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This user participated in the 2018 Wikivoyage edit-a-thon

Former Wikitravel editor, now fully committed to Wikivoyage. I also edit Wikipedia, Wikibooks and upload to WikiCommons.

I primarily like to work on pages related to the UK, but I am equally at home editing pages abroad. I also have an obsession with the US state of Nevada. I really need to plan an itinerary there, one of these days.

• Hometown: Cheltenham
• Residences: Tewkesbury, Oxford, Derby, Much Wenlock, London
• Pages I have started: Bewdley?, Bridgwater, Brixham, Charlestown, Haslemere, Marlborough, Searchlight, Winchcombe, Wellesbourne

Currently my largest project is the Assassin's Creed Tour page. My goal is to at least get it to a usable state within Wikivoyage's guidelines. Then maybe a Dan Brown, Fallout: New Vegas Tour or Twilight: New Moon Tour itinerary?

Travels

Visited (somewhat in order, non-complete)

Year	Country	Region	Cities
2000			St John's, English Harbour
2001?			Hamilton
prior to 2004			Copenhagen, Elsinore
2003			Weymouth
2003			Fowey, St Austell
2003-4?			Tunis, Carthage
2003-4?			Funchal
2003-4?			Paphos
2003-4?			Orlando, Cape Canaveral
2005?			Caen
2006?			Chamonix
2007			La Rochelle
2007			Paris
2008			Heraklion, Agios Nikolaos, Elounda, Spinalonga
2009			Girona, Figueres
2010-11?			Taormina, Mount Etna, Syracuse
2010-11?			Torquay, Paignton
2011			Aberystwyth
2012			Florence, Siena, San Gimignano, Monteriggioni, Montepulciano
2013			San Francisco, Berkeley, Los Angeles
2013			Las Vegas
2013			Kingman, Grand Canyon
2013			New York City
2014			Carcassonne
2017			Dubai
2017			Dublin, Dun Laoghaire
2018			Bodmin, Tintagel, St Austell, Charlestown
2018			Burley
2018			Christchurch
2019			Salisbury
2020			Yarmouth, Newport, Sandown and Shanklin, Cowes

Modus operandi

• I like dynamic maps and I try to add a Mapframe to articles that may only have a simple drawing or no map at all.
• I like weatherboxes using Climate. I use Wikipedia's own data and then the Met Office for UK destinations, The Weather Channel for US destinations and AccuWeather for everywhere else.
• I like to add go markers to train stations throughout the world. If the train station is in Great Britain or the Republic of Ireland I add a link to that station's page too.
• I like routeboxes and have taken an interest into adding more to UK pages. Particularly in my native Gloucestershire and surrounding cities.
• I like to add colour-coded region maps to articles such as Sardinia, San Luis Potosi (state) and Lower Austria.

Neat tricks

Here are some neat tricks I have pinched from other pages that hopefully streamline Wikivoyage for both editors and readers. The '' '' demonstrate placeholder content that needs to be filled by the editor.

• Link to a listing (requires the Wikidata field is declared within the listing): [[''Placename''#''WikidataID''|''Destination'']]
  • e.g. To link Excalibur Hotel and Casino use the following: [[Las_Vegas/The_Strip#Q1064873|Excalibur Hotel and Casino]]

• Add a dynamic map to page: {{mapframe|''longitude''|''latitude''|zoom=10}}

• Add a mapshape to page: {{mapshape}}

• Add a marker to an airport/train station/bus station on a page: {{marker|type=go|name=train station|url=|lat=|long=}} Alternatively, a {{listing}} can be used, but for simple one-line entries I prefer the in-line option.

• If the destination can be gotten to via a train from London, specify which station and add a link to it. If there is a missed station add a redirect to the appropriate London district it resides in. London is a big city with over 330 train stations (not including all tube stops) and I think it's a good idea to break it down for travellers even at a regional level.
  • Clapham Junction
  • London Paddington
  • London Victoria
  • London Waterloo
  • London Liverpool St
  • London King's Cross (with the apostrophe, though I have created a redirect without)
  • London Euston
  • London St Pancras or London St Pancras International
  • London Bridge (As London Bridge is already a disambiguation page, link to London/South_Bank with [[London/South_Bank|London Bridge]] instead.)
  • London Fenchurch St
  • London Charing Cross
  • London Cannon St
  • London Marylebone

• For London tube stops/stations I have started using the station templates to show which lines connect to it. For example: Baker Street  MET  BAK  CIR  JUB  H&C . To achieve this use {{station|''station name''|''line1''|''line2''|''line3''}}. Use the Rint template to check the syntax for lines.

• I have also assisted with adding routeboxes to UK articles. If you know the area and particularly if a major road such as motorway or A road passes through/near the article. I'd recommend adding it in.

• If an airport is notable enough, but doesn't have an IATA, the ICAO can be added instead with ('''ABCD''' <sup>[[w:ICAO|<small>ICAO</small>]]</sup>), substitute the ABCD with the code. Maybe an ICAO template, should be made alongside the IATA template?

Useful pages

Here I am trying to make a useful reference for pages both on and off Wikivoyage that help streamline page editing. Please share this around if it is useful for you. :-D

Wikivoyage

• Wikivoyage:Banners
• Wikivoyage:Time and date formats

Wikipedia

• Greek alphabet
• Greek diacritics
• List of London Underground stations

External sites and programs

• Atom – A really useful text editor with regular expression capabilities that make finding and replacing quick and simple. Recommended for region pages with a lot of map markers. I also find Atom helpful for going through a .SVG's source code to find the right colours for a province section as with Sardinia.
• Eye Dropper – A neat open-source Chrome/Chromium extension that shows the colour of an entity. Also useful for region maps as I like to use the exact colour on the map as I think it's better for usability.
• Croppola.com – A really useful site that allows images to be cropped in-browser regardless of operating system. I use Croppola to crop Wikivoyage banners to the 7:1 aspect ratio (see these examples: Tewkesbury, Paignton, Brixham, Chinon, Tintagel, Douglas, Laxey).

• Translit.cc – Transliterates from Cyrillic to Latin and vice-versa.

Deprecated

I no longer use GPS-Coordinates because I find it cumbersome to use. Instead I zoom in and use the URL from Google Maps to provide co-ordinates.

• GPS-Coordinates.net – A really useful site that displays co-ordinates for any location using Google Maps. As someone who loves dynamic maps, this site is really helpful for generating the markers that are placed on them.

Sandbox

I use this sandbox area to test new ideas.

Routebox for the UK – Rail links

As the Network Rail logo isn't public domain or CC licensed, one needs to figure out how to call the logo's SVG from Wikipedia directly instead of the Commons.

Cheltenham

Routes through Inferno986return

Penzance ← Bristol ←

W  E

→ Reading → London Paddington

Routebox for the UK – A40

For Cheltenham and other destinations along the A40.

Cheltenham

Routes through Inferno986return

Fishguard ← Monmouth ←

W  E

→ Oxford → London

Routebox for the UK – M5

For Taunton and other destinations along the M5.

Birmingham

Routes through Inferno986return

merges with ←

N  S

→ Bristol → Exeter

Worcester

Routes through Inferno986return

Birmingham ← Kidderminster ←

N  S

→ Bristol → Exeter

Tewkesbury

Routes through Inferno986return

Birmingham ← Worcester ←

N  S

→ Cheltenham → Exeter

Cheltenham

Routes through Inferno986return

Birmingham ← Tewkesbury ←

N  S

→ Gloucester → Exeter

Gloucester

Routes through Inferno986return

Birmingham ← Cheltenham ←

N  S

→ Bristol → Exeter

Taunton

Routes through Inferno986return

Birmingham ← Gloucester ←

N  S

→ Cullompton → Exeter

Exeter

Routes through Inferno986return

Birmingham ← Gloucester ←

N  S

→ merges with

THIS HAS BEEN DONE ALREADY!

Routebox for the UK – London Underground

Needs a white background on the roundel to be seen clearly. Although the flat line works well too.

London/Paddington-Maida Vale

Routes through Inferno986return

1 ← 2 ←

W  E

→ 3 → 4