User talk:(WT-en) MarinaK

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I'm a little confused by some of your recent edits, which combine very useful copyediting, and the removal of some information that probably doesn't belong, with deletions of significant content that should probably stay, as well as deletion of entire article sections. Just to check, was this edit, for example, fully in line with your intentions? --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 11:29, 24 April 2008 (EDT)

Content removal

Hi, I notice that you are removing a large amount of content from a number of pages eg. Rome. Is there a specific reason for it? --(WT-en) Nick 11:59, 24 April 2008 (EDT)

And again

Your recent otherwise good edits to Paris just nuked all the interwiki links and other meta-information at the end of the article. Please don't delete them. (WT-en) Jpatokal 07:41, 27 April 2008 (EDT)

My apologies! I didn't realise. MarinaK

another removal

Marina, please explain why you removed much content from Budapest and its districts articles? What's wrong with it? --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 15:49, 1 May 2008 (EDT)

Hi Denis. The Budapest had many sections in which the writing was poor, there were many grammatical errors, and I even found advertisements within the sleep listings which I removed. Any listings that were not reviewed, I deleted as it brings down the quality of content. Marina

Antwerpen external links removals

Hi, please don't delete valid primary external links as you have done at . If you don't like the format, fix it, don't just delete it. Please see Project:External links if you are unclear on what constitutes a valid link and what does not. --(WT-en) Nick 15:35, 7 May 2008 (EDT)

Hi. Are they the external links at the bottom? Sorry for that, I didn't realise it. I deleted it as I'm exporting this pages to a pdf document and it doesn't look good when the links appear at the bottom of the pdf document.

Yes, those and other primary links such as De Lijn , they are completely valid and useful and in the case of the stuff at the bottom, required in order to make wikivoyage work. I have also restored some of the listings you have deleted and will be restoring some more since there is no valid reason for their removal. It is really hard to get info into a wiki and we prefer to fix rather than delete the content that we already have.

You do seem to be rather good at fixing content. The grammatical and copy edit work you do is of excellent quality and greatly improves the content. It does unfortunately get overshadowed by the huge loss in content that you are causing.

If you need the file to be without http links so you can use it in pdf format, then I would suggest that you look at to export the articles you want and then run it through some translator (a simple XSLT script will do) to automatically remove the contents you do not want and reformat the sections/listings in any other way you might wish. It will give provide you with something more useful to you without causing content loss on wikivoyage.

In short, please do not stop doing those copyedits, but please take care not to remove valid, useful and required information.

--(WT-en) Nick 02:12, 8 May 2008 (EDT)

Hi Nick. Thank you for your suggestion and helpful advice. As you can tell, I am new in the wiki community and am just getting started and trying to find my feet. While editing is my forte and my profession, I am still learning how to edit wiki articles. Thanks for your patience, I won't delete any more primary links or necessary content. Marina

More removals

I reverted your edits on Bruges. You can't just remove listings or primary links (as with the ferry link) for no reason. Always put a reason in the Summary box if you do remove a listing. I see you have been warned on removeing primary links before. What's the problem? --(WT-en) OldPine 21:13, 7 May 2008 (EDT)

Hi Old Pine. First time wiki contibutor, long time editor. I'm still learning the ropes with contributing to wiki articles and I'm afraid that my editing instincts are getting the better of me. Thanks for your patience, I'll ensure that this doesn't happen in the future.

Thanks, but...

Hi Marina. First I want to thank you for the cleanup work that you've been doing in Paris. However, some of the edits are getting a bit heavy-handed. Please don't remove stub listings, they are there to provide an easy way for newbies to get involved.

Also while it's really great that you've taken an interest in doing grammar editing, please be aware that this is not Wikipedia, and that we're interested in preserving more of a fun, even cheeky tone and writing style here. In short please keep doing the grammar edits, but please try to insert a bit of sass where you can, rather than removing it.

Thanks! -- (WT-en) Mark 01:07, 9 May 2008 (EDT)

Hi Mark. As you can probably tell, I'm new at contributing to wiki articles, although I've been an editor for years and I'm afraid that my editing instincts are getting the better of me. I completely apologise for removing stub listings, I've been doing that as I think it makes the article look unkempt and incomprehensive but now I understand that they are there to get newbies involved.

I completely agree that a fun, cheeky style is needed, and in fact I thought that I was injecting this into the articles. I've been a writer for a major travel publishing company for years and am well aware of the style that readers want.

Once again, thanks for your patience and advice. Marina

Hi Marina, I have a couple of pointers.

First on these discussion pages we try to make it clear who said what. One of the ways we do that is to use ":"s at the beginning of each line of a comment to indent the line. This sort of creates a threaded flow to the conversation. In this case I've used two of them to indent the line two tabstops.

Second, there's an easy way to sign your posts. Put this text after everything that you write in a discussion: -- ~~~~. -- 05:21, 11 May 2008 (EDT)

Stop removing external links

Stop it, OK? And please put the ones you took out of Paris back. Also do not delete stubby listings: fill them up with information instead.

You're been warned about these many times. If you need to reformat our content for your own purposes, the correct way to do it is to mirror/copy the page onto your own site and then hack away to your heart's content, but removing useful, valid information from Wikivoyage articles is considered vandalism, and if you keep this up you'll get blocked. (WT-en) Jpatokal 04:08, 9 May 2008 (EDT)

Hi Jpatokal. Firstly, my sincere apologies. As you can tell, I am a newbie, and also an editor, so my editing instincts are getting the better of me. I've been deleting empty stub listings as I think they look unkempt and bring down the articles, but now that I've been told its to encourage newbies (like me) to participate, I won't.

I have been an editor and a writer for a major travel publishing house for many years and I've been hoping that I've been making a positive contribution to the wiki pages through meticulous copy edits and a colourful writing style. However, as I have been advised, my deletions are overshadowing my good work.

Once again, I apologise and have been doing these inaccuracies purely through lack of knowledge and not anything els. Now that I have been told, I will ensure that this does not happen. Thanks for your patience, and please let me know if I am doing anything wrong. Thanks, Marina

Thanks. Trust me, we do appreciate your effort, it's just frustrating that the great work you are doing otherwise is in parts overshadowed by these deletions... (WT-en) Jpatokal 03:36, 12 May 2008 (EDT)

Hi Jpatokal. It's definitely not my intention to bring down the wiki page, so now that I know not to delete empty stubs, I won't. Again, many thanks. (WT-en) MarinaK

I've noticed that you've started replacing stubby listings with more complete listings for different places. While your contribution is appreciated I would like to know what the source if this listing information is. Is it first hand experience? Or are you compiling the listing text from a number of reviews? Please tell us that you're not just copying them from the print guide that you edit, because that would be a copyright violation (unless the publisher were to give you permission of course). -- (WT-en) Mark 05:21, 11 May 2008 (EDT)

Hi Mark. Any new listings is all my work and does not appear anywhere else. Working for a publishing company I am fully aware of the legalities involving copyright violation and I would never do this. For wiki travel, I am working on cities that I have not done any work for in the past. (WT-en) MarinaK

Hi

I just wanted to mention that you shouldn't let any criticism stress you out, especially when you're beginning. When I first started out, I was doing everything wrong, but learned a lot after a lot of help from people like Jpatokal and Mark. Now, three years later, I have 11,892 edits to my credit and I still, on occasion, make mistakes. If you have any questions, just ask any of us. -- (WT-en) Sapphire • (Talk) • 13:33, 12 May 2008 (EDT)

Hi Sapphire. I really appreciate you letting me know that, I was beginning to get nervous every time I touch a wiki article! Still finding my feet on here, so it's good to know that I can ask people like you for help. I've been a bit slack in creating my userpage but think I should do this soon! MarinaK

No worries. I'm not sure if you know this, but you can sign your name easier than typing it out each time. Simply, type -- ~~~~, which will produce something similar, albeit, not as customized as this: -- (WT-en) Sapphire • (Talk) • 14:15, 12 May 2008 (EDT)

User ban nomination

And again. Stop deleting things, especially Thai romanizations! I don't understand why this is so difficult for you, but if you're not going stop, then we'll have to stop you. Please defend yourself at Project:User ban nominations#User:MarinaK. (WT-en) Jpatokal 00:19, 17 May 2008 (EDT)

For some reason, I cannot save to the Userban page, so I am detailing my response here:

(MarinaK's defense moved to Project:User ban nominations). Not sure why editing the ban page didn't work for you, but I've moved the comment for you. -- (WT-en) Colin 16:06, 19 May 2008 (EDT)

Okay I see what the problem was. Something else on the bad nom page was on the spam blacklist, so I had to remove it first. You should be able to do your own edits there now. -- (WT-en) Colin 16:10, 19 May 2008 (EDT)

Marina, may I ask you to please undelete all the official links, stubby content and listings with no reviews that you have deleted? It will take huge effort, but leaving it to someone else to repair articles after your edits sound even larger evil for me. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 16:22, 19 May 2008 (EDT)

I agree with Denis, undoing those edits yourself will definitely be a good idea. I left my comments on the user ban page, but would just like to add one more thing: I've been around wikivoyage for a while and have even been nominated as an admin, but even now some of my edits will be questioned or reverted by others. We all make mistakes; we should just be prepared to correct them and learn from them. Working on Wikivoyage is really fun and enjoyable once you have settled in. --(WT-en) Nick 17:21, 19 May 2008 (EDT)

Hi Nick and Denis. Like Nick, I left my comments on my Userban page, which hopefully explains some of my seemingly crazy edits. Denis, I'm unsure how to undelete edits I've already done. If you could let me know how to do this, I'm prepared to do it.

--(WT-en) MarinaK 17:41, 19 May 2008 (EDT)MarinaK.

Start with pages like http://en.wikivoyage.org/w/index.php?title=Barcelona&action=history, and ask your questions here as you go? --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 11:48, 20 May 2008 (EDT)

Hi Denis. I've taken a look at the page and I'm a bit confused. Sorry to be a pain, but if someone can explain this to me indepth, I'll be happy to re-edit. --(WT-en) MarinaK 13:17, 20 May 2008 (EDT)MarinaK.

With pages like http://en.wikivoyage.org/w/index.php?title=Barcelona&action=history, you can browse through recent edits in a specific article (Barcelona in my example). More practically, you can:

find lines with your name in them
open "(last)" link for in a new browser window every edit you have made (see edits signed by your username)
for every edit, see a side-by-side comparison of your version with the version before your edit -- for example, http://en.wikivoyage.org/w/index.php?title=Barcelona&diff=834469&oldid=834457
copy the pieces you have removed, and paste them back into a current edition of the article -- for example, "Baja Beach Club"

Let me know if this helps. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 11:27, 25 May 2008 (EDT)

Marina, how's your progress on restoring the removed content? --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 15:04, 31 May 2008 (EDT)

While it would be appreciated, as a volunteer Marina is under no obligation whatsoever to do so. Feel free to plunge forward yourself if the issue is bothering you. -- (WT-en) Colin 19:39, 31 May 2008 (EDT)

I always believed that we aim at encouraging responsible contributors, and we encourage responsible behavior for the sake of better community. I find it very short-sighted if we turn a blind eye to destructive edits, and don't insist on repairing of what a user admits she has broken. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 17:41, 10 August 2008 (EDT)

I've reverted most of content removals and some edits in Barcelona, Rome‎, Budapest, London and their district articles. If you choose to insist on any of your edits/removals, please discuss first, on respective article's Talk page (e.g. Talk:Rome).

Generally, if you remove anything from article content, please explain why you remove it--either in Summary field (a text line right before "Save page" button when you edit page) or on Talk page of the article. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 10:16, 21 September 2008 (EDT)

Font Issues on a Mac

Hi MarinaK,

I also am using a Mac. Both Safari and Firefox work for me with Thai script. But knowing that I work on Wikivoyage, I clicked the "fonts for additional languages" option when I installed MacOS. According to Apple, here's how you can do that:

To install additional fonts for your language, insert the appropriate Mac OS X Install disc into your optical drive and double-click “Fonts for Additional Languages” or the Additional Asian Fonts package.

Let us know how that works out -- (WT-en) Colin 18:30, 19 May 2008 (EDT)

Hi Colin. Thanks for figuring it out. Unfortunately it's ging to be a couple of weeks before I see my friend to get that disc off him, so in the meantime, I won't delete any scripts, no matter how funny they look like on my screen! ; )

Just to confirm, on Bangkok, I keep getting these msgs- Phahonyothin (พหลโยธิน) area of Bangkok. Does anyone else get this in the Phahonyothin district of Bangkok?

--(WT-en) MarinaK 18:39, 19 May 2008 (EDT)MarinaK.

I'm assuming you're seeing ?? and that's why you're asking? I can see the Thai script fine above... using Safari on a Mac – (WT-en) cacahuate ^talk 21:57, 19 May 2008 (EDT)

Just to make it clearer, here is a screen shot of the above from firefox on linux. Note the special font in Phahonyothin (พหลโยธิน). --(WT-en) Nick 01:19, 20 May 2008 (EDT)

[[Image:Tmp-font issues-delete is still here after july 2008.png|thumb|800px]]

Hi all. Yep, I just see question marks instead of script. --(WT-en) MarinaK 01:38, 20 May 2008 (EDT)MarinaK.

What version of firefox? There has been some Firefox font issues on the mac, so for now you are probably better off using Safari. Firefox 3 seems to fix all those issues on the Mac, but it is still in beta and you probably want to wait until it is released before trying it. --(WT-en) Nick 14:43, 20 May 2008 (EDT)

Hi Nick. I'm using Firefox v 2, so I may change to Safari soon as you say. Thanks! --(WT-en) MarinaK 14:49, 20 May 2008 (EDT)MarinaK.

Singapore

Please be more careful when editing articles about places you are obvious unfamiliar with. For example, "Changi Airport" really is actively "nice" as opposed to merely "clean", "HarbourFront" is the official name of the place, there's a large bus company called "NiCE", and Orchard Towers really has "not a few" (=many), not a "few" transsexuals.

Also, I don't understand why you're removing commas and spaces from the listings, so now many look like 1234567 instead of 1234567, .

So I've rolled back all your edits. (WT-en) Jpatokal 01:32, 11 June 2008 (EDT)

==Hi Jani. I have actually been to Singapore and I was careful only to make minor edits. Describing Changi airport as 'clean' rather than 'nice' is kind of an objective issue, as I felt that the word 'clean' makes a clearer statement than what the word 'nice' makes. The 'not a few' rather than 'few' may be a cultural difference between us, as grammatically for me, 'not a few' is confusing and vague, maybe the term 'more than a few' makes more sense?

I'm finding there's a lot of spaces between words, especially after full stops, so I'm deleting spaces so it reads better. Any feedback you give me is all constructive so I'm taking it all on board : )

--(WT-en) MarinaK 14:48, 11 June 2008 (EDT)MarinaK.

FYI, the software used on Wikivoyage ignores spaces, so it doesn't matter if you have one space or two spaces or three spaces or fifteen spaces between words of sentences. (Edit this comment and see!) Removing them doesn't hurt, but neither is it useful... (WT-en) Jpatokal 00:58, 12 June 2008 (EDT)

Hi Jani. Oh, I had no idea! Thanks so much for letting me know, I've been wasting so much time on it! --(WT-en) MarinaK 13:26, 12 June 2008 (EDT)MarinaK.

Unfortunately the double spaces appear when I convert the article into a pdf. If it's ok, can I still continue to delete double spaces? --(WT-en) MarinaK 15:03, 12 June 2008 (EDT)MarinaK

What process are you using for converting to PDF? Maybe we can improve that instead. -- (WT-en) Colin 15:39, 12 June 2008 (EDT)

Hi Colin. I'm using Acrobat. Any suggestions? Thanks! --(WT-en) MarinaK 15:55, 12 June 2008 (EDT)MarinaK.

I don't know what that means exactly :-). Are you getting the stuff to Acrobat via the "Print" function in your web browser? It's important that you use "print" because it formats the page very differently. -- (WT-en) Colin 16:48, 12 June 2008 (EDT)

Psst: over at Contentshare, we'd be delighted to license you some battle-hardened software for making beautiful PDF versions of Wikivoyage guides. (WT-en) Jpatokal 01:57, 13 June 2008 (EDT)

Days of week format

Hi there. I've noticed you've been editing the days of the week format in listings, such as turning "M" into "Mon". Would you mind stopping? The way it was before actually fits our manual of style (See Project:Time and date formats). Otherwise, nice work. You caught a lot of misspelled words and some bad grammar, and I thank you for that. :) (WT-en) PerryPlanet 21:34, 30 June 2008 (EDT) Hi Perry. My apologies, will stop now. --(WT-en) MarinaK 21:49, 30 June 2008 (EDT)MarinaK.

Recent Vancouver edits

Hi MarinaK

I just reversed a number of the edits you recently made to the Vancouver and Vancouver/City Center pages. Some of them were good (thanks for the day of the week/time of day edits!), but there were a lot where the city or district name appeared twice in a row (for example, after one of your edits it looked like "on Fraser St in East Van East Van"). Just so you know, per our Manual of Style for internal links, an internal link should appear as "on Fraser St in East Van". (WT-en) Shaund 14:40, 17 August 2008 (EDT)

Hi ShaunD. I realised too late that it was appearing twice. I deleted all the ones I had already done but I may have missed a couple. Btw, just want to say that from a copy editing perspective, Vancouver is one of the strongest cities I've worked on! --(WT-en) MarinaK 13:54, 18 August 2008 (EDT)MarinaK.

Thanks for all those edits on the Vancouver pages and digging up some additional info for the short listings. It's a big help (and saved me some detail work I was avoiding). (WT-en) Shaund 23:56, 19 August 2008 (EDT)

Recent Edinburgh edits

Hi MarinaK. Thanks for your recent edits in Edinburgh. I've been working on tidying up and districtifying for a while now so I'm glad that someone else is also getting stuck in. I noticed you've removed quite a few listings from theOld Town, mostly accommodation and restaurants. Any particular reason for this? (WT-en) Tarr3n 05:28, 21 August 2008 (EDT)

Hi Tarr3n. Yes, I have been working on Edinburgh. Regarding the deletion of some accommodation and restaurant listings, the majority of restaurant listings were just the name and addresses of the restaurants. I then researched a lot of these listings and wrote a review for them so the article is more substantial. I deleted some listings because I either could not find a lot of information on them, and also I thought it was better to have fewer listings with reviews attached to them rather than a bunch of listings with no info. Please let me know if you disagree with this. Thanks, --(WT-en) MarinaK 13:56, 21 August 2008 (EDT)MarinaK.

Definitely yes I agree with you. It was my intention to do exactly what you suggest and add at least a short description to listings where people have just entered the name and address. I'm delighted you've got involved in editing Edinburgh as a city that attracts so many visitors really should be one of the best on Wikivoyage. I only just finished districtifying - see my note on the article Talk page and my Google map as I'd appreciate any comments you have on the way I've done it.

I don't understand the reasoning behind some of your edits - for example "mediaeval" and "medieval" are both correct spellings - why amend it? "Mezz" Bar is just that, not "The Mezz". Also some of your layout edits have detracted from the sense of the articles - see my comment on Talk:Edinburgh/East for one example of this. (WT-en) Tarr3n 09:33, 22 August 2008 (EDT)

Hi. The reason why I changed the one instance of 'mediaeval' is that throughout all the Edinburgh articles, it was spelt as 'medieval. If there was a meaning behind this, then I apologise. I've also responded on the Ediburgh talk pages, and I would really like to help you flesh out more listings if you like. --(WT-en) MarinaK 13:33, 22 August 2008 (EDT)MarinaK.

No, that makes sense. I think you're right to look for consistency within articles. Sorry if I came over as stroppy!(WT-en) Tarr3n 08:47, 25 August 2008 (EDT)

No worries at all! : ) --(WT-en) MarinaK 13:40, 25 August 2008 (EDT)MarinaK.

Davos

Hi Marina, I just thought that the extra bits in the intro were a bit encyclopaedic (rather than travel related) and a bit politically biased. You put a lot of really good stuff in the rest of the article though. -- (WT-en) DanielC 16:13, 11 September 2008 (EDT) Good point, thanks! --(WT-en) MarinaK 16:47, 11 September 2008 (EDT)MarinaK.

Mexico City deletion

Wait...your listing? Oh geez...I'm sorry, I was under the impression I was un-touting one of the many edits done by this troublemaker. The language of the listing ("The most luxurious hotel in Mexico City...") definitely made it seem very suspicious to me. Anyway, I've restored it to the way it was before I went in, and again I'm sorry. (WT-en) PerryPlanet 15:08, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

unexplained removal

Marina, please stop removing content without giving an explanation. If you feel like removing something, please give your reasons in the Summary text box, as I suggested earlier.

In a meanwhile I reverted part of your edit , and Peter reverted fully another . --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 18:33, 27 September 2008 (EDT)

Hi Denis. The reason why I didn't explain my edits was because they primarily focused on grammar and punctuation, eg- Kebab and shaurma- kebab and shawrma, it typically either become much worse- in 2 years the quality decreases. Would you like me to explain each of these edits- eg 'Kebab does not require a capitilisation in the middle of a sentence, and shawrma was incorrectly spelt'? Or simply say- Edits focused on grammar and punctuation? Please let me know what you would prefer. Regarding the Sleep section of Moscow, I have actually inserted many new listings and filled out some listings that were already there. In regards to the few hotels that I deleted, this was done as I researched the hotels online and could not find any information on them which lead me to believe they are no longer in existence, and therefore should not be in the guide. I should have mentioned this in the discussion page, so my apologies. I'll take care to explain my edits in the future, but please let me know how you would like me to explain my grammar and punctuation edits. --(WT-en) MarinaK 14:53, 29 September 2008 (EDT)MarinaK.

No need to explain minor edits, but please always explain content deletion—I revert those as a matter of course. In this case especially, since we intend to break Moscow into districts when possible. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 15:58, 29 September 2008 (EDT)

Thanks Peter, will do! --(WT-en) MarinaK 16:00, 29 September 2008 (EDT)MarinaK.

Marina, and again you removed pieces without giving ANY explanation: from Saint Petersburg, you removed Tsinik () and Cubahostel (). You promised to always give explanation when you remove something--so please DO keep your promises. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 09:58, 8 October 2008 (EDT)

Hi Denis. The reason why I removed Cubahostel is that I could not find any info on it in English or Russian and I have now explained the deletion in the talk page. I have written a review for Tsinik as I have found more info on it. Thanks. --(WT-en) MarinaK 15:34, 8 October 2008 (EDT)MarinaK.

Time formatting

Please do not change 24 hour time formatting to AM/PM formatting—we are currently discussing whether we should use local time formats. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 15:00, 7 October 2008 (EDT)

Hi Peter. Thanks for letting me know. Just checking, has the 24 hr time format been confirmed? From the discussion, it looks like its still beign debated. --(WT-en) MarinaK 15:16, 7 October 2008 (EDT)MarinaK.

It looked like it was over, but User:LtPowers has raised a few concerns. We should avoid trying to standardize one way or the other for a destination like St. Petersburg for the time being—I just put in a good amount of effort to get those listings in the 24 hour format! --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 18:02, 7 October 2008 (EDT)

No worries, thanks Peter. --(WT-en) MarinaK 15:27, 8 October 2008 (EDT)MarinaK.

Taipei

Hi Marina... Thanks for your edits... Unfortunatley, I had to revert those you made to the Taipei article for the following reasons: 1. The international and local city part of telephone numbers is always typed in italics on WT. 2. You removed a listing of a book store without any reference to why. When I was in Taipei recently, the bookshop was open and showed no signs of closing down. Did you delete by accident. (WT-en) WindHorse 00:43, 29 October 2008 (EDT)

Hi Windhorse. I apologise about the italics. I've noticed that in the Taipei article words are being bolded and italicised more than necessary, so I was trying to eliminate that. Regarding the bookshop listing, that was a mistake, sorry. Thanks. --(WT-en) MarinaK 13:43, 29 October 2008 (EDT)MarinaK.

Hey, no problem. Thanks for taking care of the matter. (WT-en) WindHorse 09:43, 1 November 2008 (EDT)

COTM - Copenhagen

Hey MarinaK, please take a look over at the Collaboration of Month Nomination page, and the Copenhagen entry. Also I'd really like some comments whether you'd be willing (and able) to help with lending a hand with your super tight editing skills during the month. Kind regards - (WT-en) Sertmann 17:38, 6 November 2008 (EST)

Munich

=Hi Sapphire. I've done an update on the Munich guide and would love your thoughts on it. I've included many extra pictures, some of which I'm finding are looking too large so I'm trying to fix that. Love to hear your feedback. --(WT-en) MarinaK 18:28, 14 January 2009 (EST)MarinaK.

Hi,

It's been a while since I've been to my beloved Munich, but if you're working on something that I can help you with, let me know. I lived there for five months, once upon a time. -- (WT-en) Sapphire • (Talk) • 18:25, 14 January 2009 (EST)

Orlando

Good work on the Orlando page, keep it up. I re-included some external links, which it seems like you may have inadvertently deleted based on your previous discussions above. If there is another reason for it let me know, otherwise no worries. Lastly, Edit Summaries are useful for collaborations, and give others some rationale for your changes. There are many abbreviations you can use to make it quicker. Thanks again for your help. (WT-en) Jtesla16 16:35, 25 February 2009 (EST)

another unexplained removal

Marina, I wonder why you keep removing useful things? Here's the latest undeletion for Moscow: . It takes pretty much time every time to revert your removals, just in the case you care. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 19:50, 4 March 2009 (EST)

My apologies Denis. I was unaware that it's common to use links to the tourism board in the introduction. Aside from that, I hope my contribution to the Moscow page was helpful. --(WT-en) MarinaK 15:13, 5 March 2009 (EST)MarinaK.

Also Denis, if a mistake like this happens again, please let me know and I'll revert the removals myself if it's easier. --(WT-en) MarinaK 15:24, 5 March 2009 (EST)MarinaK.

Let me comment on the undeleted pieces in detail, as it's far beyond the tourism board.:

Tourism board in introduction is guidelined by Project:External links#What to link to:

External links should point to primary sources. For example:

The official tourist office or government web site for a destination

Information on Raketas is useful, although should belong to GetAround rather than GetIn (if that really applies to intra-city ships)
Kolomenskoye is voted for merge 3 months ago, but not merged yet--hence removing a link is premature.
Official links for Darbar and Mi Piace should be there as both are official web sites (again, per Project:External links#What to link to).
Salute feature for Darbar is useful for traveller, and therefore should be kept.
Taras Bulba is a chain restaurant, and it's relevant info for a traveller.
Expedition was removed without any reason for doing so, which was discussed many times as unacceptable.

As for your proposal to ask yourself to revert your removals, please keep in mind that understanding what has been removed itself takes time and evergy. Therefore, whenever you remove anything (which I'm sure you do in a good faith), always give your reasons for deletion in the short "Summary:" text line, which is in the edit screen between the article's source text and the "Save page" button. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 18:44, 6 March 2009 (EST)

Hey Marina, just saw the clean up work for Hanoi, nice! and while I have less beefs with your edits than some of the guys above, infact I think it's really great someone takes the time to do clean-up work (even if you miss the goal by a while sometimes), please remember those edit summaries! - in this case something like removed listings without locations and descriptions would suffice. If you're not careful, I might take it up as a personal duty to remind you when you every single time you forget :), cheers --(WT-en) Stefan (sertmann) ^Talk 20:36, 17 March 2009 (EDT)

No worries Stefan! Some of these hotel descriptions for Hanoi are a bit questionable so I'm going to have to use some of those edit summaries! : ) --(WT-en) MarinaK 20:45, 17 March 2009 (EDT)MarinaK.

Lima Picture

The humour is not entirely lost on me, but still, I think our dear anonymous user has a point --(WT-en) Stefan (sertmann) ^Talk 14:03, 30 March 2009 (EDT)

Employee of Offbeat Guides tag?

I've made no secret that I'm an employee of Offbeat Guides and don't mind this tag, but I'm not sure if the intention was just to recognize that I'm editing wikivoyage for Offbeat Guides or it's something more sinister? Thanks! --(WT-en) MarinaK 14:03, 1 April 2009 (EDT)MarinaK.

→ Wikivoyage_talk:Sock_puppets#And a second case

Basically I think the intention was do identify the reason for users with this tag "up", for clearing out incomplete listings, is to make guides ready for print. Something which I both think is OK and important, especially since it's a goal which goes against the basic idea's of wiki's (put something up, and then others can come to refine and improve on it)

On a different note, I have some pretty raving objections to you guys understanding of copy left licenses, especially concerning CC attribution and gfdl licensing.

For starters, the first page of the sample guide reads "Copyright 2008, Offbeat guides" - this clearly violates to provisions of CC's share alike clause and the gfdl license by indicating that you own the copyright to the following content.
Nowhere in the sample guide do you give contributors (or wikivoyage or wikipedia) any attribution (even if this is not the case in the print guides, you are still in violation of the attribution requirements just by putting up the sample), and hence the sample should be removed from your website.
None of the pictures in the sample guide gives attribution to the photographers or graphic artists, these I think (but am not sure) should be stated directly adjacent to the picture itself when licensed under a CC attribution clause, or at the very least in a references section.
On the reference page in the order dialogue you state "A list of contributors to the text is available from each article." and then provide a text link to the guide on wikivoyage - this is also in violation of the attribution provisions - a full list of contributors must be available in both the print, pdf and the online order sample.
In the wikipedia history section you have not included the full text of the gfdl licence, which is a clear violation of it's provisions, nor have you made any attribution to wikipedia's contributors.

While I do understand that for someone not really involved with creation of free content, this may be minor details, but for contributors - who obviously do care since they have committed time and effort - often a great deal of it - to projects like wikipedia and wikivoyage, I can assure you that these are not minor details. And since you've already breached several provisions, I'd like to remind you of this clause of the license:

This License and the rights granted hereunder will terminate automatically upon any breach by You of the terms of this CC attribution-share alike 1.0 License.

Finally while we do have (as I think you hinted) a conflict of interest with several contributors, and administrators, of wikivoyage having a share in Wikivoyage Press, Allowing for 3rd party distribution of wikivoyage content, is one of the stated goals of this project. Instead of the current parasitic relationship, it could be a symbiotic one - for example if you made a short (couple of paragraphs) introduction in the wikivoyage section, explaining that the content comes from wikivoyage, and users can go to wikivoyage and update any errors or add anything missing, and such additions would be immediately available to other visitors using the guide. Which is actually one of the greatest strengths of your business - so why hide it?

I hope you guys will take this seriously, and personally I prefer not be unreasonable, and give you guys time to comply - but I will take this forward to the creative commons and wikimedia foundations, as well as here on wikivoyage, if you plan to disregard this note.

Kind regards --(WT-en) Stefan (sertmann) ^Talk 15:22, 1 April 2009 (EDT)

Hi Stefan. You raise some really valid points, and it's definitely an issue that is bigger than me, (I was just hired to do this work). I'm going to show this to our CEO of Offbeat Guides, and he will get back to you with a response soon. In the meantime, is it still ok to work on wikivoyage, or should we stop until this is resolved? --(WT-en) MarinaK 14:17, 2 April 2009 (EDT)MarinaK.

No, No, No - While I really think this should be resolved, as I said, it's not one of my goals to be unreasonable either - please continue contributing to your hearts content. I'll assume good faith and trust these things are being dealt with, now that I brought it to your attention. I know this takes a fair bit programming to get fixed, so I'll leave reasonable time for the matters be fixed, before I start creating a racket. --(WT-en) Stefan (sertmann) ^Talk 14:28, 2 April 2009 (EDT)

Hi Stefan. I just wanted to give you notice that our CEO is away at a travel conference this week but will address this on Monday when he returns. Thanks! --(WT-en) MarinaK 14:46, 7 April 2009 (EDT)MarinaK.

Image licensing violations

Just a heads up in case you are not checking your shared talk page. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 03:31, 13 May 2009 (EDT)

Thanks for the notice Peter! You're right, I wasn't checking and haven't been on in a while. We're currently in talks with our lawyer to fix the violations that you and I had previously discussed, however, I'll go on my shared talk page and fix my mistakes. --(WT-en) MarinaK 14:31, 13 May 2009 (EDT)MarinaK.