This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
I would like to try to "fish out" a list of all the tourist attraction articles in the English Wikipedia for a certain country in order to use that list in the Hebrew Wikivoyage.
Some years ago I figured out how to do this but since then I forgot, so I was hoping some of the experts here could maybe help me figure it out again.
So, for example, I would like to be able to take a category like Category:Tourist attractions in Spain and create a list that contains all the articles in that category and in ALL the sub categories (at least 5 levels down that category tree).
@AlasdairW: Oh wow! that one is amazing. I saw there's also a climate template generator in there for the climate template used in Engvoy... we at Hebvoy use the Wikipedia climate template... is there a similar generator capable of creating new climate templates for Wikipedia articles? (Which we could then transfer to Hebvoy too) ויקיג'אנקי (talk) 02:15, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Felipe da Fonseca: I won't be able to assist with anything template-related, but it would be really helpful if you could give as much detail of the problem as possible, so people reading know whether they can help or not.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 14:57, 16 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Many thanks, @Andree.sk! I had noticed a while back but failed to say anything (hangs head in vergonha). It was the main reason I did not contribute on pt, and I suspect that may be part of why that community is practically dead. While I'm here, I'll mention that I don't see an Edit link on listings. You can see this at pt:Utilizador:Nricardo/Sandbox. Thanks again! Nelson Ricardo (talk) 19:26, 16 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'll try to summon Andyrom75, he's the local "listing editor" guru :) Perhaps he'll know right away - it seems it's done by some javascript magic that processes span's with class listing-metadata-items, so maybe you have old listing editor JS?. And good luck restarting pt.WV to you all! I can imagine it won't be easy, considering how hard it is making HebVoy lift off... :( -- andree.sk(talk) 20:20, 16 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
andree, I haven't understood which is the current issue.
Andyrom75 the 'edit' button in pt.wikivoyage doesn't show up next to listings. It seemed it could be some old/improperly configured JS code? If you have time/will to check it... :) -- andree.sk(talk) 07:03, 17 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The first thing I've seen is that pt:voy use a very old version of listing editor. I suggest to use the last one. Since I'm not an admin on pt:voy I'll try to use the right one in my personal page (without any kind of translation). If it works, an admin can translate and move the script in the most appropriate location. --Andyrom75 (talk) 15:11, 17 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ricardo, see the pages I've created. Replicate it on pt:voy and you'll see that everything will work as in pt:Utilizador:Andyrom75/Sandbox :-) PS I can see the [edit] link in your sandbox but listing editor doesn't work becasue currently my script is configured for en:voy, you have to customized it first. --Andyrom75 (talk) 15:55, 17 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Andyrom75, Thank you for looking into this. I cannot see the Edit link in either your sandbox nor mine. Could it be a preferences setting? Or maybe the custom code applies to your account only? Do you see it from a private/incognito window? (At any rate, I'm just an end user without special privileges, so I won't be able to act on anything that needs extra rights. Also, I'm mostly clueless on the code.) Nelson Ricardo (talk) 22:52, 17 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ricardo, sorry for my late reply. As previously said, I'm not an admin on pt:voy, so I can't change pt:voy config files. I've added the new script on my pt:voy account, if you want to test it, copy the same on your account. However, if you want to allow all the user to benefit of such script, you have to engage DARIO SEVERI that is the only active admin on pt:voy. --Andyrom75 (talk) 08:11, 24 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Olá, @DARIO SEVERI. My written Portuguese is assim-assim, so I hope it's alright if I address you in English. Please see the above conversation. Lusophone Wikivoyagers, including myself, would be grateful if you would please investigate and resolve this issue. Obrigado! Nelson Ricardo (talk) 08:43, 24 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Andyrom75, @Nricardo: and @Felipe da Fonseca:, I became an administrator there to help mainly to eliminate spam because I understand very little of the technical part. I read the above discussion and the difficulty is it on the pt:Wikivoyage:Itens da lista de acomodação? I created this sandbox there [1] and despite using an old system it seems that it still works. In order not to disturb the colleagues here, I suggest discussing the subject there. Regards. DARIO SEVERI (talk) 10:22, 24 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There is another problematic error: when one opens the source code editor, there are some links in the taskbar to add the common templates automatically, but they appear, today, disfigured and it is not possible to understand their functions, can someone help?--Felipe da Fonseca (talk) 16:15, 24 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Guys, please, there is another strange problem: how do one control the categories? They seem to be added automatically... but are you adding categories in English... how do one add and remove them manually? Thanks.--Felipe da Fonseca (talk) 23:26, 24 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Felipe da Fonseca, Most categories here are added by template. Look at Caldas da Rainha, for example. At the bottom there's a {{starcity}} template. It adds not only the box at the end of the article but also the following categories: "Star cities", "Star articles", "City articles", and "All destination articles". {{IsPartOf|Oeste}} adds the breadcrumb trail at the top of the page, as well as the "Oeste category". {{mapframe}} in the Get around section adds a dynamic map to the page and the adds the "Has mapframe" category. Each listing template adds a category such as "Has see listing", etc. You can get more info. at Wikivoyage:Categories (note: it's not up to date). Nelson Ricardo (talk) 23:48, 24 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I looked at the code for "Predefinição:Cidade guia" (even though I'm no expert). It looks like categories are added in the Main namespace, so they won't appear on "Utilizador:" pages. Nelson Ricardo (talk) 00:24, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Felipe, Dario, Ricardo, I renew my suggestion to implement the script in my pt:voy sandbox, into the Mediawiki config file, and afterwards, to apply the translation into Portuguese. Stop using the old unmaintained script, will facilitate to get support outside pt:voy. --Andyrom75 (talk) 10:55, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Does anyone here know why these boxes are so distorted and are all in different sizes with different alignments? Here's just an example on how distorted the text and the box sizes are:
On mobile:
Mobile
On desktop:
Desktop
Additionally, the event listing is not coming up on the map in Stratford (Victoria). Is it just meant to appear when the event is happening?
Yes, please provide the article where you are seeing this the distortion. Re the event template: I suspect it was abandoned before completion. It doesn't even have an edit link like all other listing types (so you can't use the listing editor), you can't choose "event" as the listing type in the drop-down another listing (so it appears to be a non-standard type), and now it seems to not add a marker to the mapframe. I looked into using it on my pet Star article a while ago, but decided that its deficiencies were too great and used "Do" listings instead. Nelson Ricardo (talk) 20:13, 11 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This new (or reopened) discussion is occasioned by discussion at User talk:Nikoghosyanmarianna. ThunderingTyphoons! believes that the following text implicitly disallows most walking tour listings:
"In practice this policy disallows listing most audio tours and guided tours
No-one is proposing a ban on all walking tour listings, so I won't copy that entire thread here, but I will copy the conclusion and the following two sections:
It's been over a week with no new comments. A few proposals have been made, the two main ones being to (a) change the policy to allow free walking tours, and (b) change the policy to allow walking tours in general. Proposal (a) has gotten significant opposition; proposal (b) has gotten clear opposition from AndreCarrotflower but support or an ambiguous response from everyone else. Can we find consensus to allow walking tours? Of course if it turns out to lead to too much touting or other problems, we can always change our minds later. —Granger (talk·contribs) 12:00, 16 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
No new comments in a while, but in the discussion above there's been general support and little opposition to the proposal. I'm editing the policy accordingly. —Granger (talk·contribs) 00:11, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion after policy change
I'm not sure it's good to allow all walking tours. Maybe it should be specified that "Walking tours may be listed, provided that the value added over an individual taking a walk by themselves is clearly indicated and no motorized transportation is included or offered by the organizers for any part of the tour". Then we could see how this plays out and revisit it if we don't like the results. Maybe my proposed language is too specific, but I don't think we want a bunch of totally generic listings. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:31, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
No. I think we discussed walking tours that are truly valuable. The current changed wording allows tours that give nothing more than you get by walking around by yourself with a leaflet in your hands. That the value added should be clearly stated is a good point. --LPfi (talk) 09:29, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
How are we ever going to evaluate walking tours based on Ikan Kekek's proposed wording? I think it's trying to fix a problem that we don't have, and is too cumbersome to put into a policy. Ground Zero (talk) 12:20, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
No, you misunderstand: We don't evaluate generically listed tours through independent research; whoever posts the listing has to include some kind of language explaining the value added. That value added could be that the guides are trained historians, for example, or that they will show people buildings that are off the beaten path, or whatever (there are a million and one possibilities), but something should be included to explain why it's better than someone walking through a place by themselves. Ikan Kekek (talk) 13:30, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
But why do we think that this is a problem we have to address through policy? Do we have a policy about restaurants that serve food that isn't as good as food you'd cook at home? We have a general policy about not including places that aren't worth going to -- we leave them out. Why don't we just add walking tours to the list of examples there? Ground Zero (talk) 13:50, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
At the very least, we need to specify that no motorized vehicles can be included in the tour, because any tour agency could claim that if they bus people somewhere and then they walk a little, it's a "walking tour". But the reason is that this guide is expressly designed for people who want to take their own initiative - in other words, mainly independent travelers. I don't think we want to open the floodgates this wide to tour operators. If we do, wait and see whether our articles get overwhelmed with low-quality listings. Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:00, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I am happy with Ikan's wording. (I don't think that we should exclude tours that make use of scheduled public transport - "we will take the train to the lake and walk back into town along the river", but the transport is not "included".) In particular, I would like to be able to add the walks organised by local history societies. AlasdairW (talk) 22:36, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Do you prefer any of these or have another proposal?
1. "Walking tours may be listed, provided that the listing explains how they are superior to an individual taking a walk by themselves and no motorized transportation is included or offered by the organizers for any part of the tour. Taking public transit to or from the walking tour is fine."
2."Walking tours may be listed, provided that no motorized transportation is included or offered by the organizers for any part of the tour. Taking public transit to or from the walking tour is fine."
3. Current language: "This policy doesn't prohibit walking tours."
I prefer #1, though #2 is also better (because more specific) than the current language, and seems to be fairly popular in the thread above. I found a form of words to substitute for "value added", so as not to suggest these sentences apply to walking tours:
Tours can be listed on Wikivoyage as long as they constitute a value-added activity. If a traveller could fulfill the substance of the tour on their own, the tour should not be listed.
I think #1 is the only one including the main point, that worthless tours should not be listed. The policy on not listing boring places does not work for these tours without that language, as somebody has to take that tour and find it boring for it to be removed. --LPfi (talk) 20:51, 9 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Wording #1 is redundant to our general policy about not including places that aren't worth going to -- we leave them out. See Wikivoyage:Avoid negative reviews. Since the point is already covered more effectively there, let's not add more policy that could just confuse contributors. I support #2. Ground Zero (talk) 23:15, 9 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that the tour can be listed by a tout, and then cannot be removed by us who do not know this particular tour (unless there are plenty of tour listings with better descriptions). Restaurants are often easier, as locals will know them. Locals seldom take these tours, so whom should we ask? --LPfi (talk) 23:43, 9 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Ground Zero, do you really think it's too much to ask whomever adds a walking tour listing to make at least some kind of statement of how the tour is better than just walking without a tour? Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:43, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Because all contributions here are effectively anonymous (Ground Zero isn't even my real name), we don't ever know whether a contributor is a tout or a traveller giving useful information. We can only tell if something sounds like touting. I don't see how a tout assuring us that his/her walking tour is informative, entertaining and stays crunchy in milk makes the listing any more or less worthy of having. We rely on the word of the contributor that the information they provide is accurate anyway. A clever tout doesn't use hyperbole, and will tell us what we want to hear. As with restaurant listings; as with hotel listings; as with rutabaga festival listings. Ground Zero (talk) 02:26, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The current language seems fine to me. #2, in my eyes, just spells out what "walking tour" means, and #1 seems to impose a requirement we don't have anywhere else; would we remove a hotel if it were added with no details beyond its name? And if we would, then we can do that with tours, as well, without writing it here. ARR8 (talk | contribs) 15:55, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hotel listings with no description are very commonly removed. But what you and Ground Zero are ignoring is that all travelers need someplace to stay, but a walking tour is optional. So in no way does a hotel have to be more than generic to be listed, but you really want every and all walking tours listed, no matter what? Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:19, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If we get too many listings, wouldn't we just take the ones out that provide useful info? It really seems like we're imagining problems that we don't have. If someone starts loading dozens of walking tours into an article, sure, let's discuss that. I will even say, "Ikan Kekek was right". It seems really unlikely to happen, so it's not worth putting in cumbersome easy-to-dodge rules into the policy. Ground Zero (talk) 01:05, 11 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
So far, it doesn't look like there's a consensus behind any modification of the current language, so this is likely to be what happens, but I would observe that it's in any case extremely easy to evade the guidelines on touting: All that a business or marketer has to do is give positive descriptions to a bunch of mediocre-or-worse hotels or restaurants that don't obviously run afoul of the guidelines. I think you'd agree that "because they can be evaded" is not a great reason not to have guidelines. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:09, 11 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
But having existing rules that address bad tours is justification for not adding more rules that will not be effective. A bad tour is a bad tour. A listing without information is a listing without information. We can take them out without another rule. Ground Zero (talk) 01:16, 11 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'm okay with any of the three wordings. 1 and 2 strike me as almost equivalent, because the extra guidance in 1 is basically redundant with other parts of the policy. —Granger (talk·contribs) 01:47, 11 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I prefer #2. I'd say I'm okay with us including walking tour listings in our articles, but perhaps the number of walking tours listed per article should be limited (perhaps, to 3 listings per article or so? Maybe this could be included in policy text.) --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 02:29, 11 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Even if all types of walking tours may be listed, do we need new language to more clearly state that?
Leaving the past and going back to 2021, I would ask the question of whether, if we do maintain a lack of restrictions on the kinds of walking tours that may be listed: Do we need to change the wording of this article to make it clearer that there aren't any "value-added" requirements for walking tours? Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:33, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the wording should be changed, as it's not at all clear from the policy that "a lack of restrictions on the kinds of walking tours that may be listed" has even been established. I quote myself:
"The only mention of walking tours in the policy is "This policy doesn't prohibit listing walking tours."; it doesn't say "All walking tours may be listed", and it certainly doesn't mean that (whether it was intended to mean that is another matter entirely). What the policy does say is "In practice this policy disallows listing most audio tours and guided tours since the substance of such tours can generally be fulfilled by an independent traveller, and the information provided on such tours should ideally be included in the appropriate Wikivoyage article." I would take "guided tours" to implicitly include walking tours."
You guys may have decided to allow all types of walking tours, but the resulting policy doesn't show this, nor does it make a distinction between walking tours and other types of guided tours. Because of this, I have interpreted the policy to mean that only "value-added" tours of any kind (i.e. including those made on foot) are permitted.
Despite Ikan Kekek's insistence to the contrary, I am not trying to change the policy; if there is in fact no restriction on the kind of walking tour which may be listed, and the "value-added" requirement only exists for other types of tour (if so, which tours?) then that's fine by me. I only ask that the actual policy be properly worded to reflect this fact. If I've misinterpreted the policy, the fault is not mine for failing to read a long historical thread, the fault is with the policy's wording not being clear enough.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 23:56, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, I think you're trying to change the policy as I understand it, but I fully grasp your points about what the article appears to say. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:29, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Ikan Kekek: And to be doubly clear, I'm not trying to change the policy. There are many things of which you have a much better understanding than I do, but my own mind and intentions are not among those things. It's rather annoying that you won't take my word for this, and makes me question why I should bother commenting further when you won't show me such a basic courtesy.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 09:11, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies, but I'm having trouble following the sequence of events as each thread seems to link back to another one and refer to "current policy" without consistently quoting that current policy for future readers. I admit I didn't even know we'd changed the policy on walking tours at all. Now it seems we allow walking-tour listings as explicit exceptions to the "value-add" policy? Why in heaven's name? Powers(talk)02:00, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I shall quote from the thread copied from the archives:
Because all contributions here are effectively anonymous (Ground Zero isn't even my real name), we don't ever know whether a contributor is a tout or a traveller giving useful information. We can only tell if something sounds like touting. I don't see how a tout assuring us that his/her walking tour is informative, entertaining and stays crunchy in milk makes the listing any more or less worthy of having. We rely on the word of the contributor that the information they provide is accurate anyway. A clever tout doesn't use hyperbole, and will tell us what we want to hear. As with restaurant listings; as with hotel listings; as with rutabaga festival listings. Ground Zero (talk) 02:26, 10 January 2019 (UTC)
In any case, the entire point of this thread is that the current state of policy is not clear, but I think if you read through the posts I copied here, you will probably agree that a decision was made to allow walking tour listings without restrictions as to their content or whether you could do the same tour yourself without a guide. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:57, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Dear all, having read through the past threads, I believe the policy can be made more clear on this so there is no need to come back to the same question over and over. I like the point of the tour to have "added value" however we should be more understanding of that term. I am not a guide myself (I use my real name, you can check it), but I am familiar with the travel industry. For example, added-value can be a particular knowledge (history, birdwatching, architecture, etc), access to specific gear without which you can't do that tour (jeep, climbing, kayak, camping, etc), or even the fact that it's not advisable to travel to certain places alone without a local guide for safety concerns (a site can be close to a border, it can be close to wild animal habitat, unsafe neighborhood, etc). There is probably more to this, but my point is that we need to look at the term value-added broader. --Nikoghosyanmarianna (talk) 07:32, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"you will probably agree that a decision was made to allow walking tour listings without restrictions as to their content or whether you could do the same tour yourself without a guide." - Yes, that seems to have been the decision you guys made at the time, a decision which - I repeat - I'm happy to go along with and don't seek to change. But the wording of the policy ("This policy doesn't prohibit listing walking tours.") does not reflect the decision you made, which is why until last night I didn't realise walking tours had been made an exception to the 'value-added' requirement. That is the thing that needs changing.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 09:22, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
To make the wording clearer, maybe we should change the first sentence from "Tours can be listed on Wikivoyage as long as they constitute a value-added activity." to "Tours can be listed on Wikivoyage as long as they constitute a value-added activity or are done entirely by walking." AlasdairW (talk) 13:40, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
About the "entirely by walking" clause: Imagine that Tourist Town has two guided tours. One happens on foot in a small area; one happens on bicycle in a large area. Both are organized by the local historical society. Do we intend to treat these differently? WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:58, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. That's as clear as possible.
If anyone would like to reargue the policy, we should do that, too. Powers, would you like to start a new (sub)thread?
I think we should also clarify whether "ride your own bike tours" are included. Are "drive your own car" tours included - follow the orange leader's car and stop at several sites for commentary? I hadn't thought of either as value added, but tours where the hire of a bike, car or horse was included are value added. AlasdairW (talk) 19:58, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I would include tours by bike, skateboard, canoe etc. I am not sure about those by car, mainly because they can cover much larger areas outside the city that has the listing. A walking tour may be just of Edinburgh/Old Town. A tour by bike could cover a larger part of Edinburgh, but a tour by car might cover the Central Belt. AlasdairW (talk) 22:27, 22 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe we should start by saying that basic restriction plainly: "Group tours by bus/coach are only included under extraordinary circumstances, such as when that tour is the only way to visit a restricted location."
Where WV:Tour currently bans "audio" tours, I assume that self-guided audio tours inside museums aren't exactly banned, just should be mentioned (if at all) in the normal listing for the museum. (Unless there have been disputes/confusion around that, then I think that line should be left alone.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:51, 22 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it's definitely fine to mention any type of tours a museum (or a cathedral or whatever) does in its listing, just not separately as additional listings. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:33, 22 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Why are walking tours special?
Contrary to what Ikan posted above, I don't find the previous discussions clear at all, though I'm not disputing the presence of a consensus (I just find it very hard to follow the conversation as it refers back to previous discussions and previous wording of the policy). But even if I accept the consensus, I'm still puzzled as to the reasoning for exempting walking tours *specifically* from a policy that otherwise seems to have served us very well in the past. Powers(talk)22:11, 22 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
To summarize the way this change in policy unfolded, I was one of the people who was unhappy about having to delete "free" walking tour listings over and over, so I proposed to allow free walking tours. Others pointed out that "free" tours usually informally required a tip at the end. Because it would have taken a lot of time and could cause a lot of disputes to determine which tours were really free - or if not free, good values - the question then became whether to allow walking tour listings or continue to almost always disallow them. And I have to say, I really don't think that our previous policy of nearly always deleting walking tours served anyone well.
My feeling is that this site mostly caters to independent travelers. Independent travelers don't take package tours and generally avoid guided bus tours. However, they might well enjoy a guided walking tour (or a bike tour, etc.), especially if the guide knows all kinds of things about local history that would be hard for them to know where to look up, themselves. It's really a question of how hard a line we want to draw between typical tourists on package tours and absolutely uncompromising independent travelers who hunt and gather for their own food and camp in tents they construct from local materials, etc. :-) Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:40, 22 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
What is different about a guided walking tour as compared to a guided bus tour, from the perspective of the independent traveler? (And, relatedly, what does "independent traveler" mean in this case?) Powers(talk)19:48, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I see several differences between walking and bus tours:
Walking tours can only cover a short distance. So they "belong in the city" that they are listed in. A bus tour can cover 200 miles, and so it is not really relevant to the city it starts from (we could say bus tours less than 10 miles but that gets complicated).
Walking tours are generally run by small local operators, including non-profit heritage bodies and individual tour guides. Bus tours are more commercial, including operators which run tours in multiple cities, and tend to advertise more than walking tours.
Walking tours are much more likely to allow travellers to ask questions - contrast this with a taped bus commentary, or trying to ask a question when sitting in te back seat of a bus.
Walking tours are more likely to be part of an independently planned day in the city - many last 1-2 hours. Bus tours can be much longer, and include "14 day tour of the west coast".
I think that originally we were against guided tours as an attempt to encourage editors to create itineraries, but that has failed. AlasdairW (talk) 21:08, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
So non-guided walking tours are allowed, in part because they are generally run by small local operators and allow travelers to ask questions? I guess I just don't get it. Powers(talk)01:54, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure I understand what "non-guided walking tours" means in this discussion. Are these self-guided tours where you download the information and follow it on your own, like our itinerary articles? —Granger (talk·contribs) 09:48, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Or get the leaflet from the tourist office. I suppose we still require good value from tours listed, and if there is no information on why a tour is special, it can be removed with no thorough research. I understand bus tours are less attractive for independent travellers for many reasons, but the distance shouldn't be one of them. Tours that cover more than the city should go in Go next or in the region article, or whatever, but that is no reason to forbid them (the "history of the universe" walking tour over here, transforming years into (milli?)metres, crosses the city boundary – as do many hikes, guided or not). –LPfi (talk) 11:16, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it'd be listed in the regional article, I'd think. To answer a previous question, I guess I did mean "self-guided" rather than "non-guided". They obviously don't allow travelers to ask questions, though, so "you can ask questions!" seems like an odd reason to permit self-guided tours to be listed (especially when, say, bus tours, which do allow people to ask questions, are prohibited unless they provide a "value add" beyond what a person could do in a private car). And I'm still curious what is meant by "independent traveler" and why the site should focus on them versus non-independent travelers. Powers(talk)15:03, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You've been on this site and its predecessor longer than I have, have you not? Hasn't this site always catered to independent travelers? I would be OK with changing that focus, but if we do, we'll be once again in the position of having to spend time vetting bus tours, package tours, etc. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:39, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Well I can't answer that because I'm still not quite sure what you mean by it. I don't remember seeing any policy documentation that mentions the term. Powers(talk)21:49, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There have been talk page discussions about this for ages, featuring departed admins as well as continuing ones. You really don't remember any of them? Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:39, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Getting back to a focus on language (though we can certainly talk about the differences between independent travelers and package/bus tour tourists): Do we need to change the language of the tour listing guidelines, and if so, what change should we agree to? Would it be better to enumerate what can't be listed than what can be? Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:46, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
To my understanding, any type of walking tour may be listed if the listing isn't touty, etc., but there is some disagreement about this. So if you have the time, please look at Wikivoyage talk:Listings#Another thread on walking tours. I've quoted rather extensively from existing relevant discussion that was archived, but I post at the beginning of the thread and also started a new subthread at the end about whether we need new language at Wikivoyage:Listings to lay out guidelines on walking tours more clearly. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:37, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
We are currently adding listings directly to articles. However, my idea is to list attractions in their own pages in a new namespace, and transclude them instead. There are several advantages to doing this:
Permanently closed attractions are usually removed from articles. Because it's a lot harder to find something within page revisions, this makes it hard for anyone who wants to look up a former attraction for reference. If each listing had its own page, then the listing templates could easily be adjusted to prevent transclusion if the attraction is marked as closed.
Some listings may appear in more than one place. For example, Kitt Peak National Observatory is listed on both Astronomy and South Central Arizona. Putting a listing into its own page would allow us to update the listing for all places at once.
It would be easier to find information for lesser-known attractions via Wikidata.
If an article has many listings, then editors don't have to scroll through a bunch of text if manually editing the code. This would also reduce edit conflicts for heavily-edited articles.
It's generally considered a best practice to modularize data.
I would generally oppose this change. Transcluding them can be done, but only via a different namespace as far as I know although that is part of your proposal. We do transclude certain things like Template:Canadian national park passes into all Canadian parks, so it's easier to keep things updated about Canadian Parks passes, but it doesn't really work that way for listings.
This also means that it can sometimes make things harder for those who don't know how transclusions work, and even for those who basically are familiar with transclusions, like me where my userpage is full of transclusions and templates, it's also a lot more time consuming. I'll take an example of what I once did recently in Ķemeri National Park recently. Went to their park and tourism website, and added them as I went. Didn't require too much effort nor time and it was pretty convenient.
I'll also share my experience on a wiki where this is done. On Wikispecies, this is done quite frequently, but given how time consuming it is through transcluding things, it has basically driven me away. On the other hand, I did see a duplicate word used on many pages, and instead of going on every single page where that text is used, all I needed to fix was that one template.
And finally then we have the touts who all they want is to promote their business. I can only imagine how easy it is for them to promote their business, and non-admins trying to have to delete that transclusion (although it's mostly Ikan Kekek who handles touts, and they're a 'crat here) and given that we don't have an eliminator group here.
Transclusions are a good thing, but not for listings. OTOH, templates are good, but those are also basically transclusions. It is a good concept, but the cons outweigh the pros to this. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 07:33, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Building on what SHB says about the experience of other wikis, the English Wikipedia tried this for some citations (which get re-used there far more often than we re-use any listings there), and it was not a good thing in the end. It was confusing even for experienced editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:33, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It was mostly done for medical journal articles, so if you don't play in that area, you might not have run across them. I think they were officially deprecated more than five years ago. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:56, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I am open about this proposal. Diffs are weird when a listing has been added, removed or moved, and being able to transclude a listing both in the destination article and in an itinerary would be nice. However, if editing a number of listings in an article (in wikitext mode) involves copying and pasting the listing name into the search box, right clicking the match, and clicking the edit tab – for each of the listings – that won't fly. Another problem is how to avoid cluttering the new namespace (we'd have many "Joe's bar" and "Sandy beach") and still make creating, finding and recognising the listings easy. Have such problems been considered and feasible solutions outlined? –LPfi (talk) 09:43, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't thinking about places with the same name and do agree it's an issue. For example, Burger King has almost 40,000 locations worldwide. Even a disambiguation page could become impractical in this case! --Ixfd64 (talk) 17:34, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly oppose. In general, this would overhaul the entire system that Wikivoyage is built upon, and the way I look at it, the disadvantages outweigh the advantages and sheer effort of materialising this proposal. Just going point by point on your listed advantages:
Sounds great, but in practise this will leave you with a transclusion in an article that will print an error once a listing is removed, so this makes a single edit per page where the listing is mentioned into a N+1 amount of edits (N= amount of articles with this listing). You don't just remove the listing, you also remove every transclusion in an article. Furthermore, you cannot reasonably generalise descriptions for listings, seen as how as a result of the policy of listing listings in the most bottom-level article, each use case will be specific.
As a direct continuation of the previous argument: If a restaurant appears in multiple articles, it should be different locations of the same branch, thus having different phone numbers, lat/longs and addresses. If an attraction appears in multiple articles, it can be more specific depending on the article. A heritage railway, for example, could see specific details about rolling stock added to a "Rail travel in X" article, whereas the article for "X" would contain more general information. Using your own example, Astronomy is a more specialised article and therefore can and should go into further depth than the listing in South Central Arizona. I know little about astronomy, but I would expect to hear why Kitt Peak is such a notable observatory and what makes it stand out in Astronomy, while a brief overview is plenty for South Central Arizona, as observatories aren't for everyone and some might want to just gloss over it.
Please explain how you think this would be easier. If you want to avoid having seventy-nine listings of "Joe's Bar" as LPfi suggests, you'd index these by a serial number, so a drink listing could be DR(ink)563154 instead of simply "Joe's Bar". Index numbers aren't insightful to mere mortal people though. How many Wikidata item IDs can you name from the top of your head? You would have to look them up each and every time. Sure, you could offload a lot of the major attractions to Wikidata, but we already do this. Wikidata integration in listings has been up and running for a good few years.
Are edit conflicts really a frequent issue to the point that this argument is valid? Generally, data stays valid for a good while. If a listing really requires updating, it won't be likely that a dozen editors immediately edit the same article. Furthermore, editing via the Listing Editor should avoid edit conflicts from forming, and when they do, it's because someone edited the same listing as you were editing it, which, again, I don't think is a frequent occurrence. The only edit conflicts I have ever encountered over ~5100 edits were in the Pub, never in an article.
Modularising is only worth it if the data lends itself to modularisation. Sure, the information we list can be modularised, but as mentioned, both the names for listings and their description in each use case/article varies and is best left to be filled in by the editor adding said listing. Let's also not forget that sometimes, listings come as simple markers. Versatility in what elements would be transcluded from a template-ified listing would break great articles such as Alkmaar that don't hold true to the generic bulleted list concept we've all stuck to over time. I would even argue that articles such as Alkmaar are nicer to read because of them not following bulleted lists, and this edit would be likely to break that, destroying great articles in its wake.
Sure, modularising listings might seem like a rational idea, but it goes a few steps too far from being a practical change if you'd ask me. Not even to mention that you would be making listings less tangible if it's buried deep down in a different namespace than the one the reader generally interacts with. So no, this would add too many hurdles, have too many specific use-cases to adapt to to be a logical change, and would furthermore overhaul the website as whole with no real benefit to anyone in particular while also removing or seriously overhauling the process that many editors here are comfortable and well-versed in. If anything, such an overhaul would break the flow of more editors than it would improve. It's definitely a strong no from me, but feel free to write a practical concept of this idea that would be easy to use on a site-wide scale. I doubt it will change my mind, but there's a small chance that this might pass if the concept is more tangible than a mere proposal. -- Wauteurz (talk) 10:44, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the well thought out response. For the first case, there wouldn't necessarily be any errors. It should be possible to configure the listing templates to simply not display anything if the attraction is marked as closed. Something like adding a closed parameter and putting the listing inside noinclude tags should be doable.
I do agree that that having multiple places that share the same name would be an issue. For example, Burger King has almost 40,000 locations worldwide. Even a disambiguation page could become impractical in this case!
I think this has been considered before on another travel website. The proposed form here might be more "community-palatable" than a prior suggestion, and I'm inclined to see its merits, but it would require massive changes to the structure of WV, and therefore I don't think it would be appropriate at the present time. At Special:RecentChanges we're fortunate to get an edit per minute, and with only a few dozen regular contributors (at most), this would put a massive burden on the community. As it is, we are slowly but steadily improving our article coverage, and many countries have achieved usable status across all or almost all destinations. Continuing this process appears to be a best path forward while our contributor base is limited. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 21:26, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely for fast food chains. There's no questioning McDonalds (but we don't list maccas per wv:boring), but others like KFC, Hungry Jacks (as you mentioned above) or even donut stores like Dunkin's Donuts can have up to tens of thousands of listings. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 01:16, 2 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
oppose, mostly. Afaik there was an initiative to move some attributes into wikidata (e.g. phone numbers of hotels) - data that could be shared between multiple languages and wiki pages. I think :de:wv tried it. In any case that's about how far I'd go. I see your point and in a non-wiki database, it'd be an obvious thing to do. But unless you significantly improve the page/listing editor to make this mostly transparent to the users, it is hardly acceptable. -- andree19:23, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Centralized information is always a great idea, that's why Wikidata has been created and why we use (only partially at the moment) the wikidata "link" in every listing. But I oppose to the idea of transclude the listings because on top on all the cons already mentioned above, there's another one: when we edit and save a listing in an article, we'll land in the page of the transcluded listing instead of the main article. I can't imagine anything more annoying than this, especially when you need to update a dozen of listings. Ah let me add another technical point: listing editor would stop working as it is, and shall be at least partially modified. --Andyrom75 (talk) 10:51, 8 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Today I noticed that there is an extra envelope at an email address in a listing: the one front of the email address and also one after it. Didn't I notice this second one before, or is it new?
It's not because of the listing but for any "clickable-email": mailto:mail@server.com. It should be a new WMF setting. If confirmed there are two choices:
hide this new feature through a dedicated CSS
change the listing output to eliminate the first ✉ symbol
When I asked my question, it was because I noticed it here on English WV, checking the Dutch WV learned that it did not happen there. But today I checked the Dutch WV again and the same is happening there now as well.
Did WMF inform us about this change, including a warning that we might need to change things (like templates and help documentation)? If not, should we complain about it to WMF? Can we expect more of such changes, like for phone numbers?
I'd not blame the icon. The address is 40 chars, so the probability of it ending up in the hyphenation zone is quite big. Try widening the browser window (or narrowing it until you have the icon near the first column) and see whether there is still a line break after the icon. For me the line break disappeared. Non-Unicode browser might get odd control characters because of the icon (fs and ht + bit8), but I assume that's not your problem. –LPfi (talk) 09:30, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
SHB2000, I suppose you are talking of the existing icon. In this case, yes we could avoid the separation between icon and address, however, if I understand correctly the community will is to eliminate that icon, keeping the new one, and the new one do not have this issue. --Andyrom75 (talk) 10:05, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
For the phone number, there is an ordinary space, not an , between the icon and the phone number, which will equally allow a line break between the icon and the number. I assume that is voluntary, modelled after printed guides with narrow columns, and the e-mail icon has been behaving similarly. –LPfi (talk) 10:16, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
After a long discussion on it:voy, we landed to the following approach:
substitute the standard WMF icon with a different one
change the position of that icon (from right to left) when the email is inside a listing, since all the symbols/icons are left-sided. In en:voy: only phone symbol is used, but in it:voy, fr:voy, ru:voy etc. are used symbols also for hours, price, etc.
Let's simulate the potential en:voy output here below:
Email outside the listing: text text text esempio@esempio.com text text text
SHB2000, for the sake of clarity, the previous two are the two different cases of email use. Both of them shall be managed. We decided to manage them differently (as in the example first right and second left), but for sure can be managed in the same way (both right or both left). The current en:voy output is the following:
Email outside the listing: text text text esempio@esempio.com text text text
It seems that there are three pieces to the puzzle:
automatic location of the e-mail icon outside of templates (e.g., the middle of a paragraph, in a hand-typed listing): me@example.com
original location of the e-mail icon in a listing: ✉ me@example.com
the location of the telephone icon in a listing: ☏ +1 555-123-4567
This suggests that the choices are:
have the e-mail icon locations match for e-mail everywhere on the page, but not match the phone location inside the listing templates, or
have the e-mail and phone icon locations match inside the listing templates, but not match e-mail addresses typed outside of templates.
Rather than making a stylistic choice, I'm inclined to go with the simplest technical approach, which I think means removing the original icon from the templates and letting MediaWiki handle it. The reason I favor the least-intervention approach is because I think it will require the least amount of effort in the future, if (when) things change again. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:31, 15 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Generally speaking what WhatamIdoing says is true, on the other side any wiki-project and language version is full of personalization. That said. If the consensus goes in the direction to remain stick to the WMF style, is enough to change Template:listing, while other approaches I'm able to support in case of need; just ping me :-) --Andyrom75 (talk) 22:09, 15 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Since the discussion has fizzled, I've gone ahead and implemented option 2, which is easy and seems to have the most support. Of course we can switch to a different option if consensus goes that way. —Granger (talk·contribs) 09:20, 29 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
text text text
example@example.com. Mon-Sun. 1€.
