Talk:Diving in Barbados/Cobblers Reef

Layout and style

The article is full of good information, but does not fit the article layout recommendations of Wikivoyage. I am going to add some standard headers and attempt to move the text into the appropriate sections. If you dont agree with the changes, please explain why, and make more appropriate changes. The style for diving articles is not carved in stone, and if there are good reasons to do things differntly they will be given due considerstion. We strive for a reasonably consistent article style on Wikitravel as this allows the user to get used to the style and layout and find information more conveniently. Our prime directive is that the traveller comes first, so any variations should make the site more useful, in this case, to the recreational scuba diver. The current standard is to have a regional main article with sub-articles for each dive site for which sufficient information is available. An example for this can be seen in Diving the Cape Peninsula and False Bay, which is regarded as an appropriate layout and style, as it has been awarded star staus. Scuba diving in the British Virgin Islands is a smaller example of the same basic style. Cheers, and keep up the good work. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 12:58, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Looks like User:Sertmann got there first and has done a lot of reformatting. I will do a bit more copyediting and trimming. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 14:42, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Article title

The article title should indicate that it is a dive site or dive region article. The usual way is to add Diving or Scuba diving to the title. For example Diving at Cobbler's Reef. Other suggestions are invited. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 12:58, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

I have split the article and moved text referring to diving in Barados in general to the main article, This article has become a dive-site sub-article of diving in Barbados. If this is not appropriate, let me know. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 08:31, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Encyclopaedic material

Some of the material in this article is too detailed for a travel guide, and will be better suited in Wikipedia. This refers to the history of scientific research on the reef and the associated findings. This article can be linked to the WP article after it has been created. Contact me either by commenting here or on my talk page. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 14:40, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Comments by John Davies moved from article text

Hi John, You can leave a message here and I will see it as this page is on my watchlist. A more direct method is to leave a message on my talk page, or you can e-mail me via my user account by going to my talk page and clicking on the email link in the sidebar.

Please keep adding anything you think will improve the article. Photos should be uploaded to Wikimedia commons, and linked from the article. Feel free to ask for help if needed.

A link to my talk page is in parentheses in my signature. Click on the superscripted "(talk)". • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:45, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry about any unintentional misunderstanding that may have arisen here, John and I can personally assure you that your valuable contributions are truly appreciated by many. Peter Southwoood is just the man (as you probably already know) to smooth out any future difficulties. Best wishes! -- Alice^✉ 07:50, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Peter I've deleted my autobiographical contribution to your Talk as this page is currently second on Google for Cobblers Reef. Johnmartindavies 13:49, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

John Davies: it's quite unusual to remove comments from an article discussion page (even your own) so I've restored those comments that were not authored by yourself. Some of the rationale for this is discussed at Wikivoyage:Using talk pages#Etiquette and UUTP. -- Alice^✉ 01:33, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Sorry Alice. Your valuable comments were deleted in error. I'm glad you restored them. Errors are less unusual. Johnmartindavies 08:40, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

No worries. Thanks for listening. -- Alice^✉ 08:48, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Image sizes

Hi, everyone. I like a lot of what I see in terms of how this article is shaping up, but I'm concerned that many of the thumbnails are too small for good viewing by readers. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:12, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, and the situation is aggravated by them being arranged in Gallery format, meaning that thumbnails as such can not be used, so with the current arrangement there is no "click to enlarge" icon in the lower right corner.-- Alice^✉ 20:15, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

With these 2 edits I've provided two examples of true thumbnails (with "click to enlarge" icons in the lower right corner and captions) arranged into two different formats of pseudo-gallery using a Wikitable. -- Alice^✉ 20:51, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi Alice, Your image display formats appear to work the same as the gallery for clicking on the image or the click to enlarge icon, but now force the images to appear in either a forced block of four, regardless of page width, or in a line across the page which encroaches on the left sidebar if the page is narrow. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 04:48, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

See w:Help:Gallery tag for the full syntax which allows for a caption, width and height specifications and a limit of the number of images per row. I have demonstrated with an example in the article. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:07, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Uhhhh, no. The two problems I was trying to address were complaints that the images were too small together with the lack of "click to enlarge" icons in the lower right corner. Contrary to what you write above, I have not been able to discover a way to display true thumbnails (with "click to enlarge" icons in the lower right corner and that, if they are not sized, display at the user's default display preference setting) in this "Gallery format". If you know a way to do this, please demonstrate on our article here.

This is a big problem with the "Gallery format", since most of our casual readers (unlike you and I) will not have the widget clue that they can click on the image itself to enlarge it. I actually thought it's a big advantage to use the full width of the page and have them overflow on to the (normally unused at that point) left hand gutter, since those particular images were positioned well down the page where they would not overlap any text in the left hand gutter. I can see no way of enlarging images in the "Gallery format" without forcing set widths to over-ride the user's preferences.

In short every format seems to have severe drawbacks but I am still experimenting... -- Alice^✉ 06:11, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

OK, I understand what you are trying for. As you say, the tools do not seem to be up to the job. You could probably put in a bug request for the click to enlarge icons to be added as a gallery option, but previous experience suggests that most users don't know how to use those either. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 09:05, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

So far, the table approach does not seem to be working, and if you do get it right, it may become a little complicated to edit. No harm in trying, but maybe the experiments should be made on the discussion page until we have a workable solution. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 09:05, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

There are some options left in my repertoire but they are all horrendously complicated. Since Ryan has specifically asked me now to stop messing about with image parameters, I think I'll stop editing here for a while and go and experiment at Wikitravel (where they don't seem to be very bothered about new templates). I'm also pretty disgruntled and fed up that there is still no resolution to the (very annoying) sockpuppet allegations. -- Alice^✉ 09:22, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

With Respect Alice and Peter, my 7 year old grand daughter knows to click on a small image to make it bigger or to spread it with 2 fingers, whether it has a widget or not. At least the gallery format keeps the images in relation to the text, which the other methods do not seem to be able to do at present. Separating images and text is more likely to lead to confusion for the reader, because they move into a different section using the table or icon approach. I work on a laptop but can see the gallery images very clearly on my bottom of the range mini smartphone. Best wishes. Johnmartindavies 19:16, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Furthermore on my smartphone the blocks and squares of 4 are completely hidden unless the reader shrinks the page excessively which there is no indication to do. The gallery images are quite acceptably large and of course have their captions. I would like to ask your permission to go back to the gallery or individual icon format until these technical problems have been resolved. Johnmartindavies 19:44, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Fair enough, I've changed my experiments to the gallery format. It's not the kids that don't know to click on images - it's typically those of 40 and above... -- Alice^✉ 02:22, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Agreed re Kids. Us old-timers are slowly improving. The new gallery format looks stunning on my smart phone and laptop and none of them get lost on the right hand side. I must carry on trying to learn from you. Johnmartindavies 14:14, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Hello Peter I've had great help from you and "Alice". I'm understanding a little more of how Wikivoyage works but not enough. I've just returned from another 8 marvellous weeks on and around the S E coast of Barbados. Planning my next visit. I started my "plunge in" 3 days after I arrived in January. Henry Kaiser the American musician and u/w cinematographer will almost certainly return with some camera gear. I've also met a young local guy, very good in the water justin5355@hotmail.com, He has a compact u/W camera but lives locally, and dives from Consett Bay, round the corner, where his girl friend's father has a boat, can find u/w pictures that may be decent. Can provide accurate information that will increase what is there and propose corrections when necessary. I would also reccommend James Peirce a Barbadian who has fished, dived and photographed the Island, the East and South East Coast and the Fathom for a couple of decades or more. He is a senior business and Insurance guy on the Island. He shot fish to pay his way through University and gave me some great Whale and Shark shots that I can't publish but can refer to them on another web site that I contributed to. He's not answering his old Email address. Instead of "useable" this site now says. "This travel topic is an outline and should either be merged into an appropriate parent topic or else developed further. It has a template, but there is not enough information present for it to be of real use. It was last edited on 2013-03-10 and will be merged or deleted if not modified for one year. Please plunge forward and rescue it!" What happens next? I don't think it needs rescuing or vandalising but certainly needs ongoing development and modification when indicated, not just for the sake of kicking out what's been done over 13 years and multiple long visits. During that time no-one else seems to have done anything except what is listed. I'm going though my photographic files at home now and diaries which I did not have at the Crane to sort out additional relevant information, but takes time. I think in terms of what can be achieved it should become a guide in due course but currently it should be of considerable use. I think Wkivoyage's crash autopilot has taken over. Best wishes. Johnmartindavies 21:25, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi John, I looked into the rating history, and what happened is that you deleted a large chunk of redundant text with this edit, which also inadvertently removed the {{usabletopic}} template, rendering it unrated, and also the {{PartOfTopic}} template which broke the breadcrumb navigation for the page. Consequently Traveler100 identified the page as unrated using an automated tool, and rated it at the default value, i.e. outline, and replaced the PartOfTopic template to fix the breadcrumb trail. Now I have replaced the usable rating. It was just one of those things that happen. The article is currently well above the baseline for usable, but needs a few of the sections that have little or no content to be improved to get to guide status. Some accurate position information identifying the location of sites - either bearings from landmarks, GPS coordinates, and/or a reasonably detailed map would be a big step towards guide rating. I can help with a map if you can supply the coordinates. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:01, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Peter, So the delete edit was the cause. I will study all the points you make in the relation to the edit details on the sites you refer to, and see if I can apply them here. My desktop crashed with a fair bit of stuff on the hard drive including GPS locations photos and dive computer printouts. A fair bit was backed up on CDs and DVDs so I need to get a new internal hard drive (blank) and an external DVD reader / writer for my netbook. Current backup is on USB drives. A blank map large enough to incorporate all the access sites and landmarks I have mentioned would be good. I can text them in plus GPS fixes. I have not taken my GPS in the last year or two but will do in future. I gave one to "Tiny" Moore but he disappeared mysteriously which is another story. Professional Dive Centre guides could provide endless photos and GPS fixes but they like to preserve their trade secrets. Ideally photos, are linked to GPS fixes, depth sounder readings and dive computer print outs. Local amateurs and appropriate visitors are the best bet for more information. "Alice" has already done a lot of useful and helful editing as well as guidance. With regard to actual dive sites the reef is fairly homogeneous from end to end, though the sessile life is generally better further north, but the fish and invertebrates move around. Locals tend to pick their dive locations in relation to access points, weather and sea state, or how much fuel they want to burn against the return in fish caught, and access to fish markets. Oistins is best apart from Bridgetown which is generally too far. A pirogue can drive from Oistins to Consett Bay in about one and a half hours traversing the whole reef. A planing boat, not so common round this end, in under half an hour. A separate subsection for marine life photos would be a good idea. Johnmartindavies 09:36, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Ikan

I will try and enlarge the thumbnails as you suggest. I believe the Gallery format keeps the images in readable location to the text. JMD

IP edit

I assume this edit was by you, John, while not logged on. Yes? -- Alice^✉ 20:18, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Sorry Alice. Diagnosed correctly. I got a notification and then corrected another of my errors. Thanks for all your work, Johnmartindavies 21:39, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi John, I see you are not using your wikisignature. It is easy and helps identify your comments on a talk page. At the end of your comment, before saving, just type four tildes ~~~~, When the page is saved, the software identifies your username if you are logged on and substitutes your wikisignature and time stamp for the tildes. If you dont like your wikisignature you can change it. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:29, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Dive site list

This article is about an extended area with several dive sites. It needs a listing of these (header has been added in the article) • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 08:23, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Article status

Currently rated at usabletopic.

Next step up is guidetopic. The criteria for guide status for dive site articles is loosely defined at Wikivoyage:Dive guide article status criteria, and listed below for reference:.

Guide status criteria for dive site

Wikivoyage criteria:

• Effectively covers most aspects of the topic with no obvious omissions. (complies)
• If practical, it should contain a listing of relevant destinations. (in this case the specific dive sites) (not yet)
• The format should closely match the manual of style. (mostly complies)

Diver criteria:

• A suitably competent diver with little local knowledge should be able to plan a safe dive using the information provided.(in conjunction with a regional diving guide if applicable.) (complies)

Checklist:

• Template present, all appropriate headings present (complies)
• Style basically correct and complies with Wikivoyage recommendations. (mostly complies)
• A map or aerial photo is present for shore access sites, and displays useful information. A map should comply with the Wikivoyage map style conventions where this does not adversely affect usefulness. (several aerial photos and a couple of small maps. probably enough)
• GPS position data or other means of identifying position accurately without local knowledge. This can often be found by using Google Earth. Maps from Google Earth are not acceptable for copyright reasons. (would be nice, but may not be practicable for this region, taking local practices into consideration)
• All subheadings contain useful information unless the subheading does not apply to the site, in which case it is not shown. (complies)
• At least one photograph of marine organism or feature of the site. (complies)
• The site should be a sub-article of a regional dive guide. (if there are very few sites in the region the sites may be included in the regional guide to a number not exceeding 9). (complies)
• If there are a large number of photos you want to provide with the site, you can put them into a Gallery which is a sub article of the dive site sub-article. An example can be seen at Diving the Cape Peninsula and False Bay/Pinnacle/Gallery (this may be a good way to deal with the marine life photos)
• For photos which are needed in the text of the article to illustrate specific aspects, but are too many to keep against the right margin, an alternative is to use small galleries within the main text at the appropriate place. This looks neater than an overlong column at the right. This is acceptable practice as it has been used in Star articles such as Singapore#Eat. (many photos already arranged in small galleries.)

The article already complies with most of the recommendations for guide status. A little tweaking of the format, possibly a bit of copyediting, and possibly a sub-article for the marine life photos to reduce the number of images on the main article to cut down on bandwidth. I would like some feedback from other editors on the article layout. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 08:03, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Number of images, external link format

I just deleted a selfie, as being in obvious violation of Wikivoyage:Image policy#People in photos, but I find the number of photos in this article incredible. If any article is in violation of Wikivoyage:Image policy#Minimal use of images, it would be this one. I realize dive articles are judged by different standards, in part because a lot of these images are needed for divers to know what to expect, but are all of the photos truly needed, or is there a real likelihood that readers will find themselves unable to focus on so many images?

Another problem is the extremely widespread use of the deprecated footnote style of external links. There are 51 of them. When a bot was used to convert footnote-style links into front-links, I guess it had no effect on this article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:12, 4 May 2015 (UTC)