Talk:Germany/Archive 2013-2014

History

I think this is to long. Tourists want to explore the country - this is more important! --House1630 (talk) 23:41, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Too many regions

In short, the title says it all. I find subnational groupings of actual regions somewhat superfluous in most cases, resulting from our strict adherence to the 7-9 list items rule (as if we couldn't simply break down the listing inside one article). If we believe this level is a must, I find the current division resulting in far too many regions.

Arithmetically, we should have two sub-regions for Germany (8+8 or 7+9), but the only reasonable dualist division is that into East and West Germany, along the former border. I know this may not be politically correct to invoke this division, but it results in regions that are at least have enough in common internally (between Laender) to be meaningful to the tourist - the shared heritage of the decades of division is still permeable to some extent and helps explain the differences. Articles on East and West Germany would have some merit from a traveller's point of view.

The "problem" is that division results in 10+6. If we want to be anal and break down the 10, the obvious division would be North/South. I believe Northern Germany is pretty obvious: Niedersachsen, Bremen, Hamburg and S-H. The other Laender would then go to Southwestern Germany (however artificial that creation may be). I know Mecklemburg-Vorpommern is often included geographically in the Northern Germany region, but I feel it has more in common with other former East German Laender than the other four Northern ones.

So thus we can have not more than three, in many ways artificial, but somewhat meaningful, sub-regions of Germany if we want to. That said, the most preferable solution in my eyes would be to break down the list of Laender in the main article by the abovementioned division and abolish the entirely superfluous and artificial level altogether. PrinceGloria (talk) 14:46, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Knowing nothing of Germany, I don't think 16 regions is too many for a country article, if the regions correspond to administrative boundaries. 50 (the U.S.) would be too many, but 16 should be fine, especially if it's broken down as you describe (like Manhattan). That said, is there a strong value to the east-west divide over the current Cold War-agnostic subregions currently displayed in the article? LtPowers (talk) 15:53, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Per Wikivoyage:Avoid long lists, the 7±2 rule does not apply to districts (as done in Manhattan), but does apply to countries and regions. I'm not completely sure what is being proposed. The cultural regions of Germany are quite evident, the only strange choice we have made is "Central Germany", which culturally isn't the area we make it out to be, but should be the states Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia and Saxony. We could merge these with the other eastern states, and thus have four regions with one of them being the New states. Globe-trotter (talk) 16:30, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

I absolutely cannot fathom why districts are OK not to follow 7±2 while countries and regions need to. I absolutely agree with you that "Central Germany" is 100% artificial, but what I would propose is simply doing away with regions at all, now that I am encouraged by LtPowers. I have also noted that the German Wikivoyage does not even use the region-level articles, simply mentioning the general regions (North, South, East and West) when listing the Laender and not making much fuss about it.

In general, it seems to me that the region-level articles for countries with 16 or less top-level administrative divisions only exist because somebody made those nifty maps and they are kewl. Otherwise, they proved useless, procuring the creation of near-empty articles that compete with the actual administrative divisions for content and require overgeneralizations with lenghty explanations as to why the common things for the region are not actually common. They are absolutely not needed for the traveller in my view, and I'd gladly do away with them all - certainly for Germany and Poland, and also for the Netherlands as well (which I know you would not agree with me, Globe-trotter, but I still cannot see how Zeeland and Limburg have anything in common).

Do we really find those artificial regions below the country level and above administrative divisions add any value as separate articles, or could we compress any value they provide to short descriptions breaking up the long laundry list when listing the top-level administrative divisions in the country article? Or, more specifically, do we need those separate articles for Germany here? PrinceGloria (talk) 16:50, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

I broadly agree with PrinceGloria's analysis and conclusions. Our current German regions and regional articles add nothing of value for the traveller and nor are they ever likely too and I would be in favour of their abolition. There are other supra-Bundesländer divisions and complications which will remain after abolition, however eg: Eifel, so preserving the breadcrumb trail will not be so straightforward as you might otherwise think.

Although the original rationale (psychological "research" on human memory) for our 7±2 rule has now been entirely discredited, it still provides utility for us in putting a quick end to otherwise unproductive discussions (often from local partisans) about adding "just one more" town or "just one more other destination" and, for this reason, should be kept intact for city lists, etc. This utilitarian argument does not apply for the proximate topic.

German Länder

The number of German Bundesländer are highly unlikely to change from 16 and we should simply use this ready drawn svg map, just changing the legend into English. (LtPowers has a great interest in well drawn maps and might even volunteer to do this for us?). While we are at it we should also do away with the faux English of "North Rhine-Westphalia", etc, (which are less commonly used by foreign visitors than by smart-Alec native German speakers trying to be "helpful") and simply use the native German titles. --W. Frank^e-mail_talk 18:23, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

This discussion is getting out of scope. This Talk page is for improving the Germany page according to the guidelines as agreed on by consensus. Proposals for policy changes are fruitless on a country discussion page, those interesting in that discussion won't be following this page. If you feel like the 7±2 rule should be changed, discuss this at Wikivoyage talk:Avoid long lists. If you want to propose that article titles on the English Wikivoyage should be in the German language (creative, I must say), do so at Wikivoyage talk:Naming conventions. Globe-trotter (talk) 18:40, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Globe-trotter, the Avoid Long Lists policy doesn't really apply here, as we are not talking about lists; we're talking about a regional hierarchy. The relevant documentation for that is at Wikivoyage:Geographical hierarchy#Dividing geographical units, and while it mentions the 7+/-2 rule there, it's only one of many considerations to take into account. In this case, where the number of natural subregions (states, in this case) is manageable (especially if divided into logical groupings here on this page), removing a layer of the hierarchy is a virtue, not a vice. (As for the article titles, if "North Rhine-Westphalia" is good enough for the Westphalians and Rhinelanders, it's good enough for me.) LtPowers (talk) 18:42, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikivoyage:Geographical hierarchy is pretty clear about the 7±2 rule and how it applies to countries and regions. All countries except for the USA have followed this principle. The 7±2 rule decided what people consider "managable", you personally may think 16 is a manageable amount, but if it is, then thatthat means it should be the 16±2 rule, not the 7±2 rule. Someone decided 7±2 is manageable and not 16. Globe-trotter (talk) 18:55, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Germany doesn't IMO really need an extra layer of practically empty articles between the country and die Bundesländer. But if we decide to keep such a layer, then the only smart way of districtifying Germany is a north-south division. I'd put Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Bremen, Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Berlin, Saxony-Anhalt and North Rhine-Westphalia into the flat "North" (9 subdivisions) and Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, Hesse, Thuringia, Saxony, Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria into the mountainous "South" (7 subdistricts). ϒpsilon (talk) 18:50, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

I believe we all agree the supra-regional articles are unnecessary and should be removed, so I would first establish whether we are indeed in agreement or if anybody strongly feels we need those. Then we can discuss the slicing of the 16-strong list into smaller pieces and each and every of us can submit a proposal and/or support any of those already raised.

BTW, Globe-trotter, what the 7±2 guideline generally advises is breaking up lists, not articles. If we have more than 9 hotels in a city, we usually divide the list of hotels into Budget, Mid-range and Splurge, not start districtifying, which would be too early to do just because of that. Same applies here - the unbroken list of 16 Bundeslaender would be too long, but if we split THE LIST, we may not need the extra articles that add no value. PrinceGloria (talk) 18:56, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, and you suggest creating long lists, thus it's obviously against the policy of having short lists. To quote Wikivoyage:Geographical hierarchy#Dividing geographical units: People find it easier to comprehend lists of around seven items. If there are more than nine things to be grouped, we sub-divide the group into subgroups, each of which has 7 ± 2 things in it. This means that if there are very many countries in a continent, or cities in a country, it can be helpful to break those up into a number of groups, each of which has its own members. This doesn't need to be applied stringently to the lowest level of the hierarchy; if a region has more than nine cities in it, and there's no helpful way to divide it into subregions then don't split it.. This is why the Manhattan example is not a good one, as it is in the lowest level of the hierarchy where this guideline doesn't apply. Globe-trotter (talk) 19:02, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

I support this proposal. Germany does not need an extra level of geographical hierarchy. The policy says: "Common sense should always apply (and the travellers viewpoint), so if a region has more than 9 cities in it and there's no helpful way to divide it into subregions, don't split it." I don't see why common sense applies to cities in a region, but does not apply to regions in a country=) --Alexander (talk) 19:05, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

The 7±2 rule has been the key guideline in deciding on regions, and country regions especially. LtPowers now states 16 is "manageable", but the 7±2 guideline has been the community approved guideline on what's manageable. 16 is not 7, else it'd have been called the 16±2 rule. This guideline has been applied to every country in the world, with the USA as the only exception. Discussing this on the Germany page is not right, as this discussion has implications for every country that has been divided into travel regions. If the 16 states is good for Germany, it means the 12 provinces of the Netherlands and the 16 provinces of Poland are also right, and well, now there's no limit anymore, so we might as well also use the 27 regions of France, the 26 cantons of Switzerland and the 17 communities of Spain. If only this was decided before, would have saved us 10 years of discussions! :-) Globe-trotter (talk) 19:39, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Globe-trotter, I believe the 7+2 rule applies for lists, not actual number of regions. Bundeslaender are IMO perfect size for regions and none of the higher regions of Germany (N, W, central, E, S) currently contains much useful info except of further geographical division. I agree with PrinceGloria's suggestion for skipping those and only divide the region (Bundeslaender) list into subsections. Danapit (talk) 19:46, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

So what's the maximum amount of regions allowed per policy? Globe-trotter (talk) 20:25, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't know any rule limiting number of regions. The 7±2 rule says: ...lists should contain 5 to 9 items. When they exceed that length it is time to consider breaking them up or pruning them. This may involve breaking the list into groups within the article, or creating separate articles. We could choose the former option. Danapit (talk) 20:32, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

The regions between the country of Germany and the states do not appear to provide any value as far as I can see. I see no problem with started at the level of Germany states provided there is no objection to listing also extra-hierarchical regions that cross states such as Eifel, Harz, Middle Rhine and Alps as these are what the tourist travel will be more interested in. --Traveler100 (talk) 21:54, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Globe-trotter, let me clarify a few things. First, I used Manhattan only as an example of how we do headers with items underneath it, not as an example that is supposed to be cognate with country-level divisions; that is, as an example of in-article style rather than inter-article organization. Second, I'm not aware of us ever requiring geographical divisions be limited to 9 the way we do for lists. For the geographical hierarchy, it's a rule of thumb only. Practical considerations must take precedence, and I think if you ask on Wikivoyage talk:Geographical hierarchy, you'll find that to be the consensus view. For example, California has 10 regions. LtPowers (talk) 02:06, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

I disagree that the regions between the country guide and the state guides provide no value. I think they could, if they had some content, for a couple of reasons:

1. German states aren't that large in land area, so it seems reasonable that most visitors would cover more than one of them in a trip. At the same time, not every visitor is going to have the time to visit all of the states. I think it makes sense to group states that would be commonly visited together and provide an overview of key connections, getting around and highlights to see. It's the way some travellers are going to see their trip.
2. I disagree with LtPowers that 16 is manageable number of top-level regions, at least for a country or region the size of Germany. For someone like me, who knows little of the German states, useable level "artificial" groupings like Southern Germany, Western Germany, etc. make more sense and would make it easier to plan a trip than sixteen state guides that I have very little context for. Yes, there's a map and the states could be organized and presented like the districts in Manhattan, but I'm still looking at three state guides (and three different parts of the hierarchy) just to get a high-level understanding of a trip from Frankfurt to Cologne. It strikes me as at least one guide too many for the distance.

Don't take these as objections to the overall discussion. I'll leave it to the capable hands of people who know the area. I just wanted to provide a different perspective. Cheers -Shaundd (talk) 05:28, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

I rarely, if ever, do more than one Land when visiting Germany, and there is absolutely no such thing as "states commonly visited together". For example, from Saxony you can just as well continue to Saxony-Anhalt from Leipzig through Halle, go to Thuringia continuing from Chemnitz to Gera, Jena and Erfurt or move southwest to Bavaria to Nuremberg. Many will probably not go to any of those states anyway and head straight from Dresden to Berlin. I was recently talking to an American who wanted to do Hamburg and Munich only during his visit to Europe.

If you can provide some content that would make the regional-level articles actually worthwhile, please do. For now, I am convinced there really isn't much to be added beyond what is already there, and for all articles this boils down to a line or two that can be included in the main article when splitting the list of Laender. PrinceGloria (talk) 05:41, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't limit my travels to whatever boundaries governments have decided on and I think this counts for most travelers. I organize my travels based on travel interests, geographical features and cultural aspects. The current groupings have a lot more travel relevance to them than the states. Editors here seem very well versed in the political divisions of Germany, but the average traveler doesn't know a lot about these and isn't interested to read more about them. They just want to get to get to interesting places to travel.

The north/south/west/east groupings are very practical for this purpose. Northern Germany is a flat region, Protestant, Low German dialects are spoken and the traveller can go here for beaches and the coastline. Southern Germany is basically "Romantic" Germany with castles, beer and Lederhosen, is mountainous, Catholic, and High German dialects are spoken. From a travel perspective Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria are similar regions and done on a similar travel itinerary (e.g. Romantic Road). The states are basically political lines with little travel relevance: they cut right through important travel regions such as the Harz, Eifel and Teutoburg Forest.

We don't want to confront the reader with 16 descriptions of politically assigned states to give them an overall idea of where to travel in Germany. This is not a lecture on political divisions. It makes a lot more sense to have four or five groups based on travel interests. Beaches? → North. Lederhosen? → South. Communist history? → East. For example, after clicking on North, the reader can go to the See or Do section and pick a beach resort from there. This is largely how Wikivoyage was designed, and it seems to be thrown out of the water pretty quickly here in favor of a large list of political lines. Globe-trotter (talk) 09:02, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Why not to follow the division that works for German wikivoyage Germany article? Danapit (talk) 09:23, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

I am with Danapit on that, Germans would know well how their country and travelling across it works, and they see no need for an artificial megaregion over Bundeslaender, yet manage to present the list of Bundeslaender in a very legible, organized and informative way.

However much hatred one may hold for administrative divisions, I do not think it makes any sense to discard them. They are a common denominator linking all kinds of guides with other sources and the real life, and I don't think that anybody would be led to believe the mountains suddenly end and a beach starts at the border of two Bundeslaender. But the Bundeslaender often have separate local transportation companies and arrangements and other practical peculiarities that is easy to comprehend when presented together. It is best to know what Bundeslaender you are visiting than provoke blank stares or misunderstandings when trying to get information about "Central Germany" from the locals.

Finally, reducing the idea of Northern Germany to beaches or Eastern Germany to post-communist land is oversimplyfing and not serving the traveller well, yet this is probably the only thing we can say of those regions that they have in common. In fact, cultural and geographic boundaries are much more complicated and often run across Bundeslaender (Westfalia seems to have more in common with Niedersachsen than Palatinate, for example), but if we set out on a mission to definitively divide Germany into touristically coherent regions, we are bound to fail, IMHO, and create a heap of worthless original research. PrinceGloria (talk) 10:01, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Original research is not worthless here, it's encouraged. Everything we do is original research. I didn't suggest removing the states completely, but to group them so the traveler will find what they are looking for without first reading through 16 descriptions of German political divisions. Simplifying actually does serve the reader well. Complex discussions about history, politics, and whatever comes into play is Wikipedia territory, here we should simplify regions to fit travelers' needs. About the German Wikivoyage, I don't know about their policies, but in general the situation is not comparable as Germans will be a lot more familiar with the German states than English language readers. Globe-trotter (talk) 10:16, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Original research is enouraged, but worthless original research is simply worthless, IMHO. I believe you are the only one in this discussion who sees the over-regional articles as valuable. I guess we might not be able to reach an outright consensus, but since we do not appear to be moving ahead, I would suggest we take the majority route this time. The articles on over-regional entities are still laughably empty, so I don't think they serve too much of a purpose as they stand anyway. PrinceGloria (talk) 10:52, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

PS. I also believe in keeping it simple for the sake of the traveller. The traveller needs to be made aware of the Bundeslaender anyway, so why force them to learn of some artificially created regions that are to be found only @ Wikivoyage and confuse them therewith?

Huh? No one is forced to learn or use the over-regional articles. There's a link to each Bundeslaender in the region list template on the main Germany page. If the reader is looking for a specific Bundeslaender they can click on it and ignore the super-regions entirely. I also think the importance of the Bundeslaender is being overstated. I've been to Frankfurt, Cologne and Heidelberg, and until I looked at a map last night, I wasn't aware that was three different Bundeslaender. My admittedly brief time there has left an impression that you could plan and have a trip to Germany without paying much attention to which Bundeslaender you're in.

For what it's worth, I took a quick look at other travel guide sites (LP, Rough Guides, Fodors, Frommers) to see how they break down Germany. You're right — our five super-regions are unique to Wikivoyage. But breaking Germany down strictly by the Bundeslaender would also appear to be unique to Wikivoyage. The four sites I looked at sometimes broke up Bundeslaender (e.g., Bavaria) or combined them (e.g., Saarland and Rhineland). The number of regions was quite large though, all of them had over ten.-Shaundd (talk) 17:46, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Or forget Bundesländer and make a few more geographical regions like Eifel ,Allgäu, Baltic Sea Coast (Germany) ,Harz Heligoland, Westerwald, Weser Uplands and Middle Rhine Valley? --Traveler100 (talk) 18:49, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Dear Lord, this is getting awry, was going well initially but not we're veering off course I am fearing a Costa Concordia...

Most users will click from this article straight to Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Hamburg or Cologne, but those wanting to get an idea about the country, like myself when I am planning to travel to a country I don't know well, will find those five confusing articles that are simply redundant and create the appearance of entities that simply don't exist or make much sense. For me, it takes time to filter out such redundant noise I come across on Wikivoyage when I try to figure out a country foreign to me. I really really really fail to see what we GAIN by keeping those stillborn stubs.

As concerns inventing our own regions - let's not. Bundeslaender exist in so many facets of real life that they are really more useful for the traveller, from local public transit options to being featured on signage and all kind of communications to, finally, being unambigiously recognized by everybody. We HAVE to divide Germany this way or another, and given the federal nature of Germany and the fact that the Bundeslaender tend to roughly follow historic, cultural and geographic divisions more often than not makes them the obvious candidate and automatic frontrunner. I would never dispute their usefullness and ultimate favorability over any other division at that level.

As concerns the usefulness of the articles listed by Traveler100 as such (not as replacement for Bundeslaender), this is to be discussed on some other opportunity, but I generally see some chance of at least some of those acquiring some unique, useful content that would indeed be better presented to the reader in that form rather than any other (mostly pertaining to mountain ranges, which tend to be divided by borders for obvious purposes). Let us watch them develop, there is no need to decide on them at this point.

In short, again, I propose to remove and delete the articles on sub-country-level regions of Germany (such as Central Germany and the rest), list all of the Bundeslaender in the main country article and link directly to them, but so that the list is arranged so that the Bundeslaender are grouped reasonably (e.g. as the German Wikivoyage does) to avoid a very long unbroken list, and perhaps salvage any information from the current region article to use as introductory sentence / paragraph for each group of Bundelaender on the list. What do you guys make of it, and not of the rest of the stuff that suddenly appeared in the discussion? PrinceGloria (talk) 19:20, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

PrinceGloria, plunge forward. --Traveler100 (talk) 20:47, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Plunging forward would be inappropriate considering this discussion is still ongoing with valid objections raised here and even in the Pub. "Administrative boundaries everywhere because all other is original research" is very un-Wikivoyage, and especially doesn't work for Germany. Entities don't have to be created by governments first to be used here, they can be made if they make sense to travelers. I think it's pretty obvious that the states are political divisions that have little to do with the country's travel regions. There are two ways to solve this:

1. Group the states together so they get travel relevance and the reader doesn't get overloaded by the sheer number of them. I already explained why this is a logical option above.
2. Do like the Rough Guide and Lonely Planet, and basically redraw the boundaries of the states to make at least some travel sense of them and reduce their number. I looked through the Rough Guide to Germany, and it makes the Black Forest and the Alps top level regions and redraws the lines of nearly all the states. For example, Saxony Anhalt is made to wholly include the Harz and a bunch of states are grouped together. I think this variety would be a complex undertaking, and using state names while making them cover different areas doesn't make much sense to me. But it's at least a way to make some more travel sense of the states. Globe-trotter (talk) 21:13, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

• Support PrinceGloria's proposal for reasons already discussed (at least until some travel Hercules has puzzled out alternative borders to those of the current Bundesländer, redrawn ALL of the maps and fleshed out 85% of the "tourist area" articles in user space to give concrete effect to Globe-trotter's alternative proposals - otherwise they are just pie-in-the-sky). --W. Frank^e-mail_talk 21:35, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support making structure based on Bundesländer. As the breadcrumbs is hierarchical and cannot have a sub-region in more than one region I think you have to follow the administrative structure of the country. The country page should however emphasis more the tourist and geographical regions of Germany which often overlap states. --Traveler100 (talk) 04:21, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Remember this is not a vote. I see a lot of arguments relying on the fact that the current country divisions are largely empty, but personally I do not see any reason why they couldn't be turned into reasonably decent articles. You might say "but this region has bundesländer that don't have much in common", but geographical proximity is already something in common, and there is no rule that there has to be lots beyond that in common. It should still be well possible to make articles that give a decent snapshot at this level of magnification. Take Western Germany, for example. Currently it has little besides the 3 sub-regions and a list of cities, but it certainly doesn't have to be that way. Get in/Get around: what are the main transportation hubs, main thoroughfares, other considerations within this area we have defined? See/Do: what are the 7+-2 best things to see/do within this area? Eat: if your friend were visiting only this region, what are the culinary highlights that you would recommend seeking out? Drink: where are the nightlife centers within this area? Are there any local beverages that stand out from within this area? etc. I think it is a mistake to think of region articles as if they have to be some cohesive unit with a common culture. In some cases it is better to think of it as a level of magnification, drawing an overview and highlights from the area we have framed, making the country more digestible to the uninitiated, who may have trouble comparing 5 neighboring state articles and deciding what the best things to see and do from amongst all of them are.. If we were talking about a dynamic map, I don't think anyone would be arguing to remove the level of magnification between full country and individual state level. I don't think we should here either. We simply haven't yet taken the time to flesh out these articles, but we still can and should. Texugo (talk) 12:02, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Texugo, the borders of German Bunderlaender match those of cultural and historic regions. Therefore, we all try to say that it makes no difference (other than geography) whether to group Saxony with Mecklenburg-Vorpommen or with Thuringien, or with Bayern. Each Bunderlaender has its typical food, important attractions, and centers of nightlife. Therefore, you will simply repeat the information already mentioned in articles for individual Bunderlaender. There is no typical food for the whole Eastern Germany. The food is more local, which is why large regions make no sense for Germany.

Now, if you think that geographical proximity is still important and relevant to travelers, I would say that Germany has a very efficient transport system. You can get from East to the West in no time. If you want to get a quick overview of the whole country, you have to travel around different regions, and those travelers should find a list of highlights in the main article for Germany. But seeing the highlights of Northern Germany is pointless. There is no reason to do that, because Berlin is just 2 hours away from Hamburg. --Alexander (talk) 12:20, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It's as if you skipped over half of my argument. The point is that there doesn't need to be a "typical food for the whole Eastern Germany". You choose the highlights from each state and create an overview that illustrates that culinary variety. And you do the same with the important attractions, the centers of nightlife. Unless you copy text verbatim from elsewhere, it's not "repeating information" any more than it is when we feature the Grand Canyon on no less than 5 different hierarchical levels outside of the article itself. Texugo (talk) 12:39, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Texugo, you CAN fill all those regional articles with more info. But this would simply be repeating the same info as for the Bundelaender that make up the region, there is nothing to add, and nothing to gain for the traveller from that.

This is NOT necessarily true for all regional articles and their immediate children over Wikivoyage - often the region contains extra information on background and culture, not focusing on details, as well as information on travel arrangements that are different and useful in a different way than those of individual cities and subregions. Here, there is no chance of adding valuable, unique content to the region-level articles that would not be strict repetition of what we say of Bundeslaender, only with a few Bundeslaender bundled together. It is futile to further develop those articles. PrinceGloria (talk) 12:25, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

You can state that the traveller has nothing to gain from that, but I am not the first one on this page to say that I do indeed find it useful, as a traveller, to see a country I haven't been to before broken down at some level between full country and individual states. The argument about repeating information is completely moot, as I mentioned above. Texugo (talk) 12:39, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

You can make same compilations of typical food and key attractions for any given part of Germany, or for Northern Germany+Denmark, which would be useful for those who arrive in Hamburg and fly out of Copenhagen. What I try to say is that there is no reason to duplicate information. If you want to see a larger part of Germany, you are welcome to travel across the borders of different Budeslander. If you go to a particular city and have absolutely no time for traveling, one Bunderlaender is a good scale for you. Once again, I can't imagine anyone who will specifically go to Northern Germany and stay exactly within the borders of this region.

Although several people mentioned that large regions could be useful for understanding the country, I can't take it as a serious argument. Let's leave the decision to those who know the country and know how different different Bunderlaender are. For a brief introduction, you need a well-written country article. We should focus our effort there, not on the ambiguous selection of main attractions within each of these artificial regions. --Alexander (talk) 12:58, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

The more I think about it the less I wonder why the top level region articles remained nearly empty so far. It is very difficult to find some common denominators for say Stralsund + Göttingen + Lüneburg in Northern Germany or Münster + Aachen + Trier in Western Germany. These regions really don't work. Bundesländer more or less do. Danapit (talk) 13:20, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

But didn't Texugo just explain that we don't have to "find common denominators"? LtPowers (talk) 13:33, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

This is now getting purely theoretical and we're going around in circles. What I suggest for the people who believe the "regional" articles are worthwhile is to:

• if you know Germany, do fill at least one of them with content and we can then discuss the merits of this very article and not muse theoretically (but please don't make this article the Central Germany one, as I believe we all agree this region is quite convulted anyway)
• if you do not know Germany, just accept it from the mouths / hands of those who do that the article don't make much sense

I sincerely hope the first of the above will happen. Until then, I'd hold off discussing here. If it turns out neither of the supporters of the regional articles actually has a good idea how to make even one of them wholesome and useful, I think we have a clear-cut case. PrinceGloria (talk) 13:43, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

• Why do not we make Brandenburg + Berlin, Schleswig-Holstein + Hamburg, Lower Saxony + Bremen, and Rhineland-Palatinate + Saarland? This would give a pretty logical division into 12 regions. Still, 12 > 7+2, but it should be feasible.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:58, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

There's certainly an argument to be made for subsuming the three Stadtstaaten or Stadtländer into their neighbouring Flächenländer to make fewer Wikivoyage regions since to an extent their post-war birth was a result of the division of the defeated third Reich into allied occupation zones and a desire to keep the new divisions small and weak rather than any important cultural or geographic borders. However, if this were to be done, I would prefer that Hamburg joins its Hanseatic and Saxon cousin, Bremen, inside a Wikivoyage region of "Saxony" rather than become part of a Wikivoyage region of "bundle-land" Schleswig-Holstein. If you're going to amalgamate Saarland and the Pfalz, then you may as well go the whole hog and amalgamate those two with either Hesse or Baden - and this brings us full circle to an endlessly absorbing debate on the boundaries of artificially constructed Wikivoyage regions - which is partly why I supported PrinzGloria's proposal above! --W. Frank^e-mail_talk 19:08, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Agree that Länder makes sense for Germany, organised on the Germany page but not creating over reaching regions. Then also highlighting a number of extra regions. See User:Traveler100/germanyregions. I do however think a couple of sub-regions need to be reorganised a little. South Lower Saxony should be restored and Harz should be an extraregion covering its whole area. The current Swabia (region) should be renamed Bavarian Swabia and then having a Swabia article for the whole region that crosses current state boundaries. Currently Eifel contains towns from two states and is mentioned as a region in both Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia. This works but should we keep it that way? --Traveler100 (talk) 18:25, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Thinking about this a little more I think it makes sense to have first level the states (Länder) of Germany. Most sub-regions would then be the existing splits of the states but there will be some sub-regions that cross states. These are regions that make tourist/geographical sense such as Eifel and Harz. These cross-state articles will have cities belonging to them (which will be in more than one state), will be listed as a regions in more than one state but will be isPartOf Germany. Other regions not matching administrative boundaries can be listed under other destinations of Germany and states but would be extraregions (mentioning cities but not having any child locations). Current proposal at User:Traveler100/germanyregions. --Traveler100 (talk) 05:32, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

OK now, we're veering off-topic again. Let me remind you that before we move further, we need to decide whether to delete the article for regions of Germany that are OVER the level of Bundeslaender, such as Central Germany. Meanwhile, as per my call to let us see how those articles could provide useful content to travellers, User:Globe-trotter has greatly expanded the Northern Germany article. I believe further discussion should move to Talk:Northern Germany to find out whether we beieve that an article with this kind of content is actually helpful and beneficial to travellers. PrinceGloria (talk) 05:54, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

I do not think this is going of topic. Deciding to change the top regions of a country without looking at where you go from there is not very sensible. I thought deleting the levels over Bundeslaender was a no-brainier, but now see we have a conflicting editor (someone that has already cause issues in the regions below Bundeslaender. --Traveler100 (talk) 07:21, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Consensus impossible, polling should begin

As a German expatriate living in Glasgow, I believe that Globe-trotter did an excellent job in showing very clearly at Northern Germany why the artificial and misleading-to-visitors "regions" of Northern Germany, Western Germany, Central Germany, Eastern Germany and Southern Germany should be deleted forthwith. (If anyone thinks differently, please read this criticism by PrinzGloria: Talk:Northern_Germany#Comments_on_the_usefulness_of_the_content_added). Kudos to Globe-trotter for reducing the cringe factor of this embarrassing article, but it is literally a waste of time for any traveller to waste even a moment reading those now we have our own dynamic maps and travel between these entirely misleading "regions" is so quick and easy. Without prejudice to real travel regions that overlap Bundesländer (such as Middle Rhine Valley which spans North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse or the supra-national Eifel region that sits in both the two German Länder of Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia with smaller parts in Belgium and Luxembourg, and which currently present problems for our breadcrumb trails system that do not currently allow more than one breadcrumb trail) they should be deleted without a misleading re-direct (if a re-direct is insisted upon, it should be to the country article of Germany) - fortunately there is almost invariably no useful content to merge.

Consensus is not just a policy; it is a fact of life on a Wiki. Because anyone can edit, anyone can change what is already there, or write something new or different. Then somebody else can come along and change it again, take things away, move things around or even change it all back to what it was to start with, perhaps even deleting the article entirely.

Wikivoyage does not usually use voting because, unlike consensus, it does not require that contributors present their arguments and carefully respond to each others' arguments. In short, it depresses the kind of careful analysis and discussion that ensures that changes are made thoughtfully.

However, that is not the case here with this proposition. There are no further arguments to advance and unless we are to emulate the impotent UN security Council over the gassing of children in Syria and allow an effective veto by one person, we need to put the travellers' interests first.

Some say that voting is complicated by the realities of the semi-anonymous on-line world; it is often not possible to ensure the one-person one-vote model of majoritarian democracy. Again, I doubt that will be the case here (where it is only I who have been accused of being the sock puppet/puppet master - it's never been clarified who is supposed to be pulling whose strings - but I have e-mailed User:Alice and asked her not to vote here) and we can go back to the "one editor vetoes any change" consensus method if there is a suspicion of that.

It would also be open to us to emulate the few pages specifically devoted to voting (eg: WV:Votes for deletion), but even there, the voting model is not majoritarian and voters are required to justify their vote with a rationale. I expect everyone who does vote will just write "per rationale advanced earlier above".

Another possibility, of course, is for the minority position here to Keep an open mind as to the arguments against our current regions that have been introduced. There is no shame, only wisdom, in being convinced by others and changing your opinion. As consensus does not require unanimity, it's considered classy to state that you will respect the consensus being built and stand aside if you find yourself alone in your position, even when you feel sure that your position is correct. --W. Frank^e-mail_talk 14:18, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Remember that consensus does not mean unanimity. It seems that discussion on the utility of the intervening regions is ongoing; the objectors may yet decide that their objections have been addressed, if not satisfied, which would allow the proponents to proceed with the backing of consensus, if not unanimity. LtPowers (talk) 15:38, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

I see there has been some reorganisation of regions under the state, moving Swabia (region) to cover the whole Swabia region and not just the Bavaria section. Not saying this is wrong but we could now do with a more detailed discussion on the split of the Länder into there regions.--Traveler100 (talk) 13:28, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Schwaben or Ländle is almost as culturally distinct a region as Scotland and of similar antiquity (although its borders, unconfined by water, have ebbed and flowed more over the ages). I really do think we can junk the 7±2 rule as just another example of American exceptionalism where 7±2 ends up meaning 13, especially now that the original faux psychological justification for it has been thoroughly discredited. If we are really serious about ttcf we really need to move forward and implement PrinzGloria's proposals (without prejudice to cross-Länder articles such as Swabia - most of which is not currently in Freistaat Bayern !) --W. Frank^email_talk 15:48, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

In your rush to cherry pick your examples, don't forget that Europe and North Island also have more than nine regions. -Shaundd (talk) 01:54, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Agree Schwaben makes more sense (and that most of it is in Baden-Württemberg). Also think should move forward and drop the odd regions above Länder. The question then is, do we keep towns and cities in a clear administrative state hierarchy and just reference cultural and geographical areas like Swabia and Middle Rhine Valley as extra-hierarchical regions or do we branch off below Länder and allow sub-regions to cross state borders. --Traveler100 (talk) 21:09, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

My long experience on WT and then WV tells me it's best to take small, simple steps if you don't want discussion to tail off with no subsequent resolution or action. I therefore, favour the former (broadly, PrinzGloria's proposal). Incidentally, the Schwaben cultural region] is, of course, a trans-national area not just limited to Germany, but definitely including the whole of Liechtenstein and parts of Austria and Switzerland. --W. Frank^email_talk 22:11, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Just to clarify in case my earlier comments are seen as holding up the process -- I'm not a fan of the proposal but I'm not objecting to it moving forward. It seems travel guides generally break Germany up into a large number of regions, and PrinceGloria's comment that Germany is too interconnected to group Bundesländer in a meaningful way also makes sense to me. Ideally (and this is a long term vision), there would be itineraries at some point to help the traveller make sense of all the regions. 16 regions is still a lot for someone not familiar with the area to comprehend at once and one of the biggest values that a travel guide can provide (IMO) is to not just present a bunch of information but also to help link together how the different regions/cities/etc relate to each other or can be grouped together into a trip.

As an alternate way of moving things forward, what are people's thoughts on leaving the super-regional articles be but taking them out of the hierarchy, in essence treating them as extra-hierarchal regions (i.e., the breadcrumbs would become >Germany>Hesse>Frankfurt). I was thinking the region list template could look something like this:

German states map

Northern Germany

Bremen

Hamburg

Lower Saxony

Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania

Schleswig-Holstein

Western Germany

North Rhine-Westphalia (Nordrhein-Westfalen)

Rhineland-Palatinate (Rheinland-Pfalz)

Saarland

Etc...

Thoughts? -Shaundd (talk) 01:54, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

English version of Länder map, please check. --Traveler100 (talk) 05:54, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it is a good solution. But we do have to remove Northern Germany, Southern Germany and others from the hierarchy, so that they do not clutter the breadcrumb navigation. --Alexander (talk) 12:02, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

What would be the point of keeping the pointless and meaningless articles that don't really provide useful information and can only confuse travellers, especially if they're out of the breadcrumb trails. While articles on historic or cultural regions, such as Swabia, or mountain ranges can indeed be very helpful (although most historic and cultural regions are actually co-located with Laender or are included within only one of them, usually being a subregion in our hierarchy, so we do not need a huge amount of extra articles), the four constructed "regions" really aren't, which is why I came to the conclusion we're better off without them. Please see Talk:Northern Germany to find out how an exemplarily expanded article did not prove to add value. —The preceding comment was added by PrinceGloria (talk • contribs)

I think the takeaway here, PrinceGloria, is that people unfamiliar with Germany (that is, the audience for this article) find that a list of 16 states, whose names may (Bavaria) or may not (Thuringia) be familiar, is a bit overwhelming without some way of grouping them logically. Do we have a solution that addresses that problem? LtPowers (talk) 18:01, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, we do.

It's the one that was proposed earlier up this page.

Group the 16 (internally linked) Bundesländer into three or more lists. (There would be no level between them and the country of Germany.) Each list would be differentiated visually by a "cue" in bold (or heading) but this "cue" in bold (or heading) would not become an (internally linked) WV article until and unless someone was interested in developing it into an article with real content. And, even if they did, that real content article would not be inserted into the geographical hierarchy between the 16 (internally linked) Bundesländer and the country level of Germany.

Obviously, the position of the white sausage equator or the Speyer line makes the positioning of Hesse controversial, but I've chosen to keep the lists numerically balanced in homage to 5-9 rather than leave Southern Germany with just 4. Consequently, this is my conception of the grouping of the three lists in a fortuitously alphabetical order that keeps the federal capital of Berlin at the top of the three lists:

Eastern Germany

• Berlin
• Brandenburg
• Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern)
• Saxony (Sachsen)
• Saxony-Anhalt (Sachsen-Anhalt)
• Thuringia

Northern Germany

• Bremen
• Hamburg
• Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen)
• North Rhine-Westphalia (Nordrhein-Westfalen)
• Schleswig-Holstein

Southern Germany

• Baden-Württemberg
• Bavaria (Bayern)
• Hesse
• Rhineland-Palatinate (Rheinland-Pfalz)
• Saarland

--W. Frank^email_talk 18:30, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Are we moving forward with this? PrinceGloria (talk) 15:37, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, reading the discussions above, PrinzGloria, it's clear that a majority of discussants would like to, but I think I still detect objections from Globe-trotter and LtPowers. I think LtPowers objections have been answered (perhaps he would specifically confirm here whether that is indeed the case) but I haven't seen Globe-trotter edit Wikivoyage since 15:27, 24 August 2013 and he is absent for long periods sometimes. Perhaps you could e-mail him to ask him his current stance? --W. Frank^email_talk 17:19, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

My recent comments on this discussion have been solely procedural and interpretative in nature. I have no familiarity with Germany's geography and so defer to those with more expertise. My earlier comments, in fact, supported the notion that 16 regions was not too many if done well, as the above proposal seems to do. That said, I have some sympathy with potential travelers who might be faced with a list of 16 relatively unfamiliar state-names and have no idea how to select one for further investigation. I would like to see good Wikivoyage:One-liner listings for each state, and ideally a brief introduction for each grouping. LtPowers (talk) 17:45, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

I thoroughly agree that there should be one-liners for each of the federal states - and I believe that PrinzGloria has already started preparing exemplars of them below.

By contrast, I thoroughly disagree that there should be any comment at all and certainly not "a brief introduction for each..." of the three grouping's of East, North and South Germany. It was precisely because there was little that could be useful written about each of the previous artificial regions that we intend to now abandon, that we do not need these here. The geographical descriptions of East, North and South are entirely sufficient and should not be artificially expanded. These descriptions, along with the new map, will be entirely sufficient. --W. Frank^email_talk 21:13, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Proposed one-liner listings as per LtPowers request

Gimme a sec, just created this section for ease of editing, will fill in in due course. PrinceGloria (talk) 21:03, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Eastern Germany

Except for Berlin, which was formerly split, the six Länder in the East were created out of the former German Democratic Republic (DDR), the socialist Soviet satellite state more commonly known as East Germany. While sustained efforts over decades after reunification have ameliorated most of the most obvious differences, there is still a lot of common DDR heritage across those states.

• Berlin - the cosmopolitan capital of Germany is a separate state
• Brandenburg - the lowlands around Berlin are a mixture of wild biosphere, rural countryside and impressive castles
• Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) - mostly known for the beaches along the Baltic coast and the Hanseatic ports
• Saxony (Sachsen) - this densely-inhabited state is rich in both history and natural resources, with many interesting cities to discover as well as mountain ranges to climb
• Saxony-Anhalt (Sachsen-Anhalt) - one of the least-famous Bundeslaender is actually home to some of Germany's oldest and historically most important cities
• Thuringia - home to Bach, Goether, Schiller, Marx and the Wartburg Castle

Northern Germany

• Bremen the smallest state in Germany, basically two towns. The River Weser historically making this a major port of Germany.
• Hamburg. A vibrant city with a rich culture and scene.
• Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen) A varied state from the low mountains of the Harz to the Frisian coast with the Heathland in-between.
• North Rhine-Westphalia (Nordrhein-Westfalen) The industrial Rhine valley and lively city of Cologne sandwiched between the low mountain ranges of Europe.
• Schleswig-Holstein the northen most state of Germany.

Southern Germany

• Baden-Württemberg - famous for its many spas and extensive forests
• Bavaria (Bayern) - the stereotypical Oktoberfest often overshadows the many other faces of Germany's largest state
• Hesse - Even with the industrious Rhein-Main region and Frankfurt, the financial capital of Germany, the state consists mainly of scenic rolling hills and small towns.
• Rhineland-Palatinate (Rheinland-Pfalz) - where the wineries extend over the meandering Rhine
• Saarland - this region that historically alternated between France and Germany has developed a very unique and still lively heritage

Your comments to the above go here

I don't know enough to comment on specific descriptions, but I think it would be helpful if certain notable tourist areas like the Black Forest are noted if they lie primarily within one Bundesländer. -Shaundd (talk) 22:00, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Is this discussion closed now? There is still a disclaimer on the main article page for Germany.Andrewssi2 (talk) 01:03, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I would guess so, I believe the above proposal addresses all the concerns raised. That said, I guess we need to make the consensus more express. It would be brilliant if people who have this article on their watchlist could chip in with express support. --PrinceGloria (talk) 05:21, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I support the North-South-East listing above. As a former resident I recognize that it is not perfect, however for a traveler I think it works well. Andrewssi2 (talk) 05:36, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Just to make clear - this is meant to REPLACE the regional articles between the country-level article on Germany and the articles on Bundeslaender. If this goes through, the current articles like Northern Germany will be deleted (with whatever content is salvageable moved to other articles, but for the most part there is little thereof that isn't repetitive or redundant). Do you support this? PrinceGloria (talk) 07:33, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I support skipping intermediate level between Germany and Bundesländer. I would like to see a list of Länder divided to groups, something like de:wv. Danapit (talk) 08:07, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

To be clear, 'yes' I support skipping any intermediate level between Germany and Bundesländer. Also I like how the WV German page for Germany keeps Baden-Württemberg and Bayern as the only southern states under a bullet point, which is correct. Andrewssi2 (talk) 08:32, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Support for skipping the intermediate level with self-invented "regions" and replace with Bundesländer. The terms Western Germany and Eastern Germany relate primarily to the former divided German states w:East Germany and w:West Germany and therefore a creation of non-existent in this form in the local reality regions (e.g. Central Germany) is only misleading for the readers. --Alan ffm (talk) 12:53, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

I support skipping intermediate level between Germany and Bundesländer. No need for them. Jjtkk (talk) 14:03, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

I still have concerns that sixteen regions is too many for a traveler unfamiliar with Germany to digest in one go. There are big differences among northern/southern/eastern/western areas of the country, and it would be good to explain which regions contain which well-known features. The descriptions above don't do a good job of that; the description for Hesse above is particularly useless. LtPowers (talk) 01:48, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

The description for Hesse was changed after LtPowers's comment, in case that is confusing anyone. Andrewssi2 (talk) 08:12, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, 16 is a lot, although the consensus seems to point to 16 regions being more accurate than North, South, East, West. For comparison, United States is broken up into 13 regions that represent the 50 states and everyone seems happy with that. I believe Germany is different because although some Germans do refer to themselves as 'Ossies' (as in hailing from former East Germany, although do so less and less these days) it is hard to cluster most German states with each other for political, economic and cultural reasons. Andrewssi2 (talk) 08:12, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

16 is not a lot. 50 is a lot. This guide is to inform the travellers, not misguide them. As stated, there is no way to group the Laender really reasonably, so the only thing that separate articles for such groupings would do would be actually create a false impression that there are some entities with common characteristics above the Bundeslaender level while there aren't. The truth is that Germany is complex and diverse (as one might surmise from the rich history of the German-speaking lands), and I guess we needn't hide this message from the reader. If somebody decides not to give it much thought and just go to Berlin or to Munich for Oktoberfest, let them click the link and enjoy themselves :) PrinceGloria (talk) 08:50, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

16 is a lot. That's why we have the 7+/-2 rule. We are not beholden to it, but when we're talking about double that number we have to seriously consider the impact on readers. To me, someone unfamiliar with Germany, that huge list of states is nearly overwhelming. I wonder if those of you familiar with the country are too close to understand that. We should do as much as possible to segment, summarize, and guide readers to the articles that will most interest them. LtPowers (talk) 14:07, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

That point of view is valid, however it is very circular with the discussion around it from much earlier in this year. We have been attempting to bring it to a conclusion.

Does anyone have a suggestion as to how we can finalize this discussion one way or the other? Andrewssi2 (talk) 14:36, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree with User:LtPowers. It needs to be broken down somehow. 16 is too many and I find it overwhelming. Texugo (talk) 16:56, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Just a neophyte here, but count me as Support for skipping the intermediate level. I'm a former resident, and I can absolutely relate to being overwhelmed by going straight to the Laender, but I think breaking it up in to 3 sublists is a reasonable compromise, if written with a brief summary and a little craftsmanship. -- MisterCustomer (talk) 17:24, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

It seems the polling below titling towards propped option 2 and I'm sure we will have to update the current map as well. I'm willing to make the proposed changes in the map so let me know when results comes out. --Saqib (talk) 11:53, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Region Polling

This is a way to record everyone's choice for the regions of Germany in a simple table. Feel free to add more options by adding more columns. Andrewssi2 (talk) 16:08, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I took the liberty of recording people's choices from the discussion above. Please change if I have not done so correctly. Andrewssi2 (talk) 16:11, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

• Option 1: North, South, East, West, Central (Existing)
• Option 2: 16 Bundesländer (Proposed)

Option 1	Option 2	Abstain
	Andrewssi2
		LtPowers
	PrinceGloria
	Jjtkk
	Alan ffm
	Danapit
Texugo
	MisterCustomer
	Traveler100
Vidimian

Danke schoen, Andrew, seems very reasonable and accurate to me. It seems that while Texugo and LtPowers uphold their reservations, the majority of users who voiced their opinions are in favour of skipping the extra regions. If it is truly so, should we resort to majority vote to move on with this, as we seem unable to reach a compromise on the core issue here (whether to keep "region" articles or not)? PrinceGloria (talk) 18:45, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Mit vergnugen PrinceGloria. I would still suggest leaving until the end of the week in order to ensure that everyone can participate and can say the process was fair. Andrewssi2 (talk) 23:09, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

It is incorrect to indicate that I support the status quo; I am convinced by arguments that the regional guides are superfluous. What I am looking for is a willingness on the part of those of you familiar with Deutschland to meet the unfamiliar halfway, and provide some way of mitigating the negative effects we've pointed out. LtPowers (talk) 19:39, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Apologies for mus-categorizing your position. Nevertheless, what negative aspects should we look to mitigate that have not been covered in the epic Talk:Germany#Too_many_regions ?

Essentially, I feel as if the descriptions provided above are not sufficient to allow the unfamiliar reader to make an informed decision about what region to browse to. LtPowers (talk) 01:02, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't think we're necessarily advocating that we stick with just the 1-liner blurbs above. Perhaps a 1 or 2 paragraph introduction to each sub-list might go some way toward bridging the gap? I'm willing to take a stab at it in the interest of clearing this particular sticky wicket...-- MisterCustomer (talk) 21:45, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

By all means. Anything that helps the reader figure out where he/she wants to go without simply dumping a huge list on them... LtPowers (talk) 22:26, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Hello? Are we going anywhere with this? Can we start removing the regional articles? Anybody feels like writing the regional summaries or should I do it? PrinceGloria (talk) 04:51, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Upper Bavaria regions

A request was made last year to add sub-regions, proposal at Talk:Upper Bavaria, would welcome comment and input. --Traveler100 (talk) 11:49, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

I provided some input yesterday to this Andrewssi2 (talk) 00:05, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

South Lower Saxony

Should this be restored to sort and move the article that are in Weser Uplands and Harz back (making these extraregions) or should the Weser Uplands and Harz be extended to include the towns that are currently in other Buündesländer? --Traveler100 (talk) 18:00, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Conclude region debate?

I notice that the last comment on the region debate was a month ago, and the main page still has the 'Regions under discussion' message. Any chance we can conclude this now? Andrewssi2 (talk) 12:47, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

I've still got it on my radar to write a first draft for the 3 supra-regional summaries, but got waylaid over the holidays, sorry! I'll try to attack it later today. -- MisterCustomer (talk) 17:17, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Not a problem at all :) Just checking. Andrewssi2 (talk) 01:30, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

We still have a 'Regions under discussion'. Can we please finalize this now? Andrewssi2 (talk) 02:06, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

I have redirected the "regional" articles to the main country article and removed them from the breadcrumb trails of the Laender (they may remain somewhere else but I am not sure how to check for it). I guess step 1 is complete. If we want to go with arranging Laender differently in terms of groupings, we shall need a new map. PrinceGloria (talk) 06:25, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

History section - is it really useful for tourists?

The history section drew my attention and I started thinking whether it does a really good job when it comes to serving the tourists. It may be a good summary of the German history with emphasis on the periods and facts commonly understood as most important, but I guess this is not the same as what is useful for a tourist to understand the country well. My reservations are in particular:

1. Too much focus on territories that are not a part of Germany today, so the fact that they were in the past helps understand those destinations, but not Germany itself (and we do not have the space to cover all aspects of German history)
2. Too little attention devoted to pre-Weimar history, without mention of how different parts of Germany evolved and how it influenced the urban landscape there and the regional differences existing to this day
3. The discussions of the wars and Nazi Germany focus too much on the core facts that are, IMHO, general knowledge, and too little on their implications for the present-day makeup of Germany.
4. The descriptions of historical happenings try to cram too many details that may be either obvious or totally irrelevant without deeper knowledge (e.g. who in the world are Nomenklatura - you either know or need an explanation, and this is not a place to explain), while we are missing the references to present-day Germany and where to go to experience the given part of history
5. I like the Roman section - succinct, easily understandable and with references to destinations that are relevant. I believe we should cover other in history (not omitting the centuries between the original Roman Empire and Napoleon) in a similar way

Your thoughts? PrinceGloria (talk) 07:56, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree. Very well stated. Some more thoughts: I actually think that there has to be some discussion of Nazism and the two World Wars, but while the basic facts should remain, the emphasis should be shifted to also encompass important Nazi architecture, like the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, and examples of some of the numerous cities whose historic monuments were destroyed and then restored (or not). Similarly, there was important art and architecture from the Weimar period. Etc. I also agree on remarks about the effects of regional history. After spending some time in Munich this winter, I was struck by the indelible stamp the Kings of Bavaria and their taste and extravagant spending on art and architecture made on the city. And after we've made this history section more relevant to tourism, we should try doing similar things in other articles. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:45, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I wouldn't shrink from mentioning the concentration camps (Dachau) and memorials either (the one in Berlin/Mitte comes to my mind obviously). I am happy to see you sharing my thoughts, so why don't we try to modify this history section in a way that could become a model for other articles? PrinceGloria (talk) 09:49, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

It may be worth noting that the history section for the article (as seems to be the case for many WV articles) appears to be derived originally from Wikipedia: w:Germany

I would say in principle that a rewrite is in order. The 'Charlemagne' and 'From the Holy Roman Empire to Imperial Germany' sections do not seem relevant in their current state and we should cover instead some of the cultural aspects such as the University of Heidelberg, the philosophers such as Kant and the poets such as Goethe.

The Nazi and WW2 period, although very relevant to shaping modern Germany, could end up as a long history lesson without to much modern relevance in itself. I'd just urge caution and decide what the main aspects of this should be. Andrewssi2 (talk) 09:55, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm a bit disappointed that you don't like my new "Charlemagne" section. How would you suggest modifying it? I do agree with your other thoughts. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:12, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

It is not so much that I don't like it, but rather Charlemagne is a subject that covers most of continental Western Europe and difficult to relate specifically to the modern Germany that one would visit. Aachen is surely a great place to visit, although I just have difficulty placing it at the heart of the German experience.

This is just an opinion, not an outright rejection of the text. Andrewssi2 (talk) 11:40, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

My idea was that Charlemagne, as the first Holy Roman Emperor, was important for German history, and Aachen is where you'd go to see the remnants of his rule in Germany today. If you'd prefer to fold that into a section titled something like "The Holy Roman Empire in the Middle Ages" and fold remarks about Romanesque monuments into it, please go ahead. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:55, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Now we have some reference locations for tourists for Roman and Holy Roman Empire periods. Big gap is the middle ages considering all the castles in Germany and the Hanseatic League cities. --Traveler100 (talk) 16:47, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. If you have something to add about that, please do! Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:28, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Made a start, could do with some wordsmithing. --Traveler100 (talk) 18:48, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

I tweaked it some. I know there are some quite old guild halls that are still standing in good condition, can be visited, and which are even still being used, but I forget where. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:18, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Ikan, can always relay on you to make some good tweeks :-), thanks. Not sure how to expand the Early modern Germany section; maybe mention some good science and technology museums or university towns. Also need somewhere in the article reference to German industry: history, automotive and machinery; very important to the countries economy and society. --Traveler100 (talk) 20:13, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Of course there are important automotive museums in various German cities, but that's not really early modern. Perhaps someone else will be able to fill this info in. I agree; it's definitely important! Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:36, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Culture

I just inserted a short section on 17th/18th-century German composers into the "History" section, but unless I missed it somewhere, this article feels to me like it's really missing sections on the arts. Germany has a great history of painting, literature, music, and other arts, and there is, for example, a Goethe Museum in Duesseldorf. Of course, the problem is that such a section could go on forever. So how do you all think we should handle it? I'm figuring, for example, that in addition to the composers I've mentioned so far (Martin Luther, Schuetz, Buxtehude and the Bach family), at a minimum, it would make sense to mention Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms (although much of his career was in Vienna, so the mention could be brief, and there's a similar situation with Haendel, who worked mostly in London), and Wagner. Mendelssohn was important not only per se but as the reviver of Bach's non-keyboard music, and Schumann was a very important music critic as well as a great composer. I can imagine the beginning of similar lists of poets. But we want to keep this tourist-friendly and focus on where visitors might see places where these folks lived and worked or performances of their works. Your thoughts? Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:16, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

This is important and should be included in the history section, but let's not try to recreate Wikipedia here. We can namesdrop a few times if a name is prominent enough that most readers would know it and feel more at home when they can tie to a place and time. But that's just about how much we should cover that in the general article. We will NOT be able to fully present the remarkability of Germany in our travel guide. Fortunately, there is Wikipedia and other sources who do a better job of it, and we can perhaps point the travellers to some further reading (beyond Wikipedia). PrinceGloria (talk) 21:44, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Agreed on all counts. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:06, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Which names do you think are important enough in the arts other than music? Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:06, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Luther, Duerer, Goethe, Grimm Brothers, Schiller, Mann, Leibniz, Nietzsche, Gutenberg, Daimler and Benz, Planck. We can freely drop some of those names if we can't make them fit.

I left out Kant, as geographically he falls outside the present-day Germany. Marx and Engels would also belong more to the UK than Germany. PrinceGloria (talk) 04:47, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

PS. In music: Wagner, J.S. Bach and Haendel - all other baroque composers mentioned in the article now are almost unknown to a casual tourist, I would do away with them.

Marx seems somewhat significant for Germany, given that he has streets named after him, etc. I get your point about composers who aren't well-known to the casual tourist. There is another important one I left out, though: Richard Strauss, and he might be mentioned also in the context of having written a piece (Metamorphosen) that's a lament over the destruction of the Munich Opera House. We don't have to mention all of even the most important figures in the history of German culture, though; only a selection is probably fine, for the reasons you mention. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:08, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Weißenburg_in_Bayern

I noticed the article of Weißenburg_in_Bayern, the title of which appears lifted from w:Weißenburg_in_Bayern.

Two questions:

1) Should it just be Weissenburg without the Esset (ß) ? (With a redirect from Weißenburg)
2) Is the 'Bayern' part actually required?

--Andrewssi2 (talk) 05:18, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

The name is correct so the in Bayern should stay. As for the ß I personally prefer to see the correct local lettering but understand that most people are not familiar with changing virtual keyboards on their PC. Therefore probably best to move to English ASCII characters only with a redirect from the correct spelling. Therefore move page to Weissenburg in Bayern, but I would keep all text references to it in pages with the correct lettering as this is what you would see on road signs. --Traveler100 (talk) 06:18, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

I think it's important to use the name that's on road signs except when there's a common English name (e.g., Cologne instead of Köln). Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:30, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

I guess Köln is fine because knowledge of the Umlaut (ö) is not required by a non-German speaker (They can just pronounce it 'Koln', which although will sound funny, is still understandable). Esset (ß) is still an important part of the German writing system, although a non-German speaker might think it pronounced as 'B' or otherwise not know how to try and pronounce.

I think in this case it should be OK as Traveler100 suggested and rename the article page name whilst retaining the Esset in names contained within the article. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 13:40, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Our Wikivoyage:Naming conventions policy explicitly allows (indeed, recommends) ligatures like Æ and special non-English (but still Latin) characters like Þ and ø. ß is in at least one of those categories (not sure which), so I believe it's valid (and indeed, recommended) for use in article titles. Powers ^(talk) 13:43, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Powers, as I hope I indicated clearly above. I'd propose a redirect from Weissenburg in Bayern to Weißenburg in Bayern, keeping the Esset in the article title. Köln is not fine as an article title for en.wikivoyage because it's the exceptional case in which there is another well-established spelling (Cologne) used in English. There is no such situation for Weißenburg in Bayern. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:55, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

OK, I still think ß is a bit funny to have in a title, but it is a valid latin character. Andrewssi2 (talk) 00:48, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Done. Andrewssi2 (talk) 00:59, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Not to be nitpicky, but Weißenburg while claiming to be "in Bayern" is not, in fact, in Bayern, as it is administratively part of Mittelfranken, which is not Bavaria. Furthermore, the letter "ß" is called Eszett or "scharfes s" in German. Best wishes Hobbitschuster (talk) 12:36, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Too long train section

Germany is rightly known for its great railway system, and there is a lot to write about it.

However reading though the 'Get around' section I notice that the 'By train' section is really massive! It goes on for many screens. I don't think so much information is helpful to people looking for an overview of Germany.

Would it be OK to move most of this to Rail travel in Germany ? Andrewssi2 (talk) 08:39, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Sure, and leave a useful summary here, with a link. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:46, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

OK done. I think the original was written by a real train enthusiast, but I left the descriptions of the High Speed and regional rail networks in the main article. Please review and see if anything relevant in the main article should be added back in. Andrewssi2 (talk) 09:28, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Seems sufficient to me. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:38, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Long 'By car' section in 'Get around'

Much like the train section, the 'By Car' section is very long and detailed. For example it has two tables for specific fines for speeding. Can I also proposes to move this to a Driving in Germany article much like the Driving_in_China article? Andrewssi2 (talk) 15:22, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

I wouldn't oppose a separate Driving in Germany article.

BTW there is a video in that section. Didn't we sometime last winter discuss videos somewhere and the decision was (sadly) not to allow them because videos cannot be printed? ϒpsilon (talk) 15:29, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Correct, no videos. I have removed it. But yes, I think there should be a Driving in Germany article. Texugo (talk) 15:32, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, created. By the way, I think all the content needs reorganizing since the new article doesn't flow very well. Andrewssi2 (talk) 00:37, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Our guides are supposed to be standalone. If you're going to off-load excessive data to another article, it needs to be comprehensively summarized in the main article -- especially so if the link to the subarticle is going to say "See also". Powers ^(talk) 20:34, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Powers. The summary I left is not comprehensive enough. I'll revisit that. Andrewssi2 (talk) 23:58, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Germany related articles

User:Texugo has created a new category article called Category:Topics_in_Germany

It seems only the two articles I just created (By train and By car) are listed. Do we have any other related Germany articles? Andrewssi2 (talk) 00:35, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Bavarian cuisine, I guess. Jjtkk (talk) 05:34, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, added --Andrewssi2 (talk) 05:50, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

To be honest, I only created it because in the articles you created, the parameters you put in the PartOfTopic tags were specifically calling for it, causing them to show up in Category:Travel topic needing category, which is the reason I came across it. Looking into it though, it seems that is how the other travel topics are organized, so I went ahead and created it. Texugo (talk) 11:25, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Regions

Swept in from the pub

The adding of these tags brings up another issue. Initially regions were created based on what is relevant for tourists but there is now a tendency to move to administrative structures. For example Middle Rhine Valley has now been tagged an extraregion of Rhineland-Palatinate and some of its articles tagged with {{putinsubregion}}. Anyone familiar with this area of Germany knows that it is dictated by the rivers, not just major towns, roads and rail but where the tourist go. Should the towns be rearranged into the Germans states (the river is not always the border) and new sub-regions for Kreis rather than geography of the area for Rhineland-Palatinate, North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse articles? --Traveler100 (talk) 05:30, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that is exactly what has to happen. Since the Middle Rhine Valley crosses several of the hierarchical regions we've chosen to use (states, and the hierarchical subregions under them), it is by definition an "extra-hierarchical region", and therefore no destination should use it for its breadcrumb trail, because otherwise the breadcrumb would follow an alternative hierarchy that skips over the official hierarchy we've used to subdivide down to that level. This case is slightly complicated by the fact that Rhineland-Palatinate lists it as a subregion, but it is clearly not a hierarchical subregion because it contains destinations from other areas, so it still shouldn't be inserted in the hierarchy via IsPartOf. The only ways for Middle Rhine Valley to be a hierarchical region is if a) we re-carve the whole country into regions other than states, of which this could be one, or b) we limit this article to cover only the Rhineland-Palatinate portion of the valley and put coverage of the rest elsewhere. In the absence of either of those events, we have to let it just be an extraregion and change the breadcrumbs of the destinations to reflect the actual hierarchical state or state subregion. In any case, that's just the way it's done across the site, and none of that actually has anything to do with the tags suggested above. Texugo (talk) 15:10, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

That may make sense to someone who does not visit the area but is really a bad idea for a travel guide. The geography of the region is dictated by mountain regions divided by rivers. You visit the Mosel, the Rhine or the Nahe, or go into the Hünsruck or the Eiffel. The organisation had worked as was in the most useful form for tourists. Someone visiting Rüsselsheim will then travel to Sankt Goar, with a strict administrative regions these would be be in different sub-regions of different German states. --Traveler100 (talk) 18:01, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Traveler100 - The point is that any discussion of changing the regions of Germany belongs at Talk:Germany (incidentally they were just changed less than a year ago) and has nothing to do with the tags proposed above. As Germany is set up currently, the states are the official top-level hierarchy and anything which crosses more than one of those to carve up the country in an alternative way is necessarily an extra-hierarchical region. We choose one official hierarchy with no gaps and no overlaps, and all breadcrumbs are set under that hierarchy, in which they all have a single place where they belong, and other ways of dividing the space up are covered as extra regions and left out of the breadcrumb hierarchy. Otherwise, we´d start having breadcrumbs arbitrarily subscribing to competing organizational schemes all over the place, which would be a nightmare to maintain and would completely undermine the utility of the parallel category tree. (If, god forbid, you actually are proposing some change to abolish the geographical hierarchy in favor of a patchwork gaps-and-overlaps approach, that would probably belong at Wikivoyage talk:Geographical hierarchy, but expect some fierce opposition.) I set Middle Rhine Valley to extraregion because that's exactly what it is, by virtue of not being its own region on the Germany map. And currently, it is the only extraregion on the whole site which has destination articles categorized directly under it instead of under the conventional hierarchy. (see Category:Extra regions with categories) Texugo (talk) 19:29, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

<edit conflict> If I may interject - can we discuss the regional division of Germany under Talk:Germany?

As regards the general thing - there are many ways to slice the same geographical area. This is why we have the breadcrumb division, extraregions and finally itineraries. I believe they all have their place. For the sake of making Wikivoyage easy to navigate, I believe we do need a single major breadcrumb trail, while we can we add as many extraregions and itineraries as we see fit. We also need a general idea which we should follow while splitting every geographical area, otherwise we might end up in a mess.

I tend to believe that going by e.g. mountain ranges or river valleys we might end up with leftover areas which would have to be put into "stuff that is not along any touristically interesting river, lake or mountain range" and otherwise unreasonable regions we will forcibly need to adopt that nobody would be looking for, will be hard to identify and their borders very subjective, unclear and regional division hard to maintain - e.g. one user may find one location is one arbitrary region, but another may see it more in another arbitrary region, and we will end up with a breadcrumb mix-up, so we will need to constantly patrol for that while maintaining a reasonable knowledge of the idea behind the regional split.

In short - any reasonably identifiable region, like a popular mountain range or river valley, that does not fit in an otherwise reasonable general regional division of the upper-level entity, e.g. country, should become just that - an extraregion. In said case, it may be hard to appropriately describe the area in separate parts, and those parts may singularly be rather uninteresting or provide insufficient content for a reasonable standalone guide unless put in the right context. I find an extraregion, or if applicable, itinerary, a great way to do with such cases. PrinceGloria (talk) 19:44, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Totally agreed, and yes we should move the rest of this conversation to Talk:Germany, though I will comment that I just realized that Harz and Eifel are two more which need to have their "children"'s breadcrumbs aligned with their respective state subregions instead of that alternate breadcrumb trail. Texugo (talk) 19:51, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Please discuss on the talk page before you undo any more work that other people have spent time on. Discussing a new structure is worth doing but you are not going to win any friends just simply doing what you think is the correct solution without discussion. --Traveler100 (talk) 20:17, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I have undone no work here, and changing a list of IPO tags is a breeze anyway. But please realize that the way those breadcrumbs are currently set up is not consistent with WV:Geographical hierarchy#Dividing geographical units, and my efforts only aim to rectify that. There is already broad consensus that we use a single no-gaps-no-overlaps hierarchy for the breadcrumb trails and no other. Nobody is trying to delete those region pages or strip the lists of cities from them or the links to them from elsewhere or anything like that; they are just simply not the regions that get used in the breadcrumb trails, that's all. Texugo (talk) 20:27, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I guess the point is that instead of asking me to discuss before making completely standard corrections which are already a part of our system, you should drop your objection and either start proposing new Germany regions, get used to the extra regions not figuring into the breadcrumb trail, or propose a drastic abandonment of fundamental WV:Geographical hierarchy policy. In other words, I don't believe I should have to raise any new consensus before setting it up the way written policy dictates, the way everything else is. I'll humor you for the time being, but I'd appreciate it if you'd think it over and let us follow policy on this one until there is consensus to do otherwise. Texugo (talk) 20:52, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, "extraregion" is a fairly recent concoction and its existence is not in any way entrenched in policy nor precedent. K7L (talk) 03:41, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

You are correct — the previous practice was to not allow articles exist to outside of the hierarchy at all, to always redirect them to the most suitable higher region or country article. Now we have become looser with what we allow articles for in terms of alternative region structures, tagging them as extra region, because the coverage, when possible, should still be concentrated in our primary hierarchy. But they certainly haven't negated our hierarchy policy; they fall outside of it by definition. Texugo (talk) 03:56, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

For the record - if this becomes a policy discussion, I support allowing extraregions if there is a region that 1. objectively exists 2. does not fall within the regional hierarchy agreed and the hierarchy cannot be reasonably amended to include it. I would add a provision though that first all effort must be done to try to include it in the breadcrumb hierarchy, perhaps altering it if reasonable. PrinceGloria (talk) 04:31, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

We had some debate around the European Union where we concluded that it should not be an extra-region but rather a general travel article.

What would be examples of valid extra-regions ? Andrewssi2 (talk) 04:56, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Category:Extra regions lists all the currently defined ones, although it seems to require a good deal of clean up. ( e.g. Arcadia_(Greece) ) Andrewssi2 (talk) 05:00, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

That one was incorrectly categorized (now fixed) but by and large, the list is mostly accurate. The overwhelming majority are examples of historical regions/provinces/states/countries or tourist regions based on lakes, seas, mountain ranges, valleys, peninsulas, etc., which happen to overlap with two or more regions of the established hierarchy we've chosen in our regional breakdowns/maps. That's what it's for. Texugo (talk) 13:27, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

And incidentally, "extra-hierarchical" regions are not something someone just cooked up one day and started slapping on there. Discussions go back to at least 2009, and {{extraregion}} is the best response we have so far for a real issue which we have collectively identified, of having regions which are necessarily left out of the no-gaps-no-overlaps hierarchy. Consensus seems to back it pretty solidly at least as for as it goes. It boils down to the simple fact that the breadcrumb for any given article can only go in one hierarchy, and for that purpose, per WV:Geographical hierarchy, we choose the one which covers the geographic area comprehensively with no gaps or overlaps, the one that we organize our regional breakdowns with, the one that can be used to perfectly divide up a map without ambiguity or holes in the coverage. This inevitably means that since there are obviously multiple ways of slicing up most areas, the regions which don't fit into that comprehensive subdivision plan are necessarily left outside the hierarchy, and are thus extra-hierarchical by definition.

Over the 5 years the discussion has been going, no one has suggested that there is no need for such articles outside the hierarchy — we have them and we need to have them, and there is a recognized need for flexibility in such articles, given our guidelines to avoid redundant coverage and recognizing that needs for these articles range from minimal (Cumberland County (Maine), Western New York) to complex (Schwaben cultural region, California Wine Country) — the {{extraregion}} tag simply makes them their own class where that flexibility is possible. Everybody seems to have been in agreement up to that point. The direction of the discussion only suggests we need to go further still in defining guidelines on how such articles should be constructed, given that necessary flexibility, but to suggest we should stop acknowledging that some regions exist outside the hierarchy would be a huge step backwards at this point. Texugo (talk) 14:15, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

They're occasionally useful, but the instances in which they are needed are rare. There's no need for a mess of new policies, added maintenance categories, templates on articles or more rule creep just to accommodate this. I´d also prefer not to see {{extraregion}} tagged onto things which are bottom-level destinations, not regions - Thousand Islands was one example where I'd reverted this sort of edit. K7L (talk) 16:00, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree that it shouldn't be used for destinations (and in fact, I just now suggested that Bolan Pass and Khyber Pass be changed back to the city template).

Please note, though, that this discussion has absolutely nothing to do with the templates proposed in the thread above, so it's better to keep comments about those up there in the previous thread. Also note that neither discussion here is presenting any new policy or rule creep whatsoever. Texugo (talk) 16:07, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

This discussion, as it relates to Germany's subregions, now has a proposed resolution at Germany#Move to restructure regions. Please comment there. Texugo (talk) 01:59, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Move to restructure regions

Should regions be kept as is or changed to strict administrative regions. Should there be towns under Eifel and Harz or under some Länder and Kreis hierarchy? Conversation at Wikivoyage:Travellers'_pub#Regions. --Traveler100 (talk) 18:05, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I hardly know Germany at all, so take this with salt, but I'd oppose an attempt to change almost anywhere to "strict administrative regions" because those are not always what are most relevant for the traveller. We should mention the administrative divisions, of course, but the main objective is to find a region organisation that makes sense for travel.

For Germany, the only region names I know are Bavaria, the Rhineland, Prussia, Saxony, the Ruhr Valley and the Palatinate, and I strongly suspect some of those are historical, no longer used. Even so, they'd make more sense to me than the current province names. Pashley (talk) 02:44, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

We've had this discussion above, opening it in the Pub is just pointless. Please read the above (there are summaries if you don't care to read all) and please point out where we were wrong. BTW, Prussia is a totally deprecated term referring to history that ended in 19th century. The rest are names of "provinces" (Laender), more or less, or in the case of the Ruhr Valley, there is a Land that covers that which can be redirected to if somebody looks for Ruhr Valley. PrinceGloria (talk) 08:51, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I think there is a bit of misunderstanding here. The top level divisions are already the 16 administrative regions (and below that, each state has been handled in its own way). The only problem is that lower down, there are a few overlapping regions which have also erroneously been set up as top level regions which cross and therefore directly compete with the top-level state division scheme, usurping breadcrumb trails from certain regions so that some breadcrumbs no longer include the states we have chosen to use in the main map at Germany#Regions (ex. Bad Harzburg, Aachen, etc.). These regions are of course important tourist regions (Harz, Eifel, Middle Rhine Valley, etc.) but setting them up as a simultaneous alternative regions which carve the whole country up in a different way from the main map, and then using those as actual alternative hierarchical regions is in direct conflict with WV:Geographical hierarchy, specifically the no-gaps-no-overlaps approach which is a very fundamental organization principle of how our coverage is set up across the site.

Of course, Germany is not at all unique in having tourist regions which (inconveniently, for us) cross other more primary boundaries; lots of other countries have similar situations, and we have certain strategies for dealing with them without defying our geographical hierarchical principles. These strategies often involve splitting coverage into more than one region along the hierarchical boundary crossed, for example, the Cascade Mountains, which are split into three articles across three US states, or Andean Highlands, which are split into two subregions in two different countries. Other times we might choose administrative or other types of regions to be the actual hierarchical ones in the breadcrumb trail, and then use an additional extra-hierarchical article, which isn't ever used in the breadcrumb trail, to tie together info relating only to that particular region as a whole, for example, Holstein Switzerland, Maghreb, Chianti, Zona Cafetera, or Navajo Nation. There is no reason why these same strategies should not be applied to these particular subregions of Germany in the same way they have been applied to our coverage for the rest of the world.

So... Leaving them the way they are, with some destinations under one hierarchy and some under another, is not really an option, but honestly I don't really think it's going to be so difficult to fix this. We just need to a) make sure that hierarchical subregions (those which are in the breadcrumb trail) cover a unique slice of their parent region and do not go outside of that parent region (not extending coverage into neighboring parent regions), and b), make sure that region articles which do cross two or more hierarchical parent regions are not made part of the breadcrumb trail.

Rhineland-Palatinate with regions under discussion

As far as I know, the non-compliant regions in question are limited to only a couple of areas, all but one focusing on the border regions of Rhineland-Palatinate. The basic problem with all of them is that they are nominally "subregions" of a given state but the articles also purport to cover the whole geographic area, even as it extends into other states, rather than focusing on the respective portion of the parent state. Here's what I believe should be done with them:

• Middle Rhine Valley - make this a proper hierarchical region of Rhineland-Palatinate by moving any coverage of the North Rhine-Westphalia portion to Cologne Lowland (which is already the proper hierarchical subregion for that portion) and moving coverage of the Hesse portion to South Hesse (which is already the proper hierarchical subregion for that portion). Put a hatnote at the top of this page mentioning where coverage of those portions can be found. Focus this region on the Rhineland-Palatinate portion of the Middle Rhine only. As far as I can tell, no breadcrumbs need be moved, because the NR-W and Hesse destination have kept their proper breadcrumbs. Any coverage that applies to the Middle Rhine as a whole or to the Rhine as a whole (including that map of the Rhine's full length) can be put at Rhine.
• Eifel - Move this page back to North Eifel (where it was originally created), and make it the proper hierarchical subregion of North Rhine-Westphalia, shown as Eifel on the map in that article, moving any coverage (and corresponding breadcrumbs) of the Rhineland-Palatinate portion to a new South Eifel article, as a proper hierarchical subregion of that state (the title "South Eifel" originally redirected to Rhineland-Palatinate). Put notes in the intro of each pointing out the coverage in other articles (including the Luxembourg and Belgium parts).
• Lahn Valley - Make this a proper hierarchical subregion dealing with only the Lahn Valley region of Rhineland-Palatinate. Point out that the Hesse portion is covered at Middle Hesse.
• Naheland - Make this a proper hierarchical subregion dealing with only the Naheland region of Rhineland-Palatinate. Point out that the small Saarland section is covered in that article.
• Moselle Valley - Make this a proper hierarchical subregion dealing with only the Moselle Valley region of Rhineland-Palatinate. Point out where the coverage of the France and Luxembourg portions can be found.
• Westerwald - Depending on how Rhineland-Palatinate can be carved up on a map using the other regions already listed there, this could either be a hierarchical article about only the Westerwald region of Rhineland-Palatinate, or if that corner of the state fits into another region, this could be set up as an extra-hierarchical region only, and be listed in the Other destinations of the three states in question.

All of the above depends, of course, on whether all these regions, when drawn on a map of Rhineland-Palatine, cover the state completely and comprehensively, in the same way the map at North Rhine-Westphalia#Regions does. Ideally, this whole process would be easier if we could get started with a Rhineland-Palatinate map and tweak from there.

There is one other region which is set-up improperly:

• Harz - Keep this as a hierarchical subregion about the Harz region of Lower Saxony (as already shown on the map at Lower Saxony), moving any coverage of the Saxony-Anhalt or Thuringia portions (and corresponding breadcrumbs) to those articles as appropriate. Point out on the Harz page where coverage of those portions can be found.

So, Traveler100, Pashley, Uhkabu, User:PrinceGloria, and anyone else knowledgable about Germany, I'd like to hear some opinions on this. As I mentioned, leaving it as it is now is not an option (at least not without first obtaining consensus for a huge and difficult fundamental change to our underlying organization) — it does need to be fixed one way or another, so if the above suggestions don't work for you, please propose another way to fix it that still respects the singular hierarchy concept which we use everywhere else. Texugo (talk) 01:40, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. PrinceGloria (talk) 04:14, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Slight correction, coverage of the Hesse portion of the Middle Rhine Valley is more specifically at Rheingau, not just South Hesse. Texugo (talk) 12:44, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

If you believe that structure is more important that usefulness to the visitor I would agree the above proposal works. The world is however not hierarchical. What we need is a structure that gets the reader to what they want then guides them to other interesting locations in the area. If someone starts from the Germany page then for the next region level the states is as good a method as any. However once on the state page what is interesting is how the regions are in reality split by tourist region, transport structure and geography. When in Rhineland-Palatinate or North Rhine-Westphalia I should be able to see that I am near in the Eifel, and once I am looking at the Eifel which state a town is in is irrelevant. Having two articles, one for North Eifel and one for South Eifel create either small regions with only a couple of lines or duplicate text in two separate pages. A bifurcation below state should not be a problem. Not highlighting the middle Rhine valley in South Hesse would be a shame. If I start by geographical region like Middle Rhine Valley then I am interested in towns and points of interests along the valley easily reached by transport modes and not by what state that location is in. When I go to a town page I can see on the first line what tourist region and what administrative state it is in and navigate accordingly. --Traveler100 (talk) 05:46, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Traveler100 - What you are proposing is a fundamental change to site organization that amounts to abolishing the hierarchy altogether in favor of a system of loosely associated tiers of partially overlapping regions. While that does have the advantage of putting select cross-territorial regions in a slightly brighter spotlight, it also introduces numerous problems, including but not limited to:

• encouraging overlaps that make it easy for readers to miss alternative articles covering the same patch of land, and leave editors wondering which article to prioritize for such coverage;
• making breadcrumb navigation hopelessly inconsistent and thus rather pointless (i.e., the breadcrumbs would keep switching organizational systems as you move up or down);
• making it very difficult or impossible to make a map that both shows the current region as placed in the parent and breaks down the (cross-territorial) child regions, especially when the child regions overlap with each other (see examples of Koblenz, Bingen, etc. below);
• necessitating gaps which leave certain areas without an appropriate subregion;
• introducing many conflict areas where priority for the breadcrumb is contested (have a look at the current discussion at Talk:Portugal, where some areas belong to no less than 5 region names still in common parlance);
• seriously compromising the utility of the parallel category structure in helping us ensure that articles are actually linked from their parent pages

As you'll see below, the regions being discussed would present some of these problems amongst themselves even if we ignored the state level altogether. But even in simpler cases, the result would still be like a kid trying to group his wooden alphabet blocks simultaneously by color and by alphabetical order, and ending up with a hybrid organization which is neither; it makes far more sense for both reader and editor if we choose one organizational scheme or another and stick to it.

At any rate, if you really do wanna go there, the place for that proposal would be at Wikivoyage talk:Geographical hierarchy, though I can assure you it would not be an easy fight. In the meantime, we still need to fix up the above regions, and since you've said my proposal was reasonable, I'll take that to mean we can move forward with that discussion, so...

Thank you very much for providing a map for us to work with. Now that we've got one, I can see that even here, we have two conflicting organizational principles: that based on rivers (Moselle Valley, Naheland, Middle Rhine Valley and Lahn Valley) and that based on more 2-dimensional areas. This is another level of overlap that we'll have to overcome if we are to have a consistent way to assign breadcrumbs. If we don't limit the hierarchical breadcrumb possibilities to a set of defined regions in a clear breakdown with no gaps or overlaps, then we'll have no objective way to answer:

• Should Koblenz go under Hunsrück, Moselle Valley or Middle Rhine Valley?
• Should Bingen go under Rhenish Hesse, Naheland, or Middle Rhine Valley?
• Should Lahnstein go under Lahn Valley, Middle Rhine Valley, or Taunus?
• Should Idar-Oberstein go under Naheland or Hunsrück?
• Should Cochem go under Moselle Valley, Eifel, or Hunsrück?

Obviously we can still only choose one breadcrumb parent for each, so if we're going to use any of the valley regions for the breadcrumb trail, we need to be consistent and figure out where we draw the line between these regions, and then show such borders on the map, giving the river regions some actual territory within which we assign breadcrumbs to them. (This is a perfect illustration of an area where failing to agree on a singular hierarchy would only result in a mish-mash approach.)

So... unless you'd like to redraw the map so that some actual territory is hierarchically dedicated to the river valley articles, they would probably be better off as extra-hierarchical regions or possibly itineraries, and for the actual hierarchy we can just use the six colored regions (South Eifel, Westerwald, Taunus (reconfigured as a subregion), Hunsrück, Rhenish Hesse, and Palatinate), which appear to divide the state up perfectly. (PrinceGloria, do you follow?)

Texugo (talk) 12:03, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

It seems like you want to make the German state borders leading in determining how the regions should be split up. This is completely contrary to how any traveller would go through this area. The Middle Rhine Valley should just be the Middle Rhine Valley, not just a random piece of the valley that happens to be in Rhineland-Palatinate. That's not what a traveller would expect to find at that article.

We have many regions with multiple hierarchical parents, and it's not against policy at all. For example: Russia. There is no reason why, for example, the Eifel can't be. The Eifel is a logical travel region, if we'd make up our own regions not grounded in reality just because a state border happens to cross through it, we'd only make it more complicated for travellers finding what they are looking for. Globe-trotter (talk) 15:20, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Globe-trotter, we absolutely do not have "many regions with multiple hierarchical parents". We don't have any, in fact. Russia is not even one, as you'll notice that even the Russian Far East breadcrumb is listed under Europe (and even when we did have a kludge to get around that, it was only because Russia is an extraordinary case that spans two continents). Either a) state borders are priority and regions that cross them are extra-hierarchical, or b) we need a new way to slice up the whole country that ignore state boundaries, and the states are extra-hierarchical. What WV:Geographical hierarchy prevents us from doing is "a little of both". If you disagree, please go to Wikivoyage talk:Geographical hierarchy. Texugo (talk) 15:30, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

We have plenty. Lake Tahoe, for example. Or should we divide it into Californian Lake Tahoe and Nevadan Lake Tahoe? Travelers just want to read about Lake Tahoe, the state it's in is unimportant to them, and having two articles would be just make it a mess. The same goes for the Eifel. You would seriously propose to make North Eifel and South Eifel under the states borders and finally Eifel as the all-encompassing extra-hierarchical region? That would mean three articles with essentially the same content, instead of just one article with all required information a traveller would need to know.

And Wikivoyage:Geographical hierarchy even stresses this point: "Occasionally a well-defined region will straddle a political boundary between two countries, states, or provinces. It is usually preferable to deal with these instances as a single region, rather than dividing them up into unnatural, small pieces divided by the imaginary lines of borders. An example would be Lake Tahoe, a region in both California and Nevada." Globe-trotter (talk) 15:46, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Lake Tahoe was made a conscious exception to the hierarchy through a discussion, which is an unlikely but perhaps not completely impossible outcome of this discussion. But Lake Tahoe is basically a singular, isolated sub-sub-state-level border location that would be a mere bump on the side of the respective state maps, and the net result is that two small Nevada towns were subsumed under the California hierarchy, while Eifel is a considerably larger region occupying a big chunk of both states, positioned as a new country-level region not under either state, and proposed as part of a set of other regions which overlap not only state borders, but also overlap each other considerably. Even if an exception were made for Eifel, it would still not be even possible to hierarchically accommodate all the different ways this area is being sliced up here. Texugo (talk) 16:00, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Also consider that if the bar for exception were low enough to accept for regions like Eifel usurping such large chunks of primary hierarchy territory, that logic could be applied many other places in Germany and in practically every other country, with the result that the breadcrumb organization at the bottom would very often deviate significantly from the organization presented at the top in the country article. It makes no sense have a situation where significant portions of a country are organized from the top down into one hierarchy, but from the bottom up into others. Texugo (talk) 16:18, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Folks, it all boils down to Eifel and Middle Rhine Valley, with only the latter actually providing some reasonable amount of content. I believe that for the latter we may create Touring the Middle Rhine Valley as a travel topic, as this is what it boils down to. Cities, towns and other locations can be linked to from the travel topic just as they are today, we don't need to adjust breadcrumbs.

I am on the fence with Eifel. For a destination so many people apparently care for, it has preciously little content. I believe we can put it in Rhineland-Palatinate and call the part of NRW containing Eifel something else to avoid confusion. We can explain in the "Understand" bit that Eifel is actually a larger mountain range, but for the purpose of geographic division of our guides, that guide only covers the Rhineland-Palatinate part. Or the other way around, perhaps it's just me that primarily associates Eifel with R-P. PrinceGloria (talk) 17:21, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

It boils down to the users here wanting to force a random organizational structure on travelers, instead of forcing the traveler experience on our organizational structure. Someone who is going to travel to the Harz just wants to read at that article what to do there, where to stay, etc. It shouldn't be spread over three articles just because the region happens to lie in three Bundesländer. Same goes for the Eifel. The region spans two Bundesländer, why is this a problem? There is no content overlap, and everyone knows where to find the right information. Travellers won't know or care about the administrative boundary. Globe-trotter (talk) 18:17, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Over the last two or three months, I have pretty thoroughly examined the existing hierarchies of most countries on the site, and I can tell you, we have not found the need to make these kind of widespread hierarchical disruptions/exceptions anywhere else. I feel solidly that we should be able to find a way to cover this country that is consistent with the way we've covered everywhere else on the planet, that is, with a single hierarchy top to bottom and extra-hierarchical stuff on the side.

If you still really feel that X and Y regions absolutely must be included in the breadcrumb yet still have their own singluar, unbroken, but clearly cross-hierarchical articles, you really only have two choices here: Either you need to a) somehow make the case that these two little pockets of German regions are super extraordinarily unprecedentedly exceptional cases that are just crazily different from other regions in the rest of Germany and rest of the world and that they are therefore somehow deserving of a special rare disregard of our geographical hierarchy principles, b) propose a new top-level map of Germany that de-emphasizes state boundaries and accommodates this other way of carving up the country instead, or c) accept that for the time being we've got to work here within the same constraints we've worked under for the rest of the world, and make any proposal to change that foundational principle in the proper forum elsewhere. Texugo (talk) 18:43, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

I do not think any of the concerns regarding overlaps and gaps are relevant in this case. Level 1 of Germany hierarchy is states, no overlap or gap. Level 2 is tourist/geographical region, no overlap or gaps. On the issue of river valleys and mountain regions, it makes total sense in this case as the landscape and road/rail structure make it clear. Yes Koblenz is on the Rhine and the Mosel and will have to pick one for the parent page, but that happens what ever method. Taking out the river strips and making regions just the mountain regions would split the city of Koblenz into 3 articles, now that does not make sense. The only clean structure would be to administrative Kreis organisation which would be of no use to the reader. The current structure works, lets leave it and get back to making content. --Traveler100 (talk) 20:43, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Huh? The "current structure" for 95% of Germany is quite conventional except for this odd handful of things you and Globetrotter have set up. "Level 2" for all the other regions of Germany is indeed without gaps or overlaps, but these you've set up here are the very definition overlap. In no other part of the world have we constructed a second-tier level which bears no relation to the first-tier, why do you think Germany would be so special as to need that???? And no, I'm not saying that Koblenz should go to 3 articles. I'm just saying that if we use a given region, any given region, it should be able to go on the map; the dividing line between where breadcrumbs go in region A and where the go in region B must be more than at the whim of whoever comes along and decides B is a more relevant title than A. Texugo (talk) 21:08, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

The Eifel has no overlap, it just has two parent regions. Policy prescribes this, as the Lake Tahoe example shows. About the Middle Rhine Valley, 95% of it is in Rhineland-Palatinate, and it's the most important region of it. So of course it should be there. A very small part lies outside the Bundesland in NRW and in Hesse. Making separate articles for these tiny parts would just lead to confusion and would split a perfectly coherent region into three bad articles. The traveller looking for information about all the Middle Rhine Valley should just find it at that article instead of splitting it up because of an irrelevant administrative boundary. The Connecticut and New Jersey parts are also included in the Metro New York article, just so the reader of that article can easily find what he/she is looking for. Globe-trotter (talk) 00:46, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The Eifel overlap is exactly the fact that it, as a top-level region directly under Germany, overlaps with two states, also directly under Germany, competing with them and stealing its destinations' breadcrumb trails away from the states. This is the specific type of overlap that we are to avoid, else we end up with competing hierarchies, all of which use breadcrumbs but in an inconsistent and convoluted way which cannot be easily represented on a map.

I would be much more amenable to the way the Metro New York article is done: it is a hierarchical region of NY that does indeed list some outlying areas, but none of the breadcrumbs for those outlying articles are placed under it — they already belong to their own hierarchies under their own states and Metro New York has not been made some separate alternative container competing directly under Mid-Atlantic that causes destinations to no longer include their higher hierarchical levels and states in their breadcrumb trail. I don't believe there are any examples, even exceptionally, where we've carved out and combined chunks of two neighboring states and moved breadcrumbs within them directly a new top level region that overlaps and directly competes with the states. Similarly, Lake Tahoe does not have "two parent regions" in a hierarchical sense, we just fudged the state line a little so both sides of the lake are in the same state, but hierarchically, it's all still under California, not some new "United States of America > Lake Tahoe" breadcrumb trail that ignores the existence of the states. And that only works because Lake Tahoe is singular, isolated, and quite small in comparison to the parent regions and states. We'd never dream of taking all the Cascades destinations or all the Japanese Alps destinations or all the Pyrenees destinations and actually grouping all their breadcrumbs under the same parent in disregard of the regularly established higher level regions. That is the very type of hybrid overlapping regions that the geo hierarchy guidelines very very specifically seek to avoid. Again, if Germany is somehow exceptional in any respect which does not apply to most places in the world, please explain what makes it worthy of an unprecedented exception to our organizational principles. If it's not exceptional, or if you think there are lots of places in the world that should also be treated in the proposed manner, then it's simply the fundamental guidelines you disagree with, and your arguments truly belong in an appropriate forum elsewhere.

I also do not understand your insistence that any of the four river valleys above would make a good region as an official part of the hierarchy, why they shouldn't be just extra-hierarchical, because they are linear and do not make for good regions to be expressed on a map because they basically form the borders of the other 2-dimension regions and thus any land on either side necessarily overlaps with the neighboring two regions. Let the 2-dimensional areas be the official regions, describe the valleys in extra-hierarchical articles or itineraries. We have to try to limit the number of different ways we slice up the same area — a given destination might technically be in X Valley, in Y Mountain Range, in the Z basin of the historical ABC region, the former kingdom of DEFG, the township of HIJK, the tourist circuit of LMNOP, and the province of QRSTUVW. That's why the hierarchy chooses only one scheme to use by cutting up a given area like puzzle pieces, which divide the area clearly into reasonable number of pieces that fit together but don't overlap. Everything else can still be covered, it's just extra-hierarchical, without messing with the destinations' breadcrumbs. If you try to make regions A, B, C, D, and E, and the four valleys between them it will results in an unnecessarily convoluted map and/or confusion and inconsistency regarding which region label is most applicable to a given city, etc. Look at the other regions of Germany or any other well-developed country for which we have good WV-style maps. You'll see that where we have chosen to use river valleys as official regions, they represent an actual area that can be represented on the map, not just a line.

Texugo (talk) 01:49, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Regarding the necessity of using breadcrumbs for the 4 river valleys in addition to the 6 regions of which they form the borders, let me go back and reframe a couple of questions I'd like you to actually answer this time: If Lahn Valley, Middle Rhine Valley, and Taunus were all set up as hierarchical containers like you want, where would Lahnstein's breadcrumb properly belong? It's a namesake important part of the Lahn Valley, it's directly on the more prominent Rhine, and on the map above it appears to be in the 2-dimensional space of Taunus. Would you actually draw snaky little noodly areas shaded in along the rivers on the map? If not, how do you know that the next editor to come along won't answer the question differently and change it to one of the other apparently concurrent options? And if there is no discernably and objectively right answer and no reasonable way to show the physical area on the map, what is the point of including the rivers as breadcrumbed regions at all, when leaving them out would make things so clean, objective, and consistent? Why not just make the rivers extrahierarchical or itineraries? It would be loads easier. Texugo (talk) 02:28, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

First off, manifold more words were written here in futility than there are in our guides to Eifel. If anybody believes we are doing the traveller any good that way, please think again.

Regions need to be MECE and easy to grasp. If you want Eifel, Harz and Middle Rhine Valley as regions that do not belong to Bundeslaender, please provide a map of how you want to split Germany.

Can we hold off further verbosity for until a complete map of a proposed alternative split of Germany is provided? PrinceGloria (talk) 02:55, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Would love to see one. And thanks for that MECE link. I was unaware of that term, but that is exactly the principle we use. My only concern is that, failing a new Germany map proposal or total rout of our hierarchy guidelines, we still need to fix what we've got. Texugo (talk) 02:58, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

OK I see the concern about overlapping hierarchy. May I suggest, at least until someone comes up with a better proposal, that we place the discussed regions under one of the states but let them be referenced by more that one. I have but Eifel under Rhineland-Palatinate but is also a region of North Rhine-Westphalia. I suggest we put Harz under Lower Saxony but also make it a region of axony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. Westerwald can be part of RLP and Hesse. The sharing of sub-regions by more that one state region of Germany keeps the usefulness for the reader and prevents overlap. --Traveler100 (talk) 06:59, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Whew, now maybe we´re getting somewhere! Texugo (talk) 12:42, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Provisional solution

OK! So as a provisional solution that perhaps we can all get behind, I suggest basically doing what User:Traveler100 has suggested, in the following way:

• Eifel, hierarchically under Rhineland-Palatinate, but also lists the relevant cities in North Rhine-Westphalia, with its city list segmented into those two states (following the example of Metro New York). Cities in NR-W keep their breadcrumb directly under that state (so as not to show the wrong state). Eifel is listed as a region under the Regions section of both states. Done
• Harz, hierarchically under Lower Saxony, but which also lists the relevant cities which happen to be in other states, with its city list clearly segmented by state. Cities in LS get the breadcrumb, cities in Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia keep their breadcrumbs under their own states (so as not to show the wrong state). Harz gets listed under Other destinations in those two state articles, because neither of them has otherwise been broken into regions. Done
• Westerwald, hierarchically under Rhineland-Palatinate, can also list the relevant cities in North Rhine-Westphalia or Hesse, with its city list clearly segmented by state. Cities in NR-W or Hesse retain their breadcrumbs under Sauerland-Siegerland or Middle Hesse, respectively. Done
• Rhineland-Palatinate's Regions section is set up with the six colored portions on the map above: Eifel (shared as above), Hunsrück, Palatinate, Rhenish Hesse, Taunus, and Westerwald (shared as above)
• River valley articles - Middle Rhine Valley, Naheland, Lahn Valley, and Moselle Valley as set as extra-hierarchical regions, meaning they can discuss any cities or regions in any state or country necessary, without actually affecting the breadcrumb trail of anything they list. These articles get linked to from the Other destinations section of Rhineland-Palatinate and any other relevant state or region. Any of these may in the future be transformed into an itinerary article, where necessary/practical.

Are there any further objections to doing the above? (Please say no!) Texugo (talk) 12:42, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree with the solution, looks great. The only objection I have is with the river valley articles. They can just be regions of Rhineland-Palatinate, with the small outlying towns also listed in the article (but with separate breadcrumb to their state). It doesn't make sense for them to be extra-hierarchical (see here for an example map). Globe-trotter (talk) 14:47, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Globe-trotter, so you think we need to draw in the noodly shaped regions on the region map and use them for the breadcrumbs, boosting the number of regions from a manageable 6, up beyond our standard 7+-2, to a total of ten?? What do we gain from that besides an unnecessarily convoluted map that looks nothing like the other existing Germany state maps? Texugo (talk) 14:58, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't like the notion of "extra-hierarchical regions" either. The river valley articles should become itineraries or travel topics IMHO - most rivers in Europe do not require long and narrow rivers to descibe them. The regional articles should present the regular useful information on those regions, referencing the appropriate travel topic or itinerary for specific travel information regarding the river valley. This can be done from as many regions or destinations as we find appropriate.

BTW, it all went so well because we didn't have the regional maps for those Bundeslaender drawn up. How will the maps of those states look like after this? PrinceGloria (talk) 17:49, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, I don't mind if they become itineraries or travel topics either; it's just that they would need to be totally rewritten before they would qualify as either, whereas we can switch them over to extraregion immediately for the time being. I'm only very skeptical about the need to have them as hierarchical regions if they are just going to consist of four narrow border strips that just follow the rivers on the map.

And I assume you are just talking about Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia not having a map? They not only don't have a map, but we haven't reached the point of dividing them into subregions yet either. I suppose the overlap regions can be taken into account when we get around to those discussions on how to subdivide them, right? Texugo (talk) 18:14, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Incidentally, by the look of it, the portion of the Harz in Thuringia is so small that it will not likely need to be considered on the map or in the future subdivision of that lander anyway. Texugo (talk) 18:20, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

I can do the slight alterations needed to have Middle Rhine Valley become Touring the Middle Rhine Valley, a travel topic, using the currently available content. Naheland is a subregion of Rhineland-Palatinate. The other river valleys are stub articles listing cities, we can do away with them as they contain no useful content whatsoever. PrinceGloria (talk) 19:13, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

If Naheland is a subregion of the state, we need a map that shows its boundaries with Hunsrück, Palatinate, and Rhenish Hesse, because on the map above all the land area is taken up by those three and "Naheland" is only labeled as the river itself. Texugo (talk) 19:22, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Glad we could agree on the mountain regions. I do however think at least for Middle Rhine and Mosel that they stay regions. Yes they are very long and thin regions but it fits the landscape and transport system. There is a definite difference between the towns in the Middle Rhine and the Mosel valley and those on the hills above. The majority (probably more the 90%) of visitors to the Rhine and Mosel never leave the valleys (with the exception of the Lorely). There are no rail connections that climb out of the valley and the road out are very small winding and steep. the landscape, agriculture and industry (including tourist industry) is very different between the valley bottom and valley sides that of the regions above. --Traveler100 (talk) 19:33, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

The Nahe is not so pronounced a region as the Middle Rhein and Mosel, will look at removing it. --Traveler100 (talk) 19:34, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I don't think either of us has the data to claim any percentages. The Elbe Valley is also very busy with leisure ships, but somehow we're OK with covering it in three subregions - Saxon Elbland, where the most prominent part is, Leipzig Lowlands, where the river continues through Riesa and Saxon Switzerland with the upper river with Pirna. There are regular ships running between Pirna, Dresden, Meissen and Riesa, which form almost a continuum with smaller settlements along the Elbe. On the other hand, Saxon Elbland also covers hills and small mountains in the immediate vicinity, to which it might be harder to get from Dresden than from Dresden to Riesa or Pirna (esp. via ship).

I agree that a region should preferably be culturally homogenous, topographically similar and internally well-connected, but our regional split should also be reasonably coherent. PrinceGloria (talk) 19:55, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Hmm.. Would it be possible to produce a map showing us what it will look like? Texugo (talk) 19:45, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

And can Lahn Valley be left out? It appears to be a very small portion of the state anyway. Texugo (talk) 19:50, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Agree Lanh Valley has little content is not needed. Just need to decide if the towns on the river should placed under Taunus or Westerwald. --Traveler100 (talk) 04:29, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Texugo, my understanding of discussion is exchange of ideas then once some consensus has occurred make the changes; not write of the talk page a proposal and then instantly make the change. I also think you misunderstood what I was saying above. Move Eifel, Westerwald and Taunus under states so as to remove overlap of sub-regions with regions but I meant that a sub-region cna be in more than one state. For example Eifel is a region of both Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia. Unfortunately the breadcrumb will only show one state (which is why they were directly under Germany before) but the region reflects the area better. --Traveler100 (talk) 04:29, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

• 
  Rhineland-Palatinate
• 
  North Rhine-Westphalia

Of course, my understanding of discussion is no different from yours; I wouldn't have made the change if I didn't think we had already obtained agreement by virtue of you proposing it and the only other dissenting user agreeing. (Notice I changed only the parts which rephrased your proposal and which Globe-trotter specifically endorsed). I didn't realize that what you were actually insisting on involved displaying the wrong state even for locations 70+ km away from the state line. These are not some border towns thought of as belonging to both states, so displaying Aachen and other NR-P destinations as part of R-P is clearly incorrect. We should follow the example of Metro New York; we put Eifel under Rhineland-Palatinate, but for North Rhine-Westphalia locations, the breadcrumb should just be North Rhine-Westphalia, omitting the subregion. Even though "Eifel" won't appear in the breadcrumb trail for those destinations, the lead line of each city article will still clearly say it belongs to the Eifel region, and the navigation path downward from NR-P to Eifel to the city will still be obvious. A slight omission in the breadcrumb is far preferable to showing information that is clearly incorrect. Texugo (talk) 12:03, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

And actually, now that I look at it again, the changes that you reverted are the ones regard the mountain regions. I reframed your proposal, Globe-trotter agreed with the mountain regions points, and you explicitly endorsed them when you said "Glad we could agree on the mountain regions" and moved on to talk about the other topics which I have clearly not changed yet. Obviously there was a misunderstanding between us at some point, but I only did what I clearly described above and only the part which you and Globe-trotter seemed to have very specifically agreed to. Texugo (talk) 13:00, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Keeping to state boundaries

RLP

• Rhineland-Palatinate part of Eifel to High Eifel, North Rhine-Westphalia part to Low Eifel
• Rhineland-Palatinate part of Westerwald, Taunus and Lahn Valley to North East Rhineland-Palatinate
• Naheland extends a little south of the river valley itself.
• Rhenish Hesse, Palatinate, Hunsrück, Middle Rhine Valley and Moselle Valley stay as is.
• Taunus under South Hesse but mention geographical part is in Rhineland-Palatinate.
• Westerwald and Lahn Valley made exrtaregions

Traveler100 (talk) 13:28, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

"Politics" and "Economy"

How do those two sections really help a traveller? I believe their importance is minuscule, and if somebody wants to find out about those, they can head over to Wikipedia. PrinceGloria (talk) 07:17, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

I think it is important for a travel to understand a little about the politics and economic structure of a country they are visiting. I have heard some unbelievable comments on what people think they know about a country they are in or I have visited. Agree should not have a large section, that is what Wikipedia is for, but a short overview is useful. The sections could do with a little updating though. The economy section should mention the strong industrial base of the country such as automotive and machinery manufactures and the politics section should mention the AFD. --Traveler100 (talk) 07:34, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

There will still be people who skip this section. This is a travel guide. It is important to know a lot if you are an informed traveller with your mind open. That is why you read more than just a travel guide. But this is a travel guide. If somebody wishes to be uninformed, let them be. They just need to know how to get in, get about, where to sleep, eat and drink. We're not here to tell people that they should be informed. And as you can see, what comes into those sections can be contentious and we might end up with a bit of everything, with them swelling and swelling, and becoming outdated later ater enthusiasm fades out. PrinceGloria (talk) 07:46, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Traveler100's remarks sound about right to me. We surely don't want Wikivoyage to be encyclopedic; as PrinceGloria says, Wikipedia exists for that purpose. However, neither should we think that our current or target audience consists largely of people who aspire to be "accidental tourists" (if you don't know the book or movie, it's about a man who writes travel guides for Americans who have to travel for business and want to pretend they never left home, so they head immediately to the first McDonald's, etc.), who'd rather know nothing about the countries where they travel. Basic background should be provided in a travel guide. I say this irrespective of which specific points are best to include or exclude, though. It's OK for that to be contentious; contend away, if you like. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:49, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for chiming in. Do you believe we should include "Economy" and "Politics" in every country article? If so, why not in regional articles or, for that matter, cities and lowest-level destinations? PrinceGloria (talk) 08:04, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

No, these are indeed optional sections. However, Germany is a very important country. In terms of its place in the world, if either of these subsections were deleted, "politics" would presumably be less important than "economy," but considering the extent to which Germany drives the economics of the EU, politics and economics are somewhat inseparable. Again, I would definitely argue against a very detailed, lengthy, or encyclopedic treatment here. However, at least some basics should be included. How many and which are open to debate.

I just looked through these subsections. I think the "Economy" section is fine: It provides a brief overview and appropriately links Frankfurt. I think the "Politics" section could probably be edited down a bit, and provided with more Wikivoyage links. It's arguably too detailed in terms of discussing parties, and even their histories, but on the other hand, it isn't extremely long for a country-level article, and as you said, people can skip it if they so choose. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:37, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

I also think it would be fine for the "Economy" section to be a bit longer, if for example it included information about interesting factories and such and included Wikivoyage links to the cities where they are located, similar to the work we did on the "History" section. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:40, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

I also think the 'Economy' section could be longer, simply because of the impact worldwide of the Germany export economy. I'm surprised it mentions Lufthansa but nothing of the far more important car manufacturing industry.

The Politics section should be reduced by 50%. I agree with the general sentiments above that we don't need to know every detail. The description of every single political party is also way to long and not relevant to WV. Andrewssi2 (talk) 08:45, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

I must say I am quite surprised. Where do you guys put the line between us being a mini-Wikipedia and what do you guys consider appropriate amount of content that is necessary for the traveller? If the section is optional, how do we determine if there should be one or not? PrinceGloria (talk) 08:55, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

There is an overlap between WP and WV. Personally I would prefer to just link to these sections in WP, but the current consensus does not allow that.

Some context about each country is relevant to the traveler. We can't divorce the political and economic situation from the culture of a country. That said, describing how proportional representation works in Germany as well as every single political party is just not relevant to the traveler. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 09:06, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

I pretty much agree with Andrewssi2 on all points. As long as we don't simply link to Wikipedia for these sections, we should either keep them as brief but coherent and reasonably self-contained overviews or try to give them a travel focus, as we did in the "History" section. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:17, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Addition to Cities section

Hi, I'd like to add a tenth city to the cities section. It's Leipzig. It's facing a big boom in foreign tourism in recent years and it really is a place that makes itself shine a bit more every year. In addition, it's the tenth most visited city after Nuremberg, too - with 2.5m overnigth stays in 2012.

We could also add this sentence underneath the listing: Other cities and towns with over 1 million nights per year are Rostock, Hannover, Bremen, Cuxhaven, Bonn, Freiburg, Münster, Lübeck, Wiesbaden and Essen. I think that's legitimate. Cheers, Horst-schlaemma (talk) 15:11, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

If it's 9, it's 9. If we leave the gate open, soon it will be the 20 you listed. We have regional articles for that. If you have the list with nights/year, do share, we could perhaps make sure ours are the top 10 (I would be surprised if Nuremberg makes the list). PrinceGloria (talk) 16:42, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, but it should be a top10 (who's using "top9's" for anything? ;). The numbers can be found at the German Tourism Association. Ahoi, Horst-schlaemma (talk) 19:34, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually 9 is just the highest allowed number of listed cities in each article's Cities section, the number can also be lower. ϒpsilon (talk) 19:39, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Yep, nine is the limit, same as every other country article. Texugo (talk) 19:46, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

It is tough to decide the top 9 in a big country like Germany, but we need to restrict the number to make each country manageable to the reader. I also don't think 'nights stayed per year' is a metric by itself to decide on the list. That said, you could argue that Leipzig is more relevant as a traveler destination than Nuremburg and suggest replacing it in the list. Andrewssi2 (talk) 00:00, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Without knowing much about Germany, it seems like Cologne might also be a candidate for replacement, especially considering its proximity to Dusseldorf. Powers ^(talk) 01:02, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

The North West area of North_Rhine-Westphalia has a lot of major cities, including Dusseldorf and Cologne, all mixed together in a massive urban area. It would be challenging to select one as representative of the area, although Cologne would probably be it. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 04:08, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Cologne should obviously stay, it is one of the major destinations in Germany. But then I'd have a hard time arguing why we should remove DDorf. Nights per year is obviously a valid metric, we are no here to judge the touristic value of a place, the tourists have done that already - voting with their feet, or rather their time and wallets. And we do have the top 9 out of the top 10 in Germany on our list, with the exception of Leipzig (no. 10 on the list). However we may like certain destination over others, in contentious cases like this let's refer to objective data if available. Can we close it here? PrinceGloria (talk) 04:28, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, some places have many overnight stays for being business hubs - this is especially true for places like Düsseldorf and Frankfurt, that don't get too many actual "tourists". I'd take Leipzig over Düsseldorf, as the latter barely has much to offer for international visitors. -- Horst-schlaemma (talk) 04:31, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

A tourist is a tourist, we cater to all of them. If somebody is in DDorf for business but looking for a restaurant or some cool places to see to kill 2 hours, we're here for them. We know you prefer Leipzig. I like both actually. But let's leave it here and focus on content. PrinceGloria (talk) 04:39, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

'Nights per year' is a valid metric, just not taken by itself for reasons that Horst-schlaemma points out. I'm OK to see Leipzig take over from either Dusseldorf or Nurnberg. Andrewssi2 (talk) 04:49, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't see why we should treat one group of tourists as inferior to the other. As of now, we have Horst promoting Leipzig and myself standing for DDorf. Nobody voiced support for Nuremberg, but I guess a fan thereof may also be found. If we will continue to bicker over that we lose time and end up continually rotating the end of the list. I propose we use the metric as it is and close the discussion for there are more important matters at hand. Leipzig is mentioned in the body of the article, so it is getting its due attention, don't worry. PrinceGloria (talk) 04:59, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Düsseldorf also has a massive airport. I understand the geographic argument for Leipzig instead of Düsseldorf, but I find it hard to support removing Düsseldorf. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:02, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Initially I wasn't aware this section would be strictly limited to 9 cities. Still don't see that makes a lot of sense, given the enormously varying size of countries handled at WikiVoyage (I mean - Liechtenstein, Belize vs. Germany, USA or even China, wtf!). But we're not here to discuss that, huh. :) All the best, Horst-schlaemma (talk) 05:29, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

The size of the region is being catered to by the number of regions and levels of regions it is divided into, don't worry. This is the philosophy behind our guide structure - we don't try to cover all of a large country in a single guide. PrinceGloria (talk) 06:04, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

With regard to the sentiment that "I don't see why we should treat one group of tourists as inferior to the other," that's not the issue here. Business travelers aren't coming here to choose a destination for their business trip, and of course we still provide them with the restaurant and all that they need. But they already know where they're going and can go directly to that page. The 9 we choose to feature are supposed to give people a selection of the most interesting places to choose from. Texugo (talk) 12:15, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

[unindent] Texugo, please point us to the discussion where it was agreed that business travelers don't count in deciding which cities should be featured on the country-wide list of 9. I wouldn't agree to that. Cities with major business traffic are important, and that should be a factor in considering listing them, in my opinion. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:26, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

If Dusseldorf is really "Germany's capital of fashion and shopping" then it seems like a prime destination. Be that the case, the only reason I'd even consider replacing it or Cologne instead of Nurenburg is geography. Geography isn't everything. Powers ^(talk) 01:06, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

I just noticed a 'problem' in the current 9 cities. Dresden is the only city listed that is in former country of East Germany (Berlin is of course listed, but that is a special case being split between East and West itself).

I think it would be good to have Leipzig in the list at the expense of another 'West' German city, in order that we are representative of the whole country. Andrewssi2 (talk) 01:55, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Understood. So which western German city would you nominate for removal from the list and why? Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:02, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

I would nominate Nuremberg, for only the reason that it is the least important city in the existing list. It is a hard call to remove it, but all the other cities (including Leipzig, IMO) should be ahead on any new traveler's itinerary. Andrewssi2 (talk) 02:10, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

User:Ikan Kekek, I wasn't saying that it's a policy. I'm just saying that it's common sense that a business traveller is not browsing lists of featured cities to find out which are the most interesting; they already know where they're going. Texugo (talk) 02:52, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

And almost everyone in the world knows about New York City, yet we still list it in the list of 9 featured US cities, because of its importance. So while Frankfurt may be better known as the capital of German business, it gets listed in the list of 9. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:27, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Guys, we're wasting time. Been to Leipzig, been to DDorf, cannot really see why Leipzig would better DDorf, but then some other people would. Again, nobody here loves Nuremberg, but can we vouch it's really a hopeless destination?

At any rate, NRW, Saxony and Bavaria already have one destination each, and there is a dearth of North German destinations, while Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia generally get little love. So how about Weimar or Magdeburg, or Potsdam or Mainz or Koblenz? We have nothing on the coast except for Hamburg, so how about Bremen or Kiel or Lubeck or Schwerin?

We could go on forever and there is still lotsa work with this article and its regions. Let's leave it there and return to it when everything is nice and rosy. PrinceGloria (talk) 04:10, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

As per my earlier comment :" I just noticed a 'problem' in the current 9 cities. Dresden is the only city listed that is in former country of East Germany (Berlin is of course listed, but that is a special case being split between East and West itself)"

There is a strong case to enter Leipzig into the top 9 in order to better represent Germany. Andrewssi2 (talk) 04:22, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

No there is not, to be perfectly blunt and honest, Leipzig is a boring city that is neither very beautiful nor worth visiting for other than business reasons. There is a reason we list Dresden and not Leipzig. Some people may have a different opinion, but really Leipzig isn't a top tourist destination. It gets a lot of tourism because of business and trade fairs, which was argued as irrelevant just above.

I couldn't care less for Nuremberg to be bluntly honest, but that's just because I've never been there. If we would want to replace it with something tho, how about a city that sees comparably many night as both it and Leipzig, but is in a state and geographic location that is underrepresented? If you want more cities from East Germany, how about Potsdam, Weimar or Schwerin?

By the way, there is a reason why East Germany gets less mentions on our list - it is less populated (with the exception of Saxony and Berlin, who are already on our list, the population density is really low by German standards) and sees less city-oriented tourism. It's great for vacationing or nature-oriented tourism, but we cover that in other sections. This is not a discrimination, this is simply the way things are. PrinceGloria (talk) 04:32, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

I thought Nuremberg was beautiful from the window of an ICE train from Munich to Berlin, but that's not a strong basis for me to support including the city in this list. I haven't been to Dresden yet, but a lot of people love it, so I definitely understand why it would be included in this list. I'm sorry that I'm not personally familiar with German cities further north than Berlin, either. So basically, I'm useless here. :-) Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:39, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm actually good with Potsdam, Weimar or Schwerin instead of Leipzig if you feel that strongly about it. It is not about discrimination so much as we have SEVEN cities in West Germany, only ONE in East Germany and then Berlin. It is completely unbalanced. If there were two east German cities at least, then I feel we would have a list representative of the whole of Germany. Andrewssi2 (talk) 04:48, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Andrew, this is how the population and tourism is distributed in Germany. PrinceGloria (talk) 04:52, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

According to 2012 census there are about 12.5 million East Germans (excluding Berlin) compared to about 65.5 West Germans (excluding Berlin) That is closer to a 6:1 ratio. Therefore I believe a 6:2 ratio (as suggested before) is more fair than the 7:1 currently in place. Andrewssi2 (talk) 06:05, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

3.5 of those 12.5M live in Berlin, which is still in the East of Germany. This balances out the figures, can we close the case? PrinceGloria (talk) 06:20, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Berlin is a special case, part of east and west, as already clearly stated.

At this point I would like to hear other people's opinions about this suggestion of having two East German cities (either for or against). I'll leave it to group consensus since that is the WV way of doing things. Andrewssi2 (talk) 06:30, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi Ikan Kekek, would you mind overthinking your "boring and bland" label for Leipzig, perhaps? Have you even been there? And if so, it must be some time back in the past. Cause it's bustling with life and with one of Europe's most regarded and unique creative scenes. See what e.g. the New York Times writes. Oh and loads and loads of old buildings were beautifully reconstructed in Leipzig in recent years. Check this album, it's incredible! :O Seriously, various cities in the list just blush facing this urban experience. Cheers, Horst-schlaemma (talk) 12:20, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

[unindent] Where did I say anything about Leipzig? I've only seen Leipzig from the train, and it looked nice to me. Furthermore, my girlfriend visited Leipzig as a day trip from Berlin and loved it. So my feelings toward Leipzig are positive, but I don't have enough personal knowledge to give a persuasive recommendation of the city. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:40, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

@all and Andrewssi2: Germans generally don't make that distinction of East and West Germany anymore (when referring to the former Iron Curtain division). At least not when it comes to vacation destinations. I think both Düsseldorf and Nuremberg should be replaced. Although Nuremberg was reconstructed from a superficial view, not much of the old town and its treasures actually survived. I have a feeling it's one of the places in Germany that visitors get most upset and disappointed with, as they expect a truly medieval place. We shouldn't disappoint these people, really. It's a bombed out place, sadly. Düsseldorf was largely replaced by Berlin both as a "fashion and shopping capital". Its "old town" is a vast tourist trap. The Media Harbour is a deadend. So, no thanks. Bremen also is displaceable for me. While it has the mindboggling old market and the lovely Böttcherstrasse, I'm not entirely convinced it's much of an international travel destination.

I'd opt to include places like Schwerin, Rostock, Lübeck or Lüneburg for Northern Germany; Regensburg (best-kept medieval city, quite big too!), Bamberg, Heidelberg or Freiburg for the South; Erfurt, Weimar, Leipzig or even the jewel of Görlitz for the East; instead of the mentioned ones. Potsdam should be added to Berlin's entry, as it's basically a suburb. And a quite magnificent one in that, like Versailles is to Paris, only even better. Cheers, Horst-schlaemma (talk) 12:36, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Also have to defend Leipzig its architecture, history and culture puts it in my top 9 cities in Germany to visit. I was asked last year by someone where they should visit in Germany and I listed Leipzig along with Berlin, Cologne, Dresden, Hamburg and Munich. I can also see Düsseldorf for the shopping and the bars being on the list. Frankfurt, yes important for business but I think there are many other more interesting cities in Germany, for example in the area Mainz is much more interesting for the tourist. Would recommend Lübeck over Bremen too. Nuremberg has some attractions but with the exception of visiting in the week before Christmas for the market I would recommend other cities above it like Regensburg and Heidelberg.--Traveler100 (talk) 12:45, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Frankfurt was one I was wondering about... it is economically a very important place and known all around the world, but I'd also have difficulty in recommending it as a tourist destination. Andrewssi2 (talk) 13:40, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, at least the top 3 largest cities should stay (Berlin, Hamburg, Munich). The fourth largest city, Cologne, I remember as quite bland. Rostock, that Horst just mentioned would be both in the former East Germany and in the north of the country. Frankfurt does in practice certainly not lack tourists (of course due to the airport) and for a first time visitor to Germany, "Mainhattan" might feel quite interesting and "German", though there are certainly more interesting destinations elsewhere in Germany.

What cities you might be interested in of course depends much on what you are looking for. If you are interested in old fachwerkhäuser and history, Düsseldorf is pretty much the last place you should visit (overall smaller cities and town are actually much better for that). On the other hand, for partying and shopping it's not bad. I don't have any particular dislike for Nuremberg. Dresden is nice and quite popular among visitors. It's a small eternity since I've been to Bremen and Leipzig so I don't remember much of them. ϒpsilon (talk) 14:42, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

I will defend Cologne, Dresden, Dusseldorf and Frankfurt to the last drop of blood, they are IMHO the four best destinations in Germany (not including Berlin, as it's a given). I'd add Stuttgart, but I don't want to confuse matters. Seems like Bremen and Nuremberg have the least friends here. I only fear a few months down the line we might meet here in a slightly differently composed group and restart this discussion and we will end up continually changing the section that needs the least attention. PrinceGloria (talk) 16:38, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Why would you think the cities section needs the least attention? It might be tiny in comparison with other apsects, but it's among the first things a visitor gets to see at this guide. I don't think anyone with some responsibility should recommend Düsseldorf and Frankfurt to the common traveller. Well, you may care to explain why you'd desperately defend them. Cheers, Horst-schlaemma (talk) 16:55, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Simply because you have a different travelling style and interests than me. I consider myself a Cologne guy when I am in Germany, as I have deep associations with the city, and still I must say I had some of the best times as a tourist in DDorf. I find the old town charming, its nightlife, including culinary offerings, just brilliant, shopping opportunities the best in Germany save for perhaps Berlin and Medienhafen is my favourite place for a walk in the whole of Germany.

Frankfurt to me is great sights (go up the Galleria Kaufhof to Leonhard's and enjoy what I find the best view in Europe), good shopping as well, a wonderfully calming city and still many attractions to explore throughout the city - just consider the Museumsufer to start with. You may find it all artificial, boring and uninteresting but hey, to each their own. Frankfurt still gets its fair share of visitors, you may dismiss them as business visitors, but I assure you I've been there purely for leisure.

I truly do not think recommending Frankfurt or Dusseldorf is a problem when we still have sections needing work. History is still only a working version, Politics is hopelessly inadequate, and Economy is a boring blurb full of repetitions from other parts of the article (I can say so as I wrote this section in its current form). Moreover, most of our regions and quite many destinations are still sad stubs in need ofe much work. Worrying about which 9 cities we feature is being petty, IMHO. PrinceGloria (talk) 18:11, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Do we really care all that much about economy, politics and general info sections in a tourist guide? There's Wikipedia for that kind of stuff. And while I agree we need to extend the region articles (I happily contribute there!), I also think we should pay more attention to the needs of the average tourist. I'm not saying I couldn't or didn't have fun in Frankfurt e.g., I had great times at Cocoon (RIP) and Kameha (RIP). But it's different for the average tourist. There's other places that give a more comprehensible idea for a Germany vacation that could rather be mentioned. I'll prepare a table with suggestions. But yeah, we shouldn't worry much for too long. But I'm also very enthusiastic about city tourism, it's among the biggies in Germany. Cheers, Horst-schlaemma (talk) 18:59, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

We'll never come to agreement about the list of 9 cities if we go off on tangents about the other sections of the article. Let's focus on the 9 cities and discuss those other issues in other threads. And I'll give this general comment: I don't think that a list of 9 featured cities should be based only on which are most interesting to the average tourist, and that maybe it would be good to agree on criteria for choosing the list — perhaps that would help us agree on which ones should be in the list. I think the following criteria are appropriate, but not necessarily in this order: (1) Population of the city and metropolitan area; (2) Number of visitors (including business travellers) per year; (3) Cultural importance; (4) Historical importance; (5) Economic importance and importance in terms of infrastructure (does it have a huge airport, is it an important hub for the ICE, etc.); (6) Diversity of location and character within the list; (7) Uniqueness. Can we discuss these and any other criteria you think are important, try to come to agreement on them, and then discuss them in relation to various cities in Germany? Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:49, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Indeed and agreed. I was under the impression there's some stricter criteria already, but also I'm happy there's not (screw Wikipedia bureaucracy!). Just wanted to mention that Leipzig often makes it to the tops of various lists, like here and here, often way ahead of e.g. Düsseldorf or say Nuremberg. Places like Lübeck, Weimar, Regensburg, Heidelberg, Rostock, Stralsund, Erfurt and Schwerin also get loads of mentions. Cheers, Horst-schlaemma (talk) 00:39, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

People

I read this in the 'people' section, and I just want to ask if it is placed correctly? To me it suggests the Germans are defined by drinking a lot.

++++++++

Being a federal republic, Germany is very much a decentralised country, which does justice to the cultural differences between the regions. Some travellers will perhaps only think of beer, Lederhosen and Oktoberfest when Germany comes to mind, but Germany's famous alpine and beer culture is mostly in Bavaria and Munich. Here the beer is traditionally served in 1 L mugs (but not in Kneipen (pubs) and restaurants). The annual Oktoberfest is Europe's most visited festival and the world's largest fair. Germany's south-western regions, however, are well known for their wine growing areas (e.g. Rheinhessen and Palatinate) and Bad Dürkheim on the "German wine route" organises the biggest wine festival worldwide with over 600,000 visitors annually.

++++++++

Should this section rather be around describing the people themselves? Perhaps discussing the cultural differences between liberal north and conservative south? --Andrewssi2 (talk) 08:20, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

The section was even worse, in my opinion, before I deleted a mostly redundant paragraph on transportation. I agree with you, and I would say that the content currently in the section should be moved to other sections as appropriate, with the emptied section either filled with a bit of more relevant description of regional similarities and differences between people and remarks about diversity resulting from immigration or deleted. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:20, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Just calibrating this with the rest of the site. United States#Culture has 'Culture' instead of people, and looks fairly concise and accurate. France actually doesn't cover this subject at all (and maybe it should). Japan#People and New_Zealand#People are also good examples. Andrewssi2 (talk) 00:35, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

One-liner listings

These "one-liner listings" are way too long and blatantly violate our policy on the subject. I have no idea what is meant by "the former version is just inconvenient", but it's not a justification for turning the listings into paragraphs. Powers ^(talk) 18:03, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

You are correct. Still please bear in mind that the edits were made by a very new and enthusiastic contributor and that they were likely unaware of this particular policy restriction. Andrewssi2 (talk) 00:23, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, which is why I linked to the policy in my edit summary. Yet the edits were re-done with the cryptic explanation that "the former version is just inconvenient". I was hoping for some discussion and clarification here. Powers ^(talk) 00:51, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

The user advocating the change should be called to this discussion, but I think policy would support reverting to the previous version while the changes are being discussed. Texugo (talk) 01:18, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

I apologize for ignoring the policy. We're currently discussing the selection of cities, so we might see what the results are there. Cheers, Horst-schlaemma (talk) 15:38, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

List of seaside resorts in Germany

Hi! Is it possible to transfer the Wikipedia-born List of seaside resorts in Germany to Wikivoyage? I put loads of effort into it and plan to extend it even more. But I have a feeling it's more a case for Voyage. I don't know what kind of article this would translate to though, or what it should look like. Cheers, Horst-schlaemma (talk) 18:43, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

PS: As I discovered there's a general thematic article on Spas already, so a topic covering Germany's seaside resorts (with Europe's earliest among them) seems legit. -- Horst-schlaemma (talk) 18:48, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

This is Wikivoyage, not Wikipedia. We don't do lists, and we don't duplicate content from Wikipedia. Lists are a Wikipedia thing, let them stay there. Spas is a topical article, which evolved into a laundry list simply for lack of content and good management of the list. PrinceGloria (talk) 19:49, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree with PrinceGloria. List articles are against the goals of this site. However, if you'd like to create a travel topic about German seaside resorts that has a lot more meat on it than just being a list of locations, please do. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:49, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Sorry to nitpick, but we do in fact duplicate Wikipedia content all the time. Perhaps not verbatim, however policy is to recreate relevant content on Wikivoyage even if that exact same content is available on Wikipedia. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 05:43, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

We do duplicate content, but we present it in a form that is actually helpful to the traveller and would be OK if found in any other travel guide in the world. Mindless laundry lists don't fit the bill. PrinceGloria (talk) 06:29, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Exactly. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:45, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree with you folks, thank you for the input! To make my request perhaps a little more precise: How could we convert the List of seaside resorts in Germany to cater to the interests of Wikivoyage users? What should be added, what should be dismissed? Should it be a table with note-like information, or rather a list with continuous text? Thanks and cheers, Horst-schlaemma (talk) 14:35, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

I'd rather focus on improving individual articles. There is no need to list resorts as such, there is a map in this article and it is quite clear which states have a coastline, and then within those states it is fairly easy to find seaside cities and towns. PrinceGloria (talk) 15:00, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

The resort towns all have very distinct features that other regions rather lack. I might include them in the articles for the Baltic Sea Coast (Germany) and create one for the North Sea Coast (Germany), though. Cheers, Horst-schlaemma (talk) 16:28, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Please do, as I would love to see what you have in mind. I am only quite worried about the trend to create numerous articles about all kinds of everything which seem really to be saying the same thing in a different way, while so many of our core articles (destinations and regions) linger on with much information missing or outdated. PrinceGloria (talk) 18:26, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Don't you worry. I'll do my best to improve all kinds of articles on various topics and regions I visited and countries I like. :) -- Horst-schlaemma (talk) 18:50, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Horst-schlaemma, you could also write a draft article in your own userspace, just by creating a new page such as User:Horst-schlaemma/German seaside resorts and then post the link for us to look at it and comment. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:27, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

How about creating it as an itinerary such as Wales_Coast_Path ? This would get past the 'list' aspect. Andrewssi2 (talk) 23:54, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Middle Rhine Valley and Moselle Valley links

User:Horst-schlaemma and User:Globe-trotter are in disagreement about whether it's appropriate to link to these articles in the description of the Western Germany region. What's the harm in linking to them, since the names are used in the description? Here's the one-liner listing in full:

Wine country and modern cities sharply cut by the breathtaking Middle Rhine Valley and Moselle Valley.

I would link the names of the valleys, and I don't understand what the issue is. Please explain. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:51, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

GT is a great stickler for the "roolz" so I have a suspicion that this may be a rather technical issue. However, for the life of me I also can't see why we can't hyperlink these useful navigations. However I have shortened it slightly to: "Wine country and modern cities sharply cut by the breathtaking Middle Rhine and Moselle valleys" --W. Frank^email_talk 12:33, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

But the point is, I don't know of any rule that wouldn't allow those names to be linked. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:30, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Nor do I. But until we hear from GT, we can't be sure that we haven't missed something. He's surprised me in the past and his edit summary did give a hint of his thinking. --W. Frank^email_talk 08:00, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes it did. I'm content to wait for him to comment. The world won't end in the interim, and if it does, we won't have any argument about this then, anyway. :-) Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:56, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Long distance bus travel

As there is an article on this topic in the German WV and I think it is unwise to include it into the train article and this article's get around section is big enough as it is, I decided to start a long distance bus travel article from scratch. I have hardly ever travelled with them myself, but they are as of now a ultra cheap alternative to those who don't want to use the train and can't use a car. the article can be found here: http://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Long_distance_bus_travel_in_germany 141.30.210.129 19:24, 8 October 2014 (UTC)