bringing down number of outline cities.
Meanwhile I have created User:SelfieCity/Should I merge two pages?. Feel free to edit so we can ultimately move to project space. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 13:21, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of them weren't deleted, that's why I am working to clean them up now. We've spent a lot of time discussing policy and guidelines, and I'm tired of it. I need to spend more time improving the travel guide now, so I'm not going to comment. Ground Zero (talk) 13:27, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
GZ, in my proposal, redirecting Harrison (Michigan) would have been the right thing to do. You had a plausible reason that wasn't solely the page being basically empty ("too small/uninteresting to warrant an article"). I wouldn't have changed a thing about what you did there.
If someone else decided that you made a mistake, it'd be that other person's job to either:
  • prove that Harrison was an obviously viable destination by expanding the article, or
  • start a consensus-oriented discussion to find out what other contributors think.
The biggest change I could imagine to your process is that you might use more edit summaries that say "too small/uninteresting to warrant an article" and fewer that say "no content since 2006". WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:28, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I would say a guideline here makes sense over a guideline about article creation because it is mostly users who have spent some time editing that create redirects, while new articles are more likely to be created by random people who don't know or care about the guidelines. But also, we want more articles, so in theory, we promote and encourage article creation. Creating redirects is not a goal or something we promote or encourage users to do. It's something that is only warranted under specific circumstances, and it's better if there is a guideline so editors all know and understand what those circumstances are.

I'm going to repost this, because I think it's important and would like thoughts/responses as to the effectiveness of the "redirect to the region" advice we have always given: Like LPfi above, I also question whether our advice to redirect to the region article is sensible or helpful in practice. Is there an article where that has been done well? LPfi above talks about it "destroying" a region, and I also think this tends to mess things up more than solve things. If we look at his example of Päijänne Tavastia, I agree that someone making all of the redlinks into content-less articles would be bad. But if someone did that and then those were all redirected back to Päijänne Tavastia, I think that would also be a problem. A region article with some cities linked but also with listings from random cities (that may be on opposite ends of cities with listings within the region) is difficult to edit/curate, and difficult to navigate and understand for readers. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 14:25, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

From the perspective of someone actually doing the work, I think redirects should be determined based on the facts of each case. In the case of Harrison (Michigan), there was no logical city to redirect it to. Redirecting it to the region article made the most sense, and it did not create a redirect back because I removed the selflink as I always do. If you want to change the redirect, you should plunge forward and do it. Wikivoyage is the travel guide you can edit. I disagree that the sort of article creation that resulted in Harrison (Michigan) is a goal. It is a waste of the reader's time. I'm not going to address the hypothetical provided above because I want to focus on making real improvements to Wikivoyage, including adding content. Ground Zero (talk) 15:03, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think GZ makes a valid point. There’s a growing mentality of some people doing the work while the other part criticize the work. I don’t think it’s fair to criticize work unless you also chip in to help the project. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 15:29, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it is a valid point. But with a guideline more people might be confident to plunge forward. I know I had deleted the Finnish empty outlines, but consensus was to redirect instead, based on our policy. I don't see the point in the Harrison (Michigan) redirect. It does little harm, as few will search for that town, but I don't know those that do are much served by the redirect. OK, the town is mentioned in Central Michigan, but wouldn't they have found the region article without the redirect? Even if they don't know it's there, a search will find it. Perhaps few of the redirects do any harm, we just have to unlink them and add mentions about the places in redirect targets. I thought, though, that a discussion like this, and a guideline, is the way we document best practices, perhaps even develop them, and I thought it is a good thing that our best practices are well.known. –LPfi (talk) 19:17, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If the reader is looking to see what there is to do in Central Michigan, and they click on the skeleton Harrison article, all they learn is that Harrison is in Central Michigan, which they knew already. That makes Wikivoyage seem like a time-wasting site. If there is a link or an article, I think it should give the reader some information. The idea that having a skeleton article will inspire readers to add to it has (a) been proven wrong in the cases of the articles that I have been redirecting after years of sitting empty, and (b) serves Wikivoyage instead of serving the reader. Ground Zero (talk) 00:28, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think redirects get handled differently in SEO terms (most readers get here via external web search engines), and the redirect gives the reader a more obvious place to click on a disambiguation page like Harrison. In those two ways, a redirect with approximately no content is better than a non-existent page.
Perhaps more importantly, "the reader looking to see what there is to do in Central Michigan" is not the only reader. The reader trying to figure out how to get to that business meeting in Harrison, Michigan is another use case, and that reader may be helped more by a redirect to the region (makes it easier to find a town about which we do have some information) than by not having a page at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:33, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not enthusiastic about creating different levels of advice. If this is going to be how we do things, then this is how we do things, and we can write it down without worrying about labels. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:17, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I can say that there have been times that I have searched for a place or clicked a link that led me to a region article and at times it's downright aggravating (especially when there is a link loop), but I never found it useful. In the Harrison (Michigan) example, if I were the user looking for Harrison, Michigan, I'd want information on Harrison, Michigan. The redirect doesn't help in that regard. Ground Zero's point, though, that leaving the article if it just says "Harrison is in Michigan" would also be useless for me. One says it's in the region, the other just takes you to the region. In terms of ttcf, I would wager neither are very useful for traveler.
Andrewssi2 had proposed without any response aside from a question from me about the bounds of his proposal back in 2015 on the How to Redirect a Page talk page: "I'm suggesting that if an article has really no useful information (and I mean really nothing, just an outline of sections and something like 'Town X is famous for cats') then deletion after a period of time should be an uncontroversial option." What do people think about his proposal? That would save time for editors like Ground Zero and also be better for the travelers (another point made in that discussion). ChubbyWimbus (talk) 11:52, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Changing "don't delete real places" is a different proposal that should be discussed separately. Some people will be strongly opposed. Ii don't have an opinion on this idea, and would like to see the discussion. Ground Zero (talk) 12:18, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think it is very much connected. The question is what to do with weak outlines. If some of them should be deleted, then those do not need to be redirected. But perhaps you are right that it is better to take that discussion separately anyway – if most people here feel so. –LPfi (talk) 15:56, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that it is connected, but as it is controversial, I am concerned that it might throw this discussion off track. Ground Zero (talk) 19:12, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I have started a separate thread at the bottom of this page. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 20:26, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@WhatamIdoing, LPfi, ChubbyWimbus, Ground Zero, SHB2000: In case the interested parties missed my comment regarding the deletion proposal above: Wikivoyage:Travellers' pub#Deleting empty outline articles. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 22:52, 31 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Draft

As I see it the original debate is more-or-less a truce as there are firmly entrenched opinions and neither will give way. All that’s left is draft at User:SelfieCity/Should I merge two pages? based on the comment by WhatamIdoing. If people don’t want it, that’s fine by me, but I think we need to come to consensus whether we want a guideline (and therefore a sort-of consensus) or not. If not I guess it’s the status quo? What happens when there is no consensus in a case such as this one? --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 12:23, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

We can have a guideline or not have a guideline. In the latter case we might have a consensus but at least I am very much unaware of it and I think a guideline would be a nice way to explain it to me. Otherwise I just have to leave those decisions to the people who think they know. –LPfi (talk) 16:02, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That content could be put into Wikivoyage:How to merge two pages, where it might be easier to find. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:25, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That’s okay, although it might require restructuring the content. Is the how to merge page a policy, guideline, essay, or none of those? --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 16:49, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think a guideline is a good idea. Along with Wikivoyage:How to merge two pages, we also have Wikivoyage:How to redirect a page. I don't know which of those pages is better (or if someone thinks there is a completely different option that will work). They are not very different articles. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 11:32, 31 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Of changes and lockdowns and food

So, I am going through the cities that I've been curating and I am wondering what do I do? COVID-19 changed the entire way restaurants do business, some restaurants shuttering, most others leaning into delivery or takeout whenever possible. And that's just restaurants. A lot of the way of doing things has been changed. Do I simply post the present state of information? Do I simply let the things stay as is until restrictions are listed? I am inclined to do the former, updating wherever possible. L. Challenger (talk) 07:35, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I would trust your local judgment, but at this point, I would tend to update. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:52, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Here new restrictions were introduced yesterday (?). I think there is no sense in changing opening hours according to the regulations: they will probably be restored when the situation improves, and the maximum opening hours are uniform across the region and a certain type of businesses. No chance to keep up updating all of them and the result will just be confusing.
I think updates on individual listings, cities or regions should mostly be done only when a change can be assumed to stay. I am not even removing closed businesses when it is probable a new owner will come along. Much of the information can be told in more general terms, such as "opening hours for restaurants are restricted in areas where the COVID-19 situation is severe", "many businesses have closed down, some temporarily or transformed to take-out only". Then let readers check individual businesses by themselves.
LPfi (talk) 09:36, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There are places in the U.S. and some other countries where limited hours are no longer in force and are now at the discretion of restaurants. It's in those situations when it seems reasonable to update. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:03, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with LPfi and Ikan Kekek, and I want to emphasize that this really varies by location and by type of establishment. Challenger l, I see that you mainly edit articles about northern California. From what I hear, things are much more stable and back to normal there than, say, in Sydney or Tokyo. For restaurants in northern California I would probably go ahead and update; for most things in Sydney I would wait. It's also worth considering whether the establishment itself seems to see the change as permanent – if their website states that their current hours are temporary because of COVID, or that their closure is permanent, I would take that into account. —Granger (talk · contribs) 15:19, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
One thing that I think has lasting value is removing listings for permanently closed restaurants and similar businesses. I think we can safely assume that major attractions (e.g., amusement parks) will continue to exist in some form, but local restaurants – once they announce a permanent closure, they're unlikely to be re-opened. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:33, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Depends. At the university a restaurant got bankrupt and closed. In a few months there was a new owner. It of course depends, but I think such development is common where the problems are about not having deep enough pockets, but the location is obviously good for a restaurant (or whatever). In a city street there might come a shop instead, but at some locations you know it will be the same type of business. –LPfi (talk) 18:44, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That's true, but even if it's the same type of business it may be very different from the establishment that was closed, or the new establishment may not be good enough to be worth recommending. I don't think it's worth keeping a listing for a permanently closed restaurant just because another restaurant is likely to open in the same spot at some point. —Granger (talk · contribs) 14:54, 23 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree and had the same thought. Nelson Ricardo (talk) 17:55, 23 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
We should probably keep a sentence that says "There are multiple restaurants along High Street", but "Named Restaurant, 123 High St, closed Mondays, $10, famous for ceviche" should be removed, because even if a restaurant re-appears in the same location, it will likely have different hours, different prices, and a different menu. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:35, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Edits by Luchy04

For those of you who did the surgery on the big block of text there, you'd know about their copyvios. But it seems that despite numerous warnings given to them, yet they still continue to add copyvios. I blocked them for a week following what Omondi did to them on the French Wikivoyage, but I am reluctant to trust any one of their edits as being copyvio free. If possible, could Andyrom75 and FredTC comment about their edits on it and nl voy (I know about their edits on fr.voy, but nowhere else)?

If you look at their edits, the first thing you'll notice is that at least 80% of his mainspace edits have more than 500 bytes added into it. Not just here, but on all the Wikivoyage's they've been contributing. The only wiki where I've noticed that no edits of theirs has been reverted is fi.voy as you can see at (I suppose LPfi could tell whether they're copyvio or not since they're the only admin here who speaks Suomi).

So, the main question is, if Luchy04 still hasn't learnt their lesson, are we just going to leave it or revert all of it, as something tells me that all of their edits are copyvios. This guy risks getting the WMF in a lawsuit.

Cheers,

SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:23, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Has this user ever communicated with others? How many language additions does s/he edit? All the language editions, he would be unlikely to know all those languages, but to copyvio comprehension is not as important. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 11:29, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
From what I know, they edit: en, fr, nl, it, fi, de, es and pt. Only western European languages. No one is monitoring them on fi, and have no idea about es. Oh, and they only communicate to make us happy, but I and Andyrom75 don't feel like it's a genuine response. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:32, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at L's Global user contributions, I see even edits to the Italian Wikipedia, starting June 2019. Some are edits of adding over 100,000 byes of text, but reverted soon after. On the Dutch Wikivoyage L adds lots and lots of text, that can be reduced 80-90% without missing essential information. The added info is also incorrect at some places; so, it was not obtained from personal experience by L. It takes a lot of work to do the reduction to a more usual Wikivoyage style. I get the impression that L is copying text from another language and does an automatic translation, avoiding copyvio detection. I'm thinking about askig an admin to block L. --FredTC (talk) 13:12, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I get the same impression as Fred with regard to translation software. The user's edits are just too detailed, too frequent and too numerous for them all to have been original work. Since we know he has committed copyvio on several Wikivoyages, has received numerous warnings across those, and has been subjected to two one-week blocks (on fr and now en), I'd be in favour of adopting a "one strike and you're out" approach upon his return to en: he'll be warned on his talk page that any additional copyvio will result in a local indefblock. Any takers? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 13:24, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 13:34, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In Finnish he did similar detailed additions, with no try at incorporating existing text. There are some flaws that hint at machine translation, but either the translation was edited afterwards (unlikely in this case, it seems) or I have to be impressed – I thought machine translation to Finnish was much worse. I suppose I should give them a note. –LPfi (talk) 15:26, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I hear that https://www.deepl.com/translate is better for European languages in general, but I've never heard anything specific to Finnish. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:36, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Finnish is hard, as you don't get anywhere by translating words (in anything you wouldn't get across with Tarzan speech à la "me man, you woman"). You often need to really understand the relations between the elements of a sentence to get even a sensible result, as Finnish expresses things differently from Indo-European languages. To get something that resembles native text is even more difficult. –LPfi (talk) 18:58, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Luckily, for the machine translation, Finnish is well-studied and there is money available for the research needed (not like for English or French, but still). Thus native solutions can be created, like the Finnish proofreading that now exists on Linux despite it requiring advanced morphological analysis. I suppose there are similar problems for many language groups that don't have the resources. –LPfi (talk) 19:04, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@LPfi: that explains Vkem's weird translations. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 01:20, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@tt! I agree. To @Andyrom75, 3Pappa3:, you should probably consider blocks on them on it.voy. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 23:27, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Luchy has greatly reduced the edits on it:voy. Probably because very few of his changes were (totaly) kept. The main problem is the lack of collaboration in the discussion namespace, which imho makes him not compatible with the project. If he comes back to edit on it:voy I would agree to a block.--3Pappa3 (talk) 07:08, 23 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I just reverted some of their edits likely to be a copyvio. Missed any? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 07:03, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@SelfieCity, ThunderingTyphoons!, FredTC, WhatamIdoing, LPfi, 3Pappa3: so, since Luchy04's block is coming to an end, are we agreeing to a one strike then you are out? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 22:17, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Support I didn't comment earlier, but I support this. Ground Zero (talk) 22:46, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

With their block ending in 7 hours as of this message, hopefully, we never have to indef ban them SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 04:24, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

UBN

There is a discussion underway here about what to do about ongoing contributions by an editor who has made unilateral changes repeatedly. Other views would be appreciated, and not just three views, excluding myself. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 00:26, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Just a reminder that at the top of this pub page it says "If you'd like to draw attention to a comment to get feedback from other Wikivoyagers, try Requests for comment." Nurg (talk) 01:14, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Nurg, I'm well aware of that. But there's no spot for ban nominations and this is for a topic ban, not a policy. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 01:23, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Right, well, I think it's fine to create a new section heading at Requests for comment. Nurg (talk) 02:24, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes Done SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 02:29, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

3 digit listings

We have another moment of that in New South Wales National Parks. How do we fix it?

Cheers, SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 09:10, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Two ways I can think of:
  1. Cut down the list to remove the swath of red links (though arguably all of those parks could one day get their own article).
  2. Split into multiple list articles by region.
Either of those work? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 10:42, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I remember when 82 was around, someone (I think it was either FredTC or Nelson Ricardo 2500) who said that you could change the color of the listing and it would work. Also, if I do option one, that defeats the purpose of the entire article. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:45, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, you can change the colour of the markers too. See Presidents of the United States for how. What is the purpose of the article; just to be a big list? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:01, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The purpose is meant to be similar to United States National Parks but I didn't realize that there'd be so many red links. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:11, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In fairness, did you know there'd be a gazillion national parks? I'm guessing there's no such thing as a state park, national nature reserve etc. in NSW, since some on the list are vast and some seem to be no bigger than your average municipal park.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:20, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, no. We have plenty of state parks, nature reserves, more than the list of national parks here (If I go four houses down my street then I'll arrive at a nature reserve). SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:26, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I see. It still might be worthwhile to explain in the article why some of the parks are so small and what makes them special enough for national protection.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:35, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Could do that, but the small ones are really only in metro Sydney, but there's some other ones too. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:39, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@SHB2000, see Module:TypeToColor for a list of all colors. Scroll down to the code for more; there are "deprecated" ones that aren't in the table. I suggest using one color per region. Nelson Ricardo (talk) 11:29, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the link :) Probably will use one color per region and one special color for all the unesco listed sites. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:36, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest the markers should not be with type=go or type=vicinity, because they have a special meaning. And you see the name at mouse-over events, and that might be confusing for the traveler. So, I think they all should be with type=color-name, with a selection of the following possible color-names:
black, blue, brown, chocolate, forestgreen, gold, gray/grey, lime, magenta, maroon, mediumaquamarine, navy, orange, plum, purple, red, royalblue, silver, steelblue and teal.
Then every region section should have its own
<!-- * {{marker|type=color-name|lat=|long=|name=|image=|wikidata=}} AN EMPTY TEMPLATE TO QUICKLY COPY AND PASTE THE CONTENT IN-->
Which will make it self-explaining for other editors. --FredTC (talk) 12:49, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Event articles

I was thinking whether maybe to introduce a new event article status (just like city, park, region, dive, itinerary etc.). To me, event articles don't really feel like a "Travel topic" to me. Travel topics usually just explain the sites of xxx relating to yyy.

A good example to bring up while were at this is Tokyo 2020. It has all the sites and everything, and it'll all make sense now, but not in a few years time, unless someone is keen on visiting them again.

Anyone else for that idea?

--SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 04:22, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Worth thinking about. Are you thinking that anything needs to change other than the immediate categorisation in the hierarchy and the swap from e.g. {{usabletopic}} to {{usableevent}}? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 08:18, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe creating a page on Wikivoyage:Event article status. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 08:20, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes Done at User:SHB2000/Event articles. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 08:40, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Events redirects to Activities which has no relevant content. Major events will often be the reason for travel to a city, should upcoming events be listed there or somewhere? But I suggest we should clear out past events, WV is not a historic record like WP. Though of course it's helpful to mention them as part of the city's history and legacy infrastructure. Grahamsands (talk) 08:54, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
We could perma protect all of the past event articles (such as Beijing 2008), since, why delete all the hard work that some contributors have put in for events. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 08:57, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Because the criterion is current / future value for the traveller, not the "sunk cost" of time already spent. Grahamsands (talk) 09:02, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
True. But again, they're archived. But anyway, I did do some modifications to {{stbox}}, and so now other templates like {{outlineevent}} should work now. It can always be deleted and reverted if it doesn't get community consensus SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 09:14, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is helpful to separate categories of travel topics – if we can give more detailed guidance through the separation and indeed do give that guidance. I suppose the status table now is just a copy. To make the separation useful, there needs to be some work done making the separate status table and the separate guidance indeed useful. I believe WV:Events should be fairly well developed before the separate category is worthwhile. Until then the general travel topic category offers enough flexibility. I don't think "travel topic" for an event is any worse than "city" for a resort.

On the old events: the articles should be kept. Our mission is not keeping historic records, but neither is it deleting history. They do no harm, if the name includes the year, and they are useful for a slew of reasons, including as models for future event articles

LPfi (talk) 09:57, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

But is it the intention also to create a list of upcoming events? The really really big ones, that might merit their own page? I'd blithely assumed there already was one that I'd never searched for. It's easily created so long as it's confined to two-liners - date, city, nature and links is all - but it would need curating. Grahamsands (talk) 14:36, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
(LATER) I went ahead and created Events as a stub. Grahamsands (talk) 19:26, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Wouldn't this fall under this previous VfD? Also, it seems we already have a category: Category:Calendar of events and festivals. Powers (talk) 01:59, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That page appears defunct and demonstrates the impracticality of listing events that are merely "very big". The distinction here is events so huge that you can't not plan around them, and WV would be deficient not to summarise them somewhere. I think the present page is viable only if it stays focussed on that, and rebuffts attempts by the Albanian Golf Association to publicise all their qualifying rounds. However if there are external sporting and cultural listing sites that we think are comprehensive and reliable, those might be linked. Grahamsands (talk) 08:15, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'll be drafting on that so hold on a sec. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 09:44, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Events so huge you can't not plan around them, need not be that huge, if they happen to happen where you are going. Something light Slush with some 25.000 participants is enough that you won't find lodging in Helsinki. I listed it locally because of that, although it isn't of interest for the average traveller. Does the OS have non-local effects on travel? –LPfi (talk) 16:09, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

UK Covid advice..

It's about to change...

August 16th is the next big change.

There is also a proposed change that would reopen the UK to fully vaccinated travellers from the US and EU assuming they have the appropriate documentation ( such as the EU's digital pass scheme) Can someone check the details on this? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 10:36, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

pinging @ThunderingTyphoons!: SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia)

Deleting empty outline articles

I don’t have a strong opinion on this currently, but as it as been suggested to start a discussion, I’m opening this proposal. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 19:32, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I support this proposal. For those who remember, we did this when it came to User:AnglaisEP's students (English teacher in France), and personally, being red linked in my opinion will create less disappointment than finding out what they already knew. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 23:59, 31 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. See earlier discussion, starting at Wikivoyage_talk:Deletion_policy/Archive_2014-2019#Deleting_NEW_empty_articles and continuing into later sections of that page. Everything I would want to say here, I already said there. Pashley (talk) 04:15, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Eh, this is a proposal to delete all empty outline articles? Strongly oppose! Is that a serious proposal? If someone just started an article and is going to work on it, you'd delete it immediately? Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:34, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Nah, probably wait a month or two. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 05:35, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'd suggest taking a case-by-case approach. We don't like it when users on Commons are in such a rush to delete everything; we shouldn't emulate that. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:22, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

(indent) Hold up! I also oppose deleting empty articles that were just created, but I think there is merit to deleting empty skeletons that have been around for a specific amount of time. I'm thinking 1 year. We of course do want to give people time to build the article and immediate deletion is really unwelcoming to new editors (or any editor, really). But 1 year should be enough time to create an article and add SOME information beyond "X is a city in Y". We could even give them mention in the pub or on the vfd page just prior to deletion so that an editor who wanted to edit but forgot or lost track of time can do so (although in these cases, the articles can also just be created again since they are real places). In the above discussion, Ground Zero had mentioned that a lot of the pages he's redirecting (or has considered redirecting but decided to add content to) are pages that have been empty for 10 years. Others have said the same in previous discussions. There is a desire among editors/admin to do something about these articles and without the delete option, they get redirected which has led to other issues that have also been discussed a handful of times. While some editors feel that these articles should be left alone, that option doesn't sit well with other editors, which leads to the redirects. Having a deletion option with a specified amount of time would seem to solve a lot of these small issues that keep coming back: An editor is less likely to waste time with redirects if s/he knows that it's been around for 7 months and can just be removed after 3 more months, and the concerns that admin would go nuts deleting articles is removed by the 1 year (or whatever amount of time we set) time frame. The admin would be aware that a 4 month old outline must remain 6 more months as is before taking action. Having a place to post the articles could also alleviate any concerns of rogue deletion. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 11:25, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be OK with discussing what to do with a virtually blank article after 1 year, as long as there is no automatic outcome. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:48, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, ChubbyWimbus is right about "the concerns that admin would go nuts deleting articles". That's a really big problem. Those admins driven crazy by the awesome powers they wield. (I am being free with sarcasm here because that continues to be the tone of the discussion.) We have provisions for admins that abuse their powers, so we don't need to worry about that.
I would not want to see any restriction applied in the case of a page-creation vandal or someone who just creates an article or two and never comes back.
In the case of an established editor, what would they be doing creating an article that says "X is in Y", and then walking away? For a skeleton article, I think one month is a reasonable time to give them to start developing an article.
For a short article ("X is a historical village in Y, and you can get to it on the Z highway"), one year would be reasonable to see if it is going to develop further. Ground Zero (talk) 22:25, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The reason sarcasm isn't warranted is that if something becomes a guideline, someone is likely to go through the site editing everything to conform to that guideline. But on the specifics, I'd give skeleton articles 3 months, or at least 2. And of course there is not and never will be any restrictions on deleting pages that are created by vandals! Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:54, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
So, after developing a consensus to adopt a new guideline, we should hope that editors ignore it? Okay, that justifies the sort of hyperbole that derailed this discussion before it even got underway. Ground Zero (talk) 01:01, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think that comment was unwarranted. The point is that trusting admins to always be reasonable might be wishful thinking. I hope it is true here, but it is not on en-wp or Commons, and there have been some cases of drama around that at sv-wp. To avoid an admin (or another user) going crazy, guidelines should be carefully worded. Still, guidelines are guidelines, and they are supposed to be applied using some discretion, not blindly as the Roman judge ideal.
For the subject matter, I will wait and follow the discussion, as there seems to be firm opinions I have not yet fully understood. It might be too costly to get what I thought would be a few improvements on the way we treat the weak outlines.
LPfi (talk) 04:25, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"So, after developing a consensus to adopt a new guideline, we should hope that editors ignore it?" Did you really think I meant that? I just want deliberation before articles that are not obviously vandalistic or copyvio are deleted. I remember when an article about a town of over 5,000 in Pennsylvania, I think a county seat, with a nice historic zone was nominated for deletion. Being thus alerted, I decided to take the time to do some internet research and turn it into a usable or at least decent outline article, with some help from others. If a nearly blank or weak article is threatened with deletion now and then, such efforts can take place, but I hope we don't see lists of dozens of articles for destinations with enough potential listings to merit real guides being nominated for deletion at the same time, because then the challenge, if they merit decent coverage, will be comparable to when dozens of photos are nominated for deletion on Commons and we're left to scramble to salvage the work before it's deleted. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:07, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No, it was just hyperbole, like "the concerns that admin would go nuts deleting articles". I'd prefer if everyone took the rhetoric down a notch, but others seem to be okay with it.
Deleted articles are quite easily restored, especially when they have no content. Either we redirect skeletons or delete them. We have 15 years of data that show that keeping them around because someone some day might add some text isn't working just a lot of cases. There is no reason why an article for the Pennsylvania town showing why it warranted an article couldn't be created after the skeleton had been deleted. Deletion is not forever. Ground Zero (talk) 11:00, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Deleted articles are easily restored if you are an established contributor who knows how things work around here. If you are a newbie who sees the automatic message that Tinyville was deleted (displayed to anyone who tries to re-create deleted articles), you might well conclude that we had deliberately decided not to have an article about that location, and give up. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:06, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Many of the skeleton articles have been created by users who are just passing through, so they don't seem to find it that difficult. Ground Zero (talk) 17:10, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Creating an article that has never existed before ≠ re-creating one that was previously deleted. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:00, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) I don’t think any articles with more than a thousand bytes should be deleted. This number is what typically indicates a decent amount of content, though of course the quality of content must also be taken into account. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 11:04, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Even articles at 700 bytes have at least a little content that would have to be merged into another article, which I think means redirecting rather than deleting, so I don't see this being a problem. Ground Zero (talk) 11:27, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
SelfieCity claims "We have 15 years of data that show that keeping them around because someone some day might add some text isn't working ..." and yes, we do have some articles that have been stubs for over a decade. However, it seems to me they are mostly harmless. Throw in a WP link & geo co-ords (copied from WP) if those are not there already & then leave them. This is no more work than merging & redirecting.
Yes, if they are too tiny to have a WP article, consider deleting, but also consider redirecting. Quoting myself in the earlier thread (link above):
Specks on the map may not have any reason for tourism but they do get visitors. For example, as a kid I visited Kelwood, Manitoba (pop. < 500, no WP or WV article) because my grandparents were there. Also, it is moderately common for overseas Chinese, descendants of various European immigrants to the New World and others to want a look at the ancestral home, and that may well be some obscure village. They are moderately likely to search for the village name, in which case a redirect will be helpful.
Also, we have some data indicating that empty outlines sometimes get expanded. Quoting myself again, from the same thread:
Checking back a year and a half after the discussion petered out, I find the examples above — Danao City, Sipalay, San Carlos (Negros Occidental) and Catarman — have all been expanded; certainly none of them are great articles, but they are now all better than nothing.
The best example is Catarman. It is a provincial capital with nearly 100k population & links from at least half a dozen other WV articles; deletion should never have been considered. Despite that, it was deleted twice as an empty outline & I restored it as almost empty; see Talk:Catarman. It still isn't much of an article, but definitely better than nothing. Pashley (talk) 12:40, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Pashley: For the sake of clarity in this discussion, GZ made the claim regarding outline articles, though I’m inclined to agree with him. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 13:33, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ooops. Apologies to both. Pashley (talk) 13:52, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Nobody is going around mass deleting stubs, or redirecting every article with little or no content. These are hypothetical problems. I don't think we should try to anticipate every hypothetical situation and write a policy or guideline about it. Editors who start doing mass deletions or redirects can be dealt with on their talk pages, or with blocks if necessary.
Individual cases, such as those you cite, are easily dealt with by adding content, as I did for these skeleton articles yesterday and today [1], [2], [3]. Deleting or redirecting articles does not mean that they cannot be recreated and expanded later.
As far as cities like Catarman go, I don't see cities being deleted or redirected anymore. Suburbs are another matter. North Richland Hills has 70,000 people, but had only one listing. It is more useful to travellers to list that place in the Fort Worth article, where they are more likely to find it, than to tuck it away in a separate article of its own. If Fort Worth becomes too long someday and there are enough listings for North Richland Hills, it would make sense to split it out then. Ground Zero (talk) 15:48, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
With the caveat that I don't know much about the Fort Worth area, stating in an article that it also includes the nearby suburbs of X, Y and Z is usually perfectly reasonable, except in cases like New York City in which there's a sharp distinction between the city and its suburbs. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:24, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. One good example is Dumaguete#Understand. Pashley (talk) 22:49, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think we have two unrelated subjects being discussed here. One is about whether we want nearly-empty articles. The other is about what The Rules™ say.
On that second point, I want to expand on what Ikan said earlier: The best practice in writing a policy is to assume that, at some point, your rules will be interpreted and applied by an idiot. Sometimes the idiot will be well-meaning rule-follower; sometimes the idiot will be a wikilawyer; sometimes the idiot will be a manager at work, but we can predict that if a workplace writes down a rule that says there is zero tolerance for age-related harassment and the outcome is always firing people, then someone's eventually going to get fired for organizing a birthday party. Similarly, here, if we write down a rule that says Thou Must Redirect or Delete empty skeletons, then someone will insist that this rule be implemented even when it'd be stupid to do so, and if we write down a rule that says Thou Must Not Redirect Places with a Population of 70,000 That Contain One Listing, then someone's going to insist that North Richland Hills, which could be a separate article but which is probably best handled (at least for now) as part of the larger metro area, be kept separate.
I think it is a bad idea to write down clear "game-able" rules when we need to make decisions based on good judgment and case-by-case circumstances. Because of that, my inclination of the first point is to suggest that the process for deleting "empty outlines" continue to be a discussion at Wikivoyage:Votes for deletion, and that the current state of an article not be the primary factor in deciding whether we should have an article about that destination. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:09, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

New external link and email icons

I recently noticed that the external link and email icons changed. I wasn't expecting this change, and I just shrugged it off, but I now see that listings have two email icons, one before and one after. Nelson Ricardo (talk) 21:04, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Non-listing email

Non-listing website

We could set the style to "plainlinks", so that there would be only one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:29, 31 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Why is archiver bot not working?

It hasn't been archiving my talk page for months now. Any reason to this? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:12, 31 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Call for Candidates for the Movement Charter Drafting Committee

Movement Strategy announces the Call for Candidates for the Movement Charter Drafting Committee. The Call opens August 2, 2021 and closes September 1, 2021.

This Committee will have around 15 members. It is expected to represent diversity in the Movement. Diversity includes gender, language, geography, and experience. This comprises participation in projects, affiliates, and the Wikimedia Foundation. You can read the full announcement here.

Will you help move Wikimedia forward in this important role? Submit your candidacy starting from next week here. Please contact strategy2030wikimedia.org with questions. Best, Zuz (WMF) (talk) 12:57, 31 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Template showing a page is semi-protected?

Maybe we should have a template noting that a page is semi-protected, which we add to articles and talk pages we semi-protect due to spamming or vandalism. This way, new editors would not be discouraged by finding an edit did not save for reason that might not be understood by them. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 15:26, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

To be seen by new editors the notice would need to be very prominent, which is distracting for readers. I think it is enough to warn a reader in a sensible manner when they hit "edit". Also the listing editor should handle the situation sensibly (warning as first thing). –LPfi (talk) 16:32, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I believe Leaderboard brought this up some time earlier. But if we were to, can we use Wikibooks style templates and not Wikipedia style? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 21:57, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Why do this at all? There are only 22 semi-protected articles at the moment (plus one that's protected at a higher level). MediaWiki software automatically indicates the status ("Edit" turns into "View source"), and if you do click the button, it gives a brief explanatory message (including, but not limited to, MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext. I think this is sufficient. I also think it is more more intelligible than sticking an unfamiliar icon somewhere on the page, and better than sticking a text explanation on the page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:17, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, you are correct. For some reason I didn’t realize it showed this message when clicking “edit.” --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 23:37, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Need to go to incognito to see it. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 23:41, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
What about the listing editor? Does the edit link show on protected pages? What happens when you click it? –LPfi (talk) 04:27, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The edit link doesn't show. I have just looked at Liverpool in another browser where I haven't logged in, and there are no edit links for any of the "see" listings. AlasdairW (talk) 09:21, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This may of course be confusing. I don't know what to do about it. –LPfi (talk) 09:28, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'll try experimenting with one. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 09:38, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it is confusing - the reader is not presented with any tools to edit the article. Would a talk page message be useful to explain this to potential editors? The usable status message at the bottom of the article does still say "but please feel free to improve it by editing the page.", but I don't thimk we have enough protected pages to worry about this detail. AlasdairW (talk) 09:45, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I have tested this out of Sydney/Upper North Shore which is currently protected from Brendan. Looks half good, except the link needs to be fixed. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:10, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I feel like it's not worth protecting any article from that guy because it's so easy to just roll back his edits. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:29, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
SHB, would you please stop importing templates from other wikis? Our goal is the fewest number of templates possible. Also, by using that template, you've inadvertently created categories (the actual categories, not the visible page – MediaWiki's weird about the structure of cats) that we don't need and didn't want.
As an exercise, if it's safe in your area, I suggest that you show a handful of non-editors that page and ask them what they think those blobs up in the corner mean. I bet that none of them will guess correctly. The page is locked for everyone who sees it? (No, most active editors can still edit it.) The page is finalized? (No, it's just as much "in progress" as every other page.) This template basically decorates articles with a icon that is only meaningful to the one-in-a-quarter-million people worldwide who have spent significant time editing the English Wikipedia. This is not helpful. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:19, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]