User talk:Wrh2/Archive 2006

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Please leave new comments at User talk:Wrh2. For talk page archives from other years see:

Hello again!

Good to see you back, Ryan. Hope your new year is going well. --(WT-en) Evan 22:09, 31 Jan 2006 (EST)

Thanks! The new year started off in the Falklands, so definitely a good beginning. I'll try and get some of the trip experiences into travel articles soon. -- (WT-en) Ryan 22:13, 31 Jan 2006 (EST)

India

Hi! Is Mace/pepper spray legal in India? If not, the information probably needs to be removed - we must not encourage illegal activities. (WT-en) Riggwelter 05:04, 10 Feb 2006 (EST)

Assuming you are referring to my reversion of the edits to New Delhi, I don't know if mace/pepper spray is illegal in India. I would have left that edit alone, but the same anonymous user also removed photos from the article with no comment, thus making the edits questionable and subject to reversion. -- (WT-en) Ryan 11:46, 10 Feb 2006 (EST)

Note to Willy

Hey! This isn't Wikipedia. We have a decent relationship with the various Willy on Wheels, in part because we always acknowledge when something one of them has done is actually funny. Suit yourself but I do sometimes enjoy their antics.

Let me put it another way: The Willy goal is to piss off what they see as a bunch of thin-skinned geeks with nothing better to do than to get all huffy about their little jokes. We're bigger than that. So I'm not going to revert, but if you would please put back the language about enjoying the odd Willy visit I would be much obliged. Thanks. -- (WT-en) Mark 02:01, 22 Feb 2006 (EST)

Stenness

Sorry to have a moan, but I just lost 1/2 hour of editing on Stenness after you edited it at the same time as me!!! Moan over. Is there anyway to avoid this?? (WT-en) DanielC 16:26, 2 March 2006 (EST)

Sorry about that -- I saw a typo, noticed you hadn't edited in ten minutes, so went ahead and fixed it. It shouldn't be possible to "lose" an edit, so maybe file a report on Project:Bug reports to let (WT-en) Evan know what the problem was. Again, sorry! -- (WT-en) Ryan 16:57, 2 March 2006 (EST)
That's OK - it's not your fault. I just needed to vent my frustration! (WT-en) DanielC 08:17, 3 March 2006 (EST)
That's bizarre. It's quite unusual for an edit conflict to cause a loss of data. The server tries to merge the changes if it can, and if it can't, it should present the two versions for visual comparison. DC, what did you actually see? --(WT-en) Evan 14:35, 3 March 2006 (EST)
I've put this in Project:Bug reports now. -- (WT-en) DanielC 08:00, 6 March 2006 (EST)

Patrolled edits

So, I'm not sure why "show/hide patrolled edits" is on the Recentchanges page. I don't think that feature ever really caught on with Wikimedia (although I may be wrong... ?), and I've never had it turned on here. Now that I think of it it'd be medium hard to implement, but I'd like to know why other wikis don't use it first. --(WT-en) Evan 20:31, 5 March 2006 (EST)

Hey Ryan, have you ever been to this park? I've started the page for it, but it's been years since I've been there, and I don't have any good photographs. You tend to take nice shots of parks you visit; if you've been to this one, photos would be welcome (as would text, as there's a lot that needs to be done, I've barely got it started). -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 22:04, 7 March 2006 (EST)

Sadly I've not visited that one yet, so no photos (thanks for the compliment though!). I can try digging around the nps.gov site for help with text if you'd like, but probably not until tomorrow. Thanks for starting the article -- we're actually starting to get pretty good coverage of the US national parks now. -- (WT-en) Ryan 22:11, 7 March 2006 (EST)

User Talk Pages

Thanks for the tip Ryan, I've copied dated info to my archive talk page. -- (WT-en) Derek M. Strout 17:25, 8 March 2006 (EST)

Thanks

for the heads up. I was wondering why the image wasn't going away before I remembered to purge it. --(WT-en) Ravikiran 20:29, 12 March 2006 (EST)

Redirection

Thanks for the suggestion - hadn't thought of that. Just to explain why I wanted to try what I did - when I searched for names such as "Washington" the results would include multiple redirect pages (all going to the same place), but the relevent disambiguation page was very difficult or impossible to spot. Not sure exactly how it works, but the result of 1st moving the disambiguation page to Wherever_(disambiguation), 2nd redirecting Wherever to Wherever_(disambiguation), and 3rd eliminating the majority of "bad" links to the various "not quite the right name" redirects, somehow clears it all out. So for example now if you search for Washington, all the redirects have disappeared, plus it's dead obvious which is the disambiguation page if you need it - but if you "Go" Washington, it still works exactly as it did before. Ditto Georgia. -- 218.208.238.135 17:11, 14 March 2006 (EST)

Sounds good - my comment about leaving a note on the talk page was motivated simply by seeing a lot of disambiguations and having no idea what was going on. You obviously had a plan, although sometimes an anonymous user will move things around without really knowing what they're doing. In either case, leaving a note on a talk page alerts others to what's going on, makes it less likely that the change will be reverted, and provides a place to discuss changes if anyone has suggestions. Thanks for your work! -- (WT-en) Ryan 17:15, 14 March 2006 (EST)

re welcome and antarctica

Thanks for the welcome Ryan . Only been to Antarctica once so far (Commonwealth Bay). Hopefully I'll get over to the Peninsula next time and some day down into the Ross Sea as well - too much ice choking the Ross Sea last time for our ice-strengthened (non-breaker) ship unfortunately. Still the whole Antarctic experience was awesome. I'll put in my 2 cents worth about Territorial claims over on Talk:Antarctica. --(WT-en) Shane 04:20, 20 March 2006 (EST)

Teplodar

My apologies...yes was trying to work on the city of Teplodar and mistakenly edited the small cities template.. As there was no previous article on Teplodar do I assume that you have now created this and the edits I made are valid. Or do I need to submit this for consideration?

www.mountaininterval.org

I spent some time reading your travel logs, especially "There and back again". That is some great stuff. Maybe you should write the copy for North BC! I haven't been able to make it up the Cassiar myself yet. Anyway, this probably isn't the place but I wonder what you were using for connectivity. Do you have some sort of satelite internet hookup? Does it require special hardware? Does it work with Linux? Sorry for all the Qs but my inner-geek needs to know. Again, great job, it was very entertaining and the photos are great. You have convinced me I need to get to Denali National Park. -- (WT-en) bulliver 05:06, 21 March 2006 (EST)

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it. Sorry to disappoint your inner geek, but mostly I just kept a daily journal and then uploaded multiple entries when I could find an internet connection, so in more remote areas a week or so would go by without being able to update, then I'd push seven entries at once. I've heard of people carrying satellite hookups with them, but I normally go on trips like that to get away, so it's actually kind of nice not to be connected for a while. You'd be surprised where you can find hookups though -- the lodge/restaurant halfway up the Dempster Highway just before the Arctic Circle let me use their phone line and I updated via modem, and I've been able to do the same from some pretty remote islands in the Falklands as well.
If I get some time I'll add a bit more to some of the articles from towns along the way, although it's been almost three and a half years since I was up there so my memories are getting a bit hazy and I'm sure a lot of things have changed. Thanks again! -- (WT-en) Ryan 14:42, 21 March 2006 (EST)
Yeah, that makes sense. And you're right: If I had satelite up there I would probably be reading the LKML instead of enjoying the Northern Lights, sheesh. I was just wondering because the research I did on the Queen Charlottes and Prince Rupert have really made me want to go there more so than before, and I think I will head up there for a week or two in May and do some "field research" before I take off on my real trip. -- (WT-en) bulliver 15:15, 21 March 2006 (EST)

WikiTravel policy on links to personal accounts of travels

Dear Ryan, thanks for the guidance re the Ibo article. Can you indicate the reason why links to personal accounts of travels is against WikiTravel policy? It was certainly useful to me to read such accounts from earlier travellers to Ibo, and I would think other users of WikiTavel will similarly benefit. I have enriched the article itself from relevant information from these accounts, but that is not the same as the personal account itself. It is primary material, although of course not official. (WT-en) Zingi 02:37, 23 March 2006 (EST)

Hi - you created two articles for Jaigon and Jaigaon that appear to me to be the same. Should the Jaigon article be turned into a redirect to Jaigaon? -- (WT-en) Ryan 02:16, 26 March 2006 (EST)

Hi Ryan, The correct spelling of this West Bagali town is Jaigaon. Jaigon is a mistake and the page needs to be deleted. I'll add a vfd mark. (WT-en) WindHorse 26 March 06

DOTM Format

What is a DOTM format? (WT-en) Sapphire 19:43, 28 March 2006 (EST)

See Project:Destination of the Month candidates#Nominating. (WT-en) Jpatokal recently updated the format of the DOTM page, and the Project:Votes for deletion page was then updated to use the same format. Since your change to Project:Administrator nominations/Archives was similar I just tried to use the same format, ie ===Nomination===. Sorry for the confusion! -- (WT-en) Ryan 20:02, 28 March 2006 (EST)
Thanks. I was just curious. I didn't realize the one "=" was such a large headline and was going to fix that, but was kind of bored of that page and decided to move on for a moment. Would you please visit the talk page for Project:Administrator nominations/Archives. There's a problem that needs to be addressed. Thanks. (WT-en) Sapphire 20:05, 28 March 2006 (EST)
Nevermind. I see you already addressed that. (WT-en) Sapphire 20:08, 28 March 2006 (EST)

Redirects to fix typos

Thanks for the note. I understand the point about typos, misspellings, etc., and just got done moving "Kooteney National Park" (sic) to the correct Kootenay National Park, consistent with existing policy. I think, however, that there is a difference between a repair like that, where a spelling error results from mispronunciation or something that many people might do, and one that fixes a one-of-a-kind typo that resulted in the creation of a completely bogus page. Policy might theoretically draw a distinction between the "common" error and the one-of-a-kind one. Anyway, it's not a fall-on-my-sword issue. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 20:08, 28 March 2006 (EST)

I actually agree with you and argued the same thing with Genevosa. Still, according to the current Project:Deletion policy typos get redirected, and it sounds like neither of us really wants to battle to change it. I'm pedantic, but lacking in motivation ;) -- (WT-en) Ryan 20:13, 28 March 2006 (EST)

Thank you

Thank you for the welcome! With my user page, I was trying to have it link to the Wikipedia without using an external link syntax. Some sites running MediaWiki let you do this via [[:en style links. Is wikivoyage related to the Wikipedia, or completely separate? Also, am I allowed to add an external link to a travelogue of mine? (i.e. is that considered acceptable on this wiki?) In particular, I wanted to add a link to this to the Niseko page. -- All the best, (WT-en) Nickj 23:22, 28 March 2006 (EST)

OK, I've answered the first question - [[:WikiPedia: ; Not exactly obvious, but hey, it works! -- All the best, (WT-en) Nickj 23:28, 28 March 2006 (EST)

Spanish provinces

Ryan, I saw that you recently changed Cadiz into the city page, making a disambig and province page. This seemed to make a lot of sense as a lot more people want to link to the city than province. I think there is scope to do this to some other spanish city/province pages. Do you fancy having a go at: Malaga, Valladolid,Salamanca & Granada(?). Cheers, (WT-en) DanielC 16:43, 3 April 2006 (EDT)

Just to confirm before making any changes, are each of these cities "much more famous" than the surrounding province, as desribed in Project:Article naming conventions#Disambiguation? I would assume so since you're bringing this issue up, but I'm not familiar enough with these areas to be certain. -- (WT-en) Ryan 16:48, 3 April 2006 (EDT)
To the general traveller, the "regions" of Spain are of much more use and more well known than the provinces. To them the cities are much more often used than the provinces. However, for residents of Spain I do think that they refer to the provinces a reasonable amount, but they do always still refer to them as XXX province. -- (WT-en) DanielC 17:03, 3 April 2006 (EDT)
Continued at Project:Disambiguation pages. -- (WT-en) Ryan 17:31, 3 April 2006 (EDT)

Las Vegas

Thanks, for the Thanks. -(WT-en) Texas Web Scout 18:38, 3 April 2006 (EDT)

Shared

Yup, sounds correct to me. (WT-en) Jpatokal 08:01, 7 April 2006 (EDT)

Reversion

You just reverted a link on Zhuhai, one that I didn't put in this time, but that, as it happens, I had put in before and had reverted, I think by Cjensen. I do realise that your reversion is in accordance with policy and that this page is not the place to discuss it.

However, I think the policy is wrong on this. My reasons are on the External Links discussion page under heading "Query on linking".

That policy tends to be a contentious one, but the reasons for it are on the Project:External links page. If you can see a way to allow some links but not others that is clear and not divisive, by all means let us know! -- (WT-en) Ryan 14:15, 10 April 2006 (EDT)

"Michigan State Univeristy" (sic)

No problem on the deletion; if I had felt strongly about keeping it, I would have said so, and after all, I'm the one who's been arguing for a more stringent policy as regards articles resulting from typos. Now if we can just get that policy consistently applied ... -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 20:44, 11 April 2006 (EDT)

sorry for the late response

  • Dear Ryan! Sorry for the late response. I was experiencing great difficulties with my (broken) laptops. The templates you are mentioning on my talk page relate to a better understanding of a wiki; some newer variants help to identify misconfigurations etc. (see wikt:yi:). Most of them support a high degree of "portability of code", are compatible between left to right and right to left wikies and some are substituting future special pages. Best regards Gangleri · T · m: Th · T 11:03, 13 April 2006 (EDT)

Donetsk

Dang! That'll school me! I thought it went outline->stub not the other way 'round... thanks! (WT-en) Majnoona 15:40, 18 April 2006 (EDT)

Teaching English

Hey, no worries about the Teaching English topics -- I totally agree that we need to both clarify what a travel topic should be and be vigilent about slipper slopes. This one topic just happens to be a little closer to my heart than, say, Off-road vehicles in California ;-). (WT-en) Majnoona 21:35, 19 April 2006 (EDT)

Grand Canyon

Hey Ryan, do you have any advice on how to build tables in the wiki code? I've got all of the temperature information ready for the Grand Canyon page, but not sure how to present it. Please drop me a line if you know how. (WT-en) Findbgs 01:56, 26 April 2006 (EDT)

If you're not sure about formatting your best bet is probably to just create a simple table with table data in the "Understand > Climate" section, and then leave a note on the talk page asking others to format it for you. Something like:
Month Average High Average Low
January 60 °F 35 °F
February 58 °F 34 °F
The code for the above table looks like:

<div align="center"> {| border="1" |- ! Month !! Average High !! Average Low |- | align="center" | January | align="center" | 60 °F | align="center" | 35 °F |- | align="center" | February | align="center" | 58 °F | align="center" | 34 °F |} <div>

-- (WT-en) Ryan 11:51, 26 April 2006 (EDT)


Ryan, I think we need a little constructive help with GCmaven on the Grand Canyon page. I just reverted a few of his edits that he has placed up there a couple of times. I think he has some good input, but I don't think he is quite clear on the external link policy (especially when linking to other travel guides). I just wanted to give you a heads up, and I hope I didn't overstep my bounds.

On a positive note, I am hoping to get the temperature information up shortly!(WT-en) Findbgs 17:30, 8 June 2006 (EDT)

I added a response on the talk page; he means well and mostly makes good edits, so I'm sure things will work out. Thanks! -- (WT-en) Ryan 19:30, 8 June 2006 (EDT)
Thanks Ryan. I agree. He does mean well and is knowledgable about the place. Just needs a little gentle guidance. (WT-en) Findbgs 12:52, 9 June 2006 (EDT)

Hey Ryan, there is a little spam problem with 72.193.215.69 on the grand canyon page. he keeps boping up with some airlasvegas spam. looks like a travel agent. is there anything you can do?(WT-en) Findbgs 21:56, 27 June 2006 (EDT)

I've noticed a lot of guided tours and such being added to that article recently, but I've lacked the willpower to investigate them to see if they were actual services (as opposed to just travel agencies) and how they could best be integrated into either the Grand Canyon article or some other article. I've assumed that the rafting company, air tours, and others who are adding links are doing so in good faith (I could be wrong) and don't want to dissuade them from contributing, but you're right, someone needs to figure how (if at all) their stuff can best be included here. I'll try and look into it in the next few days unless someone else beats me to it. -- (WT-en) Ryan 22:35, 27 June 2006 (EDT)
I'm very familiar with the river companies. I was a guide for 15 years in the 70's. I eliminated Western River, because right now ALL of the river companies can be accessed from the grand canyon river outfitters association link. AZ canyon tours seemed to get a little aggressive with their postings, but they are a bonified tour company (i checked with the park). I went ahead and placed their listing in the correct spot w/standard format. The problem I have with 72.193.215.69 is that they keep placing their travel agent link for air tours, and I keep changing it back. I know they are a travel agent, but the edits are just going back and forth. I am happy to check the page once a week, and make any corrections. But I don't want to overstep my bounds either. Please let me know the best way to proceed. I'd like to see this article achieve star status, and I think that we are close. (WT-en) Findbgs 11:51, 28 June 2006 (EDT)
I'm going to copy this information to Talk:Grand Canyon so that in the future if people see those links in the article then they know they can be removed. It will also give the companies in question a place where they can discuss why they think they should be linked. Thanks for the input - I was too lazy to look into these "guides" on my own, so your experience helps a lot. As an aside, feel free to expand the rafting section in the article - a friend of mine rafted the canyon last year and said it was great, but also said that the permit process is a bit of a nightmare. -- (WT-en) Ryan 12:09, 28 June 2006 (EDT)

Thanks for the table code edit. It looks a lot better.! I think there is room for a "by river" in the get in section, and could create one. However, I think the "whitewater rafting" section covers what most people are looking for. (WT-en) Findbgs 22:58, 28 June 2006 (EDT)

External Links - Thank

Hi Ryan

I just got your message about the links. Thanks for that. I'm going to check out the discussion page you suggested, as I'm not sure what I think about losing the links section in Wikivoyage. Anyway, thanks for helping me out. Cheers Howard

Reverts for Adventure Smith Explorations

Good call. I saw essentially the same text going into a bunch of articles and alarm bells went off in my head. I should have looked at the web site first. (I don't think we want everyone who offers a tour to a particular country to stick info in, but specialist tour guides like this make sense.) I think I've reverted all of my edits (except one where they de-MoS'ed an existing link). -- (WT-en) Jonboy 12:16, 2 May 2006 (EDT)

Yeah, it's tricky. The rollback button takes a couple of seconds. I just saw someone add their tour company info 3 times to Bhutan...all in the wrong place. It took me 5-10 minutes to fix it correctly. I'm not sure the trade-off is between not explaining a revert of information that might be helpful and getting sucked into a good bit of research and editing to incorporate that info properly. -- (WT-en) Jonboy 13:03, 2 May 2006 (EDT)

On São Paulo changes

Ryan, I do agree with the changes, thanks.

An issue that came now is that the {{isIn}} stopped function correctly... any info on how to correct that?

Cheers! (WT-en) Mattalves 21:04, 22 May 2006 (EDT)

It should be OK now. Thanks for your work on this article! -- (WT-en) Ryan 21:07, 22 May 2006 (EDT)
Sure is, thanks again! -- (WV-en) Mateus

Deletia archives

Hey Ryan, your opinion wanted: You deleted a bunch of stuff per the VFD yesterday and today, and then moved the VFD discussion to the May archive even though the actual deletions happened in June. We don't have a clear policy on how to handle deletion discussions when the discussion starts in a different month than when the deletion (or decision to keep/redirect) actually happens, but I have argued, in Project:Votes for deletion/Archives, for archiving them in the actual deletion month. Seems like that'll help keep our chronology of actions a bit better organized. I've moved some of what you added in the May archive to the June one. However, I don't feel strongly about this. What's your opinion? -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 11:04, 2 June 2006 (EDT)

That makes sense. I tend to forget when the month changes (as well as many other things...), so thanks for catching that. -- (WT-en) Ryan 12:17, 2 June 2006 (EDT)

Disamb

Thanks for fixing the Orleans mess. I was going to go with the "more famous" rule, however, I got to thinking that if the Orleans (France) article was only a stub and no where no near usable as I would imagine it to have been maybe it isn't as famous as I thought it was.

Instead of moving it back from Orleans (France) I thought it would be allright just to leave it as is and disamb the Orleans page, which, was only a redirect.

Next time I'll go with my instinct, because I'm assuming you feel the same way about, which, of the destinations name Orleans was the better known one. - (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 23:51, 3 June 2006 (EDT)

Protecting the front page

Ryan. I'm writing to you because an idiot is defacing the front page. You seem to have admin powers since I found you though the protected pages interface. You need to ban this fellow, and preferably lock down the front page. Since it is the front door, it does need to be kept somewhat tidy.

Thanks, but that thing isn't really a Guide yet. There are entire classes of "Do" that still need to be added. I'll accept the compliment, though. :-) -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 15:14, 11 June 2006 (EDT)

The article may not yet be perfect, but you've done a great job of getting all of the food and lodging options together, and my reading of it is such that I'd be comfortable taking your article and spending a few days there. The breakdown from Project:Article status says:
  1. Usable - An adventurous person could use the article without recourse to other information sources. For most articles, this means they could probably get to the destination, eat, and sleep with just this information. It would probably enable them to find at least the most prominent attraction there.
  2. Guide - The article would be helpful for the average traveler, such as offering alternatives for where to stay and eat, what to see and do, how to get in and out, etc. and provide enough information for at least a few days there. But at least a few things are missing to make this a star article. It follows the manual of style in spirit if not in detail.
Go ahead and revert to usable if you'd like, and I'll look forward to seeing what else shows up in the article. That said, I think you've done a great job writing about an obscure spot. -- (WT-en) Ryan 15:30, 11 June 2006 (EDT)

spam blacklist

I was going to add the spammer's website to the list, but I don't know how to do so. Could you please explain to me how to add a url to that list? Thanks. - (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 18:00, 12 June 2006 (EDT)

To add a URL to the spam filter list just add the spam URL including everything after the "http://" and before the first "/" to the list. In addition, the spam filter uses what are called regular expressions, so special characters such as periods need to be escaped by putting a "\" in front of them. For example, "http://spam.spammer.net/foo.html" would be added as "spam\.spammer\.net". One caveat is that if the entire domain seems to be used only for spam we don't bother to worry about sub-domains and in the example above would just list "spammer\.net". The only other concern is that you must indent one space and keep the list in alphabetical order. Hopefully that's clear - please feel free to update the instructions on Project:Local spam blacklist to make it more clear how things work for non-technical users. -- (WT-en) Ryan 21:41, 12 June 2006 (EDT)
Thanks. I tried to add one other URL from the main age spammer and I think I added it correctly. I'm going to copy & paste your response on the page with a little minor editing. - (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 22:00, 12 June 2006 (EDT)
Nice, your change to the text looks good, and the URL you added looks fine. My mother always looks at me like I'm speaking Russian when I try to explain anything even remotely technical, so I'm glad my explanation above didn't confuse you even further! -- (WT-en) Ryan 22:51, 12 June 2006 (EDT)

Disambiguation response

Actually, it wasn't an oversight. My AC Power adapter caught on fire and I had to turn my laptop off and thus wasn't able to finish the work. With the help of a couple rubber bands I've got the adapter working again. Apologies for not finishing the work, but when you see a flame spark up from an electronic device it's a bit of a shocker. I'm keeping an eye on the adapter, because I'm quite foolish and I've got the laptop running off of the AC adapter until I can buy a new one tomorrow. - (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 23:10, 15 June 2006 (EDT)

Best excuse ever for not fixing up links. Hope your laptop is OK. -- (WT-en) Ryan 23:21, 15 June 2006 (EDT)
Laptop is alright, but the adapter should be decommissioned, however, I'm a wiki addict and just have to get a few more edits in. - (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 23:41, 15 June 2006 (EDT)

Explanation, please

Could you answer a question on my talk page about roll back feature? Thanks. - (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 15:06, 20 June 2006 (EDT)

Looks like Colin beat me to it. -- (WT-en) Ryan 15:33, 20 June 2006 (EDT)

Lincoln

Just curious, why did you make Lincoln (disambiguation) instead of making Lincoln a dab page? It appears to me that Lincoln (Nebraska) is vastly larger than the one in England. Just curious as to how that all works. -- (WT-en) Colin 01:41, 28 June 2006 (EDT)

More than likely I was being lazy since both the Lincoln article and the Lincoln (Nebraska) both already existed and some disambiguation was needed. Lincoln should probably be moved and that article should then become a disambiguation page. -- (WT-en) Ryan 03:19, 28 June 2006 (EDT)

Thanks!

Thanks so much for your work on eliminating the huge list from LA County. It looked like it was going to be a real research project for me since I don't know the area. Much appreciated! -- (WT-en) Colin 19:48, 28 June 2006 (EDT)

Compared to adding about seventeen bazillion hotel listings, I'm not sure that splitting up a list of LA cities was such a big deal ;) Anyhow, glad to help out - I'm still figuring out where stuff is down here, so this was a good lesson for me. -- (WT-en) Ryan 19:54, 28 June 2006 (EDT)

California Divisions

I didn't realize until now that the Cal State divisions place Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties into the Central Coast. Wikivoyage currently has them in Southern California. I think the Cal State division is more useful in terms of breaking things more evenly, though as a Northern Californian I think of those counties as being part of the evil megapolis to the south. Your map also puts them in the Central Coast. I'll put them in the Central Coast for now, but I thought I'd just raise those issues in case it worries you. -- (WT-en) Colin 20:19, 28 June 2006 (EDT)

I responded in Talk:California in case anyone else wonders about why Santa Barbara isn't SoCal. -- (WT-en) Ryan 20:34, 28 June 2006 (EDT)

Kudos

I just came across User talk:(WT-en) Moon ra/Gudija Latvija 2006 and I wanted to mention how well I think you dealt with the situation. Great explination of the problem with the page and suggestion of solutions -- I think I may steal your text as a template for dealing with future issues. (WT-en) Majnoona 08:25, 29 June 2006 (EDT)

Thanks! I'm curious to see what becomes of that article. -- (WT-en) Ryan 14:07, 29 June 2006 (EDT)

Maine (talk) Counties

I took another look at this. It looks to me like these internal links are backwards. They have the text to be displayed before the pipe. (WT-en) OldPine 14:25, 29 June 2006 (EDT)

Yeah, the names ARE backwards, but there is also a discussion a few paragraphs down that talks about whether the list follows the article naming conventions. I thought about fixing the list of county names, but then the rest of the discussion doesn't make sense. In addition it's usually considered poor form to change someone else's comments on a talk page - see Project:Using talk pages#Etiquette. This case is probably one where changing the other user's comment wouldn't hurt, but since it's just a proposed list (rather than something that is implemented in an article) it should be OK to leave things as they are, too. -- (WT-en) Ryan 14:31, 29 June 2006 (EDT)
Ah, yep, you be right. Knew about the talk page thing and shoulda stuck with that idea, or at least read further. Livin' and learnin'. Thanks. (WT-en) OldPine 14:38, 29 June 2006 (EDT)

Location maps

My understanding of copyright law is while we can find a good majority of those nifty location maps available under cc-bysa and GFDL or PD. We are able to use one of the maps available in the PD and manipulate it any way we want. For example the the USA location map on Wikipedia is only available under GFDL, but I took the Brazil map available in the PD and created a location map for the U.S. and China. If there are any other countries we need a map for you can use one of those maps and manipulate it, but I'd recommend using the blue color that I use on the maps to indicate the country in question so we can differentiate our maps from the ones only available under GFDL. -- (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 18:14, 3 July 2006 (EDT)

Yeah, as long as the underlying map is public domain we can modify it just about any way we want to. I'd like to use the existing public domain images as much as possible just to avoid duplicating efforts, and I've asked WikiPedia:User:Vardion if he'll re-license some of his GFDL only maps so that we can use them, but otherwise your solution looks good. I'm torn about the blue coloring - it makes some sense to differentiate from Wikipedia maps, but consistency is also nice and we can use the image description page to indicate that the image was made for Wikivoyage. What do you think? -- (WT-en) Ryan 18:35, 3 July 2006 (EDT)
I read your request to Vardion, and I also checked his user contributions and since he's not planning on having much net access I went ahead and made the new maps so we won't have to wait a year or longer for a response. I like the idea of indicating that a map was made with Wikivoyage in mind. I was torn between blue v. green too, but went with the blue to differentiate. I'm open to any other solution, but I wasn't sure what the best solution is/was. -- (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 18:43, 3 July 2006 (EDT)

Template:Kurzdaten

Would you please look over the code for the Template:Kurzdaten? I can't get "Internet TLD" or "Zeitzone" to show up on the quickbar would you happen to have any idea why? -- (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 05:09, 6 July 2006 (EDT)

I'm heading to bed, but a quick look at it and I don't see "Zeitzone" in the template - are you sure it's not supposed to be "timezone"? Also, you probably want to change "Internet TLD" to a single word - I don't think named template parameters support using two words names. I'll check again in the morning if you're still having issues - do you ever sleep??? :P -- (WT-en) Ryan 05:12, 6 July 2006 (EDT)
Thanks, but one of the German users figured it out. No, I don't sleep. (One of the benefits of being 20. :) ) -- (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 05:22, 6 July 2006 (EDT)

VFD archives

Hey Ryan, just as a reminder: when a decision is reached on a VFD, I believe we archive the discussion even if the decision is to keep or redirect, rather than delete, the article. Looks like the Ross discussion may have slipped through. I took care of it. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 09:41, 7 July 2006 (EDT)

OK, that's my bad. Thanks for correcting. -- (WT-en) Ryan 12:29, 7 July 2006 (EDT)

Spokane

Thanks (WT-en) SpokaneWilly 17:37, 8 July 2006 (EDT)

DiscoverBot

Actually, it's still only 3 PM in the evening on this side of the planet — I'm sitting in a datacenter in Jakarta, batting off mosquitoes and waiting for the testing team to find bugs in the code I wrote last week. What could be a better time to work on Wikivoyage? (WT-en) Jpatokal 04:11, 11 July 2006 (EDT)

3 PM or 3 AM, I found the disco... disco.. Discover comments very amusing, although that may be in part due to the late hour here and a day of frustration in dealing with Oracle database oddities. Anyhow, it's very late so I'm off for the evening. -- (WT-en) Ryan 04:40, 11 July 2006 (EDT)

Georgetown / George Town

The names of these two places are different, so they should probably have their own disambiguation pages (I think, might be wrong). -- Ryan 18:52, 16 July 2006 (EDT)

I think it's more helpful if they are merged, as some (many?) people will know they want one or the other but won't know the correct spelling, or will have a spelling in mind (eg from some other source) that's incorrect. The George Town page only had two places on it, hence I redirected that one. ~ 125.24.2.226 19:02, 16 July 2006 (EDT)
I'm feeling lazy today, so I'll go with your solution and copy this discussion to the talk page. -- (WT-en) Ryan 19:16, 16 July 2006 (EDT)

Disambiguation

I'm pretty sure you already know this, but just in case you don't - I used Warren County (disambiguation) because a Warren County (Virginia) page already exists (created in 2005). I'm presuming that if an article is created with a non-disambiguated name and it ought to have the disambiguated form (ie it's not "most famous"), that in most cases someone would spot the error and fix it immediately (or failing that, subsequently). I know the odd one will slip through the net, but they usually seem to be just as likely to be deliberate as in error, and that the person who created it and everyone else who is aware of it knows more about it than I do. ~ 125.24.2.226 22:36, 16 July 2006 (EDT)

See also Talk:Cook County ~ 125.24.2.226 22:48, 16 July 2006 (EDT)

I saw you were on and thought I'd run this one buy you. I'm deciding how to disambiguate Bristol. Do you think the one in England that gets the link now qualifies for "most famous"? (WT-en) OldPine 20:36, 21 July 2006 (EDT)

Sorry, I was off doing other things. Wikipedia gives Bristol, England the "most famous" name, so it's probably fine to do the same here. I'm not very familiar with either of them, so if the Connecticut one isn't terribly well-known then I'd go with "Bristol", "Bristol (disambiguation)" and "Bristol (Connecticut)". -- (WT-en) Ryan 21:00, 21 July 2006 (EDT)
Thanks (WT-en) OldPine 21:04, 21 July 2006 (EDT)

sorry about that!

Just diving it trying to help. :-)

No worries, I'm just trying to make sure that no one confuses the very prolific (WT-en) OldPine for someone with turret's syndrome. -- (WT-en) Ryan 20:21, 25 July 2006 (EDT)
So, I've looked at the title of the deleted page and our very useful user's page, and I still can't tell the difference. What am I missing? --(WT-en) Evan 21:56, 25 July 2006 (EDT)
He was sneaky. See User talk:(WT-en) OldPine#You have a fan.... -- (WT-en) Ryan 21:58, 25 July 2006 (EDT)

sorry

i'm the one who add "clubbing" in buenos aires article i'm very new and i was just trying to help

now i know how this work. thank you ...

You did exactly right, the only problem was a very minor issue with the heading used. Please keep contributing, and definitely don't apologize for adding good content! -- (WT-en) Ryan 19:47, 26 July 2006 (EDT)

Seward

You said isn't the Seward Peninsula in the South of Alaska???. I think you are refering to Seward the town. Seward the town is in the south, but Seward Peninsula is in west central Alaska on the Bering Strait. -- (WT-en) Tom Holland (xltel) 19:23, 27 July 2006 (EDT)

Yeah, I've been to Seward and got confused. Thanks for correcting. -- (WT-en) Ryan 19:35, 27 July 2006 (EDT)

Ruthless non-self promotion

JAMWiki looks great. I hope you keep working on it -- it'll fill a very important need for people. Anyways, I blogged about it (http://evan.prodromou.name/Journal/9_Thermidor_CCXIV), which means it will show up on Planet Debian sooner or later. I hope that helps a bit! --(WT-en) Evan 21:42, 27 July 2006 (EDT)

Thanks for the kind words! I agree that there seem to be a bazillion Wiki engines out there, but surprisingly none of them seem to be aiming for compatibility with Mediawiki, despite the fact that about 30 bazillion people are familiar with the software. Anyhow, with luck and a bit more work this project should hopefully take off, and once I get the Special:Import and Special:Export going it should offer some compatibility with existing Mediawiki systems. Thanks again! -- (WT-en) Ryan 00:06, 28 July 2006 (EDT)

IFD

Don't forget that we moving all images that are vfd'd to Project:Images for deletion. I'll move the ones you have on the article vfd page. -- (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 23:27, 27 July 2006 (EDT)

See my comment on Project:Images for deletion - I know that this page exists, but was a consensus ever reached to use it? I'd rather not have to review two different pages for deletions unless there's a good reason for it. -- (WT-en) Ryan 00:11, 28 July 2006 (EDT)
Oops. I forgot to respond sooner (distracted on DE). I'm not sure where the conversation leading to the consensus is or if there even was one. I agree with you that it's tedious, but I was going about being a faithful servant. -- (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 05:10, 28 July 2006 (EDT)

discussion

As soon as i figure how to use the talk pages, I will discuss the Preston issue with you

Oops. An extra edit slipped into the reversion, which was in connection with the "armored"/"armoured" change. I'd left the guy a note about that. Please feel free to un-revert if you deem it appropriate, although I don't really think we should be advising people on what kind of weapons you need for survival in Iraq. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 16:48, 30 July 2006 (EDT)

Incidentally, don't know whether you noticed, but User:(WT-en) Xxxdanxxx simply removed the comment on the "spelling" part of my reversion that I left on his talk page. You may be inclined to cut him more slack as regards "being helpful" than the rest of us are... -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 18:13, 30 July 2006 (EDT)

Isle of Man

Why did you move Peel (Isle of Man) to Peel (England), and change links from Douglas (Isle of Man) to Douglas (England)? I'm not sure which naming conventions you are referring to, but the Isle of Man is a country - it is not part of the United Kingdom (though it is a crown dependency), and is definitely not part of England. ---(WT-en) Vclaw 17:11, 31 July 2006 (EDT)

I goofed. Sorry about that - keeping all of the UK territories straight is tough :) -- (WT-en) Ryan 17:23, 31 July 2006 (EDT)

Non-ASCII

Edited as requested. (Note that the word "INVASION" is also non-ASCII in disguise!) Seems to work fine for me though... WinXP English but with Japanese IME, the browser's SeaMonkey (= Firefox + mail + IRC). (WT-en) Jpatokal 03:13, 1 August 2006 (EDT)

Thanks! In the past nine years I don't think I've ever worked on a project where non-ASCII characters weren't an issue, but this one is driving me insane. I've had edits from a Hungarian guy, a fellow in China, and an anonymous person in San Francisco that have all bonked, but for the life of me I can't figure out where the code is messed up. More than likely after another few days of beating my head against the wall I'll realize I've forgotten to remove a test condition somewhere with a name like "randomlyChangeCharacterEncodingForNoReason()"... -- (WT-en) Ryan 03:20, 1 August 2006 (EDT)

On further comptemplation...

Is Mid-Ohio even a region? I've heard of the other four, but I'm not sure I've ever heard of Mid-Ohio is there possibly another name for this region? -- (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 20:03, 1 August 2006 (EDT)

thanks for your help

regarding: Hello - we appreciate the information you are adding, but please be sure you understand what you are doing. Macquarie Island is a pristine Antarctic island - it has no hotels, much less a luxury resort.

thank you for pointing that out. it should have been reported under port macquarie instead of macquarie island. it is being fixed now.

No problem. My concern was that we sometimes get people who work with companies and add dozens if not hundreds of listings (which is fine and encouraged) but it's extremely tedious to check that each and every listing was added to the proper article - as an example many hotel chains like to add their listings for Bay Area hotels to the San Francisco article under the belief that more people will be reading that article, but the listings should be added to the actual city that the hotel is in. In cases where many listings are added to the wrong articles and the user adding the listings does not respond to their talk page (which happens occasionally) the easiest solution is generally to just revert all edits by that user. Seeing a hotel listing for Macquarie Island (which is populated only by about 40 scientists) was a red-flag to me indicating that potentially questionable edits were being made, but it sounds like this was an exception. Thanks again for your contributions here. -- (WT-en) Ryan 14:19, 3 August 2006 (EDT)

My reasoning was that we have a way to include "relevant and useful" links -- the {{related}} template. I don't see a reason to include it both places. Thoughts? -- (WT-en) Jonboy 14:20, 3 August 2006 (EDT)

Amtrak

I changed the Amtrak link back into a link to our Amtrak article.... but I'm not convinced that's the right thing to do even though we have that article. Change it back if your opinion sways that way. -- (WT-en) Colin 02:29, 4 August 2006 (EDT)

I didn't realize that a redirect had been set up. Looks fine to me, thanks. -- (WT-en) Ryan 03:08, 4 August 2006 (EDT)

A little help

Do you plan on being around for a while? Ilikecats has been hanging around longer than usual and I have to split soon so I'd like someone to keep vigilant. -- (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 04:13, 14 August 2006 (EDT)

I may be up for a bit, but he's harmless enough - as long as anyone can edit a Wiki there will always be people messing with it, and once this guy gets bored another vandal will come along. We really need to get Tawkerbot running here to automatically catch this stuff, but that process is moving slowly. Anyhow, the stuff this guy does is obvious enough vandalism that even someone not familiar with Wikivoyage will realize it's something that needs to be reverted. If I'm online I'll revert him, if not someone else will catch it. -- (WT-en) Ryan 04:18, 14 August 2006 (EDT)
Have the creators of Tawkerbot replied to your request? Also, can the bot delete images uploaded by an identified vandal? -- (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 04:21, 14 August 2006 (EDT)
Last I heard they were trying to convert the bot over to a distributed system to avoid server and bandwidth charges, so things are kind of stalled right now. And no, it won't revert any images he uploads - we'll still have to do that manually. -- (WT-en) Ryan 04:25, 14 August 2006 (EDT)

Admin nomination

Hi Ryan

Thanks for the recognition of the work I've put in here! Yeah, I'm up for being a wikivoyage admin, so I accept your nomination. I take it that you fill out the template on the nominations page. Let me know when it goes up there. -- (WT-en) Tim 17:25, 17 August 2006 (EDT)


Budapest

Hi,

you changed whilst I was writing some useful (?) comment concerning eating in Budapest, so now my text is lost....I see you removed the pestiside.hu link, which was not really my intention, as I like the guys who write it...

I wonder....

Do you have some sort of tool that lets you keep track of all changes to all articles, maybe a bot that detects noninformative edits, are you keeping track of my edits in particular, or...or are you really reading all article histories constantly like some sort of superhuman?(WT-en) JackT3hSmasher 16:09, 23 August 2006 (EDT)

Never mind, for I have learned the answer.(WT-en) JackT3hSmasher 18:53, 23 August 2006 (EDT)

My personal opinion is that tools Special:Recentchanges and Special:Contributions/(WT-en) JackT3hSmasher make it far to easy to keep track of unwanted edits and remove most of the challenge, so I actually prefer to just check article histories using Special:Allpages. But that's just me, everyone has their own preferences. -- (WT-en) Ryan 19:09, 23 August 2006 (EDT)

Was that real?

Did I read that wrong? Was that an actual contribution? -- (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 19:48, 23 August 2006 (EDT)

Nevermind. The way you formatted it makes sense, now. It may be time to retire. -- (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 19:52, 23 August 2006 (EDT)
It's mentioned here, including the caps, so it looks legit to me. I'm a softy for mom-n-pop stories, and didn't want to let this one slip away =) -- (WT-en) Ryan 19:57, 23 August 2006 (EDT)

Philippines copyright pictures

No problem on the pictures. I had been watching the page for a while to see when the (likely) copyrighted pictures would be removed. I was happy to replace them. Hopefully it will inspire a few more people to put up their masterpieces. (WT-en) Johnycanal 11:44, 24 August 2006 (EDT)

External links

Thank so much for taking the trouble guiding me at wikivoyage. As I am the owner of travel touch which is a Proper Web and cellular Destination guide I can contribute more then 12,000 attractions. Sleep. Eat, taxies and embassies' and more . I am giving you full permission to use Travel touch database only for credit. If you do not like my contribution- fine. If you need legal send me email. I do it for my own soul and not for any money

Sam Yaniv

Hi, I didn't find anything like this in wikivoyage policies. can you point me to? should i contact the managment? please advice

There really isn't any "management" here - everyone who contributes helps decide policies. The Project:External links policy states that only "primary" links should be used in articles, where a "primary" link is the official site of a hotel or restaurant. The Project:Goals and non-goals explicitly states that we do not want the site to become a link-farm, and as a result we strongly discourage people from adding external links. If you disagree with that policy you can discuss it on Project:External links and try to have it changed, but please understand that the policy has been developed over several years after comments by a lot of people, so it will be difficult to get people to agree to change it. -- (WT-en) Ryan 17:21, 27 August 2006 (EDT)

I really have to thank you for your patience Now it is clear. In that case and after reading about the second link, I will contribute the information show in travel touch destination guide pages. I will use "primary" links" into travel touch hotels(or embassy or what ever contribution it is) pages. As I saw with others. I believe that’s answer the policy, don't you?

F.I.N.S.

Ha! Good for you. I always forget that backlink. Thanks!(WT-en) OldPine 16:31, 29 August 2006 (EDT)

The link probably isn't necessary, but like the UNESCO World Heritage Sites list it's kind of nice to have. And my evil ulterior motive is to draw as much attention to the list of park articles in the hopes that Wikivoyage soon has good guides to every park that I can use in my travels (cue evil laugh)... -- (WT-en) Ryan 16:38, 29 August 2006 (EDT)

Comments

Could you comment on the (WT-en) bus section of my Cincinnati sandbox guide? Is it TMI or just enough? I wanted to highlight bus routes which run past a lot of interesting sights, but not every single bus route that operates in the Greater Cincinnati area. Comments and suggestions are appreciated. Thanks. -- (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 19:20, 30 August 2006 (EDT)

Sorry, I've been out of town, so just noticed this comment. I don't think the bus section is too much information, but as someone who has never been to Cincinnati I'm not sure I understand what information is being presented - granted it's late and I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but it's not totally clear to me what the table indicates and what relevance (for example) "government square" is. Perhaps modeling the section after Singapore#By_bus_2, which simply gives info on how useful the bus system is, where to find a route map, approximate fares, and how to pay would be best. As a traveler to Cincinnati I would just want to know what the best option for public transport is and then how to use it. -- (WT-en) Ryan 02:15, 1 September 2006 (EDT)
As an aside, I've been curious about why you like to start articles in their own sandbox - it seems like it would prevent other people from contributing, since no one wants to touch anyone else's user pages. There's nothing wrong with it, it's just unusual and is something I've wondered about. -- (WT-en) Ryan 02:18, 1 September 2006 (EDT)
The sandbox thing is convert articles to the coded listings. I think I mentioned somewhere that I encourage other users to edit it and to improve upon the work, although I did protect the Cincinnati sandbox guide because Ilikecats was causing "edit conflicts." I don't want to interupt contributions or the UI (I believe that's the proper abbreviation) on the real guide article because I'm changing things up a bit. Afterwards, if there haven't been any edits to the article while I was doing my sandbox editing I copy and paste the sandbox version into the real article. If there have been any edits in between that period I try to incoporate the changes from the real article into the sandbox version that way we don't lose any contributions.
Thanks for the feedback that's the type of thing I'm looking for, especially since Cincinnati is now the DOTM. I'll get to work making the bus system usable for first time visitors. -- (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 13:53, 1 September 2006 (EDT)
Alright, so I tried to incorporate several of the things you pointed out and another example Colin gave me. Could you tell me how this looks now?
Looks good to me - easy to read and informative. Maybe add a quick note to the "Lines" section that the lines are for the SORTA system, otherwise I think it's good to go. -- (WT-en) Ryan 22:31, 1 September 2006 (EDT)
Thanks it's appreciated and thanks for catching the typos. -- (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 22:33, 1 September 2006 (EDT)

COTW

Hi Ryan! Did you changed the templates for the cotwpromote? I changed this morning the cotw to Moscow and used your template but it only changed at the main page but not at the project page. Therefore I had a closer look in the project page and manually changed it to Moscow. Please let me know. Thanks, (WT-en) Jc8136 17:19, 5 September 2006 (EDT)

The templates haven't changed. What appears to have been the problem is that the project page was cached and the cache did not update properly when you changed the template. Sometimes if you edit a page and click save without making any changes it will clear the cache, or you can edit and make a tiny change (such as adding a space) to force the cache to clear. -- (WT-en) Ryan 03:37, 7 September 2006 (EDT)
Hi Ryan, the COTW template still do not work. The project page didn't change this week and I now will manually change it. (WT-en) Jc8136 14:32, 15 September 2006 (EDT)
Andrew already responded on your talk page, but the template is fine. The problem is that that old Project page is stored in the cache. There are two ways to clear the cache - either edit the project page (no need to make any change, just click "edit" then click "save") or else use the URL http://en.wikivoyage.org/w/index.php?title=Wikivoyage:Project&action=purge to force the page to clear. Hope that helps! -- (WT-en) Ryan 14:59, 15 September 2006 (EDT)

Block

Please block the person who's talking about erotic costumes!!Taylor Bies is it68.96.23.7 17:00, 7 September 2006 (EDT)

Can you please block off the folowing females: Adi Gill, Kylie Adolf, Sydney Goodnight, and Taylor Bies? Thanks,Sayonarra, have a good day and block off these pathetic users!68.96.23.7 17:19, 7 September 2006 (EDT)

Please Respond!68.96.23.7 17:21, 7 September 2006 (EDT)

RESPOND!68.96.23.7 17:22, 7 September 2006 (EDT)

Speedy deletion

I already deleted "Jigzone" and I left a message for the user. Should I revert my deletion and wait a few days for the benefit of the user? -- (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 17:23, 11 September 2006 (EDT)

No need to undelete, it was deleted according to policy and I've taken the comments off of the VFD page. Unless stuff is blatant vandalism I tend to put it on the VFD page so the contributor has a chance to learn why their article is being deleted and is less likely to get frustrated with Wikivoyage, but that's probably just me being over-protective of new contributors. The VFD page is getting pretty crowded lately with all of the copyvios, most of which I added, and most of which could also be speedy deleted - I just wanted to give the uploader every chance to understand what the problem was. -- (WT-en) Ryan 17:32, 11 September 2006 (EDT)

Adminisration

Hi I'm an adminisrator on Wikipedia, and I was just wondering that if you wer a Wikipedia Adminisrator like I am, does that pass on to Wikivoyage or do I have to earn the right to be an adminisrator on this site? Thanks, and talk to me on Wikipedia not Wikivoyage thanks! (WT-en) Drini 17:24, 11 September 2006 (EDT)

"Small City"

I only added "Small" to force a purging of the site's cache. I meant to revert my edit, but I got distracted. Earlier, I edited the MediaWiki:Recentchangestext to do the same, but I immediately reverted that. -- (WT-en) Sapphire 22:57, 13 September 2006 (EDT)

Beehive Parliament

Sorry, I must have viewed that page before you deleted it, then edited it after you deleted it, which recreated it.

Spam blacklist revert

I didn't realise that travel guides should not be included. There are other travel-related sites already on the list, and I didn't read anything saying "don't add travel guides (etc)" so I presumed it was OK to add more. Has this been discussed somewhere already? [1] ~ 203.144.143.7 12:49, 18 September 2006 (EDT)

Take a look at some of the discussions on Project:Spam filter. In general we try to use the spam filter to stop automated spambots, not to enforce Project:External links. Travel related sites that are on the list were place there, in general, as a way to get the attention of someone who repeatedly added links to articles and ignored comments on their talk page and in the edit summaries. -- (WT-en) Ryan 12:59, 18 September 2006 (EDT)
So it's OK to add a site if it's a non-primary source and/or otherguide which should never be linked to from any Wikivoyage article anyway and it's a repeat offender? ~ 203.144.143.7 14:08, 18 September 2006 (EDT)
I'm not sure if the policy is clear on that - it might be best to discuss on Project:Local spam blacklist. My feeling is that the spam list is to stop spambots, and should only be used for non-spambots when other efforts at getting someone's attention have failed. Feel free to copy this thread to Project:Local spam blacklist if you'd like to solicit the opinions of others. -- (WT-en) Ryan 14:19, 18 September 2006 (EDT)
Thread copied and opinions solicited. ~ 203.144.143.7 14:33, 18 September 2006 (EDT)

They've both since re-posted the exact same links in the exact same places, so I've put them both back on the filter list, plus another similarly persistent one (arkadia·com on Grasse). I've included crystal-clear "Summary" comments, so it'll be easy as pie to take them out again if the need should arise. ~ 203.144.143.5 11:33, 19 September 2006 (EDT)

Looks OK to me - providing a reason for listing a site in either the edit summary or on the talk page is helpful and at least gives some guidance to any user who might be adding links in a genuine effort to help. -- (WT-en) Ryan 16:48, 19 September 2006 (EDT)

Wikipedia

Yeah, only occurred to me to check about that earlier today. Took all of it out, I think. Thanks for your vigilance. (WT-en) Palimpsest 23:56, 18 September 2006 (EDT)

inozo.com

Sorry, but it's spam - look at the website (it's not "a tour operator for Canada" - nor for Belize) and it's not only here that is being spammed. It's travel-related spam, but that didn't seem a good reason not to block it. ~ 203.144.143.7 17:09, 22 September 2006 (EDT)

Does the link in this Southern Africa edit conflict with external link policy? ~ 61.91.191.10 14:29, 11 November 2006 (EST)

It looks like the tour is actually offered by http://www.gapadventures.com/, and inozo is just a travel booking service. A link to http://www.gapadventures.com/ would probably be OK, but inozo is a secondary source in this instance. See Project:External links. -- (WT-en) Ryan 14:36, 11 November 2006 (EST)

What's your point?

Want to bet no one will read this? -- (WT-en) Sapphire 12:46, 27 September 2006 (EDT)

I copied the warning from United States of America#Cities, which seems to have done some good - it still gets ignored occasionally, but we don't get as many cities being listed there as we used to. I was worried that the Midwest (United States of America)#Cities list was growing too large - Madison (Wisconsin) is a fine city and all, especially when OSU is playing the Badgers, but I'm not sure that it's noteworthy enough to be listed at such a high level. The warning can be reverted if people want to, but I figured it couldn't hurt to try. -- (WT-en) Ryan 13:10, 27 September 2006 (EDT)
I like the warning (It gave me a laugh). If it works I'll start using it too. -- (WT-en) Sapphire 13:14, 27 September 2006 (EDT)
In all seriousness, people who don't understand the reasons for limiting the length of these lists either won't read the warning or won't be deterred by it. I just added a little language at the front of the Midwest article that might help. Or not. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 13:45, 27 September 2006 (EDT)

Machu Picchu and South America

Only are maps of google satellite. My web is beta. I wanted that www.americageo.com be in future a site with tourist information from each location tourism of the world, each one with videos, Articles of tourism, etc. all my links has a link to wikivoyage like http://www.americageo.com/maps/country/Peru


Jam Wiki

Is Jam Wiki your brain child and how feasible is it for lay people (anyone who who doesn't even know what HTML stands for) to maintain a website using Jam Wiki? -- (WT-en) Andrew H. (Sapphire) 21:53, 27 October 2006 (EDT)

Hyper Text Markup Language ;-) Yeah, JAMWiki is my little project, although to be completely fair the code started out with the Very Quick Wiki codebase. The install isn't as simple as a normal Windows install - you'd first need to install a web application server such as Tomcat, and you'd need to read through the Tomcat docs to understand how to deploy a WAR file. In addition, upgrades are occasionally painful, although the process is slowly getting easier. I'd encourage you to install JAMWiki if you're interested, but if you're willing to wait a few more releases I'm sure the documentation will only improve, the code will only get more stable, and there will probably be more people at jamwiki.org who could help you out if you run into problems. Hope that answers your question, and thanks for the interest! -- (WT-en) Ryan 22:30, 27 October 2006 (EDT)

Template

Thanks. I go by the rules. I have deleted the templates on the individual pages. You can delete the Template page itself. Sorry, for the trouble. -- (WT-en) P.K.Niyogi 03:07, 28 October 2006 (EDT)

Block

The IP that you blocked has begun spamming Wikivoyage Shared. Here's the Contributions for 81.177.14.26 on Shared. I don't know if you want to investigate and take a similar measure that you used today. Personally, I don't feel it's necessary to block the IP, because it seems to be random and very weird vandalism, but it seems to go away after a few minutes. -- (WT-en) Andrew H. (Sapphire) 16:24, 29 October 2006 (EST)

I don't have admin access on shared. I agree that the spambot is pretty easy to revert, but since it's an obvious bot and since policy is pretty clear that blocking bots is both OK and expected I figured it was a good way to keep the recent changes from getting too cluttered. Sorry about the Bengals by the way - Browns won :) -- (WT-en) Ryan 20:24, 29 October 2006 (EST)
Thanks for the sympathy. What really gets me is that a miracle was very possible. All we needed were 2 points to tie the game and my beloved Bungles fumbled it away! Oh, well at least the Steelers are doing horrible this year. :) Are you a Browns fan? (If so, Congrats on the win.)
Back the the minor issue compared to the Bengals, if you're convinced that it's a spambot I might block it on Shared, but I'm kind of worried that if it isn't a spambot I've blocked a real person and I don't want that to happen. -- (WT-en) Andrew H. (Sapphire) 20:53, 29 October 2006 (EST)
I'm fairly positive it's a bot - see Special:Contributions&target=81.177.14.26, particularly the edits from October 3. The reason I suspect the edits are so bizarre is that the spam list is blocking whatever URL is being added, and that's causing the script to make a bizarre second edit. And yeah, lifelong Browns fan, much to the chagrin of my dad who is a lifelong Steelers fan - he doesn't know what went wrong with his two boys. -- (WT-en) Ryan 00:38, 30 October 2006 (EST)

University of Chicago Links

Hello, Ryan. Thank you for reverting Your Servant's edit to link University of Chicago. You have nipped in the bud an effort Your Servant undertook. As you indicate, universities are not something for which you normally create individual articles; and Your Servant was about to do just that. Instead, Your Servant will study Project:What is an article?; and he will ask his questions in the Project:Travellers' pub. Best regards, User:(WT-en) Dionysios | DYYYY2006 | DMMDD1103 | THHMMSS141900 | BXT | 14:18, November 3, 2006 (CST)

How about you correct the entry yourself. Here's your source: http://www.indiana.edu/~arch/saa/matrix/naa/naa_web/mod15D.html

Look at Item 2b, subitem 3, where the chronology mentions that the Anasazi start to "identify" themselves through the material record. The same is true for Mimbres, Hohokam, etc. We, as archaeologists, cannot even begin to assume that we can truly identify a culture solely through material remains. When you read enough SW arch. journals, you'll begin to understand that cultural associations such as that with the Anasazi, are purely based on recognition of pattern via basketware, ceramics, etc. That's precisely why anything pre-formative is classified as Archaic or Paleo. Is that enough for you?

Thanks for the welcome. I saw your note on deleting the external link to the navajo nation website. I put my justification on the talk:Navajo Nation. If you'd care to elaborate. I actually thought there was useful information for travellers going to the Navajo nation on that website.(WT-en) Charles 21:12, 4 November 2006 (EST)

As a member of the Diné, Ryan, it amazes me how you have infiltrated wikivoyage with your mediocre postings/edits on the Southwest and Diné culture. Although my "abuses" will most likely continue, I cannot help but feel sorry for you, a typical Californian who goes to Phoenix on occasion, and has what is most obviously a limited, surficial knowledge of the region.

I live 30 minutes from White Sands N.M. How many times have you been there? How much of New Mexico have you truly seen? (It's evident that you have visited Utah more than a few times, however, based on your partiality towards its natural resources.) How extensively have you traveled Arizona? Have you hiked Palm Canyon in the Kofas, or spent a week at Organ Pipe? Have you seen a coati troupe meandering through the red rocks (I know you love these particular geologic features) of the Chiricahuas near Portal?

Do you consider the Navajo Nation to be the only native nation worth mentioning, while ignoring our brothers and sisters (the pueblos, Apache, etc.)? Did you realize that Taos and Acoma pueblos are among the longest continuously inhabited sites in the United States? Do you realize that the Apache are related to the Diné linguistically and genetically? Did you know that the Mescalero Apache operate the southernmost "high mountain" ski resort in the country?

I could bother you with endless questions, of which I know you would not feel in the least bit compelled to humble yourself and ask whether or not you are truly qualified to have your fingers in so many articles pertaining to this region.

Thanks for the welcome! This is the first time on WikiTravel that I've got such a quick one. I was on a bit of a hiatus after the birth of my baby, but it's good to be back. I'm also working on another wiki (www.wikioutdoors.com). Check it out if you get a chance. (WT-en) Kirasw 17:09, 10 November 2006 (EST)

Proofread

Would you please proofread the understand section of Deadwood? I'd appreciate it. I tend to let sentence run on and throw commas about so you may want to pay particular attention to that. -- (WT-en) Sapphire 18:02, 10 November 2006 (EST)

Hope that helps. I'm an engineer by training, so my writin skills ain't always no good. -- (WT-en) Ryan 18:20, 10 November 2006 (EST)

Valencia

Check out WikiPedia:Valencia, Santa Clarita, California. This seems to be some sort of Very Special issue seen frequently in Southern California: places wih names that make them appear to be cities, but they are actually just a section of an incorporated city. Besides the three parts of Santa Clarita, a bunch of locales within the City of Los Angeles pretend to be stand alone cities too. Argh. I guess for the traveller, it makes a lot of sense to follow this convention, but I'm concerned that without clear borders on these pseudocities there will eventually be regionlike ambiguity over which article a particular listing belongs in. That's kinda why I ran away from the problem when injecting California hotel entries. If you check out User:(WT-en) Cjensen/project/hotelmaker/California and look for listings whose articles have not yet been created, about 60% of them are for pseudocities. -- (WT-en) Colin 22:14, 12 November 2006 (EST)

...continued at Talk:Valencia (California). -- (WT-en) Ryan 22:32, 12 November 2006 (EST)

Sleep tags

Any opinions on which tags should be in by default (we should totally make this a recommendation at Project:Listings). I'm thinking just the "recommended tags". -- (WT-en) Colin 23:53, 16 November 2006 (EST)

I don't think "hours" applies to a sleep tag. What do you think? (Though I could see the case for adding check-in and out someday, but those would probably be different tags.) -- (WT-en) Colin 00:06, 17 November 2006 (EST)

I don't understand why hotels can list on WikiTravel but I can't list a luxury vacation home rental company. I stayed there. Its great. One of the nices places I've stayed.  :-( -- (WT-en) Gutsche

Jet lag article

I thought that Wikipedia was completely uncopyrighted. The noticle on their site says :

The Wikimedia Foundation does not own copyright on Wikipedia article texts and illustrations. It is therefore useless to email our contact addresses asking for permission to reproduce content.

Did I miss something or has there been a change? -- (WT-en) MMKK 18:00, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, Wikimedia Foundation is saying they can't give permissions because they don't own the copyrights for the articles. They are not saying that no one owns the copyrights. In fact, the contributors still own the copyright -- so you would have to ask for their permission to copy their stuff. This is similar to Wikivoyage where you own the copyright to every bit of text you've typed in. Your continued ownership of the copyright is the only legal guarantee you have that wikivoyage.org/wikimedia foundation won't someday rip you off and print a commercial travel guide/encylopedia based on your contributions.
And btw, thanks for your continued contributions -- I for one notice that you contribute a ton-o-stuff here! -- (WT-en) Colin 13:24, 17 November 2006 (EST)

NYPD

moved to Talk:New York (city) -- (WT-en) Colin 23:30, 27 November 2006 (EST)

Los Angeles

Thanks, Ryan. I appreciate the kind words! There certainly isn’t a dearth of (quality) restaurants in Los Angeles, so it’s nice to be able to get them written-up in the travel guide. I stray to other cities occasionally, but since I live in Los Angeles I feel like I really have a better grasp of the culinary scene. Now I’m hungry! (I was unsure where to respond. If it's easier to do so on my Talk page just let me know. Thanks.)

WikiOutdoors

Ryan, I wonder if you have an opinion to share on Project:Cooperating with WikiOutdoors? --(WT-en) Evan 20:00, 4 December 2006 (EST)

I agree, it's "Usable," but the reason I didn't change the status myself is that I've been trying to decide what a "UsablePark" template might look like, and was delaying until I had a satisfying answer. Any thoughts? The things that make a "park" article useful are not necessarily identical to those for city, region, etc. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 17:04, 9 December 2006 (EST) (P.S. Give WikiOutdoors a try; she's doing a good thing, and needs all the help she can get.)

I just realized that there's a usable park template, and it appears to cover most of the items that I'd think are important (lodging, get in, what to do) - if there's a discussion ongoing about this issue somewhere let me know and I'd be able to add my two cents. As to WikiOutdoors, I'll definitely take a look, although I've just started a new job and my time has been limited. I'd also like to see her change the license, which I think is something that's being discussed. -- (WT-en) Ryan 18:31, 9 December 2006 (EST)
Moved from Project:Requests for comments by (WT-en) Andrew H. (Sapphire) 18:47, 9 December 2006 (EST)
  • Project:Park guide status Just finished creating a whole set of status templates and guide status guidelines specific to National Parks. Would appreciate if a few people would go through and check what I've put down and add anything else needed. (WT-en) Tim 15:39, 18 August 2006 (EDT)
I just updated the Chiricahua status (and made a couple of minor changes to the Usablepark template). -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 18:49, 9 December 2006 (EST)

Union (Maine)

Discussion moved to Project:Deletion policy#Union (Maine)

Culver City

Guide indeed, good article! Surfas is great and the traffic lights, indeed, are not - I kept my ticket though, the photo was fairly decent  :) (WT-en) Cacahuate 01:57, 25 December 2006 (EST)

Thanks - this article has been in that gray area between usable and guide for a while, so I somewhat impulsively upgraded it today. And my traffic ticket photo was none too great, and it (along with my $350, argh) are now long gone. -- (WT-en) Ryan 02:43, 25 December 2006 (EST)

LA districts

Do you have opinions regarding either of these related discussions? I'd like to move forward with them soon... sorry they're so long-winded, but if you have a second...

If not, well keep on ignoring them  :) (WT-en) Cacahuate 02:02, 26 December 2006 (EST)