Talk:The Most Beautiful Villages of France

Deletion discussion

This is just an organization with a bunch of villages of members. It's not any official definition of what's a nice village. Plus, we don't have any other article like this, while I'm sure there are similarly nice towns and villages throughout Europe and beyond.

To add to this, nearly all the villages listed are redlinks. So this article is basically a list of redlinks based on some organization's choice of "beautiful villages". This article either needs a huge renovation or should be deleted; it doesn't do much to advertise Wikivoyage. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 05:07, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

• Keep. This strikes me as a useful article for travellers, which could become significantly more useful with a little work. One of Wikivoyage's weaknesses is that it can be hard to find good rural destinations other than nature reserves/parks. I think there are lots of travellers who would like to visit a cute little village in France; without this article I'm not sure where they would look, as these places are all too small to be listed in high-level region articles.

The redlinks are unfortunate, and I would suggest partly mitigating that problem by adding a nearby city or town from which each village can easily be visited. It would also be helpful to add coordinates and a map. —Granger (talk · contribs) 05:52, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

• Keep. We actually have several articles like this, such as UNESCO World Heritage List and the "parks in" articles and such. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:33, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

• Comment - Something worth considering: according to w:Les Plus Beaux Villages de France, similar organizations exist for Wallonia, Quebec, Italy, Spain, and Japan. ARR8 (talk) 07:24, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

• We could eventually have articles for all of them. I think that would be totally fine. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:27, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

• I think that would be great. If we can find similar associations in other large countries, that would be great too. I would be really grateful for a "Most Beautiful Villages in China" list if such an organization exists. —Granger (talk · contribs) 09:39, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

• Keep. It's unrealistic that we add articles for all those villages (likely there isn't much to see in them, other than that they are picturesque), but we could at least add wikidata+markers+maybe even wikipedia links. I'd say it's a useful article, if one travels through France and wants to take a stop off the highway. If one knows about the article... -- andree.sk(talk) 10:16, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

• Comment. It's a bit listy in its current form; it mentions a long list of villages but doesn't provide any individual description for each village nor does it explain why a particular village is notable or was chosen for inclusion. I think this could be a viable article, if it were expanded. K7L (talk) 18:07, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

• This feels a bit like the membership list of a marketing body. I know that there are some selection criteria, but I am not sure how tough these are, and I have not found any evidence of villages failing to get on the list - I think it is completely different from the UNESCO selection. It could be expanded to a useful article, but in its present form I am not sure about it. AlasdairW (talk) 22:45, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Considering that there's a membership fee (a set amount per inhabitant, according to the membership application form on the website) to be on this list, I'd be inclined to agree. We don't usually give free advertising to any specific tourism groups, do we? --Robkelk (talk) 17:29, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

• Keep, make all the villages redirect to this article for now, & turn the redlinks in the article into listings with WP links where possible. If we later get more info on some villages, consider making articles for them. Pashley (talk) 13:04, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure I like the idea of redirecting all the villages to this article. I'd prefer to redirect each village to the article about a nearby town, keeping the region structure/geography as our primary way of organizing destinations. A few of the villages already have their own articles, of course. —Granger (talk · contribs) 02:49, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

• Keep, but I would suggest we shift the focus (and possibly the name) of this article. I strongly agree with others that we need more articles like these, with suggested rural destinations. However, Robkelk makes a valid point. I think it's easy enough to tackle the issue of this list being a paid membership organisation. We can simply use it as a starting point, but add other picturesque villages as we see fit over time. To avoid problems we should probably rename it, though. JuliasTravels (talk) 13:04, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

• Result: keep. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 19:12, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Move to Les Plus Beaux Villages de France?

As far as I'm aware, the name of this organisation retains its French name in both French and English, and our policy is to use the most common name in English. The current name just appears to be a cheap shot at translating the French name, even though the English name is the same as the French. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 22:56, 25 September 2022 (UTC)