Talk:Karachi

This article contains content imported from the English Wikipedia article on Karachi. View the page revision history for a list of the authors.

This article contains content imported from the English Wikipedia article on History of Karachi. View the page revision history for a list of the authors.

Archived discussions Talk:Karachi/Archive (2012 and earlier) Talk:Karachi/Archive 2013

Archiving?

I noticed all of the discussions from 2013 were archived already! I know there are different viewpoints on archiving, although personally I'd prefer to see discussions from one year ago kept as long as the page is not too long.

Additionally, if we need to archive then I'd suggest doing so at least by year (I have added a red link for this above) Andrewssi2 (talk) 02:41, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I moved those discussions to an archive for 2013. Anyone can resurrect a discussion from there to here please. Andrewssi2 (talk) 02:44, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Personally, I think that article discussion pages should only be archived at all when they get very long indeed - and some discussions (such as the rationale for districtification and how regions are defined, whether the 12h or 24h clock is seen mostly in printed media and what variety of English is most appropriate for the article) are best never archived since future editors may need to access them quickly to avoid having the same discussions over and over again. --118.93nzp (talk) 07:28, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Later: I've now removed from the archive some discussions which future new editors might want to be aware of - including some containing still unanswered questions - and restored them in chronological order above. --118.93nzp (talk) 07:38, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, I don't want to confuse the discussion. My position is that conversations active in 2013 should not be archived unless the page has become too unwieldy. (Which I don't believe happened here) Andrewssi2 (talk) 07:45, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Static map or Dynamic map

I've added co-ordinates of listings in some sections (See, Buy and Sleep). Would it be a good idea to replace the current static map with a dynamic map because current static map lacks some point of interests which are located in suburbs of Karachi. While previously I was not a fan of dynamic maps but I realised a dynamic map is actually appropriate to use in such a large city where new businesses pop up frequently and the map can be modified easily accordingly. Thoughts please. --Saqib (talk) 13:53, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

I'll simply say that I would respect your judgment on this. Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:17, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

At least I think it would be good to have the coordinates for all Points Of Interest so that the reader can see them on a map, even if we keep the static one you've drawn. And the good thing with dynamic maps are that you can easily can remove or add POIs that open, move and close. Things to see seldom disappear but restaurants and cafés have a tendency to do just that. Also, if you want to add something to/remove something from a static map and have never used vector drawing software before... ϒpsilon (talk) 18:44, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

YPSI, I'm trying to add and fix the dynamic map but I can't able to. --Saqib (talk) 19:21, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

I'll fix it, just a second. :) ϒpsilon (talk) 19:24, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

You're welcome. You can change the size of the screen and zoom parameter (between 1=the whole world visible, 18=just one street visible) if you wish. ϒpsilon (talk) 19:35, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! --Saqib (talk) 19:40, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Saqib, i think dynamic maps are fine but i think we need more than one overview map. When i now look at the one map, i see three clusters of points: 1. Airport, 2. somewhere in the middle of the city(Saddar?) and 3. on the peninsula (DHA Phase VIII?). I think three separate maps would be better to allow better orientation. If you have time a static map with colours and name of the most important areas would be great. jan (talk) 14:39, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Okay. I will take care of it Jan. Thanks. --Saqib (talk) 14:44, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

"History section - is it really useful for tourists?"

I came across discussion Talk:Germany#History_section_-_is_it_really_useful_for_tourists.3F and it reminded me of Karachi's long and extensive history section. If anyone up for the task, we can shorten it. --Saqib (talk) 20:18, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

old wt stuff

Saqib, i tried to add some geo codes for the restaurant but several of the restaurants seemed to be closed (Patio, Saffron) or HP (Aqua Lounge) under construction. I see some places have active facebook pages. As i have no local knowledge i googled them and WT shows up as first reference. I guess it is outdated stuff because Karachi is a vibrant city. Could you check? I don't want delete listings that maybe under a new name or address. Thank you. Regards, jan (talk) 14:57, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Jan, you know what the hardest part while improving the Karachi article for me was "Eat" section. It made very difficult for me to select from hundreds of worth to eat in restaurants of Karachi. I'm thinking of asking a few foodie friends of mine to help me choose restaurants that we can mention in our article but I'll need some time for this tedious task. --Saqib (talk) 15:15, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Saqib, i know eat is difficult and you have my respect for the choices you made. It is the same difficulty as with Delhi or Mumbai. The real problem is that you do it alone. Most other cities have more than one local. Try to think top down and name a restaurant in each area. I guess it would be good to get rid of the old WT stuff. I will try to look around but Pakistan is on the blacklist of most of my clients and colleagues, so international business travellers are not so big in quantity as in other countries. jan (talk) 15:31, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Saqib, i hate to say it but i think all entries in eat & drink need to be checked if they are still in business. Like in all cities there is a big change in that industry and Karachi seems not to be the exception. I will try to google some but the address style is not really easy to find in the web. I will delete the closed one and add geos where i find them. Especially the old entries seems to have a 50:50 ratio for existing businesses. jan (talk) 16:16, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

What do you mean by " Pakistan is on the blacklist of most of my clients and colleagues"? Well, its quite surprising you found some eateries operating not anymore and its quite sad to see they're closed down. I've been to all of the restaurants I mentioned in the article and at once, they all were my favourite. But I think its actually usual for any such giant city where there're thousands of restaurants and new ones pop up throughout the year and existing ones closes and thats the reason why I said above that "a dynamic map is actually appropriate to use in such a large city where new businesses pop up frequently and the map can be modified easily accordingly". Anyway back to topic, as I said above that give me some time and I'll try to involve some local foodies to help me out with this particular section. Btw, there's not old WT stuff here in this article anymore since I'm involved with WV. For instance, look at the state of this article before I started editing Karachi article. I would say lets not remove the listings of restaurant even if those are closed at-least until we start incorporating new entries here otherwise we will eventually ran out of materiel in the section. --Saqib (talk) 16:49, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Saqib, i have a lot of colleagues and clients who do business in South Asia. I used to know even a Karachi family living in Germany but due to the instable environment many companies don't allow to travel to Pakistan (or are pretty restrictive). Thats way today a lot of meeting take place at the Golf (DXB, AUH). Therefore i don't have fresh tips for restaurants/drinking holes.

I know you do a great job but as in Munich (which i'm working in parallel) a lot of entries need to be altered every six months. Thats especially true for the eat & drink because change is common in that business. I will try to help to geo coding but it is a bit difficult because i don't have any local knowledge. I fully agree on the map, just an overview map to see airport, clifton etc. would be great. jan (talk) 18:28, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Right. I assure you I'll try my best to refine the "Eat" as well "Drink" section before the article feature on main page on October this year but there're many other things, you and other WV editors even those with no local knowledge of the city can do to get this article in better shape. For example, as Andrew pointed here that "Article needs copyediting for spelling and grammar issues." Aside from copyediting, I want you guys to comment at Talk:Karachi#.22History_section_-_is_it_really_useful_for_tourists.3F.22. --Saqib (talk) 18:46, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Airport

The airport seems to take some beating at the moment. I know from a couple of other countries that usually afterwards there are many checkpoints and this is very time consuming. User:Saqib is there a rule e.g. in Israel where you need to show up at least 3-4 hours before the flight? Are people allowed to accompany passengers? E.g. in India only pax are allowed to enter the airport building? I guess that could be off interest for travellers. jan (talk) 09:08, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

jan, I'm not sure Saqib has visited Israel and this article is about Karachi. Did you mean to write "...is there a rule like e.g. in Israel"... ϒpsilon (talk) 09:19, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Ypsilon, sorry i intended to ask wether similar rules as e.g. in Israel and India might apply to Karachi airport. I assume ,following the attacks, security will be beefed up. Karachi is the main entry point and these checks can take long. Is there is rule of thumb of how many hours travellers should be at the airport? jan (talk) 09:22, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

It is such a traumatic incident for me. A friend of mine has used the airport for travelling last night. I'll ask him about the situation and will update the article accordingly. --Saqib (talk) 09:45, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Its sad to see that Karachi is hit again. Several countries started to add travel warnings for Karachi (e.g. Germany, UK closed their consulates). Guess that we need to add this as well. jan (talk) 09:55, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Very sad to hear. ϒpsilon (talk) 10:17, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

DotM banner for Karachi

Swept in from the pub

I have combed through Commons, Flickr, and locally-hosted material on Wikipedia and have not found one single CC-compatible image of Karachi that's high-quality enough or dimensionally appropriate to use as a banner. I don't know if this is a freedom of panorama thing or what, but to my knowledge this has never happened before with a DotM nominee and I'm at a loss as to what to do here. Any help would be greatly appreciated. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 19:30, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Saqib, some time between now and October would you be able to take some appropriate photos yourself and upload them to Commons? -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 19:34, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Sidebar: going forward, should we weigh the availability of suitable banner images as a factor in supporting or opposing feature article nominations? -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 19:42, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

The couple of photos currently in the article are indeed of a surprisingly low resolution. Saqib has taken good photos for Mohenjo-daro and other destinations. I think he would be happy to take some nice photos for Karachi's DotM banner.

Concerning your suggestion about availability of banner images - I hate to say it but without a Main Page feature banner I guess we cannot feature it. Tangentially, I think it was Ikan Kekek who recently suggested articles should have a custom banner in order to be eligible for Guide status (which, in turn, is a requirement for featured articles). If I'm not mistaken, banners for the article itself must have a higher resolution (at least 2100px wide) than what is required of the feature banners. Now that would solve all the problems, if we're desperate we could use the same photo for the feature banner as for the article's own banner. ϒpsilon (talk) 19:53, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

The pagebanner itself looks like it may well have been a last-resort selection: -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 19:58, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Hey, it's one of Ypsinardo da Vinci's first banners! :D ϒpsilon (talk) 20:03, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

(editconflict) Well, we could start with just holding off on an otherwise accepted destination until someone has found a suitable picture, as in, not putting in the slot. If we really can't come up with anything over some time, we can discuss how to proceed. The promise of a feature might make it easier to persuade copyright holders to change the license for cases where suitable pictures are available but use is restricted.

If all else fails, I suppose I would incidentally find it acceptable to use a picture of a more general nature, even when it was not taken at the destination itself, if it represents the atmosphere of the place. Say, a colourful bazaar for a Moroccan city, or something. In the case of Karachi, it would be nice if Saqib happens to be in the area. If not, it might be good news that Wiki Loves Monuments will have a Pakistani edition this year in September. If we are to wait for that however, we might want to move the feature a few months further along the line, to not put pressure when it's not needed. JuliasTravels (talk) 20:05, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Ypsi: your suggestion was unexpectedly productive. To my great surprise, the source image for the pagebanner actually makes for a mighty fine DotM banner. Check it out. It would still be great if Saqib could go out with his camera and take some banner photos himself, but at least we have a fallback option in case all else fails. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 20:12, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Nicely done, AndreCarrotflower! :-) JuliasTravels (talk) 20:14, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Yep, that definitely works. In terms of your question above, Andrew, yes, it would be perfectly reasonable to provisionally oppose featuring an article, pending the availability of a suitable file for creating a banner. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:17, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflicts...) Elegant banner, Andre! And Julia, Saqib lives in Karachi (I think) and he has really put a ton of effort into the article so we will probably have a couple of nice photos to choose among in the next couple of weeks. ϒpsilon (talk) 20:21, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Surprised to see a thread has been started about Karachi. I'm sorry for not being very active on Wikivoyage as I'm busy with organizing the world's largest photography competition in Pakistan this September. I can imagine, Commons soon going to host thousands of CC-licensed photos from Pakistan including of Karachi. Andrew, can you wait for just 3 more weeks and then you'll have plenty of beautiful high quality photos to choose from otherwise if you're in hurry, I can take some photographs but I think its worth to wait. --Saqib (talk) 20:26, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Saqib: In a few minutes, I'm going to place the banner that I created for Karachi on the banners page, with a blurb summarizing everything said here for those who haven't followed the discussion. In three weeks' time, when the new Pakistan photos materialize, we can make a second, third, and fourth banner (or maybe more) and choose between them. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 20:35, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Sure Andrew. You've created a nice banner but I bet you're going to see many beautiful photos once the Wiki Loves Monuments Pakistan take off on September 1st. --Saqib (talk) 20:38, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Karachi - Edit drive

Swept in from the pub

Hello everyone! As some of you may know that I'm planning to publish a travel guide book on Karachi since last year and for the purpose, I've secured the sponsor who would bear the cost of printing of guide book. But unfortunately, the content in our Karachi guide is not worth printing as of now. Its been a long year now and I see no local ever care to edit it. So before the sponsor slip out, I've decided to run an online edit-a-thon where I will invite people from Karachi to help us improve the guide. I've created an introduction page for our edit-a-thon participants and I request it to be moved temporary under a WV namespace. Also, I need help of you guys with improving the introduction page. --Saqib (talk) 16:40, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Introduction page I believe is introduction page as it was moved recently... Reads well... Also, did some editing of Karachi page (mostly alpha ordering of various sections and some minor editing) - best wishes! - Matroc (talk) 02:57, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

I added coordinates to all restaurants. By the way, Open Street Map is more detailed than Google Maps in many areas of Karachi, which is to our advantage :-) Nicolas1981 (talk) 12:12, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Your travel guide will benefit from several maps that you can generate using dynamic maps if you don't have the money to pay professional map makers. One or more map for restaurants, one map for bars, one map or more for hotels, one map for consulates, etc. To generate them, just copy sections of the page into draft pages together with a map component, and take screenshots. Low tech but doable in a matter of minutes. Nicolas1981 (talk) 12:36, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Matroc and Nicolas: Thanks to both of you for working on the guide. Nicolas, I'll draw maps myself once we're done with other things. Anyways, it may take further few more days for the edit drive to begin and then I'm expecting hundreds of local people editing our guide. --Saqib (talk) 13:12, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

That's exciting! I hope some of them stay and also contribute to other articles about Pakistan and other places. Ikan Kekek (talk) 13:36, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

IK. Yes, thats exciting but I'm also expecting too much mess. Lots of vandalism, copyright violations and touting. Hope you're up for the challenge. Anyway, I'm inserting some templates into Karachi guide article but that will be temporary. Also, Ryan, I'm editing Common.css and hiding the page tile of Wikivoyage:Karachi. Edit drive will last for 1 week and once its end, I will revert both of these changes. --Saqib (talk) 16:56, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

IK, Nicolas, and Matroc: The edit-drive is started now. --Saqib (talk) 09:53, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Saqib, the page displays badly on my browser: http://i.imgur.com/lXqDvge.png CSS problem? Firefox 33.0 on Linux Ubuntu 2014.04 Nicolas1981 (talk) 03:58, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

That is weird. Try now Nicolas and show me screenshot. --Saqib (talk) 09:17, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

I've closed the edit-drive. It was not helpful and very unsuccessful. --Saqib (talk) 17:02, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Sad to hear that.. do you mean not enough local people participated? Participation can take time to come but I hope you will be successful eventually :-) Nicolas1981 (talk) 04:50, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Sorry to hear about the edit drive - don't give up, I am sure someone will still contribute - Matroc (talk) 04:14, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Nicolas, As you can see many people edited the Karachi page but none of the contribution was helpful. --Saqib (talk) 15:04, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

While I certainly support the spirit that was behind his idea for an edit drive, I share Saqib's concerns. Before doing anything like this again, we need to look before we leap. We've had discussions on this site before about how to deal with new contributors - it doesn't paint our community as very friendly and welcoming if newcomers' edits are summarily reverted without explanation or guidance, yet it's anyone's guess how to patiently and attentively coach such a huge influx of newbies all at the same time, who may not be familiar with our goals, style preferences, etc., such as an edit drive entails. In the case of Karachi, this was compounded by the fact that (as Saqib mentioned elsewhere, maybe on his interview with Creative Commons about Wiki Loves Monuments?) there's more of a learning curve among Pakistanis regarding concepts like copyleft and open-source technology (hence the large number of edits reverted as copyvios), and many of the new editors are not native speakers of English. These are particularities that we'll have to allow for before making any kind of major push for new contributions. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 15:23, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Cope section removal

@Saqib why did you remove the Cope section? I was planning to add lat/lon for the consulates. Cheers! Nicolas1981 (talk) 07:39, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

It is temporary Nicholas. I'll reinsert the section once the edit-drive ends. I'll work on this section during edit-drive. Have to trim unnecessary honorary consulates and add other useful information that goes in a cope section. --Saqib (talk) 08:54, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Population Growth chart, History section, Politics section

Hi, everyone. We need to keep in mind that this is a travel guide, not Wikipedia. I think the length of the history section right now is fine, and it just needs an additional very brief remark to summarize the history of Karachi between 1994 and now.

I think the "Population Growth of Karachi" chart is Wikipedia-style, of no great importance to travellers, and should be deleted in favor of a very brief prose description, probably under "People," which should not mention more than a few years (2-3, or maybe 4 at the absolute most) that are in the chart.

The Politics section is also dangerously close to encyclopedic in content. I think that one paragraph, summarizing the local political situation, is more than sufficient for travellers to read about. I also see that there is duplication of content between the History and Politics sections. That is bad and should be eliminated. Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:17, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Right. I'm in favour of trimming down history. I will remove the population growth chart. I saw such charts being used in LP's Japan travel guide book. Traditional guide books also have quite detailed information on local politics so I inserted one here but if you think it should go, I'll do it. --Saqib (talk) 14:34, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

That's interesting. That's different from the style we've been using on this site. We could try to solicit more feedback about this and see what other people think. I'm not really up to posting to Requests for comment right now, but please go ahead and do so. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:12, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

I gave a quick look at the "Understand" sections of some of the Star articles for more or less big cities. I think the issue really isn't so much length; it's that we need to avoid getting lost on tangents. If the writing is easy and fun to read and doesn't feel encyclopedic, probably no-one will complain about the length. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:20, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Oh, also, I'm not suggesting deleting the "Politics" section, only limiting it to a single paragraph. A second paragraph could probably be OK, but only if it's really well-written and doesn't go off on tangents. At this point, I think the first paragraph of that section is a lot better than the second, and I would suggest concluding the first paragraph (which I propose would become the only paragraph) with a very brief summary of the political situation since 1994, but without duplicating what's going to be added to the "History" section (if the "History" section already addressed the point, it can be left out further down). Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:24, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Also to further clarify: I don't think the "History" section should be shortened; I think it should be lengthened slightly to bring it up to date. But just slightly. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:26, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Ops. It took me to two years to trim down the politics section. --Saqib (talk) 15:00, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

No harm done, and I'm glad you have a little time to make some edits! Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:07, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Orientation

IK, I am working to identify the major areas and districts of Karachi and I believe orientation subsection is way to go. Am I moving in the right direction? --Saqib (talk) 22:44, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I believe so. A map might help, or if not, at least specific references to streets and landmarks that would help someone recognize where they are in relation to other parts of the city. French Wikivoyage tends to do an excellent job with "Orientation" sections, and for some reason, en.voy tends not to use them. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:58, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Mubarak Village

Guess what I came across? A video about a soon-to-be-no-longer-obscure beach. --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 02:37, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Embassies phone numbers

Can someone confirm or contradict the assumption that the dash / in the phone numbers show alternative numbers and not that a / has to be entered when dialling or is a method of separating a long single number? --Traveler100 (talk) 06:07, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Floods?

CNN Heavy flooding in Karachi kills 16 & it is by no means just Karachi. At least Bombay & Bangladesh also have severe problems, for all I know the entire subcontinent.

What warnings do we need & where? Pashley (talk) 15:10, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Water shortage?

This Coastal Megacity Is Running Out of Water Pashley (talk) 10:37, 28 May 2018 (UTC)