Talk:Albany (New York)

Hotels?

We need a hotel section. When created, definitely mention the Crowne Plaza.(WT-en) BayernMann 02:04, 18 Aug 2005 (EDT)

Toning down 'bad area' language

Recommending that people 'avoid the Arbor Hill exit' without giving a reason is misleading. Should they stay away because it's not the prettiest area for new visitors to see when entering the city? I don't disagree, but it is an authentic part of Albany and not without its historical and neighborhood charm. Is it because it's a high crime area? I take that exit several times a week for the past several years and couldn't imagine that the vast majority of people would feel threatened as they did the same.

In my opinion, in real estate and travel in the US, the term 'bad area' is often used to indicate that an area is a predominanty Black area--whether or not it's true, it can used to justify refusal of real estate and business loans, tourism, and shopping. On a side note, recently I pretty seriously looked into buying investment property in areas including North Albany, I quickly realized that bank loan officers and real estate professionals communicated quite clearly via this sort of code language that I should live in a 'nice area' and stay away from 'those sorts of people'.

Anyhow, I'll get off my soapbox...just wanted to provide some justification for adding reasons people might choose to avoid Arbor Hill or not. I think it's important that they make a concious choice rather than doing so out of a vauge fear.(WT-en) Antonrojo 09:29, 16 Feb 2006 (EST)

I agree - I believe that it is inaccurate to state that the only safe area in Albany to walk is Center Square. Albany has numerous neighborhoods - not just Arbor Hill and Center Square. Are you saying that the downtown business district is unsafe? Pine Hills? New Scotland Ave.? The uptown SUNY area? I think the safe and crime free areas greatly outnumber the "bad areas".

Conversion to templated listings

These edits converted a lot of entries to use templates. The problem is, the entries were written to include the name in-line within a sentence, but our templates place a period after the name of the listing.

For example,

• Hudson-River Bikeway is a long trail for biking, walking, jogging or skating which starts in the Corning Preserve in downtown Albany, right along the Hudson River, and stretches out to Rotterdam Junction in Schenectady County.

has become:

• Hudson-River Bikeway. is a long trail for biking, walking, jogging or skating which starts in the Corning Preserve in downtown Albany, right along the Hudson River, and stretches out to Rotterdam Junction in Schenectady County. 

... which is grammatically incorrect and looks unprofessional.

I want to be clear that I don't support rewording the content to be complete sentences, either; sometimes a simple in-line bolding is the most suitable option for listings and we shouldn't remove those just because our listing templates can't handle it.

I think these changes should be reverted and the old grammar restored.

-- Powers ^(talk) 20:24, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Your point makes sense to me. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:10, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Most of the changes in that diff look OK to me, so I'd suggest that if anything is reverted it be done on a case-by-case basis instead of a wholesale revert. In general we want business listings to use the templates unless there is a specific reason not to do so. -- Ryan • (talk) • 22:40, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Sure, but I didn't interpret Powers as suggesting reverting anything but these particular types of listings. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:20, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

As there is a style tag against the do section any positive contribution from others on how to improve it would be welcome. --Traveler100 (talk) 06:45, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't know for sure why there's a style tag, but I believe it's because quite a few listings lack addresses, and in the case of "Pick apples!", not even names of orchards in the area are given. Some of the listings probably should not be templated, by analogy with the example given above. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:10, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Adding listing format is my usual first pass through a page. Next stage is adding detail which always highlights out of date listings and issues like the one you mention. As this is a time consuming task any assistance on updating the page would be great. --Traveler100 (talk) 08:34, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I've been very busy doing professional work tonight. I won't have the time to deal with this today, most likely. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:20, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Well, let's take the Bikeway example I posted above. Is there a compelling reason to have that be templated? Most of the fields in the template have no applicability to the listing, and using the template would require that we re-word the entry to avoid the sentence fragment. Powers ^(talk) 20:27, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

No, there is no compelling reason for that to be templated. I fully agree with you. What do you think, Traveler100, Ryan and anyone else who'd like to comment? Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:07, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

The bikeway listing now has a URL and lat/long coordinates, so it would seem that the template fields are now being used. -- Ryan • (talk) • 17:04, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

URLs are easily (and frequently) used without a template, and I question the utility of lat/long coordinates for a long trail. Isn't there some way to include things like this within prose without forcing it into the standard listing output format? Powers ^(talk) 16:26, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Maybe I don't understand - is the goal simply so that we can have a listing that reads "The Bike Path is a..." instead of "Bike Path. A..." ? The whole point of the listing templates (and the XML format before that, and the listing formatting guidelines before that) was to bring some consistency to how information is presented, so in cases where there is a URL or other additional data, I don't think the desire to use slightly different prose is a good reason to ignore our listing guidance that "Wikivoyage uses standardized formats" and, more importantly, to undo the work of someone who has tried to convert listings to that standardized format. -- Ryan • (talk) • 17:18, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

It's perhaps an overly simplistic example; as you note, the difference is small. But sometimes prose is more appropriate than listings. Powers ^(talk) 01:40, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

The reason I supported Powers' point about this listing and still have very strong doubts about the use of coordinates that pinpoint a particular point in this case is that this is a bike path that has a length, not a single building or something. Would you support giving "Erie Canal" a geocoded, pinpointed listing in New York (state), to take an extreme example? Or maybe not all that extreme by comparison with this bike path, which the article describes as an "86 mile long trail" [my bolding]. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:34, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

I think it's a fair argument that the lat/long coordinates should be removed for an 86 mile long bike path, but I also think that it would be strange to convert the listing back to prose when that listing is making use of templated listing fields such as URL (and, in the future, possibly directions, hours, or anything that might be added to the listing tags). While some businesses or attractions don't naturally fit into our listing scheme, if someone has spent time making conversions and the listing fields are in use, it seems odd to me to revert. That said, I think this is a minor matter and I don't want to unnecessarily extend this discussion, so if those who are actively working on this article think it should be converted back then let's just do so and move on. -- Ryan • (talk) • 15:37, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't have a strong view about any issue other than geocoding. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:10, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Guide status?

As I read Wikivoyage:City guide status, the only thing that's preventing this article from being a Guide now is the guidelines of using 1-liner listings for "Go next." If we disregard that, I think it's already a Guide.

That said, we might want to consider using strategic bolding to make the "Go next" section easier to read. For example, should we bold the names of the various state parks (I think so)?

In terms of the info about Saratoga, I think it should be possible to summarize the appeal of the place in a single sentence. There's some nice prose in the description, but that would arguably be more appropriate in the Saratoga Springs article, itself.

What do you all think, and what other improvements remain to be done on this article? Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:24, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Agree the Go next section needs some rework. There are also a number of listings that should now be moved to other city pages that have been created. --Traveler100 (talk) 12:25, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Done --Traveler100 (talk) 12:56, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Also I have just gone through the Sleep section, one hotel has changed ownership, one no longer existed and 2 had bad links to web pages. Need to go through the same checks for Eat and Drink sections before considering this article for guide. --Traveler100 (talk) 12:28, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Diligent work. Kudos! Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:57, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

See section also needs addresses for many of the attractions and some are missing web links. --Traveler100 (talk) 13:01, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Most of them have Geo, though, I think. By the way, when the time comes, do you think Albany is small enough to be "Off the Beaten Path"? Seems a bit borderline to me, but probably so. Ikan Kekek (talk) 13:03, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

State capitals aren't off the beaten path. Powers ^(talk) 16:25, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

You just can't possibly make such a rule. Obvious counterexamples: Pierre, South Dakota; Montpelier, Vermont; Bismarck, North Dakota; Cheyenne, Wyoming; Concord, New Hampshire; Augusta, Maine - should I go on? You tried to claim in a discussion on the Dotm page that there was such a rule about national capitals, and I don't think anyone agreed with you that places like Majuro, Naypyidaw, Yamoussoukro and Malabo should be DotMs just because they're national capitals. Trying to make such a rule for state capitals is even sillier, in my opinion. But I guess we might as well hold off on this side discussion until the article is ready to nominate, which is still some ways off. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:45, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't have a problem naming all of them DotMs. Being state capitals, lots of people have to travel there for government/civic business, if nothing else. Powers ^(talk) 01:40, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

In 2013, the estimated population of Montpelier was 7,755. Yet you wouldn't consider it off the beaten path for a traveler. Your opinion is noted. In any case, Albany is a real city, and not small. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:44, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Surely you're not implying that population alone is a good metric to use to determine DotM status? Powers ^(talk) 02:42, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

No. But you're outright stating that merely being a capital of a country or state is conclusive. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:44, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

It's possible there may be some exceptions, but Albany, to me, clearly cannot be one of them. Cohoes is off the beaten path. Maybe Troy. But not the capital of the third most populous state in the U.S., which lies at the junction of two major rivers and two major Interstate highways, has an international airport, and is the center of a metropolitan region of almost a million people. Most state capitals can say the same or similar. Powers ^(talk) 14:38, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

We can point to this discussion any time this article is good enough for a nomination. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:02, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Thacher State Park

The park is listed in the See section and Go Next section. Which should it be in, or should a page for the park be created? --Traveler100 (talk) 19:53, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

kept in the Go Next section. --Traveler100 (talk) 20:52, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

I just checked - it's in Voorheesville, New York, but as you can see, there's no article for that village. Albany in fact seems to be the nearest city that has an article. I haven't been to the park, so I don't know whether it justifies its own article or not. In terms of creating an article about the village of Voorheesville, I'm pretty uncertain about that, too. For what it's worth, Tripadvisor lists 2 things to do there, one of which is the park.

I think that since this park needs a listing, it could be put in "See#Outside of town" or some similar subsection. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:13, 11 November 2015 (UTC)