Talk:Buffalo/Downtown

Quick review

Per Andre's request, here are my thoughts after looking over this a bit:

1. Excise the description of the street boundaries, because it's not interesting to read (unlike the preceding paragraph), and already conveyed by the maps! If you want to mention the Medical Corridor, find a different way, since the lede should ideally be catchy and snappy, to make the reader want to continue.
2. I have no right to tell anyone to cut down history sections ;) That said, this is all interesting stuff and definitely has a place in the article. The editor in me says, though, to cut down on the length of individual paragraphs, which can be done by trimming the verbiage without sacrificing too much content, for the benefit of lazy eyes. If there's any overlap with Buffalo#History, mark that first for trimming.
3. Info on typical parking garage rates would be nice.
4. I would cut down on the bus details dramatically (especially because a lot of tourists skip buses). Just pick a couple key routes going to other districts. A decent example of how to handle a complex downtown bus system efficiently might be Washington,_D.C./East_End#By_bus. Chicago/Loop#By_bus is even more terse. The bigger districts require a bit more information, but still it pays to be frugal with the route descriptions. Washington,_D.C./Northeast#By_bus is, I think, the best example for a larger district, as the information is both necessary (MetroRail doesn't hit some of the principal attractions) and sharply tailored to a traveler's needs. Chicago/Southwest Side#By bus is a good example of an even simpler bus overview for a large district. Linking the schedules is great, though.
5. Separate MetroRail from the buses.
6. Get rid of the "Get around" section. We generally skip that for districts and roll it into Get in. Especially for the smaller districts, it's best to keep the details to a minimum, since someone can just walk and look at one of our maps. For the larger districts, the get in information just winds up being the same as get around.
7. Consider moving major festivals out to the main article's do section, as they are draws to the city, not just to downtown. Smaller neighborhood festivals (those that are worth mentioning) are usually better in their respective districts, however.
8. You probably already intend to do this, but remember to get hours information for everything possible--it's really the most important detail.

More generally, try to condense your writing in listings descriptions, and perhaps everything else too. As it stands, I'm pretty sure this would be the longest district article on the site (should it be?), nearly twice as long as any Chicago district article, and the many drink items don't even have descriptions yet! Going back over this with a heartless pen and with "less is more" written backwards on your glasses would be worthwhile ;)

I should say that this is a pretty quick review by someone with a good eye for skimming district articles. I haven't gone through and read all the prose in the listings, or read for detail errors, like I would for a star nomination. Hope it's helpful! --Peter ^Talk 21:49, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi, hope you don't mind me reading the in-progress page. I agree with what Peter says, with a couple of additional comments:

• In the Get in section, are any of the MetroRail stations of particular note for travellers? We don't usually list every station in the district, just the ones that are close to key attractions or transportation hubs (stations that are of interest to travellers). I think a brief description of what's close to the station helps, too (Chicago/Near North#By train is kind of what I mean, although it doesn't list specific stations).
• I think some of the See and Do listings could have less history and description. I always like history and background, but it gets to be a lot of text. As Peter said, less is more (at least sometimes).

Anyway, it's great work that you're doing. Keep it up! -Shaundd (talk) 23:02, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Peter, I'm sorry—I'd been keeping tabs on your talk page and on my own, but I hadn't thought to look for your response here, so I'd missed this until now. And you're right, the "You have new messages" popup didn't happen either.

All of your suggestions are well taken. A couple of additional comments:

• Though I agree that the "By public transportation" section here is way too long, I still think the template that I've set up in this article for the buses will be good for the other districts (which, by and large, each contain no more than four or five bus routes of interest to visitors). The problem, as I see it, is the sheer number of buses that go downtown. If the list of buses were exhaustive, it would be at least three times its current length. I think that, rather than paring the list down further, what should be done in the unique case of the Downtown district is to merely mention that downtown is accessible by virtually all NFTA bus lines, either directly or via the Metro Rail, and direct readers to the NFTA website for more detailed information. I will likely move the description of the Metro Transportation Center to that section as well.

• Regarding Shaundd's addendum about the Metro Rail: though there are some stations that are more useful to visitors (i.e. convenient to attractions) than others, I would be very hesitant to say that there are any stations on the line that don't merit a mention at all, if the criteria is the number of nearby attractions. As for "a brief description of what's close to the station", I wonder if that wouldn't be redundant since I've added nearby rail stations to the Directions section of each attractions listing. Though I will likely split it off into its own section per Peter's suggestion, I envision keeping the bulk of the information on the Metro Rail the same.

-- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 05:51, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Thoughts from LtPowers

Sorry it took so long!

• Understand
  • The second sentence is worded ambiguously; it sounds as if the "range of restaurants, bars, shops, music venues" are in Shea's, rather than in the Theater District -- too many clauses. Suggest rewording for clarity.
  • The history section has too much overlap with Buffalo#History; consider paring it down to the district's essentials.
• Get in
  • Is it worth mentioning that the Kensington is Route 33 and the Skyway is Route 5? It might help non-locals.
  • "that are found there" -- unnecessary verbiage
  • It might be nice to have a map of the MetroRail stations, or at least the above-ground, free portion, since you take the time to identify the stations by intersection. Without a map, it's just so much words to the reader.
  • In the By Train section, I suggest identifying the Dunkirk Depew station by name and link. It's slightly off-topic, but avoids leaving the reader wondering.
  • It's a little confusing having two By Bus sections; I realize one is for public metro buses and the other for private intercity buses, but the distinction isn't clear at first. Perhaps the intercity bus is best left to the main article, even though the station is downtown. Anyone coming from outside the city should be reading the Buffalo article if they want to come in on a bus.
  • Get rid of "this author's opinion"; it may circumvent the letter of Avoid first-person pronouns, but not the spirit. Just state the opinion straight up; there's no need to get into further nuance. It makes for much better travel writing that way. (In fact, consider moving that entire part of the "By foot" section to the top of the "Get in" section; it might make a good introduction!)
• See
  • I'd like to see at least a brief introduction to this section (as well as for Do and Eat).
  • No need to indicate that the Canalside redevelopment is "downtown"; everything in this article is downtown.
  • You can link the Miscellaneous section from the caption that references it.
• Do
  • 2012 is over; update the Thursday at the Harbor listing accordingly.
  • The word "baseball" never appears in the Bisons listing.
  • The titles of books, feature films, television series, and long-format stage productions (A Christmas Carol, Rent, The Lion King, etc.) should be italicized, not quoted.
  • "Western New York" is used here ambiguously; Geva Theatre Center is also a professional regional theatre company, and it is considered by many to be in WNY.
  • Try to find a way to avoid listing Shea's twice. It's more important as a theatrical venue, so I'd just mention the live music in that listing.
• Buy
  • "more and more", "growing number", and "creeping" all convey the same concept of a (perhaps slowly) increasing number; they don't all need to be in one sentence. I'd remove at least "more and more".
  • The "Clothing" header is easily missed as it hangs alone over the left-aligned photograph. This should usually be avoided. Unfortunately, the only way to do it is by breaking the semantics of the markup and putting the image markup before the header. This will put them at the same vertical position once rendered, pushing the Clothing heading to the right over the text, where it should be. Alternatively, move the photograph down immediately before the Tent City listing, although this also breaks the markup semantics (by putting a non-bulleted item in the middle of a bulleted list).
    • The same applies to the "Architecture" heading under See, which I earlier missed because of this very problem. Also the "Splurge" section of Sleep.
• Eat
  • No Anchor Bar?
• Drink
  • Coffeeshops?
• Sleep
  • Shouldn't the hostel be under "Budget", since nothing else is listed there? Or are you trying to keep the organization consistent among all of the district articles?
• Stay healthy
  • We don't usually recommend this section for anything below country level; certainly not for districts. Its contents should be folded into Stay Safe.
• Cope
  • The image caption seems to contradict the listing prose for St. Paul's: how can a church "built by Richard Upjohn in 1849" have been standing in the same spot since 1821? (I assume that the Episcopalians had a different church building at that location prior to 1849?)

Don't let this nit-picking discourage you; if this is the kind of stuff we're having to come up with as criticism, the article is already among the top 100 on the site, period. I said once before I rarely go inside the Interstate loop, but this article is starting to inspire me to check out the harbor and some of the other attractions downtown.

-- LtPowers (talk) 01:23, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

What is Wikivoyage here for, if not to inspire people to travel? :) -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 17:19, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Harborcenter capitalization

While I agree that the official stylization of HARBORCENTER is not suitable for use on Wikivoyage, I think the next-most-common rendering is the CamelCase "HarborCenter". I've never seen it rendered as "Harborcenter" except here. Powers ^(talk) 19:54, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Agreed; I decided a while ago to avoid "HARBORCENTER" and the equally problematic "HARBORcenter", but can't remember why I chose to go with "Harborcenter" over "HarborCenter". My previous edits were a) to preserve continuity, and b) based on the assumption that there must have been a good reason for the capitalization decision. However, Wikipedia uses the CamelCase rendering and it easily passes the Google test as well, so I don't object to the change. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 20:06, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Just Fries

Yelp & Google both say that this restaurant is closed. The link is dead. Has anybody eaten there lately or at least called their phone number?? (I haven't called cause it's long distance for me.) Cpfan776 (talk) 21:43, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Just Fries' location on Genesee Street closed a few months ago; they've since merged with their sister business, Jerk's ice cream parlor, at the latter's Main Street location. They were open as of a few days ago when I passed by there on a walk. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 21:57, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

OK, I'll believe you. But Jerk's website is also dead, and there have been no tweets on Jerk's Twitter account since July. Doesn't sound like a place that is doing well. Cpfan776 (talk) 11:47, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Whether it's doing well is irrelevant. If it's in business and it's a worthwhile place for travellers to visit, then it deserves a listing. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 13:02, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

December 31st, 2017: confirmed still open. See photo at right. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 06:31, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Was a little confused. The listing spends as much on other places as it does about Just Fries and the photo is of a place called Jerk's selling ice cream and hot drinks not fries. Suggest the other locations information have their own listing and the Just Fries rewritten for a soda and ice cream parlor. --Traveler100 (talk) 21:15, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

But Just Fries isn't a soda and ice cream parlor. It sells French fries, and just so happens to share a space with an ice cream shop (Jerk's) that's run by the same owner. I recognize that it's a confusing situation but, as the only one of the three of us who actually lives in Buffalo and has personally patronized this establishment, please trust me that the information is true and up to date and that it's handled in the way that makes the most sense for the traveller. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 21:30, 1 February 2018 (UTC)