Talk:Groningen (province)

Articles by municipality/region?

Hello, I recently started the article on Leek (Netherlands). I am now wondering if it would be better to change this into an article Westerkwartier, focusing on the wider region. This would include the municipalities of Leek, Marum, Zuidhorn, and Grootegast (in 2019 these will be merged into one municipality Westerkwartier). In my view it makes more sense to make articles on such larger areas rather than on small villages. In Drenthe, I already made an article on Noordenveld (in a similar way as I propose for Westerkwartier, integrating multiple villages in one article). If there is agreement on this, perhaps for other areas of Groningen this would make sense as well. --ErwinFCG (talk) 09:56, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Your idea makes a lot of sense and if in time we gather enough content on Westerkwartier for it to be split into individual municipality articles, we can always do it. PrinceGloria (talk) 19:16, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, go ahead. This is not uncommon at all for rural municipalities. As PrinceGloria said, we can always split towns off when there's reason to. JuliasTravels (talk) 20:18, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Regions of Groningen province

The last couple of weeks I have continued to create articles on municipalities/regions of Groningen. In general, I have created articles for municipalities as exist now (Oldambt), will be created in 2018 or 2019 (Westerkwartier, Midden-Groningen, Westerwolde) or are talking about merging (Veenkoloniën). As discussed, these rural municipalities can be 'city' articles, being the lowest hierarchical level in Wikivoyage. The article I am working on now (Westerwolde, however, is not really the lowest hierarchical level, because there is also an article of the village of Bourtange, which is located in Westerwolde. The same applies to the villages of Uithuizen en Pieterburen, which in my regional division (see the image I just uploaded) would be part of the region Hogeland. I would like to hear from the Wikivoyage experts how to continue with this, and whether this is a problem (i.e. a 'city' article on the village of Bourtange, which is inside the 'city' article of the rural municipality of Westerwolde). --ErwinFCG (talk) 07:43, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

I would not consider myself a Wikivoyage expert, but I don't think this is a problem, flexibility is one of the main advantages of a wiki. Bourtagne looks like a wholesome guide at first sight, and it's good to have it. I believe "city-level" regions are a good solution to cover those where separate guides for every municipality / township have little chances to flourish, but do not preclude the individual guides for them if there is enough interest among editors (and frankly, enough stuff interesting to tourists therein) to create them. PrinceGloria (talk) 08:58, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

I agree. Using regional coverage to achieve more useful articles is good, but should not keep us from creating individual town articles where they make sense. Bourtange surely deserves some special attention; just make it clear enough in the Westerwolde article that there's a separate article for Bourtange, and link it well. I think it's perfectly valid to even link it twice or so, in the introduction and in the See section. We always try to follow guidelines and policies, but in the end, the traveler comes first. Our formal policies struggle with rural areas and leave room for practical solutions like these. JuliasTravels (talk) 10:56, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Thank you both for the replies. Indeed in Westerwolde I linked several times to Bourtange. I think then that, in the spirit of 'the traveller comes first', it also makes sense to make a 'regionlist' on this province article (with the colour-coded regions), along with a map of the province. --ErwinFCG (talk) 12:31, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

I meant something like this below, would that be possible/allowed (e.g. under a heading "Cities and regions")? --ErwinFCG (talk) 13:31, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Cities and regions of Groningen province

Groningen city (incl. Haren, Ten Boer) Vibrant student city where historical buildings and modern architecture go hand in hand

Westerkwartier (Leek, Zuidhorn, Marum, Grootegast) Wetland and bocage area in the Western Quarter of Groningen province

Hogeland (De Marne, Winsum, Bedum, Loppersum, Eemsmond) The northern clay area with picturesque villages on artificial dwelling mounds

Looks really good, would you have the time to prepare a "city-level" article for every subregion you listed? I would also recommend reaching out to veteran mapmakers (you can see who made the map in its details in the Commons) for assistance with using typical Wikivoyage features to make them more useful for the traveller. PrinceGloria (talk) 14:08, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Thank you PrinceGloria! Apart from Hogeland I already created all of the subregion articles. When I find time I will continue on all of those articles. --ErwinFCG (talk) 06:27, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

I have 'plunged forward' and implemented it on the province page. I think it makes it much clearer. If someone can make a nice map such as the one on Northern Netherlands that would be great of course! For now I listed Pieterburen en Uithuizen under 'other destinations', but I think they can be integrated into a Hogeland article (as soon as I find time to do that, I will). --ErwinFCG (talk) 06:51, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, integrating would be better. Other destinations is not really the right place to put towns. It otherwise looks good to me too. Nice work. JuliasTravels (talk) 20:17, 24 August 2016 (UTC)