Wikivoyage:Votes for deletion/March 2017

From Wikivoyage
Jump to navigation Jump to search
January 2017 Votes for deletion archives for March 2017 (current) May 2017

American Airlines

  • Keep. LtPowers makes a compelling argument, redirects are cheap, and Wikivoyage:Deletion policy#Deleting vs. redirecting specifically calls out "a subject that might otherwise be likely to result in creation of an article". -- Ryan • (talk) • 02:25, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • We don't have articles on private companies. (Except of course for Disney and a very small handful of other exceptions). If we want to change this policy, we can (though I do not think of that as a good idea), but we currently also have - for similar reasons - a limit on redirects for private companies. As a further aside, please consider where this redirect points. It's not exactly helpful for the hypothetical person to search American Airlines only to be pointed to the most general article possible. Hobbitschuster (talk) 01:30, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      • It's a redirect, not an article, and guidance on redirects notes that redirects are deleted if "The redirect could be considered self-promotion or spam (see also WV:Don't tout). Individual restaurants, bars, hotels or other businesses should not get redirects, although exceptions are made for large and/or important businesses and services like Amtrak (see #3 in the following section)." -- Ryan • (talk) • 01:41, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
        • Well I interpret the policy differently as also disallowing redirects for private companies and only allowing them in the rare cases when one company has become quasi-synonymous with the concept (it could be called "lex Amtrak" because that's practically the only redirect I would apply it to). I am not quite happy with having redirects for the hundreds of commercial airlines operating international flights all being created as redirects pointing to flying. There is not exactly much gained from having this redirect and it provides a "stuff exists" argument for some hypothetical airline redirect pcv. Hobbitschuster (talk) 01:52, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect to Airline alliances#Oneworld, that is useful information for the traveller. --Traveler100 (talk) 08:20, 19 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - redirecting me - when I'm expecting to get information about American Airlines - to the article on airline alliances would just frustrate me. A red link lets me know I won't find anything, and signals to editors to either delete the link, or link to the airlines website. Ground Zero (talk) 17:39, 19 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree that it signals that. We lack pages on all sorts of things, including "Deadbolts", "Protists" and "Linoleum". OK, granted, the name of a particular airline is more travel-related than those topics, but how often are "[Name of Airline]" articles created? We could easily delete any such article at the time. So I don't find this a good argument against deletion. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:19, 20 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think that's a false equivalency. Neophyte editors are not likely to try to link to those pages on a travel wiki. They are very likely to try to link to airlines because they're inherently and fundamentally travel-related. Greeting them with a bare redlink will signal "no one's created this page yet" and since it's an inherently travel-related topic, they are likely to think "I should create that page". A redirect points them in the right direction and signals where we expect related content to be placed. Powers (talk) 18:58, 20 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────But that would amount to an argument in favor of redirecting all airlines some place (what then of airlines that no longer operate or operate under a different name or still exist but are not marketed to consumers under that name or...)? We currently have redirects for some airlines but not others. We have Ryanair but not Wizz Air we have American Airlines but not Lufthansa. This is the worst of both worlds. It clutters up the search box and it creates an inconsistency that is hard to explain not only to newbies. Hobbitschuster (talk) 20:16, 20 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As I said earlier, we could restrict the redirects to major airlines, of the sort that most people would either expect us to have an article on or that they would test to see if we had an article on. Powers (talk) 21:13, 20 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
If we're concerned that new editors will think that a redlink or a redirect to an article about airlines is a sign that an article should be created, then maybe we should just redirect all airline articles to Wiaa, where they can read that we don't write articles about airlines. Ground Zero (talk) 21:16, 20 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Nice idea, but that doesn't solve the basic problem of readers clicking a link they think will take them to an airline article, only to be deposited somewhere else (in this case, not even somewhere remotely related, but an admin page). --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 22:08, 20 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Quite right. I don't think that links-that-disappoint are good for Wikivoyage. Let's just de-link airline articles. Ground Zero (talk) 22:17, 20 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Way back when it was said that there needs to be "consensus" to keep but not "consensus to delete" on that basis, there clearly is "consensus to keep", right? Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:53, 20 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not up to speed on how these decisions are made, but I don't see a consensus on either side, but a 4-3 split. Ground Zero (talk) 23:59, 20 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Unless I'm missing something, the key instruction above is "If no consensus has emerged to keep the article, file or template, an administrator can delete it." It is unfortunate, though, that we have no come to something closer to a consensus. Ground Zero (talk) 00:09, 21 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Which, judging from the length of this discussion alone, is not the way things are actually handled here, so either the behavior of our administrators or the wording at the head of the page needs to be changed. Given that the former might be seen as administrative overreach, I think there's a case to be made for the latter. Hobbitschuster (talk) 00:13, 21 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── To try to break this logjam, I have proposed a changed to policy here to clarify our intent with respect to airlines. Ground Zero (talk) 17:54, 22 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ido phrasebook

  • Delete. Ido is a made-up language that's spoken by even fewer people than Esperanto. The existence of the Esperanto phrasebook on this site is unfortunate, and I would absolutely support deleting that, too, but its existence shouldn't be used as a justification for adding more non-travel-related phrasebooks. Also see Talk:Phrasebooks#Is there any threshold of usefulness? for further discussion. Ideally, rather than simply deleting the phrasebooks that are not practically travel-related, it would be great if they could be farmed out to some other site. But if a language is not spoken exclusively even by an important minority of people in any location, we shouldn't have a phrasebook for it here. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:01, 7 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikibooks may be a place for those phrasebooks we do not want to maintain. They mostly have books for really learning the language, but a phrasebook could accompany a basic tourists' language primer. --LPfi (talk) 12:56, 7 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I agree. On Wikipedia I read there are 100-200 'speakers' of Ido worldwide. --ErwinFCG (talk) 07:23, 7 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep There's value in being thorough. Wikivoyage took it upon itself to host phrasebooks; Before the migration, Wikibooks had started doing the same but the initiative was aborted after WV joined the fold. Wikivoyage is now the home of phrasebooks within Wikimedia. We can't have a situation where we have Pbooks in all languages except 3 or 4 which are going to have to be hosted in another project. And really, it's going to be 3 or 4. There are very few constructed languages to begin with and it took 10 years after Esperanto was written for Ido to show up. Sure, the travel-value is limited but there is a broader educational value here. As a final point, the policy argument is that Phrasebooks and Wikivoyage:Phrasebook Expedition make no mention at all of a cut-off point of any kind, which means the Ido book conforms to current policy. Acer (talk) 14:06, 7 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Acer, please read Wikivoyage:Goals and non-goals. Whether an Ido phrasebook has "broader educational value" is beside the point. We are a travel guide and we are interested in providing information relevant to travelers, which in the case of this phrasebook you admitted (perhaps a bit too generously) was "limited". That's case closed as far as policy is concerned. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 15:15, 7 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Considering that there are fewer speakers of Manx Gaelic (150) than there are of Ido (200), then I have to ask if we are going to delete that one too? It has been here for 8 years. Esperanto for 10. The last discussion some years back decided to keep it. But that is not even my main point. Wikibooks aborted their phrasebook efforts in favor of Wikivoyage, which means we have a responsibility to curate this material at least until a proper solution can be found. Considering that 99% of the worlds languages are game, I'm asking you to be flexible and generous in your policy interpretation regarding the remaining 1% so we can keep the phrasebook database whole in one place. We have articles on very remote places with very limited travel potential and almost extinct languages (Manx Gaelic actually went extinct, they're trying to revive it), there's no reason to single this one out. Acer (talk) 16:35, 7 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I do not think we can delete this yet, though that appears to be the obvious thing to do under current WV policy. If Wikibooks dropped phrasebooks in favour of us, we must at least discuss with them before making a decision. I think we need some form of WMF-wide solution, not just one that fits local policy.
Would moving all phrasebooks to Wikibooks make sense? A redirect to Esperanto? Or starting a new Wikilanguage wiki for phrasebooks, grammars, dictionaries, ...? Or creating a phrasebook namespace here or on Wikibooks? Something I haven't thought of? Pashley (talk) 22:09, 7 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I like your thoughts Pashley. But I don't think we should let this situation fester indefinitely, and I don't like Acer's arguments that the existence of some non-travel-related content justifies adding more of it on this site. At least in the case of Manx, the 150 speakers are localized, but since all of them also speak English, I don't think that phrasebook is all that travel-related, either. So please lay out what you plan to propose and where you plan to start the discussion about it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:53, 8 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I can articulate some possible solutions and try to handle this together with Wikibooks and/or Wiktionary but it's not a trivial undertaking and I have an upcoming exam at the end of the month. I can get to it in November Acer (talk) 10:04, 8 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be willing to wait a month or so, or more if necessary. I would keep the VfD template on the phrasebook but propose to postpone any deletion of the article until other options can be explored. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:15, 8 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I don't have a strong opinion either way, but if it's true that Wikivoyage is where other WMF projects are now sending editors who want to work on phrasebooks then that's a possible avenue of growth for the site, and as such it may be beneficial to be liberal with what phrasebooks are allowed. The only downside I see of allowing an Ido or Esperanto phrasebook is that Wikivoyage will have a small amount of content that doesn't have practical utility for travel, while the upside is that the site would have a more complete set of phrasebooks and gain some passionate editors; in that case the benefits seem greater than the disadvantages. -- Ryan • (talk) • 15:45, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That kind of comment could be made about any kind of non-travel-related content we could choose to allow on this site. I suppose if we decided to become a repository of sports trivia or mythology talk, we might gain editors, too. Do you folks remember when Marriage in China was deleted? That was a much more obviously travel-related article (because it was about someone from outside of China traveling to get married there) than a phrasebook about a made-up language spoken by 150 people around the world, yet it was deleted because there was no consensus that it was germane. So what is our standard now? Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:48, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think the problem is the following : from the standpoint of Wikimedia as a whole, it makes little sense to spread phrasebooks over a bunch of different projects. For us as a project however, it makes little sense to host content unrelated to travel and it is at least problematic to have travel related content moved from here to another project. Now some phrasebooks clearly have a connection to travel while others not so much. It would however be frustrating for someone who wants to create a phrasebook - whether for a "made up" (all written language exists by fiat to a certain extent) language or for a "natural" one with few speakers - to be pointed here only to be told here they can't do it here either. Frankly I don't know a solution that would let "us" keep "our" phrasebooks without "us" also being the only possible place within Wikimedia for more obscure phrasebooks, even though they make little travel sense and might thus be disallowed. Hobbitschuster (talk) 10:18, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I understand the problem. So what's the solution? Can we create a different namespace for the phrasebooks or even turn them into a separate sister site, such as WikiPhrasebooks? Maybe spinning them off that way might be the best solution. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:51, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Having them at Wikibooks would be the obvious solution, but then we would lose control of them. Would people from here work on them or would some be abandoned? Could somebody over there get enthusiastic and develop them in a direction we think makes them less useful for travel? But I think either keeping all of them here or maintaining all of them on Wikibooks are the main options. Having a separate namespace would hardly solve anything. --LPfi (talk) 13:31, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Although we have a complicated issues with phrasebooks sometimes (consistency in phonetics, relevance of the language in question etc), they are eminently travel related and therefore I would prefer we kept inside WV. Andrewssi2 (talk) 20:16, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If we're officially the Wiki for all phrasebooks, I think that has to be clearly indicated somewhere (maybe WV:About?), because there is a clear contradiction between requiring all articles to be clearly travel-related and having this additional mission, which overlaps with ttcf but is sometimes tangential to it, at best. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:05, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
We should maintain travel phrasebooks, which implicitly means only those languages relevant to travel. We should not host other kinds of phrasebooks. (And we cannot be the official repository for phrasebooks because we are lacking many languages that people might want to have phrasebooks in.) Powers (talk) 20:56, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What defines a travel phrasebook? I'd think that it'd be the list of phrases chosen are those which would be used by the voyager - so "which way to the (bus/train/ship/airport)?" and the like. K7L (talk) 00:38, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Powers, I think your argument is a bit tautological, in that if Wikivoyage is the Wiki for all phrasebooks, that means that anyone can start a phrasebook in any language on this site, and the fact that we so far lack Pig Latin and Ubby Dubby phrasebooks (just kidding, sort of, about those "languages") isn't really relevant, because no Wiki is ever fully complete, anyway. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:57, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Let's be real here. The chances of randomly meeting even one of the 200 speakers of Ido during one's travels are microscopic already; the chances of a traveller finding himself in a circumstance where he is completely surrounded by people who do not speak any language other than Ido are literally null. I also agree with Powers that just because the users of some other wiki decided to abandon their own phrasebook project because we happen to have one, that doesn't constrain us to change Wikivoyage policy to conform to Wikibooks' goals. If Wikibooks feels so strongly that phrasebooks for little-used invented languages should exist, they're welcome to restart their own phrasebook project. As for Wikivoyage, we are a travel guide, and nothing other than a travel guide. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 01:58, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be fine to clarify scope as 'travel relevant phrasebooks' so as to set the bar high enough so that Ido/esperanto/klingon doesn't meet inclusion, but not so high that a remote foreign language that you could potentially encounter (e.g. Quechua_phrasebook ) is excluded. Andrewssi2 (talk) 02:26, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Quechua is not a close case. Speakers are estimated to number between 8-10 million according to Wikipedia and between 5 and 12 million according to this site, which also gives an estimate of over 8 million. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:56, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
K7L, I don't want your remark to get lost in the shuffle, but discussions about what content phrasebooks should have are more relevant at Wikivoyage talk:Phrasebook Expedition than in a VfD thread on a phrasebook for an invented language. But I'll say while I'm thinking about it that there are certainly things other than directions that are important to say or understand. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:00, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't trying to say Quechua was a niche 'borderline' language, but rather that many of those speakers would also be conversant at some level in Spanish. Perhaps Welsh would be comparable. In any case, I was advocating for all phrasebooks with languages that you may require. Andrewssi2 (talk) 04:13, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'd go beyond "require" to support the inclusion of a phrasebook for any language that could be useful, even on the basis that knowing a few words of it would produce a positive response in a particular area. I don't think we need a high bar. But if every single one of the speakers of Language X is fully and fluently bilingual in Language Y, and Language X has a few hundred speakers or something, even a few thousand (how many does Manx have?), I think it's hard to justify as really travel-related. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:36, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hm. Some Sámi languages have those a few hundred speakers. Our phrasebook is about Northern Sámi, which has several thousands, but they are bilingual in the respective national languages. So for getting instructions, a Finnish or Norwegian phrasebook (depending on location) – or even an English one – will probably be more useful, but the "positive response" reason to know "Buorre beaivvi", "Giitu" and the like remains (and recognizing some other words may be nice). I think improving on that phrasebook should not be a high priority, but it would be sad to delete it (and against the spirit of the WMF pjojects, where different languages are allowed to flourish in a way I have not seen elsewhere).
The same could probably be said about any small language with a high percent of speakers among the (traditional) population in some area. There is a difference between communicating with a stranger in a language one is fluent in, and communicating in one's own language, especially if the other language is seen as the language of oppressors, such as may be in many of those regions with small languages and a foreign lingua franca.
--LPfi (talk) 12:51, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I completely agree with you and appreciate your example. Ikan Kekek (talk) 13:18, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify: When I said "(And we cannot be the official repository for phrasebooks because we are lacking many languages that people might want to have phrasebooks in.)" I was referring to the fact that we have no way to host any phrasebook intended for speakers of languages like Norwegian or Greek or Afrikaans -- languages which do not have Wikivoyage versions. If someone wanted to write a phrasebook for Norwegian-speakers traveling to an English-speaking area, we have no place to host it. Powers (talk) 20:19, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I hadn't thought of that, and that's certainly true. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:30, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
And neither does Wikibooks... They only have 19 languages editions (and no Norwegian or Greek either), we have 17 (soon to be 18 since Finnish should be launched in a short while, if all goes well). So I don't understand the argument. This discussion is about phrasebooks written in English. We have a practical problem, in that we can't have the same kind of content spread over multiple projects. It's bad for readers, it's bad for writers and it's bad for Wikimedia. Further, it would be bad form to go to the Wikibooks folk and say, hey we'll be keeping all major language phrasebooks but we'll dump the rest here. There's two solutions to the problem, either we keep everything or we move everything. I'm fine with either though I share the sentiment that losing this material would be a net loss for Wikivoyage. The simplest solution by far, is to do nothing. Acer (talk) 21:59, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Acer, I don't think doing nothing is an option. If Wikivoyage is going to officially be the Wiki for all phrasebooks, we need to state that upfront on pages like WV:About, because it's in part an exception to our travel focus. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:54, 14 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hm, I hadn't realized there were so few Wikibooks languages. Regardless, I should think that if someone just wanted to write phrasebooks in Norwegian, it would be more acceptable to start a new Wikibooks version than to start a Norwegian Wikivoyage with nothing but phrasebooks in it.
We should not be the "official" wiki for all phrasebooks. We host travel phrasebooks -- phrasebooks with travel-related content and for travel-related languages. Any other phrasebooks or language instruction texts belong on Wikibooks. Powers (talk) 14:00, 14 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
So here's an issue: In the case of Ido phrasebook, Esperanto phrasebook and perhaps Manx phrasebook, can someone approach Wikibooks about taking them? It would be a pity to just delete the phrasebooks. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:32, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If we do want to give them the "unnecessary" ones. I still think having all the English phrasebooks here is the right thing to do, and stating that in our mission statement does not change much. It just means a very small number of extra pages.
If a phrase list is started without travel focus, it should probably be part of a primer on the language, on Wikibooks, but if it is using our templates and guidelines, then having it here is no big problem.
For the other languages: I think somebody starting to do travel phrasebooks in languages lacking a Wikivoyage is quite unlikely, and starting either a Wikivoyage or a Wikibooks in a new language just for such a project is not realistic. A new project needs more contributors. So I do not think this is an issue. The decision to have phrasebooks on Wikivoyage was made on English Wikibooks and English Wikivoyage. It does not bind the other languages, which can arrange the repositories as they like.
--LPfi (talk) 12:17, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm in full agreement with the comment above. I'd also note that there are Esperanto phrasebooks in 7 other WV languages already, so evidently they have no problem with this arrangement. We're also not that far off from having a Wikivoyage edition in Esperanto itself. It doesn't make any sense to me to delete a phrasebook for a language that we'll eventually have an entire edition on. Acer (talk) 13:55, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think that we should keep all the phrasebooks in natural languages including less used ones like Manx phrasebook. Although there are a few languages like Manx and Scottish Gaelic which are not required for travel, the traveller can benefit from knowing some of the language. I often visit places where Scottish Gaelic is spoken. I have never needed to speak it to buy something, but it is nice to be able to say hello to somebody in their own tongue and then have the conversation in English. There are also cultural events (concerts, church services etc) in Gaelic and travellers may feel more comfortable at these with some phases to hand. (We may want to have a different list of phrases for such languages.)
Ido and Esperanto are different. Esperanto may have enough speakers for there to be a small case to be made for its travel use. The highest claimed number of speakers of Ido I could find is 5000, although surprisingly there is an Ido Wikipedia with 26000 articles, and 40 active editors. (Manx has 4,874 pages and 21 active editors). AlasdairW (talk) 14:23, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think AlasdairW's rationale is the fairest one I've read yet, but I would disagree with him about Esperanto. It may be that Manx Gaelic has effectively no monolingual first-language speakers, but for me, the saving grace of that phrasebook is the "cultural events" caveat. In Esperanto's case, in addition to being an auxiliary language that does not by design have any monolingual speakers, it's also a constructed language. Therefore, there is no "Esperanto culture" that nonspeakers might miss out on. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 14:44, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
To head this off at the pass, Wikipedia has an article on Esperanto culture which speaks mainly of a corpus of literature and a shared internationalist outlook, but that's different, I think, from "culture" as defined in this discussion - festivals and events, traditions and rituals, holidays, foodways, etc. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 14:49, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think the usefulness of Esperanto while travelling is that there are communities of Esperanto speakers all over the globe. With a passing knowledge of Esperanto, which by design should be quite easy to acquire, one can find friendly hosts. A phrasebook-level of fluency is hardly enough, but the phrasebook can provide key phrases for somebody already having a rudimentary command of the language. --LPfi (talk) 18:10, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Such is the increasingly quixotic goal of the Esperantist movement, yes. Unfortunately, the reality is that English has become the de facto international auxiliary language, with Esperanto - never a widely spoken language even in the best of times - increasingly becoming redundant and irrelevant. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 18:53, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
English? America hasn't spoken the Queen's English in many years. K7L (talk) 19:09, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Neither do you Canadians, regardless of how you spell "centre" and "colour". Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:51, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If I may, this isn't just about the Ido and Manx and Esperanto phrasebooks. My concern is if we become the host for phrasebooks, people will start putting in phrases that aren't travel-related. Or creating phrasebooks for languages like Klingon, which may be interesting in very limited contexts, but not really useful for travel. Powers (talk) 20:32, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't commented on this so far, but I think we should keep just the phrasebooks that travelers could need. I mean, is there anywhere in the world where you would be able to use let alone need Ido for travel-related things like taking a taxi, ordering food etc.? We shouldn't be the main repository for all WMF's phrasebooks. The rest are better hosted on Wikibooks, Wikiversity, Wiktionary or elsewhere. This "other place" could also have a more "academic" set of phrasebooks of languages we cover here, aiming at language learners, so that if someone wants to add vocabulary beyond that which average travelers would need, they could add it there, together with grammar and such.
Tangentially, in Wikivoyage:Destination_of_the_month_candidates#Igbo_phrasebook we discussed whether external links should be allowed in phrasebooks. I think if there would be a WMF project hosting a more "academic" set of phrasebooks, we'd have someplace to point readers who want to learn more than just buying a bus ticket or ordering food, and at the same time we wouldn't need to potentially open up the floodgates for all kinds of questionable external links. ϒpsilon (talk) 21:16, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
User:LtPowers Thank you. These are valid points that I can try to address. Regarding the first one, about content, I'd be fine with limiting the scope here to travel related phrases. Even if we didn't limit it, I think in practice that's what would happen anyway, but I don't mind being formal about it. The reason I support a content based cutoff as opposed to a language based one is that the scope of every Wikimedia project is always content based. If we are going to be doing travel phrasebooks then Wikibooks or Wiktionary can do general ones. That works, different subject matters, different approaches.
When you cut by language then you have the same type of content spread across multiple projects and that's a no-no. You'd be sending travel related phrasebooks in a couple languages off to another project while keeping the rest here. One of three things will happen then, none good.
They'll either refuse to take them, they'll take them and people will follow the precedent and write travel phrasebooks over there in other languages, including ones we have (and they'll do it, the moment there's a content dispute here, the losing side while jump ship and write "their version" over there, and now both projects are competing among themselves, for editors and for googlerank.
Or third, they'll take them so as not to waste good content, they won't allow PB's for languages we have so as not to compete with us and what happened is that you turned Wikibooks into a dumpster for leftovers that don't fit their overall framework and have no room for growth because we cornered the market. It's a dick move.
The content based cutoff you proposed avoids all that, and in fact it's already the nature of our relationship with Wikipedia. Their articles can have general travel sections, but if people want more detail they come here. General PB's in Wikibooks, travel specific here, we can even link back and forth. All good.
As for your concern about languages such as Klingon or Elvish and whatnot, they are not accepted for Wikimedia projects because they are not general-purpose languages. Their vocabulary is limited to their fantasy settings, Klingon has words for spaceships and photon torpedoes, Elvish for swords and magic. They lack vocabulary for mundane concepts. I know this because back in the early days of WP there was actually an attempt to get a Klingon WP going and it was refused because of the limited character of the language. So if we adopt that same criteria, we're in the clear. There it is, I ended up writing much more than I intended, but I hope to have addressed your concerns and maybe reached a middle-ground between the opposing views here. Acer (talk) 21:49, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding content-based cutoffs, there's still the issue of, if general phrasebooks are hosted at Wikibooks but travel-related content is supposed to be outsourced to Wikivoyage, what happens to travel-related content in Ido, Esperanto, and other languages that WB chooses to host and WV doesn't? Regardless, I suppose ultimately the ball would be in WB's court as to what to do in that case, and for WV's purposes Acer's proposal sounds like the basis for a viable solution. Frankly, though, if we're talking about "dick moves", I think something else that handily qualifies is WB's decision to pull the plug on their own phrasebooks project with the intention that WV should default to being the sole home of phrasebooks within the WMF - thus saddling WV with a whole host of new responsibilities vis-à-vis WB and the WMF, as enumerated in this conversation, which in many cases go far outside the scope of this site - without so much as notifying, let alone gauging the opinion of, the WV community. Consideration for other sites within the WMF family is, frankly, a two-way street. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 00:28, 16 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
A language with 200 speakers scattered around the world, all at least bilingual if not multilingual, can't have any useful travel-related words or phrases, can it? Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:01, 16 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I can't see why it wouldn't. It might be more of a challenge to describe an airport, an X-ray machine and all the post-9/11 paranoia in Latin, though, as the Roman Empire has a good, workable transport system overland in which all roads lead to Rome.
Requiring the ability to translate our usual list of stock travel-related phrases ("Waiter, this steak is raw.", "I believe I am going to feel ill.", "Where are the toilets?", "I did not intend to vomit on your crisp, clean blue uniform, Officer.", "Can I just pay a fine now and make this go away?", "Which way to the train station?", "Which way to the hospital?"...) would exclude languages that don't have a full vocabulary suitable for travel. For instance, PHP as a language can do a Perl of a job of describing Internet access, but try to translate pioneer villages and horse riding and the vocabulary doesn't exist. We therefore don't have a voyagers' PHP phrasebook. K7L (talk) 13:02, 16 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

[unindent] You missed my point, which is that the language itself can't be useful to travelers, given that it has 200 speakers scattered around the world, all of whom are at least bilingual. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:56, 30 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Acer, you seem to be conflating phrasebooks written in constructed languages with phrasebooks written about constructed languages. No one is suggesting writing phrasebooks in Klingon. That would be a matter for the (as you note) never-to-be Klingon Wikivoyage. But a phrasebook about Klingon would be theoretically possible, whether on Wikibooks or here. I don't see why we'd be in the clear for prohibiting a phrasebook about the Klingon language, but prohibiting one about the Ido language wouldn't fly. Powers (talk) 21:25, 16 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think that we should only allow phrasebooks of languages which satisfy one of the following:
  • Are spoken by more than 1% (or maybe 0.1%) of the population of a defined area. (For reference Manx is spoken by 2% of the population of the Isle of Man, but Cornish is only spoken by 0.5% of the population of Cornwall)
  • Are officially recognised and used (to some extent) by the local government. (E.g. It is used on some road signs)
  • There is an established Wikipedia in the language.
The first two criteria should cover all the existing phrasebooks except Ido and Esperanto. I have set the % of speakers low because the statistics may be unreliable - what matters is the number that can have a conversation, not the number that are fluent, and the defined area may not match survey boundaries. AlasdairW (talk) 23:34, 16 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Decision?

This has been sitting here since October. Are we going to take some kind of action, or just do nothing, thereby having wasted a lot of keystrokes on this? Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:00, 25 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Three months ago I suggested the three criteria for phrasebook subject languages. Nobody has objected to these and Ido satisfies "There is an established Wikipedia in the language.", so on that basis it is a keep. Is there some phrasebook policy that we should be looking at changing? AlasdairW (talk) 21:31, 25 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I object to the fact that there's a Wikipedia in Ido as a reason for keeping a non-travel-useful phrasebook. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:33, 25 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia's benchmark of notability is not based on travel at all. A language can be vital for many non-travel related reasons. There is a language called wikipedia:Solresol which is a conlang based entirely on musical sounds! It is an interesting idea and experiment but completely useless for a traveller. There are Wikipedias in extinct classical languages like Latin and Sanskrit which again not that useful, although to be fair more useful than Ido. Gizza (roam) 11:07, 27 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
One more time for the folks in the back: THERE ARE 100-200 IDO SPEAKERS IN THE WORLD, NONE OF WHOM SPEAK IT AS A FIRST LANGUAGE. That ought to have been the end of the debate; the fact that it wasn't is entirely due to ridiculously over-literal and common-sense-defying interpretations of Wikivoyage policy and scope. Frankly, there wouldn't be much of an argument to "keep" even for a phrasebook in a non-artificial language with as many speakers. Delete, delete, delete. This shouldn't even have been VfD'd, it should have just been 86'ed on sight. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 16:24, 2 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
At a minimum can this phrasebook be moved into the userspace of User:Algentem so that his/her hard work in creating it isn't lost? I don't see that it would have done any harm to keep it, but if people feel passionately that it must be expunged from Wikivoyage then at least give the user a chance to keep the content and find a new home for it. -- Ryan • (talk) • 16:35, 2 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
As there's only 100-200 non-native speakers of this language, and these speakers may not even be in one locality, then I can't see any use from a traveller's point of view of this phrasebook. And wikivoyage isn't the only place with phrasebooks, there are some at Wikibooks (e.g. b:Japanese Phrasebook) and at Wiktionary (see wikt:Category:Phrasebooks by language - there are actually quite a few here, a good place to possibly move Ido to). While it wouldn't harm to have Ido here, I would be worried about the precedent of having phrasebooks that aren't useful for travellers. Although, if it is going to be deleted, I think it should be moved to the userspace, so it's not like we're saying "you're contributions aren't welcome here".  Seagull123  Φ  13:59, 14 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I would absolutely support moving it to User:Algentem's userspace. Can we please do that? And then, maybe we should reopen the discussion of Esperanto phrasebook... Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:20, 20 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Do we have a consensus in favor of moving this to User:Algentem's userspace? Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:03, 24 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I don't object. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 01:13, 24 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
But do we have a consensus to pull this phrasebook from articlespace? That's really what I'm asking. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:03, 24 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think we have enough votes in favour of deleting this phrasebook so I'll just close it. --Saqib (talk) 08:57, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Belvoir Castle (Israel)

This is just a castle, even though it is within a protected National Park. However, there is not much around. There are no hikes or such. Hence, most sections are pretty much empty.

I have moved most of the content to a See listing under Tiberias to make sure people won't miss it.

Let's keep content compact and not create various and randoms sites people won't find or won't want to search for. Ceever (talk) 17:14, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect to Tiberias wherever the information ends up per Wikivoyage:Deletion policy#Deleting vs. redirecting. -- Ryan • (talk) • 17:17, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think it would fit better in Beth Shean Valley or Kinarot Valley and the Sea of Galilee, or simply in Galilee, rather than in Tiberias. Ar2332 (talk) 17:47, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I found Beth Shean Valley a rather useless article and did not use it for my trip - it doesn't even have any accommodation options listed. I wouldn't want to sink Belvoir Castle here, but rather a link to Tiberias. (Just a personal opinion on the usefulness of the Beth Shean Valley article.) Ceever (talk) 18:27, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Content is now part of Sea of Galilee region with the help of Ar2332. Ceever (talk) 19:15, 24 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Megiddo & Beth Shearim

Like Belvoir Castle, two more site with not much of a content (now and to expect). For the sake of usefulness and efficiency for the reader, let's keep the content with Nazareth or Jezreel Valley.

There are 75 national parks (and similar sights) in Israel according to http://www.parks.org.il It is not very useful to maintain information for each little one on a separate site, especially when there is not even stuff around to fill the according sections or any main touristic focus to expect in the future.

I have created according See's under Nazareth with the two sites now (from the parts that were under Go next before), and also updated their content. Feel free to move this to Jezreel Valley, but lets keep content tight and do a redirect for these two sites. Ceever (talk) 19:25, 24 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect. Real place names are not deleted. If there's no more content to merge to Nazareth, these articles should be turned into redirects. Deletion is not a possible outcome in these kinds of situations. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:50, 24 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Is there any site for the discussion of redirects? Ceever (talk) 19:57, 24 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
They're generally discussed individually on the talk pages of individual articles, but in this kind of case, I think you can feel free to plunge forward, with explanations in your edit summaries. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:02, 24 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

KLM

Yet another pointless redirect to Flying - what potential benefit to anybody could this link even theoretically serve? Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:29, 24 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Which (if any) of the following do you think applies:

"The redirect is an alternate name or spelling for a place, including common misspellings.
The redirect is for a real place and there is an appropriate redirect target. This guidance applies to neighborhoods, tiny towns, or places that may not meet the WV:WIAA criteria. Example: a redirect has been created for Hell's Kitchen, which is a neighborhood within Manhattan.
The redirect is a term for which links are commonly created, or is a subject that might otherwise be likely to result in creation of an article that does not meet WV:WIAA. Example: Taj Mahal redirects to Agra.
The redirect aids searches on certain terms. Example: USA redirects to United States of America.
Deletion would risk breaking external links to Wikivoyage. This guidance is most relevant for redirects/articles that have existed for a significant length of time.
Deletion would result in loss of edit history required for attribution purposes. This guidance usually only applies to redirects created as a result of merging two articles."?

Because those are the reasons given in current policy for not deleting redirects. And the question whether we should have a redirect for every airline in existence has never been conclusively and satisfactorily answered imho. Hobbitschuster (talk) 17:12, 24 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Speedy keep - and have a policy discussion on the appropriate talk page if you like, instead of repeatedly misusing this VfD for personal frustrations. What applies is: As a general rule redirection pages should not be deleted, on the same page. Discussing deletions of individual redirects is a total waste of time, unless they cause confusion. They are harmless and effectively free. They are in no-one's way. Just unlink when the redirect is not useful in your eyes and leave it - or, as Ryan suggests, start a proper policy discussion. JuliasTravels (talk) 20:32, 24 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • Redirects are not "harmless and effectively free" - for example "Delta" can have numerous uses besides referring to an airline. And what good does a redirect (which shows up in the auto-completion of the search engine) do when all it does is give the illusion of an article and dump people on a travel topic such as Flying? Having those redirects in place encourages the creation of even more useless ones like Lufthansa, Eurowings, COPA Airlines and so on. There is not even an attempt at consistency in which airline names redlink and which get redirects. I am not sure this over-narrow interpretation of policy as to mean "Don't ever delete anything" was ever the intention and if it is indeed what policy has come to mean, we should change it. Hobbitschuster (talk) 15:42, 25 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Delta is a perfect example of the main exception I mentioned; it would cause confusion. The idea that having some redirects encourages many more is your personal assumption. Policy is partly based on another assumption; that not having such redirects would encourage the creation of articles that don't meet out article criteria. Personally, I'd guess that the red links are the real incentive to create. The point is, that the general rule of thumb that redirects should not be deleted is to avoid these time consuming individual discussions. If you feel no airlines should link to Flying because it doesn't help travellers, that is a valid discussion to have on a relevant talk page, with a pointer on request for comments. In that case, airlines should also never be linked. JuliasTravels (talk) 15:12, 2 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
My point is one of consistency. If I recall correctly, those redirects exist because either policy has changed in the past or because someone unaware of policy created articles such as these which were later redirected to flying. We can either redirect every airline there is to flying, spend entirely too much time on defining which airlines are "important" enough to get a redirect to flying or redirect no airlines to flying. Redirecting some airlines to flying and others not without even an attempt at giving a reason besides "well, why should we delete those redirects?" is just mindbogglingly inconsistent. Those redirects do no service to the traveler, they create needless inconsistency and they make policy needlessly complicated. If we say "no articles or redirects for companies", why, pray, do we have those redirects? And we have those redirects, why don't we have them for Lufthansa or Wizz Air? Hobbitschuster (talk) 17:02, 2 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to again reiterate that repeatedly using VFDs to call for clarifications/changes to policy is not going to be productive. Please start a thread with your concerns and proposed changes at Wikivoyage talk:Deletion policy. -- Ryan • (talk) • 17:07, 2 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have raised the issue in the pub. And to clarify my standpoint, I can find nothing in policy prohibiting the deletion of those pointless redirects, but apparently we are of differing opinions whether policy has to explicitly allow or explicitly forbid deletion for it to be binding. Hobbitschuster (talk) 17:20, 2 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Ground Zero: is your opinion on this fundamentally different from that on American Airlines? Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:55, 20 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete - per the discussion on American Airlines, I come down on the side of not having redirects-that-disappoint. While there is a better argument for redirecting KLM to Schipol, I still don't think it is a good one, and it opens the door to endless arguments about whether an airline has a singular focus or not. If I'm flying to Europe on KLM, Schipol is only of passing interest to me. I'll make a connection there, but in clicking on KLM, I'm expecting information on the airline, not on a transit airport. Ground Zero (talk) 00:05, 21 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, but change the redirect to Schiphol Airport. This airport article has some stuff about KLM and most KLM passengers will use Schiphol, so I think this will help the reader. AlasdairW (talk) 23:27, 20 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Why do that for KLM and Schiphol and not Lufthansa and Frankfurt Airport? Why not create a half dozen redirects for the likes of Delta (Atlanta) Iberia (Barajas) and whatnot? Hobbitschuster (talk) 23:44, 20 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Because almost every KLM flight uses Schipol, and the article has 3 paragraphs about the airline. If more than 75% of Lufthansa's flights use Frantfurt then it would also be a good redirect, but generally I would only do it for airlines based in a small country where almost every flight of the airline uses the one airport. AlasdairW (talk) 00:01, 21 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Another approach?

Can we produce an airline table article, perhaps at "Flying/Table" (a bit like Retiring abroad/Table) or "Airline table"? Make all airline redirects point to it, mention it in Flying & elsewhere. This might be a handy reference for travellers & it gets rid of the rather silly redirects to Flying.

Having lots of internal links helps with SEO and this makes some links more convenient. e.g. KLM is (almost?) the only line flying to Europe from Xiamen or Kunming & those articles should link to KLM.

A line of the table should have basic info on the airline. e.g. KLM is Dutch, a flag carrier, Star Alliance member, main hub is Schiphol Airport. Pashley (talk) 14:32, 22 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds like we're getting back to having articles about airlines. Wikipedia does a much better job of having up-to-date info on airlines than we ever will. And linking to a table with just basic information is creating a link-that-disappoints, like linking to Flying or an airline alliance article. If we don't want to have articles about airlines, we shouldn't have links either. Ground Zero (talk) 15:15, 22 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

To try to break this logjam, I have proposed a changed to policy here to clarify our intent with respect to airlines. Ground Zero (talk) 17:55, 22 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Globalwarning

The WHO announced the end of the Zika virus epidemic in November 2016. Time to put this template out to pasture.

-- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 15:00, 9 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: I don't particularly care how we include a warning in relevant places, but despite the epidemic being under control, there's still active transmission in many countries and the CDC advice for pregnant women (to not travel to places with active transmission) remains unchanged for now. Given the severe risks, simply deleting the warning altogether seems premature. JuliasTravels (talk) 15:47, 9 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but the impact of warningboxes for bona fide epidemics is degraded when we overuse them. There's active transmission of thousands of different diseases in pretty much every place inhabited by man. I'm not suggesting that we systematically expunge all mention of Zika from our site; I'm just saying that if this is no longer an international emergency (the WHO's own words), a warningbox template is overkill. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 15:52, 9 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
As I said, I don't mind including the information in another way (which is why this was a comment and not an oppose vote), but I saw you deleted the warning box from Tips for women travellers without offering information on Zika or the link to the CDC in another way. I undid that change for now, but will not object to including the information without a warning box. JuliasTravels (talk) 16:05, 9 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep the template: The idea of the Globalwarning template was to add it to all pages and switch on and off the warnings within the template. --Traveler100 (talk) 22:03, 9 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, right. I'd forgotten about that. This is why templates are supposed to be documented! Powers (talk) 02:07, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Across Canada by bicycle

This is an article that is a "travel topics that have been at outline status without being substantially edited within one year, and there is no suitable travel topic to redirect to." It has not been edited, except my copyedit today, since 5 Sept 2014. At length, it sets out what information the article will and will not include, and then sets out no information about cycling across Canada. This would be a great article some day if someone wanted to write it, but it no-one seems willing to do so yet. Ground Zero (talk) 02:41, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have no experience with this trail, but reading the Trans Canada Trail, it suggests that many portions of that trail are actually not suitable for cyclists at all. There's also no general information on biking in Canada. I'm guessing that apart from Quebec one would need a mountain bike, not a touring bicycle. It doesn't seem like a great match on first sight. JuliasTravels (talk) 12:22, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Cycling BC's Trans Canada Trail is possible in Canada's most mountainous province; those biking across Canada will find the trail to be a work in progress, but usable in many sections. Then again, our Trans Canada Trail article is also a very recent work-in-progress. K7L (talk) 16:01, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think having such a redirect would be helpful for anybody. If anybody were to search for that article (or get it suggested by typing "across C..." into the searchbox, it is likely that they are confused by the redirect more than helped by it. At any rate, the duplicate argument mentioned above is not to be ignored. Hobbitschuster (talk) 18:22, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete If the Trans Canada Trail is not a biking trail, cannot be used as a biking trail, and/or doesn't mention how to bike across Canada then it isn't a useful redirect. There is nothing to preserve, so the only reason to redirect would be if there really was another article that covered this. There isn't, so better to delete and let someone write later if the occasion arises. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 15:39, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Outcome: Deleted. --Saqib (talk) 09:12, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

New Year holidays in Hungary

Half written and likely out of date. Hobbitschuster (talk) 17:57, 14 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Outcome: Speedy Deleted. --Saqib (talk) 09:13, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Eskihisar (Turkey) has it's own page? Wow!

This town is a place that you might visit if only you are en route from Istanbul to Yalova, to take the ferry, still very low possibility as the road to ferry harbour does not pass through the town. But I didn't know that Osman Hamdi Bey Museum was here. It is a place to see but there are lots of towns, some more touristic and charming than Eskihisar in Turkey. I am sure we can not add more content into this page, so shall we keep this page or merge Osman Hamdi Museum info to another city?--Hocu (talk) 16:17, 15 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

American Eagle

A page whose existence seems to be entirely due to being a former redirect to American Airlines, back when we had articles on airlines. I can think of no reason why such a redirect might serve anybody in anything (much less those people looking for animals), but my nominating it for speedy deletion was rebuffed, so here is the formal vfd request. Hobbitschuster (talk) 21:39, 21 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Content of Champaign-Urbana will need updating. --Traveler100 (talk) 06:54, 22 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't really care about airlines at all, but I'm going to say speedy keep again, because this personal frustration with airline redirects is becoming a matter of agenda pushing - which is bad for our community. Please take Wikivoyage:Keep_Wikivoyage_fun to heart, as well as the repeated requests to stop nominating redirects for deletion and rather see if you can find a consensus to change policy regarding airlines (since contrary to regular articles, redirects are in principle not deleted unless they do harm and these nominations are constantly controversial). While I have great respect for you as an editor, continuing to nominate redirects when you can't quickly gain that consensus really goes against the don't try to force an issue principle and is thus disruptive. If you do manage to find consensus to change policy, deleting these redirects altogether will be uncontroversial and you have my support. Until that time however, I feel you're causing frustration and multiple time-consuming discussions for hardly any good. JuliasTravels (talk) 12:16, 22 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have raised the issue in the pub and the only argument there was - falsely - claiming that some of those redirects were required due to content of those being merged elsewhere (if you can point out evidence for any such merging having occurred, please do so) other than that, there was very little response and nothing even close to a consensus emerged. If you have an idea where a discussion regarding policy should begin, please tell me. I thought that deleting a redirect for an airline that is nothing but a lesser known sub-brand should not have been controversial, but apparently it is. User:Ground Zero has been very eloquent in pointing out the problem with redirects; they confuse readers and make them think we have an article when in fact we do not. And unlike a redirect for - say - Taj Mahal that points readers to where our coverage on said issue is located, airline redirects just randomly point ot Flying and sometimes - as in this case - other targets. Furthermore nobody has conclusively answered the question why we do not have redirects in place for Lufthansa or Air Berlin or Delta Airlines and what we should do with redirects once the company has become defunct. I also don't like the way you accused me of "agenda pushing" just there. Hobbitschuster (talk) 17:09, 22 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I support your opinion, yet I think stating that you are pushing your agenda is purely and accurately descriptive. I'm glad we're having a policy discussion on a policy page now. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:04, 23 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - the American Airlines VfD has been outstanding since Sept 2016. Our VfD policy says that it should be deleted because there is not a consensus to keep, but it has not been deleted. I understand Julia's argument about "agenda pushing", but I think in this case what we are seeing is a reasonable nudge to overcome the inherent inertia. Often here a discussion drags on and nothing happens and the issue doesn't get resolved. The danger here is that the links will proliferate because the VfD had not been appropriately closed. Ground Zero (talk) 17:23, 22 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
To try to break this logjam, I have proposed a changed to policy here to clarify our intent with respect to airlines. Ground Zero (talk) 17:56, 22 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Just to clarify; the difference here, as stated by others, is that we're not talking about articles, for which the "guilty until proven innocent" guideline is used, but about redirects. In the past we didn't get this many long discussions about redirects in the first place, and the guidelines on this page never included them. Secondly, since there is an ongoing policy discussion, closing any of these nominations one way or the other would bypass that policy- and consensus process, which would undoubtedly again lead to more discontent. Therefore, let me suggest another solution. If acceptable, I suggest we archive these nominations for now and await the outcome of the discussion. When there is a consensus about how to proceed with the airline redirects, we simply apply whatever solution came out of that. If it means deleting the links, I'll be happy to (speedy) delete them, or any other admin can. If another solution (external link or a new list page) comes out, any user can make that happen. What do you think? JuliasTravels (talk) 13:58, 24 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
American Eagle though is arguably a special case because it is such a marginal airline that isn't even operationally independent. I'm not sure they even have their own website. Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:04, 24 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I did a websearch. They evidently do not have their own website, for whatever that's worth. But I would suggest for us to respect Julia's wishes and not discuss them further here, while the policy in general is under discussion elsewhere. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:21, 24 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
okay. Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:38, 24 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Let's redirect Judaean Mountains to Judaean Desert

Judaean Mountains doesn't contain much information and won't probably in the future because it is basically just a mountain range. If any relevant information turns up, it can easily be added as part of Judaean Desert. I would though shortly mention the Judaean Mountains under Judaean Mountains. Objections? Ceever (talk) 12:04, 24 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Votes for deletion is not the place for a proposal to redirect a page. Please discuss this at Talk:Judaean Mountains, not here. Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:14, 24 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sonora

I propose to delete Sonora (which is currently a redirect) to allow a move of Sonora (Mexico)Sonora. The only other places listed at Sonora (disambiguation) are tiny US towns of no more than a few thousand people each, so the United Mexican State should be the main entry. I looked at Wikivoyage:Deletion policy and see no means to list "delete a redirect to make way for a page move" as a speedy deletion criterion (which likely *does* exist in Wikipedia) so am listing this here. Have I missed something? K7L (talk) 12:17, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Deleting a redirect to replace it with the article it is pointing at is a trivial action. Admin action is needed only because of the history, which here is an automatically created redirect to the disambig page (the software cannot make decisions on such cases; sometimes the history is important or the move disrupting). So just move it. --LPfi (talk) 14:13, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@K7L:: Please see. anything else? --Saqib (talk) 09:34, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. If this sort of thing does qualify for speedy deletion, perhaps Wikivoyage:Deletion policy should be updated to say so. K7L (talk) 12:31, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
One could perhaps add something along the lines of:
"To move a page to the name of a redirect, that redirect has to be removed. If the redirect points elsewhere, a hat note should in most cases be added to the page in question. If the two are just alternative names of the same page, deleting the redirect to allow the move is uncontroversial, given it is the better name. Sometimes, though, the redirect page has non-trivial history. If the history is there because of a copy-and-paste page move, the old history and that created at the new location should be merged. Sometimes the two versions have developed in parallel, and merging such histories would give a very confusing result. Check carefully how to handle such situations."
--LPfi (talk) 15:40, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea. @LPfi:: Plunge forward, add the information to policy page and let's close this nomination. --Saqib (talk) 16:09, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Done. --LPfi (talk) 16:36, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Other 1

Personal Itinerary in a state of half outlined-ness for a long time. Original author likely no longer around. I would argue for retaining it if we could make out the route as originally envisioned, but sadly, the article doesn't really do that. Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:15, 14 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Given the content that is there seems to be fairly detailed and useful (and there aren't many links in the route prose making it doubtful the info could be moved elsewhere), might we consider changing the article's scope from the whole route to simply Oamaru to Dunedin overland? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 20:21, 14 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Its companion article The Other 1 (northbound) should be considered too. Nurg (talk) 22:01, 25 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Merge them to the userspace of a user who wants to consolidate and rewrite them and then put them back into mainspace? Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:21, 25 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
ThunderingTyphoons!, if this course of action is decided on, would you be willing to host the article in your userspace and make the edits necessary to turn it into Oamaru to Dunedin overland? -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:34, 25 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The "Oamaru to Dunedin" section maybe could be merged to Otago (not sure if good to do so though). The title "Oamaru to Dunedin overland" would be a bit misleading - better Oamaru to Dunedin off the highway. Nurg (talk) 22:46, 25 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know the route or the area at all, so my edits would simply change the title, and remove the 'Other 1'-specific content. If that is acceptable to Wikivoyagers, I'm willing to do it, but no more than that (no rewrite, no additional content). That wouldn't require a move to my userspace either. It is simply my concern that a fair amount of info doesn't get deleted from WV, just because the article's not up to scratch. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 23:07, 25 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds good. I would call it Oamaru to Dunedin avoiding SH1. It just needs the list of destinations removed, and introduction changed to reflect the shorter route. I have not checked the Oamaru to Dunedin route on a map, but it sounds reasonable (I have been this way, but on SH1 in a bus). AlasdairW (talk) 23:43, 25 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I like that title. Anyone else got an opinion on this, or can I crack on? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 20:51, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Please go ahead. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:13, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@ThunderingTyphoons!:, let us know here when you're done so that we can close this VfD. --Saqib (talk) 09:25, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! This completely slipped my mind, sorry. I've made it now, and redirected both old articles (northbound and southbound). Though since the new article only describes a tiny fraction of the intended route, I would be tempted to advocate for their outright deletion. That is for admins to decide and implement, however. Happy Friday, --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 21:33, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]