Wikivoyage talk:Press coverage

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We've Been Mentioned On Colbert![edit]

Swept in from the pub

Brace yourselves: I just saw the Jimmy Wales interview on the Colbert Report tonight (I'm sure video will be posted online sometime late tonight) and he mentioned our little travel wiki. This is probably just wishful thinking, but perhaps we'll see a spike in web traffic from this? It'd be nice to get the Colbert Bump... PerryPlanet (talk) 05:00, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

you were quicker than me! He called us Wikivoyager....oh well at least we were mentioned --  S.Bryan  06:03, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikivoyage was mentioned by Jimmy as "launching soon" on the Colbert Report: [1] Jpatokal (talk) 22:35, 9 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Wikivoyager" is actually kind of a better name... :( --Peter Talk 00:03, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"Wikivoyeur" would likely bring more page hits as everyone would want to peek. K7L (talk) 19:47, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikivoyage featured in a New York Times travel blog[edit]

Swept in from the pub via Wikivoyage:Travellers' pub/2013 and Wikivoyage:Awards and mentions

I just stumbled upon this: http://intransit.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/30/where-to-go-wiki-it/ Pretty awesome, right? We'll hopefully get some new readers and contributors :) Ypsilon (talk) 15:40, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not just in a blog. The content is featured on page 3 of the print Travel section dated tomorrow.--RegentsPark (talk) 00:47, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Nice! Our coverage in print has been underwhelming. --Peter Talk 01:01, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That is good! The only mention in the British press appears to be this: http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/travel-welcome-to-wikiholidays-8456489.html --Nicholasjf21 (talk) 01:14, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

High resolution screenshots[edit]

Swept in from the pub

Does anyone here have a good way to take high res screenshots of Wikivoyage? It would be nice to have some of our main page and some particularly spiffy articles (featuring maps, high quality pictures, especially creative turns of phrase, etc.) to give out to press inquiries (ASAP). --Peter Talk 22:04, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Difficulty is getting higher resolution images. I can get my browser up to 3600 pixels wide using dual-screen and can print a pdf to any dpi resolution you want. The text will scale up as you zoom in but the images have a limited resolution. Is the anything that can be done server side on the print or export to pdf with different style sheet? --Traveler100 (talk) 23:15, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Actually the download to PDF function on the left menu does a reasonable job. --Traveler100 (talk) 23:17, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The output doesn't really look too much like our site, though. Tech2's really good (2 page) article provides an illustration [2] of the need--they have a screenshot of the main page, which is very useful, but printed journals would not publish such a low-res image. --Peter Talk 04:27, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know how to do this without a high-resolution display. If you have a wide, high-res screen and Firefox, you can use FireShot to capture the length (top-to-bottom) of the page in high resolution. "Snipping tool" in Windows can only capture what's displayed on your screen...not the entire webpage, which is what FireShot can do (and create a .png or .jpg file). I tried to zoom in on the webpage and while the text/images grew and the sidebar became half the webpage, the text wrapped to fit the narrower page and so it didn't look very good. With a wide, high-res display like, say, 3600x1080, you can use FireShot to take an image of the entire length of the webpage (and end up with a jpeg pic that's 3600x10000) where Snipping tool (Windows) couldn't take a pic larger than 3600x1080. AHeneen (talk) 09:14, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
FireShot is a nice tool, works across dual screens, thanks for the tip. This is what I can achieve with my system File:FireShot Screen Capture -002 - 'Bali – Travel guides at Wikivoyage' - en wikivoyage org wiki Bali.jpg. Is this resolution good enough. If not I think you are going to have to compose something out of a mix of screenshots and direct copies of the images. Unless someone has a large screen. --Traveler100 (talk) 12:22, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Is it possible to take the screenshot in PNG format, not JPG? JPG is meant for photos, so decreases the quality of computer-generated images dramatically. JamesA >talk 12:41, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, example File:FireShot Screen Capture -004 - 'Bali – Travel guides at Wikivoyage' - en wikivoyage org wiki Bali.png but for some reason thumbnail was not generated, so you need to click on the date at bottom of image page. Traveler100 (talk) 13:44, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Zoomed in before taking the screenshot
Now that looks good! Could I commission a few more? A Main Page shot would be great, and maybe these: La Macarena, Baltimore/Fell's Point, Bangkok/Khao San Road, Yaowarat and Phahurat Tour, San Francisco, Copenhagen/Frederiksberg, Sheki, Staraya Russa, Kununurra, Yakutsk, and Washington, D.C./Shaw.
Could you also take them after zooming really far in? That would allow us to show text and images in a more square format, like . Journals/newspapers could then publish them and have them be readable. Thanks! --Peter Talk 16:53, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Strange thing is when I zoom in then save the pixel number goes down. So can do with standard width and 3000 pixel or zoom in to get around 1200 pixels wide. Need to do some more experiments but not sure about meeting your deadline, with my current position I am guessing my today is your tomorrow.--Traveler100 (talk) 19:23, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That's OK—it looks like Monday is the latest I can submit the screenshots currently requested, so hopefully this will still work. --Peter Talk 19:40, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
A possible way of getting round screen resolution limits is to use a virtual PC. I occasionally use Vmware Player to run XP on a Windows 7 machine at work, and I can set this to resolutions greater than the monitor supports - the "XP PC" then appears with scroll bars on the Windows 7 desktop. Creating something like this at home is likely to take all day (the player is free) so I am not offering to try, but maybe somebody else can expand on this. AlasdairW (talk) 11:59, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
With a WmWare installation it will allow a screen width of 2048, with scrolling as you describe, but the web page grabber does not like it. All the screenshot software I have tried only takes what is currently in the graphics window. --Traveler100 (talk) 16:00, 9 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

With the software that captures a whole web page it reverts back to no zoom. So although I can get a wide image (over 3000 pixels) it is not zoomed in, far too much text. Best I can do with zooming in is a screen capture on the largest screen I have which is 1,920 × 1,080 pixels. Problem then is you need to specific what part of the article page you want copying. Doing all would be far to much work. Here are a couple of examples. File:Mainpage.png, File:Fellspoint01.png. How do you want to proceed with this? --Traveler100 (talk) 16:25, 9 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If I upload some low-res screenshots, could you then replace them with high res ones? Like that Staraya Russa screenshot above? --Peter Talk 16:31, 9 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That would work as long as not too many. --Traveler100 (talk) 18:20, 9 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Chicago Tribune[edit]

Swept in from the pub

This piece Seniors on the Go: Want to be a travel writer? January 29, 2013 Ed Perkins, Tribune Media Services raises a few questions about our description of air travel and discount airlines - specifically that much of the "discounting" is done by third parties (not airlines), that claims a consolidator can "buy in bulk" from airlines are questionable and that air courier flights where a passenger seat is sold without the associated checked baggage allocation are impossible to find in the US. He then manages to misidentify WV as WT, correction here. Sigh. K7L (talk) 06:25, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly there's cause for concern on the topic of our information on air travel, but on the whole, it sounded like a pretty positive write-up (though the WT/WV snafu likely means Internet Brands will get as much or more of a bump in traffic as we will). I think most people understand that imperfection is part and parcel of the nature of the wiki model—especially a smaller wiki like ours. And after all, Wikivoyage is far more than a collection of articles on air travel! -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 09:20, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps we could try to correct the factual errors and notify the author? This might result in a positive follow-up ("WV quickly fixed the after they were notified of the situation, while they remain at WT.") Also some of the technical limitations (poor search results, few maps) seem to apply to WT and should be better here. Speaking of maps: why isn't WikiMiniAtlas available here? —Ruud 10:42, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We should have someone from the WMF write in and complain. That article is disgusting, and disadvantages our position. The small clarification he later makes is referred to as unimportant, and that the content is identical. That is also false, as we've worked very hard over the last few months to improve our content on many articles beyond Wikitravel. It shouldn't be a clarification, but rather an apology. JamesA >talk 11:31, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with James. And how can he say a search for the Aleutian Islands brings no results? Did he try to search for the "Alooshun" islands or what? Texugo (talk) 11:38, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@JamesA: I have to agree with Andre here, overall the article sounds quite positive and the author seems quite enthusiastic. The criticism given seems constructive. In such cases it's always better to say "Thank you for pointing these mistakes out. We've been able to fix them and address your concerns." than to start complaining about it.
@Texugo: I think the author uses WT's search engine, not WV's (although it currently present a correct result on both, perhaps we should ask for a clarification?)
—Ruud 11:55, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
My issue isn't with his constructive criticisms, but rather his referring to Wikitravel as being under the Wikipedia umbrella rather than Wikivoyage. That is very damaging to our image, as it makes us look like the bad guys. His clarification was passive like it was no big deal, and even went as far to say that both sites are identical, so why bother with one over the other? JamesA >talk 12:09, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
A correction was issued in the article that followed a week later. An let's be honest here, 95% of the content here is still identical to WT. I don't think "complaining" is the way to go here, unless you prefer cultivating a bad reputation. A positive reply is likely to do more good. —Ruud 12:20, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The WT vs. WV faux pas was unfortunate, but if he's already admitted to having made the mistake in print, there isn't much more to do. The bit about the maps might be a way to differentiate ourselves from WT as we are making initial efforts to integrate mapsources, co-ordinates and OpenStreetMaps into our product. We're innovating. :) Handle this well and OSM could earn some good publicity too. The constructive criticisms about air travel need to be taken and used to improve those travel topics in the guide, as flight is an important topic for travellers. Anything that improves the guide should be eagerly welcomed. K7L (talk) 19:59, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think he has a really good point about "discount airlines" being a misnomer - as the fares are not actually being discounted, although I don't know what he's talking about when he says Southwest was not the first budget airline in the US (any ideas?). The preferred term nowadays seems to be "low-cost airlines", which has 2.5m Google searches compared to 200k for "discount airlines" (with the quotes). There are about 500 pages in Wikivoyage which reference the term "discount airlines", so it's probably best to rename/move the top pages and then semi-automate the rest with a find-and-replace. I wouldn't mind doing it but the scale of the job is pretty big, so any other volunteers? - Torty3 (talk) 07:51, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikivoyage in the news[edit]

Swept in from the pub
Patos Island sunset San Juan Islands

Recent article on the San Juan Islands used my photo which has only been used on Wikivoyage to date. I've noticed a few unusual wordings cropping up in main stream press from wikivoyage articles. I'm not sure but I think that wikivoyage is starting to have more of a cultural influence at least in the Pacific Northwest. —The preceding comment was added by Lumpytrout (talk • contribs)

I've seen my restaurant reviews in Buffalo#Eat copied lock, stock and barrel on various websites (with attribution). -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 18:37, 26 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

CC interview[edit]

Swept in from the pub

Hello guys, recently Creative Commons interviewed me regarding Wiki Loves Monuments 2014 in Pakistan. Wikivoyage was mentioned in the interview so thought of sharing it with the community as well. --Saqib (talk) 18:04, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations! Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:46, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Can the interview be seen somewhere? :-) Nicolas1981 (talk) 10:37, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Nicolas1981: you can find it here. --Lkcl it (Talk) 10:55, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
How could I missed to mention the URL of interview. IK, you could had notified me about that. Anyways sorry guys and thanks to my Italian friend. Recently, WMF published a blog post on WLM 2014 and they actually used some excerpts from my CC interview. --Saqib (talk) 21:29, 5 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I still haven't gotten around to listening, just wanted to congratulate you. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:18, 5 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I finally got around to reading the interview. Excellent! Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:05, 11 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wikivoyage is one of 101 best travel websites[edit]

Swept in from the pub

Of course, there is still a lot to do to strengthen the popularity of Wikivoyage. But William D. Chalmers told in his HuffPost blog that Wikivoyage is already one of the 101 best travel websites. Other travel-guide sites are Fodor’s, Frommer’s, Timeout City Guides, Wikitravel und World Travel Guide. --RolandUnger (talk) 09:25, 14 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

umm.. FTA:
WikiTravel - Crowd sourced travel info.
WikiVoyage - Crowd sourced travel destination info.
Guess we also need to work on distinctiveness... --Andrewssi2 (talk) 09:59, 14 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Anything happened since 2013?[edit]

This article seems to just... end... in 2013. Has there been no coverage since, or have we just forgotten updating this? Hobbitschuster (talk) 00:06, 20 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Google News to the rescue :) There are minor references such as Irish Times (2015) and Terre Marsicane (2017) - obviously more significant would be nice, but there are indeed references. Andrewssi2 (talk) 01:59, 20 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

References to non-English WV versions?[edit]

A link was just added to Spiegel (German magazine) with this to say '15.000 deutschsprachige Artikel sind dort bereits zu finden - trotzdem hat die Seite noch viele Lücken.' - basically the German version has a lot of articles but many holes.

As far as I understand, some of the different language communities (such as German, Italian) do have an enthusiastic and dedicated group of contributors, and there is some low level exchange of material between versions (banners, listings, etc).

That said, if a German magazine has something good to say about German WV, does this have a great deal of relevance to this list? Should we at least make a distinction based on the Wikivoyage community being discussed in the reference? --Andrewssi2 (talk) 02:57, 20 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

German forked in 2006, with Italian soon following. They are the original Wikivoyage projects, with a huge head start on en: and others which didn't fork until 2012. It's therefore no surprise that WV would be getting better coverage from media in these languages (or, conversely, no coverage in Japan - which were the last active community left behind). The scope of this page doesn't mention language: "This page documents press coverage of Wikivoyage or the mentioning of Wikivoyage in newspapers, magazines, and news outlets" so the original WV is worthy of inclusion. K7L (talk) 12:31, 20 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't that the whole point? We are taking credit for news releases that are about the work of other communities, not ours? Andrewssi2 (talk) 21:29, 20 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Aren't we all one community at WV regardless of language? Hobbitschuster (talk) 17:45, 21 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Help with WikiVoyage questions for a Wikimania interview[edit]

Swept in from the pub

Hi - I'm being interviewed about WikiVoyage by a media company for publicity around Wikimania. Unfortunately I have a very superficial knowledge of things, so perhaps others here may want to jump in with some suggested responses/comments

Greenman (talk) 18:54, 12 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

On the last question: My favorite suggestion to potential contributors is to start with their hometown (or a place they know equally well). Think about when you have visitors, and what you recommend to them. Then look at the ==Do==, ==Eat==, ==Sleep==, and similar listings (the bulleted lists) and see whether your best recommendations are present. Most existing listings can be updated (or removed) by clicking a light-gray "edit" button at the end of the individual listing. New ones can be added by clicking the [add listing] button at the top of the relevant section. Then you just fill in the boxes.
As for what to write about a listing, it's really useful to say something objective about a place, even if it's very brief. "Amazing place" isn't really helpful, but "good for small children" or "luxury clothing" or "vegetarian food" are all helpful descriptions. For example, the article about Cape Town is really well developed, but when I look at Cape Town#Shopping malls, it doesn't tell me anything about most of the shopping malls. How would I decide which one to visit?
Also, just removing places that have closed, correcting addresses for businesses that have moved, and providing other very simple changes is hugely helpful. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:23, 12 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As for gaps, I think our editors largely skew urban, well educated (of the users I can think of who say so in their user page, none has never been to college), polyglot (just look at the Babel Boxes) and - but that shouldn't be surprising, given humanity does the same - Northern Hemisphere. Naturally we have something of a gap when it comes to rural destinations, types of travel less likely to be engaged in by the less educated (using the term in its strictest "high school/college/how much college" sense) and to a large extent the "global south". We also have deficits for places which - at least until recently - haven't been online as much, especially when it comes to geo coordinates. A very low threshold activity that doesn't require any coding knowledge or anything is to simply add a listing that you see missing. There's a great hotel in Ouagadougou that we don't talk about? Great! Just click "add listing" in the sleep section of that article and the rest should be intuitive. I personally prefer articles about which we have "first hand knowledge" I do not see any difference whether that knowledge comes from a (former) resident or a visitor, but I have in the past expressed the view to feature such articles preferably, a view not shared by all on this site, I might add. Apart from the pitfalls of some editors to think this is "basically Wikpedia" (it is in some ways, but we have different WV:Goals and non-Goals), I think the biggest "problem" with moderately well meaning editors is - unsurprisingly overly flowery and gushing language as described in WV:Don't tout. While those are usually drive-by editors who only wish to add their own business (or worse yet, tear down the businesses of others), sometimes an enthusiastic traveler (or somebody who makes a scary good imitation of one) is wrongfully accused of promoting a business which may or may not in the past have led to editors being lost, but I don't see an easy way out of this. Another issue in my opinion is cross-language cooperation. es-WV does not have a large enough community to cooperate with, sadly and de-WV does some things notably differently which makes it hard sometimes to do a straight translation of articles from one to the other. However, at least in the case of de-WV I see some leveling of the difference. Feel free to ask other questions. Hobbitschuster (talk) 20:56, 12 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
[ec] @Greenman:, It is a lot like Wikipedia, in that everone edits what they want to. I write about Cape Town recreational dive sites and scuba diving in general, as that is what I am interested in. I will also edit any other article where I see something that I can improve, including about dive sites in other places I have been, and even where I haven't been, where I can improve something. The difference is that on Wikivoyage we write from personal experience, and on Wikipedia we don't (or should not). If you need to cite a reference, it probably doesn't belong on Wikitravel. The information we provide here is our best effort at being helpful to fellow travellers to places we visit, and to visitors to the places we live. Both are equally relevant, and each has a slightly different perpective which can enrich the value of Wikivoyage as a travel guide. If you want the encyclopaedic facts, get them from Wikipedia. If you want to know where to eat good food at a good price, or what to do on a rainy day, that is what you should expect to find in Wikivoyage. Like Wikipedia, reliability of the information is variable, and sometimes it gets out of date. When that happens, we hope you, and any other reader, will fix it. Like Wikipedia, we have our spammers, trying to sell hotel space, taxis and guided tours etc, and like Wikipedia, we try to keep what is useful and delete the touting. Unlike Wikipedia, we do not have a problem with people updating their own business information as long as they stick to useful facts. It is to the travellers advantage to know the correct prices, business hours, phone numbers, addresses, websites etc for our listings. We expect people to write the sort of things they would like to know about a place, on the assumption that other travellers are likely to find the same information useful. In principle it is a travel guide written by travellers who have been there, done that, and got the T-shirt. Often this is literally true. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 20:58, 12 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Another difference: On Wikivoyage we have fairly strictly and consistently formatted articles, and a relatively narrow scope, as this makes it a lot easier to know what information to include, and just as important, what to leave out. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 21:07, 12 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Specific answers:

  • "Is it mostly travellers or locals updating the information on WikiVoyage articles?"
    I have no idea • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 05:26, 13 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The closest I can find is the About page but it's not specific - has any research been done?"
    I have no idea • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 05:26, 13 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Do you think locals should be the dominant voice on their own locations, and why should they be more involved in the editing process?
    No. Travellers will usually have a better idea of what is useful to other travellers. It is a travel guide. Locals may have more detailed local knowledge, but not necessarily any clue of what is useful to a traveller. On the other hand, a traveller may be able to provide good local information about their home turf.• • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 05:26, 13 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • "What are some of the biggest gaps in information on WikiVoyage?"
    I am a specialist in dive guides. Coverage is poor almost everywhere other than Cape Town, which is orders of magnitude better than elsewhere. Not much I can do about it.• • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 05:26, 13 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • "How does WikiVoyage encourage contributions, and why should they care about what people say about their homes?"
    I dont understand this question.• • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 05:26, 13 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Wikimania is about building global bridges through information sharing – how can WikiVoyage contribute to this endeavor?
    Wikivoyage helps people who physically go to places (including Wikimanias). Once there, some may provide similar type of information in return, or write about the place on Wikipedia, or upload photos to Commons. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 05:26, 13 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Which sessions at WikiMania should travel enthusiasts focus on to attend?"
    I have no idea, the Wikimania program pretty much ignores the existance of projects other than Wikipedia, Wikidata and Commons.• • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 05:26, 13 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What would be nice would be for some of the people who attend Wikimania each year to edit Wikivoyage for the host city and surrounds based on their experiences (maybe they already do this), and for Wikivoyagers to present a display at Wikimania, featuring the host city and surrounds. It is a bit late to do anything about this second idea for this Wikimania - I just thought of it now - but maybe next time. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 05:48, 13 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]


  • "What are some of the biggest gaps in information on WikiVoyage?"
  • If you look at Destinations and follow the instructions above the map at the bottom of the page you can see Wikivoyage's coverage plotted on a map. The coverage for Europe, North America, Oceania and India is much better than for much of Africa or the Russian Far East. On the other hand, I would not be surprised if a map of native English speaker's vacation destinations had similar peaks and holes. AlasdairW (talk) 14:56, 13 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
When I recorded the number of articles every country has a little over a year ago, I found that about a third of all of our destination articles are in the US. China is quite weakly covered, considering its area, population and economic size. Nigeria is quite weak even compared to other African countries despite having a British colonial past (Mozambique is poorer on average with a much smaller population and area but has twice as many articles although it does have more beautiful coastline). Excluding island nations, the country with the most number of articles per capita would probably be Estonia or Norway.
Something else to note. More than half of our star articles (equivalent to Featured Articles in Wikipedia) are destinations in the US. So destinations from every other country in the world and travel topics (non-destination articles) together comprise less than half of our best work. As you can see, we have a lot of work to do. :) Gizza (roam) 06:13, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you everyone for your answers, I have responded to the journalist. Greenman (talk) 00:46, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(when) will we be able to read that interview? Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:25, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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