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Monasteries, temples, and archaeological sites

I have noticed we have a significant number of articles that are dedicated to monasteries and other religious sites (as destinations in themselves). These sites are complexes with their own accommodation in many cases, but they are categorized inconsistently because they don't seem to meet the requirements of a city, park, or rural area. Examples include Guinsa (categorized as a "city"), Mount Athos (a rural area), Lumbini (a city), and Taizé Community (a rural area). There are also some sites which are on the fine line between monastery and "city", such as Mont Saint-Michel, Tengboche, Ki, and Ellora. I'm sure there are more of both of these types, but they are hard to find.

How should we categorize them? As rural areas? Parks? Cities? Or should we create a separate article type for them? --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 17:55, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

I just found another one, Mount Kailash, which is classified as an itinerary. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 18:27, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

It is surprising that we don't have a category for Wikivoyage:What is an article?#Exceptions says:

"Cases for which exceptions are made include attractions, sites, or events that are far away (too far for a day trip) from any city and would require an overnight stay, or so large and complex that the information about them would overload the city article."

But it provides no advice on how to categorize these articles. The examples it provides shows that we haven't thought this through. Ephesus and Pompeii ruins are treated as cities, as is the Disneyland amusement park. Choquequirao Inca ruins and Cedar Point amusement park are classed as parks. Ground Zero (talk) 19:19, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

Interesting. I could see archaeological ruins (which overlap with these religious sites in some occasions) as a potential category as well. To me, it makes more sense to categorize Ephesus and Pompeii as parks (or even some new category) rather than cities. Pompeii, however, is a complex one as there is a modern city of Pompei next to the ruins. One of the challenges with archaeological sites is that they are major tourist destinations in their own right but often don't have accommodations and therefore fail the sleep test.

One potential argument is that it doesn't matter how an article is categorized because it's just a tag at the bottom of a page, so I'd like to address that in advance. Details for how to improve and upgrade an article (such as Wikivoyage:City article status) are written specifically for that type of article (such as how to write a travel guide to a city), and not for archaeological sites or monasteries. It's unclear whether poorly categorized article types should be created and how they should be addressed when there's no article type for them. I know when I started editing here, it took me a while to grasp the concept of WV:What is an article? because it isn't straightforward. I think the rural area article type filled a significant gap in our coverage and I remember how only a few years ago, barren and rocky islands in the middle of the ocean were categorized as "cities". We could take a further step to resolving that by establishing a consensus for categorization of monasteries and archaeological parks. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 19:53, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

Most monasteries and temples are well handled as points of interest ("See"), and even quite large complexes could be adequately handled as a 3rd level head under ("See"). Some of the exceptions you cite seem like the authors have chosen good templates to use (Mont Saint-Michel, for example, works pretty well with the city template). Considering that the english WV has over 30K articles, I'm not sure that new article types need to be defined. (If they are, I might lobby to create a type for "archaeological site", which I've wanted on more than 20 occasions). Mrkstvns (talk) 20:02, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

I agree regarding Mont Saint-Michel. It's unusual in that it does function like an entire town. I'm really looking more at those first four options as the biggest candidates for some kind of categorization (Mount Athos, etc.).

I'm definitely leaning more toward an article type of its own for archaeological sites given above comments. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 20:05, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

Another monastery: Montserrat (Spain) (this one is labeled as a park, which it is within a park, but not a park of itself) --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 21:17, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

I would support creating another category, Sites, to include "exceptions such as attractions, sites, or events that are far away (too far for a day trip) from any city and would require an overnight stay, or so large and complex that the information about them would overload the city article."

"Archaeological sites" is very specific, and it might lead some contributors to conclude that all archaeological sites can have articles, which is not our intent. Unless we have a discussion and change policy, a new category should apply only to the exceptions that we already allow. Ground Zero (talk) 22:15, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

Agreed, that would be a good compromise to allow a category without deviating from the framework provided by existing policy. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 02:45, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

I’d prefer status quo, no action, or failing that a broad term such as “site", "attraction” or "other" that could cover monasteries, palaces, theme and safari parks or whatever that might appear among the “other destinations” on the map.

Looking at the examples quoted, most are well out of date. Guinsa, Mount Athos, Tengboche, Ki, Ellora and Mount Kailash are unsullied by dates; Disneyland almost so. Lumbini dates to 2015, Mount Saint-Michel to 2015, Choquequirao to 2019, and Cedar Point to 2016. Those entire pages need a whole heap of work and it’s not obvious that the unobtrusive category tag at the foot should be more important than that. Grahamsands (talk) 11:30, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

I agree with @Grahamsands. I'd prefer status quot (no action), but if a new template is needed, then an all-purpose "site", as described by @Ground Zero seems like the most useful approach. Mrkstvns (talk) 16:34, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

Articles being out of date is a problem across Wikivoyage, and not one that is easily resolved. A lack of a way of classifying articles that are not a city, rural area, itinerary, region or topic is a problem that we can resolve. —The preceding comment was added by Ground Zero (talk • contribs)

Solving the problem of outdated information is not trivial, but with the editor listing having timestamps now, it's much more approachable. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:47, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

@Grahamsands I recently went to Universal Orlando and will update/confirm the older contents. I will be using Universal Orlando page for demonstration on coming Sunday's newcomer workshop and politely asking everyone to avoid updating this page (so I actually have some outdated/missing info to work with on screen at the meeting!) OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 15:01, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

I ended up using Orlando to demonstrate. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 19:13, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

A question to those who don't want a new classification for the exceptions, repeating SelfieCity's original question, "How should we categorize them? As rural areas? Parks? Cities?" None of those really fits, which is why I propose a "Sites" classification. Ground Zero (talk) 13:37, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

We could probably classify them as "Teapots" for all the difference it makes to reader experience or WV taxonomy, but I'm fine with "Sites". But are we in accord that such categories are inclusive not exclusive? That's to say, a page may meet the criteria for several categories, we need flexibility for the great variety of topics, and we simply assign the one that makes most intuitive sense (the "duck test"). Exclusive would mean that anything that qualifies as a Site is disbarred from being anything else. I ask because I've seen "Rural area" treated in that way, leading to labelling even sillier than when those pages were classed as "cities". Grahamsands (talk) 15:01, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

We might benefit from a rule that says if you are writing about a teapot, and there's no Official Taxonomy of Teapots, then just pick the format that seems most relevant for what you plan to write, and then stop worrying about it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:54, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

I agree with the above, but @Grahamsands: if you are concerned with some of the articles that are being labeled rural areas, can you give some examples? I think we should address your concerns. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 00:50, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm curious too – I don't see any particular examples of miscategorized rural areas (other than the instances mentioned below, which I do not think are miscategorized), but I might be missing something. --SHB (t | c | m) 02:42, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

I like GZ's suggestion of "site" as a category. Pashley (talk) 21:40, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't greatly care, but it's OK with me. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:42, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Two rural examples are Eysturoy in Faroes and West Antarctica in wherever that is; the fallacy being that because they technically meet the criteria for "rural", they weren't allowed to remain as "regions". But if the principle is agreed, I'll simply adjust examples that I come across. I'm content with the concept and majority of pages marked "rural", but I foresaw similar nonsense developing over Sites. Grahamsands (talk) 13:55, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Eysturoy seems like the textbook definition of a rural area to me — low population density, with multiple small villages that don't constitute articles of their own, but when all together do. If those villages merit their own articles and you can create articles for each of them, I've no objection to making that a region article with those villages breadcrumbed within it.

West Antarctica is a strange one, for sure. As it stands, nowhere is breadcrumbed underneath it, which typically is what meets our definition of a rural area as opposed to a region. Perhaps we need more clarity on that distinction, since it seems that isn't entirely clear.

If these aren't rural areas, what article would you consider to be a rural area? --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 14:16, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

I didn’t think we intended to disqualify somewhere as a “region” by the absence of constituent places, be those WV subpages or real-life geography. If you do so argue, you end up concluding that the Moon is a rural area. The criterion is the “duck test” – does it look, walk and quack like one? West Antarctica is 3000 km by 3000 km so it looks, walks and quacks like a region. A soft rule might be that anything over 100 km is probably a region, under 10 km is probably a rural area / park / city etc, but in all cases use your duck sense (yes, I’ve heard of Yellowstone). Faroes Northern Islands contain the city of Klaksvik yet are supposedly “rural”. Eysturoy is of similar size (rural) yet bigger than Streymoy (region). Vágar looks rural enough to me, must it be re-classed just because Mykines is a sub-page? The duck test also helps distinguish sites, rural areas, parks, teapots and so on. Grahamsands (talk) 16:23, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

100 sq km? That would make Anticosti not a rural article, when it clearly should be. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:30, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

100 km longest dimension, soft rule I stress. Anticosti at 160 km is longer than Prince Edward Island so my inclination would be "region", but if what it most quacks like to you is rural then stay with that. Grahamsands (talk) 19:10, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware, total area has never been a factor in distinguishing between what is categorized as a "region" vs. a "rural area". If we want to discuss that and establish a consensus on that, that's okay, but the size of rural areas has never occurred to me, nor I suspect many others, who have created and categorized such articles up to this point. There is also no justification to move rural area articles to regions, when they have no lower-level articles beneath them, at this point given no discussion nor consensus has been established on this topic.

Personally, I don't believe the size of a rural area should determine whether it meets that category. My opinion is that the distinction between a region and rural area should remain whether there are articles breadcrumbed beneath it, and I fear that adding a second angle of distinction between regions and rural areas would make categorizing said articles more confusing. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 02:31, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes. The region article template and region article status are the pages that define whether having something as a region makes sense, and there being sub-articles is key. If the terminology confuses readers, then we should just hide it (I don't like the "X is a huge city" headnote). For places like West Antarctica or Los Angeles, we just need to treat exceptional places as exceptions, with whatever solutions that work in practice. –LPfi (talk) 08:29, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

The region article template is sensible and I concur with it. It doesn't specify a size, it's driven by breadth of content, but it does not require that a region must have sub-pages - that I suggest is a misinterpretation that has crept in. It's clearly an unusual region that has no sub-structure, but collectively there must be quite a few of those, and WV can excel in going where commercial guides cannot. I am sensing agreement that West Antarctica is one example. That's our gut feeling or duck sense, which surely reflects its size? So somewhere between its 3000 km length and Eystremoy's 100 km is a tipping point.

"Rural area" was intended as a base category like "city". A city may contain other cities or rural areas, so I guess a rural area could contain a smaller rural area, but it's a bit odd if it contains a whole city. Grahamsands (talk) 10:11, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

To get usable status, a region article has to have 'links to the region's major cities and other destinations (the most important of which must be at usable status or better)'. I read this as requiring such subarticles for usable status, and I think that a template choice that hinders the article from getting usable status is invalid (except for extraregions, disambiguation pages and such). –LPfi (talk) 10:24, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes, per above, I would support clarifying in our guidelines that regions must have lower-level destinations breadcrumbed beneath them (even if it is just one). There seems to have been an oversight in the drafting of that article which can be fixed.

I'd add that, as far as I'm aware, cities can't contain other cities — they must be made into huge city articles with the breadcrumbed articles converted into districts. However, I believe we may be treating Los Angeles as an exception to that? For instance should Los Angeles/Hollywood be a city or a district? It was recently moved by an editor, in good faith, to the latter, because our standard policy would dictate that it should be a district (an argument toward which I lean in favor). --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 16:35, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

While I generally think that regions should have lower-level destinations, I'm not sure that should be an absolute requirement in all cases. I think we should put some value on having similar levels. For example, if we have a country or state that we'd like to divide up like this:

and three of the regions have cities and other obvious destinations, but the fourth is almost entirely uninhabited (e.g., due to inhospitable geography or legal restrictions), then I'd still call that fourth one a region, because it makes more sense to have the whole country divided into four equal regions than into three regions plus one rural area.

I wouldn't expect this to come up very often, and I would not apply this to smaller areas, but if it does, e.g., with the first subdivisions of Antarctica, we should not worry too much about having a region with no destinations. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:10, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Maybe we should write an exception for cases such as Antarctica. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 20:32, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

What are the similarities between Disneyland Paris and Taizé Community? The principal similarity is that visitors to both sites go from their homes to the site in question, potentially spend several days there and then return home. The principal differences between both sites - I won't even try to list them

From the point of Wikivoyage, both should include directions on how to get there, details of costs an outline of expected accommodation, food and what to expect at the site. These explanations should be oriented towards the expected traveller. When writing the article on Taizé, I assumed that the traveller was coming, possibly as part of a group, from a neighbouring country in Western Europe. In the case of Disneyland, I would assume that most travellers were already in Paris, though I would make a point of mentioning how travellers could get there from elsewhere in Western Europe (direct train etc). The structure of both articles should therefore be similar and indeed the rural area and city travel guides suited Taizé and Disneyland well. I therefore do not see the point in having more categories for monasteries, temples or archaeological sites. Martinvl (talk) 17:21, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

I agree. What could be done is to write a guideline for such articles, be it one for "site" articles or one for archaeological sites, one for monasteries and one for amusement parks. That or those guidelines should discuss the merits of creating a See or Do listing or choosing between article templates. –LPfi (talk) 07:54, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure the proposal is going anywhere, but I'll add another "city" for consideration: Mount Ostrog. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 22:43, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Another: Mount Popa. I don't see how we can call these cities in good faith — calling them parks would be an improvement, but even better would be a specific categorization: even "temple" if "sites" is too broad? --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 22:45, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Mount Sinai is another "city". I propose that we call these sacred sites. I think that's clear in meaning and scope. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 23:02, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't think that solves anything, really. Before creation of the rural area template, we called large expanses of wilderness with some small villages scattered around "cities". Calling monasteries "cities" is no worse. The rural area template wasn't created just because of the common meaning of the word, but because the issues in a rural area are different from those of a city, e.g. information on getting around is essential (that isn't yet reflected in the status criteria, but it should be – and it is in the template). I see no major problem in the "city" categorisation of those monasteries, while I think that they differ quite a lot from Taizé. –LPfi (talk) 10:31, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Is the main annoyance that the box says "This city travel guide to Mount Popa is an outline..." at the bottom of the page? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:48, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

That, but also (for me) what LPfi says about differences in template, although I have the opposite stance on this. I think monasteries should have different headings from cities. "Drink" is typically for nightclubs and dances — this heading doesn't make sense for a monastery, which is somewhere between an itinerary (often with an extended remote route for entry) and a city (with some basic services). --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 02:48, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

While there seldom is nightlife in monasteries, there may be issues about alcohol, and there may be places where you go for a break in your visit over a cup of tea or another drink. See e.g. Taizé#Drink. The verb doesn't tell that the section needs to be about nightlife – it seldom is in park articles. And why cannot the extended route be described in Get in? The issues can be explained in a guideline without touching the city templates.

My main worry is that a new "sacred sites" wouldn't suite all sacred sites.

Start by writing the guideline, include instructions on what should go into different sections, and only when it is obvious that also the heading structure (or status criteria) need to be different, only then should we create a new template.

–LPfi (talk) 07:24, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Hello all, I have created Wikivoyage:Sacred site article template. I looked at existing articles such as Mount Sinai and Mount Athos and added a "Talk" section, a "Respect" section, a "Restrictions" subsection, and different "Sleep" subsections based on the differences between those articles and park/city articles.

To me, this showed that there are significant differences between sacred sites and other types of articles, while maintaining the overall layout of a Wikivoyage travel article. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 15:48, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't object to a "Sites" template, but why "sacred"? Why wouldn't we use a template that could work for amusement parks, ruins of cities and other non-sacred sites, too? We also need to be careful about a slippery slope. Will someone propose a "village" template because villages are not cities? (By the way, I still can't edit the pub from my iPhone, as the "Reply" button doesn't work and there's no offer to edit any sections. Is someone trying to fix that?) Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:07, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Sure, I thought I had seen opposition to a broader sites category in this thread, but I don't have anything against creating a new draft template for sites for review. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 21:33, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I think there are issues that are common for most sacred sites but more seldom apply to archaeological sites. I have not decided whether we need a separate article category for "sites" or "sacred sites", but I think that a guideline on sacred sites is useful, be it in the form of a template or in free form. If we combine sacred sites with archaeological ones and amusement parks, we will need a lot of "for x …, for y …" or "if [criterium mostly true only for sacred sites] …". –LPfi (talk) 09:25, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

The bit about "This city travel guide to Mount Popa is an outline..." can be fixed in the existing template. We'd just need a switch to use a generic word (or to omit it altogether): "This destination travel guide to Mount Popa is an outline..." or "This travel guide to Mount Popa is an outline...". This is not difficult (i.e., I could probably code it myself, though I'd have to go look up how to do it). The same thing could be added to all of them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:03, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

I would support the latter, "This travel guide to Mount Popa is an outline..." It's easy to understand. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 02:05, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

To be clear, I support this only for city articles — I think the other categories' templates are OK as they are. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 02:20, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

I too think that removing our internal terminology on cities and huge cities from view in mainspace would be an improvement. (Editing them is a bit convoluted, as the text is got through {{stbox}}.)

A related issue is where the links from the templates should go. I have found them utterly unhelpful. As a new editor here I was severely confused by where they lead me (I was looking for section and status descriptions, while the links onward to the relevant pages were well-hidden), later I just ignore those links and try to remember the relevant page names instead.

–LPfi (talk) 09:14, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Selfie, are you sure that you don't want this for other destinations, too? It seems to me that someone with your username is complaining at the top of the thread that there are articles saying things like:

• This rural area travel guide to Taizé Community is...
• This itinerary to Mount Kailash is...
• This park travel guide to Montserrat is...

Wouldn't you rather have them all fixed? The fix that I have in mind would default to current behavior. {{usablecity}} would work exactly the way it does now. We would just add a switch that would suppress the name if you manually put in something like {{usablecity|suppress=yes}}. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:57, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

I certainly don't oppose fixing those as well; I simply think those templates are adequate as they are. I should've clarified my view on that.

As for the three you've suggested, especially Taizé and Kailash, it's still not clear to me whether those will remain in their current categories. I'd hope that rural area articles and itineraries more generally are made into "pure" categories in which those links within the templates are informative for all articles within those respective categories.

City categorization, however, seems it will remain applied to small towns, suburbs, and villages for a long time. So I think cities are a little different from the other types.

Also, I didn't realize this was to be an opt-in, as opposed to all articles within the category. I'm okay with that but it clarifies my view of your proposal. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 23:11, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

FYI: Inside the Black Box of Predictive Travel Surveillance

https://www.wired.com/story/inside-the-black-box-of-predictive-travel-surveillance/ —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:14, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

This is an interesting read. The story mentioned Kenya and how its ETA system is run by a private company and collects a percentage of the fee. I have heard that Wikimania planning committee selected Kenya for this year's Wikimania due to its liberal visa policy. But never have I thought that applying for Kenya's ETA involves passing personal data through a private company rather than directly collected by the government. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:01, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Some countries have you apply for the visa through a private company (Finland did or does so for Russia – which is weird, as dissidents might have reason not to trust those companies). Hopefully the companies don't collect info for third parties. Airlines passing your diets to governments is also unexpected – unless you have been concerned about the developments after 9/11. –LPfi (talk) 12:20, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

In Singapore, India and the Nordic countries outsource their visa processing to private companies. You go to the office of the private company they designate, not the embassy, to submit your visa application. The dog2 (talk) 20:04, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

List of bus routes

Do we have a policy on lists of bus routes, such as the one at Leeds#Get around? It doesn't seem to be focussed on travellers, and I have concerns that it may be out of date, but no interest in experiencing the tedium of updating it. I can see listing the bus routes in a place that has just 4 or 5, but this many seems encyclopedic. Ground Zero (talk) 02:31, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Avoid long lists. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:33, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

I would only ever list express bus routes which tend to be a lot more relevant and go out of date a lot less. Leeds#Get around, which lists every bus route, is just ridiculous. --SHB (t | c | m) 07:15, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

I noticed that with Wakayama, as well. In the "By bus" section, I tend to just mention what regions or major attractions ARE served by buses without mentioning the actual routes (bus stops near attractions should be written in their listings) and tourist areas or attractions that are NOT served by bus. Like you said, a route that is made for or is particularly relevant to travelers, I think is okay to list them, but most should not be listed. It's better for travelers to look up routes themselves. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 11:36, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

There is no point in listing bus routes unless the destinations mentioned are also in the article. Furthermore, what is the likelyhood that the information will still be usweful in say five years time? It might be useful however to indicate whether or not the bus routes traverse the city concerned or terminate at the city centre.

I am quite happy to state that Heathrow Airport is serviced by buses from the Woking and Reading railway stations (as these services have been running for years and will probably continue to run until they are replaced by rail links. Giving the route numbers - well these change regularly, so I would not give them.

In short, give the traveller enough information that they can plan their trip before they leave, but do not give details that are liklely to change and that can be found out easily on arrival. As such, I fell that the list at Leeds#Get around is over the top. Martinvl (talk) 22:47, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

A travel topic on smell

I'm a fan of the sense of smell and I saw this today: https://nautil.us/scent-makes-a-place-1175656/ and wondered if anyone had some feedback on making a travel topic on smell. It's so much more common to think of taste or sights when it comes to a travel topic, sometimes hearing or even sense of touch when it comes to climate, swimming, hiking, etc. and other than Berkeley's Aftel Museum of Smells, I don't immediately know a lot of smell-related destinations, but does anyone else think that this could be a viable topic? Things to know about smell, places to go for smells, how smell impacts memory, etc.? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:51, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

I never thought of that as a travel topic, but I greatly enjoyed walking through a lavender field on my way to and from master classes one of the summers I was in Nice. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:32, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

I think it would be hard to curate the topic, but I suppose some botanical gardens have scent garden area with fragrant herbs and so forth. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:42, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes. However, I think the cope aspect of smell should be covered in some of the general travel topics, with the appropriate section linked in a hat note from Smell, to avoid messing up choosing destinations (or attractions) for the experience and ways to avoid problematic smells (a real issue e.g. for asthmatics). –LPfi (talk) 10:38, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

There are certainly a number of perfume/fragrance related museums out there. Spice markets and flower fields tend to get associated with fragrance and, though not positive, so does India/developing countries in general and traditional leather tanneries have a reputation too. In Copenhagen there is a nose museum. And there are quite a few foods out there famous for their fragrance/stink. If you do your research and depending on how wide you want to cast the net I'm sure you can come up with numerous smell related destinations. SilentWV (talk) 03:33, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Gulf of Mexico

Trump just signed an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico to "Gulf of America". Obviously, this name change is only in force in the U.S., but should we make a note somewhere in the U.S. article that it is officially called the "Gulf of America" within the States? The dog2 (talk) 14:38, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

No. Per Wikivoyage:Naming conventions, we care only about what names are most used in English. Official names are of no relevance. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:58, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Some Americans will call it "Gulf of America", others will call it "Gulf of How does this Lower the Price of Eggs?". Until it catches on in the U.S. we needn't worry about it. Ground Zero (talk) 18:34, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Also no – I doubt many people will fall onto Trump's stupidity. --SHB (t | c | m) 21:26, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

No. One analogous case is Persian Gulf where we have the text:

"Persian Gulf" has been the usual term in English for centuries; this goes back at least to the Romans calling it "Sinus Persicus". It is sometimes also called the "Arabian Gulf", mainly in Arab countries.

As I see it we might at most need a similar comment on "Gulf of America" if and when that term comes into general use. As GZ says, we certainly should not worry about it yet, Pashley (talk) 22:38, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Haha, I had a feeling this was going to come up. I agree with everyone else. Trump is just playing politics at this point. Let's stick with solely calling it the Gulf of Mexico unless this or some other term becomes widespread. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 22:46, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Another analogous case would be the South China Sea, which Filipinos call the West Philippine Sea and Vietnamese call the East Sea. But OK, I'm happy to wait and see if "Gulf of America" actually gains traction the U.S. If it turns out that Democrats stick with "Gulf of Mexico" while Republicans adopt "Gulf of America" (which is certainly possible given the polarisation of American politics), then it becomes a more complex issue as to what to call it. The dog2 (talk) 23:51, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Absolutely not. Mrkstvns (talk) 00:28, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

As with anything political motivated, let's wait and see what status is after the midterm election. 90.233.200.244 15:07, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

I doubt things will suddenly change in 2026 either. --SHB (t | c | m) 02:34, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Suddenly?! I don't think so either, it's either descent or ascent from here. 95.203.20.51 03:12, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Point being US federal midterm elections aren't likely to cause a shift in usage. --SHB (t | c | m) 03:15, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Point being that midterm election will be the benchmark compared to now. 95.203.20.51 03:26, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Okay buddy. Whatever you say. --SHB (t | c | m) 04:55, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

A similar example is Erdoğan’s edict changing Turkey into Türkiye. That makes a bit more sense as it was already in use for branding and marketing including for tourism, but “Turkey” is entrenched in common English usage, and Erdoğan can’t mandate otherwise. And Turkey has no plans to start calling its neighbours by their local-language names, which (working clockwise) are Ελλάδα, България, საქართველო, Հայաստան, Azerbaycan, العراق and سوريا. Grahamsands (talk) 15:06, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

New itinerary Culturally significant landscape in Vélez-Blanco

Hi: Just to announce there is a new itinerary for Spain: Culturally significant landscape in Vélez-Blanco. This is an sponsored work by @IAPH. Hope you'll find useful. Olea (LaOfi) (talk) 16:07, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

WAM 2024 results

Thanks to everyone that participated at Wikivoyage:Wikivoyage Asian Month. This year, we had 9 users improve articles from 15 different Asian countries. This year, the top three contributors were:

1. ChubbyWimbus – 14 articles
2. Jpatokal – 12 articles
3. Chongkian – 8 articles

Thanks again, especially OhanaUnited and Galahad for making this happen, and hopefully we have more edit-a-thons like this in the future.

--SHB (t | c | m) 04:38, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for hosting the event! It was not just fun but also really motivating! ChubbyWimbus (talk) 10:45, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Definitely agreed there – a great excuse to expand on places that you'd otherwise put off for another few weeks or months. SHB (t | c | m) 11:05, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for participating. I am very pleased that most submissions are of high quality and cover non-English speaking countries where there's less online tourism guides written in English (unlike our last general edit-a-thon in 2018 which are dominated by Indian, American, British, Irish and Canadian submissions). We can time it with the Wikipedia Asian Month which runs annually from November 1 to December 31. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 19:33, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm really pleased with how the global editathon turned out! Since it was a prototype, it delivered fantastic results, and I'm excited about the possibility of making it an annual event—maybe with even more communities joining in! I'll be working on a diff, but I just need to gather the results from the other participating language versions first. Galahad (sasageyo!)^(esvoy) 04:17, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

I am fully onboard with making this a permanent annual event in the future. --SHB (t | c | m) 01:30, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Universal Code of Conduct annual review: provide your comments on the UCoC and Enforcement Guidelines

Please help translate to your language.

I am writing to you to let you know the annual review period for the Universal Code of Conduct and Enforcement Guidelines is open now. You can make suggestions for changes through 3 February 2025. This is the first step of several to be taken for the annual review. Read more information and find a conversation to join on the UCoC page on Meta.

The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. This annual review was planned and implemented by the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, you may review the U4C Charter.

Please share this information with other members in your community wherever else might be appropriate.

-- In cooperation with the U4C, Keegan (WMF) (talk) 01:12, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Docents do not appear on Vector 2022

I didn't initially notice because I use Vector 2010 globally (for ease of cross-wiki patrolling), but when I viewed Doetinchem on incognito mode, I noticed that there is no docent section on Vector 2022. Is there any way to make it appear, or are the idea of docents kaput forever? --SHB (t | c | m) 05:17, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

What's docent section? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 16:18, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Presumably Wikivoyage:Docents. If a page has Template:HasDocent, the listed name(s) appear in a small section in the sidebar in the old Vector skin.

Under Vector-2022, like most of the sidebar it's been moved to the Tools menu. Daggerstab (talk) 18:41, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

That is definitely less than ideal – @Wauteurz, Jdlrobson: do you have any fixes to this? --SHB (t | c | m) 00:41, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't. My modifications to Vector 2022 were never meant to scope outside of CSS tweaks, and relocating that cannot be done by just tweaking a stylesheet. Not with my capabilities, at least. Here's some food for thought though: Maybe displaying docents more prominently at the top or bottom of a page could be a viable concept? Maybe a subtle bar that tacks onto the pagebanner or something in that vein?
― Wauteurz (talk) 00:49, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

I wouldn't be opposed to displaying docents a tad more prominently. --SHB (t | c | m) 01:22, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

@SHB2000: Revisiting this - I did find a fix, I just don't know if it's doable on Wikivoyage.

Vector 2022 has configuration settings for menu pinning. I suspect the default here is 0 (= hidden) for all except vector-appearance-pinned. That's how Wikivoyage looks to me in an incognito tab, anyway. Setting specifically vector-page-tools-pinned to 1 (= pinned) should at least make the sidebar with docents visible by default again. I would recommend doing the same for all four pin-able menus though. The only thing I am unsure about is whether site admins have the ability to alter LocalSettings.php, or whether that's done from above.
― Wauteurz (talk) 10:57, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Nice – I'd support your proposal if it can be implemented. //shb (t | c | m) 11:02, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

To clarify:

• Docents appear in Vector 2022 in an incognito window. I see them in the tools menu: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/F58305523
• When I click "move to sidebar" they appear on the right hand side as they do for anonymous users.
• The proposal is to make them more prominent

Is this correct?

I am not sure the average reader would understand what this menu link is for (especially if seasoned editors are not familiar with the concept - myself included). What is this link for? Is it to ask the docent random questions such as "Which of these hotels is better?", "Do you know if X is open on Sundays?". Is it being used? If so, how often and by who (what kind of editors)? Could you provide some examples?

I can confidently say the majority of links in the menus are ignored by anonymous users (there is data to back that up).

I would worry the page banner may be too prominent. I suspect the value of a docent comes when you have read an article in full and not found the relevant information so you might want to consider a new component that either appears at the bottom of the page (e.g. like where navboxes appear in Wikipedia articles) or a smaller box on the side (like In other projects].

I would recommend such a new component should:

1) explains the intention behind docents

2) Identify the person in more detail to make them more relatable (perhaps a bio?)

3) provides more explicit calls to action for the reader to guide what this link is for e.g. "Ask a question"

Hope I've understood correctly and this is helpful. Jdlrobson (talk) 05:01, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

@Jdlrobson I'm unable to view the content of your phabricator link. It says I don't have permission to view this object. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 14:50, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Lancaster

I've noticed that Lancaster links to a disambiguation page. I presume that Lancaster, England is by far the most famous Lancaster worldwide, so should point it to Lancaster, England by default? Lancaster, Pennsylvania would probably be the most famous Lancaster for Americans, but for me growing up outside the U.S., Lancaster, England would be what I instinctively think of when you say "Lancaster" without any other qualification. The dog2 (talk) 17:20, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes. I would support the following page moves, albeit not as strongly as for Newark:

• Lancaster (England) > Lancaster
• Lancaster > Lancaster (disambiguation)

--Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 17:47, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

I support too – never heard of the Lancaster in Pennsylvania. --SHB (t | c | m) 22:12, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Seems reasonable. I straightened the links and only six were from substantive pages. It looks like the ambiguity auto-warning is doing its job. Grahamsands (talk) 22:18, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

And I have known about the existence of Lancaster, PA for decades but I'm not familiar with Lancaster, England. Per w:Lancaster, Lancashire, Lancaster, England "had a population of 52,234 in the 2011 census, compared to the district, which had a population of 138,375." Re: w:Lancaster, Pennsylvania: "With a population of 58,039 at the 2020 census, it is the tenth-most populous city in the state. It is a core city within South Central Pennsylvania, with 552,984 residents in the Lancaster metropolitan area." Care to reconsider? I think you should. The one in PA is almost 5 times bigger in terms of a metropolitan area, it would seem. If anything, it would seem that the one in PA should be the default. And why is it that you all thought you should make such a precipitous decision, not even waiting a single day for more comments? That's kind of egregious, my friends. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:45, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

The pages haven't been moved yet, and I don't have a problem with waiting for more comments. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 01:48, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

I guess I misunderstood what Grahamsands stated above. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:54, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Ah, I see. I think he means that he changed link targets from disambiguation pages to the specific cities. @Grahamsands: am I understanding correctly? --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 02:59, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

I agree, the city in PA is what comes to mind for me, it's a regional tourism destination for Pennsylvania and neighboring states. As an American, I couldn't tell you anything about the city in England. (Lancaster CA is actually much larger than both PA and England, but it's not as much of a tourism destination.) Gerode (talk) 05:11, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Lancaster, CA proper is bigger, in fact 173,516 in the 2020 Census per w:Lancaster, California, but per w:Palmdale, California: "Palmdale is the 33rd most populous city in California. Together with its immediate northern neighbor, the city of Lancaster, the Palmdale–Lancaster urban area had a population of 359,559 in 2020." Considering that they're in L.A. County, is that analogous to the 552,984 residents in the Lancaster metropolitan area? I'm unsure. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:19, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Pennsylvania comes to my mind too. From a tourist perspective, Lancaster is well-known for its Amish population and related tourism. I don't know anything about the British Lancaster. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 10:08, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Lancaster, England is a historic city that featured prominently in the Wars of the Roses. The rivalry between Lancashire and Yorkshire in fact persists today. Lancaster, England also has quite a number of historic buildings, including a castle. The dog2 (talk) 13:48, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Okay, but the above thread has convinced me that the other cities named Lancaster are significant enough that we can't prioritize the English city in our naming conventions. I suggest we stick with the status quo on this one. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 13:55, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I'm fine with keeping the status quo too. The dog2 (talk) 16:10, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes, however I still support your proposal for Newark. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 19:57, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Just to confirm that by straightening links, as you rightly infer I pointed them at their intended destinations. Usage in the 15th century when the other Lancasters were undreamed doesn't necessarily bind us now, but fyi York and Lancaster were rival dynasties rather than cities. There were major battles in Yorkshire but not Lancs, see Lancashire#Understand. Grahamsands (talk) 18:03, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes. Good points. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 21:48, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

• I'd Support the move. I'd say in most such cases the unadorned link (here Lancaster) should point to the original city (Lancaster, England). There are justified exceptions like Perth, but I do not think this is one. Pashley (talk) 23:38, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

  I think what I gather from this discussion is that Americans default to the Lancaster in Pennsylvania but the rest of the world defaults to the UK city. Am I reading this correctly? (though I suppose that just cements the argument for keeping the status quo) //shb (t | c | m) 07:24, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Newark

On the note of the previous segment, I'd say Newark, New Jersey has far eclipsed the original Newark-on-Trent in England, so should we just direct this link to Newark, New Jersey? The dog2 (talk) 17:26, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes. I would support the following page moves:

• Newark (New Jersey) > Newark
• Newark > Newark (disambiguation)

--Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 17:46, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

There's also a Newark, Ohio, etc., and none of that matters for these purposes. Newark, NJ is a big city, so yes, it should be the default. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:47, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

I also don't see why anyone would search "Newark" expecting to get "Newark-on-Trent" either – I support Newark, New Jersey, being the default. --SHB (t | c | m) 03:20, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

I'll make the move if nobody objects in the next 24 hours. The dog2 (talk) 17:57, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

• Support the move. Newark NJ also has an important airport. Pashley (talk) 23:30, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

FYI: 5 money-draining mistakes travelers make when planning a vacation

https://www.npr.org/2025/01/25/nx-s1-5231810/5-money-draining-mistakes-travelers-make-when-planning-a-vacation —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:56, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Most of the advice relates to Responsible travel#Overtourism (choose dupes or off-peak dates) or Sustainable travel (use dupes that avoid long flights), some is about prejudice against hostels (some do cater well for families, not all are filled with college-age backpackers) and short-term rentals not always being a cheap alternative after all. They also suggest home sitting etc. Most of the advice is mentioned in our guides, but it could be developed somewhat.

I think we need to change the redirect from Airbnb to Short term rentals, which should be a separate article from Hospitality exchange, where it now leads.

–LPfi (talk) 08:04, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

The article also talks about avoiding unrealistic dreams, based on marketing and travel blogs. If you aren't a millionaire, your travel dreams shouldn't be based on the honeymoon suite of a luxury hotel. Do we cover this in Travel basics? –LPfi (talk) 08:07, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Maybe might just be me, but I feel as though the travel dreams one is somewhat Captain Obvious. --SHB (t | c | m) 08:14, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Probably for us, but not necessarily for the novice traveller. Anybody understands that the luxury suite isn't for them, and many do want to be spoilt on their vacation, but actual budget options don't necessarily conform to what they expect travel to be like (based on travel blogs and advertising) – even if they would enjoy the budget version. Cf doing Europe. –LPfi (talk) 11:02, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

I suppose you do have a point there. --SHB (t | c | m) 12:09, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

I definitely support the idea of a non-"sharing" page for Airbnb, etc. Short-term rentals (which should be hyphenated) is a good title, but it could also be part of Vacation rentals.

We also need an article on House sitting. We have one on Pet sitting, and since most house sitting in practice seems to involve pet care, maybe it should just redirect there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:07, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Pet sitting looks to be written for pet owners rather than those looking to pet sit as part of their travels. Although house sitting is occasionally just about building security (and maybe doing some maintenance or gardening) it is usually about looking after pets. Home exchange is also a related topic. AlasdairW (talk) 00:04, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

House sitting is also considerably rare compared to pet sitting, too. (where I am house sitters are unaffordable to most, but pet sitting is very common) --SHB (t | c | m) 00:40, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

RFC: Separate articles for public transport in cities

We have a couple of cities where public transportation info has been hived off into a separate article, which then tends to turn into an encyclopedic listing of every single train & bus line in the city. I think this is a disservice to travellers and we should stop doing this. If you have opinions on the matter, please chime in at Talk:Transportation#Local public transportation in separate articles considered harmful. Jpatokal (talk) 22:22, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Have vcards unique IDs?

I'm looking for a way to uniquely identify vcards. I want to use the data in the vcards for a trip planning tool, but for the data to stay up to date I have to update my database every once in a while. Without a unique identifier that is hard.

If I look at the source code vcards don't seem to have an unique ID. I see however that the list items that contain the vcards do have an id, e.g. <li id="mw4w">. So I'm wondering whether that list-item id is a stable identifier for the vcard it contains.

Anybody able to shed a light on this? If somebody knows a better approach that is of course welcome too.

SilentWV (talk) 03:20, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

I assume vcards is synonymous with listings? (I think I've seen that term being used on dewikivoyage) Wouldn't know, unfortunately. --SHB (t | c | m) 04:33, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

In this context more or less. I think they are originally digital business cards but nowadays they are often used to deal with structured data on webpages. Wikivoyage uses it as a listings template. SilentWV (talk) 22:05, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

I think the tag ids mentioned by SilentWV are not stable and will be changed after an edit. These ids are used with the Parsoid parser. The listing template doesn't generate such an ID. But it could derived for instance from the Wikidata id is unique and stable. Unfortunately, not all listings use Wikidata (ids). --RolandUnger (talk) 11:05, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

The Wikidata id is stable for the Wikidata item (sometimes redirected, never reused), but there may be a listing for the same Wikidata item in more than one article, and what Wikidata item to use for a listing is not guaranteed not to change (the item may not exactly match the listed entity). I assume these issues can be handled by treating a listing as replaced when the Wikidata changes, and having some code for multiple listings with the same Wikidata ID (either for different aspects of the entity or just different descriptions, one more up to date than the other). –LPfi (talk) 18:47, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. Wikidata should indeed be stable. Did however not consider that different items can use the same wikidata entry. I assumed it was a one on one relation. But now I think about it, it makes sense. Geographical features may be large and contain a multitude of things of touristic interest and world heritage has entries that contain lists, such as Belfries of Belgium and France. So, I have to give that a bit more thought.... SilentWV (talk) 19:40, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

I think that there mostly indeed is a one to one relation, and it may even be that there should be one (we don 't use Wikidata for McDonald's for all McDonald'ses), but once in a while editors feel otherwise or don't know about the rule. And then there are listings in travel topic articles, region articles and city articles using the same Wikidata id for the same entity but with different descriptions (the should link to the main one in the city article but may not), and the place is sometimes listed in a nearby city (mostly wrongly – except if the article for the correct city wasn't yet created or the listing links to the main listing). –LPfi (talk) 19:51, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

I assumed it wikidata should be a one on one relation without thinking about it. Your remark made me think about it and it is clearly not a one on one relation. E.g. the mentioned world heritage site of Belfries of Belgium and France contains several dozen buildings spread over as many cities. There may be a policy to avoid using this wikidata entry in wikivoyage, I can see a case to do so but not thought it through properly, but wikidata id is certainly not the unique identifier I initially assumed it to be. So this certainly requires some rethinking for my project.

The other point you make, about the different descriptions in different articles and that they should link to the main one in the city article seems however relevant. How does the linking work? Maybe I'm missing something, but doesn't such a link require a unique identifier that I could also use for my project? If so, what is that identifier? SilentWV (talk) 21:07, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

See e.g. Grand old hotels#Q1481002 (The Ritz, London) and Christmas Markets#Frankfurt Weinachtsmarkt (no Wikidata entry, linking to the "name" instead). We also have similar listings that aren't linked, such as those in Grand old hotels#United States (these have a link to the right city, but not necessarily even to the article where the listing should be found). When names are used as anchor, they are mostly unique in that article, but sometimes the name is vague or otherwise ambiguous across articles (such as "Town Hall").

When a point of interest is mentioned in country, region or huge city articles, there may be a link to the listing (like in travel topics), the page or the city where it is to be found, or it may not be linked at all there.

–LPfi (talk) 07:48, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. That is what I feared. Wikidata should indeed be stable, but only a relatively limited number of entries have one. It crossed my mind that in theory I could create a wikidata entry for each listing, but as I understand it, wikidata entries are supposed to be only created for items that have sufficient notoriety, whatever that may be, so that would not be a valid solution. I'll read up Parsoid to see whether that can give me some ideas. SilentWV (talk) 19:30, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

I suppose in theory we could add a unique {{anchor}} for individual entries. Would that help? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:04, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes, that would definitely help. A unique ID creates an unambiguous way to link an entry with other data sets and synchronize them to reflect updates without the need for a complex and error prone fuzzy matching algorithm. SilentWV (talk) 20:06, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

In theory, but there are lots of listings, editors cannot be expected to add that anchor and manually created anchors may not be unique. There would need to be some automatic mechanism. Perhaps the listing editor could create those anchors (a reasonably short random string?) when Wikidata id is missing. Then most listings would get unique IDs over time. A bot could add them for existing listings to speed it up. –LPfi (talk) 08:17, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: I believe that's already the case? Canberra/Civic#Canberra Centre automatically anchors to the listing. --shb (t | c | m) 11:35, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes, the listing template sets a span id identical to the name parameter, which then can be used as anchor. See my examples and associated discussion above (at 07:48). The name is usually unique in the page, but may not be across pages and may not be stable, especially not when ad hoc translations are used as name. The official name is more stable and is often found in the alt parameter, which isn't used as id/anchor (I think it formerly was). –LPfi (talk) 14:14, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

restaurant descriptions

writing these can be a time consuming activity. actually ChatGPT is quite good in doing it with this query:

give me a short description about this list of restaurants in [[*CITY NAME*]]. write it in a neutral way without using words like "ideal". the descriptions are for a travel guide. Focus on specific savory food, don't write anything about drinks or sweet food. Write a bit about the style of the restaurant. Don't say anything about food delivery. Please no bla bla sentences like "A convenient stop for a quick and satisfying bite."

for a better processing, the list should only include the names of the restaurants without "updated December 2017" and so on. 2A01:599:214:306:1493:C1E1:20A4:5294 14:06, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Chatbots risk violating copyright, but the other issue is relying on them without doing some human editing. You can use them as a tool, but don't post unedited chatbot text. Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:55, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

yeah, the produced text needs some checking and editing. 2A01:599:214:306:1493:C1E1:20A4:5294 16:16, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

• Adamantly Oppose! We want input from humans, mainly travellers, not from computer programs. I can think of only one clearly legitimate use of AI in creating WV pages; translating from other WV languages. It is conceivable that, as Ikan suggests, there might be other uses, but I am far from convinced of that. Pashley (talk) 15:34, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

  "''adamantly'' oppose" ...

  ChatGPT gets the information from reviews, which are written by humans. the produced text is just a summary. of course the produced text needs some checking and editing. also for improving the query. 2A01:599:214:306:1493:C1E1:20A4:5294 16:19, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

  If you've checked everything for accuracy and edited the text such that no-one could tell what tools you used, you're good. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:39, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

  "Reviews, which are written by humans"? The year is 2025, reviews are often astroturfed or AI generated, and if they are not, they soon will be. Daggerstab (talk) 14:09, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

• I too Oppose the use of AI to write listings due to the tendency toward hallucination of such tools, which tend to fabricate obscure details and facts. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 16:28, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

  As do I. I don't mind having a tool actually write the description, if the result is good, but all facts (including subjective descriptions) need to be verified by the person adding them (either from personal experience or through checking the sources for trustworthiness of each individual claim). –LPfi (talk) 18:53, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

  Agreed. I recognize that some people use AI tools to polish their grammar and spelling, and I don't see an issue with that. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 03:04, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

• Yes, the reviews the chatbot is using might be written by real people, or then not - who knows if some of them are AI generated in the first place. However even if those reviews would be truthful (not always the case), the AI can still fumble up the information as SelfieCity pointed out. Therefore we shouldn't be using such services to create WV content. --Ypsilon (talk) 19:04, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
• Strong oppose – a hard no. AI chatbots are useless at this kind of thing, not to mention the countless other problems that would arise. --shb (t | c | m) 21:14, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

  While I have a lot of sympathy with this, when someone starts off by saying that they're finding that a tool "is quite good in doing it", it's not very convincing to just tell them that they're wrong. If it's working for them, it's "useful". I think the opposition should focus on other things, e.g., the fact that it's risky (might hallucinate false information) and not our goal (we want to be unique).

  Of course, if someone were to use such a tool in the way that Ikan and others suggest, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:10, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

A similar conversation is ongoing at our sister project Wikinews (and that conversation references similar such conversations at other sister projects): n:en:Wikinews:Water_cooler/assistance#ChatGPT. I am generally opposed to these for various reasons, but we don't have a local policy here and at the bare minimum, if you are using an AI tool to generate new material (but not, e.g. fixing spelling or suggesting ways to improve your vocabulary), then it needs to be disclosed which tool you used, which prompts you used, and when you made the request. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:18, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

There is a similarly heavy policy proposal at the English Wikibooks (where you have not answered a question you were asked, BTW). I don't think that's either feasible or helpful. I think it could also create unexpected problems. Imagine if the prompt is:

"Hey AI, here's the long post from my blog about this restaurant. Please summarize it in two sentences, without giving any identifying information about me <pastes long text>".

Posting that prompt would mean disclosing your real-world identity, because anyone could use the prompt to find your blog. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:56, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

There may be similar problems, but in the given example, you could just give the blog post without telling it was yours. Then of course, you would be accused of a copyvio, so you would need to get your permission to use that post ("Hi. Your blog post so well described what also was my experience. May I use it in summarised form on Wikivoyage?"). I think there needs to be a practice developed for such situations, which aren't restricted to AI (how did you get that photo, on private property?).

On the other hand, already a long time ago you could be identified from your writing style. The study I vaguely remember said that analysing 40kB (?) of yours (emails? Usenet posts?) was enough to identify posts from you among a closed sample of people (a few thousand?). Using a spell checker, the needed text body was somewhat bigger, but still easy to collect.

–LPfi (talk) 08:26, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

We should have a local AI policy

Per the above and per relevant discussions at our sister projects, we should have a local policy on the use of generative AI/LLM tools. As I've written here and elsewhere, I think at a bare minimum that for any of these creating new content, users must disclose which tool was used, which prompt(s) it was given, and when the request was made. If others agree that we should get out ahead of this, I propose that we begin drafting at Wikivoyage:Artificial intelligence (WV:AI) sooner rather than later. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:20, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

We've had a discussion on this before and WhatamIdoing raised some good points before that having a specific policy on AI doesn't do any good but we could lose potentially good contributors over this. I can't find the specific comment, I still agree with her sentiment and would prefer having no AI policy. //shb (t | c | m) 21:28, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Huh, I'd be motivated to understand that argument. Thanks. I hope WIAD decides to chime in and educate me. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:49, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

It basically comes down to two problems:

• A rule against AI is unenforceable. We don't know where/how contributors are getting the text they post. It is, as a matter of principle, a bad idea to have rules that you cannot enforce. (You can have unenforceable non-rules, such as "We're in favor of peace and love and harmony" or Wikivoyage:The traveller comes first or even Wikivoyage:Keep Wikivoyage fun, but you shouldn't have unenforceable rules.)
• A rule against AI will result in false accusations. False accusations will harm the accused person and, to a lesser extent, the bystanders who see acrimonious accusations. There is no effective way to defend yourself against false accusations. If you write personally something that someone says 'sounds like' AI, or that gets flagged by 'AI detectors', then there's nothing you can do except tell the truth, which your accuser is unlikely to believe. And if you did use AI, then you could lie about that and say you didn't, and there's nothing that anyone else can do to prove your lie wrong. I've seen AI "detectors" that flag some of my Wikipedia articles as probably being AI generated. I know that's not true. Also, most of them require a minimum amount of text (e.g., 100 words), and most individual listings are shorter than that.

Instead of trying to ban a "method", I think we should focus on the outcomes we want, which are:

• unique content
• accurate content
• from your own personal experiences (whenever possible) or from multiple trustworthy sources
• posted in a volume/at a speed that gives the rest of the community plenty of time to take a look at your work

and so forth. Then we sidestep the "you horrible user of horrible AI" and instead say: It doesn't matter whether AI hallucinated the detail about the old church being blue vs you got it confused with a different place. Errors aren't wanted, and if you make enough errors, then we'll block you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:50, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

I think you are right. There may still be a need for advice and rules prompted by the availability of LLM and similar technologies. A fast rule on keeping volume down to a human speed could be helpful, and we certainly want advice directed at good-faith users. The discussion SHB referred to made clear that some valuable contributors want to be able to use AI, and used in good ways those uses won't harm. The advice needs to identify ways to use AI that can be tempting but that we don't want – sv-wp had a lot of that discussion about bot-writing (without AI). –LPfi (talk) 08:43, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

I wouldn't be opposed to creating an infomation-style page of the use of AI, explicitly stating that there is no official policy on the use of AI. There are reasonable use-cases of AI and I wouldn't want the lack of a page to imply that such use cases aren't permitted. //shb (t | c | m) 03:14, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Folk are rightly concerned about veracity and copyright, I'd like to focus on time input. Anything that boosts contributors' work per given time is welcome, because pages look to be going out of date faster than they're maintained. For instance I'm embarked on an upgrade of parts of Spain that on present progress will take until Sept 2027, and that will be just one portion of a single large country. Thus for restaurants in Santiago de Compostela:

- the refresh of an existing WV-EN entry (considering customer reviews etc) took me 5 minutes.

- a new entry suggested by Lonely Planet took 7 minutes.

- the first suggestion by Chatbot was blatant cut & paste from publicity blurb so I barge-poled it. The second looked like a genuine quality find, so after due checking yadda yah the new entry took 7 minutes.

Other contributors no doubt work faster but might find that their time-saving is minimal. Grahamsands (talk) 15:23, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Reminder: first part of the annual UCoC review closes soon

Please help translate to your language.

This is a reminder that the first phase of the annual review period for the Universal Code of Conduct and Enforcement Guidelines will be closing soon. You can make suggestions for changes through the end of day, 3 February 2025. This is the first step of several to be taken for the annual review. Read more information and find a conversation to join on the UCoC page on Meta. After review of the feedback, proposals for updated text will be published on Meta in March for another round of community review.

Please share this information with other members in your community wherever else might be appropriate.

-- In cooperation with the U4C, Keegan (WMF) (talk) 00:49, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Automatically disallow module pages from non-autoconfirmed users

The title, basically. The need for any non-autoconfirmed user to edit a module is next-to-zero, but the impacts of a non-autoconfirmed user breaking a module is far too high and often leads to a domino effect of several pages broken. Just earlier today, all of our template documentation pages were broken due to a single instance of vandalism. While we can utilise page protections, it isn't an effective long-term solution; there's only so much we can do compared to not giving anonymous users + new accounts the ability to edit modules at all. Very little is lost and much is to be gained. //shb (t | c | m) 23:49, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

I suppose to give a similar analogy, it's very much like how anyone who isn't an interface admin cannot edit .css/.js pages, or how non-autoconfirmed users cannot create userpages for other users on enwiki. Somewhat along the lines where the system restricts the ability to edit Module pages for autoconfirmed users only. //shb (t | c | m) 23:58, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

The problem is that we don't have many users confident in editing the module code – we often want external help. I much prefer an expert editing code instead of asking me to insert it. Also, autoconfirmed is a very low level of protection for code that should be edited by experts only. With abuse filters it is possible to take into account some aspects of experience from other projects, which I think you cannot with page protection. Should we just add an abuse filter to protect modules? Some of our non-admin regulars often do this kind of work. Do we need less seasoned users to edit the modules? –LPfi (talk) 07:25, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Any bureaucrat can manually flag a user with +confirmed if needed. Leaderboard (talk) 07:49, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes, but bureaucrats are not necessarily available, and even if they are, the editor may not know how to ask for the action (or even that they are expected to ask for it). Regardless, I think (auto)confirmed is too low a requirement. –LPfi (talk) 07:54, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

@LPfi: Maybe template editor? Template editors roles can be assigned by any sysop at any time without a nomination – if we want external help we could easily assign that role. --shb (t | c | m) 11:28, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

My main concern with leaving the status quo and relying on page protections is that new modules are created not too uncommonly and it's very easy to forget to add page protection – and as we saw earlier with Special:Diff/5015601 – one edit by an IP that broke all of our documentation templates. I wanted autoconfirmed to be the default and then further protecting the very high-risk modules (that aren't .css or .js pages) to template editor, but I suppose if we make the minimum template editor, then it could easily be given out by a sysop on request. //shb (t | c | m) 11:33, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

My suggestion was to add an abuse filter instead. It could be public, if we want public criteria and not more complicated rules often found in the filters. Global edit count can be used, and e.g. 5,000 would be much more than autoconfirmed, but probably satisfied for anybody whom we'd want to edit modules. The filters can be set per namespace, so such a restriction for modules is possible.

Template editor would be logical, and any admin being able to assign it lessens the problem with users from sister project, but there is still the frustrating feeling when you see a problem, do some research and experimenting and then, when you think that you have solved the problem, the system says that you don't have the rights. If asking for the permissions isn't a common solution across projects, the user may never think about it, and there is no trace of the actions that would cause an admin to assign the right and tell the user about it.

–LPfi (talk) 14:02, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

A few hundred edits is usually plenty, especially if you can also check for account age (I'd suggest a few months). You don't want to unnecessarily exclude MediaWiki devs, whose contributions don't get counted as "edits". WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:25, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

I believe asking for perms is quite common place across bigger wikis (where most of our technically skilled people come from), so it wouldn't be entirely out of the ordinary. My issue with an abuse filter is that it wouldn't give a whole lot of room to exceptions as opposed to a blanket default protection. //shb (t | c | m) 22:51, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

In practice, asking for permissions means the site stays broken longer. We only have three buros here. Two of you are in the same part of the world, and the third isn't active most days.

• You and Ikan usually stop editing for the day around 12:00 UTC. TT's off wiki.
• The site breaks at 12:15 UTC.
• A volunteer dev shows up to fix it at 12:30 UTC.
• The volunteer dev asks for the user right at 12:45 UTC, but nobody who can grant the perm is around.
• The site stays broken until you or Ikan wake up in the morning.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:46, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Do you figure we need another bureaucrat? Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:05, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

If we are going to make timely technical repairs conditional on having a bureaucrat around, then we probably need several more bureaucrats, with an emphasis on people who are usually online in the hours after the deployment train runs on Wednesdays (evening/night in Europe, afternoon/evening in the Americas). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:48, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Solution is much simpler, allow sysops to also grant the confirmed right manually (I also say this after an awkward waiting period for a case we had on enwikibooks last year). Saves a whole heap of time as we generally have sysops active for most hours of the day (except between 23:00–03:00 UTC). //shb (t | c | m) 21:29, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Which means semi-protection (your original proposal) instead of template editor (your later proposal).

I thought that admins were already able to grant confirmed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:15, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Well I simply mentioned that due to you mentioning bureaucrats being needed to be involved – I still prefer template editor which can be assigned by any sysop, but if autoconfirmed is decided on as the bar, I'm also up for allowing sysops to grant it (which we don't, oddly enough). //shb (t | c | m) 22:31, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

I thought TE required a buro. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:20, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

I believe sysops can grant autopatroller (if the user in question doesn't have GR), patroller, template editor and IPBE. Buros can assign that plus confirmed, sysop, int admin, bot, account creator and buro itself. //shb (t | c | m) 11:05, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Could a regular admin check whether they can assign "confirmed" and "template editor"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:22, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Would be good for a regular admin to check, but for the record, I very well remember not being able to assign confirmed when I wasn't a bureaucrat and I have assigned template editor to a few users before. //shb (t | c | m) 21:58, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

The groups I can change are:

• IP block exempt
• autopatroller
• patroller
• template editor

I cannot change confirmed user. I checked what groups I can add to myself, removing groups can be different. I am an admin.

–LPfi (talk) 06:10, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Sweet, it does line up with what Special:ListGroupRights#sysop has to say (and it is expected that you cannot change confirmed user because that's under Special:ListGroupRights#bureaucrat). Cheers LPfi :). //shb (t | c | m) 08:02, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Have started a proposal at Wikivoyage talk:Confirmed users. //shb (t | c | m) 05:25, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Filter 48

Admins, please read my comments in Filter 48 and reply there, and thanks! Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:08, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Odd star article symbol appearence

Could someone let me know why Enoshima appears as a star article on the sidebar of wikipedia:en:Enoshima? (I don't know where Wikivoyage displays on Vector2022, but you can see it on vector2010.) Thanks, CMD (talk) 14:04, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

To be clear, it also appears on MonoBook, which I use and will likely appear on all skins. It is because it is (or was, depending on when you read this), marked with that quality at the relevant Wikidata item: d:Q989803. It was done by a bot in 2014, based on this rev of the page. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:40, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks, I did think it was coded in a common location, I just genuinely do not know how (if?) Vector2022 connects to other projects. CMD (talk) 03:55, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

I removed it on Wikidata – it's neither a guide nor a star article. //shb (t | c | m) 22:37, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

FYI: We asked 10 travel agents: What’s the top under-the-radar destination? Here’s what they said

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/01/top-most-under-the-radar-travel-places-spots-destinations.html —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:24, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

If Hamburg, the Nordic countries, Uzbekistan and Western Australia are "under the radar" then their radar needs fixing. They could make a good start by reading WV, which has fairly good coverage of the lot. Grahamsands (talk) 14:23, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

The Philippines also being "under the radar" is also laughable. //shb (t | c | m) 08:26, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

If you asked 1,000 Americans "what are your top 25 travel destinations?", how many do you think would included Western Australia? My guess is two at most. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:39, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

For "top travel destinations" one would perhaps not list those on the other side of the globe. At least I wouldn't, if I were asked. Not being on a top list doesn't mean it is under the radar. And nothing in the post here, nor in the article said that this was about the USA (although quoting flight prices from there gave a hint, and some might recognise the agents that were asked – mostly those who themselves are in the US, I'd suppose). –LPfi (talk) 12:26, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

I would have assumed that it was US-centric because it's a US media outlet. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:37, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

The basic problem with the list is that they asked 10 travel agents. A travel agent is going to be tempted to answer with an under-the-radar destination that they sell an expensive trip to, not somewhere nearer that you might drive to with a tent in the back of the car. AlasdairW (talk) 23:42, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes, this is also another issue with the article (and does explain why many of the destinations listed in question aren't the cheapest to get to). //shb (t | c | m) 06:49, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

"And nothing in the post here, nor in the article said that this was about the USA" CNBC is an American outlet. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:47, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes, it is, and I am a bit embarrassed that I didn't recognise the acronym (perhaps because I assumed the site was travel-oriented). But an entity being US-based is usually better known among those who themselves have connections to the USA, and thus such knowledge should not be assumed in a global forum. –LPfi (talk) 07:17, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree – I only knew CNBC is American because I have extensively read their articles before (particularly in the lead-up to US elections), but I would not assume that everyone knows CNBC is an American outlet. //shb (t | c | m) 07:22, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

I don't know if it's the confusion about it being American or if I'm alone here, but the list was actually better than I expected. I'd say with the exception of Hamburg, they all qualify as "off-the-radar" for a large number of American tourists, although the Ecuadorian cloud forest is hyper-specific compared to "Nordic countries" which is so broad. I think some of them make more sense when you think about how the average US tourist thinks about certain destinations and the typical priorities in the respective regions and countries (Western Europe over Albania or Nordic countries, Melbourne and Sydney area over Perth, Thailand/Vietnam/China/Bali over Philippines). ChubbyWimbus (talk) 15:13, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Would you also classify the Philippines as being off-the-radar for American visitors too? (just out of curiosity – I don't actually know how popular of a destination the Philippines are in the US) //shb (t | c | m) 20:44, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I would say the Philippines is off-the-radar for most Americans. When Americans want to visit Asia, there is much more to entice them in Thailand, China, Bali, Vietnam, etc. There are no famous or well-known sites in the Philippines nor are their any widely known cultural intrigues to the average American, so it's appeal as an Asian destination is low. It seems to have more colonial European sights, too, which make it less appealing. Most people say that the beaches are the highlight of the Philippines, but Americans can go to the Caribbean for a lot cheaper for pretty beaches, and other places in Asia have both beaches AND more Asian cultural sights. To be honest, when it comes to travel, I'd say the Philippines is most known in the US as a place where old men go to purchase brides rather than a place to visit for actual travel. Of course this is just "average American" impressions. There are still plenty of Americans who visit the Philippines for travel (who are not Filipino), but overall, I think when looking at the cost versus what it offers, the rest of Asia has more of what Americans want. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 10:52, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

"an entity being US-based is usually better known among those who themselves have connections to the USA, and thus such knowledge should not be assumed in a global forum" okay, granted, but 1.) that is just contextualizing who the audience is of the piece and 2.) there are some subtle hints that it's American between it being ".com" and having a division between "USA" and "Intl" news and using American spelling, etc. I mentioned a hypothetical about Americans being polled for off-the-radar destinations because they (we) are not going to think of Western Australia literally ever, so saying that Western Australia is not off-the-radar is also some kind of cultural bias. Australians and New Zealanders would probably think of it as "on the radar" but Paraguayans and Namibians and Uzbekistanis less so. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:51, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

My last enthusiasm for the article got lost as they dropped Iceland from their list of Nordic countries. It is the most accessible European country for American visitors, and also among the most unusual. /Yvwv (talk) 15:53, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Articles on people

I think it would be good to have some more articles based around certain individuals. We do have Alexander the Great and Marco Polo, but formats of the two articles are very different. I suggest articles similar to Alexander but would list the sites of memorials or museums on the given person. For people like Rabindranath Tagore where memorials can be found even in places he had never visited, we should restrict such listings to places he had notably visited or lived (like Dhaka, Kolkata, Kushtia, Mangpoo, Santiniketan, and many overseas travels). Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 04:01, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Would you consider articles like Voyages of Christopher Columbus or Architecture of Walter Burley Griffin also to be based around certain individuals? I do agree there is some potential in this topic if done correctly. //shb (t | c | m) 05:18, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

And Goethe's Italian Journey (a single book by a single person) also makes a very nice tour through Italy. FredTC (talk) 05:29, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes so long as it's done as a travel topic, we have lots more good examples. For individuals strongly associated with a particular place it's simpler to use "Understand" or an infobox, for instance the poet William McGonagall in Dundee. His best-known contribution to travel was to praise the "beautiful bridge over the silvery Tay", then bemoan the "ill-fated bridge over the silvery Tay" after it collapsed under a train. Grahamsands (talk) 14:36, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I'm talking about individuals associated with multiple destinations. Some well-known people of India are associated with different places within India and also beyond (Mahatma Gandhi, Subhas Chandra Bose, Rabindranath Tagore, Swami Vivekananda). Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 15:21, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Go ahead and start such articles. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:06, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Wikivoyage:What is an article? has discouraged from articles on individual people. A few years ago, I added examples of reasonable travel topics or itinerarys based on famous explorers, writers, legendary characters and other individuals. In any case, creating an article for a living celebrity would not be a good idea, as it would be difficult to be updated and unbiased. Travel topics such as Presidents of the United States and Nordic monarchies should also limit the description of living individuals to basic and neutral facts. /Yvwv (talk) 15:19, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm talking about creating articles on celebrities that have memorials and museums on different places on Earth the given celeb has visited. For example, Gandhi has visited different places in India and South Africa, and there are memorials and museums in places he has visited. Same for Tagore (India, Bangladesh, etc.), Vivekananda (India, U.S., Canada, UK) and many other famous people who are known for extensive travelling, and there are memorials and museums on the places they have visited. These people should be eligible for travel topics or itineraries. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 16:39, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

The text in Wikivoyage:What is an article cited by User:Yvwv does not discourage travel articles based on the exploits of historical or fictional characters, but there is a line discouraging articles on living people that I wasn't aware of. However, I really don't think it should be impossible to agree on reasonable blurbs for them as a matter of background to the travel-related meat of a travel topic or itinerary article. The current and several former U.S. presidents are living people, and while agreeing on blurbs for them in the Presidents of the United States article has sometimes been the product of contentious arguments, it has not been impossible. Therefore, I would support an edit to Wikivoyage:What is an article, but as a matter of procedure, we should discuss that at Wikivoyage talk:What is an article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:03, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

As background see: Wikivoyage_talk:What_is_an_article?/Archive_2018-2022#Articles_on_people. AlasdairW (talk) 22:11, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

@Sbb1413: I was thinking of starting an Indian independence movement article. Once it becomes big enough, it could branch out and split into articles on the well-known individual freedom fighters like Mahatma Gandhi, Subhash Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh, Rani Lakshmibai, Sardar Patel, etc. Gizza ^(roam) 08:16, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, it can be a valid topic, though it would be kinda different from what I expected. Regardless, I'll start a topic on it. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 08:51, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree. There will be overlap but the independence article will cover some different things. It will e.g. also include non-biographical listings like Jallianwala Bagh. Gizza ^(roam) 23:23, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

See or do natural attractions?

The categories See and Do are in many cases overlapping. A principle has been that See lists attractions which can be casually visited (seeing the Manneken Pis in Brussels would be a quintessential example), while Do attractions (Activities) require active participation (such as gambling or ice skating); however, the categorization follows tradition more than a strict pattern. While Natural attractions are listed as see, outdoor life is listed as do, and many country and region articles list nature and outdoor destinations twice. As most natural attractions take some active participation beyond the vehicle transport (though driving or riding the bus to the Grand Canyon Village and walking up to the viewpoints would activate the pedometer less than walking through the Louvre in Paris). What do you think? /Yvwv (talk) 16:13, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

To me, most natural attractions are places where I want to Do thingsː hike, camp, ride, paddle. I don't just want to snap a selfie with a volcano in the background, I want to get up close and hike to the top so I can see into the caldera. I think it's okay that the categories have some overlapː let the writer who adds it to a topic decide whether its more of a "See" or "Do". Most will make the right choice. Mrkstvns (talk) 19:56, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

If I am undecided between "see" or "do", I ask if any advance preparation is required. If I am going to hike, then I probably want to pack my boots; if I am going to the theatre, then I may need to book a seat before I leave home. If I am going to a museum, then I normally just turn up (I know some museums require bookings but most don't). AlasdairW (talk) 21:21, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

I don't think we should have special rules (though I think the suggestions above are all very good). I think that if it's not intuitively obvious to you where this attraction belongs, then you should just pick one and not worry about it. The fact that you can't easily decide proves that no matter which one you choose, or what process you use to decide (flip a coin?), the result will not be bad. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:00, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

People who travel abroad are likely to encounter the cities with their architecture and monuments, before they venture into the outdoors, if they do it at all. Thereby, it makes sense to group natural attractions with outdoor life under the Do paragraph, at least in an article about a decently sized country. Consider Sweden#See; in which a very short paragraph on protected areas was recently added. /Yvwv (talk) 11:05, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Not too recently. I now reverted the addition; it was directly followed by Nature in Do, which is the natural place to describe the protected areas in question. I agree that most natural attractions are better grouped with outdoor life in Do, especially as they mostly require a hike or a dedicated trip to reach. However, there are exceptions, such as a waterfall in the city itself, which would clearly qualify as a "see" (but if there is a Waterfalls subsection in Do, one might want to include it there). There might also be natural attractions that many visitors would pass by, and also those could be "see" listings, even when far from cities. –LPfi (talk) 09:51, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

err, that's a Brendan sock for the record. //shb (t | c | m) 10:02, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

It's not nearly as confusing as it sounds – if it's a lookout or a natural attraction itself (such as a waterfall), then it's a see; if it requires hiking, riding, driving or paddling, then it's a do. If something contains a mix of the two, it's not uncommon to combine the see and do sections. //shb (t | c | m) 21:16, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree with Whatamidoing: if the decision is hard, how you flip your coin probably isn't that important. I also don't think we should make the impression that there are fast rules about it. Often it matters how you treat similar attractions in the same article, such as the waterfall example in my reply to Yvwv above, how much content there is in the respective sections, or there may be other considerations not inherent in the attraction itself. The question may arise also in articles with much content, where you wouldn't combine the sections. Your rule of thumb is good, but editor judgement should have the last word. –LPfi (talk) 10:02, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

I do agree, it's not a big deal if it's misplaced; more often than not if it is, it's a sign to combine the two sections together. //shb (t | c | m) 10:13, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

I wouldn't agree on the latter. It is true for many rural areas, where most "see" attractions require some effort to reach, but where a similar problem arises for real cities, combining the sections would be an odd decision. See e.g. Rovaniemi, which has a short section on Natural attractions in See and more content in Do, beginning with Hiking and birdwatching. The content of the former could arguably be moved to Do, but the sights there are mostly by the roads you'd use anyway. The latter are much better covered in a separate Do than being mixed up with museums and churches. Both See and Do are long (two and four pages in my browser window). –LPfi (talk) 10:31, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

I would argue that nature within cities tends to be rather the exception rather than the norm, at least on Wikivoyage. Not saying it's uncommon, but most of our natural attractions tend to be covered under park articles where it's much more common. Fir cities, yes I do agree that combining them isn't the best idea. //shb (t | c | m) 11:35, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I agree with LPfi, and while most destinations will have more "See" than "Do" listings, there's nothing wrong with places that have significantly longer "Do" sections. There's no need to combine them. If you misplace a listing, another contributor can always put it where it belongs. It can also be discussed on the talk page, but it's better to have a misplaced listing than to have no listing because the contributor was too worried about misplacing it.

When it comes to nature, I don't personally associate natural attractions with "Do", so I don't see a problem with putting a waterfall, a volcano, a river, a primeval forest, a 2000 year old tree, etc in the "See" section. I also think it's okay to give the sight a "See" listing and a hiking trail that goes to or past the sight a "Do" listing or if the place is an attraction but also has options for paragliding or other activities, giving those their own listings. In the Tottori article, the Sand Dunes themselves have a "See" listing (that is enough for most visitors) but a subheading under "Do" also lists all of the activities that you can participate in at the dunes. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 11:50, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

article renaming

wiki prevents me from renaming Istanbul/Bosphorus to Istanbul/European Bosphorus which was agreed upon consensus per Talk:Istanbul#districts_section_needs_to_be_revamped._(or_the_whole_page). can someone give me a lift? Dudewithafez (talk) 17:08, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Done, with double redirect fixed and relevant Wikidata item updated. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:18, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

I'd say the renaming is unnecessary. The article does mention that it covers only the European side & gives a link for the Asian side. Pashley (talk) 17:20, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

You should bring it up on Talk:Istanbul then. //shb (t | c | m) 21:16, 12 February 2025 (UTC)