Talk:Northern Vietnam

There are many foreign tourists come to Ha Giang, one of the province in Northern Vietnam and confuse about the information. I myself think that's the good enough reason to create a site of Ha Giang (Hagiang) to share the information, images for people who really need them for their travel. Zennysmile —The preceding comment was added by Zennysmile (talk • contribs)

Hi, Zennysmile. It's a nice article, but why couldn't the information in it be put into the Northern Vietnam article? Right now, there are 8 working links to cities in the Northern Vietnam article, along with 9 "Other destinations". That's not a tiny number of links, but it isn't huge, either. Is there call for having articles about provinces within Northern Vietnam? If so, how many provinces? And which of the "Cities" and "Other destinations" in this article are in Ha Giang and, therefore, need to be moved there? Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:41, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Hello, Ikan Kekek. I understand your concern about that Hagiang is not big enough or useful for visitor. But I am confidently sure that Hagiang is becoming more and more famous than Sapa with its natural and pristine beauty. You should go here once in your life. Hagiang is a part of Northern Vietnam, there are 22 provinces and 2 cities in the North of Vietnam. Hagiang has 10 districts and 1 city, while 7 out of ten districts are the attractive travelling destinations. No "Cities" and "Other destinations" in Northern Vietnam are in Ha Giang, should I create an other article not link to Northern Vietnam? And thank you for responding me so quickly. Zennysmile (talk) 07:51, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Keep in mind that Wikivoyage often doesn't use official political divisions, if they're not the most useful way to structure information for the visitor. Wikivoyage:What is an article is also relevant:

"When dividing geographical units, keep in mind that boundaries of a "city" or "region" in Wikivoyage do not necessarily match legal divisions — nations, provinces, and cities — as the latter are created by governments for administrative purposes." Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:22, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Right now there are two redlinks in the cities section, those can perhaps be removed to get the number of cities down to 7 2. Also, as this is the lowest level in the hierarchy, it seems to be OK to have more than 9 cities in the list (I guess the exception is there to make sure city articles aren't orphaned). --ϒpsilon (talk) 06:40, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Right. But the question now is what to do about the Ha Giang article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:02, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Oops, I didn't realize the Ha Giang article was a region. There seems to be a city called Ha Giang, which is capital of the province so we can perhaps turn it into a city article if the points of interest in the article are in or reasonably close to that city (are they, User:Zennysmile?). ϒpsilon (talk) 07:10, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

That could be a good solution. I'd also solicit a comment from Lehoainam167, who also made contributions to that article, and from Traveler100, who put an "outlinecity" tag on the article, although the lede states that it's about the province. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:37, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Ha Giang is a province in the north of Vietnam, there is a city named Ha Giang city (easy huh? :)), Ha Giang city is just a small part of Ha Giang province where there are many beautiful destination which are attractive tourists such as Meo Vac, Dong Van, Quan Ba, Yen Minh, Hoang Su Phi,etc. So it can't be turn into a city article. But I don't understand, why Cao Bang and Hai Phong have the external links to the Northern Vietnam but not Ha Giang? Do you think it is too small and not useful for visitors? Because you can make a search about Ha Giang, it is becoming the most significant tourist attractions in the North of Vietnam. Zennysmile (talk) 08:00, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

I don't have any opinion about Ha Giang, having never been there. My concern is only in dividing regions into possibly overly small subregions, inasmuch as there may be insufficient coverage of cities and other destinations (parks, etc.) in the larger region so far to justify that. As I said, Wikivoyage doesn't automatically have articles about every province in a country. You name a bunch of destinations in Ha Giang Province that are attractive. Should each of them have their own city article? Why or why not? Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:04, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

While edits continue on the Ha Giang article apace, this question still has not been resolved. I will post a pointer in the Travellers' Pub for more input, but in case the issue isn't clear: The way what's called the "breadcrumb navigation" structure of this site works is that regional articles normally have bottom-level articles (about cities or sometimes parks and suchlike) linked to them, unless they are divided into other regions. Northern Vietnam so far has not been divided into subregions, but one article about one subregion has been created. The subregion article has no bottom-level articles linked to it, and is it a subregion of Northern Vietnam or should it be treated as a separate region of Vietnam? If it's a subregion of Northern Vietnam, how many subregions (if any) should Northern Vietnam be divided into on this site, for the convenience of travelers? Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:28, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

My guess is that Zennysmile doesn't really understand the difference between city and region articles. The following quote kinda suggests this, "so it can't be turn into a city article. But I don't understand, why Cao Bang and Hai Phong have the external links to the Northern Vietnam but not Ha Giang? Do you think it is too small and not useful for visitors? ". In order to try to explain it, I'd suggest Zennysmile to read the following Wikivoyage:Region article template.

Also quoting from Region article template, "See. This is for an overview of the types of attractions as well as the principal attractions in the region. Don't give full details about each attraction; you should have that in the article for the city where the attraction is. If the there isn't anything to say about the region's sights that isn't already covered by the descriptions in the Regions/Cities/Other destinations sections, or in the Understand section, then this section can be omitted."

So it's not possible to keep Hà Giang article as is, it must either be turned into a city (and then all its listing can be kept) or a few other city articles belonging to Hà Giang province should be created and all current Ha Giang listings should be split between them. So, Zennysmile, can you please tell, what's your plans? Do you want to just create one article (Ha Giang) or, beside of it, create additional articles about some cities from Ha Giang province. And in the latter case how many of them do you want to create? --Kiaora (talk) 10:47, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

You're right. I'm a newbie so I do not really know what different between region and city articles. I just simply think that I can create the city from a link in region article. So I guess I should read the instruction again carefully. What is you guys plan? As I said, I don't know things well in here so Im not sure what should I do at the moment for this article. Would you mind give me an idea? Thank you guys. Zennysmile (talk) 14:35, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

You're a newbie, but you're the one who knows the area. So I would ask you, first of all: Which cities (towns, villages, etc. - places where people live) in Ha Giang Province do you think merit their own individual article, based on the test at Wikivoyage:What is an article?. The second issue is what to do about the subdivision of the Northern Vietnam article into different districts. Do you think it makes sense to treat only Ha Giang Province as a separate region of Vietnam all by itself? If not, what's the most sensible way to deal with things, organizationally, for the benefit of visitors? Should we merge the Ha Giang article into the Northern Vietnam article? Or should we create articles for other Northern Vietnamese provinces or regions and treat those as regions of Northern Vietnam? I don't think we'll have enough content any time soon to create articles for all - what is it? 15 provinces in the region? Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:52, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

All the places that I mentioned in Ha Giang article are merit to travelers. And if you ask about my opinion, I would say I think it is worthy to creat an article about Ha Giang. It is not a region, it is a province. I also never mentioned that we should create articles for all provinces. And yes, we have many different provinces in the North. Anyway, if you think we'll not have enough content for Ha Giang, it's fine, you can delete this article as you did. Thanks for responding. Zennysmile (talk) 8.35PM, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

Zennysmile, a province is not a city but a type of region, and as I've tried to explain a few times above, articles about regions normally need to have links within them to articles about cities within the region (in this case, those would be cities in Ha Giang Province) and be part of a coherent division of the larger regions they're a part of, not unique divisions of a larger region that is not divided into any other Wikivoyage regions. You still don't understand how the [Wikivoyage:Breadcrumb navigation|breadcrumb structure]] of Wikivoyage works. Please read Wikivoyage:Geographical hierarchy. Then, please reread the remarks above and see if you can understand the issues. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:18, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

The main problem here is that we have not yet defined a region breakdown for Northern Vietnam, so there is no structure to fit a Ha Giang article into. Can we define one? Could we just use provinces?

I think something should certainly exist for Ha Giang, I'd prefer a region article (& what we have is a good start), but perhaps only a redirect. For a redirect existing text would move to the redirect target, either Northern Vietnam or some region with Ha Giang < region < Northern Vietnam.

Related discussion for another country: Talk:Philippines#Province_or_island_articles. Pashley (talk) 14:07, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

This unresolved issue seems like it'll just sit there forever. Should we continue to ignore it? Who is familiar with both Northern Vietnam and Wikivoyage breadcrumb navigation? Where should we turn for help? Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:04, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Region breakdown is not defined not only for Northern Vietnam but also for all other 3 Vietnam's regions (Central Coast, Central Highlands, Southern Vietnam). And if we're going to do it for Northern Vietnam it should also be applicable to other regions.

To breakdown regions into provinces, in my opinion, is not good option, as provinces are just too small and there will be too many of them almost empty. What we are looking for is about 3-4 bigger regions in the boundaries of Northern Vietnam, each of them will presumably consist of several provinces. However, I don't have enough knowledge to suggest such a division and where the regions boundaries should be drawn.

Another thing is that this breakdown could be a bit premature, as the amount of cities and destinations aren't so big yet. And thus all of them can happily live in one region for quite some time. Well, maybe only Southern Vietnam deserves some sort of division, but it could be done by, for instance, splitting Cities section into two, e.g. "Northern cities", "Southern cities".

Regarding current Ha Giang article, we could just follow Pashley's suggestion and turn it into redirect with moving all of its content into Northern Vietnam. And when the time comes and somebody will decide to write something about Ha Giang city he'll create a new article Ha Giang (city) or smth similar. --Kiaora (talk) 07:07, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

In theory, I would support a merge and redirect, but won't merging all the useful or potentially useful text mean that Northern Vietnam has disproportionate coverage of Ha Giang Province? Although maybe that's where we have to start, with the hope that someone will enlarge information about other provinces later. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:18, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Yep, I see the point, you're right. Besides, we should also take into account that current content from Ha Giang is not good for Northern Vietnam nor for any other regional article, as it's not an overview but mainly listings which should be placed into the cities/destinations articles. How about splitting Ha Giang information into several towns? These towns will contain "Day trips" or "In the vicinity of town" sections where we'll put information about nearby villages. For instance, the first candidate for such a town-aggregator is Dong Van, which is mentioned in Ha Giang listings several times, so we can move couple of listing there.

Then we can create other towns and move the rest of information there. Or, and it's perhaps even better, we can change existing Ha Giang article into the city article describing Ha Giang city. And put all of the listings outside of it into "Day trips" section. This way we don't need to create any additional articles without the real need.

After that somebody can write small overview of Ha Giang and add it to Northern Vietnam. Without moving current Ha Giang listings there.--Kiaora (talk) 08:26, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure I know enough to be able to judge whether this is the optional solution, but it certainly sounds logical. I would say, if you (or anyone else) would like to start doing this, plunge forward. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:32, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

I would at first seek approval of Zennysmile and/or Lehoainam167, to see whether they are cool with splitting current Ha Gian information between Dong Van and Ha Giang (city). So guys can you please comment on this and also can you add coordinates to existing listings so it will be easier to decide where to move them? Thanks --Kiaora (talk) 08:44, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

I would welcome their comment, but if they either don't respond soon or they express a preference for keeping things as they are, in violation of policy, I think your proposal should go ahead. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:57, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Just as a roundup for the beginners willing to contribute to Ha Giang or any other Northern Vietnamese provinces: please, add information to existing city articles or create new city articles and add it there. At the same time, some general info about provinces can be placed directly in Northern Vietnam. And try to refrain from creating articles about provinces as it doesn't fit into our current geographical hierarchy of Vietnam. --Kiaora (talk) 06:54, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Talk:Northern Vietnam thread

Swept in from the pub

An article on Ha Giang Province in northeastern Vietnam has been created and is being developed, but no-one has explained why Northern Vietnam should be subdivided into subregions for the convenience of travelers, or if so, which ones and how many. Nor are there any links from the Ha Giang article to articles for "Cities" or "Other destinations" in the province. Please look at the thread on Talk:Northern Vietnam and see if you can help us make organizational sense out of this all. Everyone should appreciate the initiative that was taken to plunge forward and create the Ha Giang article, and now we need to figure out how best to use the article and/or the information in it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:33, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

This mess still isn't close to resolution. Would someone please help? Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:24, 21 May 2016 (UTC)