User talk:(WT-en) Unizeppelin

Hello! Welcome to Wikivoyage. If you want to specialize your experience you may want to consider editing your preferences. Please take a second to look at our copyleft and policies and guidelines, but feel free to plunge forward and edit some pages. Scanning the Manual of style, especially the article templates, can give you a good idea of how we like articles formatted. If you're new to the whole wiki community look at the Wiki markup to get an idea of how to use the wiki markup. If you need help, check out the help desk, and if you need some info not on there, post a message in the travellers' pub.-- (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 23:45, 30 August 2006 (EDT)

Des Moines (I assume)

Did you erase listings for the High Life Lounge and El Bait Shop? If so, why?

If so, it was an accident-- Please copy and paste them from an earlier edit. (WT-en) Texugo 02:05, 1 September 2006 (EDT)

Actually, if it IS in fact Des Moines you are talking about, those two listing were not present in your last edit of the page, so maybe you did it yourself by accident? Also please have a look at Manual of style. I just spent over an hour doing a style edit on this article--it saves a lot of work if people do it right the first time. One more thing-- you can sign your name at the end of a talk post by typing ~~~~. That way people can see who is posting. (WT-en) Texugo 02:14, 1 September 2006 (EDT)

Alright, thanks for the work. I just stumbled upon Wikivoyage three days ago and decided to write about Des Moines. What types of things did you have to spend over an hour on in the MOS? A bit too much of my journalist habits coming out, I guess...thanks again for the work and tips. (WT-en) Unizeppelin 02:28, 1 September 2006 (EDT)

Moving the address, phone, and website info from the end of each listing to the beginning, inserting bold and italics tags, moving certain listings to more appropriate locations, spacing, breaking certain paragraphs into lists and formatting them, etc. You've done some great work here though. This is almost a guide article now. Do you have any photos to insert? (WT-en) Texugo

I'm not sure how to go about that whole process of asking Websites and/or photographers if I can use their stuff (other than trying to find an e-mail address and e-mailing someone)...any suggestions? What's an article guide--is that good? Thanks! (WT-en) Unizeppelin 03:11, 1 September 2006 (EDT)

Also, how do you distinguish events,etc. from "Do" and "See" categories?(WT-en) Unizeppelin 03:17, 1 September 2006 (EDT)

As for what constitutes a guide article versus a star, outline, usable, etc., have a look at our ratings system. And for help distinguishing between the Do and See section, see Project:Where_you_can_stick_it. And finally, since I notice you are (apparently) writing a lot of restaurant and bar reviews yourself (thanks for not plagiarizing), please have a look at the policy on touting, as some of your reviews are pretty borderline there. Thanks, and keep contributing! (WT-en) Texugo 04:12, 1 September 2006 (EDT)

If you look at the manual of style under where to stick it, you'll see under "Cope" sections people can list places to work out or laundromats...if we're able to list places to do dirty clothes, I definitely think it's within reason to include ethnic grocery stores and the common places where people shop to buy their groceries....your thoughts? (WT-en) Unizeppelin 02:11, 12 September 2006 (EDT)

Italics, and photos

Why no italics for a newspaper? Also, any tips (aka instructions) for getting photos from Websites for the site? (WT-en) Unizeppelin 00:10, 4 September 2006 (EDT)

The uses for italics sanctioned by the Manual of Style are for 1)the part of telephone numbers that is unnecessary when dialed locally, 2) foreign words, and 3) to give emphasis to a word for someone who is reading the text closely rather than skimming. Newspaper listings on dozens of other pages are already out there with no italics, so there is no reason to start here... As for photos, I don't really know-- the ones I've put up so far have all been my own. (WT-en) Texugo 00:56, 4 September 2006 (EDT)

Restaurants in the Get Out section

If suburbs are close enough to be considered districts of the city then I'd create them as such. We typically do not list restaurants in the Get Out section. Either they should be placed in the appropriate district or town article, or they are close enough to put them back in the main article. (WT-en) Texugo 04:24, 1 September 2006 (EDT)

Yeah, I wasn't sure which way to go...thanks though! I'll edit! (WT-en) Unizeppelin 04:42, 1 September 2006 (EDT)

Grocery stores

I don't want to see a Yellow Book listings either but I think anyone who's visiting Iowa from another country would enjoy seeing an ethnic storie available to them if they want to do some cooking. I live overseas and would love it if I saw a listing where I could pick up some American-style groceries. Also, why did you delete Dahls, Hy-Vee, Fareway, Wal-Mart and Target? Two of them (Dahls and Fareway) are unique to Iowa (one in fact just to Des Moines). These are where even most of the locals shop...these places also offer a variety of services (eg, film processing, Ticketmaster) that would be great for an out-of-towner to know about. I would seriously think about re-inserting these places...after all, all I pretty much did was list how many locations were in the area and the Website...(WT-en) Unizeppelin 01:46, 12 September 2006 (EDT)

As for the long list of ethnic grocery stores, maybe try to pick the best one of each ethnicity? I think the section is dis-proportionately large compared to the percentage of travelers likely to be cooking for themselves in the middle of Iowa. As for the ones I deleted, I removed them because they are big chains, normal places just like every other city on the US map has, most of which also have pharmacies, photo processing, etc. If Dahls and Fareway are unique to Iowa, put them in the Iowa article. Wal-mart and Target are pretty ubiquitous in the States, so if anywhere, I'd put them in the United States article. I definitely don't want to see a Wal-Mart listing in every article for every American city over 10,000 people, do you? For the same reason, I remove McDonald's other mega-fast-food chains when I find listings in city articles. There are just too many to care about here in a travel guide. (WT-en) Texugo

Point well-taken. I don't don't want to see the big chains up there either--having chains doesn't make Seattle anymore special than San Antonio. As far as the ethnic ones go...well, I thought by posting some visitors to the site could add their comments about the ones they liked...the ones that don't have comments could be erased. I'll see what I can do. Thanks for your help, nonetheless... What's the standard for formatting titles and the like. I know for the work you've edited for me you had it as such: Hello, 1234 Main Street, +1 999 999-9999 [1] - This place is great!

Is this what the Wiki people want? So many people use the period at the end of the header and not the hyphen... Also, what's your stance on abbreviations, such as "Av." and "St". Do the Wiki people want it standardized somehow (I always write out the whole thing because I know people from outside the US will find it much easier)? Thanks in advance...(WT-en) Unizeppelin 05:04, 12 September 2006 (EDT)

Yeah, um.. You can find the standard formatting set-up can be found in the manual of style articles on Project:Attraction_listings, like this:

• Name of Attraction, Address (extra directions if necessary), phone number (email, fax, other contact if possible), [2]. Days and times open. One to five sentences about why this attraction is worth seeing, things to pay special attention to, warnings, notes, historical or other background information. $entryprice (extra price info).

I have recently discovered that I had been making that very mistake of using a hyphen and I have repented, confessed, said my hail marys, and changed my ways. As for abbreviations, I tend to write them out fully too, though the super-common ones like Ave. and St. don't bother me too much. Anything else I usually jump in and change to the full form.(WT-en) Texugo 08:40, 12 September 2006 (EDT)

Darn, I guess I have some repenting to do then because of it! Hopefully people won't think I'm too big of a prick because of my hyphen obsession. Interesting how the Atraction Listings cites a desire for "every day" to be used, although in time/date format it requests "daily" to be used.(WT-en) Unizeppelin 02:00, 13 September 2006 (EDT)

Listings

I've only looked at a little bit of the above discussions, but you may want to consider using these listings. They've proven useful for me and have greatly improved my manual of style editing. See Cincinnati or Singapore on how to use them. -- (WT-en) Sapphire 02:57, 13 September 2006 (EDT)

Thanks for the suggestion, Sapphire. I checked out the Cincy one although I was disappointed a bit...just a few edit changes I've made, but probably more to do...found some currency and phone # edits that needed to be done.

I've yet to see a perfect site...although my Des Moines one is getting awfully close (I might need some help on how to post pics...got any recommendations?).(WT-en) Unizeppelin 03:14, 13 September 2006 (EDT)

For images make sure you upload to Wikivoyage Shared, since it's our image depository. To upload an image you'll probably want to check out Project:How to add an image. -- (WT-en) Sapphire 03:19, 13 September 2006 (EDT)

Time and dates

See Project:Time and date formats. This will hopefully help you. I use: "Monday - Saturday: 09:00 - 23:00", but it's not exactly policy, however, I think it's more useful to use military time and doesn't look as cluttered as: "Mon. - Fri.: 11AM - 6PM." I've always hated abbreviations and AM & PM, but use whatever you think is best. -- (WT-en) Sapphire 03:16, 13 September 2006 (EDT)

Military, or international time, is good because doesn't require an AM/PM and there's NEVER a mixup. However, since the city is in the US where AM/PM are used, that's why Wiki wants people to use AM/PM format.

Also, make sure when you do something like "3PM-10PM" you don't leave any space around the hyphen... I think as long as you're following policy you'll create less headaches for those who really are trying to do it by the book! People who write and edit need to be on the same page...the page where the policy is given. Many thanks. I'm not going to tackle the phone number editing that needs to be done for the Cincy page...I'll have someone else do that maybe?(WT-en) Unizeppelin 03:37, 13 September 2006 (EDT)

Right, but there's a discussion, which I'm reviving, about making the 24 hour format policy. Anyway, it's impossible to format the Cincinnati phone numbers, because they are enclosed in the listing tags, which ignore the wiki markup like (+1-513). I haven't any idea why the tags ignore them, but I don't mess with God's plan. -- (WT-en) Sapphire 03:45, 13 September 2006 (EDT)

Alright, I won't mess with the coding gods for the Cincy page. That whole page is crazy, the formatting and stuffy anyhow. Okay, let's revive the date/time format arguments. I'm all for international (what some in the US like to call military time, even though places outside of the military used it before) time format but the reason why the folks at Wiki don't want us to use that format for US-based destinations is because that's not what the museums, buses, hotels, etc. use...so why use something that when visitors come here they won't be greeted with? If we're trying to make as visitor-friendly page as possible, we know to make sure the pages describing US-based locations all have the "$" symbol, are in AM/PM, etc. That's what's used in the US.

Now, when using pages about Paris or Beijing, I don't expect to find $ signs...and I don't expect to find AM/PM b/c that's not what's used there...but in the US it is...(WT-en) Unizeppelin 03:56, 13 September 2006 (EDT)

What are your thoughts on hotel listings (the chains, like Holiday Inn, Microtel, Best Western, etc.)?(WT-en) Unizeppelin 01:58, 14 September 2006 (EDT)

Hotels

What are your thoughts on hotel listings? Do you think it's good to list a bunch of different chains (Holiday Inn, Microtel, etc.)?(WT-en) Unizeppelin 01:57, 14 September 2006 (EDT)

To whom are you speaking? I find that it's essential to provide a traveller with an array of hotel, hostel, and B&B options. You may want to try and use User:(WT-en) Cjensen/project/hotelmaker. Simply click on the respective state and see if there is section for the particular city you need sleep information for. It's not a perfect listing, but it's a start. If you use those listings do not change the listing at all since Colin is planning to have his script automatically change all listings into proper formats, MoS, and whatever else. -- (WT-en) Sapphire 02:03, 14 September 2006 (EDT)

Yeah, I'm talking to you and anyone else who will "listen." I was wondering because if the criteria for restaurants is "local, can't find anywhere else" then I was wondering why hotels/motels/etc. doesn't have the same criteria. I can find a Holiday Inn in just about Anytown, USA. All I have to do is go to any search engine, type in "Holiday inn" and I'll see the Website. That's why I'm wondering why as creators/editors we're not supposed to list cool chain restaurants but it's okay to list a major chain hotel...you get what I'm saying at all? Let me know...and don't worry, I won't be changing Colin's format or anything else....(WT-en) Unizeppelin 02:16, 14 September 2006 (EDT)

Well, finding "local" restaurants is far more easier than finding a privately owned hotel that doesn't have some kind of association with a huge chain. I think the policy was stating that chain restaurants like Applebees, Lonestar Steakhouse, or O'Charleys are OK, but don't list McDonalds or Burger King. Anyways, feel free to add a Del Frisco's Steakhouse (A somewhat small chain) or even Applebee's because that's perfectly alright. However, if you know of a really cool local institution like what Cincinnati's Maisonette was before it closed that should trump a restaurant belonging to a chain. If you have anymore questions feel free to ask here or on my talk page. I'm trying to go to sleep and if I succeed I'll respond later. -- (WT-en) Sapphire 02:33, 14 September 2006 (EDT)

Phone numbers=

Hi, and welcome. Thanks for your edits on Orlando, but I want you to be aware of a few things about phone numbers. The format can vary from what is shown in the style manual for areas that have 10 digit dialing (such as Orlando). Those areas have to dial all the area code even when calling locally, and get formatted like: ph: +1 987-654-3210. Also, we generally preface the number with ph: tel: or Phone: just to make it easier for the bots to go through someday and change to tag listings (something that seems inevitable). (WT-en) OldPine 07:05, 13 September 2006 (EDT)

Ahh...now I feel bad in a way about the area code. The manual guide doesn't have any sort of "tel" or "phone:" so that's why I deleted them. If you feel like adding them back in I won't change it! (WT-en) Unizeppelin 23:46, 13 September 2006 (EDT)