User talk:Jc8136/Archives

Chernobyl

Jan,

I saw your comments on the Chernobyl talk page. Is it really possible to spend the night in the nearby town? Have you ever been there, because I'd like to ask you a couple questions? Thanks. (WT-en) Sapphire 04:13, 26 April 2006 (EDT)

I have never been to Chernobyl but I have seen several articles from high reputation newspapers and magazines (e.g. Die Zeit) in Germany that wrote travel reports about visits in Pripyat. Maintenance crews stay in Pripyat for 15 consecutive days. If you want to do a tour and stay overnight I suggest you contact a specialised travel agencies like Hamalia in Kiev (make "eco tours" to Chernobyl) or contact the travel desk of "Die Zeit". Two journalists (Erwin Koch and Hans Schuh) visited the area and this weekly German newspaper has a very high standard. If you have any further questions just ask. Others are maybe interested as well so i will bring in informations on the kiev and chernobyl pages. (WT-en) jan 04:53 (EST)

The one thing that I'm really curious about is which cities outside the Area of Alienation are still inhabitated and could provide services to travellers. I'd be a little weary of spending the night, though, visiting the area does appeal to me. I think it would be quite amazing to see the ghost towns and would hopefully inspire politicians to ratify the Kyoto Treaty and possibly save our enviroments. (WT-en) Sapphire 05:05, 26 April 2006 (EDT)

There is an amazing article about the people still living in the exclusion area of Chernobyl. It's all in German but as you lived in Germany you might get the context. Names of towns and people are in the text. So if you really want to visit it, you just need to contact the author. Hopefully everybody really make up their mind and at least recognise the damage to the people and nature such an incident has... I wish the Kyoto Treaty would work but I assume for that some politicians in your home country need to change their mind. (WT-en) jan 05:17 (EDT)

Unfortunately, my German isn't up to par. I used to be able to understand spoken German, almost to a point of semi-fluency, and written German to an intermediate level, however, as I haven't used German since November '04 it seems I've almost completely forgotten German. I'll have to enroll in the Goethe Institut. I'll use one of these web based translators to help me out with the phrases and sentences I have difficulty on. Last year, while I was travelling to Poland, I read a story in the International Herald Tribune about the people that refused to leave and how Chernobyl is becoming a tourist destination. I was watching CNN around 3 in the morning (EDT) and they had a story about the 20th anniversary and that's what sparked my interest today. I'll be spending the latter half of this year in Germany and Poland so I was thinking that I might want to venture in to Chernobyl. As for the American politicians don't get me started. If it were up to me I'd impeach everyone from mayors to the president and and declare myself president. I'd work to decommission dangerous nuclear plants and prohibit anyone living in major cities like New York from driving their cars to cut down on smog and pollution. Grrr. I hate politicans. (WT-en) Sapphire 05:36, 26 April 2006 (EDT)

I read your page and really liked your straight forward attitude. If you really run for president you got my support. Back to the chernobyl page. I saw you changed a lot and when you use the breadcrumb link on top of the chernobyl page the kiev link is wrong. Could you redirect and delete the template in between? At the moment the link goes to Kiev_(Oblast) instead of Kiev Thanks,(WT-en) jan 05:46 (EDT)

I've changed the breadcrumb link to list Ukraine instad. The Oblast (Ukrainian version of a state or region) is called the Kiev Oblast, but for whatever reason it wouldn't display the correct link. I've just reverted it to earlier version because I was becoming quite upset trying to figure out why it wasn't working correctly. Check it out and tell me if that works for you. (WT-en) Sapphire 06:10, 26 April 2006 (EDT)

Thanks mate now it works perfect. I think it is good that you linked it to the main Ukraine page because Chernobyl is a national symbol/tragedy. (WT-en) Majoona suggested in the Chernobyl talk to make Chernobyl part of a Get out section. I would like -contrary to that- to bring it forward to a kind of memorial (like Hiroshima/Nagasaki is in Japan). Do you agree? (WT-en) jan 07:17 (EDT)

I do and I think that it would be such a unique experience that the great majority of people visiting Ukraine or Belarus, Russia would have to travel a significant distance out of the way that it probably should have it's own article. I see where she is coming from, but I believe that it is such a unusual travel destination that it is seared into history and I think it may be best to leave this as an article, which, I will update as soon as I go there. I'll take some photos and find out more about the area outside the Area of Alienation, which will be possibly make this article more useful. FYI: The radioactive pollution from Chernobyl was 400 times greater than that of Hiroshima (Fact from Wikipedia). (WT-en) Sapphire 07:27, 26 April 2006 (EDT)

Hi Jan, FYI I replied on the Talk:Chernobyl that I am now in agreement that Chernobyl should be its own article... thanks for all the great info on this interesting topic! (WT-en) Majnoona 11:31, 26 April 2006 (EDT)

Ross

Hello! Please take a look at Project:Article naming conventions and Project:Disambiguation. I can go ahead and fix the Ross issue if you'd like, or feel free to plunge forward and make the change yourself. Let me know if you have any more questions! (WT-en) Majnoona 11:13, 3 July 2006 (EDT)

I made some updates to the disambiguation of Ross. It's not very obvious from the policies, but US cities usually use the state as the disambiguator, such as San Jose (California). I've updated the two Ross's in the US to use California and North Dakota for disambiguation and updated the links to those pages.

And thanks for updating the COTW - guess we all kind of forgot, but I suppose it's appropriate to have Washington D.C. appear on the 4th. -- (WT-en) Ryan 04:39, 4 July 2006 (EDT)

I had problems to bring the result for Budapest in the pcotw? Could you do the statistics and let me know how to do it.. Although the banner on the DC side is not 100% correct, what i did wrong? (WT-en) Jan 04:42, 04 July 2006

COTW

Hi, Jan! I read your comment on User talk:(WT-en) Sapphire about my edit of Project:Collaboration of the week and I thought I'd respond.

I haven't done a lot of CotW work before. I originally had put Cambridge and Odense in the "Unscheduled" section, but then I re-read the Project:Collaboration of the week#Nominating section, which said this:

If an article meets the criteria above, add it to the "Upcoming" queue. There is no need for a discussion to select an article just for a week. Displace another article only if your nominee has to get into shape for something that can't wait. In that case, move everything in the queue down by one place. If it does not meet the other two criteria, feel free to simply replace the article.

Cambridge (Massachusetts) is the site of the upcoming Wikimania 2006 conference (Aug 4-6). Odense is the site of Wikisym 2006 (Aug 23-26), the official wiki conference of the ACM. I thought it would be cool if people at those conferences could use Open Content wiki guidebooks for their trips. Conferences aren't "can't wait" items like, I dunno, broken legs or women having a baby, but getting the guides into shape in November or December won't be as useful.

If you think that those two articles should be later in the queue, or just put back in the "unscheduled" pile, please plunge forward and move them, or if you don't feel comfortable with that, let me know and I'll move them myself. Actually, if you think that, just remove them -- they're not really important to work on specifically if they're not done in time for the conferences. --(WT-en) Evan 22:32, 12 July 2006 (EDT)

Hi Evan! Thanks for your comment, I appreciate it. You gave good reasons for fast tracking the two destinations but I was a bit surprised to see this destination in the line up. Usually I (and the others) follow a chronically line up of the nominations. Jumping the queue is seen normally quite rude to me.

I think if you would like to make Cambridge and Odense a "show piece" to present the core strengh of Wikivoyage we might use a different approach. In the Wikivoyage_talk:Collaboration_of_the_week#Suggestion:_Article_Improvment_Drive user Worldtraveller suggested to bring up an Article Improvement Drive for special interest articles or create a site like World Cup 2006 for Wikimedia conferences. This will have a much better attention because destinations like Odense are not really touristic destinations... but others will share your interest in that conferences and contribute. This might even be better because the other guys participating in that conference can drop their knowledge. With Cotw it's gone after a week and like Dili few addons will be done. I will let your destinations stay in the line up but maybe you nevertheless bring up a special page. (WT-en) Jan 03:09, 13 July 2006 (EDT)

Barnstar

Barnstar

In appreciation of your exceptional work and dedication to keeping the Collaboration of the week project going, I hereby award you the Barnstar. Thank you for your organizational effort! --(WT-en) Evan 11:49, 10 October 2006 (EDT)

Thank you for the barnstar. I will try to keep the work running even if the year end rally at my office started a bit earlier. (WT-en) Jc8136 16:39, 18 October 2006 (EDT)

Admin?

If I nominated you for administrator, would you accept? The magical "delete" button is easier to use than writing VFDs... (WT-en) Jpatokal 10:36, 8 October 2009 (EDT)

Jani, i would accept the nomination as administrator for the English version of Wikipedia with pleasure and would be glad to do the janitorial work if the WT community provides the trust in me. (WT-en) jan 04:07, 9 October 2009 (EDT)

Admin

Welcome to the club! See Project:Administrator's handbook and start mopping.

Re: spambots, completely obvious ones can be blocked for 3 months, with IP and account creation allowed (so legit users at the same ISP are not affected). If in any doubt, raise it on Project:User ban nominations. (WT-en) Jpatokal 12:03, 24 October 2009 (EDT)

Kuta

I remember that you wrote a lot of the original Kuta article. I have just finished a map for Kuta and am struggling with the location of one listing. Did you add Kedin's Cafe by any chance? Other than somewhere on Poppies I, I do not know where this is nor can I seem to find out. If you do know, please look at the map and let me know how close my guess was (!) and precisely where it should be. Cheers. --(WT-en) Burmesedays 22:41, 12 November 2009 (EST)

Hi! I did not put up Kedin's Cafe and I do not remember that business on Poppies I even so I stayed at Poppies twice for a week in the last 18 month. Sorry but some open and close quite fast... (WT-en) jan 04:37, 13 November 2009 (EST)

Yup. I think it came and went quickly as nobody has heard of it. I will go have a look at the weekend though. Thanks anyway. --(WT-en) Burmesedays 06:25, 13 November 2009 (EST)

DoTM

Thanks for the heads-up Jan and I will have a look. Hope all is well with you and that the freezing winter is not too unbearable. --(WT-en) Burmesedays 06:50, 1 February 2010 (EST)

More holidays would definitely be better but in the office it is at least warm ;-) (WT-en) jan 07:07, 1 February 2010 (EST)

User registration swarm

That is indeed an awfully suspicious batch of user registrations. Since none of them have made any edits, I suppose there's nothing to do with them now (it's a pity we can't add individual user contribution pages to watchlists), and hope that any future mischief will show up in routine patrolling.... Might also be a half-broken spambot script, one that creates accounts but fails to follow through -- a lot of the 'bots are obviously badly coded. I get a surprising amount of e-mail spam that's completely blank, no body, no attachments! -- (WT-en) D. Guillaime 00:35, 26 February 2010 (EST)

Deleting accounts isn't directly supported by the MediaWiki software -- presumably there's a way to do it with direct database access, but of course none of us have a tool quite that dangerous. Unfortunately, I think the same restriction is true for checking if all those accounts were created from a single IP address... certainly not possible with the admin tools we can use.

It's not as convenient as the red exclamation point, but should those accounts make changes after the waiting period, they will still stand out ever so slightly on RecentChanges for their as-yet-uncreated talk pages. Not having received the welcome message is usually an indicator of new editors, so any such edits might still attract the eye of someone checking them out before leaving a personalized welcome. Certainly not ideal, but better than nothing.

I vaguely recall another rash of registrations last summer (± a few months) that was almost certainly automated, but then nothing else ever happened. Maybe we'll get lucky again? -- (WT-en) D. Guillaime 03:23, 26 February 2010 (EST)

This could also be students registering during a class. I don't think that the types of user names here follow any visible pattern, making it less likely that they are from a bot. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 00:07, 27 February 2010 (EST)

IB

Hey Jan, we are trying to coordinate the building of a letter/response to IB from WT admins, but want to do so off-site, since it is a sensitive issue. I would really appreciate your input—could you perhaps create a dummy gmail account to preserve your anonymity and then email it to me (or just post it on my talk page, since it would be a dummy account), so I can invite you to the Wave? --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 17:06, 1 March 2010 (EST)

Germany Top Picture

Oh sorry, that was an accident! The Germany page on the Chinese version was a stub, so I had the English page in one window and the Chinese on another to update them. I wanted to make that the image on the Chinese version, but I must have accidentally entered it into both of them (although it won't work in other versions anyway). I'll put the gate image back. (WT-en) ChubbyWimbus 23:20, 12 April 2010 (EDT)

On second thought... Do we have a nicer picture of the gate? I don't mind the gate as the picture, but that one is dark and dreary. It's not a very appealing image. (WT-en) ChubbyWimbus 23:23, 12 April 2010 (EDT)

What about the image used on the Wikipedia article? (WT-en) LtPowers 08:29, 13 April 2010 (EDT)

Lt Powers: WP has a really good picture and it's licensed under cc-by-sa 3.0 so we can use it. Do i need to upload it at share again? Thank you for the hint. I will nevertheless have a look at my personal files from the gate and maybe upload it later. (WT-en) jan 09:46, 13 April 2010 (EDT)

Yes, you'll need to upload it to shared as we can't use files directly from Commons. (WT-en) LtPowers 14:24, 13 April 2010 (EDT)

Singapore edits

While the anonymous user in question is clearly behaving rudely, our policy on allowing someone to remove a rude comment (to which no one responded) is very clear. As a Wikivoyage administrator, it's especially important that you uphold these policies. If you disagree with a policy please propose a change, but until that change is made uphold the existing policies. Please undo your revert. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 11:09, 19 May 2010 (EDT)

Ryan: I was in the process to draft a response to the anon user when you reverted and therefore took away the possibility for an appropriate and polite response (according to our policy then the deletion would not be anymore justified). Lately several anon users started to insult me and i think that while we usually ignore that it should not become precedence that people who care about Wikivoyage can be treated totally unrespectful. The response of Burmeseday indicate the same intention for me. (WT-en) jan 11:20, 19 May 2010 (EDT)

Ryan, for what it is worth, I do not think it is very clear at all. I guess this is the relevant statement: If, in the heat of the moment, you said something you regret, go ahead and change that, too. I would not automatically understand, "change" to mean "delete". Like Jan, I had until now understood that comments should never be deleted from a talk page.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 11:28, 19 May 2010 (EDT)

I'm not familiar with the situation, but if I could step in: I would not expect a section titled "Etiquette" to consist of enforceable rules. Etiquette consists of standards of behavior but is not usually intended to have any authoritative impact. In otherwords, I'd call anything labeled "etiquette" a guideline or suggestion, rather than policy. (WT-en) LtPowers 11:47, 19 May 2010 (EDT)

None of our policies are "enforceable rules" - they are guidelines that are subject to change - but admins in particular have agreed to uphold these guidelines as a part of becoming an admin. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 11:49, 19 May 2010 (EDT)

The policy is clear that if someone writes something they regret they can change it (provided no one has responded), and that includes removing a comment if they regret saying it and want to take it back. As is also stated, if someone responds to a comment then the original comment shouldn't be removed, but since you stated "comments stay as written on the talk page" as your reason for undoing the initial removal, that is counter to the current policy. For what it's worth, one of the most valuable skills a person can learn from contributing to a wiki is how to ignore baseless insults - being able to keep an even temper when an anonymous person starts spouting off at you is hard, but it's reasonably satisfying when you're able to do so. In this case the anon is clearly not someone worth devoting much attention to, and I'd highly recommend treating his/her insults as not being worth your time. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 11:49, 19 May 2010 (EDT)

Re: Burmesedays - point #5 in the list is "As an exception, it's impolite to remove a comment if someone's responded to it. It makes them look ridiculous." -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 11:56, 19 May 2010 (EDT)

Sound advice from Ryan I think Jan. Stand above it. On deletions from talk pages in general, thank you Ryan, I have learned yet another WT guideline.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 12:00, 19 May 2010 (EDT)

Ah, sorry to have reverted—had I seen this discussion, I would have been happy to allow Jan to do it himself. My apologies! --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 13:53, 19 May 2010 (EDT)

You are all so kind to me ;-) Rarely I have a weak moment and let give temper place... (WT-en) jan 15:40, 19 May 2010 (EDT)

Rinjani

I just did a basic page for Rinjani I originally did this to set up a re-direction as I kept on inadvertently typing Ringani instead of including Mount as a prefix. I assume there are others out there as vague as I am so I thoiught I would do a redirect. Having no idea how to do this I failed and so did a basic page with a understand section and links to Mount Rinjani

Please help me out with this and let me know what is the appropriate way of handling this.

If proceeding with this basic referring page then ...

How do I insert this at the top? Asia: Southeast Asia : Indonesia : Nusa Tenggara : Lombok : West Lombok : Mount Rinjani. (WT-en) felix 02:36, 24 May 2010 (EDT)

Done and I have explained how to do a redirect on felix's talk page. The geographic breadcrumb trail (not necessary for a re-direct) is created by using the IsPartOf template at the bottom of any edit page. Insert the lowest level parent article name into the tag. In this case it would have been West Lombok so the tag would read {{IsPartOf|West Lombok}} and that creates the trail.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 02:54, 24 May 2010 (EDT)

Thanks for that Burmesedays, so know I know how to do it. Thanks for doing the correction and establishing the - re-direct -link, it needed to be done(WT-en) felix 03:31, 24 May 2010 (EDT)

German in Austria

"I strongly urge you not to start an edit war like him" I wasn't intedning to, just pointed out that Austro-Bavarian is completely unthreatened as a first language, even in Wean/Wien/Vienna, whatever...Anyway, I've almost never ever heard German being spoken amongst ourselves. Why? Because German is basically a second language to pretty much all of us which we learn through media and later in school, where it is expected to be spoken. And take my grandmother for example. She's 75 and does not speak a word of anything other than Austro-Bavarian. According to popular belief, German has almost replaced Austro-Bavarian in Vienna, well truly I tell you, that is complete and utter rubbish.

Source: I am a proud Viennese who speak fluent Austro-Bavarian, (Austrian) German, English, Slovak and Hungarian

Comment: I just want to kill those who seem to think that Austro-Bavarian = Austrian German, when it is really a separate though similar language, while Austrian German is just a variety of German spoken as a second language, with some vocab differences and a more mild and liberal pronunciation.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen (WT-en) Andreas Schwarzenegger 19:04, 3 June 2010 (EDT)

Andreas: Do you think your offensive and aggressive behaviour is making your point better? I encourage pluralism and everyone has the right to speak their preferred language. It might be that in your family that traditional ways are maintained but you can't deny that other people might have choosen different ways. To say because you speak Vienniese/Austro-Bavarian assuming that all other people in Vienna do, is pretty ridicolous (and you know that).

Killing threats (I just want to kill ) are totally unacceptable (even as a joke) because here at Wikivoyage we discuss if we have different opinions in a dignified and mutual respected way! I strongly urge you to reconsider your attitude. If you want to discuss seriously do at Talk:Vienna otherwise i suggest you leave Wikivoyage.(WT-en) jan 17:07, 3 June 2010 (EDT)

Austria

Andreas Schwarzenegger Austria

Arrgghhh, which part was wrong in your opinion? Austrians genereally say Griaß God or Griaß Gott but not Grüß Gott in everyday life, and the correct Austrian German accent in not distinct (WT-en) AndreasAndreas 22.57, 2 september 2010 (EDT)

Andreas, so many other users have left messages on your talk page and you never reacted to any of these. First, your constant rewrites to Austro-Bavarian are not in line with our standard practice as even on Wikipedia it's seen as an academic topic and definitely not one for travelers. Second, German is the official language spoken and understood by everyone in Austria. Third, people do say Guten Tag and not only Servus. Trying to write the words in AB is not going to help anyone. (WT-en) jan 17:05, 2 September 2010 (EDT)

Wikipedia links in Wikivoyage articles

Hi, re Bali could you help me understand the/your issue with WP links in articles as you just removed a couple recently from one of my edits. The WP links were in context and I would think they were assisting an understanding of the article but likewise I also assume there is some WT guideline on this otherwise you would not have done this. My assumption is that when a reader goes off into WP they are likely to not realise they are in a different domain as the two wiki's look a little similar hence be lost to WT and their revenue on page hits. So assuming you have a (WT policy) reason for doing this then please indulge me and let me know what it is. Thanks (WT-en) felix 08:58, 16 September 2010 (EDT)

Hi Felix! Thank you for your note but our policy concerning external links is very clear that only primary links will be accepted. Also we have a link to the Wikipedia Bali article on the left side in the toolbar. Main reason is that it is very difficult to define the focus on what Wikivoyage wants to include. Wikivoyage is a lively written travel guide and some information about the bombings are in the Kuta (where it happened) article but the focus is on travel and not encycopedic statements. I think the article don't benefit from the links and the security measurements before might have been a bit below international standard. I didn't experienced any harder then average checks at the airport (not to mention the very light controls in Lombok for domestic flights...) so it's nothing very special. I hope that clarify your question. Thank you for your work and regards, (WT-en) jan 09:56, 16 September 2010 (EDT)

Hi Jan, thanks so much for getting back to me so quickly. So what you are saying here is that my WP links to the 2002 and 2005 bombing articles were; "Wikipedia articles that have a different subject to the Wikivoyage article" (as per your guidance to external links). Then following on from this - what should happen ideally is that the reader goes to the -Wikipedia- link in the side bar and explores the WP Bali article and then maybe that might link through to these 2002 and 2005 articles (which BTY it does). So this is pull not push in terms of the article content links. The reader has to think for themselves to go to WP to get the information. I would not normally have linked to a WP article in this way but knowing what a contentious issue the 2 bali bomb incidents are to so many travellers I though this may be a good way to help clarify some of the issues that people have without pouring a whole load of 'bomb' information into the article. Those 2 WP articles seem quite succinct and linking to them would go a long way to clearing up some of the nonsense notions that some people have about visiting Bali and Indonesia in general, indeed they may be instructive to those who do have trouble thinking for themselves and believe that visiting Indonesia involves seriously heightened levels of personal risk.

Being unsure what to do with the WP links I looked around for something like external links but could not come across it. So thanks very much for helping me with this, I know you would not have removed the links without a reason and it is good to now know what it is. BTY I did not author the content describing security being enhanced at DPS after the bombing and frankly I question the bombing being given as a reason for it. It is true that both the US and Au governments insisted that DPS security was upgraded after both bomb 1 and bomb 2 and obviously the 2002 and 2005 bombings were referred in discussions and policy development but there is nothing unique in DPS security that relates to the two incidents. As you observe "it's nothing very special" and I agree. I think it is more an outcome of the wider and more generalised GWOT airport theatre and yes it is pretty light on in Lombok. I note that plenty of flights still operate around Indonesia and in and out of Bali with the cockpit doors swinging in rhythm with the aircraft. It reminds me of more sensible and rational times. These are local flights of course. Not sure what international operations are like as I do not fly out of DPS internationally all that often, I suppose they shut the door. Thanks again for your input and guidance, as always it has been instructive and useful. (WT-en) felix 11:16, 16 September 2010 (EDT)

Political Edits

Hi Jan I disagree. Travel is intensely political in 2010. People are more aware and they want to be informed. Is this website merely an spout for official stories from governments? Don't travelers want to know what 'real people' think? I'm not averse to different views, but I don't think articles on a site like this can or should be apolitical. At present, the information included on the page is inconsistent and occasionally misleading. As a compromise, I think the best policy would be a link to the Wikipedia article which is more comprehensive and focused on addressing the complete picture.

With regard to the places you removed, I suspect you did so because you thought they are not in Jerusalem. I can assure you - I live here - that they do indeed fall within the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem although they are called 'village' or 'refugee camp'. You can view the boundaries on the Peace Now map - http://www.peacenow.org/map.php. Shu'fat is marked on this map: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Shuafat+Refugee+Camp,+Jerusalem,+Israel&sll=31.8115,35.245385&sspn=0.019948,0.039096&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Shuafat+Refugee+Camp,+Jerusalem,+Israel&t=h&z=15. Qalandia is also within the boundaries, as is an area called Kufr Aqab, interesting as it is a pocket of land within Ramallah which is Israeli administered and where large numbers of Jerusalem ID holders live legally (they would lose their IDs if they lived in Ramallah). Finally, Lifta as referred to on Palestine Remembered (which referrences British Mandate maps) is also well within the municipal boundaries. It is not marked on the google map. Unless, you have a different reason for removing them, I will go ahead and revert the change but I don't want to get into a tit-for-tat.

Is there a policy on structuring the travel/getting-around sections of the pages? I would like to add information on bus travel in East Jerusalem? (WT-en) Henryr 03:46, 26 September 2010 (EDT)

Hi! We have an external link which is pretty clear that we don't link to Wikipedia. We are a travelguide with pretty Project:Goals and non-goals . We want to inform people of the political status but your perception of the current status will be defintely perceived as biased by conservative Israelis. We are not a platform to find solutions for the Middle East peace process. Wikivoyage hopes to make travelling easier and understand cultures (not change them). I removed most of our edits because first we don't link to Wikipedia and second because some areas are definitely not accessible for normal travellers (or to dangerous). If you live in Jerusalem save your energy for the real world problems and don't spark conflict here. (WT-en) jan 08:25, 26 September 2010 (EDT)

Thanks for the information on the policies. I noticed that after your edits and in subsequent edits, I have tried to stick to that. I don't want to get into tit-for-tat comments but who decides which statements are biased to who? I completely understand what you are saying and I am not trying to politicize the articles. You will notice that most if not all my edits are focused on information. A place and a reason to go there. Isn't that the idea? Surely the reader can choose whether the reason is good or not. And you will notice I have removed no listings, only added. Politicising the article would mean removing listings and information about West Jerusalem. As it was, I was motivated to add to the article becuase very little was listed regarding East Jerusalem. Is that fair?

Regarding accessibility, is that a factor? All areas are accessible to some travelers so shouldn't they all be covered? There is a section on staying safe which is well written and informative. I would assert that other than the normal level of danger from theft, accident, etc, all parts of Jerusalem are normally fine. If there is trouble, you will see it in the news, but it is not constant.

—The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) Henryr (talk • contribs)

Hi! If a place can't be accessed then it's not worth listing. We have articles for North Korean and Bhutan, which can be visited with severe obstacles, but not e.g Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean because only military personnel is permitted at this island. The traveller always comes first, so our WT guideline is pretty clear.

I'm aware the Jerusalem is sensitive and your guideline should be what user, with another background, will offend. Keep in mind that Palestinian and Israeli articles are always a source for edit wars which i really would like to avoid.

(WT-en) jan 03:30, 27 September 2010 (EDT)

Kununurra star-ification

Just wanted to say thanks for all your guidance and support in getting the Kununurra article over the star line. (WT-en) Cardboardbird 08:14, 10 October 2010 (EDT)