Talk:Climate and geography

Corrections

@Mx. Granger: You said in a recent edit summary that "corrections are still needed". Could you expand on that? Thanks. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 02:02, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

For instance, the definition given of "geography" is way too narrow, and some deserts aren't hot. Some of the climate descriptions seem strange to me, especially the description of Britain as "like tropical climates, except colder". Continental climates don't seem to be covered in any of the categories. I would suggest rewriting the "Climate" section from scratch and basing it on the w:Köppen climate classification.

Another question is how to turn this into a travel article. What are your thoughts on that? —Granger (talk · contribs) 02:34, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

I haven't finished the geography one yet. It's also intended (by me) to be general information about climates, not about climate regions. So, similar to the severe weather article but about climates and geography instead. Perhaps that helps explain. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 02:40, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Let me put my question another way: what kind of travel advice do you envision this article including? —Granger (talk · contribs) 08:07, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

My plan is to have regional articles eventually, so "Climates of Australia", "Climates of Africa", etc. Also, could mention climate as assistance when you're preparing to go somewhere or choosing where to go on a vacation. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 14:39, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Okay. So is the idea that this article will be a guide to help travelers who are interested in a particular type of climate find destinations with that climate? —Granger (talk · contribs) 15:26, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

I think so. Also the idea of preparation, and a top-level travel topic for some other articles. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 23:54, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

That seems reasonable to me. I might suggest structuring the article with a section for each of the five main groups in the w:Köppen climate classification, with a paragraph or a subsection for each subgroup. I'm far from an expert on the topic, though. —Granger (talk · contribs) 00:36, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Good point, but note that there is also a biomes and ecosystems article that I don't intend to have too much overlap with, especially since I wrote that one myself. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 00:37, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

I see. That article looks a lot like what I thought this article was supposed to be, so I'm back to my original question: what kind of travel content is this article intended to have (that isn't already covered by Biomes and ecosystems, Cold weather, Hot weather, Arid region safety, etc.)? —Granger (talk · contribs) 01:11, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Maybe I can work on this article for a few days, and then you come back and see what you think of it. If it's not much good, we could simply move it to my userspace or delete it or whatever. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 15:00, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Okay, I'll give you some space. —Granger (talk · contribs) 15:26, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

@Mx. Granger: What are your thoughts about the article now? I might add articles for "Climate of..." and "Climate of..." etc., but this is the general direction of the article. Biomes and ecosystems goes by ecosystem, but this article goes continent by continent and avoids flora and fauna, just precipitation and temperatures. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 13:26, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

To be honest, it doesn't look much better to me. All of my earlier concerns still stand, and there are now additional problems, like the weird claim that "you'd assume from looking at a map that northern Chile is lush tropical rainforest". I also still don't understand what value this article is supposed to provide for travellers. —Granger (talk · contribs) 16:24, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

My intention is to make this an overview article for the climates of continents, which would be more detailed, and therefore useful to the traveler. However, if you have a different idea for this, we probably need a few more opinions. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 16:35, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Since you've asked, it doesn't seem particularly helpful to me. The same, to be honest, goes for the articles on individual climates. ARR8 (talk | contribs) 17:34, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Are you referring to Deserts and Tropical climates? Definitely, they could be expanded. But still, they seem no less useful than many other travel topics we have, like musicals, etc. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 19:02, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Among others. I don't think those are useful, either. ARR8 (talk | contribs) 19:05, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Is there something that you think would make those articles better? --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 19:15, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

They don't have any focus. No one's going to think to themselves, "I sure want to travel to a desert, but I don't know which one." If they're interested in finding out about deserts in general, they'll go to WP. In my opinion, as soon as we have a page that needs to show a map at its maximum zoom, we've failed in writing a topic travelers can actually use. I think the best use for Deserts, for example, would be as a redirect to Arid region safety, which can have useful advice, outside of Wikipedia's scope, from experienced travelers. ARR8 (talk | contribs) 19:23, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

The same thing goes for musicals — it's a topic around the world. Much worse, Communication. The only difference with those is, I didn't create them. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 19:30, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes. As I said above, I don't think those are useful, either. If they were being created now, I'd oppose them. ARR8 (talk | contribs) 19:31, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

I see. Definitely, when it comes to travel topics, not all of them are extremely useful. But, if I wanted to know about destinations related to musicals (as opposed to information about them in general), and I knew Wikivoyage had an article about them, I think it would be sensible to visit them. Also, in the case of deserts, with detailed information about each desert listed, it would be useful. Perhaps, if I worked on expanding ones like that for a while, their purpose would become clearer. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 19:34, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Maybe. But, in my opinion, that would be wasted effort. Detailed information should go in each destination's article, and I don't think people will actually use a page that's just a list of deserts, detailed information or not, if they're planning a trip. No one's going to visit the Mojave and the Gobi on the same itinerary. The musicals article is similarly useless: if a traveler winds up in Hamburg and wants to go to a musical theater, which article are they going to look up: Musicals or Hamburg? What would they type into their search engine?

Since we're a primary source here, we should focus on providing information travelers couldn't look up themselves: they're visiting a desert, they type in "deserts," then they know everything they need to know, which doesn't include things like the technical definition of a desert, but does include things like how much water to bring. ARR8 (talk | contribs) 19:50, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Your second paragraph is actually a good point, and I plan to apply it when I get to writing on WV next. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 19:59, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm sorry to keep pressing this issue, but I'm still not seeing where the traveler comes in here. What kind of traveler, or what kind of travel situation, do you see this article being useful for? —Granger (talk · contribs) 02:58, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

The way I see it, if you still do not think this article should exist, you should post it at vfd. Not trying to be disrespectful, I genuinely think that is what you should do. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 03:09, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

VFD discussion

I've pointed out some specific problems with this article on the talk page. I think they're probably solvable, but I'm not sure how to deal with them because the larger problem is that, aside from the brief "Prepare" and "Get around" subsections, this isn't a travel article. I asked on the talk page and didn't get a clear answer as to how this article is supposed to serve travellers or how we can rework it to serve travellers. If someone has an idea for how it can be turned into a travel article that isn't redundant with our other existing articles (such as Biomes and ecosystems), that would be good. Otherwise, I think the best solution is deletion. —Granger (talk · contribs) 03:32, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

• Merge as appropriate and redirect to Biomes and ecosystems. That seems like the best solution to me, as the target article is much better, a useful travel reference article with specific travel-relevant information and links to longer articles. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:25, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

  That works for me. —Granger (talk · contribs) 11:19, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

• Merge and redirect would be best.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:41, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
• As the creator of Biomes and ecosystems, I'm fine with a merge and redirect. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 15:37, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
• Delete outright, merge acceptable. I'm personally unconvinced of the utility of Biomes and ecosystems, but then I've made my thoughts clear on global-scope travel topics - as it happens, on the talk page of the nominated article. ARR8 (talk | contribs) 22:22, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

However, if we deleted all our global-scope travel topics, as you propose to do, we would at least cut our number of travel topics in half, hours of work would go to waste, and plenty of interesting, relevant information would be lost. Deleting all the global-scope travel topics would require months of discussion about which travel topics fall into the "global-scope" category and which do not; therefore, I think it is pointless to go through and delete every single one of them, which would not do Wikivoyage any good, IMO. I am perfectly fine with the proposal to merge and redirect this article, but outright deleting this travel topic and/or a great number of other travel topics of the same nature, like Musicals, Seinfeld Tour, etc., seems like trying to fight against the incoming tide. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 23:12, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

I'm not proposing that. ARR8 (talk | contribs) 23:26, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Then why delete this article, rather than merge and save the content? Unless you think the text would not merge well, which I understand. As I see it, opposing global-scope travel topics is a short step from saying they should be deleted. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 23:39, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

To clarify, I'm not looking to impose my opinion on the whole community. I think it's good that we're of different minds on various questions. Hopefully, in discussing these things, we can come to a compromise that will benefit the site more than an extreme in either direction. There's good incremental progress to be made just by disagreeing, and I think my stance on this issue has made us more aware of article content that isn't directly pertinent to travel and has resulted in some improvements being made.

On this specific object-level issue, I'm not sure the merge target is all too useful to travelers by the same criteria I brought up on the talk page of the VFD article. Hopefully, I'm consistent in my reasoning. ARR8 (talk | contribs) 23:47, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Yes, and to clarify on my own part, my intention in the above is to effectively defend my point of view that such travel topics should be kept. If there were no travel topics of this sort, I would probably oppose them, but I view is that, now we have travel topics for Chess, Musicals, etc. (many of which I did not create) we might as well keep them. Sometimes, putting forward an effective argument can sound confrontational, but the intent is to clearly get across a point, which sometimes requires being a little on the blunt side, not to tear others down.

I do, however, think we should be cautious about deleting articles that took large amounts of work for someone, and, frankly, if I had recognized that several months ago, I might have had a different standpoint on many of the VFD discussions we had. I think it's important to recognize, when an article is being deleted, the time and effort that has gone into creating it. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 01:07, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

• I think that we could have an article on Climate, but this is far from what I think that it should be. Consider the traveller who wants to find somewhere to sit on the beach in February, with temperatures around 28C. Perhaps the Köppen climate regions map would help her if it was explained, but generally I find little information to help this traveller find countries to visit with the right climate. I don't think that adding a few basic paragraphs about geography helps - if geography is going to be part of the same article then explain how various geographical features impact the climate - e.g. how mountains influence rainfall. AlasdairW (talk) 22:56, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
• Result: merged and redirected. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 20:02, 2 March 2019 (UTC)