User talk:Ground Zero/Archive 2021

Merging Fawley

@Ground Zero: Hi, can we merge Fawley into Hythe (Hampshire) as we have come to a pretty clear conclusion on the Fawley talk page. 82.3.185.12 13:51, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Spuds

Spuds is not still operating, I just graduated from Kutztown University and can attest that they closed in the Summer of 2019. --2600:387:3:803:0:0:0:AF 15:48, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

https://thekeystonenews.com/2020/01/31/spuds-closed-due-to-plumbing-damage/ --2600:387:3:803:0:0:0:AF 15:52, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikivoyage, the travel guide you can edit. If you see something that should be corrected or improved, please plunge forward and make the changes! I'll fix this one, but don't hesitate to make an edit the next time you see something that could be better Ground Zero (talk) 17:43, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

I did edit it, I was just telling you because you removed it the last time I fixed it. And you removed what I put in for TommyBoys in doing so. I was under a different IP address then but it can be seen in the history. --2600:387:3:803:0:0:0:80 17:45, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

So you did. I think I put it back in because their website was (and is) still up. But I checked TripAdvisor, and there hasn't been a review since 2019. Sorry about that. Sometimes we have business owners who add their information while deleting a competitor's. I thought that's what was going on. It helps to provide an explanation for changes in the "Summary" line of the edit screen. Thank you for your contribution. Ground Zero (talk) 17:49, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

An award for you!

	The Wikivoyage Barncompass
	Thanks for inspiring me to expand more of my stubs. Tourist Drive 33 will be up and ready in 4-6 days time TravelAroundOz (talk) 04:47, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

wikidata id

Hi Ground Zero

I was looking at Oceania itineraries and wanted to make Tourist Drive 33 & Grand Pacific Drive on the map. How do I do this? TravelAroundOz (talk) 06:14, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Never mind, I found out how to do it using Jervis Bay as a template. TravelAroundOz (talk) 07:07, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

An award for you!

	The Aussie Barncompass
	This Barncompass is to show appreciation for your great work on maintaining Tourist Drive 33. --TravelAroundOz (talk) 07:45, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, Ground Zero!

	The Wikivoyage Barncompass
	This Barncompass is to show appreciation for your great work on improving Portugal destinations on Wikivoyage. --Nelson Ricardo (talk) 17:36, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

@Nricardo: thank you very much. I am using Google Translate for any text I take from Portuguese Wikivoyage and Wikipedia. I hope that you will make any corrections that are necessary. Ground Zero (talk) 17:55, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Banners

Hi Ground Zero,

Thank you for adding the banners to the various pages! I was wondering if you do a few additional things when creating a banner?

• Please try to use the file naming convention of "[Article Name] banner.jpg" (i.e. "Canora banner.jpg"), or something comparable. Some banners have used the default of "[File] (cropped).jpg" which can be non-descriptive. When I updated Saskatchewan's regions, I requested file renames for the applicable banners.
• In Wikimedia Commons, please add the files to appropriate Wikivoyage banner category, usually sorted by province/state (i.e. [[Category:Wikivoyage banners of Saskatchewan]]). I usually also remove most other Commons categories with exception of the city.
• If possible, please link the banner to the city's Wikidata page under "Page Banner"; it allows {{pagebanner}} to be used on the Wikivoyage article without having to enter the file name.

This greatly help will organize the files. Thanks for your help! -- MuzikMachine (talk) 17:42, 23 February 2021 (UTC) @MuzikMachine:

1. I have started doing that, but I will try to be more consistent in renaming.
2. I wasn't aware that there were Wikivoyage banner categories in Wikidata, so I will look into that. I'm still new to Wikidata.
3. This is more problematic. user:Ikan Kekek has started a discussion about this at Wikidata. The problem with linking to Wikidata is that Wikidata applies the banner to all Wikivoyage language versions, of which there are 24. If users in English Wikivoyage want to change their banner, changing it in Wikidata changes it for all other Wikivoyages without any discussion or consultation. I think we need to think more on this before plunging ahead. Ground Zero (talk) 20:12, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

In my experience a local banner overrides the one on Wikidata. As far as I can tell, the issue in the case of San Gimignano was that the pagebanner template was formatted incorrectly[1].

I'd say it is desirable for banners to be added to the Wikidata entries, because this provides a banner automatically for Wikivoyages that haven't gotten around to choosing one. If a local community dislikes the Wikidata banner, they can override it. That said, if possible, it's more efficient for a bot to add the banners to Wikidata instead of us humans having to remember to do it. At one point there was a bot that did it, but I don't remember who operated that bot. —Granger (talk · contribs) 20:42, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Manilla NSW - Driver rest areas

Dear Ground Zero,

I am writing here as I cannot reply in the usual channels from my cellphone.

If I am to accept your edits in good faith, then you must accept my entries in good faith.

I have lived, travelled, and worked in the New England Region of New South Wales for over 35 years. Outside annual events, the places in this region are not tourist destinations in themselves, but places travellers pass through on the way to somewhere else, such as between Melbourne and Brisbane. Travellers here are mostly interested in where to get fuel, food, somewhere to sleep, and where to get help if they need it - they couldn't care less about lively descriptions and clever adjectives.

Driver rest areas are not just 'litter bins' - they are part of a network to provide long-distance travellers a place to rest after driving for 2 hours in order to prevent crashes due to fatigue. Travellers often stay overnight at these rest areas in order to save on accommodation and time, and knowing what facilities are available is important for that kind of traveller. Some regional councils provide litter bins, some don't in order to reduce littering. These rest areas are well used, especially during school vacation, and helpful places to pull over in case of vehicle trouble. The distances between towns in New England are quotes far.

Your blanket deletion of the rest areas and their facilities without you showing good faith by just deleting it without the courtesy and decency of asking me why they're included, and just dismissing them as 'litter bins' can only be interpreted as ignorance or bad faith and vandalism. To assert that I have included the town's litter bins is offensive and incorrect.

We're supposed to be like a team here, not undercut each other. I write for the travellers, visitors, and tourists of these places, and the businesses of these places that rely on these people to survive - I don't write for Wikivoyage editors or to be an aspiring travel writer.

The businesses relying on travellers and visitors to New England here are doing it tough, they have just come out of 10 years of drought, then forest fires, then floods, and now Covid-19 restrictions - so many have failed. The surviving ones need all the help they can get - which is why I am writing in Wikivoyage in the first place.

All the entries for New England are utter rubbish or non-existent until I started my work. Go look at the entry for Tenterfield - it's been terrible for at least 10 years! I try to include all the traveller would find useful in order to make their time as fruitful and enjoyable as possible.

So please, before just jumping in and wiping out the work for a place on the other side of the world from you, someone who is subject matter expert on the region, stop, think and ask before jumping in.

I won't change how I create my entries because I have solid and practical reasons for including what I do.

KevRobbAU (talk) 03:45, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi, KevRobbAU. I moved your thread to the bottom of the page because the last thread goes at the bottom of each talk page. So wait a second: is it not the default for a rest area to have a litter bin? If it is, I think we should reserve the mention of them to "no litter bin" when there isn't one. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:42, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

The more important factor for Driver Rest Areas is the fact that it's somewhere a driver can pull safely off the road for a time. A driver is more concerned with amenities like toilets and picnic tables. Not all rest areas have bins (partly as an effort for the local goverment to save money, partly as an effort to reduce litter on the highways), but its not something that determines whether a driver will stop there or not - they'll either take their litter to the next town or their destination, or unfortunately leave their litter behind anyway. The NSW State Government has webpage with a map of these rest areas with their amenities, which is where I got my details from. Listing whether or not a rest areas has a toilet or picnic tables is far more important.

KevRobbAU (talk) 05:20, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

I think we all agree on that. So maybe the trash bins in fact aren't essential to list (to be clear, I wouldn't have been motivated enough to consider whether to remove them, but I'm just saying). Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:46, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

@KevRobbAU: I will ask you again to review the edit in question here. I think that you may have looked at it quickly, and not understood what I was doing before you reverted it. That edit shows that

1. I did not "blanket delete the rest areas and their facilities".
2. I did not delete information about toilets or picnic tables.
3. I did not call rest areas "litter bins".
4. I did delete the information specifically about literal litter bins because I don't believe — and we seem to have agreement on this point — that this is information that travellers really need. (Again, please review the edit in question.)
5. I did make a bunch of corrections to punctuation and capitalisation errors, and you have now restored those errors.
6. I did shorten one sentence without removing any information.

I want you be clear that I do not question your contributions to Wikivoyage. You are making constructive contributions to Wikivoyage, and our Australian coverage could definitely be improved, so you are doing good work. I do want to work together, and I really think that the starting point of this dispute is a misreading of my edit. Please take a look at it again. Ground Zero (talk) 11:57, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

I will accept your acknowledgment of your misreading my entry as a regret. I too wish to collaborate and contribute. I wish to improve the quality and quantity of the Australian sections. But how and what I enter will not change. It's misunderstandings like this that do not help Wikivoyage to grow. I do appreciate the help the community has given me so far. But almost all the entries for this New England were far from acceptable until I came along, and all the larger towns still aren't. Take a look at the entry for Tenterfield - what a mess! And for Guyra, someone just put a redirection to Armidale on it for no good reason, there was not attempt to create an entry. And for Gunnedah, someone wrote how wonderful each hotel is in town, but no address or phone number for any of them! So I think its reasonable for me to be unimpressed for criticism of my articles while other rubbish entries seem to be ignored. Before I came along, if Wikivoyage deleted all the cities in New England NSW and made a clean slate, they wouldn't have been missed. I thank you for your understanding.

KevRobbAU (talk) 12:30, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

@KevRobbAU: uh, no. I think you have misread my edit, because you have written that I have done a bunch of things I did not. I am not criticising your entries. I am only trying to improve articles. You will see from my edit history that, like you, I have contributed to the improvement of a lot of articles. I agree with you there are a lot of Wikivoyage articles that need improvement, and that is why we should work together. Ground Zero (talk) 12:38, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

OK, I think I get you now. But you need to understand that travelling in the rural and regional parts of Australia are nothing like the places you're probably used to. As I said, the places in our New England region here are not high-volume vacation destinations, so lively reading articles are not going to help much. Aussies are pretty knowledgeable about our geography, they would already know the basic things about these places, so that is one reason why there aren't many full articles around. I also believe that creating fully detailed articles right from the start would help reduce vandalism, because as it stands, the entries I've seen so far for here aren't worthy of respect - I first had decided not to write anything at all at first:.; As an olive branch to all concerned, I'd like to offer my help in regards to subject matter about eastern Australia to those from not there who want to help and contribute. An ideal solution would be to have some kind of 'Oceania admin' to check over things published/edited here, leaving you and others to look after the places you know best. I don't want the gig myself, New England and the cities around it are going to take me months to get up to scratch. Thank you for your compliments, and when I get the opportunity I'd like to see your entries. I'm currently writing the entry for Moree - it's a very large town so it will take me a few days to put it to bed, but its a gaping hole in Wikivoyage. The only places I won't touch in New England here are Tamworth and Armidale, as they are relatively large cities and too much work for just one person to work on, it would take me weeks to improve it. Thanks again for your understanding. KevRobbAU (talk) 13:02, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. I am glad that we understand each other better now. Have a good week. Ground Zero (talk) 14:02, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Very late reply, and I'd be surprised if this is read by KevRobbSCO but we have an Oceania admin; DaGizza. Although he's not as active as GZ or Ikan, he still does do a lot of stuff on Australian articles. (and fiji too) SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 08:48, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks and request

Thanks for blocking the user disrurpting me on my talk page. However, I am requesting to hide the edit summary of the log (Special:redirect/logid/3663811) when they created my talk page with offensive text. Regards, Sun8908 (talk) 07:08, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

That should be done now. Sorry for missing that one. Ground Zero (talk) 12:09, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Pabfigaro

Seems like a rather hostile response, to delete all our remarks from their talk page. If they're going to be uncommunicative, we'll just have to act and watch their reactions. Sad if it comes to that, as they're a great content provider, but there are other great content providers like Soumya-8974 who never reply to any messages or edit summaries but also don't edit war or delete stuff from their user talk page (which they just apparently never read). Just thought you should know. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:18, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Does this edit require a block? What do you think? If so, what should the message be on their page? Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:35, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

I've taken one more crack at trying to get them to work with us. This would be the last time, though. I dont want to scare this editor away, but if they are going to continue to take the "my way or the highway" approach, we can't work with them. I will have limited availability until Friday, so I won't be around much. Regards, Ground Zero (talk) 13:38, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, much appreciated. And of course we all have lives outside of this hobby. :-) Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:52, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Unusual article creation from new user

Dropping in a word with you, because you seem to be the most active admin at this hour. I noticed some odd behaviour in recent changes from a new user, User:AnglaisEP, who made a copious amount of new articles with only a template outline -- not even any indication of where in the world they could be (though the names permit guesses), let alone the barest attempt to fill in sections. Puycelci is a representative example. I'm assuming good faith, but it's an odd enough behaviour I thought I'd check in with someone. Does this track with any known vandals/LTAs? Is this more likely to be someone overenthusiastic and unfamiliar with article creation, or someone spamming with bad intentions? Vaticidalprophet (talk) 17:19, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

We have one such regular, and "page creation vandalism" is an established term. I haven't checked the contributions, though. –LPfi (talk) 17:34, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

They seem to have taken a pause. I give them a chance to do something more about the articles and mass delete them later if they don't. –LPfi (talk) 17:38, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

I doubt that we will hear anything more from them. I hope I'm wrong. It would be great to see those articles filled in. Ground Zero (talk) 20:43, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

An award for you!

	The Wikivoyage Barncompass
	For maintaining articles from all different kinds and actively getting involved in janitorial work. Good work and I hope you are well. Stay safe :) SHB2000 (talk) 10:31, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

A certain particularly dumb LTA is currently vandalizing a huge swarth of pages. Heads up. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 02:35, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

@Vaticidalprophet: thank you for the heads-up. Ground Zero (talk) 02:48, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Is that the telstra guy? SHB2000 (talk) 21:42, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

An award for you!

	The Wikivoyage Barncompass
	Hi there, thanks a lot for making me a template editor and patroller. Something that'll really help me. Thanks again and have a great day :) SHB2000 (talk) 12:32, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

@SHB2000: Thank you. You made a lot of great contributions to this project. There is no reason why they need to be reviewed by other editors. Cheers, Ground Zero (talk) 20:26, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, this really makes my week. SHB2000 (talk) 21:37, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Last Edit Date

Why did the 'Last Edit Date' section inside templates change? It used to say "subst:#time:Y-m-d", but now it just has the date. Why do I have to change it every time now? 82.3.185.12 14:36, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm sorry. I don't know anything about this change. Ground Zero (talk) 16:38, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Okay, I see. 82.3.185.12 16:21, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Telstra

I believe this person is Telstra. 82.3.185.12 17:33, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the heads-up. I have blocked the user for a day, to start. I will watch for further abuse. Ground Zero (talk) 17:39, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

I believe ThunderingTyphoons! said that their usernames are a name followed by 2-3 numbers, so this one caught my attention. 82.3.185.12 17:41, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Very true. Mainly edits Australian articles. SHB2000 (talk) 23:33, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

This person might also be Telstra. 82.3.185.12 07:14, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Hence why I reverted his edit. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 06:18, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

@SHB2000: I see. 82.3.185.12 06:31, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

But blocking him isn't going to do anything. Most of his accounts have either one or two edits and thats it SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 06:40, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

@82.3.185.12: - But there is a template for his socks. Just tested one of them SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 07:06, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Then he sometimes creates accounts that he plans to make no edits like Garrend6704. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 10:38, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Blocked. Ground Zero (talk) 11:00, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

And RudyGarrity573. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 10:49, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

And this new one: Markus7443 SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 13:22, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure that I am comfortable blocking users before they have done anything, just on the basis of their user name. I don't have as much history with Tesltra vandal as other admins do. Ground Zero (talk) 13:51, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Pre-emptively blocking a user who may be Telstra doesn't make sense. Although their edits are more often than not very low quality, they're not abusive / offensive / criminal, and can easily be undone once made. Better that than accidentally blocking an innocent new user who just happens to have a username that wouldn't even be suspicious without the years of Telstra activity for context. There are also occasions when the Telstra person contributes good content. To be honest I don't even bother blocking the accounts anymore, just revert their edits where necessary.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 15:14, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Blocking isn't even necessary as he creates a new account for every edit. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 21:14, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Exactly. And there are lots of false positives. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:38, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

But I'm surprised that he still hasn't found out that we know his username patters. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 08:49, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

You're assuming he cares. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:04, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

SHB, I've wondered that, too. Ground Zero (talk) 10:35, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Brendo tries to deny recognition that we're leaving him messages. Plus, can we call him Brendo from now? It just doesn't seem right to call someone based on a provider that half an Anglophone country uses as well as well as it being the biggest company in Australia (i think User:Vaticidalprophet has also wanted this too). SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 11:01, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Did a little bit of research into Brendo here, and could this be the guy? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 11:44, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't know enough about this vandal to draw any connection. It's hard to imagine him holding down a job with any responsibility or that requires interacting with people. @Ikan Kekek: would be better placed to comment. Ground Zero (talk) 11:50, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

No one deals with Brendo except Ikan Kekek and I. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 12:00, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Not true. You forget you've only been here five minutes, and that some of us have been dealing with this guy for 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 + years.

Trying to track vandals down in real life is not a good use of time, and might have quite large unintended negative consequences.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 12:17, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't think that Albakry028 is Telstra, as they edit other sites and they have a userpage on Commons. 82.3.185.12 17:21, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

I assumed they were and summarily reverted their edits, one of which they thanked me for, so my mistake. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:05, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Harassment account

I'm pretty sure this is a harassment account (User:Antdeathtoo) as this guy usually says Antandrus as Ant. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 09:34, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Never mind, he's blocked. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 09:41, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Redirect

This edit didn't work. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:05, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

• Thanks. I've fixed it. Ground Zero (talk) 16:08, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Cool. I didn't even know it was possible to hide text and still have a working redirect. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:17, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

It does seem to work. I prefer to do that so that if someone does decide to create an article, they don't have to start from scratch. But I get frustrated by stubs that were imported from the predecessor site and have sat moldering away since. Useless web pages turn me off from websites, and I think when we take readers to articles that don't tell them anything, it turns them off from Wikivoyage. I know that redirecting is controversial at times, but there are some places for which we are not going to get good information until we have a bigger pool of contributors will to do research. Ground Zero (talk) 21:23, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Understood. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:54, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Indefinitely protect my userpage to myself and admins only

Hi GZ,

Just wondering if my and Antandrus' userpage could be indefinitely protected. It's been prone to vandalism ([2] [3] [4] [5]) and while Antandrus' hasn't, I'd not be surprises if it was and really, there's no reason for another user to edit someone else's userpage (unless obvious typos or something like that). And considering I'm one of this guy's 4 targets, wouldn't be a bad idea to protect all these userpages.

Thanks,

Stay warm and have a great day,

Regards, SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 12:34, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

I'll protect yours, as requested, and Antandrus', if requested. It's up to them to make that decision. You stay safe, too. Ground Zero (talk) 12:38, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. And by the way, I'll email you tomorrow (once I get some sleep) just some ways on how to tell if it's GRP who vandalises stuff with a personal attack directed at me and not w:WP:LTA/Wikinger. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 12:41, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Opinion requested in Talk:Jervis Bay

Hi there, your opinion is requested in Talk:Jervis Bay. I've proposed a major change and if done, this is fairly significant and will disrupt a number of articles. Thanks and take care, SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 08:51, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

What's the highlight of Canada

Hi there, working on some barncompasses here, and I can't decide what image I should put for Canada. I'll be starting on that tomorrow, but is there any highlight that is a must. Can't pick whether to put Vancouver, Winnipeg or Toronto. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks, and stay warm! SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 12:35, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Not Winnipeg. But I also don't think that Canada's cities are its highlight. I would go for a natural sight, like this picture from the Rocky Mountains. The Parliament Buildings in Ottawa are a significant image for Canadians, but I can't tell you what foreign travellers would says stands out. Ground Zero (talk) 12:49, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

I was thinking maybe Niagara, but the Rocky Mountains look a lot nicer (to me). SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 21:26, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Canada's parliament, Ottawa

Thank you

Appreciate your comments about reverting my changes. As a new user it was not a good introduction to the website but subsequent interactions have helped smooth things out. For my part I need to learn a bit about formatting, etc. Thanks again. Historys Stranglers (talk) 02:57, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

@Historys Stranglers: Well, if you don’t read advice, you have a bad time. I learned that the hard way on Wikipedia. JTZegers (talk) 17:17, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

@Historys Stranglers: unfortunately, Wikivoyage attracts a lot of vandals, and regular contributors work hard to fight them off. Sometimes we make mistakes about the intent of new users, which leads to a bad experience for newbies. I am glad that you were not put off Wikivoyage. It is a great project. If you have any questions aboutvthe project or need help, please ask. Ground Zero (talk) 17:24, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Giving User:Leaderboard autopatrolled rights

I was wondering if you could make Leaderboard an autopatrolled user. He's an admin on en.wikibooks, and most of his edits that he does here are either fighting vandalism or dealing with ljupco. And I've noticed in the last few days that his edits have gone unpatrolled. So I wanted to ask you whether you could give him autopatrolled rights.

Thanks! SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 12:20, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

@SHB2000: done. Ground Zero (talk) 12:23, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 12:24, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Banners 2

Hello trust you are well and my message meets you in good health, please would like to know how to change banners and resize images on WikiVoyage. Thank you--Zend2020 (talk) 05:13, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

It's pretty simple to use the croptool. The instructions are pretty self-explanatory and all you need to do is to set a 7:1 ratio. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 07:39, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

@Zend2020: as my Australian friend SHB2000 says, it's pretty simple.

1. First you choose a picture from Wikimedia Commons (I chose the picture for Ife Ife from here.
2. Then copy the file name into the croptool. Press "Open".
3. Now you will be able to crop the picture. The simplest way is to choose "Aspect ratio", and "7.1". This gives you the correct ratio for Wikivoyage banner.
4. Then you can select the part of the picture that you want to use.
5. Select "Preview", and in that screen, select "Upload as new file", and change the file name to something like "Ife Ife Nigeria Wikivoyage Banner.jpg". Copy the file name to your clipboard.
6. Select "Upload"
7. In the Wikivoyage article, paste the new file name into the {{pagebanner | }} tag at the top of the article.

I hope that helps. Ground Zero (talk) 12:14, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Also, just make sure you 'don't click "overwrite". From memory, I think it's the default one but be sure to change it to "upload as a new file". SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 13:33, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

SHB2000: good catch. I meant to include that in the instructions. Ground Zero (talk) 13:37, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

I almost forgot to change it once. Been pretty careful afterwards, but I still check to be on the safe side. (talk | contribs |en.wikipedia) 13:41, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

I've added this to the instructions. Ground Zero (talk) 15:55, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

I see this has been discussed recently, but general practice is to add to Wikidata as well. Instructions are included at this category page. To add a banner on Commons also make sure you include the respective banner's category; for example, a pagebanner of Paris would have the Commons category "Wikivoyage banners of France". --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 15:20, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

I am aware of that practice, and follow it myself. In providing advice to a new editor, is it a good idea to ask them to undertake these additional steps, or will that dissuade them from trying to add banners? Most of the articles that our Nigerian friends are working on are for smaller towns that are unlikely to get Wikivoyage articles in other languages, so I think the added steps won't be of benefit to other Wikivoyages. The work the Nigerian crew is doing to expand our coverage of their country is amazing. I don't want to bog them down with too many instructions. I think it us more important to get them to work on not violating copyright, using templates, getting coordinates right, not creating articles for bus stations, and so on. There is a lot for a new editor to learn. Although the Nigerians are learning quickly, let's not overwhelm them for some of marginal benefit, if any. Ground Zero (talk) 15:50, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. We can do the behind the scenes work for now. I think it's good, though, to give them familiarity with the rules so it's not surprise when they are introduced. But I'm definitely one for growing article content first, and then focusing on formatting, so that new editors are encouraged to add content without being overburdened with formatting. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 16:39, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Hi Ground Zero Thank you will try it out and if I have issues will give you a shout and thank you for the detailed explanation much appreciate.I reckon it will not be such a huge matter you learn by trying. --Zend2020 (talk) 06:00, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm happy to help. Just let me know. Ground Zero (talk) 22:14, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Banners 3

Hi Ground Zero,I haven't uploaded "Ede city banner" on wikicommon I will love if you will help me thanks! -- User:Favourdare123

@Favourdare123: of course. Is it your own picture, or did you crop it from an existing picture on the Commons?

If it is your own picture, here is your starting pointing first uploading it to the commons: start here.

If you used the crop tool to create it from aicturevtgat is already on the Commons, see step #5 in the instructions above that I wrote for User:Zend2020. Ground Zero (talk) 22:17, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

@Favourdare123: - also, to sign your messages, remember to sign it with the 4 tildes at the end (like this: ~~~~).SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 23:12, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Re:Expedition

Wow Ground Zero, This is very useful! We could use it as well i.e Nigerian Editors to check articles that need more work .I am so tempted to add my name. Super Grateful --Zend2020 (talk) 03:47, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

@Zend2020: Yeah, and we do have to give a big shoutout to User:Timmylegend and User:Haylad for organising this. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 03:54, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

@Zend2020:I'm glad it is helpful. I claim no credit for setting up the project page. It was @SelfieCity: who set up the page, and SHB2000 helped populate it. I just thought it would be a good idea to let people editing Nigerian articles know about it. Ground Zero (talk) 04:00, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

I thought TimmyLegend and Haylad organised it, but I realised they only set up the initiative of having Nigerian content improved on here and enwiki. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 06:02, 20 June 2021

(UTC) Ground Zero Great work and thank you to SHB2000 and SelfieCity —The preceding comment was added by Zend2020 (talk • contribs)

No worries mate! After all, we're just regular volunteer contributors to this project as well. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 03:04, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Palestinian Authority

The PA regularly orders suicide bombings against Iraeli civilians. They have turned down all five of the deals we offered them (often violently), to the detriment of those unfortunate enough to live under their rule in order to push their agenda of occupation and genocide against free democratic Israel. Sounds terroristy to me. Israel4Eva (talk) 19:08, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Something being true is not a sufficient justification for including it in a travel guide. We do want to focus on travel-related information, and avoid political debates. Ground Zero (talk) 19:40, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Zoom call

You and I should do a Zoom call sometime. Might help me get to know the site better, and could build a lasting partnership. Israel4Eva (talk) 02:57, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Really? The fact that one should never trust a random person online is a clean giveaway that you're doing something suspicious with wanting to do a zoom call. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 03:03, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Okay, maybe that's a little extreme, now that I think about it. Israel4Eva (talk) 03:15, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Israel4Eva, there are plenty of resources available for learning about Wikivoyage. I provided a bunch on your talk page. I think you should read those first. If you have questions, you can post them in Wikivoyage:Arrivals lounge. They are usually answered fairly quickly. Like everyone else here, I am a volunteer. I don't have the time to provide one-on-one training to people who think they might want to get involved. There are a lot of new editors who join, make a few edits, and then move on. I hope that you become a lasting contributor to this project, but I hope you understand why I am not eager to take up my time on a Zoom call with someone who joined Wikivoyage yesterday. Ground Zero (talk) 03:20, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Revision deletion

Seems that you missed a couple of instances, may want to check Special:RecentChanges. Leaderboard (talk) 11:57, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Also not sure whether the username itself warrants revdel, though if it does, my edit summaries would need to be revdelled as well. 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 11:58, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

@1234qwer1234qwer4: Wikivoyage is somewhat harder on this than other projects - see WV:Deny recognition. P.S: why don't you consider applying for global sysop? Leaderboard (talk) 12:00, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Unlike GRP, this guy doesn't paste links into his edit summaries, so a missed one won't do much harm. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 12:04, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Also @1234qwer1234qwer4: - why don't you also apply for abuse filter helper? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 12:05, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

@SHB2000 Request is already open at m:Steward requests/Global permissions#abusefilter-helper for 1234qwer1234qwer4 ;^) 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 12:07, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't think I would benefit much from this right (also, I don't even have global rollback), and I feel like Xaosflux's argument about adminship on content projects on my current abusefilter-helper request would be very much convincing. Either way, I have edited the Fuerdai global filter to match the recent spoofs; this appears to have stopped them for now. 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 12:06, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

@1234qwer1234qwer4: The entire "content projects" thing is a bit useless - personally I do not score this at all because it's more on what you do there that is more important. But I respect your position. Leaderboard (talk) 12:10, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

@1234qwer1234qwer4: Wikivoyage is a smaller project than Wikipedia, with relatively few active admins, so we tend to take an iron-fist approach to dealing with vandals. Thanks for your assistance on this. Ground Zero (talk) 12:26, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

For some reason, simplewiki has only 15 admins (WV has ≈50), but they do a similar process to the English Wikipedia. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 12:30, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

A lot of our admins are inactively or rarely active. I think only 15-20 are active. Ground Zero (talk) 16:43, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

The thing is that some of admins have really limited time, often spread across multiple projects. In my case during spring 2021 I was working on the foundation for our dynamic maps, OpenStreetMap. This improved our dynamic map coverage of New Smyrna Beach but it didn't show in my contribution history, and therefore made it look as though I was inactive. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 17:15, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

@SelfieCity: If you look at my contributions here, I look like a fairly inactive sysop there, and that's because no one has small wikis as their home wiki's unless they're really dedicated (in this case, no one knows fluent Nauruan from any WMF project). SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 06:19, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

True. So on that wiki, you guys still communicate in English much of the time. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 10:43, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Communication isn't a thing on that wiki, since I'm the only editor there ;). But yes, we communicate in English on Nauruan wiki's, not Lithuanian (former admin had Lith wiki as their home wiki.) But it seems to me, it's easier to get admin rights on a small wiki, than get rollback on the English Wikipedia. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 10:47, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Right, and as you’re always ready to step in when needed (you’re active maybe 12 hours a day?), and you log in there every other day, your admin rights there make sense. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 10:57, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm not usually active for this long (max 2 hours a day?), but since I'm on my 3 week winter break, and I was meant to go to the skifields (and I did leave on Friday), but my area was put on lockdown, so they asked everyone in our area to return back. (rather annoyingly, it was a 7 hour drive one way up and down the mountains, and being asked to return with no stopping, no coffee breaks sucks). Well, since it's lockdown, I've got a lot more time now, and have nothing else to do (I can't even see my mates now), thus my editing activities have increased, but that's only for a short period of time. But yes, I do things on that Wiki every so often and log in once a day there, but apart from that, not much activity there. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 11:03, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

A complete edit summary of this edit

Sorry for a slightly incomplete edit summary here, as I accidentally pressed the return key instead of shift, but FYI, here's the full edit summary:

I know I shouldn't be editing other people's messages, but I'm going to do what Ikan does and use British spelling since we don't want to confuse everyone with the different formats for different countries. After all, it's taken me 4 months to learn which format is used in just Asia, Latin America and North America, and let's just simplify things

Just letting you know (and for anyone else wanting to know my incomplete edit summary). Cheers, SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 00:51, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. I have not been adjusting spelling in the contributions by the Nigerian team because they seem to be using mostly American spelling, although not exclusively. I think it is better to let that issue slide, and focus on things like attribution, not copying Wikipedia verbatim, coordinates, spacing, and capital letters. Ground Zero (talk) 00:55, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Although a review of the websites of half a dozen Nigerian newspapers shows that UK spelling is used exclusively. Ground Zero (talk) 01:09, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Very true. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 01:10, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

An award for you!

	Nigerian café Barncompass
	For helping set up the café, and assisting users about how Wikivoyage works. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 01:33, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Brendan

I don't think this edit is Brendan's. He never edits as an IP user. The IP geolocated to the UK, so it can't be him. Plus, the IP has lots of constructive contributions as well. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 00:47, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion. Was looking at the IPv6 address, not the IPv4. My bad. But this IP geolocates to Brisbane, not Sydney. So I'm not sure if that's him. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 00:51, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

The edit looks like his work, aside from it coming from an IP. Ground Zero (talk) 01:41, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

True. It looks quite low quality so it may as well be reverted anyway. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 01:50, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for...

Thank you for nominating me for a sysop. I hope I can use these tools for the better, and while I may not have mentioned it at URN, your nomination was certainly a surprise. Went on Friday night, to the skifields, arrived Saturday morning. Two hours later, Greater Sydney was put on lockdown, and there I had to come back on a seven hour drive. But I was certainly delighted to see the nomination. I'll also be sure to take the speedy deletion bin more often ;)

Apart from that, enjoy your summer in Canada, and hopefully things are going well.

--SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 08:30, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Just letting you know...

ArticCynda has openly admitted that he will come back in September at the French Wikivoyage: voy:fr:Discussion utilisateur:ArticCynda, claiming "he is on a 6 month break". Just letting know to go on the watch in 2 months time. It's just an indirect way of saying he'll block evade. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 00:34, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. I hope to be on the road at that point but I will do what I can. Ground Zero (talk) 00:45, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

I also believe FredTC is monitoring him on nlwiki, so I would like to hear his opinions on ArticCynda's behavior and attitude there. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 02:13, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

SHB2000 He is editing correct and helpfull on nl:WV. On nl:WV we experience more problematic edits from Luchy04 (who also made some edits at en:WV) and ArticCynda is helping by making corrections to those edits. --FredTC (talk) 10:27, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Luchy04 is also a problem in the French Wikivoyage as well. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:33, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

@FredTC: also if you want to know why AC is banned here, see Wikivoyage:User ban nominations/Archive#ArticCynda: Block for repeated bigoted content in articlespace? and Wikivoyage talk:User ban nominations/Archive 2021-2023 as well as User talk:87.74.197.32. He still hasn't apologized as well. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:53, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

I am glad that AC is not being disruptive on nlwiki. His edits were for the most part constructive here, but when he crossed a line, it was clear that he was not willing to work with the en.voy community on our terms. Ground Zero (talk) 11:08, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

He's also not disruptive on fr.voy for the most part there as well. Over on fr.voy, it's the same Luchy04 who's making problems as well as on it.voy. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:01, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

That doesn't make me any more interested in dealing with him here again. He was given more chances than you'd find in a bucket of lottery tickets. Ground Zero (talk) 12:04, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

I also feel the same. I'm not too keen on seeing him back in September. But the only good thing he's done and I very much support was his support of Ikan's proposal on A1Cafel's abusive FoP deletions. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:14, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

I guess he came back today, three weeks after I expected him to. Anyway, SelfieCity took control over that. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 03:33, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

@SHB2000: thanks for the notice. I've been busy. I'll take a look. Ground Zero (talk) 14:23, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

He seems to have wrote a long rant on his meta talk page. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 21:24, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

The revert

Apologies for reverting your edit on Lombardy. I just reverted it since I don't know how much of the content by Luchy04 is a copyvio since Earwig's doesn't catch copyvios in a foreign language and Luchy04 has a history of copyvios on multiple WMF projects, particularly the French and Italian Wikivoyage's. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:43, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

No prob. Probably the right call. Ground Zero (talk) 15:50, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for changing that section heading. Also, sorry that it had to be you, because one of us probably should have done it already. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:03, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: thanks for your message. I was tempted to change it right from the start, but I wanted to hold off from engaging with the angry guy too much. In the future, I won't hesitate. Ground Zero (talk) 19:25, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Have you ever read meatball:DefendEachOther? Sometimes it's good to wait a bit, and let someone else (someone who isn't named in the discussion) make changes. IMO your initial instinct was solid: sometimes that sort of change can tend to escalate tensions, and that doesn't help. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:39, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Western and Way to Mongolia tours.

The domain name was sold in 2019 and the business are connected. Ikan and I were confused, but LPfi had solved the issue by doing more research about this. See the discussion at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist. Cheers, SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 03:32, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Okay. Thanks for letting me know. It looked like a competitor highjacking the listing. Ground Zero (talk) 04:13, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

It sure the hell did. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:15, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

It was why we blocked them in the first place :) Just wished that they used edit summaries. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 04:23, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Redirect Discussion

I think it's best if I put this here so as not to derail the Redirect discussion. My initial post was obviously made in annoyance however, it was not at you personally. It was at the way in which redirects seem to be created at times. I should not have written "Ground Zero's way of thinking", because I think the "way of thinking" is beyond any one user and writing it like that made that less clear. Nowhere in my post (or any other post) did I accuse you of taking any actions to sabotage site goals or to purposefully make the site less helpful for travelers. I know you are working hard to try and improve the site and I appreciate your work. This was a specific issue I brought forth that just happened to be from an edit that you made. It was not a fabricated issue brought forth to call you out. I have an issue with the way we do redirects (and judging from the discussion, lots of users are confused about and/or have their own issues/concerns about how and when we should redirect). My feelings would not have been different if the edit had been made by any other user. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 12:41, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

No. Personal attacks not welcome and it was directed at GZ. No one apart from us two do these kinds of redirects. Did you read my message with all the highlighted text? Also, FYI, you never apologized to GZ for your attacks (and yet you (+ Pashley) continued to call our redirects as harmful). SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:45, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

@ChubbyWimbus: thank you for acknowledging that I am working to improve the site. As I wrote before, the tone of comments like "without any research or consideration of the traveler", "creates frustration for the traveler", "redirects for the sake of redirects", "thoughtless redirects that will only frustrate and anger the traveler", "create redirects for the editors' sakes" gave me and SHB2000 exactly the opposite impression.

Saying that this is "beyond any one user", when there are exactly two users doing this work at the moment is, I think, disingenuous. Further, calling us a "cult" (a word commonly used for Aum Shinrikyo, Jim Jones, NXIVM) made it clear that you were looking for a fight, not a productive discussion. If you are frustrated, take a break from Wikivoyage instead of venting on other editors who are volunteering their time to build a travel guide. Wikivoyage:Keep Wikivoyage fun.

I have demonstrated that the premise of your first post was false, i.e., that I "redirect everything with insufficient content". You wrote that in anger, and t created a lot of ill-will. And it is false. Have you retracted that statement? Have you apologized for it?

And you never addressed your concerns with me directly. Instead, you used inflammatory language and made false accusations in the pub. Ground Zero (talk) 17:27, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

I do not keep track of what users are performing which actions, so if it is only you and one other user, it was not disingenuous. I was simply unaware. My impression was that this was more prolific than just one or two people. Even in calling it a "cult" (which would have been better left unsaid), it shows that I wasn't aware that it was just you. "Cults" require multiple people. If I had known that it was just you, I would definitely have taken a different approach. I do apologize for that. I really was not aware.

On your other points, you admitted to not doing any research before creating the redirect. That highlights one of the points of contention that I was proposing as part of the change. It was necessary to point that out. I don't think anyone should be creating redirects without proper thought and consideration, which to me, includes research.

The other comments are about what I see as the UNINTENDED results of such redirects. The unintended result is that it will "frustrate and anger the travelers"/"Create frustration for the traveler", and I believe that redirecting articles for low content in the article is not giving proper thought to what the redirects should be for. That is a point I was making in hopes of establishing a better way to think about redirects. I don't see "low/zero content" as enough of a reason to create redirects. I do not blame you or anyone for redirecting for that reason. My intent is to stop that from being a valid reason to redirect moving forward. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 10:48, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

I still don't think you're getting the point here. Me, GZ and tt! were not happy with the tone of your comments which were personal attacks. I then highlighted all of the text that looked like a personal attack, but yet you still refused to accept that, and call our redirects as harmful and called our comments of pointing out of the attacks as Language policing.

If you had wrote that message in a way, without personal attacks, and without picking on and attacking us and being more civil, focusing on the content instead of editors, then we would have responded in a much more nicer, and more efficient way without all this fuss, but it's too bad that you're getting thrown over for the bed you're made for yourself.

Now I understand that it wasn't solely you who called our redirects as harmful. Yes, I know that Pashley said that before you, but you continued it on. But still that language was unacceptable. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:59, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Calling a redirect 'harmful' should certainly not be considered "unacceptable". Granted, it is a matter of opinion and others may well disagree, but it is "focusing on the content instead of editors" and if I think some edits are harmful, I will say so. Pashley (talk) 12:39, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Pashley, did you learn your lessons at vfd when GZ told you to reconsider SelfieCity's claims as "dumb". Your doing the exact same here except instead of "dumb and arbitrary", it's "unnecessary and harmful". I would like for you to reconsider your words. Your speech isn't being restricted here, but offensive speech and attacks, as you know, aren't welcome. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 13:10, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

@ChubbyWimbus: clearly you did not do any research on the work I have been doing before attacking me in the pub. You could have reviewed my edit history. Or started a discussion with me on my talk page. Or, you could have asked for other views in a civil way in the pub. Instead, you came in with all guns blazing. How does that make Wikivoyage better?

Calling my work the work of a "cult" is a personal attack no matter whether there were other editors doing similar work or not.

Your claims that "without any research or consideration of the traveler", "redirects for the sake of redirects", "thoughtless redirects that will only frustrate and anger the traveler", "create redirects for the editors' sakes" can only be interpreted as an accusation that I am not working here in the interests of travellers. Building a better travel guide for travellers is the only reason I work here. You can disagree with my methods, but don't question my motives.

Adding in "unintended" now, a week later, doesn't change your accusation that I am working in the interests of editors, and not of travellers.

Your combative approach and falsehoods have poisoned the well here. Don't be that guy. Ground Zero (talk) 21:52, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Of course I didn't look into all of your edit history. I told you that I was not aware that you are the only one creating these redirects, so there didn't seem to be a reason to try and "suss you out". As I've stated repeatedly, the post was about what warrants creating redirects. It wasn't about you. I didn't think it needed to be said that the consequences I was referring to were "unintented". I never questioned your motives. If I actually believed you were creating redirects for the purpose of confusing travelers or some other troll purpose, I would have been very direct about calling you out. I would not fabricate a topic to take jabs at you. I don't have time for that.

In a similar vein to what Pashley said above, I think creating redirects based on article content is "harmful", and I wanted to point out an example and explain. The example was your edit and the explanation required talking about that edit and the justification that I think is flawed, but it wasn't ABOUT you. I admit that I came in too hot and some of the phrasing undermined my own point. The parts that you highlight just above were not those parts, though. They were about our philosophy of permitting redirects for articles just because they have little or no content. If an article can be redirected for that reason, research is not required. I don't agree with that. I do believe that sort of redirect is "thoughtless" and is a "redirect for the sake of redirects" and that sort of reason for creating redirects is entirely managerial. If research and knowledge isn't required in order to make the redirect, we cannot say that the redirect was created "for the traveler". That doesn't mean it was created to undermine the guide or the traveler. It is also not a user (you, in this case) acting against the site or traveler. I believe it is currently a permitted reason. It is a flaw in our permitted reasons to redirect, which is why I started the discussion. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 13:21, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

The only example you provided was a redirect I made, so of course it is about me, including the bit about "redirects for the editors' sakes". You have not cited any other examples. I have improved that redirect now — it took only a few minutes — and now I am going back to building a travel guide. This pub brawl you started has not done anything to improve Wikivoyage or the community. Ground Zero (talk) 13:56, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

I hope we could end this discussion. Everybody involved could think about whether something they did could have been done in a better way, and whether there is something that could be done to undo the mistakes or to avoid repeating them. I don't think we need more of pointing out mistakes. It is unfortunate that the wordings got the discussion off trails from the beginning, but I think we should try to leave that behind.

I don't think the current thread can lead to any conclusion, as it is infected by its history. The discussion itself is valid: we need to clarify our guidelines on what to do with weak outlines. I myself would support changing them, but that is not important, the important thing is to have guidelines that allow administrators and other janitors to act reasonably in line with the guidelines without too much personal responsibility in balancing the two.

I don't know whether the best way forward is to just kill the threads and come back later, or whether the discussion could be had from a clean table now, with a new heading and an as neutral as possible presentation of the issues and the stands made. I suppose CW is the only one who can solve the situation, choosing either path and treading very lightly.

–LPfi (talk) 14:15, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree that the current discussion should just be shut down. It is not a constructive one. I am always in favour of constructive discussions that make our policies clearer, but I am not convinced that this is a big problem. If someone disagrees with a redirect, then they can redirect it somewhere else. Or better yet, they can add content to create an article that is useful for travellers. This is a technique I have used here and in Wikipedia to rescue articles that have been nominated for deletion. Adding content is a better use of time than a policy discussion that might not achieve a consensus. Ground Zero (talk) 14:40, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't agree on it not being a problem, but this is not the place for that discussion. Let's have the discussion when somebody manages to start it in a constructive way. I'll probably start the discussion myself at some point, from a clean table, unless somebody does before me. –LPfi (talk) 14:52, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

Union County merge

This is a private discussion discussing the merge discussed in Talk:Union County (New Jersey) Please let me know when and if the merge will happen. I was told to make the Rahway article, but to avoid confrontation, I won't make it until the discussion is closed. Thank you.--JTZegers (talk) 14:39, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

@JTZegers: I hope there isn't confrontation here. I made a proposal, and got feedback, so I made a very different proposal to reflect that feedback. I think it makes sense to wait two weeks before proceeding with any reorganization to make sure that we hear from everyone. I don't see any reason to wait before creating Rahway, though. If you think it is worth having an article, and have information about the town to contribute, then you should go head and start work. Regards, Ground Zero (talk) 15:19, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Formatting and spelling

Since it seems like it is only the two of us who are quite into formatting and spelling, I thought it might be a good idea to ask you for some feedback to a new template which I created at {{formatbox}}, which makes it a lot easier when something changes. It's still a work in progress, but any feedback will be greatly appreciated. (I still haven't added a notes variable for time yet, particularly useful for Quebec, or a note to say for places that are heavily undecided like Australia where all government services tend to use 24, but businesses use 12). Cheers, --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 07:24, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

I've added it onto Talk:Chile. Have I missed anything? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:19, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

It looks fine to me. You may meet resistance from contributors who are generally against templates, so you should make clear what the advantages are over the current infobox approach.

I don't agree with having a policy that suggests using different formats within an article, though. This is unnecessary complexity. To make articles easier to read, I think we have to pick one and stick with it. Travellers will generally interact with government services only at points of entry, and then will be using shops, restaurants, and hotels thereafter, so I would go with whatever those establishments use generally. There will always be exceptions. Ground Zero (talk) 12:35, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

There's always the template haters here (but as you can see from x-tools, about 500 of my contributions are to templates, but mostly for my barncompass project), but the advantages are the clear ability to distinguish everything. And when I mean by government services, it also includes public transport as well (such as this one which I once took frequently). The extra comment box is also optional, although I doubt it'll be used apart from Canada. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:43, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

A template update, the major differences in spelling should come up automatically if you enter |spelling=new zealand, it should come up with

Please use New Zealand spelling (colour, fiord, travelled, centre, realise, defence, artefact, onto)

Also learned that the Philippines apparently has its own spelling with "traveller" and not "traveler", which is quite interesting especially that rather for policy pages we're not using American, but rather Philippine spelling ;). SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 00:25, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Pages in Japanese characters

Probably just w:ja:LTA:SLIME so I revoked TPA and reported the IP to stewards. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 22:24, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. They didn't seem to be very tenacious. Ground Zero (talk) 22:35, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Previous accounts include The Tokyo Metropolitan Government is in the way and Vegetables nauseous. Dealt with him on ja.wikisource SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 22:45, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Well, I do find that the Tokyo Metropolitan Government is in the way a lot of the time. I was just trying to move the sofa this morning, and that happened. ;-) Ground Zero (talk) 22:50, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

My sofa was a bit too old and become unusable since last week, but last night I needed something to replace the couch and they were definitely in the way ;) Ended up using my beach chair (I know it sounds silly, but for the most part, it worked.) --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 23:04, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Seems like he decided to create more after his 2 hour block ended. I've extended it to 2 weeks now, and hopefully the IP gets globally blocked by stewards soon. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 09:20, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Link to small pages

You mentioned on the pub that there was a page in the Special: namespace, but what was that page? Can't seem to find it. Might start to work on some of those. Thanks, SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 02:49, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

The Maintenance Panel (on the menu at the left of your screnn) has a bunch of special pages. Here is the one I mentioned: Special:ShortPages. The first 80 or so that are listed are disambiguation pages, extraregion pages, and other pages that I haven't been able to do anything with. After that you get into pages that should be expanded or redirected. I am often coming across places where over-enthusiatic editors have created more sub-regions than are needed (or are sanctioned by wv:wiaa's dictum that "Geographical units should be large enough in scope to have at least 4 or 5 good quality destinations or attractions"). See talk:Western Iran, for example.

I'm sorry you're having a rough time with the templates. I kind of see the point that others make about templates being a barrier to new editors, but it is frustrating not to be able to use something that saves time and effort. Regards, Ground Zero (talk) 03:03, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the message. I might consider working on these, since working on places where I have better knowledge has somewhat hit me emotionally. I'll also comment on western Iran as well. Take care :) SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 04:00, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

noon or midnight?

this makes it look like noon to me, but I just wanted to double check whether the 12AM used here means noon or midnight. Thanks! SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 04:18, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Linking new articles to Wikipedia/Wikimedia commons

Swept in from the pub

This is something I've never learned how to do. How can I link a new article, Piła, to Wikipedia/Wikimedia commons? Or is this done automatically? The article was created on July 24th, and no link has been made yet. Thanks. Ground Zero (talk) 22:12, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Add the Wikivoyage article to the corresponding Wikidata item.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 22:21, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Arigatō, sensei. Ground Zero (talk) 22:26, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Croeso.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 10:04, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

FYI

I have copied you on an email regarding an issue to our sites' security from vandalism. It would be appreciated if you can read and respond to that email. Thanks. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 00:02, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Also an FYI, but there seems to be a couple of Fuerdai impersonators on simple and commons, so just a heads up. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 00:10, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

@SHB2000: Thanks for the heads-up, although to be clear, this has no relation to that vandal. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 00:12, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm aware of that, but I didn't want to start a new thread. Imposters often use image related vandalism on userpages, such as on s:User:Vermont. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 00:16, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Vichy

nice work on it... Always hate that google translate autoconverts 24 hour clocks into 12, but it's much quicker than manual translation :) SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:55, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, this is a brutal project. I'm amazed that English Wikivoyage only had a skeleton article on Vichy. The French article uses a lot of templates for times, which is what I think screws up Google translate. It doesn't even translate consistently: I was finding things like "19 pm". Ground Zero (talk) 12:02, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

The French Wikivoyage uses templates for everything, which is one of the reasons why ThunderingTyphoons! suspects that it has a low amount of editors, and the lack of coverage outside Europe and Africa (even our New Caledonian coverage is better than theirs). Despite all that, it only took me two days to get the hang of their templates, but that's not the case for everyone. I've been a lot less active there these days, but because I don't do anything but travel content there (which I've also slowed down in light of trying to save a global sysop from losing his privileges because of a content dispute on pt.wikinews). SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:19, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Teach me please: why one should not ask about such ads?

Re your: https://en.wikivoyage.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Iraq&oldid=prev&diff=4278915&diffmode=source -

1. Does it thus fall under WV:Tour or another WV policy?

2. Why have you reverted me and not explained on the Talk page (or at least in the comment), also for the benefit of other contributors? Now that I found it, WV:Tour advises us: "If you have a question [...] please use the talk page of the appropriate article to discuss your concerns", which I had instinctively posed there myself, as I would do in other WM projects.

Bows, Zezen (talk) 12:38, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

That I believe was a fingerslip rollback. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:49, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

@Zezen: I apologize for reverting your question. It was an accident, and I restored your comment immediately.

I think that it is okay to list a service like this, as I explained in the article's talk page. But I tried to see if the company is still in this business, and I cannot find any information about it, so I removed the listing. Best regards, Ground Zero (talk) 12:51, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Namaskar

Deep bows to both, for both actions. I am still finding my way here, and I may thus miss a policy or two. Have a fine day! Zezen (talk) 12:54, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Yeah the fingerslip advice on en.wikipedia is not really followed here, because it isn't a policy here. (and yet I was threatened there to be blocked for edit warring using rollback with a WMF banned user). SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:58, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

No easy way to find that policy; could you please link it? Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:21, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy and the actions I did with rollback which I was threatened to be blocked. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 22:24, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Cree

Just wondering, but is Cree still spoken day to day anywhere? I've seen photos of signs being trilingual (with either French or Inuktitut on it, meaning it must be spoken day to day somewhere). We don't have a Cree phrasebook, and Google doesn't give me much, and the Cree Wikipedia needs TLC (quite sad that my only two edits over there had to be this :(), and thought you'd know better. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:49, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I believe it is still commonly spoken, but Cree-speakers would speak English or French as a second (or first) language, as far as I know. Ground Zero (talk) 12:01, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. Wish there were more Cree speakers though (someone needs to revive that Wikipedia). SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:02, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

CBC North and APTN have programming in Cree, and other indigenous languages. Wikipedia says that there are 117,000 people who speak Cree. One of the challenges with Cree is that the eastern dialects are written in the Latin alphabet, while western and northern dialects are written in w:Canadian Aboriginal syllabics. The same problem exists with Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit (formerly called "Eskimos"). Writing articles in Cree would be an excellent school project. Ground Zero (talk) 15:52, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

What I find rather interesting is that with smaller really small language Wikipedias, rather than it being edited by native speakers, it is rather just edited by one or two non-native speakers, who only edit it because they're interested in that language as opposed to promoting free knowledge. Or you get a case like the Cebuano or Waray Wikipedia where 90% of the edits are bots (although that has changed now). SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 02:02, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

And then there is this. It's a big problem. Have you ever checked the recent edits for Wikitravel? It seems to be mostly account creation, with very little article editing going on. I haven't figured out what that is about, or why anyone continues to edit in that museum piece. Ground Zero (talk) 02:20, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm quite surprised that the RfC for the Scots Wikipedia is still going on. There was a similar issue with Stewards questioning whether someone's Nauruan was accurate or not (because they were blocked on the incubator for "contributing in languages they don't know".).

Oh and to Wikitravel, I wonder who still edits there? I've got an account there, but I was quite unaware of the history between the two sites at that time (and hence why only three edits there and to prevent impersonation from my hater who spends hours on Wikimedia sites trying to harass users), but I've done some unusual stalking and there does seem to be a couple of admins here who regularly edit there as well. But I actually wonder who would want to read that site anyway? And not sure if it is just me, but I'd never trust giving my credit card onto a site that is built by non-verified travel guide writers (I mean sure, this is the same, but then I'd be going somewhere else to pay, and not here, and I'd never want to do that when sites like these can get vandalised easily). I just had a look in recent changes, and this was the main edit of today ;-)[6] SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 02:36, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

That is epic. I believe that the admins there are paid employees of Internet Brands. I can't imagine that there are any volunteer admins left. Ground Zero (talk) 02:52, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Probably not, and most would have had moved to Wikivoyage by now (it also makes it easier when trying to edit Wikipedia as well, as well as no ads). SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 03:46, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

And more userpage spam: [7]. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 04:00, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I did another check over there today, and 80% of all activity there were spambots ;). And that is excluding blocks and account creation... I still wonder what is the purpose of keeping it a "for profit" site. (I'd speedy retire if I found out my information was made commercial.) SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:19, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Unfortunately that site still ranks high with search engines. As long as it does that, the owner will continue to try to recover some of its investment. In this case, a for-profit with crowd-sourced content model failed, but TripAdvisor thrives. I don't know why one works and the other didn't. This would be a question for an MBA research project to study. I wasn't around at the time, but I gather than IB, which bought Wikitravel, put most of its effort into monetizing the existing content and did little to improve the project, so the volunteer editors were unwilling to continue contributing. Ground Zero (talk) 11:28, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Probably. Probably why spam pages like this don't last long on WMF servers. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:00, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Also just an FYI, however, if you're ever translating something a Wikipedia article from the Southern Philippines, I wouldn't say the Cebuano Wikipedia is reliable, given that more than 90% of its articles is made by bots (hence why it has the second most amount of articles after en) and I don't know how much of it grammatically makes sense nor even how it gets the info from. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:35, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Good to know. It sounds like it may have been bot-translated from English Wikipedia. If the English Wikipedia article is good, I use that. If it isn't, I'll look to see if another language Wikipedia offers more. It sounds like Cebuano Wikipedia won't. Ground Zero (talk) 21:24, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

It might also have been translated from the Tagalog Wikipedia, but I'm not too sure. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 21:34, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

User:Ground Zero/Milli Vanilli

I was just removing {{cite web}} from all pages, and I stumbled across that page. How did it end up in your userpage when it seems it's only been edited by IPs and Wikipedia bots (and some users who were reverting vandalism)? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 07:42, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

That's really weird. It looks like it was userfied from Wikipedia. I don't know how it ended up here. I will delete it in a few days after some research. Thanks for pointing that out. Ground Zero (talk) 11:19, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Pretty strange to be honest, as I also don't see anything in the import log as well. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:00, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Here are links to two discussions: [8], [9]. I think that the short answer is that I was experimenting with the import tool to move Wikipedia articles that had been nominated for transwikiing to Wikivoyage. At some point, I read the Milli Vanilli article in Wikipedia, but I have no idea why the import tool put a corrupted version if it in my userspace. Ground Zero (talk) 12:04, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

To be fair, I've never been a fan of the import tool. I once tried importing {{ping}} onto a smaller wiki, but all it did was break Template:Infobox (which took me a week to fix from a version on Commons). The only one thing I wished that the import tool could do was that files could be imported, and no, it does not seem the case. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:19, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Now I remember those discussions. Weirdness, but plausibly explained. –LPfi (talk) 12:25, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Edit conflict

I'm not sure what happened here, but thanks for fixing it. I usually get a notification when I bump into an edit conflict, but unusually I didn't today. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:53, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

No worries. I figured that's what happened. Ground Zero (talk) 12:55, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

I don't know why, but the edit conflict tool hasn't been working properly these days. This seemed to be one example, but a couple of days ago, it claimed I was in a so called "edit conflict" on Tooleybuc for an edit that I had made two months ago. Strange. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 13:00, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Links to Wikipedia

re Special:Diff/4312473.

Interestingly, the French Wikivoyage always does this (and they also link to Wikispecies as well). It was one of the first unusual things I noticed when I started to edit there. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 02:54, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks...

for the numerous cleanups for the new articles about Quebec such as removing links to Wikipedia, and removing boring shops per wv:boring :) Have wanted to do that, but wasn't too sure which shops to remove per wv:boring but I have fixed some templates up. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 03:41, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

It's a bit of a chore, and it is a pity that the new contributor doesn't seem to learn by reviewing others' edits, but they are adding some much good content that it is worth doing the clean up work. Thanks for your help too. Ground Zero (talk) 12:22, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

From what I've noticed, Omondi has also been cleaning up their work on fr, to one point where one of the coordinates pointed out to Kazakhstan... (although I'll admit it, some of my coordinates end up either in the Indian Ocean because I'd forgetten to include a 1, or near Japan because I had forgotten to include a - sign). At least these days, apart from the Wikipedia links, and shops that aren't relevant for travelers or are restaurant chains, and the occasional French text that appears, they've largely learned off (and so there's no more "manage the daily" section popping up). But these articles are definitely worth the cleanup work, as we rarely get such high quality rural area articles in the first place. -SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:33, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Hex colors on Arizona

The color change seemed to come up for me, although you can't really change the colours on the static map, hence why I'm not a huge fan of static maps. But for the dynamic maps, I'll put Arizona on my list on getting the regions on the dynamic map.

Unfortunately, this is not just with this article, but a lot of our state/provincial/territory articles have the issue of just {{mapshape}} being added and hoping the mapshapes will come up on OpenStreetMaps, when this entire region structure was made up by Wikivoyage producing nothing on the dynamic map.

I recently did an experiment on New South Wales, trying to get the regions on the map before Sydney was featured on the main page. It requires some time to do, although thankfully AZ does not have the issue of undefined regions and a factually incorrect static map. And because those regions were entirely artificial, I had to go onto OSM and define it by LGA (hence why I switched the New England regions proposal). It took me a week to do, but the result is worth the effort and much better than sticking {{mapshape}} with the Wikidata property when it produces nothing. I don't think Arizona will take that much time to do, given that the Wikidata properties for counties on OSM would likely already exist, with only a few remaining.

I suppose when I do this, we could change the hex colors, and it wouldn't be too much of an issue, at least with the dynamic map, but we'd need someone to fix the static map, as I'm not an Inkscape expert. But I'd certainly keep an eye out for the colours when adding the regions to the dynamic map, as I've also just recently unilaterally changed the hex color for one of the regions as the blue was too similar to another one in New South Wales.

Hope that explains everything, but thanks for pointing that out. It should be fixed within the next month or so, depending on my schedule. Apologies for a very long message (and my inconsistent use of "color" and "colour" although there's a reason for that) ;)

--SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 06:12, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, this is a little over my head (or, perhaps, a lot). I'm glad that you understand it. It would be great if you could fix Arizona, but I understand this takes time. Thanks, Ground Zero (talk) 20:35, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

It's definitely confusing. It took me a while to grasp this. I used Portugal as a starting point, which I'll likely use that format for Arizona. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 22:36, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

A quick question

Currently working on Dinosaur Provincial Park, but would like to know whether the Canadian spelling of paleontology is the British "palaeontology", the American "paleontology" or the typical Australian "both are equally acceptable" before moving it into mainspace. Thanks! SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 23:15, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

I've seen both. University of Calgary uses the American version, but the Royal Tyrrell, which is an amazing museum in Drumheller, uses British. Let's let the park in question be the tie-breaker and go with British. Ground Zero (talk) 23:32, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

I had a similar issue when writing Naracoorte Caves National Park, but went with the American, only because I preferred the American. I'll switch all of those to the British. Was kinda surprised that there was no article for this park for some time, but here it is. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 23:39, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

When I was creating Canadian parks articles, I made sure that all of the national parks were covered. There are just too many provincial parks too do them all, and many are too small to warrant an article. They are often more about recreation than conservation, so a listing is enough. Dinosaur Provincial Park, though, is a key one, so thanks for creating the article. Ground Zero (talk) 21:41, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Yeah I don't know how I'm going to be able to create an article for all Australian national parks to be honest. It's doable for states like Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania (all have around 80 combined), but to states like New South Wales or Queensland, which have around 225 and 230 national parks respectively, that is going to be a tricky job and many are similar in condition to most Canadian provincial or American state parks, or even on the other side of Australia, a Western Australian conservation reserve.

Probably going to do your suggestion of one-liners which I'll likely do in both the region article and the relevant state national park topic article, as some of these have truly nothing in it (such as Capoompeta National Park which the parks website mentions "There are no facilities, except the scenic roads through the park.", or even something worse: from Mallee Cliffs National Park "A policy of restricted public access for education purposes is maintained to assist in meeting conservation objectives. The park is used for educational activities by schools and colleges. Research activities which are relevant to the management of the Park and compatible with conservation objectives are encouraged.".) --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 22:06, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Service stations listed in a get around section

Have a look at the Saint-Paulin article. Is it standard to add service/gas/petrol stations in the get around section of an article? I've never seen this in any article before, but would like to double check before removing. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 03:52, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

I know. We don't usually do that. But the new contributor is adding so much good content that I am being cautious about harassing them too much over style. I recently addressed the issue of adding in businesses not related to travel, and they seemed to be receptive to the advice. Gas stations are at least travel-related, so I'd be inclined to leave them, for now. Ground Zero (talk) 13:33, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Okay sure. I also had the same feeling that both of us were just doing far too many style fixes and I was kinda worried whether that would drive them away. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 20:23, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Congratulations...

for creating 100 articles (or really, 101 as Kemeri National Park isn't included in the count) on the English Wikivoyage. I always for some reason, read the Canadian park articles you started when I'm bored, and they're certainly well enjoyable to read. Although for some reason, X-tools says you've created 136 articles (excluding extraregions), but if that's the case, a belated congratulations :D. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 08:15, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

I've probably missed counted, so I wouldn't assume that x-tools is wrong. Thanks for pointing that out. I will have to go back and check what's on that list. I'm glad you are enjoying the Canadian national park articles. It looks like armchair travel will be the thing for 2022, too. Regards, Ground Zero (talk) 02:27, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

I had plans to go to Seattle early next year, but that doesn't seem likely with Omicron. Yeah with covid, I've just been reading random park articles from all around the world (that are either usable or higher). It's also how I found out that Georgian Bay Islands National Park was prematurely upgraded. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 02:41, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Templates at the top of a page

Interestingly, I've also never noticed them until Ikan brought it up at the Nigeria cafe ;). Pretty useful for getting an article usable on edit one of that page (such as Marramarra National Park). --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 02:47, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

I've been trying to clean up Hungarian region articles, which kind of look like the storage room in an elderly relative's house, and have been creating article after article recently. One click to create the template beats copying and posting any day. Ground Zero (talk) 02:54, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Definitely. I'd imagine it's more useful for phrasebooks as the bare outline takes up 11k bytes (and the more complex ones like the Portuguese phrasebook take something like 83k). SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 07:00, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Here you go!

After 5 years, (https://en.wikivoyage.org/w/index.php?title=Brahmapur&oldid=4321223) Brahmapur article's issues have been fixed. 2006nishan178713 (talk) 10:04, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

• @2006nishan178713: Wow! The article looks so much better now! Great work, and thank you. Ground Zero (talk) 12:13, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

  😁 2006nishan178713 (talk) 12:50, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Guadeloupe

	The French Barncompass
	As always, it was a pleasure working with you in cleaning the country article up. Have a Merry Christmas :) --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 22:17, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

I was just about to send a message to you about what a great collaboration that was. Happy Christmas to you, and let's hope that 2022 is a better year. Ground Zero (talk) 22:25, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

I hope that too. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 22:38, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Coords in Nnobi

I readded them back, but I've adjusted the map so it won't affect the focus of the map. In saying that though, the airport[s] look[s] like it's in another state, so the airport listing[s] may as well be removed. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:05, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing the maps. That's a better way of doing it. I havexstarted removing distant airports from the new Nigerian articles, where sometimes the article has seven "nearby" airports, but no information about the town. :-( Ground Zero (talk) 10:14, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Bogoro is another one. I think it's only Grace789 who's doing that, so just need to keep an eye out for their articles, but who knows if someone else is doing that as well. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:18, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

this page seems to have a list of all the articles they've created. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:19, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I've cleaned a bunch of them. Ground Zero (talk) 14:16, 26 December 2021 (UTC)