Talk:Visayas

Palawan

After a discussion at Talk:Philippines#Philippine_Map_and_Regions_of_the_Philippines, we made Palawan a separate region so the country now has four — Luzon, Visayas, Palawan & Mindanao. I think that was the right decision. if you think it needs further debate, please add to the linked discussion rather than doing it here.

The map here, though, still shows Palawan as part of the Visayas. Can someone please correct that? Pashley (talk) 16:47, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Post-typhoon warning

We currently have a warning box about damage from typhoons that hit in 2013 and 2014. Can that now be deleted? Downgraded to infobox? Moved/copied to more specific regions that have not yet recovered?

I think there should be something under "Stay safe" about typhoon danger in the region. Not sure what, exactly. Pashley (talk) 02:06, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

You probably have a sense of what the current situation is. Please do whatever you think best. I think the logical thing to put in "Stay safe" is something to the effect that the Philippines has been hit by some devastating typhoons, so if you are there during the typhoon season, pay close attention to weather reports and act accordingly if there is a typhoon warning. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:13, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Other destinations

I am about to chop this section radically. As I understand policy, it should have at most nine entries, should include no cities, and should have a one-liner description for each. Places like Coron that are not in the region (as defined here) should obviously not be listed.

Here is the list I am removing, just in case some of it needs to be restored:

• Bais City
• Boracay
• Malapascua
• Naval
• Siquijor
• Maasin City
• Borongan
• Catarman
• Catbalogan
• Coron
• San Carlos
• Ormoc
• Baybay
• Sogod
• Ubay
• Sipalay
• Camotes Islands
• Kalibo

Pashley (talk) 19:21, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. I understand policy the same way. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:38, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

See-Do-Eat-Drink

Currently Visayas#See appears to me to be a bit of a mess and the others are empty. I'm inclined to delete what I see as worthless text at Visayas#Itineraries, remove the empty sections, and then wonder what to do with the list of festivals.

Comments? Contributions? Suggestions? Pashley (talk) 23:13, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Negros Region?

Our current text under Regions includes:

The Philippine government's administrative system formerly divided Negros as we do, with Negros Occidental in the Western Visayas and Negros Oriental in the Central Visayas. However, in May of 2015, they created a separate Negros Island Region, joining the twin Negros provinces together under one region, so our divisions no longer match the current official ones.

I see, however, that someone has altered both text & map in this article so that Negros is now shown as a separate region, matching the current government system. However, the breadcrumbs for the two provinces on Negros still point to Central & Western Visayas, those region articles include those provinces & Negros is tagged as an extra-hierarchical region.

We need to make our scheme consistent again, either by reverting some changes here or by making some changes at lower levels. Which? Personally I'd favour the reversion, but I do not feel strongly about it. Pashley (talk) 12:20, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

@Pashley: - I strongly suggest that a good change at lower levels is much better in order to trace/point the twin Negros provinces under one regional categorization, than revert them back to their former categorizations (i.e. Negros Oriental to Central Visayas and Negros Occidental to Western Visayas). BTW, it was me who altered both, map and text, if you haven't seen the file and edit histories. Feel free to reply back! - Aki (talk · contributions) 22:24, May 06 2017 (UTC).

With further checking it turns out the map was altered on Commons, WP now divides the region in the new (2015) way, & User:Nin-5H updated our region descriptions list to match. So perhaps we should keep those changes & make the matching ones lower down?

The difficulty with that is that it would tend to exacerbate the problem discussed at Talk:Philippines#Too_much_hierarchy.3F. Pashley (talk) 14:32, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

OK, I understand. I know it may be too much hierarchy, but I wanted the two Negros provinces and their component LGUs (cities and towns) to have their own hierarchy (Staunch NIR supporter here). Again, User:Nin-5H is me. - Aki (talk · contributions) 23:04, May 06 2017 (UTC).

We seem to have reached agreement that the lower-level articles should be changed, rather than reverting this one. However, it has only been a week since I brought up the topic, so I suggest we wait a few more days to see if anyone else wants to comment. Pashley (talk) 00:57, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Done, but someone should check to see if I missed anything. Pashley (talk) 13:31, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Need to change the categories too. --Traveler100 (talk) 18:24, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Not certain what needs doing or how to do it, so I'll leave that to others. Pashley (talk) 00:04, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

@Pashley: - Thank you for the change! - Aki (talk · contributions) 19:42, June 18, 2017.

See also newer discussion at Talk:Negros#one_region.3F. Pashley (talk) 16:59, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

See #Radical_change_proposal below for later changes which make this question moot. Pashley (talk) 18:14, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Bridges?

I am suddenly seeing stories like Bridges to link Negros, Cebu, Bohol and Leyte and Bridges to link Cebu, Bohol, Negros before end of Duterte’s term. Apparently the Dep't of Public Works has made some announcements.

I'm skeptical, not expecting such things to happen quickly & not completely certain they'll happen at all. Pashley (talk) 23:58, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Hasn't happened yet. Pashley (talk) 00:34, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Long descriptions

I feel there is too much detail in the descriptions at Visayas#Regions, so I'd like to shorten them substantially. I would not cut them down to Wikivoyage:One-liner listings, but quite a bit less than is there now. e.g. To me, neither Iloilo's food nor Guimaras' mangos need mention at this level; they should be covered in city articles and perhaps Western Visayas.

Other opinions? Pashley (talk) 13:35, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

• I agree. Plunge forward. Ground Zero (talk) 17:47, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Did some. Pashley (talk) 21:54, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Radical change proposal

We currently have four sub-regions of the Visayas: Western Visayas, Negros, Central Visayas & Eastern Visayas; all are in our hierarchy & have breadcrumbs pointing to them from province articles & from extra regions like Panay. There are substantial articles for these, but some are incomplete, some of the text duplicates topics also covered in Visayas or in lower-level articles, & some of it could be moved to those articles.

Negros is an odd case; see #Negros_Region? above. The Philippine government's admin system had only three Visayas regions, Western/Central/Eastern; then they made Negros a separate region & we followed suit. Now they've switched back to just three but we still have four.

I suggest we remove all these regions from the hierarchy, make all the breadcrumbs for provinces & extra regions like Panay point directly to Visayas. These regions are important administratively but they don't matter much to travellers; better to simplify our hierarchy & shorten our breadcrumb trails. See Talk:Philippines#Too_much_hierarchy.3F for a rationale.

Some articles like Negros & Leyte Island should be kept as extra regions. I'm not sure if the Western/Central/Eastern articles should become just redirects to sections of the main Visayas article or kept as extra regions (with as much text as possible moved out of them).

Other opinions? Pashley (talk) 13:05, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

User:TagaSanPedroAko? Pashley (talk) 13:11, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

This would imply a rewrite of the Visayas article, or at least the Regions section. I'd say it should be organised as a list of the main islands — Samar, Leyte, Biliran, Cebu, Negros, Bohol, Siquijor, Guimaras, Panay — with provinces mentioned where there is more than one per island. In a separate paragraph, mention the three current administrative regions.

Where an island & a province are about the same — Biliran, Cebu, Bohol, Siquijor & Guimaras — the breadcrumb should go to Visayas. Where there is more than one province per island — Samar, Leyte, Negros, Panay — it might go either to the island or to Visayas. I mildly favour the islands — does not reduce breadcrumbs quite as much as we might, but islands are a logical division for travellers — but would be interested in hearing other opinions. Pashley (talk) 20:01, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

User:Straight-Outta-Negros-0013? Pashley (talk) 20:04, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

I want to plunge forward here but it is a fairly major change to a decade-old structure so I am somewhat reluctant to do so without some comment from others.

Would some of the active admins care to chime in? User:Ikan Kekek, User:AndreCarrotflower, User:Ibaman, User:Traveler100? Others? Pashley (talk) 13:52, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

I'd wager you have far more knowledge of the Philippines than any of the folks you tagged. Whatever regions scheme works best for the traveller is the one we should have, and that remains true regardless of how long the status quo has been in place, so feel free to plunge forward. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 14:41, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't think of myself as knowledgeable enough on this subject matter to give any meaningful input. But it's true that the geo hierarchy of the Phillipines on Wikivoyage has been perceived as deserving some overhaul. Ibaman (talk) 14:56, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Looks like a good proposal. So if I understand correctly Visayas will have as regions 16 provinces? Would suggest keeping the East/West/Central/Negros regions as Extraregions but moving most of the content either up or down the structure. --Traveler100 (talk) 15:06, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I'd move the administrative regions East/West/Central Visayas out of the hierarchy, keep them as extra regions, & reduce their content. On the other hand, I'd move islands with multiple provinces on them -- Negros, Leyte, Samar, Panay -- into the hierarchy & have provinces breadcrumb to them in most cases, redirect to them if we have little to say. Pashley (talk) 15:26, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

I, too, would simply say that I'm confident in your knowledge and wisdom in making whatever choice you think is best. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:57, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Mostly done. I think I've made all the necessary structural changes (adjusting breadcrumbs & moving things in or out of the hierarchy) & I've rewritten Visayas#Regions. However, there are likely a bunch of text moves or changes that I have not done & am not likely to soon. Pashley (talk) 00:43, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Cities list

There are currently eight cities on the list. Policy allows nine. Are there some we should add? Any there now that should be removed?

Probably the same questions could be asked about the Other destinations list. Pashley (talk) 02:54, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• BacolodCollageByMcLovintosh.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 16:32, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

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Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 09:37, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

No FoP; used via Wikidata. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 10:57, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

[edit conflict] Used at the Wikidata page, no FoP. Seems to be a clear case that doesn't affect us. –LPfi (talk) 10:57, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Administrative divisions

A section on administrative divisions used by the Philippines government with a map was added. How is this relevant to travellers to Visayas? Ground Zero (talk) 18:15, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

This is not newly added. At one point the Visayas articles split the region up by those divisions. We changed that; see #Radical change proposal above for the discussion. However when making the changes, we kept the old stuff too, which I think was the right thing to do.

The map is new & I'm not sure how useful. Pashley (talk) 20:50, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

I still don't see how this information is useful to travellers today. Ground Zero (talk) 21:55, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Competing regional structures

Okay, so we seems we have two sets of sub-regions for Visayas:

1. the provinces-and-islands -- Cebu Province, Bohol, Panay, Negros, Leyte Island, Samar Island, Siquijor, Guimaras, Biliran
2. the administrative divisions -- Central Visayas, Eastern Visayas, Western Visayas, and Negros

Shouldn't we pick one or the other? Having two different subregional structures means that information isn't being well organized for readers, and we end up either with overlap and possibly conflicting information. Ground Zero (talk) 01:28, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

As I see it, we have picked provinces & islands (see #Radical change proposal above) & I think we made the right choice.

However, when we made that change there were already substantial articles at Central Visayas, Eastern Visayas & Western Visayas. Those were kept, but removed from the hierarchy & reclassified as Wikivoyage:Extraregion. Also, I think the right choice.

These articles could be eliminated, but it would involve quite a bit of work. They have many (17, 19 & 33) incoming links that would need fixing, there may be text that would need merging & if some is merged (I think some already has been) we'd need to keep the articles (at least as redirects) for attribution. I cannot see that that would be worth the trouble so I have no intention of doing that work. Volunteers?

The only problem worth fixing I see in those articles is that they use the old 3-region scheme that puts Negros Occidental in Western Visayas & Negros Oriental in Eastern, rather than the 4-region scheme with Negros as a separate region. The Philippine government switched from 3 to 4, reverted the change, then re-instated it. We have an in-hierarchy article for Negros. Pashley (talk) 15:17, 27 August 2024 (UTC)