Wikivoyage talk:Region article status

Article Status

Swept in from the Pub:

Is there a review system to officially change an article's status? Or if we have built one up to the next Status' requirements do we just change the Article Status ourselves?(WT-en) Jtesla16 20:57, 6 September 2008 (EDT)

No process, just feel free to change it as you see fit. If you have a question about an article's status, try leaving a message on the talk page with a clear request for comment in the edit summary. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 22:23, 6 September 2008 (EDT)

I believe you should have given a firmer answer. Jtesla16 appears to be a new user, and is promoting unqualified articles. He also appears to be doing things without consensus (deleting information, in particular) (WT-en) gamweb 06:20, 7 September 2008 (EDT)

And note that star articles do have a promotion process; an article can't just be changed to Star status. =) (WT-en) LtPowers 10:10, 7 September 2008 (EDT)

Region Guide Status requires that "linked destinations to visit [be] (usable status or better)." Does this mean that only subregions and the 7-9 links under both Cities and Other Destinations need to be Usable, or that every city mentioned and linked in the Region's article needs to be usable? I'm led to believe this means only the recommended cities and destinations (not every city mentioned) because the requirements for a Region to be Usable state: "Has links to at least a couple of cities and/or other linked destinations (linked cities at usable status or better)."(WT-en) Jtesla16 19:43, 8 September 2008 (EDT)

Yes, I've always interpreted that to mean only the 9- regions, 9- cities, & 9- other destinations in the lists at the top of region articles. I still have yet to see a single guide-region, though, and would love to. And that other destination requirement is tough! --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 19:52, 8 September 2008 (EDT)

Frankly, even that seems a bit draconian. It effectively means we won't see any (or at best very few) guide-level regions until we have a critical mass of usable-level cities, which is still a long ways off in my opinion. (WT-en) LtPowers 21:32, 8 September 2008 (EDT)

I don't know, I think I could write 4–5 usable city articles in a day if I really wanted to. Usable articles just need some prose for each section and 2-3 good listings per section. The regions and other destinations are much harder, IMO. I think the criteria are fair though, since a region article isn't worth much unless the destinations it contains are usable, in the literal sense. I think I might take up this challenge and hit the Maryland articles hard in the coming weeks. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 22:18, 8 September 2008 (EDT)

Better work fast, Florida is almost there. (WT-en) Jtesla16 22:30, 8 September 2008 (EDT)

Actually, the closest article on the site is the United States of America. Only 3 regions need to be elevated to usable status. See Talk:United_States_of_America#Push_for_Guide_status. This would be really cool to nail down. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 23:55, 8 September 2008 (EDT)

Region Articles: Guide Status

It seems like in practice, the "linked destinations" which have a status requirement per WT's Region Guide-Article Status are really only those 5-9 destinations which are outlined in the Regions, Cities, and Other Destinations sections, and not any destination which is linked in the article. If this is in fact the policy, I think we should make this more explicit in the status criteria. Calling them "linked destinations" suggest a status requirement for any internal link in an article. (WT-en) Jtesla16 13:24, 2 April 2009 (EDT)

That's how I always interpreted it, but if it's unclear we should certainly clarify it. (WT-en) LtPowers

It is an important distinction. I agree that it should be clarified, as if interpreted strictly, it would make it virtually impossible for many articles to reach Guide or Star, simply due to the large number of possible links, and the requirement for Star articles to be essentially complete means that you cant leave them out if they are not up to scratch. • • • (WT-en) Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 12:18, 26 November 2010 (EST)

5 to 9 cities

The page says 5 to 9 cities, subregions, and other destinations are required at usable status or better for a region article to achieve guide status but what if a region doesn't have more than 5 cities articles and couple of other destination articles? I'm referring to Southern Sindh. There're some 13 big and small cities in Southern Sindh and plenty of town and villages but majority of them are uninterested because there's nothing to see there nor anything to do there, accommodation existence aside. Sindh is big but very little developed unfortunately. Anyway, but since WV is for travellers not only for tourists, I want to know should I start articles on those cities or leave them for time being and instead focus on cities worth to write on. I've compared the coverage of our Southern Sindh with Lonely Planet's Pakistan last edition (2008) guide book and I'm glad to tell you that our coverage is beating them already. If it is not important to have articles on those non-touristy cities, then I think very soon I'll be able to bring Southern Sindh region article up-to guide status. --Saqib (talk) 18:25, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

In general we do not create an article for a place just because it exists. If a town on its own doesn't really have much to see, maybe it can be put in the region article like the few POIs of Suriname's small villages are collected in the the region articles? ϒpsilon (talk) 19:28, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

If they are are sizeable cities which do have various Eat and Sleep options and/or are located on major thoroughfares, though, I'd tend toward creating them, if there is any chance a stop there might be helpful for someone, even if they don't have special See and Do options. Texugo (talk) 19:47, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

@Texugo: I think YPSI is right. I just learnt that Bali (our exemplar region article) contains articles of only those destinations that have something to see or to do at the minimum. Wikipedia article on Bali says Bali have big and small plenty of towns/villages whereas on Wikivoyage, we do not have article on each and every town that exists there so I think I'll go with YPSI and follow the pattern of Bali. --Saqib (talk) 08:27, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, yeah, I just think it depends on the size of the town. If you're talking about, for example, a city of 100,000 people which has nothing much interesting for a tourist but does have hotels and restaurants, it's still probably worth an article. On the other hand, a city of 15,000 with nothing of interest and little in the way of amenities probably doesn't need an article. Texugo (talk) 11:07, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Counter Intuitive statuses due to problems with sublevel articles

The issue arose on talk:Germany that in order for Germany to become "usable" there wouldn't have to be any changes to the article itself per se but rather an improvement of a couple of "other destinations" and "city" articles would have to get to usable or above. This is imho counter-intuitive in several ways:

• If those places were not listed at all (e.g. change one city for another or delist a "other destiantion"), it would get usable status
• Nicaragua is usable yet plainly not as good an article as Germany or the one on the US
• The plain meaning of the word "usable" suggests that the average reader would say "I can use this" which imho is definitely the case for many articles currently listed as outline even if some of their sub-levels are not yet there

To the last point I would also add, that many a traveler to e.g. the USA would read about the US first and than say New York City (both excellently written articles) and maybe if (s)he wants to travel around a bit about Mid-Atlantic or New York (state) and one or two related travel topics (which don't figure in the status of any article besides themselves whatsoever) like rail travel in the USA or driving in the United States. Therefore this very hypothetical traveler, would have probably found our article on the United States quite useful, and (s)he would probably not have to be all that adventurous (something that always gets mentioned in all useable articles) to consider him/herself sufficiently informed to survive the trip, not be denied boarding, get through customs and immigration and have a nice couple of days/weeks in and around New York.

Therefore we might reconsider whether perfection (or at least everything "usable") in all sublevel articles (which the current policy ultimately requests) is really a) realistic and b) necessary, seeing as this is a wiki and therefore by definition a work in progress. What are your thoughts and opinions? Best wishes Hobbitschuster (talk) 15:59, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree that the bar for Usable status in region, country and continent articles is too high. I think the bar for Guide status should remain exactly where it is, though. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:06, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree and whether or not the requirements for guide status are too much can be discussed at another point in time. Though we could ask the question how a continent can become a star that has even one outline city in it... Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:16, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I also think that it's odd to make an article's status dependent on other articles, but there is a counter-argument that we need to provide readers with a sense of the quality of information we are providing about a destination. I think an ideal solution would be to find a way to make the status tag reflect the quality of just the article, and then to also provide a separate indicator about the quality of information on the destination ("This article about the USA is a guide. Wikivoyage's articles for destinations within the USA are currently considered usable"), but technically I'm not sure how that could be implemented. -- Ryan • (talk) • 16:21, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

I think it is reasonable to expect the major cities of a region should be at least at usable status before a region can be made usable. This does not however mean that all cities must be. The sticking point is other destinations which themselves may be regions or parks and tend to be of poorer quality. I think if the Other Destination criteria is removed and a little effort was made to review the status of some cities and regions then the Engpass can be addressed. --Traveler100 (talk) 16:33, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

[unindent]I think I should clarify that I do think that huge cities should be required to have all districts at Usable or higher status to be Guides, but note that it's much easier for a huge city than any higher-level article to be Usable: Wikivoyage:City guide status. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:50, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

So what should we do now? Hobbitschuster (talk) 14:52, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

We don't yet have a consensus to change anything, right? Has this discussion been publicized in Requests for comment? If not, it should be. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:37, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Not to my knowledge. Hobbitschuster (talk) 21:26, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

What is the actual proposal here? And does it relate exclusively to Region articles? Andrewssi2 (talk) 00:24, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

The most radical proposals would be on the one hand making article status entirely independent from the status of the sublevel articles, and on the other hand keeping everything as it is, which ultimately implies in its most radical interpretation that Europe cannot be usable or even guide until Northern Hesse is usable. The actual proposals I would think are implicitly somewhere along this continuum. Fair enough? Hobbitschuster (talk) 00:43, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

I think my proposal would be that if a Regional, Country or Continent article is Usable per se, without regard to its links (as long as they aren't redlinks), it should be classed as a Usable article. As I indicated above, I wouldn't propose to change (let alone to loosen) the criteria for Guide status. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:56, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

I am on board with your proposal regarding useful status. As to guide status... That is a discussion for another time imho Hobbitschuster (talk) 01:06, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Hobbitschuster I think you may be misinterpreting the definition of usable status for regions. The current definition does not mean that every sub-level has to be at usable status, just that the major cities and other destinations mentioned in the region or country article need to be at least at usable status. I think it is reasonable to expect that for a county the top 9 cities should have a minimum list of points of interest and that other key destinations (parks, tourist regions) are also be at status of usable. --Traveler100 (talk) 05:50, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

In practice, we've considered it necessary for all the "Cities", all the "Other destinations" and all the "Regions" in non-bottom-region regional articles to be at least Usable for a region, country or continent article to be Usable. In any case, I think what bothers some of us is that it doesn't really make sense to call an article that is in itself usable a perpetual Outline as long as one of the "Other destinations" or "Cities" is not Usable. It seems odd that the criteria for Usability are so easy to attain for bottom-level articles and so difficult to attain for non-bottom level articles. It's counter-intuitive for a good article that is in itself usable to be classed as an Outline just because it's a country article or what have you. Why shouldn't we make the really difficult step for such articles to become Guides, not Usable articles? Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:47, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

I fully agree with User: Ikan Kekek. And wish to mention again, that simply not mentioning "other destinations" tzhat are still outline does nothing to make an article better, but may well make it "usable" as per our current definition... Hobbitschuster (talk) 12:07, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Only the "most important" cities, other destinations and subregions need to be usable to promote a region (or continent or country) article to usable. Simply removing one of those important destinations doesn't make the article "usable", because now it's missing an important link.

For the record, I believe the proposal above makes the distance between Usable and Guide too wide. Conceptually, our travel guides include all of the guides beneath it, so describing the status of the guide must take those subguides into account.

-- Powers ^(talk) 14:32, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

I know we aren't Wikipedia and don't want to be, but which wiki in existence rates the quality of their articles based mostly or solely upon the quality of articles it does or should link to? Hobbitschuster (talk) 15:53, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Powers, do you mean that the proposal above makes the distance between Usable and Guide too narrow for your taste? It surely doesn't widen the huge gulf between these statuses for non-bottom Region articles and above. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:53, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Ikan: no, I mean too wide. It makes it easier to reach Usable status, so there will be farther to go to reach Guide status.

Hobbit: you have a misperception that the quality ratings apply to articles rather than to guides. The distinction is subtle but vital. I believe our Wikivoyage:Article status page is misnamed for this reason.

-- Powers ^(talk) 15:15, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Well that depends on your approach. If we should rate the quality of guides we should indeed change the title. A guide for me would include all that is to be said about a destination that would be included in a generic brand name printed travel guide. For example a guide on the United States would not only include the article on the country itself but rather all destinations and regions within the US. However, I think we rate articles as in only the page at hand; at least when it comes to travel topics and bottom level destinations. But for top level regions countries and continents this whole stuff has become very mixed up which makes it extremely confusing. Be that as it may, I think status quo cannot be kept up, but finding a good alternative is hard Hobbitschuster (talk) 15:27, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

The difficulty is that there are articles that seem pretty good per se and don't read as Outlines at all, yet they are perpetual Outlines because one of the relevant links is not Usable. It's just weird that there are so few (if any?) Usable country articles, despite all the quality work on those articles. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:27, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

I fully agree User: Ikan Kekek. My point exactly. Hobbitschuster (talk) 21:10, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

The problem is very few put the effort into cleaning up city articles. Many have reasonable amount of information that just need a bit of formatting and checking that the listings are still actual. Does not take to much effort to add a restaurant or hotel to a location. --Traveler100 (talk) 21:12, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

So I made an assessment of Germany. The effort to bring the major cities and destinations to usable to make the country article usable is not so great (already done about half the work in the last week). I do not think it is unreasonable to expect major destinations of a country to be usable status before making the country usable. To get the country page to guide status there are about 60 pages that need some attention, many of which just involves a little formatting of listings and checking they are still valid. Yes this is some effort but not unachievable. I can understand the comment that the gap between usable and guide is a little large but I would not want to ease the rules on guide as I think you would expect to be able to click down a level below country and get a reasonable quality page. It could be worth considering a status level between usable and guide but quite frankly so few people edit the status tags and even fewer clean up dormant long ignored articles that I do not think it is worth the effort. --Traveler100 (talk) 13:17, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

How much do sub-regions matter?

I am confused about whether sub-regions must be usable status for the parent region to be usable too. Such a criteria is not mentioned on the project page; the text merely states:

Usable - "Has links to the region's major cities and other destinations (the most important of which must be at usable status or better), and a Get in section describing all of the typical ways to get there. The most prominent attractions are identified with directions."

However, there is some talk on this page of "important sub-regions" (whatever that means; describing cities or other destinations as more or less important makes sense, doing the same for regions which cover a larger area much less so) needing to be at usable level before the parent region can become usable.

I ask because if sub-regions aren't a deal breaker, Normandy is just a few edits away from becoming usable. All but one linked city and all 'other destinations' are usable or above. All that holds it back is the addition of sleep listings to one city (Dieppe), which I am doing today, and the expansion of Normandy's own drink, sleep, stay safe and go next sections, which I can also probably do this weekend. If usable sub-regions are a requirement, then the poor state of Upper Normandy and Lower Normandy, and many of their city articles, will keep Normandy at 'outline' for a long time to come.

Can anyone clear this up? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 12:23, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

I always assumed that sub-regions don't need to be at usable level for the region to be usable, as long as the most important destination (which I read as bottom-level article) are at usable. Because the criteria for guide status explicitly states specifically states that subregions needs to be usable or better.

I think this makes sense. I feel that the bar for usable shouldn't be too high. Drat70 (talk) 13:21, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

That's a good point about the guide article criteria; I didn't spot that. Hopefully that means that what you assume is right. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 14:22, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree with what Drat70 said. —Granger (talk · contribs) 14:41, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

That's always been my impression as well. I don't know why the criteria were written that way, but they were. Powers ^(talk) 00:26, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you all very much for your replies. Normandy will be the first French region to reach 'usable' in quite some time. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:25, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Guide status for region articles

I've been upgrading region articles from outline to usable by adding the necessary content, and I'm now looking at upgrading articles further from usable to guide. A challenge that I have though is that guide status requires "linked destinations (i.e., the 5 to 9 item cities, subregions, and other destinations lists)... [all have] usable status or better...."

Many of the regions I'm looking at, in Atlantic Canada, have redlinked destinations in their lists of towns. Ths would seem to prevent the region article from becoming a guide.

The problem that I have is that a lot of these places would meet the criteria for wv:what is an article because they are small and have no points of interest. I spent a month driving around the three Maritime provinces, and two weeks driving in Newfoundland, so I am familiar with these types of towns.

So we have a catch-22: the region articles cant be guides because there aren't articles for some of the listed towns, and the listed towns can't have articles because there don't warrant them.

I dont think removing the towns from the list makes sense. I think it makes sense to remove the Wikivoyage link and leave them linked to their Wikipedia article (if there is one), but that doesn't solve the problem. Any thoughts? Ground Zero (talk) 17:42, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Yep. Red links shouldn't be used for destinations that don't merit an article per wiaa. And that does solve the problem because they are no longer linked destinations, for the right reasons. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:52, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

If they have no points of interest and don't merit an article, I think it makes sense to remove them from the list. —Granger (talk · contribs) 00:04, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

@Ikan Kekek, Mx. Granger: thank you. This advice was helpful. Ground Zero (talk) 10:08, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Listings and directions

The criteria for usable include "The most prominent attractions are identified with directions." and for guide "information on multiple attractions and things to do. Listings and layout closely match the manual of style".

What are those directions, except a reference to the articles where the listings are? And what are those listings? There shouldn't be any listings in region articles, other than when some relevant place isn't covered by a lowest-level article (and ).

Where should we give guidance on listings in region articles? Here, in the template, in Wikivoyage:Listings or somewhere else?

–LPfi (talk) 16:16, 14 December 2022 (UTC)