Wikivoyage talk:Avoid long lists

Avoid long lists

The 7±2 rule comes up from time to time in discussion, but we don't actually have a policy about it -- it's referenced in Geographical hierarchy and Sleep listings, but not elsewhere. I'm pretty sure it applies beyond those two areas so I've taken a stab at consolidating it into one location. Let me know if I've captured everything / left stuff out / missed the point.

Draft policy: Avoid long lists

Cheers -Shaund 05:59, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

It looks good to me. As far as I can tell, a good summation of existing policy and consensus. If no-one objects I think it can be moved into project space and linked in the policy outline and anywhere else that is relevant. Just one point I think you have missed: The 7±2 rule applies to destination articles, not necessarily to itineraries, phrasebooks (particularly!) and travel topics, where different rules may be more appropriate. I think this should be mentioned in the lead. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 08:24, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

I think we should adequately emphasise (perhaps even breaching our MoS -shock! horror! - by using red or green font) that Common sense should always apply (and the the travellers viewpoint comes first) rather than a zealot's application of this rule! --W. Frank^e-mail_talk 13:00, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for comments and changes! -Shaund 14:22, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Very good work! --Globe-trotter 14:27, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

We should stay off the red and green for accessibility reasons. I think they override the personal css settings, making it difficult for visually impaired to read. (Correct me if I am wrong on this. I get mixed up in these discussions on WP and only remember part of the explanation) • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:54, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Excellent point about deprecated HTML and accessibility. There are approved methods of using CSS for this, though: http://www.w3.org/community/cssacc/ W. Frank^e-mail_talk 18:22, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Our current MoS is very restrictive about article style in the interests of consistency, and as far as I know our recommended style is good for accessibility. Perhaps we should add a note somewhere that policy changes should take accessibilty into account. Maybe in The traveller comes first. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:54, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

I now think I oppose the vehement application of the 7+/-2 "rule". Consequently I propose changing the Nutshell to:

Long lists or large groups of items can be difficult to understand. If there are more than 9 items to group, consider if it would help the traveller to sub-divide into smaller groups of about 6±3 items.

and the rest of the article accordingly. --W. Frank^e-mail_talk 23:12, 29 September 2012 (CEST)

Number of Cities in each country/state/region

Swept in from the pub

This is just my opinion, but I don't think that 9 cities is a large enough number to show the best of a country/state/region. I think this should be increased, but that's just me. If anyone agrees, reply here. Donny (talk) 22:58, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

How about if we disagree? ;-) I'd be happy with the nice round number of 10, but it would create a lot of unnecessary work on all sorts of pages where the list of 9 was thrashed out on the talk page. If people would like to change from 9 to 10, I would support it, but I think making the list longer than 10 in non-bottom-level region articles risks making it cumbersome. Remember that there is no limit to how many cities can be listed in bottom-level regional articles, though if the list gets super-long, a further subdivision of the region might be worth considering. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:14, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

I prefer keeping the limit at 9 per the 7 + 2 rule. Personally I believe that if there is a big gap between say, the seventh most important city in the region and the eighth and ninth most important cities, the eighth and ninth cities should be removed too. Prioritizing is a key element in writing a travel guide. What you leave out is just as important as what you include. We have to guide the reader in a particular direction. Travel articles lose value when they are very open-ended and just an indiscriminate collection of information. Gizza ^(t)(c) 02:23, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

I see the 7 + 2 rule as being used as a pretext to split province/states into regions which are split into more regions, just to have no more than nine villages in each. Most of these intermediate region articles are very empty and not particularly useful to the voyageur. K7L (talk) 17:46, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps we need a "Beef up the Regions Expedition" - :) Matroc (talk) 19:10, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

If we disagree, so be it. I was just stating my mind, what I thought; doesn't mean it has to be right, but I was just saying. Didn't mean for it to go this far into conversation. Sorry for stating an opinion. Donny (talk) 21:20, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

I do see the problem. While Rio San Juan Region is a distinctive region with even some cultural traits (even more so if you discount Juigalpa and other places that were tacked onto it), regions along the line of Eastern County X or the regions that were more or less copied from de-WV (without much of the content) and contain one city anybody not living within a hundred kilometer radius from the place has ever heard of, are hard to write good non-stubby articles about. Maybe we should rethink our coverage on a number of small and tiny places that may be interesting for travel but also be a series of "village/suburban entity A is almost a carbon copy of village/suburban entity B as is village/suburban entity C" ad nauseam. Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:41, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

It's never wrong to state an opinion, unless the opinion is something purely inflammatory or something (which this of course is not). Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:45, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Eastern County X should be a bottom-level article, not a region. Prince Edward County as a municipality would be one example. K7L (talk) 14:24, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

I believe the 7+/-2 rule is serving as well, however unnerving it can get at times. If anything, I'd propose taking a more favourable look at articles on entire regions whose individual destinations will never make for a really meaty guide, but we can write a bottom-level guide for them taken as a whole. PrinceGloria (talk) 14:34, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

I think regardless of the number of towns in regions, many of our bottom level regions need a thorough sweeping, as do many of the places that are only listed in our bottom level regions. In many cases combining several regions seems to me to be the way to go. In other cases there may simply not be enough substance to keep a certain article as a standalone "city" guide... Hobbitschuster (talk) 15:36, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

What the heck is Eastern Country X? Donny (talk) 17:34, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

A generic name for bottom level region like this one Hobbitschuster (talk) 17:52, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Oh...kay. Donny (talk) 00:27, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

What I want to say with that is that we have too many small bottom level regions with hardly anything in them, that often link to even stubbier stubs for the "cities" they are composed of Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:18, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Um...oh...kay. Donny (talk) 00:05, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

If you're not grokking what Hobbitschuster is saying, you're more than welcome to bow out of the discussion, but as it is now your tone is bordering on uncivil. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 02:34, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Donny is a young man who started editing WV just this year and has made less than a thousand edits so far, and is a student in high school. I've never lived in the US and may be missing some verbal nuances of what Donny says (and I had to look up what "grokking" meant), but I'm not reading his comments as bordering on uncivil. I'm just wondering if we old hands can cut a bit more slack and be more positively encouraging for a young man and relative newcomer who is learning the ways of our site. Nurg (talk) 08:18, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

I do actually understand what Hobbitschuster is saying, but it's like its being figuratively thrown at me. Thank you Nurg for the backup. I never should of started this, but I just thought the whole "7 plus/minus 2" rule was restrictive on country and state articles only. And I could use without the fancy lingo like "grok", thank you. Donny (talk) 22:23, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

That rule applies to all non-bottom-level region articles. Let's keep in mind that it's often easy to misread tone online. I actually thought you were being uncivil, but it doesn't sound like you meant to be. On the other hand, having to look up a word now and then doesn't seem like a big deal to me, and it's OK for all of us to try harder to seem calm and collegial. I know I'm sometimes guilty of getting irritated too easily, myself. In the end, this is just a travel guide, and unless we give grossly dangerous advice somewhere, mistakes here are unlikely to get anyone killed. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:36, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

I don't see how any of our advice could even possibly get non-stupid people killed. Well maybe apart from using the racist slur nickname of a certain NFL team. But back to the topic at hand: Are some floor level sub-sub-sub-sub-regions excessive subdivisions and if so how should we handle them instead? Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:47, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Okay. Gotcha, guys. I thought it applied to the broader articles, but if it applies to lower level articles as well, then let it be. And some sub-sub-sub regions are excessive. My guess to handle them is to list them in the articles one level above from it. Just a guess. Don't have to go with it. Donny (talk) 12:47, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you mean. What do you want to list in the article one level above from them? regions? Cities? Something else entirely? Best wishes Hobbitschuster (talk) 13:34, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

I thought that would've been vague, but I meant list things in each city in the region articles if the city itself is so small it would make a stub article. Say if Katy, Texas would end up as a stub if created, list the local hotels, restaurants and attractions in the region it is located, which in this case would be Greater Houston/Harris County/etc. I'm just stating if it would end up as a stub, which it is not, I don't think. Donny (talk) 16:02, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

(unindent) Donny: What you're suggesting sounds like what we already do in some cases. Take a look at Rural Montgomery County. Theoretically we could break down that article into its constituent cities, but they would most likely all be stubs. Instead, we treat it as if it were a city itself, including listings in the See, Eat, Drink, Sleep, etc. sections. —The preceding comment was added by AndreCarrotflower (talk • contribs)

I wouldn't want to see individual listings for food and lodging being pushed into the region articles; that creates an awkward precedent where every owner of a five-room motel in the middle of nowhere tries to list it in United States of America#Sleep just to get a higher placement in the hierarchy - they might even try to promote themselves by listing the same property at multiple levels of region/subregion/locality. That gets spammy quickly. Better to create articles which cover a small city surrounded by individually-listed regional villages (like Cobourg) or a large rural area (like Prince Edward County) and put all the country motels and B&B houses there. K7L (talk) 17:10, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

K7L, the proposal as I understand it isn't to simply allow listings in region articles willy-nilly. It's to take second-from-the-bottom level region articles whose bottom-level articles are all stubs, and convert them into bottom-level city articles with listings and the whole bit (and, I imagine, the bottom-level stubs redirected to their parent article). -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 17:35, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

That's reasonable, if the article is converted from a region to a city/locality destination page first. The proposal needs to be more clearly worded, however, as it looks at first glance like an invitation to stick purely-local listings for businesses in rural villages into the region article while it remains at region level... and that would encourage a lot of spam. K7L (talk) 17:45, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Since this went further than I wanted it to, with just a simple question, I'm out. This is the end of my participation in the conversation. Donny (talk) 17:47, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

I like the idea, though I am not sure whether calling the default bottom level place "city" helps a lot in that. Maybe we should create a new category along the lines of "rural destination" (which could than also include my earlier "island" proposal for places like Sylt which are currently "cities"). Nevertheless, this is a line of thinking that merits further discussion / movement in that direction imho Hobbitschuster (talk) 21:36, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

To clarify: islands should if they are a distinct unit (unlike islands you can get in by subway and through fifteen different bridges or tunnels) and are decidedly non urban should be covered as one single "rural destination" if and where it makes sense. Hobbitschuster (talk) 11:41, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

I'd suggest "locality" as the general term for a bottom level (city-level) article which may contain any of {one individual city, a small city surrounded by rural villages, a cluster of small towns, a small village surrounded by parkland or open space, a large rural area}.

"Island" should not be treated differently as an article type. If an island contains a city (like Montréal), use the huge city template; if it just contains one borough (like Manhattan, what do you expect for $24?) it's probably a district, if it contains a large (Anticosti-sized) rural area, treat it like any similar large rural area. If an island is split between two countries (like Hispaniola), create two country-level articles and put the two pieces in them. If there are a thousand islands ranging in size from "individual private cottage" to "small, under-1000 person rural farm village", then expect to group these multiple small points to something of usable size (not a thousand articles with one listing in each). K7L (talk) 14:47, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Manhattan is not a district. It's a borough with a bunch of different neighborhoods that are covered separately as districts. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:45, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

(starting at the left end again) I do agree that not all islands should be treated differently because they are islands. But often enough treating one island or a group of islands as a single entity just makes organic sense. take for example Ometepe. While it does have two "cities" (Moyogalpa and Altagracia) many people stay in neither town but instead somewhere else on the island, e.g. the Maderas side of the island. Maybe we could cover that under a (clumsily named) header like "Maderas side of Ometepe". The whole article would probably get too long if we listed all accommodation (including that in Altagracia and Moyogalpa) in one place but it would make even less sense to give an article to every speck on the map the size of Redford (New York). Maybe there are even articles about "Paper towns" that somebody created in a blatant copvyo of some map or other... Hobbitschuster (talk) 11:23, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Better wording about cities in bottom level articles

Here User:67kevlar deleted cities from Central Corridor, to get the number down to nine, presumably per 7 2. Seems fine, except that Central Corridor is a bottom level region where - to my understanding - all of the cities, parks and so on below it should be listed. This to make sure that every destination article in WV is linked to from at least the region right above it in the breadcrumb hierarchy.

My first thought was to revert the edit and direct them to this policy page, however I noticed that we do not spell out the fact that bottom level regions are an exception to the rule. Only that:

Common sense (and the traveller's viewpoint) should always apply, so if a region has more than nine cities in it and there's no helpful way to divide it into subregions, don't split it. This applies especially for bottom level regions.

and

The 7±2 rule is most stringently applied to lists of cities and other destinations for countries, continents and non-bottom-level regions. (my emphasis)

Therefore I left the article in its current shape, as it'd look silly to revert edits and refer to rules that aren't written out. So I would suggest to make the wording more clear here, for instance by adding this sentence: In bottom level regions (regions immediately above cities and parks) always list all articles below it to make sure each article is linked to from at least the region above it.

Thoughts? Ypsilon (talk) 17:47, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

I wasn't even aware "bottom-level" region were exempted. But it does makes a certain amount of sense. Just revert it I guess. 67kevlar (talk) 21:04, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

It's certainly our long-standing practice that bottom-level region articles should list all cities and other destinations in the region. I've plunged forward and edited this page to try to clarify. —Granger (talk · contribs) 01:55, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Excessive eat and sleep sections ... Solution?

Swept in from the pub

Hi all

I notice with many articles (Dharamsala#McLeod_Ganj) that especially eat and sleep listings become overly excessive, sometimes representing more than half of an article's content.

As a traveller, I personally do not pay any attention to them, because I trust more the workings of Google and Booking, and especially ratings and reviews.

But as an editor I am really wondering whether it makes sense to have these to such an extend. Here are some doubts from my side about these listings:

• The are too many, few travellers will read them all — see reduced attention span of nowadays society.
• They will never be complete, so why have them in the first place?
• We cannot compete with Google or Booking in this field just by arbitrarily listing a few eat and sleep on WV. Where is the added value?
• Who verifies or can verify their up-to-dateness? Especially in 2nd or 3rd world countries, businesses go up and down regularly. We can never make sure, they will still exist after 2 years or so. (Note that this is not true for sees and dos, which are much more permanent.)
• Who verifies and can verify the quality of these listings. Just because some traveller thought it was nice, doesn't mean it indeed is. (See the phenomenon that guest houses run by the owner are generally rated higher than hotels due to the personal connection.)
• With these huge amounts of listings under eat and sleep, the rest of the article information becomes harder to read and to find, in the map with POIs but also just in textform ... try finding the connect or go next sections!
• Who actually goes into Sleep/Splurge and picks out a hotel there to stay in, based on that information on VW? I would rather think that people looking on WV will look for budget options, maybe even as alternative to G and B if these do not come up with anything.

So, I was wondering if some other editors feel the same and also consider this a bigger problem for which we should find a more workable, useful and competitive solution?

My first thoughts on possible solutions include:

• Scrap the whole sections.
• Only have a summary of things but no listings.
• Have some handpicked listings based on certain outstanding criteria, e.g. small, valuable, different, less commercialised, sustainable, location, relevance for travel location, amount of available information, ...
• Scrap outdated or non-date listings up until the last 9-10 listings.
• Have a voting mechanism in place to select 9-10 listings.
• Scrap the splurge subsections.
• Update: Rely on G & B for quality and up-to-dateness. Scrap listings that don't adhere, but make exceptions where other editors veto. (A reliable pre-selection could indeed be a very useful and competitive feature. People also dont like searching Google and Booking much due to the overwhelming amount of opportunities, I think.)
• Update: Encourage readers/travellers (with a specific infobox at the top) to input feedback for the existing eat, drink and sleep listings through a specific channel (wiki site, email, whatsapp) to ensure the quality of these listings. The whole thing could be like a Michelin, that people really can trust. At least for places where there are just too many listings ... "This section is quality-assured. We would value your feedback. And we would be glad if our selection of choices is satisfactory."

So, this is a start and I just wanted to get a feel for the other editors' sentiments. Maybe it's just me seeing problems where there are none. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Cheers Ceever (talk) 15:20, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm of the same opinion here. The eat, sleep and drink sections in its current form are the least interesting parts of WV articles for me when I am travelling. Yet I agree that we should focus on adding "extraordinary" restaurants, bars, ... to the article. For example the Chez Roger food stall in Monaco sells very authentic dishes of the region. The average tourist would definitely miss out on it if not guided there by Wikivoyage. Furthermore the amount of entries should be limited to a maximum of 10 for each category (i.e. budget, mid-range and splurge).--Renek78 (talk) 22:12, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

See Listings#Avoid long lists. The longer the lists, the less inclined an editor is to check them all. If the number of places is reasonable and there are links to their web sites, it is easy to find those whose sites have gone dead. I think a selection of eat and sleep places is useful; you don't always want to use G and B, and some destinations don't have places easily found by them. We should probably recommend also telling whether restaurants and lodgings abound. I see no reason to skip the splurge listings: not telling about the Michelin restaurant seems odd. –LPfi (talk) 08:15, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

For "Have some handpicked listings based on certain outstanding criteria", see Listings#Shops, restaurants and other hospitality venues (the page might need some restructuring for easily finding such guidelines). –LPfi (talk) 08:19, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

An excessive number of any type of listing should be removed or divided into further subsections. That isn't specific to Eat and Sleep. I agree with LPfi and disagree with the rest of the above that Eat and Sleep offer little value. They are as valuable as every other section. The fact that other websites and guides also have similar information which may be more up-to-date is applicable to all sections, not just Eat and Sleep. Getting people to verify the quality of a listing may be worth pursuing or getting readers to rate them out of 5 stars. But star ratings and even comments with the ratings are very hit-and-miss. People also read travel blogs in addition to mass rated Google, Booking and Tripadvisor reviews and Wikivoyage is in between, with a handful of editors usually contributing to an article instead of one or a thousand. Gizza ^(roam) 10:31, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm on the fence here – on one hand, we have a few eat and sleep options similar to the state of many Buffalo district articles: long, unwieldy, and it's easy to forego important information, just like the TOUs/T&Cs of many corporate brands. On the other hand, having a wide variety of restaurants and accommodation also gives readers a wide variety to choose from. I think it is much better to subdivide such sections with excess fluff (like that found on several Buffalo articles) removed. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 11:01, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

I almost never use travel guides to find hotels or restaurants, so I agree that we should limit the amount of energy we expend on adding and updating listings. In expanding articles I have added Eat and Sleep listings because they are required for "usable" status, and not because I think readers use them. I don't think we should eliminate the sections, but rather give editors discretion in removing listings where (1) there are a lot of them, (2) they are out of date, and (3) they provide little information to the reader. Ground Zero (talk) 17:42, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Aren't editors free to do that? Of course, you shouldn't remove the only ones even if they have little information or are dull, but I haven't thought it as problematic to plunging forward to prune long lists. –LPfi (talk) 20:10, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

The restaurant listings that I like best name something specific: special diets, a particular dish, something about accessibility issues, a suggestion like "come here for a late supper after <other activity>", noting that it's family owned and operated, etc. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:48, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

I do occasionally use Wikivoyage for finding places to eat or sleep, but only if the article was updated within the last 24 months, or just to get a glimpse of the area's most popular places to eat or sleep. Otherwise, I tend to just use Google for restaurants or Booking.com for accommodation because both of those are simply more reliable. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 04:07, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

I use Wikivoyage to find places to sleep, often together with other sources. The booking sites often don't include some of the smaller places to stay - some B&Bs and hostels still only take telephone bookings and some hotels (including chains) only take direct bookings. Booking sites never mention places that you can't book! Both eat and sleep listings are useful to get a feel for the choice that is available, even if the final choice isn't listed.

In huge cities, I think it might be better to have a separate Sleep article, rather than listing the places in each district. AlasdairW (talk) 11:34, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't think we want a separate "Sleep" article with long lists. I can't imagine consulting that, and it would be likely to become a magnet for spam. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:01, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

I assume AlasdairW is frustrated to have to look through several district articles, when they are close enough that they could sleep in any. One solution is to describe the options in general terms in the city's Sleep, perhaps with links directly to the district Sleep sections. Where do you find the grand old hotels, motels, backpackers'? One shouldn't need to look at more than one district or two to find some suitable one. –LPfi (talk) 20:20, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree that we should do that, though in some big and even not-so-big cities, there are several neighborhoods where you can find particular types of accommodations. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:13, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

We have 29 London district articles. So if I am going to London, I might look in more than 20 districts to find somewhere to stay. I am suggesting that instead we could have London/Sleep, with all the existing listings, arranged by district. Each list would still be a reasonable length, as it would only be budget/mid-range/splurge hotels in a particular district. It would be easier to ensure that hotels were only listed in the district that they were actually in - a common problem is hotel touts that want to list their hotel in neighbouring districts. One drawback is that hotel restaurants would not be easy to find from the sleep listing. AlasdairW (talk) 22:38, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

If you want to stay in or near one of those districts, you should find a lodging in the articles on that and neighbouring districts. Otherwise the huge city article should link to some options of different types, and you shouldn't need to check districts other than those pointed out there. For an editor, if the lodgings have coordinates, an easy way to check that they are in the right district is to zoom out the district map and check whether there are outliers. If there is a mapshape for the district, this is easy also for those close to the border. –LPfi (talk) 09:10, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Another thought I have is that we usually don't list AirBNBs or the like, but of course many people stay in them. For example, there are AirBNBs (Vrbos, etc.) all over Kingston, New York, but it could be helpful to potential visitors to mention that if you stay within either of the main historic districts and your purpose for staying is just to visit Kingston and not to go to nearby parks to hike and so forth, you can have easy access on foot to stores, restaurants and beautiful buildings to see. While we don't want to unduly promote one homestay listing company over another, we shouldn't ignore their existence and should cover recommended neighborhoods to stay in in view of alternatives to hotels, not just in view of where hotels are. The main area with hotels in Kingston is boring (they're really motels) and of course pretty much requires a car to get anywhere, so why would you stay there instead of spending a similar amount of money to rent a room in a historic house in one of the historic zones, if that's where you want to spend most of your time during your trip? Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:41, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

This is a hard issue. Do we want to recommend the company for finding lodgings or individual offers, which are many? What about less known and smaller similar networks? People renting their homes (or a bed) without using such a company? Specific places where we have stayed (but which may be booked most nights already)? We got a discussion on Havana#List of casas particulares, which gets really long and difficult to weed. I don't have any answers, but I agree that there are destinations where homestay networks or similar are your best options. –LPfi (talk) 18:30, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

There are a lot of articles whose Sleep or Eat sections could use some work, and a lot of cities that might be improved by having better guidance about where to look for lodging (without having to wade through 29 district articles and without resorting to an unwieldy exhaustive list of what's already in the district articles)--short summaries. I think it's a bad idea to even think of putting a limit like 9 listings on a district. In many cities the hotels and best restaurants cluster in one of the districts (which might have 50 great restaurants) while the rest are boring bedroom communities with boring chain restaurants and hotels.

My thoughts:

• continue with the way things are, but be more aware of focusing on local color and flavor
• add a summary paragraph at the top of the Eat and Sleep sections (I just did this in Malinalco as an experiment/example of how it could work)
• when editing, don't be a tout nazi who sees touting in every description that provides insight or that differentiates a listing
• add a Sleep summary to big city articles describing the hotel situation (what district article to look for cheap lodging, upscale lodging, famous hotels like grand hotels, castle hotels, hacienda hotels, etc., as well as warnings about which areas to avoid, like places where the hotels are used by sex workers, but which have cheap prices showing up in Booking.com)

By the way, I didn't like the suggestion of getting rid of the Splurge subsection. I'm not on a fixed income and when I travel I often like to splurge. I think other people also like a bit of luxury from time to time. On the other hand, I might not mind getting rid of the Budget subsection. Oh heck, maybe we just need both! Mrkstvns (talk) 23:09, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

[Edit conflict:] I think the solution is to mention homestay companies in general without naming any and stating which parts of town are good to stay in. Or in the case of a place like New York City, to mention that most such listings are illegal short-term apartment rentals, and that many of them are not well set up for visitors, with problems like a lack of sufficient heat in winter, noise from radiators, construction noise and so forth, windows that don't open properly, etc., and that the buyer should beware. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:11, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

I like Malinalco#Sleep and have done similar things in other articles. I have also written in several that there are mostly chain hotels in that area; I don't think we need to list chain hotels in most places any more than we need to list the ubiquitous Starbucks stores. If homestays are more sensible in an area, we can at least mention that in a short sentence, even if we provide nothing more than a link to Home stay network (speaking of which: Is that description about the hosts mostly being non-professionals still accurate?).

I also like listing a camping site or RV site, even though I never stay in such places myself. I just feel like the article is better for having a variety of places instead of saying that there's a Marriott and a Best Western and a Wyndham Whatever, because the big chains are in pretty much every city. Country articles might benefit from an overview listing all the big chains (because the big chains vary from country to country), but in the city articles, I'd rather have a paragraph overview and a few less boring options mentioned. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:02, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for all the feedback. I see that it is a difficult topic, making it even more challenging with the B&B and homestay topic—luckily I am mostly working articles that do not have the latter issue. In general, these huge and countless city and regional articles for Western countries give me the creeps and definitely do not ease my mind—too many articles, districts, regions, sub-regions, sub-sub-regions, many of the latter almost empty (Italy!!!) ... luckily also not my usual travel destinations.

Regarding the homestays and B&B, regardless of the legal issues or monopoly concerns, I would definitely mention them if they are a valid alternative to our sleep listings—that there is just one provider for 90% of places then, c'est la vie. It's not the travellers fault. We can still have a review of all the providers on a separate page, in case we want to point out various alternatives.

Now, regarding a helpful solution regarding the extensive sleep and eat listings—and yes they are different to see and do, since business go out of business more often than monuments disappear out of sight—I have decided to try the following approach for extensive eat and sleep chapters:

• Review the current listing with regards to existence and quality based on Google and Booking, but also relevance to the traveller, and remove non-existant, terribly rated, irrelevant and non-speaking listings. Update: It seems a very helpful criteria to filter out listings is whether they have GPS, directions or can be found on OSM. If neither is the case, whats the point in having them here. Someone needing to head over to Google, will just use Google in the first place. (I ll see how this criteria plays out in reality, I might still look up the GPS for some interesting listings.)
• Review the content of the listings and cut down on unnecessary content to make reading of the chapter easier—also with regards to consistency in information amount per listing.
• Add an infobox to the top of the chapter, pointing out the recent review of the chapter, to convince readers that this chapter is valuable to them, and even if a little extensive, they will not be disappointed most of the time when making a decision on the available listing in there.
• Highlight a feedback option for the reader via the Discussion page, so in case people are disappointed with any information, they can say so and suggest improvements.
• I will only apply this approach to (mostly eat and sleep) chapters, where I have the feeling that this would be a chapter that I would definitely skip if I was the traveller, due to the uncertainty of the up-date-ness, the general overwhelming amount of listing and the impossibility to visit all these listings personally.

Of course feel free to re-add any listings that you might deem valuable, especially if based on personal experience.

So, it just did this to Dharamsala#Eat and Dharamsala#Sleep. This mentioning of the up-to-dateness is obviously not necessary for smaller chapters—I think readers will get from the structure and form of the chapter, whether it's a valuable chapter or hasn't been updates in a long time, also based on the listing dates.

Cheers Ceever (talk) 15:37, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

A street address should be adequate without long/lat coordinates, directions and so forth. As for being findable on OSM, I am not very familiar with it. Is it possible for something not to be found there but to be found on other map apps, such as Google Maps? Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:31, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

I think OSM has somewhat fewer entries than Google Maps, and isn't quite as up-to-date, but at least for my own (California) neighborhood, it's really quite good. I can look around and see a few minor errors (e.g., a hair salon that closed last year) and a few missing things (e.g., some houses are blank lots while others have the buildings drawn in), but I'd say that it's quite good.

What matters to me as a traveler is whether the taxi driver can find it. I would never remove an entry just because it didn't have GPS. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:31, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

In India, you can forget about OSM POIs. I would guess there are just 10% of the places in OSM, which can be found on Google Maps. Furthermore, it feels, 5-10% of the existing POI in OSM are outdated.

Sure, a taxi driver will be able to find it, but I would guess this is mostly true for Splurge listings and barely for Budget ones, unless he also uses Google Maps. But then again, budget travellers will barely rely on taxis I would assume. So, I will take this into my considerations.

@WhatamIdoing: Thanks for remark.

Cheers Ceever (talk) 10:43, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Method of splitting a long list of businesses into sub categories "Budget", "Mid-range", "Splurge"?

Swept in from the pub

What is your preferred way of doing this when you are not familiar with that city and those specific businesses? For example, how would you do this for a long list of restaurants shown in an "Eat" section for a specific city? ויקיג'אנקי (talk) 13:29, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

I've translated several articles from other language versions, and sometimes this includes arranging restaurants and hotels into price categories - plus deleting places that are out of business. This is how I've done it: First, get price information from the businesses' websites (usually most reliable and up to date), social media sites (mostly restaurants, meaning photos of menus), review sites (again photos of menus), and for hotels also prices given on Google Maps. Then, arrange the prices in order from highest to lowest/or the other way around, works equally well. At that point you will usually get some clusters of prices that enables you to distribute the places into price ranges. --Ypsilon (talk) 18:56, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Article Idea

So here's an idea. while too many items may be a bit overwhelming for some travelers, some travelers including myself would want to see every option. So for most people looking at articles, you can have it be 9 places in any given catogorey, but in that section, contains an article, that has all the options, that travelers like myself would want to see. Someonehere12345 (talk) 22:59, 5 January 2024 (UTC)