Wikivoyage:Jargon

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Jargon

Wikivoyagers sometimes use their own brand of jargon which can be confusing for new users. This glossary attempts to explain some of the words and phrases used in discussions, edit summaries, or on IRC.

??:: Any two-letter code followed or preceded by ":", such as fr: for French or ja: for Japanese, means another language version of Wikivoyage. In old edit summaries, this usually means that an inter-language link to the version has been added (such links aren't added explicitly any more). Followed by an article name ("fr:Paris") they refer to the article on that language version; with an additional "w:" ("w:fr:Paris") they refer to a Wikipedia article in that language.

7±2 rule: A rule of thumb: avoid long, undifferentiated lists by splitting content into groups of 7±2 items.

anr: Wikivoyage:Avoid negative reviews, a guideline that states (with a few exceptions) that a place not worth visiting is not worth listing and should be simply removed from the guide entirely.

article: A page on the wiki; typically only pages in the main namespace.

BJAODN: Wikivoyage:Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense, a final resting post for inadvertent bloopers which were removed from the guide long ago. In general, Wikivoyage doesn't do comedy, but a few Wikivoyage:Joke articles are archived for destinations which existed for a day as deliberately-silly April 1 collaborations.

breadcrumbs: A list of a destination's parent regions in the Wikivoyage:Geographical hierarchy, as determined by {{isPartOf}} links. For instance, if London is in England in the United Kingdom, its breadcrumbs look something like "Europe > Britain and Ireland > United Kingdom > England > London".

bump: Bring up my post – a request for more comments on an unanswered question or issue.

city: An urban area, which may be as small as a village, a collection of adjacent towns or a large rural area. Usually the bottom-level of the Wikivoyage geographic hierarchy, where the bulk of specific information on individual venues and points of interest are concentrated, although a few large Paris-sized cities are further subdivided into districts. The area around the "city" is usually included.

copyvio: Any content which is a copyright violation, usually stuff copied from other websites without permission.

cotm, Cotm, CotM: Collaboration of the month.

c/e: short for copy edited, usually used in edit summaries

CVB: Convention and Visitors' Bureau, a destination marketing organisation promoting one city, county or region. A very powerful two-edged sword: these groups can make valuable constructive contributions because of their up-to-date on-the-ground local knowledge, or can just as readily break an entire destination page by copy-pasting massive blocks of promotional text from existing advertising materials. In general, travel guide pages should be original content to comply with our free licence, avoid duplicate content penalties on search engines and be worded as a travel guide instead of a promotional brochure.

dab, disamb, disambig: To disambiguate two or more destinations which share the same name.

destination, destination guide: An article which describes a geographic place (district, city, region, park, rural area). These form the bulk of our travel guide, although there are Wikivoyage:Other ways of seeing travel to deal with special cases like itinerary, phrasebooks, dive guides and travel topics.

discover: Wikivoyage:Discover displays brief facts about individual destinations; each appears on the Main Page for three consecutive days. Somewhat similar to Wikipedia's DYK trivia in style, but facts from any article (not just newly-created articles) may be nominated.

district: One small piece of a large city, such as the Paris arrondissements or one small piece of an individual NYC borough

dmoz, +dmoz: DMOZ was a human-curated directory of web links, originally hosted by Netscape/AOL. The original project is defunct (although other sites have archived the data for relaunch) and the "dmoz:" interwiki prefix for such links no longer works from Wikivoyage.

docent: A Wikivoyager willing to field questions from other travellers about a specific destination.

dotm, DotM: Destination of the Month. The current DotM is the showcase article on the Main Page, while DotM candidates are being considered for displaying in the future.

dynamic map: A map which has been automatically generated by adding {{listing}}s or {{marker}}s to an OpenStreetMap {{mapframe}} base map.

en.voy: English-language Wikivoyage, from the shortcuts en: (for the English language wiki) and voy: (which is used to link back here from other Wikimedia projects). Likewise, "de.voy" is Wikivoyage auf Deutsch (German) and similarly for other languages. The corresponding prefix to link to Wikipedia (WP, en.wp) from here is w: and a direct link to Wikidata is d:.

expedition: A targeted sub-project analogous to WikiProjects on Wikipedia. For instance, Wikivoyage:Search Expedition is a co-ordinated effort for search engine optimisation.

ext, extguide, extlinks, xl: Removing external links or the long-since-deprecated "External links" sections (see Where did the "External links" sections go?). Extguide means removing a link to an external travel guide. Often used as -ext.

fmt, format: Content reformatted to follow Wikivoyage conventions, usually meaning the Article skeleton templates and the Manual of Style.

FTT: Featured Travel Topic. Good quality non-destination articles, that get featured on the Main Page for a month, just like DotM and OtBP

geo: Wikivoyage:Geocoding, using MediaWiki templates to indicate the (lat, long) co-ordinates of the destination. See {{geo}}.

gong: Wikivoyage:Goals and non-goals describes the mission and scope of the project, as well as some things the project isn't meant to do (but some people might think it should).

guide: An article status rating higher than "usable" but lower than "star". Typically, a "guide" article has a lot of things to see and do and lots of places to eat and sleep, so that someone who wanted to visit the destination could use the article as their guide. A guide lacks some of the "finishing touches" (maps, formatting, editorial, writing, photos) that make a real star. A featured article candidate must be at least at "guide" level before it's ready to be nominated.

GPX, GeoJSON: A list of geographic (lat, long) co-ordinates in specific machine-readable formats; GPX was originally created to allow tracks and waypoints to be downloaded to satellite navigation devices, while GeoJSON is used to draw tracks and boundaries on dynamic maps.

IPO, isPartOf, #isIn: A reference to Template:IsPartOf, a tool to add breadcrumb navigation for a destination. Sometimes used to say "I added the isPartOf template here." Short for "is part of", like "Siberia is part of Russia".

itinerary: One of various ways to see travel, unlike a destination (our standard article, which lists the most notable points of interest for a single place) or a travel topic (which is a freeform description of one subject, such as air travel), an itinerary lists things to see and do in a linear sequence through multiple destinations - for instance, the Trans-Siberian Railway's itinerary runs east from Moscow to Vladivostok and the Orient Express runs east from Paris to Constantinople.

Kartographer: A Mediawiki extension used to generate dynamic maps on destination articles; see {{mapframe}}, {{mapshape}}, {{listing}} and {{tl:marker}}.

listing: A single entry for one venue to "see", one activity to "do" or one establishment at which to "eat", "drink" or "sleep". The basic building block of most destination articles, this at a minimum should have the name, location, contact info and a short description. See {{listing}}

marker: A single point on a dynamic map, which includes a name, (lat, long) co-ordinates and possibly a link without a full listing. See {{marker}}

MoS: Wikivoyage's Manual of Style, which defines how Wikivoyage articles should be formatted. "MoSing" means converting ad-hoc formatting to follow the Manual of Style.

namespace: Every Wikivoyage page belongs to one of the Namespaces; which one depends on what the page is for and where it fits in the site.

NCO: No advice from Captain Obvious. Government travel advisories are infamous for advice like "don't leave unsecured valuables in open view" which are true everywhere but tell the voyager little.

NPOV: Neutral point of view. The idea that all content should be presented fairly and without bias, and a philosophical cornerstone on Wikipedia. Wikivoyage does not subscribe to this strictly, because the traveller's view comes first: instead, a "Be fair" policy is applied.

OOS: short for out of scope.

OSM: OpenStreetMap, a collaborative open-source project which is used as a source for many of the base maps on this site.

otbp, OtBP: Off the Beaten Path. A showcase article for a smaller, less well-known destination than the Destination of the Month.

outline, +outline: Adding an article skeleton template (sometimes by means of a Mediawiki template). Also, an article that has only this framework content, or little else. See also Outline articles and Article status.

pcotw, Pcotw, PCotW: Previous collaboration(s) of the week.

pcotm, Pcotm, PCotM: Previous collaboration(s) of the month.

phrasebook: an article which provides brief translations of a list of common phrases into another language.

plunge forward, pf: From Wikivoyage:Plunge forward. As a response to requests for permission, means "Go ahead and do it!" As a response to criticisms, means "Do it yourself!"

POV: Point of view; content (allegedly) written from a biased perspective. Unlike Wikipedia, this is not banned on Wikivoyage, as long as you stay fair. The opposite of NPOV.

ppf: Please plunge forward. See above.

pub: The Travellers' pub is the place to ask questions when you're confused, lost, afraid, tired, annoyed, thoughtful, or helpful.

RA: Wikivoyage: Requested articles, a list of proposed topics and destinations for which we do not yet have coverage.

RC: Special:RecentChanges, a list of recent modifications to the wiki. Wikivoyage:Recent changes patrol is the task of keeping an eye on recent changes, possibly to revert or undo changes which are actively harming the project.

RDF: Resource Description Framework. Machine-readable descriptions that were used to generate the breadcrumb navigation menus for articles. No longer used.

region: An article giving an overview of a large geographic area, anything from one piece of one province to an entire continent. Regions may be further divided into subregions with individual cities or districts under them.

RFC: Wikivoyage:Requests for comment, a pointer to active discussions on other pages. The pointer is removed from the list once the discussion reaches a consensus or ends.

redirect: A redirection page is a page that automatically sends the user to another page - for instance, Peking redirects to Beijing as a historic or alternate name for the same destination. See How to redirect a page.

revert, rv, rvt, rollback: Restoring an article to a previous version. Used for unwanted edits like graffiti, vandalism, spam or whenever the reverting Wikivoyager feels that previous edit(s) worsened the quality of an article. Reverting hard means reverting more than one user's edits.

SEO: Wikivoyage:Search engine optimisation, improvements made to articles to remove/replace outdated content or text which duplicates other websites in favour of new, original content.

shared: The former "shared" site for all the different language versions of Wikivoyage. Images were uploaded to this site, and news and discussions took place that affected all language versions. This role has now been taken over by Wikimedia Commons and Wikimedia Meta.

skeleton: A blank framework with the standard article section headers (Understand, Get in, Get around, See, Do, Buy, Eat, Drink, Sleep, Connect, Go next...) which appear in every destination article. The term "article template" has also been used, but its use is declining to avoid confusing skeletons (Wikivoyage:Article skeleton templates) with MediaWiki templates such as {{listing}} and {{mapframe}}

sleep test: Whether an article passes the "Can you sleep there?" criterion in Wikivoyage:What is an article? guideline that defines whether places should have their own articles.

sp: Spelling correction(s).

star: An outstanding article that has all the right content formatted and presented in exactly the right way. Star articles, in our opinion, are in coverage and usability comparable to or better than equivalent articles in commercial guidebooks. See also Star articles and Article status.

static map: A map hand-drawn using SVG-based tools such as Inkscape; drawing static maps is more time-consuming than the {{mapframe}} and {{marker}} approach of geocoding co-ordinates for a dynamic map, but is superior for high-level region maps which change infrequently.

stub: An article without much content, or without the headers used by article skeleton templates. See also Stub articles and Article status.

sweep: A process by which discussions in the Wikivoyage:Travellers' Pub are archived to individual project talk pages.

TMI: Too Much Information. Usually refers to content that goes on at length describing a specific attraction, information that's not really relevant to travel, or which will be very difficult to keep current because it changes too often.

tout: The bane of travel. On wiki, a conflict-of-interest editor who contributes solely to self-servingly promote an individual business, a specific chain of businesses or one local destination in a biased, promotional manner. In travel, touts are hucksters who'd loiter around train and bus depots to "tout" their employer's business to arriving voyagers in return for a hidden commission or kickback.

travel topic: An article type for miscellanea and general travel issues which don't fit elsewhere. Either the topic isn't specific to one place (such as amusement parks, border crossing or tips for flying) or the theme is too specific to fit a general-purpose destination guide. While North America is a destination, fast food in the United States and Canada is a travel topic.

ttcf: A prime directive, Wikivoyage:The traveller comes first. Our goal is to serve the voyager; our coverage of conditions at any destination will place the impact on travel ahead of other considerations. That doesn't necessarily mean NPOV, but we will be fair.

usable: An article status rating higher than "outline" but lower than "guide".

vfd: Listing an article or upload on the votes for deletion page for discussion prior to deletion, as per the Wikivoyage deletion policy.

wiaa: Wikivoyage:What is an article?, a guideline which describes Wikivoyage's project scope and the "can you sleep there?" test, in which articles are created for towns, cities and regions (defined to create articles of reasonable size) while individual venues such as restaurants and museums are given {{listing}}s in their respective host cities.

WMF: Short for Wikimedia Foundation.

wp: Short for Wikipedia. Usually used to mean that a link to Wikipedia has been added.

wt: Short for Wikitravel, a rival project. See Wikivoyage:Wikivoyage and Wikitravel.

wv: Short for Wikivoyage

wta: Wikivoyage:Words to avoid, a collection of laudatory, clichéd, vague or meaningless terminology more suited for a promotional brochure than a useful travel guide.

wycsi: Wikivoyage: Where you can stick it, the classification of individual establishments into the standard skeleton categories - attractions in "see", activities in "do", shopping in "buy", restaurants and nightlife in "eat" and "drink", accommodations in "sleep"

xl: Refers to our Wikivoyage:External links policy

See also