Wikivoyage:Travellers' pub

Shortcut: Pub The Travellers' pub is the place to ask questions when you're confused, lost, afraid, tired, annoyed, thoughtful, or helpful. Please check the FAQ and Help page before asking a question though, since that may save your time and others'. Please add new questions at the bottom of the page and sign your post by appending four tildes (~~~~) to it, but otherwise plunge forward! 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 are having a problem that you think has to do with the MediaWiki software, please post that on Bugzilla instead. If you want to celebrate a significant contribution to Wikivoyage by yourself or others, Project:Celebrate a contribution may be the place you are looking for. Issues related to more than one language version of Wikivoyage are discussed in the Wikivoyage Lounge on Meta. Please sweep the pub Keeping the Pub clean is a group effort. If we have too many conversations on this page, it will get too noisy and hard to read. If you see an old conversation (i.e. a month dormant) that could or should be moved to a talk page, please do so, and note there 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.

New content from WT

Look here:

http://en.wikivoyage.org/w/index.php?title=Saint_Vincent&curid=30673&diff=1920064&oldid=1913939&rcid=207163

I think these edits should be reverted. We can not copy text from WT after the migration. The footer states a specific revision of an article and attributes the contributors till this stated date. From this point of time we can not copy text from WT. If different WT contrubutors edited this article on WT meanwhile, then we have NO proper attribution here. The idea is nice but we can not do that. Please do NOT copy cc-by-sa 3.0 text from other sources (like WT, WP or elsewhere) without attribution. We should revert these edits immediately! -- DerFussi (talk) 14:40, 18 October 2012 (CEST)

Sorry! I thought it was OK. Can an admin revert all my edits from last few days in one move? Jjtk (talk) 14:54, 18 October 2012 (CEST)

No, it is not possible, you will have to do reverts by hand=( However, I believe that you can keep all anonymous contributions. You can also keep small personalized contributions by slightly rephrasing them (that's what I had to do for Middle Asia because of bad grammar and poor style). Regarding the big pieces of text, it may be good to get in touch with their authors who are probably not aware of the fork. Just leave them carefully phrased messages on their talk pages.

Stefan, will you accept this strategy? Atsirlin (talk) 15:37, 18 October 2012 (CEST)

Alexander, it's possible with most edits. Only the edits which have been reworked by someone else afterwards need to be done manually. I think i that case, rephrasing is easiest. I started but feel free to amend my reverts. Jc8136 (talk) 15:41, 18 October 2012 (CEST)

How are you doing it? Could you share this secret? Atsirlin (talk) 16:02, 18 October 2012 (CEST)

I reverted all my edits except two by anonymous WT contributors and one that had WT user's permission to copy. But is not the link I pasted in edit summary an attribution? Jjtk (talk) 16:17, 18 October 2012 (CEST)

It is freely licensed information, and can be used on Wikivoyage. Instead of wholesale reverting, I think proper attribution should be added. --Globe-trotter (talk) 16:54, 18 October 2012 (CEST)

That's the hard part, though. Our attribution is traditionally programmatic, making use of the article history data built into MediaWiki. There's no easy way to combine that with "manual" attribution. LtPowers (talk) 17:19, 18 October 2012 (CEST)

This issue appears often when translating text from one-language Wikipedia to another or merging articles. Current position there appears to be that indicating in the edit summary where the open-content was taken meets CC-BY attribution requirements. K7L (talk) 19:28, 18 October 2012 (CEST)

If the WT edit is referred to in the edit summary (i.e information from WT user xxx on date yyy) I don't see why this attribution is any different to that give for other edits on WT or WV. Our policy says we can copy data from other CC-BY-SA sources, such as WP. If we can't, I suggest we revisit those policies. --Inas (talk) 00:10, 19 October 2012 (CEST)

We can copy from WT and WP but we have to attribute it. A statement of a revision in the comment is not enough. i think. And at the moment there is no way to attribute an article later by hand. Neither when copied from WP nor copied from WT. Rewrite it or leave it. I know it's a bit unsatisfying. But we can not change it. -- DerFussi (talk) 08:41, 19 October 2012 (CEST)

In the edit summary of a copy and paste job from WT, would leaving a link to the page giving the specific change in an article (e.g. [1]) be an easy way of proper attribution? I've tried it with the edit summary of this comment, which links to a random recent change on WT. (WV-en) Travelpleb (talk) 09:56, 19 October 2012 (CEST)

Well, the hyperlink from in edit summary didn't work, but the specific edit is still unmistakably referenced for all to see.(WV-en) Travelpleb (talk) 10:00, 19 October 2012 (CEST)

And of course there were pages with revision level attribution all over the place on WT originally, that we have copied. Revision level attribution is the only attribution we give to our current contributors. It is the only attribution WT gives to theirs. If there is a requirement for greater attribution, then I feel we are not meeting it for anyone. --Inas (talk) 13:05, 19 October 2012 (CEST)

We have attribution templates, like Template:Wikipedia. How about we make a similar template like that for Wikitravel? --Globe-trotter (talk) 13:23, 19 October 2012 (CEST)

It would have to make clear that the imported content is separate from the content that was imported in September. LtPowers (talk) 15:06, 19 October 2012 (CEST)

Why do you say that? In what way is it different? The attribution and licence requirements are identical --Inas (talk) 06:02, 21 October 2012 (CEST)

Just based on the wording. "This article contains content from Wikitravel's Paris article"? Well no duh. Most of our articles contain content from Wikitravel, because that's where we came from. What would make content tagged with that template unique is that the article contains additional Wikitravel content beyond what was imported in September. LtPowers (talk) 17:12, 21 October 2012 (CEST)

Hmmm... Still don't see it really. That the article contains information from Wikitravel + revision level detail of which revision seems like fairly complete attribution to me. I don't see what makes the information copied in the original setup any different from subsequent edits.

I think this is really worth pursuing. We went to considerable lengths at WT to make the information easy to share and open to all. Others reuse the information just referencing WT. I don't understand the issue here. Are we scared of IB legal action? Or just concerned to do the right thing by contributors? Or what? --Inas (talk) 23:45, 21 October 2012 (CEST)

Certainly it's complete attribution. I'm just saying the wording is ambiguous because it may not be clear to readers that this content "imported from Wikitravel" is different from the content imported from Wikitravel all over the site. LtPowers (talk) 02:21, 22 October 2012 (CEST)

Okay, I get that. But why is it important to make this distinction? We comply with the attribution requirements (and you seem to agree that revision level attribution does) and we're done, right? --Inas (talk) 02:27, 22 October 2012 (CEST)

I just think it's confusing. I don't understand why you're so concerned about a simple change to the wording of the template. LtPowers (talk) 15:21, 22 October 2012 (CEST)

Wikipedia gives you this message when submitting an edit: You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license. I think a simple link to the relevant history at WT is enough.

If more is required, as I suggested early, having a WV edit summary refence a WT edit's specific URL allows any WT content to be thoroughly attributed. Such WT gems as [2] are available for all to see their exact source.(WV-en) Travelpleb (talk) 20:19, 22 October 2012 (CEST)

Resolution?

Was this question resolved? I can't see a problem - but having just copied some good content across (and being clear where it came from, in the form of a URL) I wanted to ask. I note that Facebook copy Wikipedia content and just link back in this way. JimKillock (talk) 01:03, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Simply linking in the edit summary back to the original wiki page where the content was originally added is pretty standard procedure for WMF projects, and I feel fairly confident that basically everyone here is OK with the practice. The discussion above comes from a transitional period when wv/en was hosted by the Wikivoyage Board, which was understandably nervous at the time about legal issues. If anyone disagrees, please speak now or forever... --Peter ^Talk 18:36, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, perhaps someone could put a definitive answer in the FAQ? I'll add the question. JimKillock (talk) 22:40, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Added a question here but needs an answer! JimKillock (talk) 22:44, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

I'll take the lack of other responses to mean that my answer was the consensus choice ;) I'm pretty sure it was prior to the above argument on the old WV servers. So I'll go ahead and update the FAQ. --Peter ^Talk 17:59, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

We do have Template:Wikipedia, which should probably be used where appropriate, and might merit a mention in the FAQ. LtPowers (talk) 02:29, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

I wonder about that template, though, since it is designed (like our translated materials template) to note when a significant portion of the article comes from Wikipedia. But is there ever a case where that should be true? We discourage copying content from Wikipedia, in pursuit of original, value-added content. --Peter ^Talk 03:05, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

If you wish to copy content from Wikitravel, then the cc-by-sa licence requires that you attribute the author. There are two common ways to do that, and both have problems:

• Exporting a page using Special:Export at Wikitravel and then importing it using Special:Import at Wikivoyage. Wikitravel has disabled Special:Export, so this isn't possible. You could maybe create an XML file manually using a text editor, but it would take a lot of time for each page to be exported and you might risk making a typo. Also, if an edit is credited to User:Example at Wikitravel, then it will be automatically reassigned to User:Example at Wikivoyage, who might be a different person.
• Copying the content and linking to the page history. Ideally, there should only be one travel wiki with the same content, so ideally, I think that Wikitravel should close down at some point. However, if that happens, then the links break, and then there's no longer any link to the users' usernames and so you begin to violate copyright. Also, if you use Special:Book to export the pages as a PDF file (useful if you need to print them out on paper), then there is no attribution to these contributors.

That said, I'm not sure exactly what cc-by-sa requires or whether any of the above is sufficient. Maybe the best is to just link to Wikitravel (or to any other project you're copying from) but also keep a local copy of the version history table if the page isn't imported from a Wikimedia project (to keep a backup in case something goes down). --Stefan2 (talk) 12:40, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

With its current policies, Wikitravel is killing itself. So, how does one extract the log of authors from a wiki article? /Yvwv (talk) 14:10, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

If you just want a list of all authors, go to the page on Wikitravel and add "?action=credits" at the end of the page. Using the English Main Page as an example:

• Page = http://wikitravel.org/en/Main_Page
• Editors = http://wikitravel.org/en/Main_Page?action=credits

"Based on work by" are users who have set a real name in Special:Preferences. These users are listed under their real names. "Wikitravel users" are those who have not set a real name in Special:Preferences. These people have to be listed using their user names. --Stefan2 (talk) 14:23, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Imported Stockholm/Östermalm. Good enough? /Yvwv (talk) 14:32, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

That seems good enough to me, certainly—it's actually more than what Wikipedia requires. I suggest we do have a policy on this: provide attribution in the edit summary, using the names from $action=credits and a note of what site it's from. Does that sound reasonable? --Peter ^Talk 19:51, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

• Maybe there should be a translation of sv:Wikivoyage:Välkomna, Wikiresenärer or de:Wikivoyage:Herzlich willkommen, Wikitraveller? The Swedish page tells that it is illegal to copy the material from Wikitravel by simply using copy&paste, but I'm not sure if this is correct. Right, it is illegal if no attribution is provided, but I don't see why you can't provide attribution while still copying and pasting the text. Content is sometimes copied and pasted ("swept") from this page to other pages. Is that also illegal, since it's copy & paste instead of a full import of all edits?

Wikipedia practice varies from language to language. Norwegian Wikipedia generally seems to import pages (see w:no:Spesial:Logg/import) whereas Swedish Wikipedia never does this (see w:sv:Special:Logg/import), and English Wikipedia varies from case to case (some articles imported and listed at w:en:Special:Log/import, most articles not imported). --Stefan2 (talk) 16:02, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Patrolling Redux

The recent changes patrol tells us that users who've been in action for over 30 days are automatically treated as patrolled. That doesn't seem to be happening. — Ravikiran (talk) 09:03, 25 October 2012 (CEST)

Yes you're right. --Saqib (talk) 09:20, 25 October 2012 (CEST)

It also would/will be good to add autopatrolled status to special:userrights options. --Peter ^Talk 06:17, 27 October 2012 (CEST)

You're the 'crat. Isn't that something you can do? Or will it take a developer? — Ravikiran (talk) 06:21, 27 October 2012 (CEST)

Bureaucrats can set the user rights, but determining which ones are available for bureaucrats to set appears to be a developer-side issue. LtPowers (talk) 19:17, 27 October 2012 (CEST)

LocalSettings.php contains the list of which user groups can do what. It's a text file on the server, so likely only a sysadmin or the site's owner would have access. K7L (talk) 03:22, 28 October 2012 (CET)

I have submitted a bug report requesting this feature be turned back on. Please do not sweep this discussion until it has been fulfilled (hopefully pre-launch). --Peter ^Talk 19:15, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Done The patrol feature for recent changes has been enabled! (gerrit:43624). Krinkle (talk) 19:41, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

I think we are going to have patrolled edits re-enabled shortly, but only for admins at first. We need to decide between the following options per Krinkle:

• Either:
  • Set wgAutoConfirmAge to 30 days, and:
  • Grant autoconfirmed the "patrol" and "autopatrolled" right
• Or:
  • Create a "patroller" user group, grant it "patrol" and "autopatrolled".
  • Add "patroller" to list of groups sysops can grant
  • Wikivoyage admins can now give non-sysops the ability to help in patrol.
• Or:
  • Create a "patroller" user group, grant it "patrol" and "autopatrolled".
  • Create a new AutoPromote instance (besides "autoconfirmed") that is, unlike autoconfirmed, set to 30 days.

If I understand these correctly, Option 1 is what we had before: 30-day-old accounts are autopatrolled and can patrol edits. I think the ideal architecture for our needs would be to either stick with that, or to use option two: autopatrolled and patroller status are given by admins who notice that a contributor is doing good work. The advantage of #2 is that we can hold off on giving this status to older accounts that are not terribly trustworthy (and this would support us in our ongoing attempt to limit the use of blocks on our wiki), but the disadvantage is that it requires more work from the admins. Thoughts? --Peter ^Talk 19:45, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

The other advantage of #2 that I'm realizing now as I look at recentchanges is that we'd be able to mark all the various accounts that are as of right now considered new, but we know from previous work to be trustworthy. The whole recentchanges is flagged right now! --Peter ^Talk 19:48, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

I would also lean towards #2, but I'm not sure I understand #3. Would #3 automatically move any account that hasn't been specifically modified into the "autopatrolled" group after 30 days, but still give us the ability to remove the permission? That might be useful for reducing the amount of work required on account management while still giving us the ability to promote users early if they are doing good work, and rescind the autopatrolled flag for hotel marketers who have been around for more than 30 days. If that is indeed correct than #3 would be my preference. -- Ryan • (talk) • 19:58, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Even if that's not what #3 is, it sounds doable to me, and I agree that it would be ideal. --Peter ^Talk 20:17, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

My preferred option is Ryan's #3. The amount of extra work for #2 concerns me. I guess either way, unless we do option #1, we'll need to come up with some guidelines for why someone would/wouldn't be autopatrolled after 30 days. -Shaundd (talk) 22:33, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Agree autopatrolled automatically after whatever time is considered appropriate, but with option for admin to remove if edits are problematic. (see Shaundd above) • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:25, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi again,

I just wanted to point out that option 1 would also affect something unrelated to patrolling. The other rights granted though "autoconfirmed" ^{(which ones)} will also be deferred to 30 days (as opposed to 4 days). Right now a user gets those rights after their 4th day. Changing autoconfirmed to 30 days means that, unrelated to this patrol workflow, they'll have to wait 30 days to be able to move pages, upload files, skip CAPTCHA etc. It may be undesirable to require 30 days to be "confirmed". It may be obvious, but I just wanted to point it out as a side-effect of going with option 1. Krinkle (talk) 20:09, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

So, can this be done? It doesn't seem that people older than 30 days are autopatrolled? --Inas (talk) 22:54, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

In that case, I think the ideal scenario for us would be option #3, but also add "patroller" to the list of groups that sysops can grant & remove. That way hotel marketers who have been around for 30+ days can have the patroller autopromote revoked, and busy new users who clearly know the ropes can be given the status much earlier, to reduce the workload on patrolling. Is that possible? Do others agree that this would be ideal? --Peter ^Talk 07:24, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Looks good to me. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 08:35, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

It would be nice to be able to patrol edits once again. Looking at the Recent changes, I review all the changes listed each time I refresh the page. It would be nice to know (not to mention more productive for those of us reviewing recent changes) which edits have been reviewed (patrolled) already by others. My choice is #3. If option 2 is chosen, please add me to the "patroller" user group. AHeneen (talk) 09:15, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I wish I could do that right now—I've been marking your edits as patrolled, which seems ridiculous, since I know full well you know what you are doing! Let's see if we can't speed this process up. I'll try tomorrow. --Peter ^Talk 09:36, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 43977

I can't patrol multiple edits at once anymore, as was possible before. Anyone has a clue how to turn this feature on again? Patrolling takes a lot longer this way. Globe-trotter (talk) 15:04, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Confirmed user rights

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 44015

Would others support adding "confirmed user" to the list of user groups that admins can change? That would enable us (right away) to start flagging users who are trustworthy and experienced, so that their edits are automatically marked as patrolled. Please speak up, and I'll file the request. --Peter ^Talk 21:09, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• In light of what is already beginning to occur, this proposal has my strong support. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 21:15, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• Sure, but when will edits be able to be patrolled at all? Does something need to be checked in preferences (I don't see anything regarding patrolled edits)? AHeneen (talk) 21:26, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• For that, we need to sort out the above. --Peter ^Talk 21:37, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

The confirmed group has exactly the same rights as autoconfirmed, so their edits aren't automatically marked as patrolled. See Special:listgrouprights. –sumone10154^(talk) 21:48, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• Strong support as I keep patrolling edits from trusted and competent users :) I would suggest that the usergroup be called 'autopatrolled' as it would be very clear that way what it is, and that it be granted liberally by admins to slim down the workload on patrolling. This would mean that all users on this group would have their edits autopatrolled. There's no 'autopatrolled' switch in the preferences. I suggest that if we get more comments here, we can file a bugzilla today and cut the work right away :) Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 21:49, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support to cut down on admin backlogs. Noting that this should be autopatrolled as confirmed means something else on other WMF wikis. --Rschen7754 22:06, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

OK, I'll put in a request to create user group autopatrolled and add it to the list of groups that admins (not just bureaucrats) can change. --Peter ^Talk 22:08, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Request is at Bugzilla:44015. --Peter ^Talk 22:13, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Commented, I think we want it both assignable and removable by admins, right? Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 22:18, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, definitely. --Peter ^Talk 22:20, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

It is now live. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 23:26, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Done --Rogerhc (talk) 04:17, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Patroller user group

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 44048

Let's try doing this piecemeal for now. Let's add a "patroller" user group, and adding it to the list of groups that bureaucrats can edit. Please comment to demonstrate support, or to make it clear that this would be a problem. --Peter ^Talk 22:15, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Why not just give the patrol ability to autopatrollers, instead of creating a separate group? –sumone10154^(talk) 23:34, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Autopatrollers are supposed to be given, imo, without even asking them or anything, it's a passive ability group. I would suggest that a patroller user group would be interesting and a good thing, but that a bit more thought is needed as to what permissions they might need. For example, if the objection of the patroller usergroup is to have non-admins patrol the recent changes for vandalism, it would be a good idea to give them the rollback ability as well :) At the moment only admins, stewards and global rollbackers have the real rollback button here :) Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 01:25, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

I think that would be fine. All of this is a little rushed, of course, because we face such a patrolling challenge right now. I'd love to be able to flag 2-3 people who are already patrolling, but unable to interface with our patrolled edits functionality. But we'll need some statements of support for the idea here first. --Peter ^Talk 02:04, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

I've spent several hours last night & today going through the recent changes to fix issues. However, each time I refresh the page, 50 new edits are shown (most by new users) and I'll go through most of them without knowing if another user (or two) has already looked at them. This seems like a waste of time/energy by WV users who are doing such work. It would be really nice to go to my watchlist or recent changes and see 10 of 50 haven't been reviewed and just check those edits. AHeneen (talk) 05:01, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

I spent a couple of hours on recent changes too and, like AHeneen, found it very inefficient. I have now realised that others are able to do this work much more efficiently. So it seems like a very good idea if I can "patrol" (as I can at WT) and rollback (which I have long been able to do at WP). Nurg (talk) 06:50, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support combined patroller and rollback into one group. Seems like a good combination. --Rschen7754 06:36, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support patrol/rollback combo user group – cacahuate ^talk 06:46, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Question though: is this convo, buried deep in a subsection in the pub, the best place to discuss and gain consensus for this? It's actually a pretty big deal, adding a whole new user group – cacahuate ^talk 06:48, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support. I think this is a fine idea, for users who want to patrol but don't want other admin tools. I think that some of you might consider applying to be admins, though. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:11, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Comment: To cacahuate's point: Yes, this could easily get lost. I will link this section in "Requests for Comment." Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:13, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support. Is it possible to get this enabled for a trial run while still in discussion? That would demonstrate utility (or lack) at a time when it is most likely to be of value. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 09:22, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• Basically everything is a trial run—we can always change to a different way of doing things if we decide to later. We still need to sort out autopromote instances as per above. We'll have to come up with a process for assigning patroller/rollbacker rights, although I fully intend to abuse power and hand out several as soon as we get them ;) --Peter ^Talk 09:42, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• I agree to the extent that I suggest enabling the combined patroller/rollback function as soon as possible, and starting a list of candidates immediately. I also support any admin handing out the user right to a user he/she trusts, with the proviso that it be withdrawn and subject to nomination and discussion for any person who gets a reasonably motivated objection from an admin. Objections from non-admin users should be also be discussed, but the rights need not be withdrawn without consensus. (objections from suspected vandals are to be expected, and must be given due consideration, but should not disrupt productive patrol activity). • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 10:20, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support. As per my comments above. Also putting my hand up for admin tools in general. Nurg (talk) 09:56, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
• I agree combining patroller and rollbacker in one group is a good idea, but I wonder if this new usergroup is actually needed. Most of the people we would trust with this sort of tool are already admins. LtPowers (talk) 19:26, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

  I can think of at least one user that's been patrolling a lot today, User:Rschen7754. Savh would also do well with it, but he's already got global rollback :D Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 19:29, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

  • Users who do a lot of cross-wiki work but don't have enough of a record here might find it helpful, or people who do not want to be admins for whatever reason. --Rschen7754 19:34, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

I hae submitted this to bugzilla: Bugzilla:44048. --Peter ^Talk 22:18, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Restricting patrolling to mainspace

I think it would be wise to restrict the patrolling feature to mainspace, as that's were most of the vandalism lies, and vandalism outside of mainspace will be easily caught anyway. This would save us from patrolling people's own userpages and discussions on talk pages and user talk pages. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 13:22, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

This is not possible in the software and also unlikely to be something you really want. Why would destroy the other information? Instead of restricting the entire system, simply use filters for your own workflow. To show a queue of unpatrolled edits in the Main namespace only, just hide the other namespaces for your eyes only by using the filter drop down menus that exist in the interface. For example this link ^(RTRC) will show you "all recent changes in the main namespace that are unpatrolled, not minor edits and not by you" (only autoconfirmed users can make mark edits as minor). Krinkle (talk) 01:58, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Using tables

I changed some things in articles, including tables, for a simple reason, we could not find what I wanted without tables. And you put a tag that I should not use tables. I do not know where it came from this rule, but I think it's worth reassessing; I think it's not worth we wasting so much time searching for informations, if we can use a table that organizes the information in the order you want to see. Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton ^m 16:51, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

The {{style}} tag that was added was a way to note that your changes differ from the standard Wikivoyage:Listings format used in all other articles. It would be great if you could start a discussion at Wikivoyage talk:Listings about what you dislike about the current format and how you would suggest changing it, but in the mean time the user who flagged the Florianopolis‎‎ article was just trying to call out the fact that the format didn't conform to agreed-upon standards. -- Ryan • (talk) • 17:46, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Rodrigo, could you explain the advantages you see in the use of tables rather than the conventional style listings? • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:50, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Listings formats is something standard across all articles. As Ryan and Peter S point towards, though, we're happy to discuss making changes to them. Here's one new idea (of several) from Texugo, for example. --Peter ^Talk 07:01, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

There's also {{listing}} and bugzilla:43220. That isn't a huge change (as listings remain listings, not sortable tables) but it does get rid of the pesky front-linked URL's in the current <listing> tag. I'm hesitant about changes that add whitespace to listings, as the print version does matter, but we do need to leave some room for small-scale experimentation instead of merely "we've always done it this way". K7L (talk) 18:18, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

It's not that "we've always done it this way," it's "we do it this way." Changing how we display listings is very much something on the agenda already. That said, I agree that room for small-scale experimentation is something we really need—but I'm not sure that our destination guides are the right spot. --Peter ^Talk 18:27, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

I would actually disagree somewhat. I think that a lot of the existing Wikivoyage culture was shaped by an environment where for years editors had to struggle mightily against spam and stylistic issues, pretty much to the point where little else could be done. With the new hosting situation we have stronger spam tools, a larger prospective editor community, and people doing amazing things with bots. Given that reality, I think it benefits us to err on the side of allowing new editors to try some different things without scaring them off with "that's not how we do it". It means a bit more work for experienced editors, but the danger would be that the new project gains a reputation as being too authoritarian and at the same time prevents experiments that might lead to a better site.

All that said, we don't want to turn the site into the wild west, but I don't think it hurts us to (for example) allow a new user to try a new approach with a minor article like Florianopolis‎‎ while at the same time encouraging them to explain their thinking on the relevant policy page. The user may have some good reasons for wanting to change things that might be incorporated into existing practice, and if there isn't a consensus for change then hopefully they understand and revert to standard style. In the mean time we hopefully won't be reverting someone's first contributions to the site and thus scaring them away.

This is just my opinion, obviously, but I really do think we need to change our culture to be more inviting given the reality that despite having been a community for many years this is nonetheless a new project in the eyes of those who will be joining. -- Ryan • (talk) • 19:03, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

This section from w:Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers does a better job of saying what I was trying to express (bolding mine):

Remember, our motto and our invitation to the newcomer is be bold. We have a set of rules, standards, and traditions, but they must not be applied in such a way as to thwart the efforts of newcomers who take that invitation at face value. A newcomer brings a wealth of ideas, creative energy, and experience from other areas that, current rules and standards aside, have the potential to better our community and Wikipedia as a whole. It may be that the rules and standards need revising or expanding; perhaps what the newcomer is doing "wrong" may ultimately improve Wikipedia. Observe for a while and, if necessary, ask what the newcomer is trying to achieve before concluding that their efforts are substandard or that they are simply "wrong".

-- Ryan • (talk) • 19:08, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Then would you say that style tags would be the best way to track experiments like this one? --Peter ^Talk 20:18, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

I think either {{experimental}} (see Template:Experimental), {{style|This is what needs to be changed}} or something else that people can agree upon would suffice to tag the article/section and also point the new user to a place where the changes can be discussed. And again, it's just my opinion that allowing more style issues in low-traffic articles may be balanced against encouraging new users to experiment - I know others feel very strongly about all manner of style issues here, and if style issues become a real problem without a corresponding benefit to new users/experimentation then we would need to revisit this proposal. -- Ryan • (talk) • 20:39, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree we need to leave room to experiment -- even we experienced editors are forced to experiment from time to time as we encounter new things that no one anticipated before. But my fear is having a whole bunch of travel guides that all look different because people were experimenting with them. LtPowers (talk) 00:28, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

How many would you consider "a whole bunch"? For example, there are currently 366 articles that include Template:Style. I would expect that the number of "experiment" tags would be far lower, but if it was a similar number to those tagged with "style", would that be a concern? And if so, do you have greater concerns about "experiments" vs. existing style issues? I think if we could figure out where people's comfort level lie that it could help to define how permissive we can be. -- Ryan • (talk) • 00:49, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't want to be "that guy," but I'm uncomfortable with differences in template between different articles, merely for the purposes of experimentation. It seems to me that, while absolute uniformity is neither necessary nor even desirable in a guide, differences in structure or display style (rather than, for example, prose) should all serve the content of the particular guide at issue, not things like the sense of style of particular contributors. I am very much open to any discussions of site-wide changes, but I think the volunteer patrolling editors need to know what kinds of deviations from established norms do and don't require reversions. And I can already see that this issue will be more important after launch, with influxes of highly Wiki-markup-savvy Wikimedians creating all kinds of tables and inserting them into existing articles they are interested in and new articles they create. A policy discussion is necessary in advance of launch. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:38, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

(Re-indenting) Here are some thoughts in response to the above.

1. Wikivoyage uses standard article templates. If a user is changing headings I think reverting and asking the user to propose changes on the template discussion page is fine. In general I don't think heading changes have chased anyone away, and I don't think changing "Understand" to "Things to Know" is an experiment that will go very far.
2. If a user is changing more than one article it seems fine to ask them to stick to one article and flag changes there as "experimental"; there should be a line between not scaring off new users and creating excessive cleanup work.
3. If a user is changing a high visibility article (a major city article, a country article, etc) then it seems fine to ask them to instead work in a sandbox. I would suspect that Wikipedia would do the same thing if someone changed a prominent article.
4. However, when a user creates a new article or template it seems like we could give them some leeway before adding a vfd or merge tag, subject to editorial judgement - you don't want someone using Wikivoyage to create advertisements or non-travel pages, but giving them some leeway and nudging when writing about their hometown seems reasonable.
5. One example where leniency might be warranted - several years ago a user was modifying UI on an article for a small Latin American town. I don't remember the original edits, but I copied the formatting and applied it to the USA and put it into my sandbox because I thought it was an interesting idea - User:Wrh2/Sandbox. We could have asked the user to move the work to a sandbox, but I'm not sure they were seeing talk page messages and at the same time it didn't seem like it would hurt to allow them to experiment and discuss what they were trying to accomplish.
6. Similarly, the current Florianopolis‎‎ article uses non-standard listings, but the user making the changes raises some interesting points. This is a fairly low-traffic article, so letting him work on the idea and (hopefully) engaging him in discussion seems like it would be of some value rather than simply reverting to the standard format immediately.
7. In addition, we've gotten a couple of articles that I don't understand - Topeka/Bikeways/Randolph Avenue and Topeka/Bikeways/Randolph Avenue/Section1/Start. It may be that these are eventually simply deleted, but letting them sit for a bit to see if the author returns and discusses his idea might also lead to an interesting travel topic about biking in Topeka.

In all of the above examples, the reviewing editor could exercise some judgement about how much leeway to provide - experiments in the USA article might be removed immediately, but I think there may be more to gain by allowing some wiggle room in lesser articles, and tagging such articles with an "experiment" tag (or something similar) also provides a way to engage the editor and track such changes without incurring much work for reviewers. Ikan - hopefully that addresses yours (and others) points. -- Ryan • (talk) • 02:20, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I predict that we'll have a lot more confusion about this after launch, but time will tell. I'll try to remember to start discussions, such as on an article's home page, before reverting, if it seems like something coherent is happening. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:02, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that we have consensus on this point. I appreciate Ryan's arguments, but I do not understand: i) what is the time scale of the "experiments"? ii) who decides which page is appropriate for the "experiments" (I would not like to see some of these experiments in my articles, even though these articles are not of high visibility)? iii) who will clean up the mess? Yes, it starts from 5-10-20 experiments, but it will easily grow to hundreds. Our never-ending cleanup of Shared shows that it is much, much easier to keep things tidy from the very beginning.

More generally, I see the following issues: i) travel content is superior to the style; we need editors who are interested in the travel content, not in bringing their favorite style from Wikipedia. ii) different elements of the style should be congruent. We may have 10 brilliant ideas, but they will not work together, on the same page because they use different colors, different layout, and may even serve same purpose. A small group of experienced editors will do a much better job than an uncontrollable influx of new editors who have vague idea about the goals of Wikivoyage.

I believe that experiments should be restricted to personal userspace. It may be good to coordinate this activity in a kind of Wikivoyage expedition on Development (or do we already have one?), but travel guides should stay travel guides. --Alexander (talk) 09:52, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I really agree with Alexander on this, though I am willing to tolerate deviations like those in the Florianopolis article if that's what most participants in this thread want. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:44, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I also agree with Alexander, we have the user space and the graffiti wall for experimentation. In Wikipedia, they added a link to the personal Sandbox in the upper right corner of the page. Maybe we could add such a link as well, so it's easier for new users to know where they can experiment? --Globe-trotter (talk) 12:00, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting we encourage user experimentation in the main article space. What I would suggest, however, is that when it does happen we give the user some guidance without resorting to an immediate revert, VFD, or other action that is likely to cause them to leave. Quoting w:Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers again: "Remember, our motto and our invitation to the newcomer is be bold. We have a set of rules, standards, and traditions, but they must not be applied in such a way as to thwart the efforts of newcomers who take that invitation at face value." I think that's advice that we might be wise to adopt. -- Ryan • (talk) • 17:18, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
"should be restricted to personal userspace"
Not at all! The project is based on the Wiki system if the development is in a private area will not have interventions of others, so the construction process is not collaborative and inclusive, contradicting the model. I have not read everything, only commented that point, I thought dangerous. My views about tables: Wikivoyage talk:Listings#About tables. Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton ^m 21:19, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Special:Import 2

I have no idea where to put this discussion

Special:Import is disabled by default on WMF projects. I requested that it be enabled on our wiki, but I'm not sure that request is going anywhere. I asked a steward for help, who recommended that I request the rights for myself. Do I have the community's support? I'm looking to import relevant policy pages and discussions that I downloaded from wts-old. --Peter ^Talk 02:08, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I believe the user group "Importers" on this wiki will give you the relevant permissions (importupload) that will allow you to upload from a file upload, i.e. the XML file. I would recommend that you also request this on SRP, as far as I'm concerned this is a fairly uncontroversial request as you are doing this to preserve the page histories and can be deemed to be part of the work necessary for the migration, but I'll leave others to comment here too. With regards to the bug request that you filed, that would be to enable you to import from other wikis such as Meta-Wiki or the English Wikipedia as far as I am aware, and I think Sam was asking you for which import sources you wanted. Thehelpfulone 03:25, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I support giving Peter the "importers" group permission. Maybe we should have a separate page for Wikivoyage:Permission requests or something like that? --Rogerhc (talk) 03:57, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I also support Peter's idea. --Alexander (talk) 07:04, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Peter is definitely competent and reliable, so I don't see any problem with assigning the "importer" permission. I hope that he will be assigned the permission so that he can start importing the needed pages. --Stefan2 (talk) 14:31, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't know about competent. But fairly reliable, yes. --Peter ^Talk 18:39, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Support - we need these pages to be imported. –sumone10154^(talk) 17:41, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I have made the request. --Peter ^Talk 18:50, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I poked a steward, you've now been granted the flag by PeterSymonds. Thehelpfulone 21:06, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Support Pashley (talk) 19:13, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Support. Do we need to get this permission for one or two other admins/bureaucrats? • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 20:42, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Aren't there only a few policy pages that need to be imported? Unless there are too many of them, I guess that one user can handle it all. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:00, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Many edits on Shared are credited to "(WT-shared) Xyz". You might wish to create accounts with those user names before importing anything. If you do that, then it might be possible to re-assign those edits to other accounts later by merging accounts. If you don't create the accounts before importing the edits, then I think that the edits will be assigned to user id 0, and then the revisions might be stuck with the user names "(WT-shared) Xyz" forever. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:00, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. Should I just create the accounts by using the "register a new account" link from my own ip? --Peter ^Talk 01:45, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

The correct way to create the accounts would be using Special:CreateAccount while logged in. That way, it is clear that you created the accounts, and you get to specify a reason why you are creating extra accounts. I'm not sure what you should do about passwords though. This, that and the other (talk) 02:24, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

You can create the accounts "by email" and perhaps use an email address that you know doesn't work if you want to scramble the passwords. With regards to registering the accounts, you would need to do it from your own admin account as we have a 6 account per 24 hour limit on IP account creation which is automatically bypassed if you are an administrator. Thehelpfulone 03:01, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Importing wts pages

While I wait through the unbelievably long process of importing the wts pub (nearly 1.5 hours now), are there other pages that people want imported? I already imported Copyleft, Image policy, and Bureaucrats, along with their respective talk pages. I also plan to import the wts pub archives. Are there other policy pages or talk pages we should keep? Should we import feature requests? --Peter ^Talk 07:32, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

If a user signed the Licence upgrade page, then all of the user's contributions to Wikitravel are available under CC-BY-SA 3.0. There is a similar page here (Wikivoyage:License upgrade), but with partially different signatures. It may be a good idea to keep a record of the WTS signatures somewhere.

There is also MediaWiki:Uploadtext which says that certain files might be available under a licence if the uploader didn't specify any licence. There is a local MediaWiki:Uploadtext with similar contents, but it has been edited by different people and at different points, so it might be a good idea to keep both pages. Be careful, though: since there's a different page with the same name on this project, you might accidentally end up merging the history of the local page with the history of the WTS page.

Do we need "Votes for deletion" or individual user/user talk pages for any users? --Stefan2 (talk) 14:29, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Vfd can be skipped, as it's not a place for making policy, but for applying it. I imported my own user talk page just for kicks, and will do the same for others on request. I have imported the license upgrade and uploadtext pages per your suggestion. I think feature requests would be the next thing to work on, unless there are other suggestions here. --Peter ^Talk 00:11, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

FYI, that pub import I started last night is still going strong nearly 12 hours later, and I'm getting worried that it will keep on submitting indefinitely. Does anyone know what to do about this? It is a big XML file (over 100MB). --Peter ^Talk 21:21, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

You might be running into filesize limits - see [3]. If I'm reading this right then I think you can split the file up into smaller pieces and try uploading the parts, although it would be good to either have someone else confirm or to do a test first. -- Ryan • (talk) • 21:30, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, m:Help:Import suggests that there is some maximum size limit. The example uses 20 MB, so maybe that's what's used by Wikimedia projects?

The history can be split up in multiple files (see mw:Manual:Parameters to Special:Export), but this requires using options which don't seem to be available in the web form at Special:Export. Do you need help splitting it up in multiple files? I should be able to do something... --Stefan2 (talk) 22:27, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, if you could help with that, it would be much appreciated. Hopefully we won't run into this too much outside the huge pub history. --Peter ^Talk 23:12, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Active self links

Why are self links at the top of the page made active? I am referring to the (useless) links for navigation present on a page (like Asia > South Asia > India > Southern India > Kerala > Cherthala). Merry Christmas···Vanischenu^「m/_Talk」 17:34, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

See bugzilla:42946. This, that and the other (talk) 22:14, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much. But I am confused why it is written Status: RESOLVED FIXED there while I can still experience it.···Vanischenu^「m/_Talk」 00:44, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, that was the wrong bug! The issue you reported is not, as far as I know, yet resolved. Perhaps another bug needs to be filed in the GeoCrumbs component. This, that and the other (talk) 09:18, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out that. And the reported bug is also appearing to me!···Vanischenu^「m/_Talk」 11:21, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree that self links in the breadcrumb trail are unnecessary. Please do file a report. --Peter ^Talk 18:38, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

As far as I know, bugzilla:42946 just gets rid of links like Travellers' pub from pages where it is the only "crumb" in the breadcrumb trail (ie: pages which can't claim to be "isPartOf" some other region or place). The "resolved fixed" only means that a valid code change which can fix the bug has been written and tested, not that it has actually been deployed to the servers. The link is obviously still here until the extension with the bug fix is deployed. If you're suggesting going further, for instance to change "Europe > Spain > Madrid" to "Europe > Spain > Madrid" on the Madrid article (as there's no point in the self-reference being a clickable link) that should be reported as a separate bug. K7L (talk) 04:06, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Bugzilla:43660 I am sorry for taking too much time. Thank you···Vanischenu^「m/_Talk」 14:59, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

K7L is completely correct. Resolved fixed usually means the code has been merged into master (except some devs on small projects use it when a patch has been uploaded to Gerrit), not that the patch has been deployed to <insert name of your wiki which MediaWiki development is expected to revolve around here>. The patch for bugzilla:42946 does just get rid of links with only one crumb (since these breadcrumbs are usually just a repeat of the title above, excluding namespace). --Krenair ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:11, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Search issue

When I do a full search not just wikivoyage pages with the text are shown but also images on Commons, including ones not used in this project. Is the works as designed or a bug? Also if you untick Files just keeping Main, sometimes but not always, you get not results even though there should be some hits. --Traveler100 (talk) 09:33, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Go to Special:Preferences and click on the "Search" tab. Then uncheck the file namespace and click on "Save". Also, the default setting for unregistered users should probably also be not to search for files. I'm not aware of any way to search for local files without searching for Commons files at the same time. --Stefan2 (talk) 10:31, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

I haven't changed it before and (main), File and Category namespaces are checked. Shouldn't the default settings be changed?···Vanischenu^「m/_Talk」 11:34, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I wrote: default settings should probably be changed. By default, I think that you should only search through the article namespace. --Stefan2 (talk) 11:50, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

I have added a bug report. --Peter ^Talk 18:56, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Red link images

In a number of articles there are red links to images that do not exist in this WikiVoyage or Commons. I assume these references come from WikiTravel copy. Are there plans to bring these over to this project or should they be replaced by other images? --Traveler100 (talk) 11:40, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Some images are already there, but you may need to purge the pages before the images are shown. Many images are copied from image repositories every day, removing lots of red links. See Project:Cleanup for some details and http://wts.wikivoyage-old.org/wiki/Wikivoyage:Pub_%28temporary_refuge%29 for discussions related to it. --Stefan2 (talk) 11:47, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

We are pretty close to a massive red-link photo hunt, to replace red-linked images with ones from Commons. But we're not quite ready yet. 1 Jan is the latest we will start. --Peter ^Talk 19:04, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

You mean earliest we will start yes? Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:30, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

I suggest that you start as soon as possible by replacing images which are listed in the "to be ignored" category: http://wts.wikivoyage-old.org/wiki/Category:Files_to_be_ignored

Files in that category are normally copyright violations or images with insufficient information which can't be copied to Commons. Many of them are in use and in many cases there are probably images on Commons which can be used instead. --Stefan2 (talk) 12:15, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Orphaned pages and hierarchy of county towns

I was thinking this project was doing very well with only 89 Orphaned pages, but I have come across a few pages that the only linked to them are from user pages. Take for example Los Alamitos and Cypress. Is there a more accurate list of orphans? Also these pages bring up another question; is there a convention for listing towns, cities and areas of a county? For example Orange County (California) only lists a few cities (in USA sense of the word), adding all would be a little messy but how else do you navigate to such local pages? I can see you can navigate up a Breadcrumb but how do you navigate down one?--Traveler100 (talk) 06:54, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

I've long wanted to know that too, but never took the time to ask. The relevant page for this issue is Wikivoyage:Breadcrumb navigation. There's nothing about navigating down the breadcrumbs on either the page or it's talk page. If someone knows the answer please also update that page. AHeneen (talk) 08:33, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

One idea is to place the article in a category based on parameter used in {{IsPartOf}}. --Traveler100 (talk) 15:40, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Well it appears I was not the first to think of this. Just looked at the German Wikivoyage and this is exactly what they do. I have created a sandbox for the template with the edit required for people to test and comment upon.--Traveler100 (talk) 19:06, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Right-click & copy section headings

With the move to WMF, there's been some Mediawiki software change causing one annoying problem...right-clicking a section heading (any part, not merely "edit") brings up the edit box/page. The reason this is annoying is that it makes it more difficult when making inter-wiki links directly to a section. Say for example, I want to create a link to this section on some talk page. Like this: "This issue was brought [[Wikivoyage:Travellers' pub#Right-click & copy section headings|here]] in the pub." Since the link will only work if the section is spelled/capitalized/punctuated exactly the same, it's much easier to copy & paste the section heading. As mentioned, you can't highlight, right-click, and select "copy"...after right-clicking, I'm led to the edit box. Instead, there are two options: manually type the section name (time-consuming) or always be led to the edit box (somewhat annoying). Is there any particular reason for this? If not, can someone raise this issue in the right place to get it changed, please? AHeneen (talk) 08:33, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

It works fine for me: right-clicking is merely right-clicking. The problem is in your browser, I guess. Can you use Ctrl-C instead of right-clicking? --Alexander (talk) 11:27, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

You should go to Preferences/Editing and untick 'Enable section editing by right clicking on section titles'. Ruslik (talk) 19:27, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! That fixed the problem. To clarify for everyone, click "Preferences", choose "Editing" tab, and under Advanced options unclick "Enable section editing by right clicking on section titles (requires JavaScript)". AHeneen (talk) 00:50, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Cycling

Hi all, there is very little on cycling and getting about by bike in articles. But this seems a natural topic for this Wiki, especially in some European countries? What's a good way to suggest improvements? JimKillock (talk) 13:41, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

In the Get around section of cities and regions create a By bicycle section (see Amsterdam as example), where to hire, what routes are interesting. In country pages, any laws that you need to be aware of. Create Itineraries for notable cycle routes. Expand Tips for cycle trips.--Traveler100 (talk) 14:02, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I've added a few bits to Tips for cycle trips; I wonder if Cycling should divert there for now? I'll add a redirect. JimKillock (talk) 15:18, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Since the content here is added by users, the lack of information is simply because no/few editors have added this info. For future reference, the page Where you can stick it details the appropriate section to put various topics. For a city (especially Europe), the "Get around" section is where information about bike rentals and most paths should go. In large cities, bicycles are a common way to travel around the city, so paths should go in the "Get around" section the same way major roads, bus routes, and metro/subway lines are listed. Outside of cities, bicycle paths that are mostly for recreation and should be listed in the "Do" section, because these paths are an activity for travelers to do.

The dividing line between whether bike paths go in "Get around" or "Do" is not clear. In the example given, bicycle is a common way of getting around Amsterdam and so information about cycling is in the "Get around" section. In some rural areas (some regions and parks), cycling is also a popular way of getting around and can be put in "Get around". However, in a town which has only 2-3 bicycle paths and where most people use the paths for recreation and exercise only (not moving around the city), then bicycle paths and rental information should go in the "Do" section. For example, in the United States, many railroad tracks that are no longer used are being converted into sealed/paved paths where people drive to a parking lot along the path then walk or ride bicycles along the path for a few hours, and return to their cars later.

Legal information such as "Cyclists riding on roads must obey the same laws (traffic lights, etc.) as cars" or "Cyclists under 18 must wear a helmet" should be mentioned in the Get around/Do section about cycling. Laws should go in the country/region page where laws are consistent (in the U.S., traffic/cycling laws are made by individual states), with local differences mentioned on city/park/smaller region pages. However, for major cities, there is no harm in repeating the information...for example many visitors to Amsterdam won't look at cycling information on the Netherlands page, so mentioning laws on the Amsterdam pages that apply to the whole country is ok.

Bike paths should only be a separate itinerary page if they are long or there is a lot of content to add to the page. If information about one path is less than 4-5 sentences, it should be listed on the city/region page. If a path is, for example, 50 km long and there is enough information about it to fill the sections of an Itinerary article template, then making a separate page for that path is ok. AHeneen (talk) 01:31, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

That's very helpful thank you. I've started a general cycling page at User:JimKillock/Cycling which at the moment rounds up what I can find about the best places to go for cycling, and links to the main advice sources available on WikiVoyage. I'd appreciate any help / advice about content. JimKillock (talk) 11:15, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Help needed moving Cycling page

Hi, I think User:JimKillock/Cycling is ok to move to Cycling now. I can't remove the redirect I created at cycling though, can someone delete it for me? JimKillock (talk) 21:33, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, but I think I accomplished some of what you requested, Jim, by copying all of your user name space article text, making a few style changes and then pasting the whole lot by simply editing the Cycling page which just had your REDIRECT. You'll still need to get an admin to delete User:JimKillock/Cycling if it's now obsolete, though... Happy New Year from downunder! -- Alice^✉ 23:12, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

That's usually not a good idea as you lose the edit history by doing a "cut and paste move" like this. You can do it if you are the only author of the text you're copying, but otherwise it's best to ask an admin to delete the redirect and move the page properly. Fixing cut and paste moves is a hassle - delete the target page, move the article, undelete everything so that all the history is in one place. K7L (talk) 00:30, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

That's a good and valid point. Although Jim was the major contributor he wasn't the only one. Is there a way to preserve the edit history alone of the deleted page (since I provided a link to it in my original edit summary?). Sorry for my ignorance. -- Alice^✉ 01:01, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

I have moved the article from userspace to mainspace, complete with history. A couple of minor edits by Alice got lost in the move. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:03, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you everyone! JimKillock (talk) 07:56, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Image Resources

As an experienced Wikipedian, I am pleased to draw your attention to a very useful tool used to search for Creative Commons or Public Domain licensed images on Flickr and other places, and can even upload them directly to Wikimedia Commons. Experiment with it until you learn to use all the options. It will only find images that have appropriate licenses attached. Gamweb (talk) 05:37, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

• Free Image Search Tool

Greetings from the German WV community

I hope everybody had a wonderful Christmas time. How is WV going here? I know everybody is busy to clean up the wikis and bring the articles up and running. I want to say thank you to all of you guys for your energy to help driving everything forward - from your first idea of the reunification to the point where we are now. Is there anything we can help with? We think our wiki will be ok within a fortnight.

The WV association is about to apply as a thematic organisation. One of our main objectives is a closer collaboration between the language versions. Maybe we can gather some ideas after the official start. Peter had some nice ideas when we talked in Washinton. Everybody is invited to participate via mailing list and Meta wiki. The WV association wants to become more international. An English member application form is available (The Italian one will be available soon). More information about us on the Meta Wiki. Two new ideas could be:

• A list about star articles in every language version. Its a suggestion of Peter. So the authors have an easy access to valuable information, if they want to copy (I don't know the right word, what pupils somtimes do during an exam: looking at their neighbours sheet) How is it called?
• Maybe we can start a map making project. One of our new contributors has some nice things done.. Click on the old map on the right side here ......

Only two ideas.... But first: Party! I wish everybody a nice transition to the new year 2013! -- DerFussi (talk) 07:45, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

That's a simply stunning idea with the town plans! I love maps and only wish I could draw them, Stefan. Have a great New Year! -- Alice^✉ 08:11, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

A mapping project would be a good idea. Not creating map graphics but being able to plot points of interest and routes to external mapping sites would be very useful. Functions similar to GeoGroup and Attached KML on Wikipedia. --Traveler100 (talk) 08:14, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

We should invite open street maps to join in. Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:06, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi Fussi, I like the map trick. How is it done? • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 09:38, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

I like the map trick too, but how would it work for offline use...print or PDF for e-reader/tablet/laptop? I've tried to create maps, but find these programs has a steep learning curve. It would be really nice if someone could create videos and upload them to Commons (does Commons host videos? Maybe YouTube then). Making it easier to create maps would really help new users to expand the number of maps here. If not videos, at least look through the How to draw a map page and make sure all the steps are still the same...the software hasn't changed so that some steps are now done differently. Another idea would be to add lots of screenshots to go with most steps. AHeneen (talk) 22:48, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

You can take a look at w:en:WP:USRD/MTF and see the tutorial that a project on the English Wikipedia uses for creating road maps, if that's helpful. --Rschen7754 17:32, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

I just noticed this is taking about maps, as I was asking about it!. OSM / Wikimedia have two MediaWiki plug ins, one that allows placement of an OSM segment on a page, and another that lets you drop down a map from co-ordinates. The latter is already implemented on Wikipedia. JimKillock (talk) 13:52, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

I think we should find some interested guys and create a project. It should be more than just to place a map in the article. Laying points of interests and routes on it would be nice. Let's start gathering some ideas after the press release. The guy from WV/de who created it likes to join this group. I'll let you know. Commons supports videos but only with free codec. So smart phone/iPhone videos will not work, I think. Besides I would vote against videos on WV. It can cause endless discussions.. which one to take? bad video - good video. Why do you remove this video and not that? YouTube is a better place for private holiday videos... (just a very personal opinion - not the one of WV) -- DerFussi (talk) 12:30, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

The suggestion regarding videos was for a tutorial on how to create maps. I do not think videos for most other reasons (destination pages, etc) would be appropriate. I haven't spent much time trying to make maps since this discussion started, but w:Wikipedia:WikiProject_Maps and [[:w:Wikipedia:Graphic_Lab/Resources/Tutorials#Map_tutorials|]] look very helpful. AHeneen (talk) 04:11, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with much of what has been said. Firstly, a page on Meta listing star articles would be very useful and enable a much higher standard among all the languages. Secondly, a new cross-wiki partnership for maps sound great. We definitely need to create a single standard in all the language versions in terms of symbols, colours, design, etc. Now that a logo has been decided upon, we should simply use the colours of the logo. I like what that contributor did on the German Wikivoyage. Something we'd need to decide upon is the numbering system. Does each section get separate numbering like the example, or continuous numbering? The latter is better for colour-blind people and also for black and white printing. On the topic of printing, it should be possible. We should contact OpenStreetMap and state out intentions for closer collaboration. Maybe one possibility is a new "layer". Go to [4] and see the option in the top-right corner as an example. JamesA ^>talk 10:33, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

"We definitely need to create a single standard in all the language versions in terms of symbols, colours, design, etc." Why?

"Now that a logo has been decided upon, we should simply use the colours of the logo." Maybe not a good idea considering how many people said "Well we can always change the logo colors later." Besides, the colors in the new logo are widely disparate in hue; that will not make for good-looking maps. LtPowers (talk) 14:47, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I thought creating a cross-wiki standard would be a given. Why confuse readers by having no set standard like we did in the past? Why go backwards? Now that WV-de is here, there are going to be skilled mapmakers on that site who use their colour schemes, and skilled mapmakers on here who use our traditional WT one. If we want the maps to be easily adaptable to different languages so that just the words need to be modified, then the colour and symbol scheme should stay constant. JamesA ^>talk 08:18, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Question for the German WV

I notice in the article you referenced that it is using the IsInKat template which creates the breadcrumb sub-title like the IsPartOf template here but also places the article in a category of the same region. This is a good way of identifying articles that are of a region but not always listed on the region article page. Creating the template is easy but how did you generate all the categories with the right hierarchy? Creating these manually would be a big task! --Traveler100 (talk) 05:48, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

We create it manually.... :( ..... We would not need them, but of course WMF project users are familiar with that and want them. There are some things that can help. I create navigation boxes for my articles (see Sabah) The towns have them as well (Poring). They are helpfull for the readers to find all towns in a region, and even see the previous featured articles. The templates provide the categories as well. I have to check every article anyway (remving shared, adding interwiki, addings WP and commons) so I add the navi boxes as well. They can help in generating the categories. Look at Vietnam. All provinces (a lot) have the navi box already. Just add the [[category|{{PAGENAME}}]] the navi box template. Immediately you will find all needed province categories on the special page "wanted categories". I have an firefox add-on. I can mark several links on a website with an rectangle and have all links opened in a separate tabs with one click. Now I place the same text {{IstInKat|Vietnam}} to every tab/article. It is still manually but quite fast. By using the navi boxes for categorizing you can switch easily. Either you put a province to the country category or the province category or both. Just by adapting the statement in the navi template. Now I am working through my favourite region Southeast Asia.... We miss our old location database.... -- DerFussi (talk) 12:31, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Besides all that... :) ... The Wikipedians are the ones who wants to have the categories. They can help a bit in doing it :). So I am not keen to categorize the articles. When I look through the articles I add them, but its not on my priority list. -- DerFussi (talk) 12:54, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Well we could at least help with the manual creation of categories. Have create proposal in IsPartOf sandbox which either adds article to existing category or place a link in the article to create one.--Traveler100 (talk) 15:29, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Local removal of adminship

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 43851

This discussion should be moved to Wikivoyage talk:Bureaucrats once that page has been imported from backups

We began to have a discussion here Wikivoyage talk:Script policy#Ad hoc admin rights regarding local bureaucrats ability to remove admin and bureaucrat rights. This was something we always had prior to the move to the WMF. We haven't had much need for the ability, really, but it may be helpful in the future with cases like this one, where a bot needs temporary admin rights. I'm actually not sure what the logic behind denying this ability to bureaucrats is.

Would restoring removal of adminship rights seem reasonable locally? --Peter ^Talk 18:53, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

• This is more of a "opt-in" thing; by default WMF wikis require stewards to remove admin/crat rights, unless the wiki decides that they would like the ability. (For comparison the English Wikipedia only had this turned on in 2011). As far as removing crat rights by bureaucrats, that also is possible, but you run the risk of significant damage if a bureaucrat's account gets hacked. --Rschen7754 20:05, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
• I support granting 'crats the right to remove admin bits. I'm fine with needing a steward to remove a 'crat bit, though; seems a good safeguard. LtPowers (talk) 21:56, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
• Agree with LtPowers. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 04:01, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support local removal of admin bit only, per LtPowers. This, that and the other (talk) 00:58, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support –sumone10154^(talk) 20:03, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support --Rogerhc (talk) 04:34, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Requested at bugzilla:43851. –sumone10154^(talk) 04:34, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

OSM map links (WikiMiniAtlas)

Hi all, are there any plans to get this map link feature working in WikiVoyage, as it'a already implemented in Wikipedia? (See White House, click on the world map drop down symbol by the co-ordinates.)

SlippyMap might also be useful but I guess that's for WikiMedia sysadmins to think about. JimKillock (talk) 12:18, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

SlippyMap is part of this Wiki (see Special:Version). But WMF's version uses the ToolsServer instead of the OSM tilies. It was part of our MapSources extension. You can see it working for instance at Washington, D.C. by clicking at the coordinates. --RolandUnger (talk) 09:53, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Integration with OSM is absolutely a top priority for our project. The number one thing needed on our part first, though, is to find a good way to grab coordinates for all our listings. Doing that manually would be too much work, so we'll want to grab them from another source. The technical side of that, as my tech friends tell me, is not actually that hard, but we'd need to find a legally acceptable source. --Peter ^Talk 17:53, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

If location pages are linked to Wikipedia, then most of them will be there, even if not here, no? JimKillock (talk) 22:38, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

I mean the listings within articles (restaurants, shops, etc.) which we would want to plot on OSM. --Peter ^Talk 23:13, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

openstreetmap:nominatim might be of use as a data source; an enquiry like http://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/search?q=135+pilkington+avenue,+birmingham&format=xml will return lat/long? In some cases, individual attractions and landmarks have WP articles - if an individual article there matches a listing here, we should link to it and also steal its (lat,long) co-ordinates. I doubt that the raw numbers are copyrightable in any case.

That still leaves the question of how to extract address, city, province, country from individual listings. Many of our listings use <listing> tags but not all... some are just free-form text. Splitting city, province, country from the breadcrumb trail would require that we have a list of valid provinces and states for each country so that regions like "midwest" or "north country" could be discarded from locations before launching a Nominatim search.

It is a task which would require some sort of 'bot (as it's large and repetitive) but it must be possible. WikiSherpa already places our listings onto maps and finds the Wikipedia article for each landmark, as far as I know, so we just need to do whatever they do?

There'd need to be some sort of sanity check on the returned co-ordinates; if they're a hundred miles from the middle of town, odds are they're for the wrong city.

There's also the question of how to get from co-ordinates to an actual usable locator map, or at least a .kml file. K7L (talk) 01:53, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Listing tags

On the topic of <listing> tags, is there any plan to use a widget like the one WikiTravel use? Without that I think users will be inclined to enter listings fairly free form.JimKillock (talk) 10:11, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

What "listing tags" are you referring to?

If you mean the listing templates for "see", "do", "buy", "eat", "sleep", "drink", and generic "listing", then they are already available for insertion at the desired point by left clicking on the required template from the list below the edit window (just below the save page button). • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 10:14, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Ah; you know as a Wikipedia user you never really scroll down below the save button. Any chance of moving these tag insets to a pull-down on the edit bar above the text input area?--Traveler100 (talk) 10:34, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Just my opinion but the Wikitravel "add listing" widget (next to the section "edit" buttons) is friendlier for novices, although it has poor presentation. JimKillock (talk) 11:57, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

OK, that' another FAQ, for now, I'll add it JimKillock (talk) 11:29, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Added a FAQ here JimKillock (talk) 11:38, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

OK, there are some differences in the listings. On Wikitravel they look thus: *<do name="" alt="" address="" directions="" phone="" url="" hours="" price="" lat="" long=""></do> - they include a space for lat and long, which is data we might want? JimKillock (talk) 11:44, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely, and hopefully ours will work :/ We're held up in this, though, until the next MW upgrade, when we regain control of the listings as templates. --Peter ^Talk 18:51, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

SlippyMaps (?) at de and it editions

<slippymap lat="38.895" lon="-77.03667" z="12}" h="300" w="450" layer="Mapnik" marker="0"></slippymap>

Seems our colleagues have already done this much:

OSM Template

OSM on Funchal page JimKillock (talk) 10:11, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Could we implement this on the English edition? JimKillock (talk) 11:49, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

It's already implemented (see above). You can copy de:Template:OpenStreetMap (I am the author). I can help translating this to English. --RolandUnger (talk) 10:09, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

How will interactive OSM maps (and listing tags, etc) integrate with policy & existing maps

A major problem with using OSM interactive maps is off-line use...one of Wikivoyage's goals. Creating static maps specifically for WV will continue to be necessary for purposes like region maps, or when highlighting particular routes or destinations. That said, interactive maps are clearly helpful to most users, who will be online, whether on a computer, tablet, or mobile phone and...to avoid any confusion...I am not opposed to these interactive OSM maps, despite raising this issue. We need to create a policy on use of such maps and discuss the use of Wikivoyage maps (what is currently used on pages) and OSM maps/templates/tags before rolling out the latter on a large scale (maybe add to a few different pages as examples).

In my opinion, an OSM map should not be placed on Wikivoyage pages but only linked to in some way. This has two purposes: 1)provides an incentive for editors to create a WV-style map (solving the issue of off-line use) and 2) when a WV-style map is on a page, having a separate map will be redundant or clutter the page. OSM maps should be linked to with the address or with a symbol. A makeover of the listing template was discussed on WV-old which discussed using symbols for location on a map, Wikipedia, etc. The symbols on the German Spremberg page seem too bold and without an explanation seem too out-of-place. The autobahn symbols are interesting and maybe we could create a symbol (that gives some indication of linking to a map...like a map, globe, or cross-pins) that works as a template and can contain numbers. For example: {{OSM|5|123 Main Street}} would create a symbol & reference number next to a point of interest or business in prose and OSM="5" would be used in a listing template. Doing something like this would help WV integrate this feature (which competes favorably with commercial services integrate Google/Bing/Yahoo maps) while not straying from our goals or creating a page style that is difficult for first-time users to understand. AHeneen (talk) 04:52, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Absolutely! -- Alice^✉ 05:28, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

In the German Wikivoyage there is a template for single markers. The complete call to the template can be generated here. Simply by click & copy. -- Mey2008 (talk) 08:33, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

While hand-crafted maps are good in some cases, we need maps on all destination articles, and hand-crafting 30000 maps would be a maintenance nightmare (roads change, and OSM data improves everyday, we must always use the newest). I think the best would be inserting a dynamically-rendered OSM map PNG in every article, and clicking on it loads an interactive map. This solves the problem of having both offline and online. The map would be generated Wikvoyage-style from OSM, which is not as pretty as hand-crafted but good enough. The zoom level could be customized as a parameter. What do you think about it? Nicolas1981 (talk) 05:35, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Unless we have a simple tool to control the content of OSM maps shown here (i.e., drawing our Wikivoyage travel regions, showing only the cities we want, etc), the complete replacement of hand-drawn maps with OSM maps will be a very bad solution. Printed OSM maps are kind of useless because they never show what you want to see. I don't know how to deal with that. Perhaps, the first step should be development of maps for offline electronic usage. For example, I am positively impressed by the Osmand application. I really look forward to having Wikivoyage-style OSM maps available for download. Let's see how far we can go in this direction without discouraging old-style hand-drawn maps that are difficult to prepare but most robust and universal. --Alexander (talk) 07:25, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Back in my Wikitravel Press days, Mark & I hacked together some basic tooling to extract only the relevant bits from OSM data, plot POIs on top and spit it out as a printable SVG. It's all pretty rudimentary, but I'd be happy to contribute the code if somebody wants to pick it up. Jpatokal (talk) 23:20, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Proposal to add categories that match breadcrumb trail.

Would appreciate input on conversation at Template talk:IsPartOf#Category of IsPartOf. --Traveler100 (talk) 08:56, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Do you still have images on en.wikivoyage-old or wts.wikivoyage-old that is not yet copied to Commons?

Hello everyone!

Most images from Shared and WTS have been processed but images are still being transfered to Commons but it will take a long time if we want to move all the files that could be moved. There are still many files on en.wikivoyage-old that have not been checked/moved yet. Therefore your files may still just be lying there and waiting to be moved.

It would be a good help if you could check by:

• http://en.wikivoyage-old.org/wiki/Category:Files_by_user
• http://wts.wikivoyage-old.org/wiki/Category:Files_by_user
• (any other language you have edited on)

and find your own category and check the files in there.

All files need a license and a source. Source could be a short text like "I took this photo"/"Photo was taken by <username>" or link to Flickr or wikitravel or another web site. A text like "Copied from Wikipedia" or "Originally on wikitravel" is not enough. So please add full link.

If you can't find the source or no license is mentioned on the source then the file will most likely not be accepted on Commons. In these cases it is almost always better just to upload a replacement or find another file on Commons and mark the old one with "{{Ignore|Some reason to ignore}}".

If you have checked your category and all files are now ok or marked with "{{Ignore}}" or "{{KeepLocal}}" then you could post a link here with a link to your category and a "All checked" and I will have a look at them. If you checked the files before and not all files were copied then please check source and license again and make a new post. Example:

• http://en.wikivoyage-old.org/wiki/Category:Files_uploaded_by_Aar0n all checked --MGA73 (talk) 07:26, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

If you have any questions just ask or check by http://wts.wikivoyage-old.org/wiki/Wikivoyage:Pub_%28temporary_refuge%29 --MGA73 (talk) 07:26, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I have 2 photos that have been marked "{{KeepLocal}}" [Jacques Plante's Goalie Mask] [Bear proof Dumpster instructions] These are both my works and can be CC 3 licensed. If necessary I can upload newer versions of the files.  S.Bryan  19:22, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi. The reason someone tagged the files with KeepLocal is that it is a photo of a work (probably) made by someone else. It is what we on Commons call a derivative work. Therefore the files can not be copied to Commons unless the creator (of the mask / the sign) sends a permission to use the photos under a free license.

The files can stay on (or be copied to) en-wikivoyage if they live up to the requirements for fair use. I do not know if wikivoyage have a fair use policy yet. --MGA73 (talk) 20:00, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

We do: Wikivoyage:Non-free content. --Peter ^Talk 20:05, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. I added a link on Template:KeepLocal‎. --MGA73 (talk) 20:40, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation, What happens next? Is there something I need to do? -- S.Bryan  22:03, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I moved your post to the bottom. You placed it in my post which could be a bit confusing :-)

No, the files have been transferred to en.wikivoyage so you do not need to do more at the moment. However, if this was Wikipedia I think the files would not live up to the criterias for non-free content because the photos do not seem to be very important to understand the topic. So perhaps there will be a discussion of some of the files in Category:Files to be kept locally if they can be kept or not and which templates and information should be added to keep the files. I think perhaps that it would be better to discuss non-free files somewhere else but I'm not sure where the best place is. --MGA73 (talk) 23:23, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

As far as I've understood, files have been copied to this project very quickly so that the migration process goes as fast as possible. I assume that there will be a discussion about many of the files at WV:Votes for deletion later, as some probably fail the EDP. --Stefan2 (talk) 23:27, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

@MGA73, I have found some files that were not marked to move, and a few which were incorrectly marked which I have changed to move. Will the bot get them automatically or should I list them? Thanks, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 17:48, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Is [this file http://wts.wikivoyage-old.org/wiki/File:Sharpedges_667197825_9e578daf82_o.jpg] really not allowed? --Globe-trotter (talk) 19:22, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

If it is in New Zealand and taken from a public road then you are free to use the photograph[5]. Unfortunately under USA law you cannot use it if regarded as a piece of art, even in a public place. Previously would not have been an issue but as the Commons server is in the USA the Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes this a little difficult now. Traveler100 (talk) 19:44, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I see now the photo is probably copyrighted by itself, and flickr-washed. So we'll need a new photo for Wikivoyage:No advice from Captain Obvious.There are so many of these obvious signs, but all are copyrighted.--Globe-trotter (talk) 19:58, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

You can't take photos of text, signs or most 2D works in the British Commonwealth. You need permission from the person who made the sign. See Commons:COM:FOP#New Zealand. Also, I'm not sure if it is safe to trust licence claims on this Flickr stream. --Stefan2 (talk) 21:55, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Did anyone notice there is a very tiny text at the top of the sign, left side for joe-ks.com which claims to be "Largest Source of Internet Humour!" when you go to the site? It really is a very funny sign. - Tom Holland (Xltel) (talk) 01:04, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Yeah. It looks like a picture found on the Internet. --MGA73 (talk) 17:49, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I missed the URL when I originally reviewed it. Based on that it looks like a straightforward copyvio. But even if it had been freely licensed by the photographer, we would also need permission from the sign's creator, because in NZ freedom of panarama does not cover 2D signs as Stefan2 explained above. --Avenue (talk) 01:33, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

@ Peter. Most files tagged with "move" are now moved both on en and wts. A few days ago I moved a lot of files with a "move" to http://wts.wikivoyage-old.org/wiki/Category:Files_to_be_moved_to_Commons_without_a_license. So at the moment there is only:

• 40 in http://wts.wikivoyage-old.org/wiki/Category:Files_to_be_moved_to_Commons and
• 62 in http://en.wikivoyage-old.org/wiki/Category:Files_to_be_moved_to_Commons

If there is other files than these please drop a note. --MGA73 (talk) 17:49, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Photo hunt!

On a note related to MGA73's post, it's time we get working on a massive photo hunt, and I've updated the sitenotice accordingly.

There are tons of red-linked images at this point, most of which will not get transferred to Commons, and we need to hunt them down and replace them. If you come across red-linked images that you want to rescue, that will require a bit of sleuthing, as goes on at wts-old. --Peter ^Talk 07:46, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Good idea :-) But I suggest to start replacing the files marked with an "ignore". Other files may still be moved. --MGA73 (talk) 07:54, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

They may get moved, but we launch from Beta in a week, and need to reduce the number of red-links. It's a shame that photos might get buried in disuse, but we need to move forward. --Peter ^Talk 08:05, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree. I just suggested to start with the one with an ignore ;-). Also I asked my bot to update Category:Pages with broken file links so I hope that numbers will drop from 3,521 to something much lover. However I noticed that my bot can't touch pages like User:(WT-en) 2old because it is locked. Could you try to click edit and save without changing anything? If it works it will dissapear from the category. --MGA73 (talk) 08:48, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

That did work. --Peter ^Talk 08:53, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Okay. Thank you. I could imagine that Stefan can't replace usage there and my bot can't poke these pages as long as they are protected or we or our bots do not have sysop rights. It is not a top priority so I guess we could find a solution later. --MGA73 (talk) 09:12, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I will start my bot and replace images which have been moved to Commons under a different name recently, so that those images won't be lost.

Note that subdomains for es: and pt: were created recently, and a user is currently importing lots of pages to the projects. Will those projects be ready for release at the same time as the other projects? --Stefan2 (talk) 15:13, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Also: Although you will need to replace all images at some point, I would suggest that you start with the images in http://wts.wikivoyage-old.org/wiki/Category:Files_to_be_ignored and http://en.wikivoyage-old.org/wiki/Category:Files_to_be_ignored in case some other images will be copied to Commons in the meanwhile. --Stefan2 (talk) 15:18, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Also: How are you "touching" the pages? action=purge seems to work fine on protected pages. --Stefan2 (talk) 15:21, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

My bot uses touch.py --MGA73 (talk) 16:06, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

If you're joining in the photo hunt, please also consider looking through my contributions :) I have had to remove a lot of images from articles that were copyright violations or otherwise unacceptable. There are hundreds of edits there, all with summary "file deleted on WTS"!

Also please look out for "incorrect" images! Articles like Feasterville or West Bridgewater or Hualien County are just embarrassing! This, that and the other (talk) 11:08, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Phrasebook template

I'm not sure this has been addressed before, but I really think the Phrasebook article template should be made an actual template. This is to simplify its filling and standardize it properly (avoid any differences or typos). Another important benefit would be that any change to the template would immediately change the articles as well, saving hours of human/bot edits. Pikolas (talk) 15:50, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

You mean Template:Phrasebook? LtPowers (talk) 16:35, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, yes. Why isn't it used? Pikolas (talk) 21:05, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

It is—the link is at the top of the edit window when starting a new article [6]. But I might be misunderstanding what you are proposing. --Peter ^Talk 21:12, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Strangely, I can't see this thing you're describing. Pikolas (talk) 23:44, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Try this: [7] LtPowers (talk) 00:34, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

WikiVoyage on mobile devices

Is there a page on how to use this site on mobile devices (Android, Blackberry, etc. )? Struggling to use the listing entries to call numbers directly.--Traveler100 (talk) 07:15, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi, if you're talking about editing the pages through official Wikivoyage website, I don't think so there is a way yet. --Saqib (talk) 10:28, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

In terms of making it mobile friendly so that you can tap on phone numbers and it calls the phone number, that functionality is not yet available. More features are on the way, along with apps I believe, but good things take time. :) It may be worth starting a brainstorm on features we would like to see. JamesA ^>talk 10:39, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes my question was related to making calls from listing, for example restaurants. The only way I have found so far is a rather long winded copy/paste process between browser and phone apps. Is there a page in existing to discuss or propose enhancements such as one click phone calls?--Traveler100 (talk) 11:08, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Not yet—I think it's time to create one.

There is an app called WikiSherpa which allows you to download content from WT (the author intends to switch over to WV content, hopefully soon) that does allow one clock phone calls. --Peter ^Talk 17:06, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Having a more functional mobile site would be great and a few ideas have been brought up over the last 6 months or so during the transition. I mentioned a few things at Wikivoyage talk:Listings#Links to Wikipedia#Different subject. That page is long (but mostly thought-out discussion), but if you scroll down in that section to a big block of text (that isn't indented) starting with "Footnotes might be a good idea...", I discussed adjusting the listing template to create images (phone, map, website, etc) that, when clicked on a mobile device, would work with your phone's OS to bring up phone, email, a map (default map on phone or OSM), and open links to websites in a new window. I don't feel like editing/re-writing this, so FYI, the context of this comment was allowing in-line links to Wikipedia (as opposed to links in the sidebar) and whether/how such links should be differentiated from a Wikivoyage link.

But my preferred method is part of changes to some of the templates we use, where listing templates would add the option to link to a Wikipedia page. This would mainly apply to the see/do sections. I think the templates for see/do/eat/sleep could get a makeover to make them look sleeker (if all the info is present, this could be a couple lines of text on a computer, much worse on a smartphone) by using images and hiding some of the information from being displayed. Let me give an example before explaining. For Westminster Abbey, the listing on WT Westminster begins ([6]=website):

• Westminster Abbey, (tube: Westminster), ☎ +44 20 7654 4900 ([email protected] [email envelope], fax: +44 20 7654 4894), [6]

My idea would be for a listing that would look like this:

• Westminster Abby ([tube] Westminster, [Bus] ?, [Wikipedia], [Website], [phone], [email envelope], address [Open Street Maps])

In this format, the brackets would all be small images: Tube logo, a bus symbol, Wikipedia's "W" logo, some sort of symbol that would be used for official websites(replacing the [1] arrow only in templated listings, not elsewhere in article), the (existing) phone symbol, the e-mail envelope, & OpenStreetMap logo. The only text that would show is the mass transit stop & address. When you click the phone or email images the phone #/email address would be displayed to the right of the image. The info would also be displayed by hovering the mouse over the image (on computers). It would be really great for our site's functionality if clicking on those images when using a device like a smartphone (either through the "mobile" site or an official app) would bring up a small overlaying window with the phone number (or email) and ask "Call [ph. #]?" or "Email [email address]". The Wikipedia logo would serve as a link to the corresponding WP page...opening in a new tab on a computer. On a smartphone/tablet, this would bring up a prompt (Visit [name] on Wikipedia? "Go" "Cancel") just in case it is pressed accidentally (due to charges/limits for data service on mobile networks...especially when roaming [internationally]!) and then bring it up in a new window. There would be different mass transit icons for bus, (light) rail, & metro/subway. In some locations, the icons would be changed to reflect those of the official mass transit lines...like for Westminster Abbey, in London, the Tube...but ONLY if those images are not protected by copyright or otherwise permitted to be used freely (I think this was done with some of the routebox navigation). The bracketed number followed by an arrow is rather dull and, for those who might not be used to wikis, not intuitive that this means a website. So, a new website icon could be created for use in listing templates (it wouldn't be used elsewhere on the page). Clicking this would open the website in a new window (smartphone/tablet users might be prompted "Visit [website url]?" "Go" "Cancel"...again, to prevent accidental clicks). Finally the address could be displayed a combination of description ("Corner of 1st Avenue and Main Street"), physical address (which could be hidden by an image [1234] or by "Address" and displayed by clicking or hovering over it), and coordinates (hidden under a logo...maybe use same as WP...and displayed when clicking/hovering on it, see WP WikiProject Geographical Coordinates for ideas on incorporating into WV). The address/coordinates can be used to link to a mapping service/website via an image/logo (OpenStreetMaps may be best, because of licensing, when compared to commercial services) on smartphones/tablets, clicking on the image would prompt the choice of service ("OpenStreetMaps" + what the device uses...handled on the phone OS side, like if you have two programs doing the same thing on an Android device, you click an address and a window pops up for you to choose which to use...this wouldn't be for WV to know/link to other services). If a part of information is not provided in the listing, then the icon is not displayed (eg. no phone #, no phone icon shown).

To put this in perspective, the current WT attractions listing template is:

• <see name="" alt="" address="" directions="" phone="" email="" fax="" url="" hours="" price=""></see>

A new template might look like this:

• * <see name="" alt="" bus="" metro="" lightrail="" Wikipedia="" url="" phone="" email="" address="" directions="" coordinates="" hours="" price=""></see>

For offline electronic use (which is a topic that needs to be brought up elsewhere), the information would be fully displayed except websites which can get messy when longer than http://website.com (could be "Link" underlined). Wikibooks & Wikisource allows pages to be downloaded as a PDF (to view on computer/tablet/phone or loaded on e-reader), which is something WV should get when we move to WMF, in which case websites would need to be displayed in case printed or needed to enter in an internet cafe. We could also see if WV could get an official phone/tablet app some developer could volunteer to create that could keep the same formatting as the online website, but allow downloads for offline use.

Outside of templated listings, there's only a couple other common places where inter-wiki links would be used/appropriate. Since regional/country-level pages don't use listing, but rather paragraphs of text, WP pages could be linked by adding a template after the name of an attraction/etc. So in the middle of a paragraph you would see "Westminster Abbey [W]" (where W is the Wikipedia "W" logo) which would be done by typing "Westminster Abbey {{Wikipedia:Westminster Abbey}}" a template that could be added to the toolbox you see when editing. Links to other WMF wikis could be done similarly. AHeneen 00:35, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

In addition to that suggestion, I would also like to see a template for just phone numbers to add in the middle of prose. For example, in the "Get around#By bus" section of Lake Wales: "Lake Wales is served by Winter Haven Area Transit (WHAT, [4], +1 863-534-5500). Adult/youth fare is $1.50/ride with no free transfers. Seniors (65+) and the disabled ride for $0.75, with proof and no free transfers." The phone number would look better with the phone image beside it and the template could work (on the mobile site) to bring up the phone app (is that what it's called?) to place calls. If you're using an Android phone, tapping a number will bring it up in the phone app. But it doesn't recognize the number in the format we use on WV. Tapping the number in that example text, it brings up "+1863534". To be honest, though, that functionality frequently brings up odd numbers in the phone app...for example, I'll unintentionally touch a number when scrolling and it will bring up "20-13" or "27395" (like a population). Not sure if that's been fixed in later versions like 4.x, but with the wide variety of phone operating systems and considering much of the developing world will have older OS versions, relying on the phone to recognize the number is not the way to go. AHeneen (talk) 06:13, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Could we perhaps start work on an open source app, possibly very similar to the Wikipedia app? Having a good mobile site is important, but I feel like allowing people to browse the site (or a section of the site) while offline would make Wikivoyage much more appealing to mobile users. WikiSherpa is doing a good job right now, but it's proprietary software (it's freemium, and not open source), which feels at odds with the WMF philosophy if we want to call it our official app.

I've got some iOS development experience. I'd love to Plunge Forward and fork the Wikipedia iOS project on github and start working on an equivalent for WikiVoyage (which would be open source). However, I want to make sure I don't end up putting in effort for nothing. How does WMF go about embracing "official" apps for their websites? KhwamRock (talk) 02:57, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Check this thread. It might be a good starting point. --Alexander (talk) 07:36, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

See also: http://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Wikivoyage:Offline_reader_Expedition Nicolas1981 (talk) 06:22, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Please judge E11 hiking trail

It appears to me that I have now completed the description of itinerary E11 hiking trail. Could somebody please check if this is what WikiVoyage understands as a good article about an itinerary? Please read the Discussion page of the article first. DrMennoWolters (talk) 13:30, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

This sort of request can go to Wikivoyage:Requests for comment. I will add it there. At some point, it can be deleted here. Pashley (talk) 14:23, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• Where should we comment? • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 15:28, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Specific suggestions for the article which cannot edited directly, should go to the Discussion page of the article. General ideas about how itineraries should be written, may come to the pub or the Project page or perhaps elsewhere. DrMennoWolters (talk) 17:00, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Site notice

We need to get something together for the launch. Currently I have proposed "This week we are launching Wikivoyage. Join us in creating a free travel guide that anyone can edit." Feel free to adjust [8]. Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:43, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Try to keep it under 140 characters so it will fit on twitter, and lets decide on a hashtag too, maybe #Wikivoyage --  S.Bryan  04:49, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

We've Been Mentioned On Colbert!

Brace yourselves: I just saw the Jimmy Wales interview on the Colbert Report tonight (I'm sure video will be posted online sometime late tonight) and he mentioned our little travel wiki. This is probably just wishful thinking, but perhaps we'll see a spike in web traffic from this? It'd be nice to get the Colbert Bump... PerryPlanet (talk) 05:00, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

you were quicker than me! He called us Wikivoyager....oh well at least we were mentioned --  S.Bryan  06:03, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikivoyage was mentioned by Jimmy as "launching soon" on the Colbert Report: [9] Jpatokal (talk) 22:35, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

"Wikivoyager" is actually kind of a better name... :( --Peter ^Talk 00:03, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

"Wikivoyeur" would likely bring more page hits as everyone would want to peek. K7L (talk) 19:47, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

How?

I can not see a solution to replace images of flags, there are articles with more than 50 images in the Portuguese version, and I saw that you have changed here, it was handy that you did? or used bot?? Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton ^m 09:37, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Please, get in touch with Stefan. He has the bot to do this kind of replacements. --Alexander (talk) 10:57, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I have a bot which can update file names if a file is available on Commons under a different name. The bot does things like this. The old site has a file called File:2006 08300085.JPG and the file was copied to Commons under the name File:Darcha in the Lahaul region.jpg, so the bot updated the file name in the article in which it was used. Flags are usually listed as available on Commons under a different name, and this was used by my bot to replace low-quality flags on English Wikivoyage (and other language editions) with high-quality flags from Commons.

I can do the same thing on the Spanish and Portuguese language editions if you wish. Apart from adding missing flags, the bot would also add a lot of missing photos, since photos also may be on Commons under a different name. However, I do not currently have a bot flag on Spanish or Portuguese Wikivoyage, so if I run my bot there, there will be lots of entries in Special:RecentChanges on those projects. I don't know if I should create a bot nomination on those projects or what I should do. Also: The bot flag can only be set by a bureaucrat, but there are no bureaucrats on the projects. --Stefan2 (talk) 13:33, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

The reason why there are no bureaucrats is discussed at meta:Wikivoyage/Lounge#Legacy admin rights, and it would be good for people here to weigh in there. I'm happy to help on :es, where I was a bureaucrat pre-migration, but if we require new admin nominations for old version imports, I'll probably just leave it be. --Peter ^Talk 17:38, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware of that discussion. I think that everyone who had a sysop or bureaucrat flag on Wikitravel before Internet Brands began with arbitrary permission changes should get a sysop or bureaucrat flag on Wikivoyage. --Stefan2 (talk) 21:05, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your attention, what can be done is ask the flag via Stewart, as I just did to another bot (m:Steward_requests/Bot_status#Sumone.27s_bot), and there are no problems with gringos bots running in the Portuguese version. :). And you could also ask an authorization for a global bot, I think it may be more beneficial.Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton ^m 08:19, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Global bot status may, I believe, only be used for interwiki bots, but I'm not planning to run an interwiki bot. According to m:Steward requests/Bot status, I have to wait for at least a week before a bot flag can be set. Request made at pt:Wikivoyage:Bar dos viajantes#Bot. --Stefan2 (talk) 16:43, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Be a Wikimedia fundraising "User Experience" volunteer!

Thank you to everyone who volunteered last year on the Wikimedia fundraising 'User Experience' project. We have talked to many different people in different countries and their feedback has helped us immensely in restructuring our pages. If you haven't heard of it yet, the 'User Experience' project has the goal of understanding the donation experience in different countries (outside the USA) and enhancing the localization of our donation pages.

I am (still) searching for volunteers to spend some time on a Skype chat with me, reviewing their own country's donation pages. It will be done on a 'usability' format (I will ask you to read the text and go through the donation flow) and will be asking your feedback in the meanwhile.

The only pre-requisite is for the volunteer to actually live in the country and to have access to at least one donation method that we offer for that country (mainly credit/debit card, but also real time banking like IDEAL, E-wallets, etc...) so we can do a live test and see if the donation goes through. **All volunteers will be reimbursed of the donations that eventually succeed (and they will be very low amounts, like 1-2 dollars)**

By helping us you are actually helping thousands of people to support our mission of free knowledge across the world. If you are interested (or know of anyone who could be) please email [email protected]. All countries needed (excepting USA)!!

Thanks!

Pats Pena
Global Fundraising Operations Manager, Wikimedia Foundation

Sent using Global message delivery, 20:48, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Images redirecting?

Does anyone know why these urls [10][11][12] are redirecting to other images? Wikilink example: File:Pantheon.jpg. --Peter ^Talk 22:22, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

The image is a redirect on Commons: [13]. -- Ryan • (talk) • 22:26, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

We have an image page by that name, though—a template is transcluded there that I want to get rid of. Is there any way to edit, delete, and/or view the page? --Peter ^Talk 22:47, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Try replacing the file name as appropriate in the following URL: http://en.wikivoyage.org/w/index.php?title=File:Pantheon.jpg&redirect=no . Since the image is on Commons you can probably just delete the local page rather than editing it. -- Ryan • (talk) • 22:50, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Launch Preparation

We're scheduled to leave beta next Tuesday, so I'm wondering if there is a single place where we are enumerating tasks to complete for launch? I've seen discussions in a few places, but it might be useful to have a master list with pointers to relevant discussions. The list below contains some of the things I'm aware of, but if others could append (or move this discussion to a more appropriate place) it would be greatly appreciated. -- Ryan • (talk) • 01:14, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

The breadcrumb navigation has a bug with district articles that could be fixed. --Globe-trotter (talk) 13:56, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Launch tasks

High priority:

• Wikivoyage talk:Photo hunt - replace redlinked images.
• Wikivoyage talk:Directory of policies and guidelines - this page still has a number of redlinks (see also Category:Pages to be imported from wts).
• MediaWiki talk:Sitenotice#Launch - We need to update this for launch
• Wikivoyage:Script nominations#Removal of wts: links - There is a proposal to remove the broken wts: interwiki links that needs approval. Done.
• #Map Sources — Having a broken link at the top of every page is a problem, and we really should find a solution before launch.

Other:

• Wikivoyage talk:Welcome, Wikipedians - I suspect we may want this page linked from the site notice, so it could use some review.
• Wikivoyage talk:Quick contribution guide - This page may be linked from the site notice, so it could use some review.
• Policy pages would benefit from having Template:Nutshell added to them, where missing.
• Update Meta:Migration FAQ and Wikivoyage:About to have clear background on why our site looks so much like WT.

We should probably have a policy in place and fully explained for how to handle the import of new templates. This will likely be an issue with new users from Wikipedia & other WMF wikis which use template a bit more liberally than we do. There has been some discussion at Wikivoyage_talk:Using_Mediawiki_templates on changes, specifically in the last section.

Another item to consider (maybe not high priority, but very nice to do at launch) would be to use a bot to add the Wikivoyage template to the relevant Wikipedia article. Matching the correct WV/WP articles should be easy (use whatever page is in the WP template & shows up in the sidebar), but the bot would have to recognize other sister project templates and, if present, add w:Template:Sister project links instead. Doing this around the launch would call a little more attention to WV if WP editors see not only the banner, but also the addition of the WV template as a way of WV joining as a sister project. AHeneen (talk) 07:00, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

I was thinking the same. Good suggestion. --Saqib (talk) 07:05, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

w:Template:Wikivoyage is on a lot of pages already; it's just hidden until launch. Some uses will need to be converted to use w:Template:Sister project links instead, but that can be done piecemeal or by a bot. LtPowers (talk) 15:45, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

A page for info for press might also be useful. It would include contact info (at WMF), an overview of the site (history, move, language versions, how it works), stats (# of pages, daily edits, users, etc), examples of quality pages (list a few big cities, off-the-beaten path locations, travel topics, & itineraries that are at guide/star level and can demonstrate the breadth of quality content we have at Wikivoyage). While most of the topics that were listed have their own page, it would be very useful to write a couple sentences about each topic and have a link to the relevant page than leave some journalist unfamiliar with wikis and (of course) our site to hunt around for info. AHeneen (talk) 04:23, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

How to import from Wikitravel?

There are some articles at Wikitravel (about Stockholm etc) which I would like to see imported here, in their current version. How can I do that? Thanks in advance. /~~ —The preceding comment was added by Yvwv (talk • contribs) 2013-01-10T11:26:47‎

See #New content from WT above. --Stefan2 (talk) 13:10, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps we need a new policy page, either specifically on imports from WT or more generally on imports from any site (http://rationalwiki.org http://en.citizendium.org etc.) that uses a CC license requiring attribution. Presumably it would need checking by WMF lawyers. Pashley (talk) 13:41, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I would appreciate such a page. /Yvwv (talk) 14:04, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

If you are responsible for the new content, it may be safer to copy and paste the diffs for now. I think we need to do this carefully. I made a page Wikivoyage:Wikivoyage and Wikitravel to try and summarise the state of play. I imagine these kind of issues are going to come up, and best we address them directly. --Inas (talk) 03:37, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, that was a good clarification. /Yvwv (talk) 14:13, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

wts: links

Hi. I've now gone through the remaining now-broken and redundant wts: links, in a way that I believe preserves all the remaining useful information that might be in them.

Firstly, I used a bot to remove those which were either in an article which now has a Commons link, or where the wts: link is exactly the same as the article title (give or take a Category: prefix), in which case they didn't add any extra information that could be used to find Commons material. These two steps removed all but ~170 of the previous ~1400 wts: tags.

I then converted the remaining ~170 wts: tags to instances of the {{wts}} template, stopping them from generating spurious text in the article (as broken wts: links are no longer hidden), and adding them to a hidden category Category:Pages with old wts links. If people would like to go through those and fix them by converting them to Commons links wherever possible, I can take care of most of the rest of the work in finding Commons links for all other articles using my bot.

I have made a start on working on hand-converting the entries linked in Category:Pages with old wts links, just to get things going. -- The Anome (talk) 22:25, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Great work! I've been doing some of these. --Globe-trotter (talk) 01:02, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

There are only 79 to go, now... -- The Anome (talk) 03:13, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Using categories not only for destinations

Now that we're trying to use Region Categories, it could be useful to add some Travel topics to their appropriate categories. For example, "Off the beaten path in Alberta" currently IsPartOf Alberta; this page in fact shouldn't use Template:IsPartOf since it's not a destination page, however it can and should be part of Category:Alberta. Anybody disagree? Tamuz (talk) 10:34, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, we have not agreed to use categories as a new navigation tool. We only agreed to use hidden categories for maintenance purposes. Of course, you can add some categories to travel topics, but I don't see how it will help in the maintenance. --Alexander (talk) 10:50, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Not in maintenance, but for the readers. Say I'm planning a trip to Alberta and I'd like to get all the information I can about the place. It would be much easier if I could go into Category:Alberta and see all relevant pages linked in a bulleted list. Otherwise, I'd have to read the entire article about Alberta everytime I'd want to find that one page I'm interested in right now, and it might even be that whoever wrote that page forgot to link to it from Alberta's page. Tamuz (talk) 11:09, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

We have the field Related Pages in the left column. The content of this field is specified by the {{related}} template. This is our mechanism for linking itineraries and travel topics from destination articles. --Alexander (talk) 11:33, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh great. Thanks for the info :) Tamuz (talk) 18:28, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Is {{related}} documented anywhere? Trying to guess what this does based on mw:extension:RelatedArticles is not straightforward and the info needs to be here, not there. K7L (talk) 01:49, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikivoyage:Related articles. It's prominently linked at the top of Template talk:Related. LtPowers (talk) 02:53, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Phonetic policy

Right now there is a Wikivoyage:Pseudo-phoneticization guide. IMO, Wikitravel should instead use the International Phonetic Alphabet, since the pseudo-phonetics are deficient, and confuses non-native English speakers. /Yvwv (talk) 14:16, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Absolutely, positively not. We're writing for travelers, not for linguists. Pseudo-phonetics may confuse non-native speakers, but IPA confuses everyone. LtPowers (talk) 15:44, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Our pseudo-phoneticization scheme could be improved, though. --Peter ^Talk 18:34, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

IPA has three big advantages — it is precise, it is language-independent, and it is already in use on Wikipedia so we can get IPA for many place names and some other terms free. The only negative is that it is not widely known.

Pseudo-phonetics are not widely known either, and the current page has plenty of other problems. I'm seriously tempted to tag it for deletion. Pashley (talk) 19:07, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

The whole point of pseudo-phonetics is that they don't have to be widely known in order to be understood. If you tag it for deletion, how exactly are our phrasebooks going to work? Also, IPA is not just "not widely known", but it's also opaque. Travelers would have to carry around both a phrasebook and an IPA pronunciation guide if we used IPA. LtPowers (talk) 19:51, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

We need the pseudo-phonetics page for people to decipher our pseudo-phonetics. And that's kind of the problem. I'd rather simplify the display of our phonetics in the phrasebook, and have that page serve as a key for all of them. --Peter ^Talk 21:19, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean. Wikivoyage:Pseudo-phoneticization guide isn't for our readers, it's for people making phrasebooks. LtPowers (talk) 22:26, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

If I see a pseudo-phonetic transcription on Wikivoyage, any attempt to pronounce the word will likely be very wrong. On the other hand, if I see an IPA transcription, I usually get a fairly good idea of how it is pronounced. I suppose that different people are used to different phonetic transcription systems. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:34, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

It's supposed to be for writers, but as a practical matter most readers would have to to understand what's in the phrasebooks. Non-native English speakers will absolutely have to. --Peter ^Talk 22:54, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Maybe I'm being dense today but I'm just not following what the problem is. I don't care what pseudo-pronounciations we use, as long as a) they allow some semblance of the target language to be uttered, and b) they don't look like this: "welcome: bienvenue (/bjɛ̃v.ny/)" LtPowers (talk) 02:52, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

I absolutely do not support the exclusive use of IPA. If people want to use that in addition to pseudo-phonetics, knock yourselves out, but I think a very small percentage of our readers will understand them, so I strongly oppose either substituting them in place of pseudo-phonetics or using them exclusively. I'd be perfectly OK with entries in phrasebooks using them sequentially (IPA, then pseudo-phonetics). Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:41, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

[re-indent]Pick up some guidebooks and look at their language section...I think you will be hard-pressed to find any guidebook that uses the IPA system. Some may (like our phrasebook) have a section that details how letters are pronounced, separate pronunciations into syllables, and capitalize to show stress (Russian: DOH-bra-yuh OO-tra from LP USSR 1st ed. 1991). Others may simply display a written (transliterated) word like Armenian Inch e dser anoonu? (From Bradt Armenia & Nagorno-Karabakh 2nd ed. 2006...includes a full letter/dipthong pronunciation guide, though). And others may simply separate syllables and/or capitalize for stress, without a letter/diphthong pronunciation guide (like Lingala: M-bo-tay in Bradt Congo: Democratic Republic•Republic 1st ed. 2008 or Pardon pahr-don from Fodor's Provence & Côte d'Azur 7th ed. 2007). Lonely Planet publishes some phrasebooks, but I don't have any to look at and see what system they use.

Now, of course, there's no rule that Wikivoyage must stylize itself after printed guides, but this should go to show that even guide publishers don't have faith in travelers' abilities to decipher IPA pronunciations. In my opinion, creating and using a pseudo-pronunciation guide is perfect for WV in order to keep consistency between phrasebooks & the use of foreign-language terms on destination pages. Pronunciation guides will never quite be perfect and even if they were perfectly representative, the people using them would probably mispronounce words much of the time anyways. If there is debate as to the content of the Pseudo-phoneticization guide, discussions over how to treat sounds and such should be discussed on its talk page; but having that guide/system at all is what I support. Now, that said, I have no objection to using the IPA system in tandem with our pseudo-pronunciation guide. This combines a acceptable pronunciation system which most users will understand with a perfect pronunciation system which <1% of readers will understand. The only issue may be finding someone who understands IPA and the subject language to add IPA pronunciations to guides, since it will probably be hard to find sources for IPA pronunciations to use in our guides (even if they can be found, will every term be covered & is is copyrighted?). AHeneen (talk) 07:35, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Absolutely agree with all the commenters here. I'm a student of linguistics at the university level and speak three languages fluently, and even I cannot make heads or tails of the IPA. In my experience with travel in foreign countries, anyone that I have come into contact with was grateful and surprised to hear an American speak any language other than English fluently; they certainly never wanted to crucify me for pronouncing a word funny. If the pseudo-phonetics system ain't broke, as the saying goes, don't fix it. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 11:28, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Also, for what it's worth: to answer AHeneen's question, I own a copy of Lonely Planet's French phrasebook, which uses a pseudo-phonetics system very similar to ours. No IPA there at all. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 18:22, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

I have looked at three phrasebooks by different publishers. All used pseuo-phonetics, but two of them mentioned accompanying CDs. Would it be possible to add sounds (MP3 files?) to our phrasebooks? AlasdairW (talk) 22:03, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Sounds would be great, but I don't know if the addition of sounds to a page would fit with our Wikivoyage:Goals and non-goals. Specifically, our content should be medium-neutral, so that the same content can easily be accessed from a computer that is online, a computer offline, smartphone, tablet, e-reader, iPod, etc. as well as in print. Also, sounds would have to be in a format that is freely-licensed. MP3 encryption is patented and has to be licensed, we'd have to use OGG encryption or similar. AHeneen (talk) 23:37, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Shouldn't that be "compression", not "encryption"? K7L (talk) 17:59, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Encoding, actually, but I think we all knew what he meant. =) Current policy prohibits any media except text and images, so we'd need a change there to start including audio files. Commons has a number of pronunciation audio files already, but they tend to be for single words rather than common phrasebook phrases. LtPowers (talk) 19:12, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

OGG files would be fine for short clips to hear when online. Wikipedia has pronunciation for some cities using OGG files. I am assuming that the sound files would supplement the text, not replace it, so a printout would still be useful when travelling. A separate discussion is probably need on adding a policy for sound files, so that we can use the existing OGG files on Commons for city names that are hard to say (e.g. w:Milngavie). AlasdairW (talk) 23:28, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I'd strongly oppose IPA symbols. They are basically gibberish to anyone who hasn't got a Master's in linguistics. Audio files are a much better idea, especially now Wikivoyage is tied to Commons, so those files can be shared with Wikipedia and Wiktionary, so people don't have to read cryptic IPA symbols there either. —Tom Morris (talk) 19:10, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

I learnt IPA during my first English lessons, at age 10. An adult of average intelligence can learn IPA in less time than it takes to read a long Wikivoyage article, or just use a reference card. /Yvwv (talk) 18:23, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

To me, the most important question isn't "can the average adult learn the IPA", it's "should he have to learn the IPA as a prerequisite to understanding our phrasebooks". I think the answer to the latter question is a resolute "no". We've just launched Wikivoyage on the WMF, and lots of people who visit will be doing so for the first time. We should not be sending out the message that people need to jump through hoops or expend unusual effort before they can fully participate. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 18:37, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

You learned the entire IPA in your first English languages as a kid? What sort of insane teacher did you have?  ;) --Peter ^Talk 19:05, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Learning the phonetic symbol for all sounds in the English language is not too hard. Maybe you are simply not accustomed to studying a foreign language? /Yvwv (talk) 00:56, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

If you're going to be silly like that... I've taught the English phonetic chart, and in the course of my former studies learned the IPA symbols and their variants for Russian, Georgian, Armenian, Estonian, Finnish, French, various Spanish dialects, Turkish, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and Sierra Leonean Krio. But we cover a wider range of languages on Wikivoyage (all of them), and asking readers who might spend 3-4 days in a new language-area to learn unfamiliar IPA symbols each time, is unreasonable. --Peter ^Talk 04:22, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia, there are 107 different letters in the International Phonetic Alphabet, which can be further modified by any of 52 diacritics to indicate minor alterations in sound, tone, length, or intonation. That's not even including the extensions to the IPA [14] that are used for other sounds such as the clicks used in some African languages.

In short, anyone who can fully digest this [15] in the time it takes to read an average Wikivoyage article, my hat is off to.

I speak three languages fluently and have studied at length the phonology of many more. It's my area of study, and I know enough to know that the sounds produced in English—or in any language—may or may not sound anything like the sounds in another language. Without exaggeration, I'm sorry to say, it was enough to put me off learning languages that were too far removed from my own.

So what are we to do with a visitor who wants to go to, let's say, South Korea, but doesn't care to learn Korean in an exhaustive way? In our phrasebooks, are we to present the reader with an IPA construct like "kɐmd͡ʑɐ" ("potato") and expect him to seek out some other source that will teach him that "d͡ʑ" is a voiced alveolo-palatal affricate, then find another source to tell him what exactly a voiced alveolo-palatal affricate is, et cetera? That would, objectively speaking, put us at a distinct disadvantage vis-à-vis other travel guides.

Or are we to place longwinded explanations in the guidebooks parsing out all this information for each individual language? As much as I support the inclusion of phrasebooks in Wikivoyage, the fact remains that they're a sidebar to our primary purpose, as a travel guide. I think that providing in-depth information about the finer points of pronunciation, on an aspect of our project that as it is, is only obliquely related to travel, would be far outside the scope of Wikivoyage.

I said it before, and I stand by it: the phonetic system we use in our phrasebooks works well enough for our purposes. Lonely Planet and the rest have apparently come to the appropriate conclusions: that having all the relevant information condensed in one place is paramount; that most travelers to a country where an unfamiliar language is spoken will be satisfied as long as they speak it well enough to get by, rather than perfectly; and that anyone who is concerned about pitch-perfect pronunciation will seek out Rosetta Stone rather than a travel guidebook. If there are any complaints with that approach, I've yet to hear them and can't even imagine what they would consist of. Why should Wikivoyage reinvent the wheel?

-- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 04:46, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

kɐmd͡ʑɐ...WTF!?!? kahmd'zaah? I'd prefer something along the lines of kon-nee-chee-wah (yes, I know it's Japanese, not Korean). However, that doesn't mean that we can't list both. Doing so would be a major plus for our phrasebook for travelers who are also language aficionados...how many phrasebooks for travel have IPA for more accurate pronunciations for those people? AHeneen (talk) 06:37, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Learning Vacations

From what I've been seeing on the web and from talking to people is that 'Learning Vacations' are getting more popular. The website, Road Scholar, has some great examples of this. Definately something to consider as a topic for the new wikivoyage site. —The preceding comment was added by 216.171.198.40 (talk • contribs)

Travel is often, among other things, a learning experience, we have Gap year travel & a suggestion that we should have studying abroad has been made; I do not recall where.

Checking their web site, though, I do not see that Road Scholar offer anything special. They appear to be just another tour agency. Pashley (talk) 03:09, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Checkuser nominations

I've nominated myself and User:Inas for local CheckUser rights, with an eye to the upcoming public launch on the 15th. We need at least 25 statements of support per Wikimedia policy, so please weigh in! --Peter ^Talk 07:48, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

It must be noted that you two must identify to the foundation with confirmation of being at least 18 + age of majority in your country before you can receive access.--Jasper Deng (talk) 19:56, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Yep, not a problem. --Peter ^Talk 20:19, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

same. --Inas (talk) 10:24, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikivoyage:Requested articles

Please contribute to Wikivoyage:Requested articles. /Yvwv (talk) 08:36, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Is there an archiving bot?

This talk page is getting rather long. I wonder whether there's already a bot on this project for managing the archiving of threads. Tony (talk) 12:57, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Please see #Archiving above. We avoid automatic archiving on this page, because most discussions should be swept to appropriate talk pages, rather than consigned to the cellar. LtPowers (talk) 14:33, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Using Wikipedia text

A lot of the articles on Wikipedia can be adapted here. What's your policy on adapting their text which might include copying some text? Thin Arm Pi (talk) 19:15, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

We discourage copy-pasting, because we want to be a driver of original content, and because we aim to present information in a different way (according to our different goals).

Sometimes editors on Wikipedia add what is basically travel content there by mistake, though, and that definitely should get transferred here. --Peter ^Talk 19:18, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Do keep in mind that the free license (CC-BY-SA) does require attribution - indicate in your edit summary where you got the text and who it's BY. (The same consideration applies when translating content between different languages of the same project, such as en.Wikipedia → fr.Wikipédia). Also, we don't want a whole encyclopaedia article here as that's too much detail for our purposes; a brief summary to "understand" a destination is a better fit here. K7L (talk) 19:24, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Right... I tried to do that on the Kayenta article. I'll put attribution in an edit summary when I get back to it. There's a lot of content I deleted from the WP article, but some of it was worth keeping. Thanks. And why can't I move pages? Thin Arm Pi (talk) 21:00, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Only autoconfirmed users can move pages. So you'll have to wait until you become one. --Globe-trotter (talk) 23:03, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Offline reader expedition obsolete

Just a pointer to a rather radical edit of mine over at Wikivoyage:Offline reader Expedition — with WV now running the Collections extension, we've got PDF, EPUB & printed books out of the box, and I think the expedition can be closed as mission accomplished. Jpatokal (talk) 11:13, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Seems a bit optimistic. Suppose I want to load a copy of the entire Wikivoyage guide onto Nook/Kobo (both of which are ePub readers of somewhat limited capability, not tablet PC's). I'd need to split the content into chunks of a size the device could handle as 'books' - so each volume would be an epub of at most several megabytes. The entire wiki isn't going to fit into one of these 'book volumes'. I need to split things into smaller sections; the world might not fit as one volume, but what about Western Europe? or one individual country? Odds are, if I could create an epub for each country, reducing images to thumbnail size, the world would likely fit on a memory card for one of these devices.

Does mw:extension:collections let me do this? It lets me add everything in one category to a 'book', but there's nowhere to add a category and all of its subcategories in one step. I suppose I could create lists like Wikivoyage:Books/Diving the Cape Peninsula and False Bay but those lists have to come from somewhere... and this one example seems to be the only one we have in project space at the moment. There's also the problem of how to reduce images to small thumbnails - not doing this means the created file would be huge.

It looks like collections are suitable for hand-picking a short list of articles - maybe a few cities or one small region - and downloading that as a customised bundle. They're not suited for splitting the entire wiki into a series of 'book volumes' for individual countries and downloading the whole thing to a memory card. There needs to be a way for an automated process to build a list of articles for each country, region by region. There needs to be a way to keep images to some reasonable size. There needs to be a downloadable version prepared in advance, once. instead of trying to build a 'book' on the fly from a list of pages. Those books may need to be hosted elsewhere, as there is no means to upload a finished ePub to the wiki with special:upload (pdf is permitted, epub is not). There also needs to be a .mobi version (which can be created by converting the .epub with free software such as Calibre) as Kindle doesn't speak ePub.

This may mean creating a local copy of the wiki from the database dumps and using it to run 'bot scripts (to build lists of every article in each country), generate the collection .epub's (as something as huge as "the world as multiple ePub volumes" would be an annoying load on the main servers) and then unZIP the generated files so that a script could run ImageMagick 'convert' as a batch job to thumbnail all of those images. The finished volumes would then need to be put up for download somewhere.

Collections are intended for bundling a handful of pages. They won't easily create the world on an SD card. K7L (talk) 17:46, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I tried out the book feature on Diving the Cape Peninsula and False Bay with all sub-articles. The resulting pdf is fairly large at 243MB, and runs to 640 odd pages. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 19:48, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Well you have no one to blame for that but yourself...  ;) LtPowers (talk) 20:38, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Odds are, most of that is illustration - a compressed archive with current revision of every page on the wiki is a 55-75Mb database dump. K7L (talk) 04:06, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I would guess over 95% of the size is illustrations. I assume the illustrations in the pdf are not the max resolution images, or it would be even bigger. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:37, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Best approach to handle duplicate information between Wikipedia and Wikivoyage?

Hi, I am wondering if there are any rules on what to do with pages that should contain the same information as on Wikipedia? Should information just be copy pasted from Wikipedia on to here? Can the information be linked somehow to ensure update on one place gets updated on the other site?

An example is all the sites on Wikipedia per country. More specifically all the "cuisine" pages on Wikipedia would be good to have here on Wikivoyage under "Eat" for each country. Perhaps it would suffice to just enter a link to all "cuisine" pages and other similar duplicate pages on Wikipedia..? Can this be done in bulk?

Requesting some guidance or policy on how to deal with this.

Thanks!—The preceding comment was added by Soederman (talk • contribs)

Well, if you read our Wikivoyage:Tone manual, you will realize that texts should not be literally copied from Wikipedia to Wikivoyage. We may have same content, but it has to be written differently. --16:46, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I believe that this is the same question that was addressed above at #Using Wikipedia text. -- Ryan • (talk) • 17:03, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

It was partially addressed, but there's also the issue that the level of detail which is appropriate for an encyclopaedia is usually too much detail for a city-level travel guide page. Information needs to be summarised, not copy-pasted. w:Motel traces the history of that lodging type back to the campgrounds and cabin courts used by "tin can tourists" in Model T Fords in the 1920's and 1930's but we likely just want to know where to stay for the night. K7L (talk) 17:55, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

quickbar problems?

While pointlessly working on an Island nation article, I happened upon some formatting problems. I've fixed Montserrat but there may be others out there (like Navassa Island for example)... -- Alice^✉ 07:42, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I made this change a few weeks back as per Template_talk:Quickbar#Changes. I tirelessly tried going through the Whatlinkshere to change all the articles manually, but it's a long job and I only got up to (not including) E. Please continue if you can. I believe Romaine did have a bot solution, but that has not been deployed yet. JamesA ^>talk 11:35, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I forgot all about this. I have now fixed all the quickbars that still had to be done. --Globe-trotter (talk) 14:37, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks guys, for your rapid and effective response. -- Alice^✉ 20:34, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikivoyage launch and why we're better

In preparation for launch, I wrote up a blog post that may prove helpful in convincing people to switch over: http://gyrovague.com/2013/01/14/free-travel-guide-wikivoyage-comes-out-of-beta-and-is-already-kicking-ass/ Jpatokal (talk) 10:09, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

And it is! --EvanProdromou (talk) 02:38, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Wow, that is beautifully thorough. Thanks for a reason to smile. Sj (talk) 09:01, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! Evan, didn't think you'd need all that much convincing though ;) Jpatokal (talk) 22:40, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Links from Wikipedia in other languages

meta:Talk:Interwiki map#Wikitravel needs to be nominated for removal again, but before that can happen the wikitravel: interwiki link (and associated templates) need to be replaced with their WV equivalents and the old templates nominated for deletion. This process has already been completed on en: fr: simple: but there is a long list of small Wikipedias in other languages where links to WT still need to be removed or replaced.

What would be the best way to get the word out to editors which actually speak these languages? K7L (talk) 12:40, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Templates: bjn bn id jv jv map-bms mk mr ms ms or or pam pt ru ru sa sa sh si sk sl sr su ta te th tr uk vi yo xmf

Interwiki links: af ar ast as az bar bat be be-x-old bg bjn bn bo br bs ca cbk-zam ceb commons cs cy-books da de diq dv el en-books en-source en eo-books eo es fa-source fa fi fr fy gd gl gu haw hif hi hr ht hu ia id-books id ig ilo io is it-quote it ja ja-dict jv ka km kn ko-source ko kw lad lo lt map-bms mdf en-mw meta mi mk ml ml-dict mn mr ms mt nah nds-nl ne new nl nn no or pam pl-news pl pt-news pt pt-dict qu ro ru-source ru sa sco sd se sh simple si sk sl sm species species sq sr su sv ta test te th tl to tpi tr-books tr tt uk ur vi vi-dict war wa wuu xh yi-dict yo zh-books zh zh-yue xmf

One question I have is this: some of the above (especially the English non-Wikipedia ones) are in userspace. Do we want to go around changing people's userpages? On many projects that's highly discouraged. --Rschen7754 02:50, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Only in the article space. One can limit their search to that. Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:48, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I'll take a look at the above. I spent last week creating accounts on every WMF wiki, and I'm autoconfirmed on a lot of them. --Rschen7754 09:17, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

By the way, I've struck the Test Wikipedia from the second list as that's all non-mainspace links. If I find others like that I'll strike them too - hope you don't mind. --Rschen7754 09:19, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

However, removing the wikitravel: prefix entirely will break these users' pages - do we need to use a hardlink instead? --Rschen7754 09:57, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

An external link to WT is preferable to an interwiki link for a couple of reasons: 1) a proper external link gets rel="nofollow" which tells search engines to ignore it and 2) the interwiki prefix needs to go away before a request can be made on meta: to finally remove it from the interwiki table. I'm not sure if meta: looks at userspace when deciding whether a prefix is in use or can be deleted. K7L (talk) 00:13, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikivoyage Launch Banner

Hey all,

Rogerhc worked on a bunch of options for the wikivoyage launch banner and posted them on Meta . There hasn't been a ton of feedback (no one but DocJames) and so I defaulted to making the one that Roger liked the most . Bringng over one of the others isn't impossible yet but if we want to we should do it soon.

I don't know what time people were expecting to actually 'launch' the banner campaign but I assume it was probably soon or in the past so I'm bringing over the translations now into the CN system and then will go home (I'm at the office now) and have a drink to give some time for anyone to give last concerns :). You are also welcome to find other meta admins to launch the campaign since once all of the translations are imported I'll put the banner into the campaign and get it ready to start whenever anyone checks enable.

tldr: Speak now or forever hold your peace :)

If there is anything you need me for the best thing would be to ping me on my talk page either here or on meta since that will shoot me an email. I also posted on the mailing list. I'll try to check here but have a bunch of things I'm dealing with at the same time so want to keep it easy :) .

James Jalexander (talk) 03:50, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I think we should be good to launch now. Great work by Roger on the banner. Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:50, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm seeing the banner live on Wikipedia now, so the next few hours might be interesting. -- Ryan • (talk) • 04:55, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Yup, it is live :) Jalexander (talk) 05:01, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Excited to see the banner on Wikipedia, but the wording seems odd. "This week we are launching Wikivoyage. Join us in creating a free travel guide that anyone can edit." The words make it seem like Wikipedia is launching a project. Is it too late to change the text?

• "The Wikimedia Foundation is excited to announce the launch of Wikivoyage! Join us in creating the free travel guide that anyone can edit." or
• "The Wikimedia Foundation is excited to launch its latest project—Wikivoyage. Join us in creating the free travel guide that anyone can edit."

I have copied this suggestion to m:Talk:Wikivoyage_2013/CentralNotice#Phrasing, which is where this discussion should go. Something should also be done to the m:Wikivoyage/Launch press release (either scrapped or fixed up for use). AHeneen (talk) 05:31, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

The banner is live across (almost) all WMF projects - I've seen it on Wikidata. --Rschen7754 05:56, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Hey AHeneen, I'm not sure of the best spot for the conversation but I responded on meta since more of the conversation was already there. Everyone should go there if they have comments however :) Jalexander (talk) 06:23, 15 January 2013 (UTC).

Wikivoayage link icon

I see that the icon being used for links to Wikivoyage from Wikipedia is the old one. I assume this should be updated to the new logo? I have requested an update to Sister-inline‎ and Sister templates.--Traveler100 (talk) 05:57, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Can you give me a link? If it's on enwp I can do it. --Rschen7754 06:01, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

wikipedia:Template:Sister-inline and wikipedia:Template:Sister need to be edited to update wikipedia:Template:Wikivoyage-inline and wikipedia:Template:Wikivoyage. --Traveler100 (talk) 06:24, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Done. --Rschen7754 06:28, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Though the original file File:Wikivoyage favicon.svg has had the new logo uploaded over it on Commons. --Rschen7754 06:35, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I believe w:Template:Wikivoyage was already displaying the correct icon. w:Template:Wikivoyage-inline was not, because the 12px thumbnail never got regenerated after the new logo was uploaded over the old. I tried several times to force it to regenerate but failed. Your solution certainly works, though. LtPowers (talk) 13:19, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

At the time I made the initial entry today both where showing the old.--Traveler100 (talk) 16:50, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

New tools

Wondering if we should add a few new tools for editors? I suggest these two anyway.

WikEd

WikEd color codes mediawiki markup depending on what it is. Users can add it on Wikipedia under "preferences". Should we add it here?

Support

• I find it makes it a lot easier to edit. Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:12, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Seems sensible. Some Wikipedians and others on the sister projects find editing without WikEd painful; may as well make them comfortable. —Tom Morris (talk) 16:30, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Oppose

Comments

We don't really have a ton of MediaWiki markup, not to the level of Wikipedia at least. I'm not sure how useful it would be, but it wouldn't do much harm either. LtPowers (talk) 13:16, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Done - I've enabled this gadget. –sumone10154^(talk) 21:11, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Twinkle

Twinkle is a tool that one can use to welcome new users. It may not be as good as doing each personally but does make it much faster which may be important for all the new editors joining.

Support

Oppose

Comments

• Twinkle does a lot more than welcome new users; if you set it up right, it will warn editors, nominate pages for deletion, provide a form of rollback, etc. --Rschen7754 06:16, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Per Erik Moeller on the list setting this up may be a little more complicated than I hoped. It looks like we will need someone who is good with IT to get it up and running. Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:19, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
  • By the way, if you want a simplified version of Twinkle installed for you personally, you can copy the code from m:User:Rschen7754/global.js - also there is a script that crosses out links to blocked editors, and a Wikidata script (this one only works on Wikipedia, unfortunately). --Rschen7754 08:11, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• We don't really have the infrastructure in place to make full use of Twinkle, and I would strongly oppose using it to "welcome" new users. LtPowers (talk) 13:16, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Parser functions

Is there a way to use something like the parser functions on Wikipedia? Member (talk) 08:21, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

The same software (MediaWiki) is being used, so I don't see why not... --Rschen7754 08:23, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

The parser functions are an extension, not MediaWiki core code. Predictably, most of the extensions from Wikipedia are here (as both are WMF-hosted projects); the Special:Version page has a list of which ones are installed. There are also a few Wikivoyage-specific extras, such as mw:extension:GeoCrumbs, special:mapsources and the mw:extension:RelatedSites and mw:extension:RelatedArticles. K7L (talk) 00:00, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Voyage/Travel stats for January 14

Stats for 20130114
Number of entries in recent changes edits (including deletions/blocks):
WV: 1001
WT: 515
Number of article edits:
WV: 894
WT: 332

By https://github.com/nicolas-raoul/VoyageVsTravel Nicolas1981 (talk) 10:15, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Here's an update, for January 17. I'm sure noone will be surprised that numbers have gone up a lot.

Stats for 20130117
Number of entries in recent changes edits (including deletions/blocks):
WV: 7142
WT: 726
Number of article edits:
WV: 6407
WT: 507

--Avenue (talk) 03:41, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

May the better site win, hehhehheh. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 03:49, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

It's time to set our eyes on bigger prizes—let's aim to knock the real online travel giants off their thrones. --Peter ^Talk 05:31, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

OxygenGuide: Bring Wikivoyage offline on your smartphone

I just released a new version of OxygenGuide.

OxygenGuide is a copy of Wikivoyage as simple HTML pages, for use on smartphones.
Useful when traveling without Internet. Readable on Android/PC/etc, it takes 300MB on disk.

The HTML is already usable on any smartphone/laptop, but to make it easier I am about to create a small Android app that download/displays/update data. Any volunteer?

Nicolas1981 (talk) 11:03, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Explain Wikitravel fork more prominently?

I first came here from Wikipedia about an hour ago and was a bit confused as Wikivoyage pretty much looks like Wikitravel with a nicer logo. The articles are the same in look, structure and most of the content, and there are no ads. If you're familiar with Wikitravel and don't know Wikivoyage and the reasons for the fork, this wiki feels distinctly scummy. To me it seemed as if Wikimedia had simply copied all of Wikitravel's content (a tiny wiki compared to most of Wikimedia's projects), ran a search-and-replace for "Wikitravel", and slapped a new brand on it. Hell, they didn't even bother to rename the Travellers' pub. And while I knew that this is completely legal under Wikitravel's CC-BY-SA licence, it just didn't feel right.

After a bit of reading (mostly this very page and Cohen's NYT article), I now understand and support the fork. Still, now that Wikipedia links so obtrusively to this project, we'll have to expect an influx of people who may be familiar with Wikitravel and might ask themselves the same questions as I did, find no readily accessible answers, and then put down Wikivoyage as Wikimedia's attempt to steal another wiki's glory. We can't expect everyone to do research on the political reasons that gave birth to Wikivoyage, we can't even expect many people to be interested in them. As long as the Wikivoyage and Wikitravel are as similar as they are now, shouldn't we explain why Wikivoyage was created and why it is based on Wikitravel in a prominent spot (maybe with a brief explanation on the front page that links to a more detailed explanation elsewhere)?

Over time, the two wikis will diverge further and the similarities will fade, but for now I think an explanation is in order.

pb (talk) 13:17, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Ah, I just saw, a page addressing exactly these questions already exists: Wikivoyage:Wikivoyage and Wikitravel. I think we ought to link to this on the front page, in the sidebar or at least on Wikivoyage:Help. pb (talk) 13:26, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I asked on wikimedia-l if the Wikimedia Foundation are going to put out an announcement. Apparently, they will, in about an hour's time. That'll probably be a good place to point people. Tom Morris (talk) 15:02, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

For legal reasons, we have been asked not to talk too much about that other Wiki. It's a very fine line to tread, unfortunately. LtPowers (talk) 15:08, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I am not very happy with the explanations given in Wikivoyage:Wikivoyage and Wikitravel. Could we not have some simple facts? Has the whole of the old English Wikitravel been incorporated into Wikivoyage? If not, what has been left out and why? What about all the links to Wikitravel from Wikipedia articles, etc.? Will these now be automatically transformed into links to Wikivoyage? And how about ongoing developments under Wikitravel? Will there be any possibility of incorporating them into Wikivoyage or do "legal reasons" stand in the way? We certainly need a clearer picture and it certainly needs to be explained up front. --Ipigott (talk) 15:34, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I understand that we shouldn't go shouting about Wikitravel, but we need to be able to point people somewhere so they know what's going on and can get answers to questions that are sure to come up anyway. If Wikivoyage doesn't make a prominent official statement, someone else will. pb (talk) 15:56, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Sharing Options

Hey everyone. Could someone add sharing options (such as emailing and sharing to Facebook, Twitter, etc) to each travel page so people could easily email their travel info to themselves and other people? Sharing functions aren't really needed on Wikipedia, but are probably more important for a travel site, and most websites nowadays have some basic sharing options such as AddThis and etc. It would be great if we could have some sharing options here on Wikivoyage, and I hope the community will be able to introduce this feature in the future. Thanks. —The preceding comment was added by 38.106.172.254 (talk • contribs)

We've talked about it but haven't had time to take any action on it. It's a bit low-priority at the moment. LtPowers (talk) 15:06, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Similar proposals has been discussed at Wikipedia and generally rejected on the basis of privacy concerns and on the basis of the horrible politics that would arise in choosing which sites one would put on the list of sites to share to. (Not that Wikivoyage should blindly follow Wikipedia, but it's worth contemplating the reasons why we've rejected it over on 'pedia.) —Tom Morris (talk) 16:16, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

There has been some discussion at Wikivoyage talk:Listings about changes to business listings. That page is quite long, so you'll have to scan through all that to find the suggestions (sorry, I don't have time to do that). In addition to the "what sites to choose" issue, there's also the problem of fees and liscenses associated with incorporating those sites' features onto Wikivoyage. AHeneen (talk) 19:26, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Using en:wikipedia user ID here

Hi, apologies if I am being stupid or missing the point but I don't seem to be able to log in here. I have an account (in good standing!) on en:wikipedia and I have visited Special:MergeAccount there and been told it's worked. It lists about 82 systems where the login will work. Wikivoyage, though, is not one of them. Additionally, if I try to log in here, I get this "Login error <The user name "(redacted)" has been banned from creation. It matches the following blacklist entry: <code> .{30,} <newaccountonly></code>>. I cannot see how my username would be blacklisted, especially when it works fine for so many other wikis. Am I missing the point about what I should have done? Please advise! Happy to mail someone with the actual user name, don't want to link it to this irrelevant IP. I've also tried creating a new account with the same username but, perhaps not surprisingly, that doesn't work either. Thanks 138.37.199.206 14:57, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

It looks like we currently prohibit usernames longer than 29 characters. Would 34 be long enough? How many characters do you need? LtPowers (talk) 15:19, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the fast response. Aha, so that's it. I need 31 characters to reuse the same ID, please ... might that be possible? Cheers 138.37.199.206 15:24, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

If the local community is okay with it, the name could be added to the whitelist so you can log in. --Rschen7754 17:12, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Do you mean "OK with the length" or "OK with the actual name"? Either are slightly weird when I think about it too much (why does Wikivoyage have different length allowed than all these other projects / why would Wikivoyage enforce a different name standard than ... well, you get the picture) but since all I want to do is log in easily between projects, I'll happily(ish) co-operate with what it takes to get it done ... which is what? (I'm still not mad keen on positively IDing my username as being from one IP address or another.) Thanks for your help - please advise. Best wishes 138.37.199.206 17:39, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Comment: or - why not just make existing WMF usernames OK in this project too? The 29-character limit seems a bit arbitrary and unhelpful though there may be a good reason ... it's a bit odd to be told "welcome, Wikipedian!" in one breath and "oh but our system hates your shtoopid username" in the other! Is there really a good reason for this? My username is indeed stupid, yes, but no-one ever gave me cause to think I couldn't use it across projects (if they had, it would be 29 characters long right now <g>) - it works fine in de or fr or commons or wherever so, from the er er consumer/editor-experience point of view, it's ... strange. Not meaning to be nasty, but just sayin' :) Cheers 138.37.199.206 17:44, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I would support any adjustment that allows contributors the same username on all WMF projects. We did not know about this incompatibility until you mentioned it. Teething problems I guess. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 17:59, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

In the spirit of the new camaraderie between Wikivoyagers and Wikipedians (and contributors from other WMF projects), I also support such an adjustment. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 18:02, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I see no problem with that, either. Let's do it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:23, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict; dangit, Ikan!) I don't have a problem with that, I'm just not sure how to do it. I believe we inherited the current blacklist from our de.Wikivoyage compatriots -- the ones who gave us our pre-WMF home-away-from-home. LtPowers (talk) 18:24, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I believe that username rules are configured via MediaWiki:Titleblacklist. If there is a way to sync that with other Wikimedia projects then I would suggest doing so, but this is an area that would benefit greatly from someone with deep Mediawiki knowledge weighing in. -- Ryan • (talk) • 18:27, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

You can copy the contents from any other WMF site by going to the same page and copy-pasting. By the way, there is also a global blacklist on Meta. --Rschen7754 20:18, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Neither the global blacklist, nor wikipedia have a username character limit, so I don't see why we should here. I have removed the rule from our blacklist, so your username should work now. –sumone10154^(talk) 20:30, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

That's absolutely great, thank you very much. I have already tried it while logged in to en:wiki and it works like a charm. I must say that I also had a look at MediaWiki:Titleblacklist both here and over on wikipedia. It's quite a can of worms - the one here is so short and simple and the one at en:wiki is a nightmare of length and complexity, which leaves you thinking, can both approaches be right? Is en:wiki massively overregulated, or is wikivoyage about to sink beneath a wave of appalling usernames - also, what will happen when someone starts an account here then goes and tries to use it at en:wiki and finds that it is banned by the much more proscriptive list there? Surely more consistency across projects is a good thing ... or am I missing the point? I must say, I am glad that I am just a simple editor and not a managerial type so I don't have to worry about these things! But regardless of all that, thank you very, very much for sorting out that length limit so nicely and promptly. Happy editing and best wishes 138.37.199.206 08:06, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Speaking as an en.wiki admin, stuff gets added to the list because of recurring problem editors whose usernames are all similar. The other issue that happens is that troublesome editors create accounts like User:Rschen7754 sucks!!!!! so editors sometimes ask for their names to be added to the blacklist. (The worst is when you get usernames like User:Rschen7754's real name is Fred Joe which not only have to be blocked, but have to be oversighted). --Rschen7754 08:09, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia links

I added some Wikipedia links to an article earlier, and LtPower has removed them. I haven't got a problem with that: I'm learning the ways of the Wikivoyage.

But I've got a suggestion. Over on Wikinews, we have a template called 'w' which lets you easily link to pages, and if there is a page on the local wiki, it resolves there, and if not, it links to Wikipedia. What's the general view on linking to Wikipedia? I've started adding links back from Wikipedia to Wikivoyage using sister projects templates. —Tom Morris (talk) 16:52, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

The discussion so far: Wikivoyage talk:Listings#Listings tags and links to Wikipedia. You may want to scroll down to the Summary section first though. --Traveler100 (talk) 17:56, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes. There has been a LOT of discussion about this and opinion seems divided. There are actually several sections on that page which discuss Wikipedia links. AHeneen (talk) 19:29, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Please see Wikivoyage:Links to Wikipedia. For the time being, the accepted way of linking back is to add a [[Wikipedia:Article title]] link at the bottom of the page, which will generate a sidebar link. --Peter ^Talk 19:55, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

As far as I know, the inline link style that you mention for Wikinews would likely not be OK on Wikipedia itself. WP groups interwiki links within WMF with the "external links" because there are many sites which have a mirror copy of the English-language Wikipedia but don't have Wikinews, Wikivoyage or any of the others. We don't have an "external links" section, so we use the sidebar link for now. K7L (talk) 00:38, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Consensus basis?

I'm confused about how this can even be achieved - by definition, this project wil be working with entirely subjective information - what one traveller wants from a given destination is bound to be slightly different to any other traveller, so in order to create a truly comprehensive travel guide you would have to include every possible destination viewed from every possible mindset from the perspective of every possible traveller. And the world contains 10 billion possible travellers and counting. Therefore, so long as everybody holds slightly different opinions, there will inevitably be either massive generalisation, heavy marginalisation, or the supply of pure facts about every destination, and And we've already got that, or some combination of the three. For the sake of an example, I invite you all to examine one movie, any movie, from IMDB, move to the user reviews section and try to write some kind of review that accounts for all viewpoints expressed to some degree (if you disregard any particular viewpoint, that's bias) and attempt to definitively explain whom that movie caters and what kind of person will enjoy it. I can practically guaranteee that you will not be able to do it in any meaningful way because there are so many viewpoints in direct conflict with one another. This guide will be the same - for every hundred, or maybe thousand or so people who find the Taj Mahal to be 'one of the wonders of the world that no voyage to India is complete without', there's bound to several who find Agra far too pestilent to be worth it; several more who are too busy taking in the gritty real life of the city to care about such touristy trifles, that is, those for whom travel is an opportunity to find out how other cultures really live; some others who would rather be experiencing the open road through the seats of their Enfield motorcycles; and so on...

Travel guides work because they accept being the view of just one individual or organisation. The wikimedia foundation's cornerstones, by contrast, are verifiability and lack of bias. I simply don't see how the two ideas are compatable.

Damning scepticism aside though, it's an admirable idea and good luck with it. I would quite like to be proved wrong on this one.

86.129.209.87 17:31, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. This wiki has been in development for almost 10 years; it has been a resource for millions of travellers. I think that's enough proof that the idea is sound. --EvanProdromou (talk) 17:33, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

There indeed is no such thing as an objective travel guide. A neutral point of view is not sought here; instead, our policy is to be fair in choosing what to cover and how. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:20, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I also believe the IP editor may be mistaken about the cornerstones of the Wikimedia Foundation. The WMF is built on providing free access to knowledge. Verifiability and neutrality are cornerstones of Wikipedia, but these need not be adopted by all of its sister projects. Indeed, as noted, it's nearly impossible to impart useful travel knowledge without some degree of subjectiveness. We strive to be as fair as possible, but our readers should not expect to be able to corroborate every bit of information they read here. Like any good travel guide, it's built on trust. LtPowers (talk) 18:22, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

To look at your specific example, the intro section of our Agra article covers the main points you mention.

"Agra has three UNESCO World Heritage sites, ..."

"The city has little else to recommend it. Pollution, especially smog and litter, is rampant and travellers are pestered by swarms of touts and hawkers ..."

That text has been there for several years. I'm not sure now if I wrote any of it, but I certainly saw it not long after I joined the project in 2005. Pashley (talk) 18:45, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Are we dual-licensing GFDL...?

The edit interface says, "By clicking the "Save page" button, you agree to the Terms of use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license. "

Is that correct, or just an error in the MediaWiki: files? If it's an error, can someone fix it? If it's correct, can we update Wikivoyage:Copyleft? --EvanProdromou (talk) 17:42, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I think we agreed it was useful in case content was migrated to WP for any reason,that new contributions were dual licenced in this way. It doesn't change underlying licence of WV. --Inas (talk) 18:45, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Where wast that discussed? I'd like to know more about this. --Rogerhc (talk) 19:56, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't think we can retroactively dual-license the migrated content, though, without a lot of work. --EvanProdromou (talk) 19:59, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

That's correct. I think what happened is that the default licensing text got left in there, and when someone wondered if we should remove it, it was reasoned that it did little harm. Now if there was text that asserted that everything was available under GFDL, that would be a problem, but I don't think there is. LtPowers (talk) 20:03, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I think it should go. It may be necessary for WP, which started out with GFDL, but for us it is just an unnecessary complication.

I asked about this on the mailing list a few days back & someone said they'd check with the WMF legal dep't. Pashley (talk) 21:04, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

The WMF's legal department is looking into it. I've asked one of our staff attorneys to weigh in. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 22:03, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

It's safer to take it out for now and consider putting it back later, if that's what people really really want. Me, I'd rather just stick to the BY-SA. -- MarkJaroski (talk) 22:05, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Hello, Philippe asked me to weigh in here. I agree that the GFDL should be removed from the edit interface, such as:

By clicking the "Save page" button, you agree to the Terms of use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.

Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 23:24, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I've made the change.  :) Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 00:06, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

This is actually fairly tricky to do consistently, for the following reasons:

1) There's more than one Wikivoyage language edition, and we'll need to consistently update all of them.

2) Users can set a different UI language, in which case they'll see the default text again (which includes the GFDL licensing grant).

To do this correctly and consistently requires a small amount of code and the translation of a new user interface message that has all the required legalese but lacks the GFDL licensing grant. Unless legal thinks the dual-licensing actually does harm, I'm going to consider that relatively low priority, but have filed a bug here: bugzilla:44023 --Eloquence (talk) 05:53, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Since this also applies to other languages, and needs to be done in a manner independent of the configured user interface language, I've filed a bug to consistently

FYI, this page needs to be updated accordingly: Wikivoyage:Why Wikivoyage isn't GFDL. AHeneen (talk) 04:55, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

WMF blog post

The Wikimedia Foundation have published the Wikivoyage announcement on the Foundation blog.

Two Wikimedia chapter blogs also have announcements: Wikimedia UK, Wikimedia Ukraine. —Tom Morris (talk) 18:36, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

And the Foundation have a press release. —Tom Morris (talk) 18:46, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

And we, the big slippery never to be owned "we", have the collaboratively written m:Wikivoyage/Launch press release (on Meta, complete with talk page!) :-) Rogerhc (talk) 23:16, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Adding external images on userspaces?

Is this possible, and if so, how? I read somewhere that you could do it by using HTML, but the page didn't tell me how to, only to flag them. Daylon124 (talk) 18:47, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

No, sadly, mostly for privacy reasons actually (If you load an image from an external site they would get the IP and user agent info of everyone who visits the page which would go against our privacy policy). The template you linked to is designed to 'link' to external media when necessary but doesn't actually load it (you can obviously do that here as well). You can see an example with the External Video on this article at the top of the section. Jamesofur (talk) 19:56, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Admin noticeboards?

Where are the admin noticeboards? There has to be some place to raise hell and tell the admins how corrupt they are, right? Berean Hunter (talk) 21:44, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

There is Wikivoyage:Vandalism in progress if you need AIV, but a separate board would be helpful... --Rschen7754 21:45, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

If you have any issues, let them be stated here. If this page gets overcrowded, we can split it if we need to. --Inas (talk) 21:49, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Or just contact an admin directly. Our names tend to be spattered all over recentchanges, so it's pretty easy to tell who is paying attention at any given moment. And we check each others' user talk pages. --Peter ^Talk 21:58, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the replies. I was just surprised that any wiki has been able to operate without one.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 22:34, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Believe it or not, Wikipedia operated without one for quite a few years. They're a burden of success, unfortunately. Manning Bartlett (talk) 03:03, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

WikiProject analog?

What is Wikivoyage's answer to Wikipedia's WikiProjects? I'm interested in starting a team of editors (specifically working on LGBT travel topics) and would like to know how to go about this. Thanks! Athelwulf (talk) 21:57, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

We use Wikivoyage:Expeditions. And please do make a proposal! --Peter ^Talk 21:59, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Search plugin

As it seems nobody else had done so yet, I have created a search plugin for this wiki. It uses https:// and &go and it can be found on mycroft. It should work fine on Firefox, Chrome and recent versions of Internet Explorer. Let me know if there are any issues :) Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 23:48, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Good work! —Tom Morris (talk) 15:42, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! Now I have a way to search Wikipedia using https. =) LtPowers (talk) 19:27, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

HTTPS Everywhere works for Wikimedia projects too. Reedy submitted a patch to add Wikivoyage back in November. The next release should support Wikivoyage. I'd encourage all editors on all Wikimedia projects to use it especially if they are admins or bureaucrats (etc.) or use public wifi hotspots. It may be an idea for people to read the guidance pages on Wikipedia for User account security and Personal security practices. We may also want to have committed identities on Wikivoyage. —Tom Morris (talk) 16:28, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Merge?

I'm quite new here, so I'm still getting the hang of things. Thinking about my trip later this week, I looked at Lee Vining and Mono Lake, one is on the shore of the other, and Lee Vining primarily exists as the bedroom for Mono Lake tourism (although Bodie and the east side of the Sierra Nevada are also area attractions. Mono Lake isn't quite a national park, but it is in some ways a well-known attraction, am I right to think that these would be better merged together? --Joe Decker (talk) 00:33, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Possibly - best to start a discussion the page itself, and those familiar with the area can chime in over time. Perhaps add the Template:merge for now, so content doesn't get added to both. --Inas (talk) 00:37, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Awesome, that helps a great deal. Thanks. --Joe Decker (talk) 01:15, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Congratulations from the WIkimedia Foundation Staff!

Wikimedia Foundation staff celebrating the official launch of the new Wikivoyage with CAKE(s)!

I thought I would share my personal congrats for the many months of work to get to today and the best wishes for the many years to come. Hopefully I'll have time to poke around myself :).. Today at the office (about 2 hours ago) we had our own little party with cake to celebrate the launch and I took a nice picture, they'll all shouting Wikivoyage if you can't tell ;) . Jalexander (talk) 01:25, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Hey guys, quit snacking and help us patrol here ;)

But seriously, this has been an exciting day, and has seen enormous amounts of good content added. --Peter ^Talk 02:02, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Please tell everyone at Wikimedia THANK YOU from the community here. It was ridiculously amazing how smoothly the setup of the new site went, how simple it has been to integrate contribution history into existing accounts, how responsive you guys have been to bug reports, and how great promotion of the new site has gone. Seeing the massive volume of traffic over the past 18 hours, and more importantly the generally high quality of edits the site has been receiving, makes me more optimistic about the future of free, user-generated travel content than I've been since I began contributing way back in 2005. This has been a very good day for all involved! -- Ryan • (talk) • 02:04, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Fantastic! I totally agree with Ryan. Congratulations everyone for our successful launch day! It took a lot of preparation time, with some mundane tasks, now it's finally time to get back to writing some travel content... Except for the patrolling :-) Anyway, thanks everyone, including the WMF, for making this possible. I hope there's some cake left for us! :-) Globe-trotter (talk) 02:11, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Yep. What Ryan said. Thanks to everybody who has come along for the ride, and everyone here that has been so helpful. --Inas (talk) 03:16, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

I'll pass along your kind words to the staff in the office. Uhm, after I patrol a bit...?  :-) Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 11:58, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Congrats to the hard working editors and senior janitors who have been with this wiki for so long now, and through some dark times. You guys and WMF well deserve each other. I'm proud of you all. -- the former OldPine, now LilHelpa (talk) 21:45, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Why is <see> a tag and not a template?

Tags like <br> don't usually convey information in the sense that <see> does here. I'm geninuely curious as to why <see> is being maintained when it seems more appropriate to use a template. (For the record, I've created an experimental template). --Member (talk) 02:26, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Custom code was used before. Users could click on an "add listing" link next to the "edit" link, and a pop-up would come up, in which they could fill in a name, address, pricing info, description, etc of a particular listing. Then they could press OK and the listing was added to the wiki. However, that function is not available anymore, and I think in the near future these will be converted to regular templates. See Wikivoyage talk:Listings for the discussion. Globe-trotter (talk) 02:42, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There is a proposal for a template {{listing}} and a proposed patch bugzilla:43220 which would redirect mw:extension:listings output to a template. I believe these were originally tags as there used to be an "add a listing" button which used this; the German Wikivoyage has gone to a template vorlage:vCard but replacing these now would require a 'bot edit every page. K7L (talk) 02:47, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

A switch over to templates is probably necessary to be compatible with the visual editor that is under development at the Foundation. (I'll pester someone on the VisualEditor team to weigh in.) —Tom Morris (talk) 02:45, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

A move to templates is probably inevitable. Just need the right code, and the right timing. --Inas (talk) 03:12, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

The VE doesn't require moving to templates, but it will probably mean you get to use it for these items sooner - see my comments on MediaWiki.org for a little more (as this is a general question not specific to Wikivoyage). Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 20:05, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Need NPOV policy

After browsing for a few minutes, I've noticed some POV issues on some articles. Some views may seem offensive to others, so is the English Wikivoyage supposed to cater to Anglophone countries such as people from the US or UK? Or English-speakers in general no matter which country they're from? Because what some people find negative/weird about a place may not be necessarily negative/weird for others. 68.228.70.90 03:37, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Please see Wikivoyage:Be fair for the relevant policy. Wikivoyage:Welcome, Wikipedians has some other details of how this project differs from Wikipedia. -- Ryan • (talk) • 03:41, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

It is an interesting question. We try to be fair rather than neutral. We try to maintain a conversational and sometimes lighthearted tone, but it shouldn't be disrepectful. English Wikivoyage reflects its contributors. If you see instances of disrespect for others they should be fixed, hopefully while maintaining a readable tone. We aren't seeking dull, grey and boring. --Inas (talk) 03:45, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Ok I see. So the policy is to be as accurate as possible without exaggerating/promoting/playing down positive or negative experiences. 68.228.70.90 04:03, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

There is a particular POV we are writing from/for: the traveler's perspective. So Russia should be written for people who aren't Russian. But Moscow should be written for people who are not from Moscow (which includes a lot of Russians). --Peter ^Talk 04:35, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

The English Wikivoyage caters to all travellers who can read some English. Not only US/UK/Anglosphere. Nicolas1981 (talk) 11:20, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Special:Mapsources

Is anyone else seeing problems with special:mapsources (bugzilla:44047)? This used to work but I now just get "Map sources mechanism not working yet". K7L (talk) 05:32, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

From where are you calling it? Appears to be working from the globe icon at top of location pages. Have made some changes to geo templates recently maybe we broke something else.--Traveler100 (talk) 05:40, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm calling it from {{listing}}. There is an example in the template's documentation. The globe icon at the top of pages uses geohack, not Special:Mapsources, so is unaffected. K7L (talk) 13:04, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Looks like Project:Map Sources needed to be moved to Project:Map sources. Now it works again. K7L (talk) 15:50, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Negative tone in China article

Can something be done to tone down the very negative China article? As an expat living here, while there are true items that ought to be mentioned, I find the overall tone really nasty and unfairly so, as per my comments on the talk page there just now.

There is most definitely something that can be done - since you are the one who noticed the problem and knows where it is, you can edit the offending passages out. The watchword here is: plunge forward and make the edits yourself. With few exceptions, you can edit any page, and the kinds of problems you are pointing to probably won't require a consensus - just make the edits, and if someone objects to them, then they can be hashed out at Talk:China. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:08, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Naming of this page

Also, although I was ignored previously when objecting to Wiktionary having an alcohol-related community page (though I no longer see it there now), could a community page here at Wikivoyage be named such that is not associated with a drug that costs billions of dollars a year in economic costs[16] not to mention its more important psychological and moral costs? Community Forum or Traveler's Lounge or something which is actually inviting to all people as it is presumably meant to be--rather than putting off teetotalers who are put off by it, whether for the very common religious beliefs against it, or for purely practical reasons? Thank you. Brettz9 (talk) 06:05, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Please see this discussion on the talk page; specifically the latter comments. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 06:07, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm a bit of a teetotaller myself but I'm not offended. There is plenty to ingest at a pub that doesn't contain alcohol. LtPowers (talk) 19:35, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Wiktionary still has and uses that page: wikt:Wiktionary:Beer parlour. –sumone10154^(talk) 22:37, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

A minor draft if helpful

The policies talk page suggested that it needed a policy already in place to discuss, and this pub suggests if I have something helpful, so to the pub I go. I've drafted a skeleton suppression policy for Wikivoyage in my userspace, the community will need it in fairly short order. Until something is adapted locally all manners for privacy violations will be handled by Stewards. Trusted users, but this is a seasoned community and I figure you'd want to get this ball rolling sooner rather than later. Let me know if I can help with this process further. If it's suitable for the policy page discussion, feel free to move it. Keegan (talk) 07:48, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

That looks fine to me - this isn't a feature we've needed or used before, so I'm happy to defer to those who know best. I assume that oversight is something that stewards handle in extreme cases? -- Ryan • (talk) • 07:56, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Stewards or local users who are elected, typically. In extreme cases, WMF staff may step in with suppression (in the case of unacceptable content or legal issues). Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 11:56, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

A local suppression policy is not needed. Until such a time as Wikivoyage chooses to have oversighters, the work will be carried out by stewards based on the global oversight policy, which is comprehensive enough as it is. A wiki with no oversighters has no need for an oversight policy... Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 13:10, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Er, Snowolf, I'm simply suggesting the framework for local implementation in the future, should the project choose to use this extension. I'm not calling for elections or demanding change. It's just a draft in my userspace. No need for the heavy hand, sir. As a steward you can relax, I'm not stealing your job from you. Keegan (talk) 20:04, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

There actually has been content oversighted already from enwikivoyage. --Rschen7754 19:35, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Contents boxes

Quick question, but why are the contents boxes different here than on other WMF projects? It's kind of annoying not having numbers there, and furthermore, section titles frequently span several lines, so without numbers they appear to be different things. -mattbuck (Talk) 09:16, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Table of Contents (TOC) item numbers are cruft that we intentionally leave out. However, long section names do look a little odd in the resulting TOC. Some CSS formatting such as out-denting initial line could solve this. Our TOC has other issues (see #Coding error, above) that also might be solved with some expert CSS formatting. Thanks for pointing this out. --Rogerhc (talk) 19:32, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) We had a discussion about this somewhere recently, but I can't remember the page. The problem with the numbers is that they add to the width of the box, which is a factor because we wrap text around the box. When we had numbers, a lot of articles were ending up with small ribbons of text between TOC boxes on the left and lead images on the right. Also, on our content pages, section headings should rarely be long enough to wrap, so it's never been seen as a big problem. Some way to distinguish wrapped lines from individual headings in the TOC would likely be welcome; perhaps it can be done with CSS? LtPowers (talk) 19:33, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Travellers forum

Congratulations on this new page. We do need more travel forums with travellers input. We also need more forums for travel partners search, especially for countries like Tibet- where there are restrictive policies for solo travel.

Please explain what you have in mind that can't be dealt with, for example, at Talk:Tibet. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:41, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Tibet is for discussions relevant to the Tibet article.

What are you proposing? I do not see any obvious need for forums here, but considerable danger of touting. Pashley (talk) 09:45, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

No user page

Today is my first visit to Wikivoyage. Rather than create a new Wikivoyage user account, I signed in using my existing Wikipedia account. This worked fine, but didn't create a user page for me, Irelandkm, on Wikivoyage. From what I can tell from the help files, the user page is normally created automatically when an account is created - but I seem to have bypassed that step. Should I just create a new page User:Irelandkm as if I were creating a new topic page? Thanks! Irelandkm (talk) 14:26, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, go ahead and create it manually at special:mypage; each language of each project is separate and there is no automatically-created user page. K7L (talk) 14:33, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks for the fast help; my personal issue has been fixed. If other people are not having a similar problem, this can be deleted. If they are, perhaps the help file for new users can be updated with instructions on how to address the issue. Irelandkm (talk) 17:02, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• • There is no "issue". It's just when you come to a new wiki, you get to create a new user page. Heh. —Tom Morris (talk) 18:42, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
    • Unless you have a bot do it for you: m:User:Pathoschild/Scripts/Synchbot --Rschen7754 19:37, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Deletion of local file pages

Hi!

There is a lot of files showing up on Special:UncategorizedFiles. In most cases it is probably just a text page where the actual file is located on Commons.

I think that all relevant information should be copied to Commons and the local file page deleted. That will make it much easier to maintain the local files.

It would also be a good idea if some local users checked Special:ListFiles often and checked if everything is ok. If the file is free it should be copied to Commons. If there is no source and license then uploader should be told as soon as possible.

--MGA73 (talk) 18:18, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

special:newfiles and special:newpages might be more suitable than listing absolutely everything? K7L (talk) 02:43, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

ListFiles also have a description but feel free to use whatever tool or list you (or anyone else like) as long as someone checks new files I'm happy :-D --MGA73 (talk) 08:47, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Sister project link templates

Does Wikivoyage have any of the sister project link templates? Like the ones shown here I can't find any. 86.45.191.101 21:24, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

We put our sister project links in the left-hand sidebar, using wikilink syntax (like [[Wikipedia:Kinsale]]). Thus, no need for boxes on the articles themselves. LtPowers (talk) 21:29, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh. Would the boxes not look better and easier to find for readers? And also help with cross wiki consistency, as the other wikis have similar boxes (although the ones on Wikibooks do look different). 86.45.191.101 21:33, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Both would work - the boxes you expect at the bottom, but the links are going to be near the top. -mattbuck (Talk) 21:42, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Also might be a good idea to check if the other projects have templates for Wikivoyage. Wikipedia has but I don't know about the others. 86.45.191.101 21:49, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Earlier I suggested on Wikinews that we ought to add Wikivoyage links. —Tom Morris (talk) 21:54, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Even in Wikipedia itself, many languages still need to be changed to use Wikivoyage templates and links. #Links from Wikipedia in other languages. K7L (talk) 22:02, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikisource links to Wikivoyage through its headers (it doesn't use the Wikipedia-style templates either). Currently all of the country-specific portals should contain links (eg. Australia, Mexico, etc.). I've left some ideas on Wikivoyage talk:Sister project links about some circumstances where links from Wikivoyage to Wikisource might be appropriate but there is currently no support for them. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 17:43, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Good news: Wikinews now supports links to Wikivoyage from category pages, and I've started adding a few. See n:Category:London and n:Category:Manchester for instance. Do feel free to pop over and start adding them, although they won't appear immediately because we use pending changes. Is there any chance we could get reciprocation for Wikinews links, just like there are sidebar links for Wikipedia and Commons? —Tom Morris (talk) 12:50, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Where would this link fit into the project? Individual news articles usually wouldn't be of use in a travel guide to a city, unless they provide background for a specific travel warning (for instance, the big red box listing Somalia as a war zone). If you have a page describing the city itself, that might fit (much like a commons: category with pictures of a city is included now). The list of which links go into RelatedSites is in a configuration file on the server (like LocalSettings.php in the default MediaWiki install) so adding a prefix to the sidebar would require asking through bugzilla: that the system administrator edit the config files. Even with some sort of consensus, our local admins and bureaucrats don't have control of the servers to do this. K7L (talk) 18:57, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

I absolutely think we should have sidebar links back to Wikinews categories—being able to click through to news on any particular destination you are considering visiting would be really cool! --Peter ^Talk 20:47, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

• Peter, I'm delighted to see you keen to try and make use of Wikinews, the discussion Tom mentioned is one you're most-welcome to give input on.

But, Wikinews is still a fairly small project. So soon after Wikivoyage joining the WMF family, it may not be all-that-obvious how we can help Wikivoyage with cross-project links. I do not know enough about Wikivoyage to know how you handle things like "travel warnings" issued by governments, and so on, but the most-logical place for those is as news articles. I know we can't ask Wikivoyagers (is this the correct term?) to dive into Wikinews and write the articles for such, but we'd certainly do the best we could to help get people on the right track were they interested in doing that. Equally, you have a wide range of news events that might raise interest in travel to some places (a new stable government and cessation of hostilities, major drop in crime, etc). I think the argument in the linked-to Wikinews discussion regarding Wikivoyage's lack of NPOV is irrelevant.

Looks like (at a guess) some of the attempts to link over here are 'a bit broken', but from my own contributions to Wikinews, our category on Southern Thailand's insurgency problems is one Wikivoyage would want to link to, and one where we would want to link to Wikivoyage. We'd want people to be able to reassure themselves the rest of the country is perfectly safe, much as Wikivoyage would want to link to news from higher-risk areas and give their readers an opportunity to be far better-informed when choosing travel locations. --Brian McNeil (talk) 10:34, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

We generally link to sister projects with interwiki links appearing in the sidebar, and that would be great to see on any pages that have a corresponding category on Wikinews. Realistically, that will require a bot.

I would be thrilled to see a way for us to put a "feed" of sorts on the Main Page. Wikinews could tag articles as being "travel warnings," or "travel news," and we could then feed that into a box showing the most recent items. This may require some feature development to make it work well, but we could do this manually at first. The work would at first be more on Wikinews' end, but I think it would be a great way to feature the work Wikinews does, while also adding some great content to our Main Page. --Peter ^Talk 18:50, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Making editing more accessible for people who are blind/visually impaired

Would it be possible to do something about the captcha needed for adding external links... An integral part of editing on this wiki? Like most captchas it's a real pain but unlike most it has absolutely no alternative to the visual puzzle presented. Not even a link to get an easier one. Any way to amend that? All captchas are definitely not created equal. Although I have to admit this isn't the worst I've encountered... --Dakinjones (talk) 22:43, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

I think that disappears for autoconfirmed users. --Inas (talk) 22:48, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

What are mainspace article pages for?

Obviously places, but what else? Is there any formal policy in place for this?

• If a town holds a regular festival or similar event, can we write an article on that festival specifically?

• If there's a particular castle / theme park, can we write an article on that attraction specifically?

• If a term, like "funicular" is uncommon, but important for explaining the joys of a particular town, how do we link to an explanation for those unfamiliar to it? Wikipedia probably has a suitable page, but AIUI, inline off-wikivoyage links aren't permitted in such a case. Should we create a precis page for funicular here?

Andy Dingley (talk) 23:17, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Attractions are usually included in the geographical article - i.e. where you would go to visit them. This includes festivals, theme parks, castles, etc. We don't usually link to nouns. It may be that in some cases for particular modes of transport a travel topic is in order. In the case of funiculars, I don't think we want a definitional page, but some people do enjoy seeking out and riding them - so perhaps a travel topic to that effect may work. --Inas (talk) 23:23, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

[edit-conflict]The page to look at is Wikivoyage:What is an article?. The mainspace is used for everything except (most) project-related pages. We don't write articles about specific destinations, except when they are particularly large like Walt Disney World (which actually meets the "Can you sleep there?" test). Only a few festivals/events have earned their own article, like the Olympics, in which case they were written as a travel topic. This would be a good idea, though, but we'd need to create a policy first. A term can be explained in prose in the appropriate section. Right now we don't allow in-line links to Wikipedia, but if you look at Wikivoyage talk:Listings there is a LOT of discussion about this and opinion is equally divided. AHeneen (talk) 23:28, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

(That discussion is about icon links to wp in listings, not in-line wp links.) --Peter ^Talk 23:31, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Themed itineraries

Hi. I thought about contributing to the site before really looking at it and I had the idea of starting something like "George Orwell's Barcelona", which would basically be an itinerary for a walking tour of the city going past key locations in Orwell's book Homage to Catalonia, with context info and photos. Looking at the policies, though, I'm not sure if this is a type of article that would be OK. Would it? FormerIP (talk) 23:36, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Not only do I think it would be okay per our policies, I'd actually be eager to read it (I'm an Orwell fan). Plunge forward. If other editors have a problem with the article, they'll make it known and you can hammer out a consensus as to its future direction. But speaking from my own experiences, I doubt very much that will be the case. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 23:46, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that sounds fantastic! Some good itineraries you might want to look to as models include Yaowarat and Phahurat Tour, Loop Art Tour, and The Wire Tour—if you've already watched the show, that is. --Peter ^Talk 01:02, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

We have a stub Literary travel where you might add a link, and articles like Literary London and Marco Polo which might serve as examples as well. Pashley (talk) 01:15, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Reading Wikivoyage:Itineraries before, I was also inclined to believe such an itinerary isn't allowed. We need to change the wording of it. Globe-trotter (talk) 01:41, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

What in the article gives you that impression? I mean, The Wire Tour is the most prominent example there, and it's a tour of filming locations. --Peter ^Talk 02:10, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Some old discussion: Wikivoyage talk:Other ways of seeing travel#City Theme Pages Pashley (talk) 02:13, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

The usual pitfall with local itinerary is to write A day in Dullsville in such a way as to merely create a duplicate of the main Dullsville article, listing all of the same attractions. Certainly, an itinerary can give more flexibility as a means for a journey to follow a theme (we have many itineraries like Across Canada by rail / Across the US by rail, as well as themes retracing US Route 66 or the Titanic maiden voyage). These can work well if there are clear criteria for what is included and some sort of natural sequence to the trip, instead of merely repeating what's in the city article. If w:The Grapes of Wrath were an itinerary, for instance, it would start in Oklahoma and head westward to California with brief stops in every town mentioned in the book. K7L (talk) 02:32, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses. I will start on a userpage draft soon-ish. FormerIP (talk) 13:49, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

New pages patrol

It looks like we need to have anyone who has been on this site for a while take a look through special:newpages to check that all of these new pages follow the standard Wikivoyage format:

• Is the new page about a city, town or destination that meets what is an article?
• If so, does the place exist? Do we have an existing article which overlaps the new one?
• If not, is it adaptable as a travel topic / itinerary or should it be merged/redirected into its host city?
• Do the standard outline sections in {{smallcity}} (understand, get in, see, do, buy, eat, drink, sleep, go next) all exist (even if they're blank for now)?
• Is the parent region identified with {{isPartOf}} and named in the article's introduction?
• Is the parent region listed as specifically as possible (for instance, isPartOf:northern Scotland is more precise than isPartOf:Europe, as Europe is huge)? Does that region's city list link back to the new page?
• Is the page a reasonable outline from which to build a new article, or merely a one-line stub like "This town is a dump, don't go here"?
• Are listings formatted correctly - name, address, telephone numbers, official website, descriptions?
• Are telephone numbers in international format - for instance, +1 areacode NXX-XXXX for North America?
• Is the WP article (or commons: category) for this place linked in the sidebar as [[wikipedia: City, Region]] (and not pasted into a page as an external link to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City,_Region )?

We do seem to have many new articles about real places which should be in the guide, which is great. I've looked through a few and fixed what I can, but there is a huge backlog of new pages.

Many of these are outlines at best. Some might not be suitable (for instance, an article on every highway or every river would only duplicate info already in Wikipedia) but most need merely to be expanded (so that stubs become outlines and outlines are ready to be fleshed out as articles) and put into the standard format for a city or destination guide page.

At this point, it is important to review new pages so that new users can be aware of common errors to fix before they repeat the same mistakes on multiple articles (and have to edit them all later to fix things). Please give our newest users some feedback. :) K7L (talk) 04:03, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

I've gone through all the new pages between 00:31, 17 January 2013 ‎Kentucky Bourbon Distilleries Tours 05:28, 17 January 2013 ‎Singaporeholidays and 16:31, 16 January 2013 ‎Branscombe. A handful (maybe 5) were OK. About 10 or so merge...so when the launch surge dies down, we'll need to go through all pages with the merge template. I didn't find any pages for a destination that already existed...most just needed ispartof, Wikipedia, & geo templates...no real issues with xl. I didn't bother with orphan pages..city lists for regions are limited to 9, so in many cases it couldn't be listed on region page & going to other pages to create links would consume a lot of time. Same with listings...as long as some content is there and no major problems (eg.spam)...ok...too time-consuming to turn a paragraph of prose into listings and add phone/link/address if missing.AHeneen (talk) 09:31, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Adding a Hookah Bar to a city's Food section?

The city I live in has a Hookah Bar, which I understand to not be a terribly common thing. Is including that within the Food section within the scope of the project? It is the only Hookah Bar in town. Zellfaze (talk) 04:03, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Bars and nightlife usually go into "drink", as the "eat" section is for food and restaurants. K7L (talk) 04:07, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't know the answer to that (it is not listed at wtsi). Do they serve any food/alcohol? We stick bars and comedy clubs in the "Drink" section and if the hookah bar serves any alcohol, that would be the place for it. I don't think a "smoke" section with one listing would be necessary. AHeneen (talk) 04:09, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Even if they don't serve alcohol, they should go in Drink. It's a problematic heading, but it covers "non-eatery places where you go hang out and talk while paying the owner." --Peter ^Talk 05:04, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

I was wondering this myself, actually. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 05:21, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

They serve both food and drink. Most people come, smoke a bowl or two, eat some food, have a drink and leave. I love their hummus and pita bread. They have alright Pizza too. Thursdays are 50 cent beer night. I'll go ahead and add it to the Drinks section. If later on it becomes an issue, I'm sure that it will be taken care of (Plunging Forward/Being Bold and all that). Zellfaze (talk) 23:31, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Turns out that Hookah Bar is within scope and listed on Wikivoyage:Where_you_can_stick_it#H. Fantastic. Thank you for your help guys. Zellfaze (talk) 00:24, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

IMO, the "Drink" section should be renamed "Nightlife" to take focus off alcohol. /Yvwv (talk) 03:33, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

It's also for daytime coffeehouses and cafés. Globe-trotter (talk) 05:18, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree entirely. Drink is such a limiting name. - Cardboardbird (talk) 05:21, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

"Drink" was used to match the pattern of using short imperatives as section names (see, do, buy, eat, sleep). It looks even more awkward on fr: where it was translated as "Sortir/Boire une verre" ("Go out/Drink a glass"). I've also noticed that in the smallest villages "Eat/Drink" should be a single section as the only places selling drink also sell food ("licenced restaurant", "bar and grill", "English pub" and the like). Then there's the Starbucks-like cafés which don't serve full meals. Drink? K7L (talk) 06:11, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

We do sometimes combine the two sections—here's a star that does. I think the various stuff we put in there does go together. I'll hang out and chat/socialize after dining out at a bar, a club, a lounge, a cigar bar, a hookah bar, a coffeeshop, a teahouse, etc. They all serve that function. --Peter ^Talk 06:27, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Fix Midway (disambiguation)

Just being lazy (or rather, there are much more important things to do). I created the Midway (disambiguation) page and gave it a start, but if you look at w:Midway#Places there are lots more places to be added. I've listed all the instances where there is just one town/city named Midway in a state, but the page still needs all the "Midway" places where there are multiple places in one U.S. state (go through w:Midway, Arkansas (disambiguation) and so forth). Just seems like a waste of time with all that's going on. If someone wants to finish the page, knock yourselves out! The only Midway pages on WV are Midway Islands, Midway (Georgia), & Midway (Kentucky). AHeneen (talk) 08:14, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure the full list is really needed here—is there a compelling reason to link articles that don't (and may never) exist? A lot of the time those lists get filled up with tiny census designated places that probably don't merit an article. --Peter ^Talk 08:53, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

In some cases, these lists contain places which don't have an article because they're close to some existing city and treated as suburbs. For instance, Carthage was originally in Africa, but Carthage (disambiguation) lists Carthage (Missouri) and Carthage (New York), among others. The town in Missouri exists as an article, the village in NY is likely too close to Watertown (New York) to merit anything more than Carthage - see Watertown. K7L (talk) 23:01, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Userpage boxes

I can't seem to find any templates like commons:Template:User Wikipedia admin or Template:User alternative account name. Am I just looking in the wrong places, do they have yet to be created, or have they already been created and destroyed? Ks0stm ^(T•C•E) 11:53, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

The extensive use of userboxes is not one of our traditions. We don't, as far as I remember, have a rule preventing their use, and provided they are used for usefully informative purposes, they may be acceptable. We do use a few, so there is precedent. I would suggest you create the ones you feel would be useful in a sandbox, and request comment. The two that you list above would have my support. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 12:05, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

The only ones I know of are Babel templates, and at some point they'll be replaced with the Babel extension. I wouldn't go starting a bunch of userspace templates; we have enough trouble keeping track of the templates we have. LtPowers (talk) 12:19, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind seeing userboxes, but it would probably be best to discuss policy regarding their use and creating a page to keep track of them (without flooding Template index). There has been discussion split between those who want to see more templates and those who don't in the last few sections at Using Mediawiki templates (although it is about other templates, not userboxes, which are a bit different regarding use). AHeneen (talk) 14:01, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

User pages aren't mainspace articles and don't have to follow the fixed format (see/do, buy, eat/drink, sleep) of a city or region listing. One possiblility might be to create userboxes in subpages of your user space instead of in template: space (much like Wikipedia uses a placeholder w:user:UBX to store userbox template code in that user's subpage). WV has been restrictive on new template creation in the past, but that's to keep articles in a similar format across multiple cities and regions. Do we care about something entirely in userspace if it's doing no harm? K7L (talk) 22:28, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Userboxes have been abused on the English Wikipedia, to be frank; I don't think some of the frivolous ones should make their way over here (Template:Userbox pizza, anyone?) Babel templates or the babel extension are pretty universal, and global users generally expect them, and the userrights ones might be helpful too. --Rschen7754 22:41, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Just about all the user boxes at w:User:UBX/Userboxes/Food are a bit ridiculous, like w:User:UBX/fishy, w:Template:User loser, [[:w:{User:UBX/jalapeño]], & w:User:UBX/McDonald's. However, I think some userboxes related to travel can be appropriate, like boxes for hometown ("This user is a native New Yorker."), nationality ("This user is a proud Canadian."), interests ("This user is interested in Japan."), and maybe a few reasonable fun ones. The category w:Wikipedia:Userboxes/Travel is full of great userboxes that would be relevant to this Wiki. AHeneen (talk) 23:01, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

w:user:UBX is intended to be a dumping ground for templates which aren't core to the Wikipedia project; as such, it will be missing some of the more useful items like individual Wikiproject (expedition) activity. "This user is helping Wikipedia get its kicks on Route 66" is a different beast from "I like cheese pizza". K7L (talk) 23:21, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

There is a good reason why userboxes aren't part of the tradition here—we cover fewer topics. While the fact that you like to play Shostakovich arranged for xylophone might actually have some relevance to your editing on Wikipedia, it clearly does not here. I'd really like to see us develop a small set of userboxes, above all one that lists where you are located (and then generate a list of Wikivoyagers by location through that) and one for docent designations. --Peter ^Talk 23:38, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Disabled Expedition

So, having plunged forward and created Wikivoyage:LGBT Expedition, I think it might be time to suggest something else too.

Earlier, I had a chat with a journalist at the Independent (London) who wanted to know about Wikivoyage. I hope I gave a fair representation of the launch of the project from my perspective as a long-time Wikipedian who is playing around at Wikivoyage. I discussed how there was great potential to build out travel guides for specific use cases and pointed him to New York City with children, and mentioned the LGBT expedition, and the potential that we might write guides and itineraries that deal specifically with issues faced by, say, cyclists.

He then suggested a really good idea: an expedition for disabled travellers covering venues that are wheelchair accessible. It would be very simple to add disabled access information to venue listings (hotels, pubs/bars etc.). There are existing efforts being done in the OpenStreetMap community through projects like Wheelmap (which crowdsources venue accessibility and then stores that data in the OpenStreetMap database: see the wheelchair tag).

Any interest in a disability-related expedition? —Tom Morris (talk) 14:17, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

We already have Wikivoyage:Access Expedition. Expeditions on Wikivoyage haven't really been active for a while...prior to the fork, there just weren't enough editors & expedition members to make any viable (or they quickly lost steam). Hopefully that changes with all the new users we receive and the existing expeditions will start back up. You can start a discussion about new ideas for the expedition on its talk page and leave this message here to attract new members to it. AHeneen (talk) 14:27, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. I'll go through and add disability access information to the pages I've worked on shortly. —Tom Morris (talk) 14:29, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Better information for new users...

I think it would be a good idea to create a tutorial for new users as WV can be a little confusing at first go's etc. —The preceding comment was added by ButlinsRedcoatJake (talk • contribs)

What you're looking for is Welcome and Tips for new contributors. Where you can stick it is also a useful page. AHeneen (talk) 17:11, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

I'd come here from WP in October 2012, made quite a few of the common n00b mistakes (such as an attempt to create w:Ontario Highway 401 and some unnecessary template imports from WP), then started listing what I'd "learned" at the existing page Wikivoyage:Welcome, Wikipedians in November so that all these differences between WP and WV would be documented somewhere. A travel guide is less free-form than an encyclopaedia as most entries are destination cities and regions, with basically the same sections appearing in every article (get in, see/do, buy, eat/drink, sleep, go next...) Are there any mistakes I'd forgot to make which really should be on the list? :) K7L (talk) 19:20, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

We have had several mentions of a video tutorial, which would be great—if someone is willing to make one ;) --Peter ^Talk 20:54, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Going off on a tangent, I had tried to start an expedition to create guides to routes themselves, but (I was new & didn't understand the policies) I didn't start it properly with community consent in the Pub and in the end, consensus was that such pages won't be acceptable. You can view Wikivoyage:Routes Expedition (and its talk page) for more details. I started a sample/guide article to go with the proposal at [17] (it got deleted on WV). It did spark the Routebox navigation concept, though. I still think such guides can be useful for long trips by road. AHeneen (talk) 22:50, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

~Hi Is there any place i can ask question as new user, and i joined from Wikipedia to Wikivoyage but it is not same for Wikitravel, can any one Please create or merge me with Wikitravel and is WikiTravel allowing Advertisement ? User talk:Somesh.kanti

Android app released! Wikivoyage offline

I just released the Wikivoyage Offline app on Android Play Store.
Text only, no images, no maps yet.
Try it now :-)

Free, Open-Source, volunteers welcome!
Usage: Install, open, click "Download", wait an hour, then click "Browse" whenever you want.

Be sure to connect to WiFi before downloading. After the download, really wait for about an hour. The button stays "clicked" while downloading, then changes slightly when it begins unzipping. Unzipping takes a LOT of time. The next tasks: make a progress bar, make the app more user-friendly, let the user choose a browser, optimize, integrate with map apps, improve the wiki-to-HTML script. I realize the name is very bold, I can change it to something less official-sounding when Wikimedia releases its own app. Nicolas1981 (talk) 16:48, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Great news! I can't try it right now, but I already have several questions:

• Will it be possible to split this content into regions? When the full download takes one hour, frequent updates become difficult.
• Several Android apps allow the download of OSM maps for one particular city/region. Do you know how it works, and did you think about integrating this feature? It could be a great way of getting travel guide plus zoomable map in one package.

--Alexander (talk) 07:26, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi Alexander! Great suggestions, I added them to the issue tracker. Please feel free to add more suggestions/bug reports, thanks a lot! Nicolas1981 (talk) 08:19, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Hey, I'm thinking of getting started on the iPhone version of the open source app. However, I wanted to talk a bit about branding and such. If these are going to be the official Wikivoyage apps, shouldn't they be using the Wikivoyage logo as opposed to something that looks vaguely like the Wikivoyage logo? And shouldn't they be called "Wikivoyage" as opposed to a brand name like "WikiSherpa" or "OxygenGuide"?

I'm new to working on WMF-based wikis, so I don't really know how they manage things like official app projects. I don't mean to knock any of the work you guys have done, I just know that when I look up a native app version of a website, I'm usually turned off by "off brand" versions of the app. KhwamRock (talk) 10:37, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi KhwamRock! Nice to hear about your iPhone idea, I hope it will be Open Source :-) If it is, you can copy-paste what you want (Java though...). Also, feel free to download the OxygenGuide archives (zipped HTML) from your app. I would be very flattered if Wikimedia wants OxygenGuide-Android to be their official offline app, but for now they haven't contacted me, so greyzone: logo inspired from Wikivoyage's color and mixed app name "Wikivoyage Offline - OxygenGuide". If they are OK I would be very glad to switch to the official logo/official name. Nicolas1981 (talk) 08:31, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, I don't think that WMF keeps track of these things. Would you like to contact them directly? You can post the information about your app and suggest the collaboration on the Wikivoyage mailing list. Erik and other WMF guys are reading it, so they are likely to see your message and respond, or at least suggest an appropriate contact person at the WMF. --Alexander (talk) 10:27, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip, message sent to the list :-) Nicolas1981 (talk) 16:13, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

I did some light digging and here's what I found. To start, here's WMF's repo for the Wikipedia app, which contains both the Android and iOS versions. They're using a library called Cordova or PhoneGap, which I think means that the app is HTML5 based. If we follow their lead on this app, we can make one Wikivoyage app which can be instantly ported to iOS, Android, Windows Phone, etc, which would make it very easy to release updates.

I also looked through the pull requests and found this guide on how to adapt the Wikipedia app for a new Wiki. It's not a finished guide, but it might prove a good starting point should we want to make a Wikipedia style HTML5 app.

Personally, I'm not a fan of HTML5 apps. They give you platform-independence at the cost of some ugly performance tradeoffs. I'm going to try and message WMF on github with a link to your repo and see what they think. KhwamRock (talk) 00:21, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Mediawiki's current app is just a frontend that loads pages over the Internet, if I read the code correctly. Travellers often go to countries where roaming is expensive, thus an offline app is needed. Nicolas1981 (talk) 07:12, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Fair enough, we should make sure we're working from the same set of requirements. I agree, offline reading is a must-have feature. However, the current Wikipedia app allows you to save pages to read offline. Now, if you want something that automatically downloads all of Wikivoyage onto the user's phone (definitely possible given WV's relatively small size), that's a different story, and we can add that to the requirements. I get the vibe that your app already does this, correct? (I can't test it myself, as I only have an iPhone)

I signed up on WikiMedia mobile's mailing list, here's a link in case you'd like to do the same. Ideally, I'd like to see us use your ready made app if possible. I just don't want to put tons of work into an open source app, only to find out that it can't be called the "official" app for XYZ reasons. KhwamRock (talk)

Thanks for the tip, message sent to the list :-) Personnally I think it would be great if they decide they want an official offline app, but if not it would not be the end of the world either, I would just continue like now. Mediawiki is very busy and an offline app is only useful for Wikivoyage, not many users in comparizon with Wikipedia. Nicolas1981 (talk) 16:13, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Just checked the mailing list, looks like they really like your app! Awesome! I'm going to take a look at your code and see what I can adapt for an iOS version. KhwamRock (talk) 02:32, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

You'll see, the code is so simple, just two buttons, download, unzip. The real thing is to find out how to show HTML pages stored locally on the phone. This seems to be the solution. Nicolas1981 (talk) 03:01, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

General Travel Information?

I just discovered this website and it looks very promising. However, most of the topics I found in my quick survey seemed to be regarding the format of the site itself. Maybe I am missing the important pages. Is there going to be a forum for travelers on the go, some sort of on-line Lonely Planet? I'd be looking for hints for things to do, places to stay, and things to avoid advised by fellow travelers.

The mission of Wikivoyage is to create a free, complete, up-to-date and reliable worldwide travel guide, not a travel forum (See our Goals and non-goals). By on-line Lonely Planet are you referring to the Thorn Tree forum? Then no. However, just have a look at the guides themselves for advice on things to do & places to stay. After all, this is the travel guide that anyone can edit...users should Plunge forward and add interesting places and restaurants/accommodations to the destination pages for everyone to find...you don't need to search dozens of threads with useful info buried among several pages of posts. While travel forums are useful, they don't fall into the scope of Wikivoyage and actually detract from our goals (again, content being added in a thread rather than on proper destination page). AHeneen (talk) 17:39, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Most of the content is actually travel topics. Click Random page to get an idea of what you can find here. By the way, welcome to Wikivoyage! :-) Nicolas1981 (talk) 17:51, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Type the name of any country, province or city you please into the search box at top right of page. Tada! Or if you prefer to browse by region, start with one of the little bulleted links at top of Main Page to find your way. Happy trails! --98.207.156.126 18:45, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't predict that we'll have a forum a la Thorntree, but new ways of sharing tips should definitely be in our future, about listings in particular. We had such an experiment in development back around 2007, but it failed for lack of tech support/development. This is still a bit over the horizon, but it almost certainly will become possible. --Peter ^Talk 20:57, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Formatting of links in listing templates

When using the listing templates (for restaurants, attractions etc) there's an error with links; they don't not appear the way they should (i.e as [18]) but instead as the listing name becomes a link. It's a small bug but a bit annoying. Would be great if somebody could have a look into it! --Jonte-- (talk) 17:46, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Link doesn't work. However, in listings, the name is supposed to become the link. Example:

• <see name="Legoland Florida" alt="" address="1 Legoland Way" directions="Located off Cypress Gardens Blv. just east of Winter Haven" phone="" email="" fax="" url="http://florida.legoland.com/" hours="Hours vary throughout year." price="$65 (Ages 13-59), $55 (Ages 3-12, 60+)">The second Legoland park in the US in addition to Legoland in California. yada...yada </see>

Is that what you're referring to? AHeneen (talk) 18:14, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Ah, a small typo in the link I provided. But it was the format that I wanted to point at. Since the introduction of listing templates the formatting have been:

• Legoland Florida 1 Legoland Way (Located off Cypress Gardens Blv. just east of Winter Haven) [19]. Hours vary throughout year.. $65 (Ages 13-59), $55 (Ages 3-12, 60+). The second Legoland park in the US in addition to Legoland in California. yada...yada

See example on WT here: [20]. This is in line on how all other links are displayed. --Jonte-- (talk) 18:26, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

That is a known bug, bugzilla:43220, for which a fix has been proposed but not yet deployed. That fix, once enabled, will give:

• Legoland Florida, 1 Legoland Way (Located off Cypress Gardens Blv. just east of Winter Haven). Hours vary throughout year. The second Legoland park in the US in addition to Legoland in California. yada...yada $65 (Ages 13-59), $55 (Ages 3-12, 60+). 

It might be a good idea to look at {{listing}} to verify it matches the desired format while it's still an unprotected experimental template which can be changed without affecting much of anything. I presume the globe icon for the URL should change to either the old '[1]' style external link or to an icon without any distracting colo(u)rs. K7L (talk) 20:47, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Would you welcome boater's information.

Discussion transferred to Wikivoyage talk:Cruising Expedition, please go there to continue. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:59, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Seven Churches of Asia

So I'm thinking that there are several package tours that seem to be popular in Turkey (that is, I've seen very similar packages sold from multiple companies), that travelers might be interested in attempting to do on their own. However these are usually a group of geographically close destinations, often with extra ones thrown in, and don't necessarily have a specific order. The ones I'm thinking of specifically are the Seven Churches of Asia, and the popular attractions of the Southeast (this one already has an itinerary of sorts, though it seems to be a personal itinerary, covering a couple sites that aren't necessarily the main ones people see, and sticking to a somewhat odd timetable).

I'm wondering if there's a good way to cover a group of sites, commonly visited together, without setting a specific order or time table? I'm interested in the Seven Churches of Asia for now (I've visited six of them, and plan to visit the seventh when I eventually get to Denizli), but not sure how to go about it. Itineraries seem to require at least some suggestion of the order, while topics seem to need to be more general. And of course while all the sites are mentioned in their respective sub-region articles, (and I'm trying to make it clear how to get between them in site-specific articles) they're not all in the same sub region, and one would currently need at least seven pages to plan the one trip, should they choose to do it. Thoughts? —Quintucket (talk) 18:57, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

You can create a travel topic. AHeneen (talk) 21:57, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

The nearest precedent that comes to my mind is New Mexico Pueblos, which might be helpful to draw inspiration from. You could also write about it, perhaps in its own subsection, at Aegean Turkey#See until when you decided in what shape the full blown article would be. Vidimian (talk) 00:03, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks guys. The New Mexico Pueblos article looks especially helpful in terms of layout, but I think I'll take Vidimian's suggestion and put it in the "see" part of the Aegean for now, until I get it to the length where it needs to be split. —Quintucket (talk) 19:42, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Relationship to Wikitravel?

Is it a fork? I cannot find this info anywhere. Thanks. 63.217.82.139 06:42, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Please see Wikivoyage:Wikivoyage and Wikitravel. --Saqib (talk) 06:48, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Cooperating with WikiOverland

Discussion moved to Wikivoyage talk:Cooperating with Wikioverland

On Wikivoyage talk:Cooperating with Wikioverland many people support using interwiki links to WikiOverland.
Does anyone know how or where I can request WikiOverland be added to the list of related sites so interwiki links can be added in places that make sense (Country and "drive.." pages, I think)?
Thanks very much. -Dangrec (talk) 22:45, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Promising launch

Alexa traffic statistics show an immense spike in activity for Wikivoyage in the past four days, overtaking Wikitravel around Friday. While this can largely be put down to the promotional banner on Wikipedia, it's also good to see that WV has been ahead in amount users spend on the website for some time.

Just something I felt like sharing. --SU FC 12:14, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

It's probably worth waiting a week or so before we start drawing conclusions about traffic. —Tom Morris (talk) 12:18, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

One idea is to take a selection of popular articles and see how much they have changed between both sites. 86.45.191.101 22:21, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

The average time spent on site actually declined markedly around the launch, maybe due to the changing mix of editors and readers. We're still a little higher than WT.[21] --Avenue (talk) 22:58, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I think that's to be expected with tons of people checking the site out for the first time, rather than it being more or less just dedicated users slaving away in preparation for the launch! --Peter ^Talk 23:07, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikimedia sites to move to primary data center in Ashburn, Virginia. Read-only mode expected.

(Apologies if this message isn't in your language.) Next week, the Wikimedia Foundation will transition its main technical operations to a new data center in Ashburn, Virginia, USA. This is intended to improve the technical performance and reliability of all Wikimedia sites, including this wiki. There will be some times when the site will be in read-only mode, and there may be full outages; the current target windows for the migration are January 22nd, 23rd and 24th, 2013, from 17:00 to 01:00 UTC (see other timezones on timeanddate.com). More information is available in the full announcement.

If you would like to stay informed of future technical upgrades, consider becoming a Tech ambassador and joining the ambassadors mailing list. You will be able to help your fellow Wikimedians have a voice in technical discussions and be notified of important decisions.

Thank you for your help and your understanding.

Guillaume Paumier, via the Global message delivery system (wrong page? You can fix it.). 15:12, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Template:Infobox

I see this template being used in a number of places and I think it looks damn ugly. Any chance it could be spruced up a little? I'm thinking, a nicer colored border, or no border. Slightly rounded corners, maybe slightly small font size to the rest of the text in the article. 86.45.191.101 19:46, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Could you add a mockup of your proposal to Template talk:Infobox so that people can see what the proposed changes would look like? We've done some recent UI cleanups to other templates, but I don't think anyone has (yet) proposed changes to the infobox. -- Ryan • (talk) • 20:03, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

I think a border is needed but could have rounded edges and maybe lighter color. Slightly smaller text maybe but not too much. How about this Template:Infobox/sandbox

I lightened the border and gave it a non-gray color. I think it looks better. 86.45.191.101 20:42, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

I like the idea of updating the infobox style. I added a slightly lighter version to consider. See Template_talk:Infobox#Style. --Rogerhc (talk) 02:19, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

A Suggestion

I realize this hasn't been our policy in the past, but given the persistent trolling from various parties in Southern California (ahem), I move that administrators be given the right to speedily delete such conversations from the Travellers' Pub.

"Don't feed the trolls" is a good and necessary policy, but IMO it doesn't go far enough. Leaving these posts up, even if no one comments on them, may mislead newbies into believing that there actually is a controversy surrounding the WT/WV fork and Wikivoyage's move to the WMF.

I think that removing these exchanges as promptly as possible would reduce any confusion that might result and would serve as an effective deterrent to future trolling. Leaving them visible, on the other hand, serves to hamper our project just as it's getting off the ground, with no upside as far as I can tell.

-- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 22:38, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Are you talking about #Is Wikivoyage... unethical? Could this damage the company? 86.45.191.101 22:44, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Seems that way. It also seems like the Southern Californian IP is attempting to concern troll, much as I'd like to assume good faith. That said, assuming we ignore the (possible) trolls, how long before we can archive the discussion? That might be a better move: letting people see the discussion, without leading newbies unfamiliar with copyleft and the way Wikimedia works to believe there's any serious legal or ethical issues. —Quintucket (talk) 22:53, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Per current policy, discussions are archived one month after the most recent contribution to them. Seems like an awfully long time to keep these posts visible - especially given that the original comments were almost certainly made for the explicit purpose of deceiving readers. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 22:56, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

I know that, I was asking more rhetorically, if we can't move these articles earlier. Actually, given how long this page has gotten, we might want to do that as general policy, but that's another matter. —Quintucket (talk) 23:08, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I'm talking about that thread and several others. Please see #Launched with 26,571 articles instead of 0, how? and #Explain Wikitravel fork more prominently? for further examples of destructive trolling. I'm given to understand there were other similar incidents in December that were geolocated to Internet Brands' servers.

Peter informed us earlier that a rangeblock was put in place against the IP addresses in the above two instances of trolling, but given the fact that they were done on mobile phones, I wonder how effective that tactic will be if subverting the ban is a simple question of using a different phone.

-- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 22:54, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

User:pb who started one of those really didn't seem to be concern trolling, and if he was, it was a valid concern. (I know I googled to see why Wikivoyage was forced, and the SLAPP-happiness of Internet Brands is part of why I so eagerly jumped in.) Showing the fork more prominently doesn't mean showing Internet Brands in a good light. Since we're trying to be fair, rather than NPOV, it's fair to say that Internet Brands is censorious, SLAPP-happy, entitled, and doesn't have a leg to stand on. Though more politely of course. ;·) —Quintucket (talk) 23:08, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

(ec) Those two threads look genuine to me, although it is obvious that Internet Brands joined the conversation. On rational wiki they hide trolling comments in a collapsible section that you have to click on to open. That might be a good idea so that the genuine parts of the conversations can remain. 86.45.191.101 23:09, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't think that range blocks will work. It is obvious that the user gets a new IP address each time he or she reboots his phone or moves to a different part of Southern California. You could block the user by blocking the entire phone operator, but that would presumably also prevent lots of other people from contributing to the site. Would it be possible to make this page semi-protected so that IP users can't edit, or would that cause too much trouble for other users? --Stefan2 (talk) 23:14, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Ummm.. Hi. I'm right here! 86.45.191.101 23:18, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I've probably seen more contributions that are valuable from IP contributors, including on this very thread, than trolling. I think we have to walk a fine line between, on the one hand, welcoming the many new users who are discovering Wikivoyage for the first time, and on the other, making sure they are not misled about what we're all about and how we arrived at the WMF. I really think our best option here is to have admins speedily delete comments that were obviously posted in bad faith. Failing that, I also think 86.45.191.101's idea of hiding trolling comments in collapsible sections would be worth looking into, though I wonder whether any technical changes would need be made to our site to allow that. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 23:25, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

You just wrap the conversation in a template similar to wikipedia:Template:Wikipedia with that [show / hide] link in the corner and a note saying "hidden to discourage feeding the troll". Don't ask me ho to make it though. 86.45.191.101 23:35, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

You should be able to copy Commons:Template:Collapse top and Commons:Template:Collapse bottom for that. --Stefan2 (talk) 23:37, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

I do not think speedily deletes would be a good idea. A general policy of "Don't feed the trolls", plus the occasional very pointed reply showing that they are spouting nonsense, is enough. Early sweeping of threads that smell awful seems fine, though. Pashley (talk) 00:07, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

I also think that removing these discussion topics is a bad idea. Much better to let them run their course and die from lack of interest. --FloNight (talk) 02:11, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

In all honesty, I am sincerely trying to understand the counterarguments, but I feel the need to press the issue. I continue to fail to see what purpose is served by allowing these comments to remain visible.

A distinction needs to be drawn between, on the one hand, ordinary vandalism or honest mistakes that spring from unfamiliarity with protocol, and on the other hand, Internet Brands' sustained, bad-faith campaign to delegitimize and derail Wikivoyage itself. There's a constructive purpose served by archiving comments that consist of good-faith errors, but this is an entirely different ballgame. While it's doubtful that IB could ever succeed in effecting Wikivoyage's failure, I think the key is IB's malicious intent against Wikivoyage per se. By comparison, even the usual people who add dirty words to Wikipedia articles generally don't want to see Wikipedia itself fail.

The campaign of vandalism may or may not dwindle over time, and readers may or may not see IB's concern-trolling for what it is. But why leave it to chance? WMF's strong stance against censorship is admirable, but it should be emphasized that if it's interpreted in an absolutist way vis-à-vis this issue in particular, it's to the detriment of the WMF.

The counterarguments I've heard on this thread, if I am interpreting them correctly, amount to "why censor if we can deal with the problem in other ways?". My rebuttal, in its essence, is "why obstruct ourselves with unnecessary intermediate steps if simply deleting the comments has no adverse side effects?" -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 02:58, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I think that you are over reacting. IMO, there is nothing in the comments that are damaging to Wikivoyage and therefore shouldn't be removed. Plus there is really no way to stop them from reoccurring so it is pointless to remove them. If someone is trolling it is best to not remove comments but treat them with calmness. FloNight (talk) 03:37, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Happily, I think we have been handling the trolls pretty well since the launch. A quick, uninteresting dismissal followed by silence is the best way, although lots of helping hands tend to jump in to keep the troll topics alive :/ Anyway, one benefit of getting bigger is that the ability of one super-bored weirdo to constantly troll all corners of the site is diminished. Collapsing troll comments is an interesting idea, although a complicated one that would deserve discussion at Wikivoyage:How to handle unwanted edits.

It's worth pointing out that there is a still unresolved legal dispute between the WMF and IB directly related to our project. It's best to leave all matters IB to WMF legal.

From my own personal perspective, IB isn't part of this project, we've blocked them, and are monitoring carefully to make sure they aren't circumventing said blocks to harass our contributors. I don't think any further dwelling on this is productive—let's focus on our project. --Peter ^Talk 03:36, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

If these questions are asked frequently, they should be answered in FAQ, then any time they come up again, the item can be linked to FAQ and deleted after a short period to allow the poster a chance to see the response. Good faith questions are thereby answered adequately, and trolling becomes pointless. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 13:03, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

On WP, edits from a blocked user using a sockpupppet or changing IPs are revert-on-sight, even if the content itself is valid. Posting messages to promote a for-profit company would also be revert-on-sight as spam. I see no reason to keep the IB spam and revert the user who posted an ad for some bar in the US to project:travellers' pub. All spam. The WP collapsible box for ending discussion is w:template:hat and w:template:hab (top/bottom, respectively); these likely need code in MediaWiki:Common.js or other sitewide css/js to work. Those are usually used when a talk page for a specific article goes far off-topic. I see no need to keep threads here for a month / three months if they're no longer useful - bug reports where the bug is fixed should be swept within days, not months. K7L (talk) 15:25, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree, although we should be careful to not accidentally revert well-meaning users. Hence the somewhat slower revert process after a CU. Things would be easier, though, if threads like the aforementioned ones were not quickly filled with responses—but what can you do ;) --Peter ^Talk 19:31, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Import issue

It seems to me that the import bot is putting words in people's mouths, and altering email addresses to the point where they won't work, here: [22] I'm guessing this is a special case of a regex rule that works well in a lot of other situations. It seems ill advised to apply rules like this to user pages or talk pages, without careful review. Thoughts? -Pete F (talk) 03:26, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Heh, too late!

We just have to fix these things as we see them. I'll handle that page now. --Peter ^Talk 03:37, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Is it really too late? As I see it, this is a global problem where a bot got it horribly wrong, and it needs a bot to fix it. There are (at least) two ways that a bot could tell what needs reversion, any comment whose date tag shows it is older than the date we took our copy or any comment that exists on WT with identical wording except for WT/WV substitution.

Those substitutions should all be reverted and there are too many to do it without a bot. Pashley (talk) 21:01, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I disagree that the substitutions should all be reverted. We're the same project, just now with a different name, and all applicable versions with "Wikivoyage" should stay. I only think we should be reverting when things don't make sense, like mentions of Wikitravel Press, or the examples from Maj's userpage linked above. --Peter ^Talk 21:15, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

It seems to me that a basic notion in wiki-etiquette is not to change talk page discussion text, other than reverting obvious vandalism and archiving parts of overly long pages. The WT->WV substitution should never have been made on talk pages. We cannot just do a global revert because now there is newer discussion, but all changes to imported text should be reverted.

To me, this seems so obvious that I am amazed it even requires discussion; the only question is how it should be done. Pashley (talk) 21:26, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Again, I'm in full agree with Pashley (there's been times I really want to indent an improperly-indented comment (this one doesn't count, since I'm primarily responding to Peter), but even that's seemed like crossing the Rubicon. Peter, your logic doesn't really work, since they aren't the same project. They start with the same data and policies and have many of the same users, but pre-fork Wikitravel was a very different climate, which is why I never joined up. The fact that many Wikimedians have joined up (and plenty of Wikitravelers haven't) also means that despite the status-quo bias in written policy, you can expect unwritten assumptions to be different as well. Wikietiquette aside, many if not most discussions don't make sense in Wikivoyage. —Quintucket (talk) 21:36, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

(Note, I wrote this in response to Pashley at the same time as Peter's edit, and won't try to adjust it at risk of another edit conflict.) I agree. If possible, I think that pre-fork userpage edits on non-merged account and pre-fork talk page edits Import-bot edits should all be reverted, as changing Wikitravel to Wikivoyage only makes sense in the context of post-fork Wikivoyage.

In that note: Peter reverted me here for restoring pre-fork references to Wikitravel, claiming it doesn't apply here since it's still the same project. I strongly disagree. These discussions took place in a pre-fork context, and the changes are confusing. I made the edit after reading the discussion about discouraging forks and the unhappy climate at Wikivoyage, a non-thriving project, and was thoroughly confused until I remember this discussion. Other readers likely will be too, reading these substitutions not only out of context, but with context actually obscured by a bot, "putting words in people's mouths" as Pete F put it.

That said, while I'd like Peter to agree to re-revert his own edit (I follow a principle of not making the same revert twice with two different users, unless said users are obvious vandals) we really need a bot to do this globally. However there are plenty of people at Wikimedia who would be able and willing to do this. —Quintucket (talk) 21:28, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

There are legal reasons for the replacement. --Peter ^Talk 21:43, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Wherever there are legal reasons, they should be the exception, though, not the rule. In which situations are there no legal reasons for Wikitravel to have been substituted with Wikivoyage? Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:46, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

There is ongoing litigation related to the use of the name Wikitravel in ways that could confuse readers into thinking that this site is endorsed or part of or whatever regarding Wikitravel. If this is something people want to take up (and I don't see any compelling reason to do so), please get in contact with WMF General Counsel. If you just have questions about this, please email me. For similar reasons, it is best for us not to discuss the ongoing litigation on wiki. --Peter ^Talk 21:50, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I will contact the WMF general counsel, but if they say that there's no issue, would you agree that refactoring user/talk pages is a bad idea in principle, and support efforts to fix the problem? —Quintucket (talk) 21:56, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Peter, I understand why we can't use the WT logo, nor refer to Wikitravel on policy pages (except the one about the fork), even if we wanted to, which we don't. But are there actual legal reasons for refactoring user comments, and if so, could you point me to the relevant discussion on MetaWiki? —Quintucket (talk) 21:52, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I assure you, there are, and would be happy to explain in greater detail by email. We should not, and I will not discuss this on-wiki. I'd be happy to explain why that is the case by email as well. --Peter ^Talk 21:55, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

As a general issue, separate from the legalities and specifics, I don't see a problem with minor refactoring of user comments, including fixing indentation levels. It's routine to do things like sweep discussions to more appropriate pages, move new comments on a talk page to the bottom of the page, and adjust the threading of comments made on a talk page. LtPowers (talk) 22:16, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

This is obviously a far less important facet of the issue than the foregoing, but for what it's worth: in many cases, the WT->WV substitution was also done in a rather artless manner. I've seen several cases where "Wikitraveller" (the non-US spelling, with two "L"'s) was converted to "Wikivoyageler". -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 22:19, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Wait—are you saying we're not Wikivoyagelers? --Peter ^Talk 22:56, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Editing wrong section in San Jose (California)

In the San Jose (California) article, if I click the edit button at Eat or any of its subsections, an edit window is opened for part or all of the Get in section. Is this a MediaWiki problem or something local? Peter Chastain (talk) 12:57, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

I have dealt with this problem myself. Most likely, one of the listings in the "Eat" section doesn't have </eat> at the end of it. It screws up the formatting. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 14:37, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! It was actually a missing </do> in an entry that I added (whoops!) Thanks also to the "IP address" user who fixed it for me. Peter Chastain (talk) 20:27, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Pages needing images

Following a request on IRC, I did a query on Wikimedia's Toolserver and retrieved a list of pages that do not have images. I've plunged forward and put it up at Wikivoyage:Pages needing images. If you feel like doing some wikignome-type work, do feel free to find images from Commons and add them to the articles. —Tom Morris (talk) 14:22, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Some of these are redirects, such as Chatham (Ontario) → Chatham-Kent. I'd also think that category:pages with broken file links would be more important to fix than adding new images to travel topics like bargaining or renting motorcars in New Zealand. There's also a huge number of '''X''' is in [[region name]]. {{subst:smallcity}} outlines with no other content; I have no idea why we keep these but illustrating them really isn't top priority. K7L (talk) 15:16, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Still, K7L, it was a good impulse on Tom's part, don't you think? The other problem is that the list doesn't catch articles like Geneseo, where the only image is in the routebox. Still, false positives and negatives aside, it's a good starting point for wikignomes (though I agree that Category:Pages with broken file links should be a higher priority). LtPowers (talk) 15:20, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

True. On initially generating new lists, possible refinements to the criteria (such as including only destination articles, excluding redirects, or separating stubs and outlines from the main list) often become apparent. All part of the process. K7L (talk) 15:43, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, sadly doing that kind of thing is hard. If it was for 7,000 articles, I'd do it. But for 700, I figure throwing some humans at it should remove the ones that don't need any work. —Tom Morris (talk) 20:53, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion for price listing and currency conversion

Moving this discussion from Wikivoyage talk:Listings#Suggestion for price listing and currency conversion since it covers multiple topics like Currency, Listings, & Using Mediawiki templates. The issue of up-to-date exchange rates keeps coming up in several small discussions, so why not put this in the pub to discuss & take action, before moving to some talk page where it gets no attention?

I am not sure if I am putting this in the right place, I ve been trying to figure out where suggestions for the entire site should go but anyway, I thought about when people list prices of services or products in a country that they use the local currency and there could be a feature where the user could have the currency converted to their own currency, so they can better understand what the price of things are. If someone tells me a ride on a bus in kazakhstan costs 40 KZT or whatever example I saw, I would like to have some feature that could tell me how much that is in dollars or euros, etc. I think it would really help the traveler's expectations of costs.--Elektroid (talk) 02:30, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

It's an excellent suggestion that's been discussed a little bit, but it would require some development work. LtPowers (talk) 15:23, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

This is a good suggestion & I don't know if this is the right place or not (other good locations would be Wikivoyage talk:Currency & Wikivoyage talk:Using Mediawiki templates). There are a few ways to go about doing this:

1. Current practice is that exchange rates should be quoted in the "Buy" section of a country page. Most pages have an exchange rate quoted for 1-2 major currencies in the last couple of years. On Kazakhstan#Buy: "As of June 2012, the exchange rates are the following: US$ 1 = KZT 149.01 € 1 = KZT 188.30". This leaves the burden on a reader to find the current exchange rate themselves & do the math. Doing the math is ok for most travelers, but finding the current exchange rate shouldn't be.
2. Using a template for each time a currency is mentioned. For example, the sentence displayed as "Admission is €10." would be written as "Admission is {{10|EUR}}.". The template would allow a user to select currencies to convert in a dropdown box. While this can be useful, the downsides (IMO) outweigh the benefit. First is the difficulty of inserting the template. New users would find that adding a template each time a currency/value is mentioned overwhelming and this would be a huge burden on experienced editors to go around and clean up (even with a bot, this would be difficult to keep up with). Another reason is that it might be easy to remember/quote a price in local currency "10 cedi for a bus ride" (not 5.23 USD), "Park admission is 8 cedi" (not 4.19 USD), and so forth.
3. Creating a template for the "Buy" section of country pages which lists the exchange rates for major currencies. The rates would be updated by users. The box would simply have "Exchange Rates for [Name of currency]" at the top and then 5 or so lines below listing exchange rates for each currency & the day/month updated.
4. Creating a template which links to exchange rate websites. A modified version of w:Template:Exchange rate, using/displaying rates from openexchangerates.org instead of using links to commercial sites. The rates included could be limited to fewer currencies (like just USD, EUR, AUD, CAD, GBP) or more relevant currencies to a particular country (eg. neighboring countries). When pages are exported for print/book versions, this template would convert into a box of exchange rates accurate to the time of printing or PDF creation (either listing major currencies or adding an option to the print screen or when creating books to select which currency(-ies) to include conversions for.
5. Creating a template (or just modifying on of the previous two suggestions) which basically functions as a calculator. It would have a box to enter a unit, then the nation's currency named, then a dropdown list of currencies to convert to, then a results box that displays the conversion. So the template would look like: "Convert [box to enter unit] tenge (KZT) to [dropdown list of currencies]. [Result]"

My preference is to combine the last two ideas: Have a template box to insert in the "Buy" section of country pages (and other regions with their own currency, like Hong Kong, Isle of Man, etc) with a list of current exchange rates and at the bottom include a conversion calculator. I don't have the software language knowledge to create a template, so it would be awesome if someone could create such a template. AHeneen (talk) 19:11, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Also see Wikivoyage:Cooperating_with_Wikioverland#Currency_conversion. Wikioverland's currency dropdown converter is pretty cool. --Peter ^Talk 19:26, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it's cool, but how could we use it for our texts, with prices listed on every second line? --Alexander (talk) 19:47, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikioverland has a template which includes a dropdown box. The dropdown box could be placed at the top of the page (or in MediaWiki:Sitenotice), and the prices could be given using templates with currency codes and amounts. --Stefan2 (talk) 00:14, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I would like to see possible solutions, but I am not sure that this currency converter is of high importance for our purposes. Once you are in the country, you have to pay in local currency, and you have to develop a quick conversion scheme, so it is better that you develop this scheme in advance when preparing the travel. It is also important to have some real prices in mind, so that you are not cheated or overcharged. Displaying everything in US$ may be a disservice to the traveller. --Alexander (talk) 19:47, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

It would be great for country "costs" sections though. Using this to list gas prices along with a bundle of other basic goods (accommodation, price for fast food, street food, fancy restaurant, etc.) would be very helpful. --Peter ^Talk 20:01, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

The price of petrol/gas/fuel is likely more volatile than the fuel itself. Good luck trying to keep that up to date, short of launching a site like gasbuddy.com K7L (talk) 21:56, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

We could try to grab the information automatically from other sources, or just datestamp the prices. --Peter ^Talk 01:43, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I think that this would be a great idea. Recently, I came across the article Freighter travel (overland travel without a car) and found that the currency rates are awfully outdated. For example, it says that 75-100 US dollars $\approx$ 100-120 euros, which might have been the case about 10 years ago, but today Europeans would feel scammed if they were to get that rate when travelling to the United States. These currency rates were already out of date by several years when the prices were first included in the article, so maybe someone didn't understand the difference between multiplication and division. --Stefan2 (talk) 00:14, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

A template that takes the local price and gives updated conversions seems feasible and a great help to the readers. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 01:30, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

We need not have special extensions, merely a template that handles this (not impossible at all, might be worth contacting User:Varnent about this), displays the local price and has a tiny button (or maybe one can just click on the symbol/name of the local currency) and he can see the price in at least the couple of major standard currencies. The conversion rates would be updated manually or by a bot. It is feasible, it is worth doing, and it would be a great boost in usability to our users. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 01:33, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Over at Wikivoyage talk:Cooperating with Wikioverland There is talk about how WV can co-operating with WikiOverland. Once of WO's features is a real-time currency converter for prices and units. See Wikivoyage:Cooperating with Wikioverland#Currency conversion for an example and explanation of how it works and how to use it. WikiOverlanders are happy to share the custom MediaWiki plugin. -Dangrec (talk) 22:58, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Might, I first add, I am not very savvy with all of wiki technologies and which plugins are available to do what. As my suggestion originally was to help make the site more manageable for the traveler using this site to plan a trip. I think I am in the school of thought with using the WO plugin as currency rates sometimes are quite volatile but in some countries currencies are very static as they are pegged to another currency for stability purposes. My original concern and reason for the suggestion is that I travel a lot and using guidebooks for price indications even within a year or two of being printed are already obsolete in the foreign currency where the local currency is still about the same for prices.

However, when one prepares for a trip at least in my sake until I m there and familiar with the local currency a few days of buying things, I convert to my home currency. So my main reason was to better prepare travelers on how to budget. I think once in the country at least speaking for myself I become accustom to local currency and know how much things cost no longer needing a guide. I find a guide is most valuable in planning before the trip and maybe the first few days afterwards, it isn't so much an issue during the entire trip. I guess I advocate the drop down box with 5-10 main currencies as in Eastern Europe the USD along with the local currency is used, from my experience living in Ukraine and visiting Russia, Romania, etc. USD is carried and often used for wage payments and when travelers of this country go abroad they often convert to USD in order to more easily convert to another currency where ever they may be headed. Also, like in Ukraine in Russia, they are just as aware of the value of the USD as their local currencies and often cars, flats for sale are quoted in USD. Anyway, I am sorry for my long rambling as I just woke up but anyway, 5-10 currencies available to convert the local currency somehow would work great, imho. And now I shall shut up :)--Elektroid (talk) 20:10, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

San Juan de Los Lagos, Mexico

HELP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I really really want to help here - I have lived in and loved Mexico for 44 years and this is the first time I have time for myself ( just retired ! ) - reporting on Mexico sounds like a very good way to give back all that She has given me.

BUT I am having problems understanding the simple instructions ( sorry ).

I started a page ( I think ) titled San Juan de Los Lagos, Mexico and would like to go back and fix the title to include the state it is in but when I looked for it it does not have the edit button. Many small towns in Mexico are enchanting - but are really only good for day trips from larger cities as they do not have hotels ( do we have the back up of a spell checker ? ) decent enough for American or European tourists. There arre always small local restaurants that serve very good homecooked local cusine - the markets are perfect examples - at rock bottom prices - "most" are perfectly safe and clean. but even when my family vists from the US the "girls" resist eating in a local setting and want a white tablecloth and decent cutlery.

The best of Mexico is found in the small towns and cities - the REAL Mexico. Let me introduce you to them.

Sheila in Mexico

Hi. The article title has been fixed for you. Just go to San Juan de los Lagos and edit away. The edit button at the top, or at the article headers is good to change the content. --Inas (talk) 03:39, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Sheila, you did a great job starting that article, and I look forward to more content from you. Please do put in entries for restaurants and markets you like, and feel free to include hotels or hostals with simple accommodations, as this is a worldwide guide, and anyway, people from the US and Europe are not all looking for luxury accommodations. There's a bit of a learning curve in terms of how to best use Wiki language, templates, and the like, but don't worry to much about that; it's much more important for you to put the content up. I posted to your user talk page with a couple more specifics. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:46, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikivoyage_talk:How_to_handle_unwanted_edits#Policy_on_permanently_blocking_users

There is a discussion going on at the above page about dealing with unwanted edits. --Rschen7754 04:12, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Patrolling problem

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 43977

Hi, everyone. I have set my preferences so that if there are several recent edits of an article, it shows up on "Recent changes" as having, say 4 edits. However, I don't seem to be able to mark several edits at once as having been patrolled. Is anyone else having the same problem, and if so, I hope something can be done about it. Patrolling edits individually when there may be, say, 12 recent edits of an article is really untenable, as traffic increases here. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:15, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

No one can do that, and it's really frustrating to say the least. I think this feature request was filed at Bugzilla somewhere, but I can't find where. Patrolling would be a lot easier if we got that feature back. Globe-trotter (talk) 04:54, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

The English Wikipedia has the patrol system that you describe, so it is possible. I'm a bit annoyed by it too - that's how Wikidata is set up as well for some reason (the third project I'm a part of). --Rschen7754 05:00, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

If English Wikipedia has that setup, what's the issue in getting it here? We used to have that on Wikitravel, and it's desperately needed. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:07, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

It's a huge problem, and has crippled our ability to effectively patrol. Please see Bugzilla:43977, and vote for its importance, if you think this deserves more attention. --Peter ^Talk 09:09, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually, enwiki only does this for entirely new pages, so it's not exactly like that (sorry for the false alarm! trying to keep all these projects straight :/) But yes this would be quite useful. --Rschen7754 09:31, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Is there any way to hide my email address on Bugzilla? I'm not at all comfortable with having my email address be public. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:58, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately not that I'm aware. I use a separate email for all my WMF accounts and mailing list subscriptions to guard against outing, and it's possible to change the email on your Bugzilla account. --Rschen7754 10:18, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

You can change the email address on https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/userprefs.cgi?tab=account and the email address is only shown to users that are logged in. Related bug report: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=148 - --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 21:12, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Importing edit history from Wikitravel

Having edited Wikitravel in the past, will our edit history be imported here?--Jusjih (talk) 10:42, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Were you also called "Jusjih" on Wikitravel? If so, then your Wikitravel edits are the ones shown at Special:Contributions/(WT-en) Jusjih. Edits up until early August have been imported. If you wish to have the contributions listed under your Wikivoyage account, then please follow the procedure at Wikivoyage:User account migration. --Stefan2 (talk) 11:22, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, just be sure to provide evidence that you are the same person, as explained on that page. --Peter ^Talk 21:17, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Skin Synagonism

A year ago I created the mediawiki skin "synagonism-mw" at SourceForge which improves READING of big files like the wikivoyage's articles. I don't know if it works with current version!! and the code needs improvements. I created to show its functionality and wikivoyage I think needs it. -- Synagonism (talk) 14:59, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Voyage/Travel stats for January 21

Stats for 20130121
Number of entries in recent changes edits (including deletions/blocks):
WV: 2652
WT: 525
Number of article edits:
WV: 2492
WT: 349

By https://github.com/nicolas-raoul/VoyageVsTravel Nicolas1981 (talk) 05:09, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

And have you seen those 349 article edits? I would wager that at least 95% of them are spam.

Good for us.

-- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 05:23, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

(EC) The problem with these stats is that wikitravel has major problems with spambots at the moment, so I wounder how many wikitravel edits are legit. 86.45.191.101 05:25, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, one should keep this in mind when using these raw statistics. By the way, other interesting stats can be found here: WV WT (same warning applies). In particular, Users who have performed an action in the last 30 days: WV=2,136 WT=606 Nicolas1981 (talk) 06:06, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

With respect to article count they have also switch over to using totals that include talk pages and now are saying they have more. Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:14, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Kashmir

Hi! A Gujarati newspaper is causing trouble for us http://www.gujaratsamachar.com/20130122/head/head4.html The Indian newspaper found some inconsistency between our India and Pakistan maps. That is causing a major increase in political edits in the Pakistan regions and maps. I protected the general Pakistan article for 24 hours to calm down the motions and stop the edit warring. User:Ikan Kekek started a discussion on how to improve the map and how to adress the inconsistency. jan (talk) 13:28, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Lists of Bus Routes

Hey Wikivoyagers, I'm a long time Wikpedia editor this is my first Wikivoyage edit but with a big ask. On English Wikipedia we have numerous lists of Bus Routes which are never going to be encyclopaedia articles but they could be expanded into tour guide articles in the manner that Bus travel in Israel has been. On WP these articles are highly controversial and have been the subject of substantial fighting regarding creation/deletion - they don't generally fit our policies and guideline (they're not notable in an encyclopaedia sense, wikipedia is not a directory of routes, Wikipedia is not a travel guide.) However they appear to fit with some of your policies and aims such as your aim to be useful for online access by travellers on the road. Ideally I would like to know what level of objection there would be to moving these articles from Wikipedia to Wikivoyage with the aim that those searching for such information would be better served having it amongst the other travel information they might also be looking for? Your thoughts are welcomed either here or at [Wikipedia] Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 13:32, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with the idea in part, but looking at the Wikipedia discussion I'd like to suggest that it makes most sense to import them only in two cases:

1. If we're going to expand them into an article on popular tourist routes. (For example, an article explaining exactly which bus numbers, stops, and transfers to use to get to Wicked Awesome Tourist Site from Well-Known and Easily Accessible Landmark.)
2. If the information is difficult to find, spread out over many pages, confusing, or not available in English on the bus operator site.

In cases where the information is easily accessible on the operator sites (for example from the operator in my home region, the PVTA), we risk having information fall out of date. For example, I'll note that the train schedule information on Selçuk was at least two years out of date when I corrected it, and bus schedules tend to change far more often than those of trains. —Quintucket (talk) 21:18, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Quintucket, I'd agree entirely, The usual arguments to these are that. The bus enthusiasts promise to keep it up to date and that as they aren't schedules but only route lists they change far less frequently. I would however say on part 1- it may have been the case on wikitravel that only Wicked Awesome Tourist Site or Well-Known and Easily Accessible Landmark should be navigated from but now you're on wikimedia there are a lot less limits. Wikimedia's purpose is to "to collect and develop the world's knowledge and to make it available to everyone for free, for any purpose." If sleepy rural village is a potential tourist site even if it's not Wicked Awesome then there are no technical limits to allowing that - it's perhaps a point for wider consideration on what wikivoyage can cover as long as it's covering minor things in a travel-centric voice as opposed to wikipedia's encyclopaedic voice.Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 13:09, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Yellow, Stuart. Would you please provide a link to the article in question (not just the talk page) so that we can have a look at it? Without having seen it, my reaction would be that a mere list of bus routes would not constitute a Wikivoyage article under Wikivoyage:What is an article?, but it is possible that a particular route or series of routes could be so interesting that an article about them could work as a travel topic or itinerary, as Quintucket suggests: See Travel topics for a list of existing travel topics and some guidelines. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:22, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Ikan, there are 600 (either routes themselves which could do with being condensed to a list or lists themselves) or so contained within Category:bus_routes the problem isn't with a specific one or two of these but the majority that aren't encyclopaedic (as in carefully researched subjects) - many are simple databases containing village or points of interest and the routes that get there. A example currently looking to be deleted (although it's survived twice before) is List_of_bus_routes_in_Central_Suffolk. 13:09, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I have had a quick look at the project and found two lists of lists, one covering England and one covering New York New Youk - I Don't know if I missed others. I have some experience of using buses in England, and looked at a few of the lists, of which this one forKent seemed typical. From a traveller's point of view the list in numeric order of route number is not very useful, but England has an excellent public transport planner, which will give precise directions and times for buses between any two postcodes, complete with directions to the bus stop. However if members of the project can spare some time, there are many destination articles that could usefully have bus details (routes, frequency and prices) added to get in and get around. There are also a few city bus routes which could usefully be written up as an itinerary, describing the sites on the route and giving an alternative to taking a coach tour, e.g. the 24 in Paris. AlasdairW (talk) 23:14, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Inherited Docent tags

I don't think it is safe to assume that all docents from WT have come over to WV with us. All the docent tags are still out there, pointing to users who may not even exist on WV, and at the very least have not expressly renewed any commitment to be a docent here on our new site. I would suggest that some kind reset is necessary, probably a script to go and remove all the existent docent tags and/or message users existing here which correspond to existing docent tags to confirm their commitment. What say ye?Texugo (talk) 20:40, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm.. Last time we looked at this, we could count on one hand the number of docent questions ever asked. --Inas (talk) 22:32, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

I ask them, but usually by email. No one has ever asked me a thing, though. I thought that someone had already removed all the docent links for old accounts [23]? --Peter ^Talk 22:44, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Broken Link

Just a quick heads up that the http://en.wikivoyage.org/ link doesn't appear to be working at the moment. This address is currently used by the link on Wikipedia's main page and in other locations too. Is it as a result of today's server changes? --Nicholasjf21 (talk) 23:13, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

It works for me. Perhaps it was a temporary issue. I've had several temporary issues today with the server move happening but they have all resolved quickly. Are you still having that link problem? --Rogerhc (talk) 02:44, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Nope, all's well now! Sorry for any alarm caused!--Nicholasjf21 (talk) 16:02, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Picture of the Year voting round 1 open

Dear Wikimedians,

Wikimedia Commons is happy to announce that the 2012 Picture of the Year competition is now open. We're interested in your opinion as to which images qualify to be the Picture of the Year for 2012. Voting is open to established Wikimedia users who meet the following criteria:

1. Users must have an account, at any Wikimedia project, which was registered before Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000 [UTC].
2. This user account must have more than 75 edits on any single Wikimedia project before Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000 [UTC]. Please check your account eligibility at the POTY 2012 Contest Eligibility tool.
3. Users must vote with an account meeting the above requirements either on Commons or another SUL-related Wikimedia project (for other Wikimedia projects, the account must be attached to the user's Commons account through SUL).

Hundreds of images that have been rated Featured Pictures by the international Wikimedia Commons community in the past year are all entered in this competition. From professional animal and plant shots to breathtaking panoramas and skylines, restorations of historically relevant images, images portraying the world's best architecture, maps, emblems, diagrams created with the most modern technology, and impressive human portraits, Commons features pictures of all flavors.

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Inline wikipedia links

Since {{unsigned|Sertmann}} gives this result: - what do we use instead these days?

And also, what is the policy with inline wikipedia article links since the merge? Sertmann (talk) 05:41, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

OK so fund the answer to the first question by going to the actual template, still not sure about the other questionSertmann (talk) 05:43, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

It's the same: Wikivoyage:Links to Wikipedia. I revert their additions with a gentle plea to write about stuff here too ;) --Peter ^Talk 06:29, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

The correct template is {{subst:unsigned|username/IP}}. AHeneen (talk) 21:46, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Reviews of establishments

What do people think about the concept of allowing our readers to provide reviews of restaurants and hotels? Started discussion here [24] Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:15, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Article feedback tool

Wonder what people think about using the article feedback tool to allow our readers to provide advice on articles? Details here [25]. If we like it it might be possible for use to get it in April of 2013. Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:01, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I think this is a good idea. As I said at the other discussion, a lot of travellers who use our guides will notice out-of-date info and errors while away but not bother to update it when they return. Having a space where they can make a comment is so much simpler for them, and will mean our guides can stay more up-to-date and organised. It is also more inclusive of the community and encourages new editors. No harm in running it for a few weeks as a trial. JamesA ^>talk 15:10, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

English has applied it to 10% of articles as a trial. We could look at doing the same. Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:34, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Sounds like a good compromise. Would we need to wait until April to start that sort of trial? However, we would need to make it very, very clear that users are providing feedback on the article itself, not the destination or listings. I foresee a lot of misinformed responses. JamesA ^>talk 15:44, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes as that is the earliest the tech side would be able to get it to us. Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:24, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

The earliest version 5 (the link) could be implemented because that is the latest version currently under development and is scheduled (subject to change) for a full release on March 26.AHeneen (talk) 05:04, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I would not like this to be a substitute for people plunging forward and eliminating inaccuracies in articles, and that's what I fear would happen. It's counter-intuitive to quite a few new users that they can edit articles, as shown by the number of complaints I've read on talk pages of problems the complainer is best able to fix, him-/herself. There could be a positive aspect, though: There's a degree of arbitrariness to which restaurants (e.g.) are listed, and perhaps a spate of bad reviews could get a mediocre restaurant like Gandhi on 6th St. de-listed (which I'd love to do but won't take individual responsibility for). Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:14, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

We have the issue of people not plunging forwards on Wikipedia which is why they have started this initiative. Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:24, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Can't we get the [add listing] button back? I think that would lower the bar significantly for newcomers to add their favorite listings. Globe-trotter (talk) 20:56, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I would echo G-t's plea for the return of the [add listing] button, but perhaps this time with the filip that the new listing is automatically placed in the correct alphabetical order rather than at the bottom of the listings. -- Alice^✉ 03:18, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

This could be a potentially useful feature, but this may be something worth shelving for a while. We still haven't put together all the documentation for creating books, which should be fixed before moving on to another extension. For article feedback, I think there are a few issues that, while possible to work out, will take time to fix because we will need a customized version.

Current version (v4) of Article Feedback on Wikipedia. I think we'd need to change the metrics & questions...relevant for an encyclopedia, less so for a travel guide.

1. The four metrics—trustworthiness, objectivity, completeness and writing quality—are great for an encyclopedia, but less useful for a travel guide. We need metrics like: completeness, writing quality (easy to understand), quality of listings (number/variety of eat/sleep/buy/etc listings), quality of attractions (see/do), Quality of background information (understand/stay safe/cope), Up to date? (is content up to date), and there are probably some more good ones that I can't think of right this second. Of course, we would not use all of those...only 2-5 (reasonable?)...but the list is to give an idea of the direction we should be heading in when it comes to metrics for our travel guides. Also, would we need...or rather, would we want...to have separate metrics or questions (more on that below) for travel topics, phrasebooks, & itineraries than we do for destinations?
2. The questions/statements would need to be changed to reflect our needs...like "How knowledgeable are you about this locations?", "Have you lived in this city/country/region?", "Have you visited this destination? If so, how long have you spent here?", "Do you travel often?", "Do you travel often to destinations such as this one?", "Have you used this Wikivoyage guide while traveling to this destination? If so, did you use any other guides concurrently with the Wikivoyage guide?" and so forth. We should probably have more detailed feedback options for individual sections, like questions for eat/sleep regarding number/quality of listings (quality meaning not closed locations or franchise locations of major hotel chains with just name/address/phone, but price and description...the question would have to include a note that it's not just a rating of hotels themselves, but our content) and whether stay safe is comprehensive/accurate, whether get in/around is comprehensive/accurate, and (once again) there are many more questions that I haven't thought of/included.
3. Another important aspect to look at is the collective data gathered from these ratings! Questions/metrics can be worded/chosen to gather quantitative feedback from editors & readers about the quality of our guides & project. Sure there are some big issues with this, we don't know people's expectations, whether they're telling truth, if people are giving inaccurate feedback (misread something, missed a section or important sentence, etc), but when you take a holistic view, soliciting user feedback can be immensely useful for improving our site. We can learn where our sites weaknesses are (even analyze data per country/region) and use this feedback to track progress/improvement to the quality of our site over time (compare user confidence in quality of listings over 2 years' time). See Article feedback/Data and metrics on Meta to get an idea of how focused use of questions is used to gather data that is interpreted in many ways to—ultimately—encourage users to contribute & improve the site and its pages.

Having said all that, adding article feedback will be a BIG project for our site and sorting out the above issues (because, above all, we will need a customized version) will take a lot of discussion and also a lot of work on the software/development side. Given all the work needed in the past week surrounding the launch, working with/guiding new contributors, and fixing unresolved issues (as mentioned...working to improve create documentation for the Book extension should be a high priority before moving on to a project like this) this is something that should be set aside to work out later (6 months? A year?). (Note:I wrote the OP of "Peer Review" at the same time as this...just splitting one long remark in two to keep relevant replies in order.) AHeneen (talk) 05:04, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

You'll probably need a way to hide feedback that isn't useful or that needs to be removed. For example, someone writing "pen1s" or something inappropriate, etc. --Rschen7754 07:43, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

You are looking at the old version (version 4) please look at version 5. Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:39, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Version 5 is what is used on enwp. Perhaps I should clarify that I mean a policy on removing feedback. --Rschen7754 20:57, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I find this system ridiculous. Everyone can tick the box "I am highly knowledgeable", and we have absolutely no way to check this. In my opinion, the present feedback style is highly offensive to editors, because unknown people put some grades based on unknown criteria. Moreover, they do this strange stuff instead of editing and improving the article, which is contrary to the main idea of a wiki. I would like to have the feedback feature, but it should be unobtrusive: no grades, no alleged "experts"... just comments. --Alexander (talk) 20:53, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

On Wikipedia, how is decided which articles get the tool? Or is it a random 10% test now? For Wikivoyage, it would be most useful for guide articles, in order to identify what's missing and get an idea of how readers react to articles we think are pretty good. For the enormous number of outlines and usable articles however, I imagine it would create a huge database of information we already have. We know those are incomplete, need more listings, are sometimes poorly written. We also know that some parts of the world are substantially underrepresented in terms of information available. Analyzing thát feedback information will cost energy I would say is better spent on improving those articles. In short: if we test it, I would say let's start with our more or less complete articles. And then, sure, let's talk about the exact how, and wordings. JuliasTravels (talk) 21:32, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

We are completely free to ignore the self-proclaimed expert status. However, a tick-box like "I have visited this destination recently", may offer some insight useful when applying corrections. But I agree that comments are the most useful. --Inas (talk) 21:53, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I mostly agree with Inas' ideas. The tick-box should be about visiting the destination, and the Feedback tool should be the comments version, so that viewers can comment on things they find to be incorrect or outdated. Maybe ratings are useful on star-rating guides that we think are worthy of assessment, not improvement. Is there a way only star guides can get the rating version? JamesA ^>talk 06:57, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes so both version 4 and 5 are used on EN wp. Version 4 has the rating scale while version 5 have written comments. I much prefer the written comments but one could potentially use a combination of the two I suppose. Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:38, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

I think it would be good to test the feedback tool on some of our guide-status articles. It would be better if readers jumped in and edited the pages directly, but that isn't always the case so if this helps provide more feedback that's cool. I assume if it goes ahead, we'd use version 5 over version 4? (since comments can provide specific points on how to improve the guide) -Shaundd (talk) 18:23, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes version 5. Should we have a RfC here to determine if there is sufficient support for me to put in a request for this being added in April / May so that we can trial it.Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:44, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Peer review

On a related note, we could relatively easily add a Peer Review feature (a modified version of Wikipedia:Peer review). While this could be handled by just adding a new section to a talk page, we could have a procedure for feedback on articles where editors can visit a page and write a paragraph or two about ways to improve a page. This would be a way of drawing attention to articles where a user wants to solicit feedback. Like WP, this would involve a template added to a page which maintains an automated list of requests. It would also only be used for pages with a good level of content (star, guide, & maybe some usable pages, as suggestions for improvement would be quite long/unnecessary for outline pages). There could also be a checklist when doing a review (not intended for every one to be answered, but to give the reviewer an idea of what to look for). AHeneen (talk) 05:04, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Version 5 of the feedback tool dose this but without people needing to figure out how to use templates or learn media wiki markup. Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:42, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

My 2009 European Travelogue

I wasn't sure if I should share this here, but what the heck!

I usually take a major trip every 2 years. I tweeted my my trip in 2011 and in 2009 I took my notes and created a book. called Stacey's 2009 European Takeover Tour it includes pictures and links to what I saw and did.

Written to be fun with good information, I knew couldn't include it in Wikivoyage articles.

[Stacey's 2009 European Takeover Tour] (PDF 1.6 mb)

Have a look and Let me know what you think.

Thanks for indulging me -- S.Bryan  00:00, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I've just glanced at it. Good stuff. Parts of it could be useful here. Not the whole thing, beyond a link on your user page, but various bits could be used in articles and many of the photos might go on Commons. Pashley (talk) 00:15, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Putting a Wikitravel: namespace in the search box actually takes you to WT

I don´t know if this has already been addressed somewhere, but.. I accidentally typed "Wikitravel:Plunge forward" instead of "Wikivoyage:Plunge forward", and to my surprise, it actually took me to the page on Wikitravel. Then I discovered that not only does it work for other WT namespace article, but if you preface anything with "Wikitravel:", it takes you to the page on WT. (Try searching "Wikitravel:France" for example) What gives? Surely this is not the way it's supposed to be. I don´t want to search for policy pages and accidentally end up over there due to overly active muscle memory...Texugo (talk) 15:13, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Incidentally, it appears to be global too. It does the same on pt: Texugo (talk) 15:14, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

In fact, it does that even from Wikipedia.Texugo (talk) 15:15, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Er, yes, that's because it's an interwiki prefix. It was quite valuable to us when we were there. See m:Talk:Interwiki map#Wikitravel. LtPowers (talk) 15:19, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Some of us are trying to get this fixed, but to do so requires being able to claim that the wikitravel: prefix is not in active use on other Wikimedia projects. On en.WP any WT-related templates have been voted for deletion and replaced by 'bots in late 2012, the templates are also gone from fr: nl: and simple:, but there are many smaller-language Wikipedias (places like Finland or Indonesia come to mind) where the WT links still need to be removed before a new request can be made on m:talk:interwiki map to get rid of the prefix. This is an important step as MediaWiki handles interwiki links differently from true external links, allowing their use to be a means to circumvent a rel="nofollow" tag that normally tells search engines to ignore (potentially spam) external links on Wikipedia articles. See #Links from Wikipedia in other languages. I realise other tasks (such as missing images on pages, bug reporting and special:newpages patrol) were being given priority but we do need editors to take a look at all those Wikipedia languages, create the wikivoyage templates if they're missing and replace WT templates or links with WV templates. Only once that is done can the request to remove the wikitravel: prefix (which now is spam, as it points to an abandoned fork of this project with multiple ads on every page). K7L (talk) 20:01, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I was going to work on this and got sidetracked. Could we set up the list in a sandbox so that it's easier to edit? --Rschen7754 20:28, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

(undent) Per the interwiki link list for w:fi:Template:Wikitravel, the following languages still have it: af, bg, ca, ceb, ka, ko, hr, ml, pl, pt, ro, sv, ur, zh. (And fi, but I've gotten the ball rolling on nuking it.) Jpatokal (talk) 01:54, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually, there are more - id: and fa: are among those which need the template replaced on every page. K7L (talk) 18:31, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

I've set up a page at User:Rschen7754/wikitravel as a checklist. --Rschen7754 06:19, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Upload file

How are users to upload files? Some issues:

1. I do not see the expected "Upload file" link in left sidebar.
2. Wikivoyage:How to add an image may need updating.
3. Wikivoyage:How to upload files may need updating, also.
4. MediaWiki:Common.css has the comment, "/* hide upload link in toolbox */" at top but no corresponding CSS. Perhaps that is an artifact an admin might want to delete.
5. Special:Upload has an info box at top that may be relevant to all this.
6. Wikipedia's left sidebar "Upload file" links to an upload wizard. Do we want to implement something similar?

--Rogerhc (talk) 00:41, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

1) I changed it to Non-free files, but we really need a direct link to Commons:Special:UploadWizard.

6) We'd have to have a unique custom upload wizard to reflect the fact that only non-free files are allowed. --Peter ^Talk 01:03, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

4) was an artifact from the WT days (WT's Common.css still has only the one command in it, to hide the upload link). I've removed the comment. There's a bunch of other stuff in there, though, that's been added since the migration, and I don't know what half of it does. They should be commented. LtPowers (talk) 03:03, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

1) Come to think of it, maybe a direct link isn't the way to go. We could send the uploads link to a brief page with a link to Commons:UploadWizard, but also a note about how to upload non-free files locally? --Peter ^Talk 04:04, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

1)Yes, that's what I was thinking too. Most of the images should go straight to Commons, but with a clear note on when and how to upload locally.

2)It needs some updating and I also think we should increase visibility of this page. I remember always searching for it when I just got started. JuliasTravels (talk) 10:38, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

The text on Special:Upload says "Stop! You should upload images to Wikimedia Commons." I think that we should add the word "free" in that text.

It also says that "All uploaded images are automatically licensed under CC-by-SA 3.0, unless otherwise specified." and it is only possible to select a CC license. But non free files should not have a CC license. They should have a non-free license like on Wikipedia. --MGA73 (talk) 19:05, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

The media in question are otherwise-free photos in which one copyrighted piece of sculpture or architecture is visible. In that case, the copyright of the photo and the copyright of the artwork are two separate entities. That's a little different from Wikipedia, where record album covers and cinematic theatrical release posters are allowed to appear on the page about that recording or film under "fair use" or "fair dealing" but are clearly not free and contain no free content. K7L (talk) 19:14, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

But that can be fixed by adding a "joint template" like w:Template:Photo of art. That way it is very clear to everyone looking at the file page that it is a photo that is not 100 % free. --MGA73 (talk) 20:04, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

MediaWiki messages

Could an admin please change MediaWiki:Talkpagelinktext from "Talk" to "talk" to match "contribs"? Also, could MediaWiki:Histlast and MediaWiki:Histfirst be changed to lowercase as well? All the other links on the history page are lowercase. Thanks, David1217 (talk) 03:46, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Done. We use "latest" and "earliest", Wikipedia uses "newest" and "oldest". Maybe that could be changed as well? Globe-trotter (talk) 12:06, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Ghost Languages

Will language versions that were previously offered be offered here soon? (Arabic, Hindi, Chinese, Japanese, etc.) They all show up on the sidebar for destinations that had articles in those languages but if you click them now, they take you nowhere. Also, articles like Osaka have the "Better in Japanese, please translate" tag. If the languages are expected to be added soon, I won't delete it, but if not, these should probably be dealt away with. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 16:48, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Finnish, Hungarian, Japanese, Polish, Romanian and Chinese will be added, the others will be placed in the Incubator. Globe-trotter (talk) 18:40, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

I've noticed that many WP.ja user pages [26] have links to WT user pages and that wiki did appear viable; no idea why this wasn't moved initially. There were a few language projects which appeared to be inactive, dead or mostly empty but it looks like viable languages (es and pt being the most recently created) are being imported piecemeal right now. K7L (talk) 19:07, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

I've noticed links to some languages that are still in the Incubator being added. I think one was Latin ("la") and when clicked led to the page on the WM Incubator. AHeneen (talk) 22:40, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

The Japanese Wikitravel was highly developed with an active community. I supported its migration at the time, but am unsure why it wasn't moved. I do remember that some of the notable members of the Japanese community such as Shoestring were not interested in moving and liked things just the way they were. JamesA ^>talk 05:16, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

That's a shame. To me, Shoestring was the pillar of the Japanese version (I mean that as a compliment to him, no disrespect to the other contributors), but the other language versions and their members seemed less affected and certainly less active in the discussions about the rift, so I'm not surprised. Good to know more languages are on the way. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 09:00, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Why in the world would we be interested in creating up-to-date printable travel guides in Latin?? Texugo (talk) 13:12, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

We cannot exclude the avid travellers of the Latin-speaking Vatican City now, can we? </joke> JamesA ^>talk 13:26, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

==See== will be replaced with ==Veni==, ==Vedi==, ==Vici== K7L (talk) 16:36, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

It may be the polyglot in me talking, but I was excited when I read on this page that there would be a Latin version. I'm actually looking forward to its launch. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 18:14, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Template:FactCheck

I just introduced Template:FactCheck and used it in Ekerö. Comments are welcome. /Yvwv (talk) 20:26, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh, too bad. Has the time of sticking templates instead of fixing problems begun at last? If we are to develop such templates, which in my opinion are severely over-used on en-wp, we should try to come up with some kind of policy on how and when to add. You seem to know something about this Birka place, and it's just a couple of lines of text. The layout of the template is fine, in principle. But is there any way we can convince you to fix the problem instead of sticking that template on it? :-) JuliasTravels (talk) 21:51, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Agreed with JuliasTravels. Oftentimes, adding a template can serve as an "easy out" in favor of making the required changes oneself. That may fly at a place like Wikipedia, which has a much larger population of committed editors, and where it can therefore be assumed that someone else will come along quickly and make the changes rather than the template staying on the page indefinitely. But for all our recent growth, Wikivoyage is still a small fry compared to Wikipedia. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 21:59, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Agree with Julias and Andre. I think such a banner may itself be cruft. Simply deleting whatever specific details of an entry one finds to be out of date, assuming one finds it impractical to update them, may be better. If one lacks the info or confidence to do that, leaving a note about the matter here in the Pub may be more helpful than a banner template. Thank you Yvwv for bringing this up here. :-) Rogerhc (talk) 23:54, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

I see a huge box on the page but am still uncertain as to what of the info is presumably outdated or what the original poster wanted done to fix this. Perhaps something small and less obtrusive like ^{(dated info)} or ^(disputed) or ^{(see talk)} should link to a section of the article's talk page, where something more descriptive than "fix this" could be provided without displaying as part of the article. And no, ^{(citation needed)} shouldn't be one of these unless we ever start using Wikipedia-style cited secondary sources for info. K7L (talk) 01:05, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Agree with K7L. Big boxes claiming generic problems are not very helpful. They are a cmplete pain on WP, as they often leave you in nearly complete ignorance of what to do about the problem. I accept that it is not always possible to fix the information oneself, but the inline markers are far more useful as they more accurately identify the problem text. Such notices should always be dated. On WP that is usually done by a bot. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:03, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

I would suggest that the problem text should be exactly identified, possibly by highlighting the text in some way, so it is clear where it starts and where it stops. Maybe underlining?

Suggestions for policy for inline templates. (formalising K7L suggestions)

• If information is wrong, correct it if you can, delete it if you can't correct it
• If information is contentious, tag as (disputed|date)
• If information is out of date tag as (dated|date)
• If there is another problem tag as (see talk page|date) and discuss on talk page. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:20, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

A much better solution indeed! I would say such inline remarks, exactly identified, have all the advantages (making people aware that the information is flawed and can't be relied on blindly) without the dreaded boxes. It's probably the next best thing to fixing. Is there a way to list those inline-tags on a separate page, somewhere? I wouldn't mind digging into information, when it is available on other sites, to update a spotted problem now and then. On other wiki's there are always people who prefer fixing small problems over writing content. It might help to keep the number of such tags somewhat in check? JuliasTravels (talk) 09:30, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Agree most templates on EN wiki are silly and should be deleted. I deleted certain types (like the expert needed one) on sight. The last thing we want to promote is a mentally of people tagging rather than fixing. Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:33, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

As far as I know a template can add a category to a page which will allow all pages with that template to be listed as a category. The category can be hidden if you don't want it to show on the page. Removing the template after the problem has been fixed should automatically remove the category.

I agree with Doc James that we only want a small number of useful templates. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 16:19, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Articles about companies

Seeing the United States by Greyhound is a new article. I would like to see it renamed to something less advertising. Has its creation been sanctioned by the consensus required for articles about companies? See also that article's talk page.Travelpleb (talk) 07:48, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, we have Rail travel in the United States where 90% of the content is about Amtrak (a private, for-profit company, even if heavily government subsidized). The page can be moved to Long-distance bus travel in the United States and information about other inter-city bus services added. AHeneen (talk) 08:10, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

On the topic of company articles, there has been a lot of fuss lately regarding travel topics about airlines. Airlines are money-making companies, and who decides which airlines are notable and popular enough to be entitled to an article? JamesA ^>talk 08:39, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

AHeneen, we have and article called Rail travel in the United States and not "Rail travel in the United States by Amtrak"... that's my point. Plus Greyhound's share of the market is going to be nowhere near Amtrak's effective monopoly. So yes, an article called "Long-distance bus travel in the United States" is good; an article specifying one bus operator is bad.Travelpleb (talk) 08:52, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Just move it to Long-distance bus travel in the United States and watch it grow to include other companies. The airlines-debate is a bit more complex indeed but this case seems pretty straightforward to me :-) JuliasTravels (talk) 09:38, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

It should be noted that there is already a similar travel topic titled Intercity bus travel in the United States. Eco84 (talk) 01:13, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Well spotted, Eco84. So we need to Merge and Redirect?Travelpleb (talk) 12:11, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

How to not display the page title at the top

Hi guys. I'm trying to get a quick answer to this: On the Main Page, it doesn't automatically display the page title ("Main Page") at the top like it does for all other pages. How was this accomplished? I'd like to get rid of that page title on our pt: main page too. Thanks in advance. Texugo (talk) 18:49, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

It appears to have been done with CSS. See [27], although on Wikivoyage it looks like MediaWiki:Vector.css was modified instead of MediaWiki:Common.css:

   /* Hide title on the main page */
   .page-Main_Page .firstHeading, .page-Main_Page #contentSub {
     display: none;
   }

-- Ryan • (talk) • 19:26, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Ryan, but MediaWiki>Vector.css on pt: is identical to the one here. What could be the problem? Texugo (talk) 19:47, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Never mind. I did get it to work using the other method from the FAQ. Don't know why the CSS didn't work though... Thanks a lot! Texugo (talk) 19:54, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Maybe it wants .page-Paginà_principal or something similar em portugês? K7L (talk) 19:58, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

What K7L said. The class on the body tag is apparently "page-" + name of page, so for pt:Página principal it would be "page-Página_principal" instead of "page-Main_Page". -- Ryan • (talk) • 20:02, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Retry, wait or forget it?

I've encountered a weird problem in a Wikivoyage edit I've never experienced in all the edits I've made in Wikipedia. (This may be more appropriate for Bugzilla, but I don't have a Bugzilla account and fortunately the help area says if you're not sure where the problem belongs, post it here first.)

Yesterday morning I booted up my laptop, launched Opera and went into the Wikivoyage entry on West Jefferson (North Carolina) to list the places to stay there under "Sleep." One thing led to another, and it was late afternoon before I signed out of Wikivoyage, but at least I had the satisfaction of knowing it had been a Saturday well spent. That is, until about an hour later when I launched Safari on the iPad to review my work.

When I went to the West Jefferson Wikivoyage page in Safari, none of the three entries I'd made in the "Sleep" section showed up. According to "View History," I hadn't made any edits in that entry for over a week. Luckily, all the other work I did yesterday showed up in Safari - the new entry on Mountain City (Tennessee), information in an almost blank existing entry on Damascus (Virginia), adding a restaurant and the Best Western to Jefferson (North Carolina), adding the two hotels I stay at in Boone and some restaurant information.

I know Wikimedia is migrating from servers in Tampa to a server farm outside Washington, so I thought it might be a replication problem. Perhaps the server I used to do the edits on the West Jefferson page hadn't yet replicated the new data to other Wiki servers. Yet, since all the other edits I made yesterday were showing up in Safari, I feared it was more likely a mysterious glitch and I'd need to retrace my steps to find the phone numbers, addresses, etc., for the three lodging establishments in West Jefferson.

Late last night I launched IE 10 on the laptop to listen to ZRadio, and when I checked Wikivoyage in Internet Explorer it was the same experience as Safari - nothing under "Sleep" on the WJ page, but all my other edits showed up.

Today I opened Opera, went back to the West Jefferson page in Wikivoyage, and the info I added under "Sleep" showed up. I hurriedly copied and saved it to WordPad so I wouldn't have to recompose the text if it should be necessary. I refreshed the page in Opera to make sure it wasn't pulling from the cache, and the updated "Sleep" section was still there. Then I launched Safari on the iPad, and ... no entries under "Sleep" on the West Jefferson page.

So I don't know whether the lodging entries I made are in Wikivoyage or aren't in Wikivoyage. Should I use the "old version" of the page in Internet Explorer to re-add the info I entered yesterday? Or would that cause a bigger problem if the edited version is floating around the Wiki servers? Dlewis77 (talk) 20:43, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm seeing Hampton Inn, Nations Inn, and Buffalo Tavern B&B under "Sleep". For the record, I've never accessed the West Jefferson, NC article before in my life, so it's not an issue with my file cache.

I experienced the same problem from time to time when we were migrating content onto the WMF servers for the first time. In my decidedly non-expert opinion, I'd say there's a good chance it has to do with the server migration from Tampa to Washington.

-- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 23:41, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

I have the same issues on Wikimedia Commons. I'm pretty sure it has to do with the migration. Globe-trotter (talk) 01:27, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Like everyone suggests, it probably has something to do with the migration. A couple days ago, I added a couple "Other destinations" to the Sudan page and uploaded a new version of the Sudan map to Commons. Even when I refreshed the page in my browser, the "Other destinations" page remained blank and the old version of the map was displayed. However, when I clicked edit, the ODs were displayed in the edit box. AHeneen (talk) 02:47, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Mixed HTTP and HTTPS content on Wikivoyage

Every time I go to the pub, I get a security warning telling that the page contains both HTTP and HTTPS content (meaning that the page is insecure). Looking at page information, I see that the page loads images like http://b.www.toolserver.org/tiles/osm/12/1169/1566.png which are downloaded through an insecure connection, and this seems to be the source of the error message. Would it be possible to do something about this? --Stefan2 (talk) 20:56, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Improving our Template:Regionlist

This is long overdue from six years ago when Ryan perspicaciously said at Template talk:Regionlist:

The current map placement, which puts the map after the table of regions, is obviously not ideal. However, trying to modify the template so that the map appears next to the region key causes clashes with quickbars, the TOC, and other page elements. If anyone out there has the time and ability to re-work this template to use divs instead of a table it might go a long way towards improving the usability and look of the template... -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 15:54, 28 May 2007 (EDT)

Now the map is alongside the table of regions and often (especially with the small screen widths that are found on laptops and smart phones) the list is squeezed into a worm or under-runs the map. -- Alice^✉ 23:21, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

How to see editors ranked by number of edits?

I know I can see the number of edits of individual editors in the last 30 days at a special page eg: here, but is there any page or tool I can view that ranks WV editors by decreasing number of edits, please? -- Alice^✉ 00:46, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I am not aware of any local list that does what you want. On Wikipedia, developers make pages off-site where you can analyse edit counts. Also, let's remember that the number of edits someone has doesn't mean they are a better contributor than anyone else. Some people only edit every now and again but make huge content additions. JamesA ^>talk 01:04, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick (if somewhat disappointing) answer, James.

Your subsidiary point is so true (and I would also add that some editors — I'm a prime example of this — have to make sequential edits correcting their own spelling and syntax, etc rather than getting things spot on with their first edit, and this also boosts their count). -- Alice^✉ 01:25, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

You're also completely right. We need a mix of all editors. Those who make many small, quick edits that revert vandalism or correct spelling/phrasing mistakes, and those who make large edits. So good on ya for all your help! :) By the way, if you really wanted to find such a list, try looking at w:Wikipedia:WikiProject edit counters. One of those external tools might have been modified to also work with Wikivoyage. JamesA ^>talk 01:42, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Upload

It is confusing to have the sidebar linking to a page called "Non-free files". I strongly suggest that MediaWiki:Upload be changed back to "Upload file", since we have to assume users will (a) not know to go to Commons in order to upload free files, and (b) not recognise the term "non-free". There is a link on Special:Upload to Commons' upload wizard, and a notice warning users about what to upload here. This, that and the other (talk) 06:37, 28 January 2013 (UTC)