Talk:Calendar of events and festivals
Add topicUntitled
[edit]You have to edit Template:Months to change this, but this template gets included at the bottom of all the months too, hence the horizontal strip design. Just in case anyone was confused by this -- (WT-en) Nojer2 08:25, 6 Jan 2005 (EST)
Organization of Monthly Pages
[edit]How should we organize them? I'd suggest seperating events with specific dates from those that are listed with only a general timeframe ("in october every year", for example). -- (WT-en) Nils 20:05, 2 Apr 2004 (EST)
And should we list the specific date of annual events when we have a specific date, but only for say, 2004? (WT-en) Matthewmayer 16:45, 4 Apr 2004 (EDT)
- I'd say list the current year and the next year... ie. two future occurances at most. -- (WT-en) Nils 08:35, 5 Apr 2004 (EDT)
- I think we need more sections for these pages. To me, Specific Date indicates a particular date in a particular year. Every year indicates an event occuring on the same date, or at the same time in the month each year. I feel the sections need to be more like:
- Specific Year
- This Year (Number)
- Next Year (Number)
- Later Years (Numbers)
- Each Year
- Specific Date
- (National) Holidays
- Other Significant Days
- During the month
- Events and festivals
- Specific Date
- What do others think? -- (WT-en) Huttite 01:40, 4 Jan 2005 (EST)
- Me like, just without the excessive capital letters. Also, we should standardize on a format for dates themselves, and I think "Month DD, YYYY" for specific dates and "Month DD" is about as clear and unambiguous as it gets. (WT-en) Jpatokal 03:50, 21 Apr 2005 (EDT)
I went ahead and suggested a standard format. I still like "Month DD" more than "Month DDth", but the latter seems to be more common in the existing entries -- comments welcome. (WT-en) Jpatokal 10:00, 31 Jul 2005 (EDT)
Calendar per country
[edit]I think it's better to make a calendar per country. If I'm travelling in Bolivia I don't really care if it's chinese new year on the other side of the world today.
It also leaves more room for small local events which, for travellers, can be as much or even more fun than the big events. It also possible to include for example election dates in politically unstable countries and music concerts, things also interresting for travellers.
Futhermore some events (carnaval for example) are celebrated very differently in different countries. If we break it up we can give more specific info about where to go, if you should make reservation in advance and what you should expect of it. (WT-en) Ronald 14:43, 25 February 2006 (EST)
- Maybe more regional? If i'm going to the balkan, id like to know what's up their regularly and also this year. Maybe even add it to the Europe : Mediterranean Europe : Balkans - pages? Also, I don't surf to the August page if Im going somewhere, so... I just added some 'events' to several Do headings.
More prominent position
[edit]Hidden away among the travel topics, this event article is very underutilized. I wonder whether it should be given a place on the front page to give it more exposure. (WT-en) WindHorse 22:33, 27 February 2007 (EST)
Specific / Fixed / Movable - dates merger
[edit]Having the dates for a given location split into three completely different parts of the page is unhelpful. It would be much easier to access the information you're looking for if all dates for a given country were in one section. I've tweaked August as an example (), feel free to revert but if so comments here would be appreciated. I propose that the other months be edited to match if there are no objections. ~ 58.8.5.130 04:19, 15 June 2007 (EDT)
- September and October have now also been rehashed to match August. ~ 203.189.134.3 11:47, 9 October 2007 (EDT)
- mmm...missed that. Let me check and rework --(WT-en) Nick 16:00, 24 January 2008 (EST)
- I do think it's a much better way to organise everything - sorry I never got around to the other nine. ~ 203.144.143.4 16:04, 24 January 2008 (EST)
- I agree, it makes more sense to keep everything together. Will have them all done in a couple of minutes --(WT-en) Nick 16:16, 24 January 2008 (EST)
Split Topic info from Help page
[edit]Should this page be split? Currently, it insufficiently serves as a header for the calendar, and also tells how to edit the various pages. Normally, we would link to a page giving detailed wiki edit instructions, leaving these out of the MAIN namespace. If you're not familiar with a wiki, you may not even understand just where the event entries are located once you get here. And if you're looking for info on how to edit the calendar, you'd normally be looking in the help or policy pages.
I think this should be two pages. First, a friendly intro, and second, a Project:Editing the calendar. Just one sentence would refer user from the intro to the how-to, while the emphasis would be on referring user to the actual month pages to find their events. --(WT-en) Bill in STL 19:01, 30 August 2010 (EDT)
- I was about to come here and make the same comment, but I see someone did so three years ago, and nothing has come of it. I think this page should be moved to the WV namespace and better calendar intro page should be made here, or perhaps the calendar needs no intro page. Any thoughts? Texugo (talk) 15:34, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
Calendar of events
[edit]Apparently you dont permit the creation of calenders for events despite this being a significant part of helping people to decide when or if to visit a place/region. Can some please explain why of if its possible please link to a MOS or policy which I can follow Gnangarra (talk) 11:19, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
- I see this is your first post, so welcome to Wikivoyage! You come here with some misconceptions, it would appear. Listings of events are welcome, as long as they are of events that could interest a visitor. Such listings should be put in "Do" in destination articles, and can have their own subsection if that would make the section more easily readable. Is there something else you'd like to know? Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:50, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
- So how far ahead can these events be listed and how many, I've been working with local Government authorities developing Wikitowns, including Wikivoyage content is a natural progression these places each have multiple events/festivals every month to put a list in the location article would create unmanageable articles so the logical would be to have a Calender. Highlighting a couple of major events in the To DO section makes sense, but it also a logical extension to have a "Calender of Events" so that travellers can plan their journey to take in events that interest them. Gnangarra (talk) 11:58, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
- We do have a Calendar of events and festivals section, but it is fairly neglected as for now. ϒpsilon (talk) 12:03, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
- [Edit conflict] I'm not sure if I'm understanding correctly, but it sounds like the calendar you have created and are updating is official or at least semi-official for each town. If that's the case, the relevant town's calendar could be linked to once per destination article. Usually, the website for the town's office of tourism or, failing that, municipal website is linked to from the name of the town at the beginning of the article, but I see no problem with (also) linking a separate site that has a calendar of events on it, at an appropriate place in the "Do" section of the article. Your plan of posting some highlights of events and also linking the calendar sounds good to me. Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:07, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
- not looking to link to an "official municiple" as locations have more than official municiple events, the whole purpose is for one the community as a whole can update and maintain from a WikiTravel prespective is creates a gate way that keeps people frequenting the site, maintain content rather than just a passing add my B&B, or Restaurant. It will also bring people back to the site to look at whats happening. Looking at Calendar of events and festivals could I then make this into a template for "Calendar of events and festivals in Foo" where foo could be a town, a region or municipality which already have an article... and transclude the current month into the location article its associated with.Gnangarra (talk) 13:13, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
- [Edit conflict] I'm not sure if I'm understanding correctly, but it sounds like the calendar you have created and are updating is official or at least semi-official for each town. If that's the case, the relevant town's calendar could be linked to once per destination article. Usually, the website for the town's office of tourism or, failing that, municipal website is linked to from the name of the town at the beginning of the article, but I see no problem with (also) linking a separate site that has a calendar of events on it, at an appropriate place in the "Do" section of the article. Your plan of posting some highlights of events and also linking the calendar sounds good to me. Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:07, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
- On the subject of the neglected calendar of events. Is there anyway in MediaWiki to set up a displayable database? Wondering if it is possible to enter events by type, date and location then be able to create tables on region pages or list events by dates, types and regions. Traveler100 (talk) 12:22, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
- We could use the Semantic Mediawiki extension, which makes it easy to add calendars. (One day, Wikidata might allow for this, but it's too limited now.) -- Ypnypn (talk) 17:01, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
- We do have a Calendar of events and festivals section, but it is fairly neglected as for now. ϒpsilon (talk) 12:03, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
- So how far ahead can these events be listed and how many, I've been working with local Government authorities developing Wikitowns, including Wikivoyage content is a natural progression these places each have multiple events/festivals every month to put a list in the location article would create unmanageable articles so the logical would be to have a Calender. Highlighting a couple of major events in the To DO section makes sense, but it also a logical extension to have a "Calender of Events" so that travellers can plan their journey to take in events that interest them. Gnangarra (talk) 11:58, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
These are all great ideas for encouraging local participation and, thus, more editors! --118.93.67.66 20:26, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the input, I have created a subset for Toodyay#Do(alt perma link) to demonstrate how it could look utilising current formatting, all sub pages are red links at the moment.. Gnangarra (talk) 09:15, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
Strongly support this innovation - there are many locations that I know in Australia that rely on the calendrical issue to attract visitors to a location on a specific date in the year, and so have such a device included, and accepted is great to see ! sats (talk) 09:48, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
- I like this, too. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:12, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
- I do not see any avantage to the new experiment over the normal way of including a full section of events. The new suggestion unnecessarily splits content over thirteen additional pages and I seriously doubt that anything but metropoles would actually come close to being able to usefully fill that many pages with events actually relevant to the traveller. Certainly a "small town of about 1000 people" could easily fit all its events into the standard Do subsection. I wouldn't mind discussing how to better feature events, possibly differentiating them from other listing types or other changes, but splitting small articles into 14 is not going to be the answer. Texugo (talk) 02:30, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- I share Texugo's concerns. I didn't realize that that would be the result. It's problematic not to have at least the most important events listed in the destination guide. I'm OK with the experimental articles supplementing the highlights, if there is a huge number of events to list (e.g., over 20), but putting the highlights in the destination guide is important for Wikivoyage's goal of being easily printable. Is that something you can work on, Gnangarra? Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:49, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- I voiced similar concerns at Talk:Calendar of events and festivals in Toodyay (specifically, I'm not sure I understand what the benefits of this approach are vs something like Marina del Rey#Events), but despite any reservations I don't think it hurts to allow this experiment to continue and see what Gnangarra comes up with. Some sort of event calendar would be useful on Wikivoyage, but ideally we want something dynamic that could be shared across articles, thus allowing (for example) a single dataset to be used to generate city-specific, region-specific, and date-specific calendars so that we could embed a calendar in every article, feature an automatically-generated "today's events" list on the main page, allow users to search for events during specific time periods, etc. Technically I don't think that's currently possible, but maybe there will be some way to do it with a combination of wikidata and lat/long tagging in the future? In any case, this is a problem that would be nice to eventually solve, and allowing some experimentation might generate some useful ideas. -- Ryan • (talk) • 03:31, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- I agree, Ryan. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:53, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- The idea of being able to shift, share and manipulate to create different calenders is an interesting concept, but its definately outside my skill set though I know a good programmer that could create a bot to refresh each monthly page once that month has finished. What I see is these calenders as being somewhere for communities to keep updating and engage with Voyage on practical level while they are at it they'll also maintain other location article content as opposed to the current 'hit n run' add my business thats occurring now. Addressing Texugo concern the value of having a monthly Calender(list of events) page is that people can then directly share this in emails, on social media and embedding in/linking to from other sites which will improve the reach of Wikivoyage attracting even more people to the project. For that to be successful it needs to be a simple process to add an event. Highlighting a few significant regular events in the main article is sensible, but the calender can be more specific about the actual details include other once off or dynamic timing without causing the main article to go stale. Gnangarra (talk) 07:51, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- All of these are really interesting ideas, and I think you should continue to have the latitude to develop this. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:21, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- I don't mind the experiment continuing, but just to reply: I don't think being able to "share this in emails, on social media and embedding in/linking" is an added value for the overwhelming majority of cities/months that would be empty or have 1-2 items. I'd also like to point out that having a calendar that shows only the current month really isn't what we want either, since toward the end of the month you aren't displaying anything that looks ahead very far, and more importantly, people tend to plan ahead for future trips or may want to see when the best time for a trip would be. I'd say anything which will end up requiring 12+ clicks to fully see what's going on would be bad, especially for the vast majority of destination articles which have less than one thing per month, if any. Texugo (talk) 10:32, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- Your point are well taken. What I was hoping would happen is that the events would appear in the destination guide. If there's a way that can be devised to display the next couple of months' events on a rotating basis in the destination guide by transcluding (I think that's the word) the calendars of those months from another article, that would be a good thing, along with the highlighted events throughout the year that should be at least mentioned in the destination guide (I think it's OK for more details to be somewhere else, as Gnangarra proposes). I should say to Gnangarra: Please don't feel threatened by this discussion. It looks like we've all agreed to give you latitude, and we're bringing up things to think about while developing this calendar. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:24, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- The transclusion bit is easy. I've created a quick template to transclude any calendar pages, if they exist, for the current and subsequent two months: "Template:Upcoming events". The month can be forced too.
{{upcoming events|Toodyay|month=8}}
will transclude the August-October range like so:
- The transclusion bit is easy. I've created a quick template to transclude any calendar pages, if they exist, for the current and subsequent two months: "Template:Upcoming events". The month can be forced too.
- Your point are well taken. What I was hoping would happen is that the events would appear in the destination guide. If there's a way that can be devised to display the next couple of months' events on a rotating basis in the destination guide by transcluding (I think that's the word) the calendars of those months from another article, that would be a good thing, along with the highlighted events throughout the year that should be at least mentioned in the destination guide (I think it's OK for more details to be somewhere else, as Gnangarra proposes). I should say to Gnangarra: Please don't feel threatened by this discussion. It looks like we've all agreed to give you latitude, and we're bringing up things to think about while developing this calendar. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:24, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- I don't mind the experiment continuing, but just to reply: I don't think being able to "share this in emails, on social media and embedding in/linking" is an added value for the overwhelming majority of cities/months that would be empty or have 1-2 items. I'd also like to point out that having a calendar that shows only the current month really isn't what we want either, since toward the end of the month you aren't displaying anything that looks ahead very far, and more importantly, people tend to plan ahead for future trips or may want to see when the best time for a trip would be. I'd say anything which will end up requiring 12+ clicks to fully see what's going on would be bad, especially for the vast majority of destination articles which have less than one thing per month, if any. Texugo (talk) 10:32, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- All of these are really interesting ideas, and I think you should continue to have the latitude to develop this. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:21, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- The idea of being able to shift, share and manipulate to create different calenders is an interesting concept, but its definately outside my skill set though I know a good programmer that could create a bot to refresh each monthly page once that month has finished. What I see is these calenders as being somewhere for communities to keep updating and engage with Voyage on practical level while they are at it they'll also maintain other location article content as opposed to the current 'hit n run' add my business thats occurring now. Addressing Texugo concern the value of having a monthly Calender(list of events) page is that people can then directly share this in emails, on social media and embedding in/linking to from other sites which will improve the reach of Wikivoyage attracting even more people to the project. For that to be successful it needs to be a simple process to add an event. Highlighting a few significant regular events in the main article is sensible, but the calender can be more specific about the actual details include other once off or dynamic timing without causing the main article to go stale. Gnangarra (talk) 07:51, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- I agree, Ryan. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:53, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- I voiced similar concerns at Talk:Calendar of events and festivals in Toodyay (specifically, I'm not sure I understand what the benefits of this approach are vs something like Marina del Rey#Events), but despite any reservations I don't think it hurts to allow this experiment to continue and see what Gnangarra comes up with. Some sort of event calendar would be useful on Wikivoyage, but ideally we want something dynamic that could be shared across articles, thus allowing (for example) a single dataset to be used to generate city-specific, region-specific, and date-specific calendars so that we could embed a calendar in every article, feature an automatically-generated "today's events" list on the main page, allow users to search for events during specific time periods, etc. Technically I don't think that's currently possible, but maybe there will be some way to do it with a combination of wikidata and lat/long tagging in the future? In any case, this is a problem that would be nice to eventually solve, and allowing some experimentation might generate some useful ideas. -- Ryan • (talk) • 03:31, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- I share Texugo's concerns. I didn't realize that that would be the result. It's problematic not to have at least the most important events listed in the destination guide. I'm OK with the experimental articles supplementing the highlights, if there is a huge number of events to list (e.g., over 20), but putting the highlights in the destination guide is important for Wikivoyage's goal of being easily printable. Is that something you can work on, Gnangarra? Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:49, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- I do not see any avantage to the new experiment over the normal way of including a full section of events. The new suggestion unnecessarily splits content over thirteen additional pages and I seriously doubt that anything but metropoles would actually come close to being able to usefully fill that many pages with events actually relevant to the traveller. Certainly a "small town of about 1000 people" could easily fit all its events into the standard Do subsection. I wouldn't mind discussing how to better feature events, possibly differentiating them from other listing types or other changes, but splitting small articles into 14 is not going to be the answer. Texugo (talk) 02:30, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
{{upcoming events|Toodyay|month=8}}
- There are only two calendar pages at present, so the full function is hard to see. The <noinclude> tags should probably be extended around the table in the calendar article, or that will be transcluded up to three times. The images might cause problems too, depending on the article and the length of the calendar. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 13:44, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- done the noinclude fix and add a note for image to be included before that the </noinclude> tag Gnangarra (talk) 15:49, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- I am still not seeing what the point is. The only net result I see is that we have more pages to edit, we complicate formatting, and we hide events which are more than a few weeks into the future, which doesn't make sense for travellers who are planning further ahead. Why would we not just keep everything on the destination page, showing all the events together in a single calendar section as we have done up til now? Where has this approach so far presented a problem that needs fixing? Texugo (talk) 13:53, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- If there turn out to be few events in Toodyay, you may be right. I think if there are more than 30 events over the course of a year, we might not want to list all of them at once. Furthermore, if this experiment works well, it may be useful to repeat it with much bigger cities that have hundreds of events per year or more. So let's see where this goes. Ikan Kekek (talk) 13:59, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- If there are more than 30 events over the course of a year, we might not want to list them all, period. For small-to-medium-sized cities, a list of more than 30 will probably include things like the regional toilet seat manufacturer's association trade show and the local ham radio operator's annual club picnic. We don't need to list every possible event anyway - when there are a lot, we choose the best recommendable ones, just like we do with any other kind of list we generate. Metropoles with the huge city template and dozens of dozens of events that are recommendable are the only type of article where I could imagine the need for a calendar management system, though the fact they can be distributed in district articles largely takes care of the volume. Even then, I don't think it would be right to hide things depending on the current date. I usually have to plan trips 6-9 months in advance and I'm sure this is not that unusual. Texugo (talk) 14:22, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- I've got thick skin and the scares that come from 9 years of editing wikiprojects(long term sysop on en and commons), I come peace I not trying to harm Wikivoyage. I have at a guess everyone here has met politicians that would turn up to a door opening if they thought they'd get their mug on TV to not really take offense at idiotic examples but they do make your arguments rather hard to take seriously, because everyone knows that a picnic for locals would be a closed event, and that a local manfacturers trade show would be an invite only. Gnangarra (talk) 15:37, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- planning trips 6,9 12 months in advance is only one way people would plan, but thats not the only way people plan. More frequently I have a day where I can do something, I'll be looking maybe 1 or 2 days in advance either we should not assume people who mangage to navigate from google and can read a calender to know when they are taking their holiday cant the work out that if they want to know whats happening in May rather than next week they could click on that link, over the next 6,9, 12 months these people will return to see what else is happening after a few visits they'll think oh whats happening at home oh look I can help out here. I agree we dont want every event but as a rough guide any event thats ticketed or open to the public should be in the detailed calender. Like all projects there is an editor bias using this bias in selecting/recommending events isnt encouraging broad participation. Lets take an example of Fremantle Festival it runs from Oct 25 to Nov 10 its been running for over 100 years so this meets any inclusion criteria no matter how strict infact it'd meet Wikipedia notability guidelines for an article there as well. This year the festival has more than 100 individual events and the majority of them would be of interest to visitors but every event wouldnt be of interest to every visitor, that is one festival. To even offer a brief coverage of these two weeks it'd be a sizable list, (enough that an argument could be made for its own article here but thats a whole different tangent and another can of worms I have no intention of opening) yes some months will quieter than others but for continuity reasons alone and future automation needs accepting of some small things. Another cause is that with October 2014 there would be very few events scheduled that could be included in the calender today but in july it'll have grown substantially and june will be blank the calenders will organic in nature growing and shrinking depending on how far in the future it is. Gnangarra (talk) 15:37, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- If there are more than 30 events over the course of a year, we might not want to list them all, period. For small-to-medium-sized cities, a list of more than 30 will probably include things like the regional toilet seat manufacturer's association trade show and the local ham radio operator's annual club picnic. We don't need to list every possible event anyway - when there are a lot, we choose the best recommendable ones, just like we do with any other kind of list we generate. Metropoles with the huge city template and dozens of dozens of events that are recommendable are the only type of article where I could imagine the need for a calendar management system, though the fact they can be distributed in district articles largely takes care of the volume. Even then, I don't think it would be right to hide things depending on the current date. I usually have to plan trips 6-9 months in advance and I'm sure this is not that unusual. Texugo (talk) 14:22, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- If there turn out to be few events in Toodyay, you may be right. I think if there are more than 30 events over the course of a year, we might not want to list all of them at once. Furthermore, if this experiment works well, it may be useful to repeat it with much bigger cities that have hundreds of events per year or more. So let's see where this goes. Ikan Kekek (talk) 13:59, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- There are only two calendar pages at present, so the full function is hard to see. The <noinclude> tags should probably be extended around the table in the calendar article, or that will be transcluded up to three times. The images might cause problems too, depending on the article and the length of the calendar. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 13:44, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
Maybe my examples were a little silly, but people do indeed add some very dubious events from time to time. Anyway, it sounds like what you are looking to do is to greatly expand the level of detail we offer to include whole event schedules, such as the whole two-week schedule of over 100 mini-events of the Fremantle Festival, or the full schedule of a music or film festival like SxSW in Austin. Keeping this kind of thing updated can start to get out of scope, which is why we typically link to the official site for the event, where the schedule is bound to be given in full and constantly up-to-date. It's kind of analogous to the reason why we don't have separate pages to give intimate details on museum collections or train schedules. Texugo (talk) 16:17, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- not trying to create whole event schedules, just highlighting that a festival with 100 events even listing 1 in 3 is 30odd all I was trying to show is that 30 is any easily achievable while still keeping relavence, like wise you wouldnt create an article to list every piece in a museum's collection the description of the museum would sufficienlty cover the highlights so that a person could decide if it something they would vist but you would note a travelling exhibition as an event. Likewise maintaining train schedules would be a waste of resources, but noting the last train for the service or a unique special event service would both be items you'd consider including in a calender. Gnangarra (talk) 02:37, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
- Update thinking about some the discussion and point raised for the moment I'll reduce this to just the intermediate step of only creating Calendar of events and festivals in Toodyay Gnangarra (talk) 10:56, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
- I noticed that. This is a single calendar article instead of 12 articles, one for each month, correct? I'm much happier about this. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:56, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
Calendar of events and festivals proposed change
[edit]Comments on the idea of a sortable table for events. Something like this:- User:Traveler100/sandbox-eventlist.
Need to think about how many columns, for example sub-type breaking up sport into different type of sport, similar thing for religion. Also how detailed should location be? --Traveler100 (talk) 13:08, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
- That's a good-looking table. I think that it just be flexible in format for just the reasons you state. But where would you think it would be appropriate to put? In "Do" sections? I think that's fine and would be quite clear, but also that it really shouldn't substitute for prose explanations of the events in question. In other words, having both the table and prose explanations would be better than having one but not the other, although only prose explanations strikes me as more useful than only a table. Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:05, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
- I was thinking more about the merging all the month and subject event pages under Calendar of events and festivals. I think prose would be better on most city pages, but the table could be considered for regions, maybe counties, as you say under the do section. --Traveler100 (talk) 15:11, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
- That could be a good thing to do, yeah. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:59, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
- I was thinking more about the merging all the month and subject event pages under Calendar of events and festivals. I think prose would be better on most city pages, but the table could be considered for regions, maybe counties, as you say under the do section. --Traveler100 (talk) 15:11, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
- Please see Calendar_of_events_and_festivals_in_Toodyay#Major_Events I've added a table there sortable by month, event , event type. Open to suggestion on how to address the rolling time so that the full table can be relevant, and kept up to date... Gnangarra (talk) 12:50, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks for continuing to think about new ideas and develop this exemplary article, Gnangarra! --118.93nzp (talk) 16:15, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
Something to ponder
[edit]I know I'm looking a lot further down the road then the current experiement, the reason is that the development of calenders also offer an opportunity to add even more value but to exploit this value which was described above will mean looking at another article type covering events. As mused above by Ryan these calenders could then be utilised to create an events link through the main page or higher order topics, ie town --> to region/state --> national level. ie Toodyay --> Western Australia --> Australia --> Main Page. If the ability to do that is created using {{Tl:Event}} the question is what value is there to Voyage in sending to reader directly to an external site, when it could keep the reader within through creation of pages Event:Moondyne Festival where sufficient information about the event is contained to assist in making an informed decision about attending, and where the reader could then follow onto other events either at the same time near by or of similar interest. obviously this would be for just the more significant events worthy of being noted beyond the local region ie the Todyay picnic race day would of interest in Perth area not around Australia so no need for an article itself, where as the Avon Descent which attracts international competitors would warrant mention in Australian events even possibly a main page mention. For comparison the Melbourne cup which would demand main page should events go that way, the larger regional tie ins would be worth noting/linking within the article. Gnangarra (talk) 08:24, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
- This could be good, but I'm concerned that we might not have enough editors to maintain these kinds of pages sufficiently. I'm happy for you to work on the prototype, though, in hopes that eventually, this guide will have a large number of editors. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:54, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
- agree these will be in need of maintenance, to misquote build it for when they come.. the more its potential is explored during this phase of development the easier it is to modify, and to develop the under lying formatting etc rather then having a lot of pages needing alterations once its in wider use. Gnangarra (talk) 11:24, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
- I would be much happier with an approach that seeks to improve the way events are handled within their respective articles rather than this approach which could potentially almost double the number of destination pages we have to maintain and introduce a further level of redundancy/need-for-synchronization between what is in the base article and what is in the calendar article. Also be aware that mentioning national/international holidays in themselves (as opposed to specific celebrations thereof) in every article goes counter to our practice of mentioning such shared general information at only the highest level applicable unless there is something unique about the individual destination, in order to avoid redundancy. Just as we don't mention 911 in every American city or the fact that they speak Japanese in every Japanese destination article, we also don't need to mention the Queen's Birthday in every Australian article, nor Christmas/New Year's in practically every destination article we have. Texugo (talk) 12:01, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
- These are all good points, Texugo, but I think we need to allow much more time for Gnangarra and others to develop and exemplarise their exciting new ideas before we can decide on the best way forwards. --118.93nzp (talk) 21:19, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
- I agree the issue will be with editors to maintain this. It is very high maintenance, and reflects badly on the site the moment it is out of date. Perhaps a more expression for dates will let it go out of date less quickly. I mean putting 27th in for a public holiday for Australia day is going to be out of date on the 28th. What chance does anyone have to keep this accurate? --Inas (talk) 22:16, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
- The more I look at this, unfortunately, the more I think it isn't going to work. This content could be merged into the main article easily. I think we just need more support for dated events in our main guides. --Inas (talk) 22:14, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- I agree the issue will be with editors to maintain this. It is very high maintenance, and reflects badly on the site the moment it is out of date. Perhaps a more expression for dates will let it go out of date less quickly. I mean putting 27th in for a public holiday for Australia day is going to be out of date on the 28th. What chance does anyone have to keep this accurate? --Inas (talk) 22:16, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
- These are all good points, Texugo, but I think we need to allow much more time for Gnangarra and others to develop and exemplarise their exciting new ideas before we can decide on the best way forwards. --118.93nzp (talk) 21:19, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
- I would be much happier with an approach that seeks to improve the way events are handled within their respective articles rather than this approach which could potentially almost double the number of destination pages we have to maintain and introduce a further level of redundancy/need-for-synchronization between what is in the base article and what is in the calendar article. Also be aware that mentioning national/international holidays in themselves (as opposed to specific celebrations thereof) in every article goes counter to our practice of mentioning such shared general information at only the highest level applicable unless there is something unique about the individual destination, in order to avoid redundancy. Just as we don't mention 911 in every American city or the fact that they speak Japanese in every Japanese destination article, we also don't need to mention the Queen's Birthday in every Australian article, nor Christmas/New Year's in practically every destination article we have. Texugo (talk) 12:01, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
- agree these will be in need of maintenance, to misquote build it for when they come.. the more its potential is explored during this phase of development the easier it is to modify, and to develop the under lying formatting etc rather then having a lot of pages needing alterations once its in wider use. Gnangarra (talk) 11:24, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
Time to do some serious weeding
[edit]There is a real mix of entries in the month pages reference from here. There are a lot of events that should be added but I think we need to remove a lot of unnecessary entries first. Listings should be restricted to events and festivals that a traveller would go and visit to see and take part in and not just the fact it is a religious day or a country's national holiday. Lists of important dates can be found on the Wikipedia link. Also should only be events that attendees would travel to from another country or across the country to. Others should be moved to city, region and country location pages.
For example New Years Eve should not be an entry but Edinburgh's Hogmanay festivities should. --Traveler100 (talk) 16:30, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- I agree. Though I have a hard time with the way this is organized in general. It should generally split into regions (country level or even smaller). Or perhaps we could find a way that allows the visitor to sort by his preferences, whether he wants to go to a specific region or just looks for interesting events in general without a regional preference. Cheers, Horst-schlaemma (talk) 17:21, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- Yes I did look at other ways of showing this with methods of ordering for the reader. However it made adding new entries complicated. Actually I am thinking of removing the country order from the month pages altogether, should just be by date. These pages are for people looking where to go based on date. Event by region should be in the main location articles. Which will be the next big project, updating event entries on country, region and city pages. --Traveler100 (talk) 20:41, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- This could be done, though I think the location/country should still remain. But perhaps more like a sortable (time)table. I have no reference for this, so I hope you get a grasp of what I mean. It's a "calendar" after all. Cheers, Horst-schlaemma (talk) 22:57, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- Have looked at sortable tables, would work for the readers point of view but the format does not help newbies add entries. My long term intention is to use the {{event}} template to generate a database and then use this to generate a calendar either as sortable table or something like this. First thing though is to get a good quantity of quality content in a standard format (hence the event template), both on the month pages and in the location pages. --Traveler100 (talk) 07:56, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
- This could be done, though I think the location/country should still remain. But perhaps more like a sortable (time)table. I have no reference for this, so I hope you get a grasp of what I mean. It's a "calendar" after all. Cheers, Horst-schlaemma (talk) 22:57, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
- Yes I did look at other ways of showing this with methods of ordering for the reader. However it made adding new entries complicated. Actually I am thinking of removing the country order from the month pages altogether, should just be by date. These pages are for people looking where to go based on date. Event by region should be in the main location articles. Which will be the next big project, updating event entries on country, region and city pages. --Traveler100 (talk) 20:41, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
Proposal
[edit]To be placed on front page:-
- What should be listed on the month pages:
- Events that have a reasonable number of international visitors
- Events that people would cross the country to attend
- Events that have international TV or Web coverage and can be attended by international travellers
- What should not be listed on the month pages:
- Event and festival were a large majority of attendees are from the area/region. (these should be placed on the appropriate city or region page)
- National holidays (these should be listed on the country page)
- exception is if there is an associated, specific location, festival that is of interest to tourists
- Religious days (these should be listed on the pages of counties where it is important)
- exception is if there is an associated, specific location, festival that is of interest to tourists
- Calender days like New Year (these should be listed on the pages of counties where it is important)
- exception is if there is an associated, specific location, festival that is of interest to tourists
- Entries who's date for either this years or last years or next years event cannot be confirm on its official website or other reputable website.
Please also place the event on related location (city, region or country) page.
Updating Calendar of events and festivals
[edit]I have spent some time cleaning up the month pages of Calendar of events and festivals. Bad links and inappropriate events have been removed and the format of the listing has been made consistent. Where possible I have also added the most recent known exact dates. These pages could now do with being expanded. Would appreciate input from others with events that attract international visitors. Why should we do this (I know list pages are not too popular)? Basically this is a good portal into other location pages on this site. The month pages have a lot of key words and with constant updating will attract good results from search engines, attracting more visitors to Wikivoyage. --Traveler100 (talk) 09:03, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
Move from Main space?
[edit]This article sounds more like a guide than a travel topic.
I think it should be moved from Main to the Wikivoyage: namespace.
Cheers! Syced (talk) 09:25, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
A couple of ideas concerning the calendar articles
[edit]Here is a page, or rather 12 of them plus this one, that probably most of us have forgotten that exist. Nevertheless, I do think many of our readers would be interested in what's happening right now and in the next couple of weeks around the world. But this, I think, would require a link from the Main Page.
This could be accomplished in a number of ways. The simplest way would be just a link to Calendar of events and festivals on the world map, in the line that says "More: Destinations, Itineraries, Phrasebooks, Travel topics". A better way would be to have the current month article linked from there instead, updated automatically every month (for instance, right now it would say "Events in September"). Yet another way would be putting the month article as a fourth feature in the Main Page featured article carousel.
It could also be good to expand the month articles themselves, for instance, with information on what parts of the world have suitable weather for visiting during that month (using the same definitions we use for determining time for featured articles).
Needless to say, this would also mean that voyagers would need to keep the calendar articles more up to date than they are now.
Thoughts? --ϒpsilon (talk) 16:39, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
- Anyone? ϒpsilon (talk) 17:53, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
- I do have an idea, though I don't know whether or not it'll be received well, but we shall see.
- To both expand the currently existing articles and draw attention to them, we could make the articles specified per region and have the region article link to them. Depending on the size of the article, content differs. Events in the USA or something alike, for example, would be way more general than Events in Utah. Implementing this however, takes a lot of effort (though it probably could get automated via a bot in one way or another). Either way, using this method would allow us to delve into detail about the events, which can be useful to the traveller.
-- Wauteurz (talk) 18:21, 5 October 2016 (UTC)