Talk:Győr

Article status

I downgraded this article to the outline level because, in my opinion, it can't be considered usable. I am in Gyor now. Yesterday I read through the article in order to prepare my trip and realized that I can't get any useful information from this text. Although very long, it lacks more or less everything that a traveler may need:

• Gyor is close to the Austrian and Slovak border. Most travelers will be coming here from other countries or cross the border afterwards. In contrast to the neighboring countries, Hungary has its own currency, so the currency exchange or at least an ATM are the first thing that every traveler needs in this city. Currency exchanges are not listed in the article in any prominent manner. They are mentioned two times and in a very confusing manner, as part of some shopping malls located in the middle of nowhere. Moreover, their working hours are wrong. It is not possible to exchange foreign currency on weekends, and this is vital information for everyone arriving from abroad.
• Now suppose that I brought some Hungarian currency with me (as I did). The next thing I needed (and other travelers may need as well) were luggage lockers. Let's see what the description of the railway station tells us: "Services: e-ticket acceptance point, Periodic ticketing restrictions, lifts for disabled people, bus connection" What the hell does it mean? Are there luggage lockers? No idea...

(In fact, there are some luggage lockers on the station, but they only accept coins, and you need to guess where to find them...)

• The luggage has been stored, now we go to the city. The article offered me as many as 94 attractions with mostly incomprehensible descriptions in poor English, and no clue regarding the significance of these places. Neither does the Understand section help.

(In fact, Gyor is a small city with 15-20 prominent attractions. The rest of the list are historical buildings that can be mentioned but need not be listed one-by-one)

• After a city walk we would like to eat something. It is 10 years since my previous trip to Hungary, so I definitely wanted to have some local food. Let's check the Eat section... 39 listings with long lists of nearly all prices from the menu and very little information on what is actually served and what kind of place it is. After a very careful reading, I found only one place where "traditional Hungarian food" was mentioned. But I could not find this place in the city! Because it was placed on the map using Google maps, and Google delivered a wrong position.

Of course, I solved all the problems. I found good food and interesting attractions, but I also realized two things:

1. I did not have to waste time on reading the Wikivoyage article. The information on LP was just fine. The old version of our article on Wikitravel is a bit short but still much better than what we have here now.
2. There is no good way of improving the situation without deleting all the content and writing the article anew. It's not about updating the information. It is about what we put into travel guides and how we write them.

--Alexander (talk) 21:31, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Never been to Győr, but downgrading to Outline seems a bit harsh. It doesn't need so much "more content", but rather better organized content. I agree the long lists can be really missleading. Danapit (talk) 22:51, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

I guess rather than downgrade the article, which I believe has little meaning anyway (as if anybody but some hardcore editors paid any attention to this), we might begin to fix it. There are loads of great content to build upon. PrinceGloria (talk) 23:14, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

User:Globetrotter19 and others: I explained why this article could not be used. Therefore, it can be anything but at the moment it is not usable. Full stop. Please, respond me where I was wrong and how I was supposed to find the information that was obviously missing. --Alexander (talk) 20:01, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

O.K.

1. 1 The article include some banks with ATM options,
2. 1/a I wrote at the station is a post office where usually can change euro and maybe dollar of course with rubles will be not lucky even in most bank not accepted as convertible money! Bytheway HUngary chapter
3. 3 I checked the restaurants and most of others positions and you NOT corrected any. I do not know what are you talking!
4. 4 You have right this is not Moscow size city. But I wrote about so many place becoz I thought could choosing what are you interested. And maybe you just see a simple nice house you could identified where is it (maybe like a landmark)
5. 5 Same above about the restaurants description. I try to give the facts and I gave links.

About the station: ok We understand you need NOT wheel chair so you are NOT interested for it, also do not by ticket on internet so internet ticketing also not interested.- - Globetrotter19 (talk) 20:27, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

The fact that a particular person doesn't use a wheelchair is surely completely irrelevant to an article, right? Why are you taking this personally instead of just discussing the article? Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:31, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Most post offices in the world do not exchange currency. It is new to me that post offices in Hungary do, but they are closed on weekends anyway. The ATM is on the train station but not in an obvious place, and the one in the city center I found on the street before I found it in the travel guide. Which tells me that something is wrong with the travel guide. It is nice thinking of me that I try to exchange Russian currency in Europe, but I don't.

I also like the idea of listing all interesting houses in the city. Imagine that I go along Bécsi kapu tér. and see an interesting dwelling house at #6. Now I check the travel guide and read that it is a "dwelling house". How cool!

I would like to re-iterate major problems with this article

• Understand: nearly empty
• Get in: no adequate information about facilities at the train station (what is "Periodic ticketing restrictions"? what is "bus connection" in this context? anyone understands?) Even more importantly, there is no information on how to buy tickets to/from Vienna, which is a really tricky point because you may pay 2-3 times more when you don't know tricks about international train tickets
• See: simply not usable with 94 listings. One should think carefully before listing so many places, and not after. I would not expect more than 15 worthy attractions in Gyor, really.
• Buy: many places on the outskirts conceal essential information on where and when to exchange money in the city center, where to find ATM and where to buy basic food. 3-4 listings are enough
• Eat: the list of 38 restaurants with all their prices is not usable. List 3-4 places with different prices and distinctive food. That's enough.
• Drink: same problem as above. I fell asleep in the middle of this section
• Sleep: I did not use it because I booked a hotel online, but I found the information on the price of Swedish massage really, really important for travelers

I am sorry, but I don't see how to use this article. It is bad to have such articles here on Wikivoyage because they are below any standard. It is bad and not acceptable to write articles by collecting all information that you can find on the web instead of doing ground research and selecting the information that travelers need. I have written part of the article about Gyor when I was on the plane traveling back home. It will appear on Russian Wikivoyage soon, you can compare. At the moment, I still think that the English article is an outline because it does need more information. Good, useful information collected on the ground and written from the traveler's perspective. Not all kinds of data that one finds on the web. --Alexander (talk) 21:32, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

I am observing this discussion with horror. While very valid points are raised, and I can only share most of Alexander's concerns, I believe we are not treating each other with appropriate respect here. Moreover, it seems to me that there are issues of "article ownership" here - if I wrote the majority of an article, and other users tell me it is not quite good, then perhaps I could use their opinion to improve my writing in the future not take it as a threat?

I also believe the actual article status here is irrelevant. Our system for appraising article quality is still very nascent and imperfect, so there is no point in fretting over whether an article is a guide or an outline - actually, in different eyes, an article may in some cases by both. I would rather, however, not want to see the article status appraisal to be used as a weapon of person threat or self-gratification. I think what status this article should have on our scale is the least important here.

Having seen User:Globetrotter19's work elsewhere, I believe I need to stress that I believe that there is something like "too much information" here. Listing all ATMs and supermarkets, which we discussed someplace else already, is not very helpful - I MAY need one, but chances are I will find them anyway, it's not that Gyor has one each and hard to find. I also don't believe the passage on exchanging money is very useful - I can, although not expressly stated, sure take HUF out of an ATM and pay with EUR in some places, but how about the actual money exchange places, where I give my cash in one currency and get another? And what about currencies other than EUR? Any why does this paragraph start with a bullet?

While we are at that - some things are better listed with bullet point or as listings, but not everything. Dealing with a town's history with bullet points is surely not best practice. There should be a nicely-written piece of prose there, enticing one to take interest in the destination.

Back on too much information - while some pieces of information can be useful to somebody sometime, I believe Alexander is mostly right in defining the types of information should contain. Some of the super-detailed information included here is irrelevant and simply makes the guide hard to crunch through and use. Moreover, prices change over time and we cannot assume we will all be there to always update them. So listing the prices for everything is not always a good idea, the whole concept of splitting stuff into budget/midrange/splurge was a way to handle that without losing the key info to the traveller.

I do not believe there is a fixed limit of visitor attractions per town, especially since, as someone put it nicely once, my main goal when travelling is "finding beauty in seemingly ordinary places". So if I can learn more of Gyor and some non-obvious or hidden interesting buildings or places, the better for me.

Having said which, dealing with 94 listings is simply not feasible, if they are split only into three categories. They are packed around a small area, and I am not going to visit them by category (first churches, then monuments etc.) - how about discussing them by area? Moreover, if we have a dozen or more historic apartment buildings, listing all of them as "dwelling house" is surely not going to help - how am I to even know which did I click? How about putting a notice when describing an area stating that there are many interesting old tenements in this area, and below are the locations of some of the most notable (with some words next to each listing for the traveller to know why it is worth stopping by).

That way, I can organize my itinerary around areas of town and decide what to stop by and what to skip. At this point, the guide is not very helpful for me to do so, although it contains a lot of useful information. I believe we can polish it now and further improve based on Alexander's comments - although my share of efforts will be limited with so many articles I started working on, including Budapest, languishing around. Please do refrain from taking comments personally and from being overly harsh and not constructive. Peace out from BUD. PrinceGloria (talk) 05:16, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

First to Ikan Kekek Thanks for helping. I try to be neutral.

Generally: No any book how can be write a good article. I try to learn about other article and of course on my fauls. I try to understand also the nomination system, what is important and what is not.  ::: Specifically: I saw the star titled article Staraya Russa and I was disturbed with it, I saw there is (before I wrote, but long after nomination) almost not existed a buy chapter. There are two stations both without link, both without any info about services. The railway station open daily open cashdesk with breaks (this is an adequate information)? The do part completly missing, Except hotels almost every place without weblink. On Győr article almost every part 'linked' (see, do, eat, buy). And I was many times warned 'one line listing' policy about the next chapter, how is it on a star article (Staraya Russa) not happened? - - Globetrotter19 (talk) 22:28, 18 November 2014 (UTC) (see more down). - - Globetrotter19 (talk) 22:28, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

There are many reasons behind that:

• The Staraya Russa article was written long time ago when English Wikivoyage did not exist, geocoding did not exist, and many things were done in a different manner.
• External links are not essential for the travel guide. Most of the links you add are against the policy because only primary sources of information should be linked. Few attractions in Staraya Russia have official websites, hence few links have been put into the article
• The Do part belongs to See and Do.
• Gyor is a big city with 130,000 population, miles away from two major European capitals. Staraya Russa is 30 thousand people in the middle of the bogs. Can you see the difference? The length and detail of each guide should be coherent with the size and importance of the destination.
• The railway station has no facilities, and the cash desk is indeed open daily with random, unpredictable breaks. Do you think that this information is incorrect? Have you been to Staraya Russa recently?
• Last but not least, I have written the Russian article about Staraya Russa. It is much longer than its English counterpart, but I urge everyone against translating it in full because none of the foreign travelers will ever need such level of detail about 18th century houses, holy icons and funny street names. Peter has written a great English article from the perspective of the foreigner, and that's exactly what an English travel guide needs. Long article is not always a better article.

--Alexander (talk) 07:39, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

To Alexander.

First: Yes, I visited Győr more than twice, but just shortly and neither in last five years. So it is true my infos source 90 percent from web.

I would like to share my opinons.

• Understand: You:'nearly empty' - Yes, You right. Now, I started giving some info, but rewriting extending need.
• Get in: You:'no adequate information about facilities at the train station'. - It is not really true. Not clear services? Yes. More about (buying train ticket by card, e ticket points, luggage rooms and lockers) I wrote on Hungary#Get_around by train chapter. - About the luggage room: I could not find even country size places like Moscow or Ru:Москва, both version 'listed' around twenty+ (bus, train, boat) station all without luggage room or any adequate information about facilities.
• See: simply not usable with 94 listings. (I think not true or partly everybody has different taste, but yes its need separating like suburb sights and etc, my problems not enough info about this)
• Buy: there are supermarkets on the center and yes hypermarkets and shopping malls out of it maybe less will be better, but basicly its okay (3-4 places I think not enough for all chapter, but this also depend on everybody own taste).
• About ATM's: If you carefully read the text you will find I wrote about a CIB Bank in the city center with 24h ATM. (and more four banks usually with ATM's just a do not know opening times) - And about rubles: I did not joking! Just I said becoz (like polish zloty) usually very difficult changing in Hungary. But not impossible in Győr. Now (since 2011?) the Russian Sberbank took over all Hungarian branches of the Austrian Volksbank, you have a good chance in all Hungarian county have at least one office. One of them is right two block(s) southeast of the Győr station. Look here for an unit with ATM this is good place, convert both currency (PLN, RUB). (According to the website). The office on Sunday will be closed, the ATM probably working also on weekend!
• Eat: These are really a lot you have right. I waited for somebody who live there or have more intel and after half of them maybe. The reason lot of prices about different types of plates, becoz I try to show what can you get there until one local people could help selecting.

Saying the coords wrong (yes the difference was 0.0002° cca. 25m not a half km what you mentioned, but thanks for correcting): it is not true, and in this case not used Google.

And the End: I am sorry, becoz you did not find usefull this article. I am excited about the Russian version, if You write a Győr I promise I try to watch for your work. And please, you are welcomed with any more Hungarian cities contribs. Example I know Hévíz/Keszthely is one of the favourite tourists between Russian tourists. (More down) - - Globetrotter19 (talk) 22:28, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

I think that when you don't have enough information, you better don't write anything because the result is awkward. Information on the web is not always correct and up-to-date, and it is hard to decide what is important and what not. For example, I know people who tried to exchange Russian rubles in Sberbank in Czech republic, and they failed. This bank is weird in general. It has huge problems with integrity even within the country, while foreign offices are simply foreign banks re-branded by the new owner. --Alexander (talk) 07:39, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

OK. I just want to help with some infos. You have right, it could be ideal if we have for every place a local who knows the exact datas, but active WV users living maybe less then thirty countries. I think even the members of Russians WV group (who living there and write every month an usable article) are no more than two, three persons. About the Sberbank in Hungary I saw sometimes not only the Russian rubles but other currencies can be change on a little better rate as elsewhere, but of course it is not guaranteed. - - Globetrotter19 (talk) 17:07, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

The fact that we are not locals writing about their hometown should not compromise the quality of our travel guides. It is very important that we add only reliable, verified information and we do not add more than travelers may need. People need clear, concise and up-to-date travel guides, not yellow pages and not collections of all historical buildings in the city. Do not try to copy cultural heritage registers like you did here or in the Yoshkar-Ola article. This will be removed ruthlessly. --Alexander (talk) 20:30, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks I learned again some new. Becoz this intel: not allowed using 'cultural heritage registers' it was new to me. Just becoz I used pics from commons, and there are multiple time mentioned cultural heritage, cultural heritage, I thought about these links will help to verifiyng my work. I promise in further I try to avoid these. - - Globetrotter19 (talk) 23:05, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

For the record - I have totally nothing against featuring all of the cultural heritage monuments in a given city, but if it is done in a proper fashion with clear indication why they could be of interest to a traveller. I would not want to see the see listings removed from here, but rather rearranged and rewritten to make it digestible and useful. PrinceGloria (talk) 00:51, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Categories definitely help, but I have to agree with Alexander that having a bunch of separate listings for "Dwelling House" is not useful, and that it would be a lot better to write something like "There are some architecturally notable residential buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries on X Street, including numbers a, b and c." Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:55, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

To PrinceGloria. Thanked for help. What a pity You did not read the text. If you read you will see I wrote about CIB ATM cca. 200m from station and it is open 24h.

And yes, I 'went' throught the all article. Except 'Understand' which is really in bad form (former empty), mostly I could just spaces, tidy phones correcting.

And you have right, maybe/sure need some cutting on restaurant list I hope somebody will help on it, and also look good idea to packed around a small area the sight (I thought the geotagging made this, but why not...) This is a good idea and I can carry out alone. - - Globetrotter19 (talk) 22:28, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

P.S. I'm apologize to everyone for the long waiting time.

How would I know which bank branch converts what currency? This is not stated in the article. PrinceGloria (talk) 22:42, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

I wrote on Hungary#Buy about this. But yes, some more need also in the article. I try to make it! - - Globetrotter19 (talk) 17:07, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

The Russian article is now available. I had to study lots of Hungarian sources during the last week because I found descriptions of sights and activities in the English article dull and not giving me information I want (and other travelers want as well). Therefore, I don't share the opinion that the current English article has "loads of great content". The only point where I found it useful were Hungarian names, those were very easy to copy into Google. The rest I had to figure out by myself.

My research confirmed that Gyor has 10-15 worthy attractions and about the same number of activities if museums are counted as activities (we put them into the Do section on Russian Wikivoyage). I don't know who may be interested in every building from the cultural heritage register, every unremarkable 19th century church, libraries, cultural centers, community houses... all stores in Győr Plaza, diameters of pizza in Ernesto's Pizzeria, and, of course, prices for Swedish massage in the hotels. Let's try to convert this article into pdf. 25 pages of two-column text!! Will you ever print it out? No. Will you ever read it from beginning to end? No!

In my opinion, this article may be usable when it: i) becomes at least twice shorter; ii) receives interesting descriptions that explain history of the place and its significance. For example, #1 (Bishop's Castle and Palace)

English article: "Parts of its: the four-story residential tower, the Baroque Bishop's Palace, the zwinger, The Castle Garden on the Castle bastion. Guided tours for groups starting every hour on the hour."

Exciting? Most readers will not even know what zwinger is. Here is what I wrote:

Russian article: The structures on the top of the hill no longer remind a castle. Its 13th century foundations can be still seen as gray stone walls running along the river. The outer part is mostly a result of a pretty standard baroque reconstruction in the 18th century, but the tower deserves a closer look. Its bottom part still features traces of Gothic style, and it is the only observation platform in the city. The rest of the castle/palace is closed for visitors except for casemates (Lapidarium) where stone fragments from Middle Ages and antiquity are shown.

I know it is not good English but at least the content is reasonable. I don't have time to clean all the mess here, but my very kind and yet very serious message to Globetrotter19 is: please, try to write good articles. It means that you do not bring here all information found on the web. First, careful research and analysis. Then a brief overview written from the traveler's perspective. And if you can't do this properly, don't write at all. I plead. --Alexander (talk) 19:25, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

"Understand" section

The second paragraph of "Understand" is a user-unfriendly wall of text. Surely, some of it is not needed in that section and relates to things that could be (and perhaps are?) in the "See" or "Do" sections. As for the rest, could someone please summarize it? I'd rather not do it myself, because if I do, I'll ruthlessly delete large swathes of it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:04, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Please do. It is not our problem if someone can't write in a structured and comprehensible way. Texts with poor English grammar have no value and simply repel readers. --Alexander (talk) 07:45, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

I think the problem is more than dense content than the grammar. It will take a lot of work to edit, so I hope that User:Globetrotter19 will at least start addressing the issue. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:20, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Home improvement stores

Please see WV:relevant. We should not be listing home improvement and garden stores in a travel guide. Ground Zero (talk) 21:42, 26 March 2020 (UTC)