Talk:National parks of Venezuela

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

VfD[edit]

This file was nominated for deletion on 28 June 2013 but was kept. The deletion debate is here. Please consider that decision before you re-nominate it.


Delete This article was copied and pasted verbatim from the preexisting w:List of national parks of Venezuela. I believe the policy in such instances is to delete the article in question and start afresh, as per previous discussions on similar instances, but please correct me if I'm wrong, as I didn't want to delete this article without any discussion. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:18, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment Keep: We should wait and see what User:Veronidae has in mind, if anything except copying the wp page (in mixed language versions). She (?) only started to work on it recently, so I don't see any rush for deletion. In this case I would rather prefer to discuss merging to Venezuela on the talk page. I am sure "National parks of... " articles have their place here (see examples for UK, US, Africa or Finland). However, they mainly make sense if WV actually has articles for many of the individual parks, which is not Venezuela case so far. Danapit (talk) 06:56, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Can't we deal with the copyvio by providing attribution? WP does have a compatible license.
Done. Texugo (talk) 12:09, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Can we follow our policy of redirecting rather than deleting real places? In this instance, could we make this a soft redirect to WP? Pashley (talk) 11:48, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The policy of redirecting real places has never been applied that way, and as far as I know, soft redirects are only used for user pages and a couple of things in the wikivoyage namespace. I would strongly oppose starting to use them in the main namespace. Texugo (talk) 12:00, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - the same user has in months and years past contributed to the article on both wp:en and wp:es (which are basically identical), and also a few days ago added the whole article to wv:es: (which unfortunately appears to be a wild west free-for-all where anything goes these days), so I rather doubt he or she even realizes that very significant changes would have to be made to this article for it to stand here. I did eliminate the external links section and clean out all the refs from the article last night, but for it to have a chance here, all the information would need to be de-tabled and organized into sections probably by region, pointless numbers removed, image-missing markers removed, other images culled and arranged to the right, and descriptions/details added, essentially a rewrite which would probably not result in any prose copied from WP. I am busy the next few days but would be willing to give it a shot next week if we can slap wp attribution on this and set it aside for a while. It may not be a valid article as is, but it is an article type for which there is precedent, and a higher percentage of articles exist on WV (6 out of 43) than for the Finnish National Parks article (10/93). I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to give such an overview even when we don't have a lot of the articles created yet, provided we give some information/description/etc. Texugo (talk) 12:00, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Quiet can delete the article, in fact I'm not intensada in this Wiki, I find many lack and empty here so do not cooperate, I wish you luck with your project.
Mr Texugo, I say I'm very aware of or I do. Realize I can understand the thing, I'm no animal left the mountain, I thank you measure your words.--Veronidae (talk) 12:38, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I apologize. I did not mean to offend or criticize! I just figured you may not yet have noticed that things here work quite differently from es: and from wikipedia. I was in fact defending the article you started. Texugo (talk) 13:11, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Veronidae, I hope you would reconsider leaving Wikivoyage. Every new user here experiences a learning curve here and has some edits deleted, and that certainly includes me. We want anyone who wants to help travelers to contribute to this project. Please don't think that any of this discussion is personal or means to show you any disrespect. Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:49, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I don't get it. Sure, we should give proper attribution, but why would we want to delete useful information with a compatible license? Sure, we strive for original content, but we're obviously fine with using a free-license copy of existing information as a start: it's what we've built this whole site upon. We're constantly banning external links with the argument that any useful information should be included /here/, why would it be different for an overview of natural parks like this? It's clearly an interesting list for naturally oriented travellers so it's not just "encyclopedic". And then there's plenty of ways to expand it with more useful travel information. The fact that the articles aren't all available yet doesn't change that and in fact, an overview makes it a lot easier to establish those guides systematically. I say definitely keep, and if people are willing to improve it: great! :-) JuliasTravels (talk) 20:35, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment My experience in the past has been that when unattributed copy-paste articles from Wikipedia have been brought up in VfD, the consensus has been that Wikivoyage policy is to delete them. I started this particular VfD in part to clarify the policy. I don't see why an outright deletion is necessary, either; I just thought that was policy. I also don't think the topic is inherently encyclopedic, though of course the format is. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:51, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I believe some of that stems from before the great relicensing, when we couldn't legally import Wikipedia's CC-BY-SA-3.0 text in bulk, and some of the rest is the usual way to deal with unattributed dumps of information regardless of its source. The second one still applies in part; the user creating the page here is a contributor to the WP article, but by no means the only or even primary contributor, so we'd be running into licensing problems without proper attribution attached. (Which could be done, but the question of whether we want a copy of that article at all is a separate one.) Deletion in the case of copyright problems is certainly in policy.
"Out of scope" also applies in terms of the article's actual current content. I agree with Texugo that an article under that title could be a good WV article, but it would have so little in common with the WP article that there's no advantage using the WP article as a base. -- D. Guillaume (talk) 00:28, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Sure, it is too encyclopedic for WV and there are some Spanish words that do not belong on the English WV, but those are reasons to edit, not to delete. It says at the top of this page Nominations or comments should follow a rationale based on our current policy. and I see none. Pashley (talk) 01:22, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the more obvious problems are now fixed. The rest need someone who knows Venezuela. Pashley (talk) 02:01, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. This is all useful information to have on Wikipedia, and fortunately we have it there ;) We're friends with Wikipedia, so we don't really need to duplicate content. I don't think there is any travel info on this page that needs to be merged elsewhere—that sort of information that would be hugely useful to have at Venezuela#See#National Parks. It would focus on which parks are actually places that are visited by tourists (as opposed to those that are unsafe, have restricted access, or are lacking in transport), which are developed and touristic vs. remote and off-the-beaten-path, etc. Regarding whether to delete or redirect, it's not terribly important, but given that there is a small attribution issue... I think the scale tips delete. --Peter Talk 03:19, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Apart from whether or not to keep this particular article, that's a rationale I find difficult to follow. If it's enough to have information in our sister project WP, that would also mean we leave out history sections from now on? If we're going to use information on another project in such a way, we should at least make navigation there a whole lot easier (more specific direct links or something), no? Also, unsafe, remote, hard to get to or off the beaten track shouldn't be a reason not to include places in our guides, I think. Restricted access is another matter perhaps, but just the fact that you or I would find a place too remote doesn't mean my friend who's biking his way through South America would too. JuliasTravels (talk) 09:08, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Two very cogent points, Julia! --W. Franke-mailtalk 15:40, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
My point is that we shouldn't have exact duplicates of content on Wikipedia. And I didn't suggest that we shouldn't include information about places that are dangerous, remote, or have restricted access. --Peter Talk 18:25, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That's a fair point, but it is usually a quicker and less time-consuming exercise to edit the vfd candidate (as Pashley and Texugo have now done) so it ceases to be an exact duplicate of content on Wikipedia rather than nominate for that reason solely. --W. Franke-mailtalk 22:03, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Peter: very well, then I misunderstood and we're more agreed than I thought ;-) Thanks for the clarification. As for the duplication, I agree with Frank. JuliasTravels (talk) 09:15, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - What extra content would be included in the article that is not yet on Wikipedia? It's a list, so all it is meant to do is list the parks. That means no "Get in" info or anything of the likes, as that belongs on the respective national park pages. The article could never be improved over what it currently is now, which is unacceptable. James A ▪ talk 08:40, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So just for my understanding, do you think Finnish National Parks is acceptable, and would a change in that direction be able to save the article? JuliasTravels (talk) 09:15, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I hope there is no doubt about Finnish National Parks, which contains also useful prose sections apart from a complete list of national parks + a list of hiking, wilderness and other areas sorted by WV regions. In case the Venezuela article in question should be deleted, is the same true for United States National Parks and Canadian National Parks? Danapit (talk) 09:40, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Changed to Neutral - I'm still not convinced those articles or this one is useful, but if the Venezuela one can be modified to match those, it may be worth keeping as a directory-type article with some extra prose. James A ▪ talk 13:37, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Voyagefy or Delete - well, obviously a travel guide and an encyclopedia have different goals. A traveler would have very little use of an article containing just history and square meters but lacking information about getting in, fees, accommodation, safety precautions and so on, and the reverse is true for e.g. someone who writes a school paper about South America. And yes, the above mentioned Finnish National Parks serves as a good example of a travel guide about national parks. To Voyagefy the article it would preferably take someone who has some personal knowledge of the area. Ypsilon (talk) 10:37, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep for now since both the attribution and duplication issues has been resolved but review in six months to see if it has been "rescued" by being Voyagefied. --W. Franke-mailtalk 13:12, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion is getting confusing ;) My two basic questions are these: what is here that isn't an exact duplicate of what is on Wikipedia? And what content does not belong instead at Venezuela#See (why put this on a separate page that far fewer people will read)? --Peter Talk 19:06, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Now that is a valid point. However, most articles start out small and undeveloped (many also stay that way, unfortunately) and we'd really be in trouble if we applied that logic to all new or outline articles. However, I do sympathise, there are quite a few district articles of large cities that I am tempted to apply the same logic to. --W. Franke-mailtalk 20:30, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I see that this article has been improved somewhat, and I'm happy to change my vote to allow you all to continue whipping the article into decent shape (which it is not yet in), but I'm still confused about policy. Is Wikivoyage policy that articles cut and pasted verbatim from Wikipedia without attribution should be deleted, or not? Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:36, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Per Wikivoyage:Deletion policy, vfd-ing such a page was exactly the right call. If the source was from "commercial, governmental, and non-commercial sites that clearly attest copyright," then a speedy deletion would be in order. But given that it's from a site with which we regularly share content, and can take care of attribution issues post-article creation, listing it here first made perfect sense. I'm still unclear on what we're keeping, since I haven't seen anything travel-relevant enough to merge to Venezuela#See, though, and no one has pointed out what I'm missing... --Peter Talk 05:05, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As for the See-sections, I think the purpose and intended content is significantly different. In my mind, a country see-section should be easy to read and provide an inspiring overview of some of the highlights in a country. They should not contain complete overviews of all the natural parks, as they should not have complete overviews of Unesco sites, national monuments, museums etc: it would clutter those sections. I would say the "best" parks (by some measure) should be in the See-section, like I did e.g. in Peru#See. In the case of natural parks however, I do believe a complete overview is of interest to at least part of travellers. I'm not a real hiker or biker, but I tend to pick 1 or 2 national parks when travelling to a country. I know people who work the other way around: they build their trips around natural sights and national parks. For them, even more than for me, a complete overview with relevant parameters makes perfect sense. I do however agree that those parameters differ from the ones in an encyclopedia: they should (in time) include things like accessibility, safety, camping options or admissions prices. On a whole, I'm not particularly interested in Venezuelan parks, I just think we should find a way to allow new editors and articles a chance to develop, with some explanation instead of a vfd, whenever we can. (Which is no criticism in this case - it's just the policy we have, I'm aware). JuliasTravels (talk) 09:08, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well said!
We're not so replete with tireless wordsmiths and finished articles that we should be carelessly discouraging and gratuitously (even if unwittingly) insulting new editors (and longer term editors whose command of English is poor). Policy needs to emphasise a diplomatic notification on relevant editors' talk pages before a bald vfd template is slapped on what may be someone else's pride and joy or first baby steps. Again, no criticism of Ikan Kekek is intended since he just followed our existing (defective?) policy. --W. Franke-mailtalk 09:32, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I can't say that I completely agree with W. Frank here. The VfD page is the place where we as a community discuss whether particular articles should be deleted, and for good reason—it's a far more visible page than a random user's talk page, and to determine whether an article should be deleted or not the input of the community at large is required.
I think it goes without saying that throwing policy out the window as soon as someone's feelings get hurt is not something we want to begin doing. If a user would like to have our policies and the logic behind them clarified to them, or perhaps even change policy, the way to do so is to initiate a policy discussion on the relevant page—not throw a tantrum and threaten to leave Wikivoyage. I really don't want to minimize the importance of diplomacy and "not biting the newbies" because those are both good and necessary things, but if we begin to institute a double standard whereby new users—the very users who are most likely to create articles that end up at VfD—are treated more leniently, Wikivoyage becomes weaker as a travel resource.
Also, if we're to compare a VfD with a personal insult—I absolutely don't buy that it's a valid comparison, but W. Frank made it openly in the comment above mine—how would a double standard of that kind not be unfair to veteran editors, who would then be rewarded for their dedication by being "insulted" more frequently than newbies?
-- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 12:57, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I expressed myself poorly.
I am not suggesting greater leniency for some sub-cohorts. Rather greater sensitivity and diplomacy where a polite word on a talk page before placing the template can forestall "tantrums" if it looks to be somebody's pet (and, especially, new) project. That sort of personal touch can sometimes help. And I'm not suggesting that this be mandatory - merely a gentle suggestion in the policy that it might be the diplomatic, nice and friendly thing to do, André. We should do everything to encourage a collegiate spirit here. --W. Franke-mailtalk 14:31, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, for now. Give it time to develop. It's a perfectly valid travel topic, even if the content is weak at this point. Venezuela#See should have only a summary of the information that would appear here, which can get much more detailed. LtPowers (talk) 13:43, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What to do?[edit]

As over two weeks have passed and there are still several outstanding votes against it, a strict reading of Wikivoyage policy would have me delete this article now. However, I'm given to understand that efforts are underway to improve this article and bring it into conformity with Wikivoyage convention, though it bears mentioning that the most recent edit to the article is datestamped July 2nd. So, before dispatching it into the ether, I will wait a day or two in case my colleagues have any objections. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 18:12, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, as people have made a serious start changing the article, I would say just give it some more time. There's no urgent reason to delete it, is there? It's summer and vacation season. I imagine I'm not the only one with little time to edit here. Can't we just treat it like we do with travel topics all the time, e.g. give it a couple of months (3 line travel topics even get a year!) and then reconsider? For the record, I don't have a personal interest in Venezuelan parks. I do however feel as a small community we should be as compliant as we can; it just seems silly to frustrate editors and their efforts because an article isn't completely done in 2 weeks. If you feel you have to delete it anyway, please move it to my user space so us non-admins can access it. JuliasTravels (talk) 21:53, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding frustrating editors and their efforts, as evidenced on this thread and on the large, boldfaced message on her talk page, the user who created this article is, to put it mildly, not demonstrating a desire to work in concert with the community in that collegial spirit that W. Frank mentioned. For me, that begs the question of why we Wikivoyagers are bending policy to placate an uncooperative user who engages in passive-aggressive self-pity every time she does not get her way. I hesitate to frame it in those terms, but the editors of this site are human beings with human reactions toward that kind of behavior. Meanwhile, the article as written now, even after the improvements that as of this writing seem to have ground to a halt, remains quite clearly VfD material. To cap it all off, the editor in question has stated in no uncertain terms that she's no longer willing to make any effort to improve the article herself, or anything else on Wikivoyage. In my opinion, let's wash our hands of the whole episode. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 22:04, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I would propose that before we delete the article, we give all users 2 days to make further edits to the article or state their readiness to do so, in such a manner as to make the article halfway decent. Failing either of those things, I'd suggest deleting the article on July 16, if that seems fair to everyone. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:53, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I remain skeptical about this article's potential even in the best-case scenario, but that sounds fair to me. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 01:38, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Frankly, I wasn't so much talking about frustrating the original author, but rather about steady contributors like Pashley, Texugo and myself, who have shown an interest in fixing it up. It's just odd that some head over heels confirmation and editing is needed, when stub travel topic articles as a rule get a year to develop. I don't know your schedules, but I have only limited time to edit this site. It's a pity that for policy's sake established editors seem to have this urge to delete instead of at least finding a flexible solution. I for one have no time to to fix it all in the next two days (or 2 weeks for that matter), and to be honest the way you're talking about this now makes me feel it won't really matter anyway. "Quite clearly VfD material" is obviously a personal opinion, put as an undeniable fact. As for my personal opinion about this article: nevermind, I give up. JuliasTravels (talk) 11:01, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
First of all, JuliasTravels, regarding "the way [I'm] talking about this now mak[ing you] feel it won't really matter anyway", I'm not doing anything but taking a realistic approach to the issue. Policy constrains us to delete all articles nominated on VfD absent a clear consensus to keep, merge or redirect, which in this case would mean Saqib, Peter, Rschen7754, Globe-trotter, and myself would all have to be convinced to renounce their votes to Delete. Needless to say, that's a battle that can charitably be described as "uphill". I personally don't care any more than you do whether this article stays or goes, but our policy is clear on the matter.
Secondly, you're contradicting yourself here. On the one hand, you talk about editors contributing steadily to fixing the article; on the other hand you complain that no one has time to edit the site. Which is it?
-- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 16:44, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Julias, this was my proposal: "we give all users 2 days to make further edits to the article or state their readiness to do so, in such a manner as to make the article halfway decent." I think you're stating you readiness to do so. I would vote to Keep the article for now under such circumstances, as I would trust you to follow through within the coming weeks and months. My suggestion is that if Andre finds it necessary to delete the article for the reasons he's stated, that it could be moved to your userspace instead, if you'd like to make a project of whipping it into shape. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:38, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As I said earlier, I'm fully on board with Ikan's proposed solution and I will be more than willing to a) keep the article provisionally assuming Texugo and Pashley indicate their readiness to continue editing, or else b) move the article to JuliasTravels' userspace so she can edit it with no time constraints. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 18:05, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't mean to complain, Andre, I was just indicating I at least don't always have as much time to edit here as I'd like. With steady editors I meant regular users who have been on this site for a long enough time and have enough good edits to trust them to work on something - not that they are editing this particular article right now. In my eyes, wiki-policy is never meant to "constrain" us to a point where we can't be flexible of complaisant. In this particular case, as I read policy, an admin "can" delete an article when there's no consensus to keep it, there's no "obligation". Nothing in policy prevents a friendly admin to just go with it for once and give such an article the benefit of the doubt for a few more weeks/months. However though, of course these proposals are technically and policy wise sound - so please go ahead. It's just not important enough to spend much more time on it, so I'll hold my tongue keybord ;-) JuliasTravels (talk) 19:26, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I am willing to continue editing this one, yes. Texugo (talk) 15:40, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like there are two trusted editors willing to continue working to whip this article into shape, so let's give them the time to do so. Shall we revisit this in 6 months or a year? Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:14, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Let's retire this nomination as a provisional keep and revisit it later. I'd like to say that it was never my intention to try to force my viewpoint down anyone's throat, and I hope no one took my above comments in that manner. As a habitual questioner of my own judgment both on Wikivoyage and off, I'm most comfortable "going by the book" in my administrative duties here. As I intimated elsewhere, I think that makes me a better admin than I would be if I bent the rules more often. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 16:41, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Result: Kept provisionally pending further development of article. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 20:42, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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