Talk:Colonial Williamsburg

Redirect?

This should probably be redirected to Williamsburg. -- (WT-en) Jonboy 13:36, 11 October 2006 (EDT)

Not sure about that. It is a pretty big location with a place to sleep also. I guess it could be considered a attraction or a district in Williamsburg. I went there when I was working in Richmond and it could support it's own article. Just don't know if it is a slippery slope or not. If it is not considered a slick slope, I would say keep it. -- (WT-en) Tom Holland (xltel) 14:50, 11 October 2006 (EDT)

Colonial Williamsburg is a far more common tourist destination than Williamsburg. I think it deserves its own article.--(WT-en) justfred 15:10, 11 October 2006 (EDT)

Just a fyi, check out Project:What's an article? as we don't usually go by what 'deserves' an article... that said, I think I agree that this place probably qualifies as its own article. (WT-en) Maj 23:18, 11 October 2006 (EDT)

@Texugo: This article was tagged for merging, but the amount of content present would seem to merit an exception under the WV:What is an article?#Exceptions criteria ("Cases where exceptions are made include attractions, sites, or events that are... so large and complex that the information about them would overload the city article"). I would argue that this article should stay as-is since I'm not sure how it could easily be included into Williamsburg without overwhelming that article. -- Ryan • (talk) • 22:34, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

I dunno, Ryan. Even without removing all the redundancies/duplications (e.g., Get in, Get around, all but two Sleep entries, etc.), if we put both articles together end-to-end as they are, it would still be shorter than many of our current city articles. I find it pretty hard to believe that a city of 15,000 people would truly warrant that kind of exception. If we are going to do it that way, this article needs to rigorously exclude everything not inside the official living museum/resort area, and it needs be treated as one of our amusement park articles. Personally, I think that, especially with regard to the "Revolutionary City" section, it probably needs to be condensed anyway, because we are likely attempting to maintain too much detail on what is, after all, an attraction with various shows/showtimes/schedules/plans/packages that are probably already out of date since this article was written - even many of the links in the article no longer exist. Texugo (talk) 12:46, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Maybe I'm wrong (I've never been to Williamsburg) but isn't Colonial Williamsburg a mostly-self-contained attraction within the larger city [1]? I agree that we should avoid duplication, but if someone has already split the two then it seems like it makes sense to treat it like we would Cedar Point or Disneyland, rather than trying to reincorporate it back into a city article. If it really should be merged then let's do so, I'm just going through all remaining merge candidates and this one stood out as one that seemed like it might be better to leave as-is, particularly given the previous comments in this thread about keeping them separate. -- Ryan • (talk) • 17:47, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

I haven't been there either. But I am a little concerned that much of what is in the article is show/showtime/schedule/plan/package information of the type which we usually try to send people to official websites for, rather than attempt to keep the info up to date, and if half the links in the article are dead, it's likely that much of that info is already outdated. Texugo (talk) 18:06, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

I added a note at WV:Requests for comment to see if anyone who knows the area can provide some insight. I don't object to either solution, but since this isn't a totally clear-cut case I think it makes sense to solicit feedback from someone who is familiar with the area before either removing the merge tag or merging content and redirecting. -- Ryan • (talk) • 19:44, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

It's been a couple of decades since I was there, so I have no memory of it to speak of. But it seems like a strong case for an exception to our no-attractions rule. It's an entirely enclosed area with its own sleeping and dining options separate from those of Williamsburg proper. I doubt people move between the two freely, so it makes sense to treat them as separate destinations. If you're inside Colonial Williamsburg's boundary, you're going to want to know what to do and where to go within that boundary, not outside it. And it certainly could use its own map. Powers ^(talk) 00:21, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

I've been there twice (albeit quite a while ago), and the place is big and has enough to see and do that I think it would overload the Williamsburg article. As stated above, it is self-contained, just like an amusement park, so once you're in, it'd be quite a waste to spend too much time outside of Colonial Williamsburg, even if staying more than one day. One of my concerns was whether or not Williamsburg could stand independently as its own article without Colonial Williamsburg, but looking it up, I think it can, since the Jamestown settlement, Water Country, and Busch Gardens all being within city limits and are each big tourist draws themselves. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 02:35, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Given that there was lukewarm support for keeping this as a separate article I've made several updates to get rid of the out-of-date info Texugo was concerned about and have removed the merge tag. There's much more to be done, but it actually seems to have the makings of a pretty interesting article. -- Ryan • (talk) • 20:37, 19 May 2015 (UTC)