Talk:Gimmelwald

Original text stated that it is not possible to drive from Lauterbrunnen to the Stechelberg lift station. This is incorrect. I have verified this with a resident of Gimmelwald who has informed me that the road is, indeed, open to auto traffic from Lauterbrunnen and that he parks his car in the Stechelberg lift parking area. (WT-en) Dick107 17:09, 25 January 2007 (EST)

Ethics

I love this town with all of my heart. While I firmly believe that everyone should get a chance to come here and experience heaven, I also believe that it will soon be busting at the seams as more and more tourists flock to this "quiet" mountain town. I fear that I won't be able to show my kids the same Gimmelwald that my parents showed me. Tourism has destroyed many small towns, and I hope that the same won't happen here. I realize that this is selfish and contradictory to everything this website stands for, but I think this article should be deleted. Gimmelwald gets by well enough on word of mouth...and don't you think Rick Steves has already done enough damage. June 19, 2007 —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) 85.1.41.247 (talk • contribs)

You're right: your suggestion is simply contradictory to the principles this web site is based on. We're not going to delete an article about a destination to keep that place a secret. That's a form of "security through obscurity" and as a technology professional, I can tell you that never works in the long run. Besides, the tourists would just go and wreck some other place, and what are the ethics of that? Furthermore (and speaking solely for myself here) I have little doubt that eventually humanity is going to overrun and destroy every nice place on the planet if it keeps on its present course of exponential population growth and consumption. The lovely little out-of-the-way towns won't be spared forever. The only thing that's going to stop that is if people come to realize that it's happening. Among other things, the people living in plastic mass-produced suburbs need to know that there are places like Gimmelwald, and understand why they're worth saving. Without that, they'll never care enough to do anything about it. I don't have any illusions that Wikivoyage is going to "save the world", but I think it (as part of travel in general) contributes more to the solution than it does to the problem. - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 17:31, 19 June 2007 (EDT)

Please also note that one of our goals is world domination, so say goodbye to Grimmelwald. Today Wikivoyage destroys Grimmelwald, tomorrow we'll destroy the quaintness of New York City. -- (WT-en) Sapphire • (Talk) • 17:50, 19 June 2007 (EDT)

I actually think Wikivoyage is a rather good antidote to some of the ills of travel guides in this respect. Most travel guides will just pick one or two "nice, small, out of the way towns" in a region, causing all tourists using the guide in that region to flock to, and destroy, the few listed towns. As a comprehensive and constantly expanding travel guide, Wikivoyage will avoid the problems of arbitrary selectivity and should, I hope, spread out the tourists. That said, I actually have avoided contributing some content that I wanted to keep for myself ;) But I wouldn't actually delete content as a "cover up." --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 16:57, 20 June 2007 (EDT)

Fair enough...good arguments by all. It wasn't really a serious request, but rather an appeal to emotions. I mean, can you really delete collective knowledge? I think it takes a few years. Anyway, I'll see what I can do to expand the article a little bit. Thanks for refreshing my "wikifaith". -DvD 00:42, 22 June 2007 (CEST)