Talk:Danube

I just removed the link to this page from another article, I'm pretty sure it doesn't fall under Project:What is an article?, i.e. we don't do rivers... though you could maybe make a Danube trip page-- I could imagine somethign like that for a Nile river cruise or something... ideas? (WT-en) Majnoona 10:16, 24 Feb 2004 (EST)

Yep. Rivers probably don't belong here. An itinerary might be good, but I don't think a page on the Danube works. --(WT-en) Evan 11:27, 24 Feb 2004 (EST)

While Project:Bodies of water says we do not do articles about rivers, it does say we are able to do articles about the regions around the rivers. If this article was couched in terms of discussing the hughe region of Europe that is drained by the Danube River, would that work? -- (WT-en) Huttite 18:31, 23 Dec 2005 (EST)

I have tried to link in all the countries that lie in the Danube basin. I may have left off places on the end of the tributaries, like Montenegro. If anyone knows this area better and can think of other major places please add them in too. I have put in major capitals on or near the course of the river as well as places where tributaries meet. This may make it seem like a river article, but the concentration should be on the surrounding land. Of course as the river is a big one it is likely to play a big role anyway. -- (WT-en) Huttite 19:23, 23 Dec 2005 (EST)

VFD discussion

We don't have articles on rivers. Hobbitschuster (talk) 00:21, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

No, but we do have itineraries like Along the Yangtze River and another half dozen Along... titles. Would this make sense rewritten to one of those? Pashley (talk) 04:25, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Expand. In its current state it is a debatable article but the Danube is such a tourist attraction I think it should stay as an Extra Region and needs some work put into it. Itinerary is a possibility but the whole length is not often done with the exception of a few cruise ships and the most fit of cyclists. --Traveler100 (talk) 06:58, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Keep (that is, don't delete), as per Traveler100's and Pashley's points. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:55, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

• Delete. Rivers don't make good extra-hierarchical regions because they don't have well defined areas. (Watersheds could be used, but usually they don't make for very good travel groupings.) It could be valid as an itinerary (vis Erie Canal), but Traveler100 points out a significant barrier. Powers ^(talk) 02:32, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
• Delete - an itinerary might make sense, but this as a "region" covers 1/3 of Europe. It doubles a number of smaller Danube-centred regions along its route and does not serve a purpose. Instructions on how one can travel down the entire course of the Danube would make sense as an itinerary, but not as a regular guide. This is not Wikipedia, we should not have an article for EVERY phrase one may look for. PrinceGloria (talk) 11:58, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
• Keep, if not as an extraregion then as an itinerary. It is a major tourist attraction and has some of the most beautiful and historic cities in the world along it. Often the focal point of peoples holidays either with car, hiking, cycling, private boat or cruise ship. --Traveler100 (talk) 12:22, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Comment - Danube is massive. It is not a "tourist attraction", trying to "see the Danube" is almost impossible unless one has at least a fortnight. Therefore, an itinerary for hardcore Danube enthusiast might be interesting - not only for following entirely, but to be used in parts, an containing mostly information on moving along the Danube that would otherwise be a bit too much to keep in successive destination articles. But it is not a region in any sense and is impossible to describe the way we describe regions, unless we immediately start splitting it into smaller regions, which in turn makes it a superfluous region that would rather better be a disambig page.

In short, if you want to know where Danube flows and what lies along it, visit Wikipedia. If you have advice on travelling along the Danube, create an itinerary. If you want to create yet another alternative layer of regions to cover the same things prompting duplication of content and potential splitting of the thin editorial effort, as well as making maintenance an issue (yet another article to update with every bit of relevant info, decide on splitting info between articles and making sure articles do not contradict, which is often an end result of users deciding to each tend to their own preferred allotments) - please don't. PrinceGloria (talk) 20:34, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

A fortnight is not a long time for a trip and not for a holiday. Attraction as in a see listing no, but try not to think WIkivoyage policies and think someone thinking about visiting part of the Danube. It is a real challenge to find your way round the Wikivoage articles without this page. Are you seriously proposing jumping back a forward between WIkipedia and Wikivoage? Also not talking about alternative regions covering the same topics as existing, This is the reason for Extraregions, to collect articles together on a subject a visitor to the site may asked about but then guide them thought the structure of this site. --Traveler100 (talk) 21:16, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

• Delete. If I'm reading the previous comments correctly, the "keep" votes are being made under the argument that the current article could be reworked into an itinerary. If that's the case, delete the existing article since it isn't an itinerary article now. Nothing is stopping someone from creating an itinerary in the future, but the policy on itineraries is that they need to either be about a recognized route or see a minimum amount of development, and this article currently meets neither of those criteria.. -- Ryan • (talk) • 20:57, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

  Comment Article has been reworked into an extraregion, so I see no harm in keeping it. -- Ryan • (talk) • 01:20, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

• To also consider for deletion: Hudson Valley; Amazonia; Delaware Valley; Loire Valley. --Traveler100 (talk) 08:09, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

  What's wrong with Hudson Valley? It's a disambiguation-style extra-hierarchical region. Valleys are often used as travel regions. Powers ^(talk) 14:22, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Nothing, just another example of a river extraregion, which I think is valid but other not. --Traveler100 (talk) 15:52, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

But it's not a river-based extra-hierarchical region. The valley is a related but separate geographic feature and a well-known travel region. Powers ^(talk) 14:05, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

• Move to "Along the Danube" (leaving a redirect) and tag it as an outline itinerary. The existing article is already more like an itinerary than a region, so make it one. Pashley (talk) 13:35, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Would work fine as an itinerary; travel topic has also been suggested. --Traveler100 (talk) 15:56, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

[unindent] It's very disturbing how many of you want to just throw away something of use to travellers. Are we to inflexibly follow a narrow interpretation of policy just because? Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:31, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

To be honest the current article seems to be a failed experiment and precisely not of use to anybody. And I doubt many people would be served by articles on rivers just for the sake of it. If there are well established routes like the Elbe Radweg, we are talking about something else, but I fear that we will soon be overwhelmed by hard to maintain stubs whose only reason for existence is the fact that some water flows downhill Hobbitschuster (talk) 11:13, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

It also worries me this need to delete articles or text from articles just because it is not perfect. Seem to me to be against the spirit of a Wiki site. There are a lot of articles with room for improvement, the point if wiki is to improve on other peoples work not endless criticism and discussion. We should all be spending more time enhancing articles not removing information. And remember you cannot always predict how someone will come across this site or want to use it. It is important to have landing pages that then guide the travelling into the real useful pages of Wikivoyage. --Traveler100 (talk) 12:23, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Ikan here. I see no reason to even consider deletion; the questions are how to make what we have more useful and what needs to be added. Pashley (talk) 13:06, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm not going to vote on this one. I would comment that we will continue to see friction based on people's own belief about what 'Wiki Spirit' and Ttcf really mean. I would ask the 'keepers' to make some compromise here, for example by agreeing that all the generic 'lists' can be removed and only genuinely useful content should remain. This would allow someone to rebuild this a more helpful way. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 09:21, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't understand what you're suggesting as a compromise. No-one who opposes deletion is arguing that the article shouldn't be improved. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:10, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

What here is useful to travelers? The list of countries? The only thing I see, aside from what can be found in any general reference tome, is the link to our The Danube Cycleway article. There's basically nothing else on the page. Powers ^(talk) 01:54, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

It seems to me, this is properly an itinerary or travel topic. The fact that it's not a well-developed article is a reason to develop it, not delete it, in my opinion. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:36, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

• Keep The article certainly could be improved, but as it stands it still provides some useful info to a potential visitor to Europe. Consider somebody at the first step of planning a visit to Europe, who has been told by a friend to "take a cruise on the Danube". From this article they can get to Bratislava#By boat (and other articles). AlasdairW (talk) 11:41, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
• I think this should be kept and improved. I can imagine several ways to improve it, but for a certain (older) demographic, this is a pretty popular "destination". There's quite a lot to say about just the river cruise aspect, such as why fares are cheaper in the Spring (higher risk of flooding = higher risk of cancellation). The question of whether to shoehorn this into Artificial Page Type X or Artificial Page Type Y seems far less important to me than providing relevant, useful, accurate information to the traveler. Keep the page now; classify it some other year, whenever there's nothing important to do. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:43, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
  • I would not call it "shoehorning" into an "artificial page type" as much as the reason why this article has not been updated much prior to this vfd. Besides not being linked to from very many places, anybody stumbling over it will most likely be confused as to what this article is supposed to be and do. Other articles, that are clearly travel topics, destination guides or itineraries are much easier to update than this strange otherworld limbo. Hobbitschuster (talk) 00:08, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

[unindent] Please also look at Wikivoyage talk:Bodies of water#Danube. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:15, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

• Comment This article has been re-worked into an extra-hierarchical region since it was originally nominated for deletion, which I think addresses the concerns that would have made it a valid candidate for deletion. Since votes were approximately split, and since the policy concerns that would have justified a deletion have been addressed by changing the article type, my inclination would be to resolve this VFD as a "keep". Any further feedback before doing so? -- Ryan • (talk) • 06:43, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
• I am still not convinced by the keep argument. In its current state the article is ironically less travel relevant than the WP article on the same subject. While there might be a SEO argument (which I doubt, given the duplicate penalty), it is doubtful we would gain more than one hit by a visitor who searches for that as this article is unlikely to create any form of retention. Other articles are much better in that regard. If we want to keep this article and others, we should change our bodies of water policy as we know de facto do have articles that are about bodies of water. Maybe we even have to create a new "River" article template. I don't like that idea, but if it is well executed (and does not saddle us with yet more work on a marginal part of our guides) it might provide some value after all. Hobbitschuster (talk) 18:43, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

  I'll leave it to another admin to decide how to resolve this nomination, but to my reading of the discussion the "delete" votes still aren't citing policy to justify deletion, while the argument for keeping the article is that it's a valid extraregion. Since deletion should only be done in accordance with the existing deletion policy ("Nominations or comments should follow a rationale based on our current policy") it still seems to me that the correct resolution in this case is to keep the article. -- Ryan • (talk) • 03:10, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

• Keep There are many useful information about the river. Not only the cycle path. Danube river cruising is very popular. Usefull hints about this topic could even fill up an own article. Improve it as a travel topic. -- DerFussi 20:49, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Outcome: Kept -- Ryan • (talk) • 20:42, 30 July 2016 (UTC)