Template talk:MFG

Arriving in a town goes with this link: http://www.carpooling.co.uk/carshare/0/_Germany/Frankfurt_Main.html, (can't find it for Mitfahrzentrale) but I feel its too much to add it to the template... -- Eiland (talk) 13:56, 24 October 2012 (CEST)

Mitfahrgelegenheit-template?

Swept from the pub:'

Hi, Would it be an idea to make a Mitfahrgelegnheit-template to put in German places-articles? The MFG [1] is a German carsharing website with around 4 million members. Certainly for shorter distances, so between two bigger towns, it is possible to find regular and cheap lifts, significantly cheaper than trains. I think it would be useful to add this information to many German articles? Maybe we can even forge a MFG link which directly lists rides to/from the article-town. MFG also works a bit abroad, around Germany, but for now seems to be mostly active in Germany (don't know about Austria, Switzerland though). -- Eiland (talk) 22:00, 20 October 2012 (CEST)

What exactly do you want to put into this template? Just the fact that this particular city can be reached by "Mitfahrt"? Atsirlin (talk) 19:12, 21 October 2012 (CEST)

Yep, smt like that. As it is a not so obvious way to travel. Just like many articles have a section on how to reach there by train, bus, etc. -- Eiland (talk) 20:18, 21 October 2012 (CEST)

If it is relevant nearly everywhere, it clearly belongs in the country level article and not repeated in every city level guide. --Inas (talk) 21:05, 21 October 2012 (CEST)

Are you serious? -- Eiland (talk) 22:22, 21 October 2012 (CEST)

If you mean the colored box generated by a template, it is definitely redundant. As Inas mentioned, the general information about the car sharing should be added to the country article. Otherwise, we end up with making templates like "People in Germany speak German", "Use the DB website for route planning", etc. However, if you have specific information on car sharing (for example: there are regular offers of car-sharing travel to Dortmund from Hannover, Frankfurt and Erfurt), it is worth adding to the article. You can either write it in the By car section, or create a new subsection "By shared car" (or what is the appropriate English translation?) Atsirlin (talk) 23:23, 21 October 2012 (CEST)

The discussion is similar to that for car rental agencies. See the discussion at external links. If something is true, or available everywhere in a country or region, we don't list it in every guide. --Inas (talk) 23:52, 21 October 2012 (CEST)

I've got a feeling that this wont be going nowhere, but come on, we cant expect a traveller, arrived in eg. Hanover, to read all the hierarchical articles above to know how to get around in the region? As that city has both a train and a bus station, it is obvious that there are trains and buses, but car sharing is not so obvious, although in German it is relatively big. How would withholding this information from (big) cities, with the argument that its already on the Germany-page be proof of Traveller comes first-attitude?

In comparison, why is then the Template:Schengen (@Atsirlin, this is the kind of template I mean, I wasn't thinking about additional colors?) included in so many pages? It could just be in the EU page, no? -- Eiland (talk) 10:00, 22 October 2012 (CEST)

OK, now I understand your point, but I still think that car sharing is very different from the Schengen template. First, Europe is a continent, an article that nobody reads. But Germany is a country, and it is natural to check the country article for information on language, traditions, ticketing system, etc. We can not repeat all these details in every city article. Second, some parts of Europe are not part of Schengen agreement, so the information about Schengen does not belong to the whole Europe. Third, the Schengen agreement stipulates visa issues that are relevant to every travel. Car sharing is just one mode of transportation that is heavily used by locals and only rarely used by tourists. You have to know at least basic German, you need a cell phone number (preferably, German or at least European), so it is not very easy for a foreigner. I am fine with mentioning the car sharing option and, ideally, writing some city-specific details (main routes, meeting points), but I certainly object to cluttering multiple articles with the same piece of a rather specific information. Atsirlin (talk) 13:18, 22 October 2012 (CEST)

Hi, lets not talk too much about the Schengen template, but I didn't know that visa issues were relevant for every travel? And country articles are often soo long that we can't take for granted that everyone reads those, just like we don't expect everybody reading the Europe-page? From where I stand, a loooot of users of wikitravelvoyage in fact do possess a European mobile phone, and many Germans do speak English. Not all information on each page is relevant to every traveller, we know that. But are we now to let out useful information out of pages because we assume our users don't speak enough German? What about German restaurants? Or basically anything in, for example, Georgia? But I agree, it would be silly to add it to every article in Germany, certainly to hick towns, but larger towns, regional capitals with a lot of traffic, seem to me to make total sense. Beyond that, can you elaborate your suggestion regarding main routes and meeting points? How does one know without making some very elaborate research which places are more preferred for car sharing routes hop-on-hop-off points? Experience learns its often near to the train/bus station, but it can of course be anywhere, and that would be a bit too obvious to mention I think. -- Eiland (talk) 13:48, 22 October 2012 (CEST)

Eiland, if I don't speak German and still want to travel around, I will buy a ticket from one of the multilingual DB ticket machines and take the train. I have this option, and I will mostly likely use it. If I want to eat, I will go to a restaurant/Doener/Fleischerei/etc because I have no other choice. That's the difference as I see it. Honestly, I don't understand why you want to have a template that always puts a piece of same(!) text into tens of different articles. Just write that "Many people reach XX by car-sharing. You can find frequent travel offers from YY and ZZ. See Germany#Get_around for more details about the car sharing in Germany." Could you explain why you prefer a template?

Regarding my suggestions, yes, I mean any specific information, which is based on personal experience or elaborate research. That's what Wikivoyage is about, isn't it? I am not a big expert on German "Mitfahrt", though, so I may not know which information on this particular transportation method is most important. Atsirlin (talk) 18:16, 22 October 2012 (CEST)

No problem, its your right to do so. However, some travellers are on a shoestring budget, and prefer to know available cheaper options. Once they're listed in the article, people can actually make a choice. I made an example template at Template:MFG here, and transcluded it in Hanover. (Unfortunately, the English version website mistakinly lists Hanover as Hannover, I send them a mail about it, and I assume they can fix that as they also list http://www.carpooling.co.uk/carshare/_Austria/Vienna.html and ...Wien.html won't work). A for why to add it; the link is quite deep, and the German version is more common, which makes it helpful to provide the English version with the correct deep link to the site. Beyond that, the information is always the same, maybe there can be one more phrase added to the template, but there's no need to invent the wheel each time? -- Eiland (talk) 20:41, 22 October 2012 (CEST)

Mitfahrgelegenheit sounds fun and should be mentioned in cities' get in sections, I don't think it need a template though. Perhaps just a link to its overview in on the country page would be enough (e.g. Mitfahrgelegenheit).(WV-en) Travelpleb (talk) 20:30, 22 October 2012 (CEST)

I see at least two problems. First, you link to mitfahrgelegenheit.de and carpooling.co.uk, but ignore mitfahrzentrale.de and probably other popular resources of this type. 3-4 external links repeated in each article look like blatant advertisement. It is better to list all external sites in the Germany article, and link to the Germany article from individual city articles. Second, the single template in the "By car" section will be confusing for those who use Mitfahrt for sharing a group train ticket. I still think that this Mitfahrt option should be mentioned in a city-specific way. For example, on the Dresden-Munich route people only do car sharing, but the Dresden-Leipzig route is often done with Sachsenticket. Atsirlin (talk) 21:33, 22 October 2012 (CEST)

Oh but I wasn't proposing to oblige to use the template. And was the Sachsenticket an imaginary example? Its at least not written at the Leipzig or Munich-article, so maybe a round-about way of agreeing with me?-- Eiland (talk) 23:00, 22 October 2012 (CEST)

No, it's not. I appreciate your effort, but I think that Wikitravelvoyage adhered to the principle: create only those templates that are necessary; when created, the templates should be used. Otherwise, templates run out of control, and we can't easily fix them after software upgrades or other unexpected changes in the wiki=) Anyway, it is only my personal opinion that we can live without the MFG template. If other people like it, I am ready to accept this.

Concerning Sachsenticket, it is one of German Laendertickets (sorry, I don't have umlauts on my keyboard). You can easily find it on the web. It is a very good offer that I used more than once when I traveled in that region. The Leipzig article may well require an update, but I hardly have time for making it=( Atsirlin (talk) 23:13, 22 October 2012 (CEST)

There is a general issue here, that so we expect everyone to read every article in the hierarchy? Well, the way that the information is currently structured we do. If you are visiting Frankfurt from Germany, you would be expected to be familiar with the Germany guide and the Frankfurt guide. If you were visiting Frankfurt from Berlin, then maybe not. The approach is we don't put information applicable everywhere in a country in every destination guide. --Inas (talk) 22:15, 23 October 2012 (CEST)

Sure that all sounds all very nice, but I just located the Sachsen ticket, mentioned by Atsirlin in the Eastern Germany-article. It would be unfair not to mention it in the Leipzig article, and to expect that people also studied that region-article as well, no? For me, the national pages are generally descriptive, for example Netherlands#Smoke, and then in city articles you can describe specific coffee shops, etc. And coincidently that's exactly what I aim to do with the template, as it gives a deep link to the car sharing options from the articles' town.

But I think it was silly of me to bring it up in the Pub; I thought it would be complicated to implement, and in fact its not, and I don't think anybody is hugely disturbed by the template as it is? I just cant stop participating in the discussion I started :)-- Eiland (talk) 11:34, 24 October 2012 (CEST)

It wasn't silly of you. It is required by policy. See Wikivoyage:Using_Mediawiki_templates. I personally don't think you've passed the threshold for creating a template here. I'm inclined to nominate it for deletion, not to get in your way, but to ensure you have support so you don't waste effort. --Inas (talk) 21:55, 24 October 2012 (CEST)

I was thinking of doing the same. But I am not as kind as you, so I decided to wait and see in which direction this template develops=)

@Eiland: I think that you did not have to repair templates after the software upgrade or migration. That's why you may not appreciate that each template is a potential headache, and we only need templates of general use. Not to mention the long links that will be generated by your template and appear in the printed version. That's a very traveler-friendly feature indeed. I really appreciate your effort, but I think that plain text is usually a better choice, and in your case the plane text should suffice. --Atsirlin (talk) 22:08, 24 October 2012 (CEST)

My biggest concern with the proposed template is that it is being used to promote a specific service that might otherwise be questionable based on Wikivoyage:External links, and I think that's a slippery slope. If we allow a template for a German car-sharing service, it seems like it will be very difficult to draw a line when dozens or hundreds of similar services want their own templates placed across the site. For example, many US articles have info about Megabus, Greyhound, and other popular bus services, but we haven't used a template to promote individual bus companies. Similarly, various car rental agencies operate in thousands of cities around the world, but we aren't adding a template to each article with a Hertz or Avis office. I appreciate that the MFG service may be a valuable one, but I'm concerned that promoting it through a specific template sets a precedent that will make it hard to control similar promotional content in the future. -- Ryan • (talk) • 01:02, 25 October 2012 (CEST)