User talk:Dnshitobu

Hello Dnshitobu! Welcome to Wikivoyage.

To help get you started contributing, we've created a tips for new contributors page, full of helpful links about policies and guidelines and style, as well as some important information on copyleft and basic stuff like how to edit a page.

If you are a Wikipedian then you may notice some differences in policies and the style of our articles. These include:

• NPOV → be fair (not quite the same thing!)
• be bold → plunge forward
• Village pump → travellers' pub
• External links → We do not use a separate external links section, but incorporate primary links only into the text itself.
• sandbox → graffiti wall
• stub tagging → Article status

It may also be very useful for you to check out Wikivoyage:Welcome, Wikipedians. If you need help, take a look at Wikivoyage:Help, or else post a message in the travellers' pub or on my talk page. Thanks for contributing! Ibaman (talk) 17:20, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Phrasebooks

Dnshitobu, do you know all the languages you're creating phrasebooks for? If so, that's impressive! How many languages do you speak? If not, why are you starting these phrasebooks? Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:19, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

btw, you may want to include a user-language scale on your userpage. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 09:44, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

@Ikan Kekek Well I don't speak all those languages but i believe in starting this things and since it is a mass contribution platform, other users who speak these languages might pick it up and by the end of the month, they would have been great enviable articles. Sometimes, some people do not know those things are possible until they see others start it. I didn't know you could create phrasebooks on Wikivoyage until last week so I have decided to help out people like me to help out. Dnshitobu (talk) 11:10, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Please stop, in that case. This is not a mass contribution site like en.wikipedia, but a medium-sized wiki at most. Creating blank articles for languages you don't know - or anything else - is harmful, not helpful. We will have to nominate all of those for deletion and waste time discussing and deleting them. Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:35, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

@Ikan Kekek I am sorry I will stop then but please do not delete. Others could continue it soon. We are currently running a contest and others will improve them just like I will also be improving other pages. Dnshitobu (talk) 14:40, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

We've been burned by the creation of multiple phrasebook articles by a user who didn't know most of the languages before, so once burned, twice shy. I am willing to wait a bit to see if anything develops, but I wouldn't be able to stop anyone else from nominating blank phrasebooks started by someone who doesn't know the languages for deletion. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:15, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Also, thanks for the link to the contest page. Could you tell us what the rules of the contest are? This site definitely needs more coverage of travel-relevant content relating to all parts of Africa. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:17, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

@Ikan KekekThank you for that. I am sure speaking to the coordinators will be much helpful but I will alert them to make the rules clear. @Timmylegend and @Haylad might be very good to explain further Dnshitobu (talk) 21:28, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

@Ikan Kekek: and @Dnshitobu:, We are very clear about the issues raised, during the onboarding session we mentioned that participants are to create contents in which you can fill up the sections in the proposed article, for a phrasebook, you are to create a phrasebook for a language in which you speak or have basic understanding of. The contest rules are stated here also. Haylad (talk) 11:23, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

@Haylad: uhm... (the first paragraph is the one that relates to this discussion). --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 11:46, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Haylad, we all know Wikivoyage needs much more coverage of all parts of Africa, but what we don't need is to have another contest without notice to us that encourages people to start as many articles as possible and has the predictable result of encouraging people to start blank articles about topics and destinations they know nothing about or copying and pasting either relevant or irrelevant information in violation of copyright laws and Wikivoyage policies. Is it possible you could do something to stanch the damage? The last contest you guys created caused us huge headaches and unnecessary work, cleaning up things afterwards. Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:46, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

From the contest rules:

One point (1.0) would be awarded for every new Wikivoyage article.

One point (1.0) for every 1000 bytes of content for the articles.

There's your problem. Adding 1000 bytes of content takes effort and time; creating a new article doesn't. Yet they're worth the same in points. That doesn't seem to be well thought-out.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 22:04, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Adding 1000 bytes of content doesn't take effort if it's just copied and pasted. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:16, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

@Ikan KekekI understand that I copied and pasted some text from Wikipedia, but how about the content that was not copied but borne out of so much search on maps etc. I even copied and pasted because I thought once they are both Wikis (Wikipedia and Wikivoyage), they are both mutually intelligible and content can cross platforms till I read the copyleft and for which I assured you that I was going to update. This attitude you guys have shown me in the past days can scare people away from volunteering services. Do you know how much time it takes to gather hotel names, restaurants and the like as well as their coordinates. Please feel free to delete whatever you want, I am getting tired of all this back and forth. I don't know how many words you need for me to explain to you that they will all be updated. In fact, the contest is suppose ot end by 31st January and having given you the link to the project page, I thought that would have been enough. As admins, we all understand these things yet we give participants the benefit of the doubt until the set periods are over then we enforce strict rules. Please let me know your thought if disagree or have divergent views. Good morning Dnshitobu (talk) 08:07, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Understand that we're all volunteers here, and that the last time there was an editathon focused on Nigeria, it took us months to clean everything up because of all the copying and pasting and irrelevant content (such as for places hundreds of kilometers away) that was put up. We want good contributions, but if we scare away people who are 80% creating problems for us for 20% usable content, OK. Meanwhile, I'm glad you now understand things better. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:30, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

@Ikan Kekek Well noted! We move but I have some few observation. We will wish that since not only an individual can finish an article, stubs should be allowed and not deleted quickly so that others can help improve them. I see that deletion is so fast and before you return to improve it, it is long gone. It is not a fair deal per my thought. Imagine the number of people staying in a city who will want to write about the little stuffs they know of these cities and they end up deleted because the first person who created it didn't provide all the required information. Dnshitobu (talk) 13:49, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Dnshitobu, this approach comes from a lot of experience in having contributors who create a lot of stubs and then leave the project, expecting other people to turn their stubs into useful articles. Because Wikivoyage has very few regular contributors (compared to Wikipedia), the result is that these stubs are not improved by other editors, so when readers arrive at the stub articles, they find nothing useful. When a website wastes the reader's time, they don't come back to the site. This is why we ask new contributors to focus on writing a few useful articles, instead of a lot of useless stubs.

I have provided some guidance to you below on how you can turn your stubs into useful articles that won't be deleted. (I just improved the Vryheid article, too.) I hope you will turn your attention to improving the stubs you created. I will assist you as you go along. Ground Zero (talk) 14:23, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

@Ground Zero Thanks for the support. I don't have any intention of leaving my articles as stubs. I will continue improving them. Dnshitobu (talk) 14:34, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Great! I'll look forward to seeing your contributions. Ground Zero (talk) 15:27, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

"Get around"

Just so you know, that section is literally about forms of transportation that enable people to get from one place to another within a destination such as a city. These look like they might be things to see. If they are of likely interest to a visitor, please create Wikivoyage:Listings for them, using Wikivoyage listing templates with basic information, including their locations (the name of the city is not helpful as a location, but a street address and geocoordinates are), open hours and admission charges where relevant, and what is interesting about them. Thanks very much. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:56, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Low-quality outline articles

Dnshitobu, it's great that you're trying to improve Wikivoyage's coverage of places that have traditionally been, to say the very least, poor, but do you have plans to add useful content to the 71 articles you've created so far? Most of the articles you've created:

• are skeletons that only contain the necessary section headers, whether it be a destination article or a phrasebook
• contain only a few listings that do not have contact or any essential info
• have not been integrated within the hierarchy tree (that is, every destination article needs to have a valid Wikivoyage region in the {{IsPartOf}} template below "Go next")

It would be highly desirable if you added more content to these articles before you continue on an article-creation spree; if nothing is done, then these articles will either be merged, or deleted through the Wikivoyage:Votes for deletion process.

I should also mention that if you're doing this for a contest, this project does not take an attempt to either: a) game the contest system, and b) use the contest as an excuse, lightly, as this leaves more work for other users to clean up.

Best, --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 06:57, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

December 2022

Please do not infringe copyright, including copying text verbatim from Wikipedia without attribution, as you did in various articles – read Wikivoyage:Copyleft for more information. Several articles you've created have been speedily deleted, while all others have been nomination for deletion on Wikivoyage:Votes for deletion#Articles created by Dnshitobu (talk · contribs); you are welcome to cast your opinion on that page. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 07:56, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Improving articles

Dnshitobu, I am glad to see more articles on towns in Ghana and South Africa. Wikivoyage needs more content about Africa. As other editors have explained, Wikivoyage has quality standards for its articles. I have worked on three of the articles you created — Walewale, Wenchi, Yeji — to demonstrate how these articles can be improved so that they can stay in Wikivoyage. I added details to the listings, re-wrote some of the text, provided attribution to Wikipedia on the article talk pages, and incorporated some additional text from Wikipedia. Please take a look atvthose articles — this should give you some ideas about how to improve the articles you've written. Thank you for your contributions so far. Ground Zero (talk) 13:09, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Dnshitobu, I have improved a few more articles — Rwamagana, Saldanha, Savelugu, Keta — so I think that these articles will be kept. Copying and pasting the same text across a bunch of articles, like this, isn't going to do anything to make these articles worth keeping. I think it would be better to focus on adding information on how to get into these towns, and adding information about the listings you've already created. That would be more useful to travellers, and so it would make the articles worth keeping. Ground Zero (talk) 14:37, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

I've completed the work that I am willing to do on the articles nominated for deletion listed here. If the other articles are not improved, I expect that they will be deleted. It's up to you to decide if you want to do anything with them. Ground Zero (talk) 13:21, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

@Ground ZeroThank you so much. I have seen all the good work you have done. I am working on that, but at a slow pace because of the back and forth at the end of the year. Dnshitobu (talk) 20:05, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Hotels, restaurants

Could you try to find other information for the hotels and restaurants you are adding, like an address and a phone number? Putting a marker on a map is helpful, but an address (even just a street name, or a nearby landmark) would be even better for travellers. Thanks. Ground Zero (talk) 17:13, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

@Ground ZeroWell noted Dnshitobu (talk) 18:11, 1 February 2023 (UTC)