Wikivoyage talk:Region article template

Archived discussions Wikivoyage talk:Region article template/Archive 2004-2012 Wikivoyage talk:Region article template/Archive 2013-2018

Proposed change re "See" and "Do" sections

I propose to add to the "See" and "Do" sections the following instruction:

"Individual points of interest in this section should not be listed in a template. They may be included in paragraph."

Ground Zero (talk) 03:23, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

I'd suggest just "use prose, not a listing template" in parentheses. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:56, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Something along these lines is needed. --Traveler100 (talk) 05:50, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Obviously, that's the ideal case. But it requires someone knowledgeable about the region to produce such a thing. I can't even do that for my country's regions, so how will some random stranger do it? I reckon he will just input nothing and we'll have regions with just city markers - while the IMO ideal situation is having top-9 (or however) in each region, in at least some form. Of course, if the list of POIs gets to a reasonable state, it's best to (re)write (to) some prose and summarize the possibilities better... Any editor can do that, but this would be better suited for the edit-a-thons, than as a rule for everyone. -- andree.sk(talk) 11:19, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

What would make it impossible for you to write a summary of the most important attractions in a region of your country in a prose narrative style? What makes that too difficult to do? Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:00, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

It's not that it's hard / impossible. But IMO we should let/encourage the contributors (including/especially the random passers-by, who could know their regions best) prepare the lists of 'best of' for the regions in any form - and the experienced editors can come at any time, and convert it to something more readable (I think many of the local editors like to copyedit, in the end). -- andree.sk(talk) 14:21, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

New users are always encouraged to add useful information. That doesn't conflict with site policy; it is site policy. This kind of page is not likely to be frequented by new users, but it will be useful to people who want to edit articles for optimal style and structure. Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:28, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

How about "Individual points of interest in this section should not be listed in a template. They may be included in paragraph as prose, not a listing template, with possibly a link to the relevant city article where the detailed see/do listing is. Listing template may be used, if appropriate (i.e. there is a website and telephone number) for region wide topics such as government offices or regional transport organisations" --Traveler100 (talk) 18:24, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Why would government offices or regional transport organisations be listed under See or Do? This seems to be a long way of saying the same thing as my proposal. I'd prefer even Ikan Kekek's very concise "use prose, not a listing template" in parentheses over this. It's overkill. Ground Zero (talk) 20:34, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. By the way, whatever we agree on will be a guideline, not an absolute prohibition on having listings in region guides. There may remain exceptions in which it's the least bad solution, but if so, there has to be an introduction that mentions highlights in general and then explains that only attractions far outside of cities are listed in full below. And it's always best to avoid that kind of situation in a region article, if it's at all possible to avoid. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:59, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes use prose. The prose could refer to very notable points of interest or it may not. It can be a general description and just mention types of listings for that region (e.g. this region is known for its beaches and outdoor activities). Gizza ^(roam) 03:46, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Seeing no further discussion, I will add "use prose, not a listing template" in parentheses. Ground Zero (talk) 20:13, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Sorry that I missed this discussion, but what I still do not understand is that in countries where there are only a few cities and town, why do we have to force listings into city articles, even if a sight is too far away to be even remotely relevant for the traveller visiting this city? I mean a region does not just consist of city entities but also of the space in between. Cities are cities with limited reach, not completely region covering entities, right? Why force listing into cities then? Why to decide which city to put it in, if it is close to several cities? How to prevent duplication? Why not have a mixture of city and country style on region level? What is the point of putting a sleep listing into a city when it is actually 50 km away somewhere in the county-side where it would be more relevant to the traveller instead of vanishing in between numerous other sleep listing in the city article?

This proposed mixture of country and city article works great for Israel, in my point of view. Why not take this as a good example to change the current practice towards a more flexible guideline that acknowledges that there are many countries in the world that are far less densely populated than the Western World and our point of view on listings and cities just is not very practical to the traveller?

Cheers Ceever (talk) 20:17, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Options approach: If there was a right way of doing this that fitted all circumstances, someone would have thought of it by now. But POIs and their surrounding territory are too variable for that, so perhaps instead the guidance should just lay out the options, and leave it to contributors’ good sense to pick the best. Here are some statements that might be made, to be fleshed out with examples of pages where each option has worked well:

• By “listing” is here meant the definitive detail of a place, regardless of whether it has a listing format, a map marker, or just text description. All other mentions on other pages of WV are just signposts and cross-references.

• Does the place deserve listing at all, if it’s out of the way? Would someone travel to reach it, or be vexed if they passed by and didn’t realise it was there? If in doubt, don’t waste time agonising but plunge forward and list it somewhere, anywhere. That puts it on the record and grabs the attention of readers who know the region well – they’ll often get an automatic alert. They won’t be slow to say (constructively) where you ought to stick it.

• One-show town: this means creating a “city” page that effectively only contains this one listing. There are many examples of such pages eg across Europe with remote castles and shrines. It’s a fair solution if there’s a local service town, so the rest of the page can later be populated. It’s less satisfactory if there’s little prospect of this, with just a car park and a few kiosks nearby - still it’s better than failing to list a significant attraction.

• The listing is the entire page: this only works for major attractions that are so big that even when they are within a city, you couldn’t neatly fit all the detail there. They then get a marker and a brief description on that city page, or are flagged as “other destinations” within the region if they’re isolated.

• Expand the city limits: put the listing in some city that may not be anywhere near, but that nevertheless acts as the base for visits. It may help to create a subsection within “See” (or “Sleep” etc) called “Further out”. Or the “city” might be just a village with not much to it, where the whole point of coming is to get into the surrounding countryside. For these, make sure that other outlying attractions are also listed there, and re-draft the introduction to explain the expanded scope of the page. Another approach is to create a “district” of the city for all these (probably donut-shaped), but that’s a lot of extra work when all you set out to do was add a listing. Same goes for sub-dividing the region into a county or quasi-city.

• List it in the region, which might be called a “county” or “province”. WV tries to avoid this, but it may be the best solution for thinly populated areas with attractions dotted about, and where the “cities” are irrelevant – they’re small and distant and the traveller wouldn’t use them to reach those attractions.

• Blurred or mixed categories don’t much matter: eg the host “city” might be a “park” page or otherwise extra-hierarchical. One example Barbados is divided into four pages: one is called a city (Bridgetown), the others are called regions but with no lower level so they contain the listings. This makes practical sense, and suppose some outlying centre grew to a point that its facilities were grouped onto a new page called a “city” whilst others were left as is, it wouldn’t invalidate the approach.

• Differences of approach are inevitable but this is normal business on WV. If you see a better way of doing things than previous contributors, explain in the edit-bar or on the Talk pages in the usual way.

- Grahamsands (talk) 09:29, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

That's a very comprehensive treatment of this question, though definitely have a look at the section above this one if you haven't already. Some comments:

• Does the place deserve listing at all, if it’s out of the way?

I don't think that's the right question. Regardless of whether it's out of the way or not, if it's interesting enough to mention, someone will want to be adventurous, and therefore, it should be mentioned (though if it seems questionable whether it's worth the trouble to get to, that should be stated, too). Then the question is how best to mention or list it. I do agree that it's best to plunge forward and list it somewhere. Your next three examples are all good, though I'd like to comment on this:

• Another approach is to create a “district” of the city for all these (probably donut-shaped), but that’s a lot of extra work when all you set out to do was add a listing.

On the face of it, as you may be implying, that doesn't sound like a good reason to districtify a city. Moreover, it's irregular to create a single district article and not districtify the whole city, so if it's only for the sake of a single listing, I don't think this is a really good way to deal with it. What I'd add to this option is that if the attraction is really not that nearby but perhaps a long day trip away, under certain circumstances, an exception to normal "Go next" policy might be made to create a listing there. But really, a "Day trip" section of "See" could work, too.

• List it in the region, which might be called a “county” or “province”. WV tries to avoid this, but it may be the best solution for thinly populated areas with attractions dotted about, and where the “cities” are irrelevant – they’re small and distant and the traveller wouldn’t use them to reach those attractions.

OK, so it's important to consider what the problem is with putting full listings in region articles. A region article is supposed to summarize the entire region. Putting full listings of only far-flung attractions overemphasizes them by comparison to all the major attractions that may be listed in city articles, and we don't want to compound the problem by duplicating existing listings that are already (or should be) in city articles. So that's a major reason why I don't like relegating listings to region articles. If we do it, though, there needs to be an explanation stating that listings are given only for remote rural attractions, with urban attractions summarized with links to the relevant city articles. However, I think the effect would still be to overemphasize them, purely based on how their prominence relative to urban attractions will be likely to affect the reader.

I think how to best cover rural areas is always a good topic for consideration and discussion on Wikivoyage, and since this is a time of enforced cessation of travel for so many of us, this might be a particular good time to reopen this discussion and see if we can come to an agreement about how to best do this. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:21, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Not surprisingly, I'm somewhat repeating myself. If you didn't see this post above, in this very thread, have a look:

Agreed. By the way, whatever we agree on will be a guideline, not an absolute prohibition on having listings in region guides. There may remain exceptions in which it's the least bad solution, but if so, there has to be an introduction that mentions highlights in general and then explains that only attractions far outside of cities are listed in full below. And it's always best to avoid that kind of situation in a region article, if it's at all possible to avoid. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:59, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:25, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Graham's long comment gave a lot to think about.

A couple of things about listings in regions. Yes, I agree it should be avoided where possible, but it's also better to list an attraction somewhere on WV rather than nowhere. If I'm just adding a listing, and the right city article doesn't already exist, I'm not necessarily going to bother creating a new article just for my listing, and if I do it's likely to be empty other than that listing. Putting the listing somewhere (i.e. the region article) lets readers know the POI exists, and may give someone the impetus to go to the trouble of creating an actual city article that can at least be called usable. Also, it's not just attractions that might be listed in a region; Bourgogne-Franche-Comté#Eat lists three Michelin-starred restaurants that are in small villages with nothing worth writing an article for. France especially has lots of these out of the way restaurants or vineyards that are miles from anywhere. While putting them as listings into the region may not be optimal, it's better than not including them at all.

That sort of brings me on to the next point, in which I think that on a case by case basis, a 'city' split into just two districts donut-fashion (1: the core settlement, 2: surrounding villages, and rural attractions) could be a handy way to stop random listings from ending up in region articles. Or if there really isn't enough content to justify a split, then make it clear from the lede onwards that the article is about the town plus its surrounding countryside.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 13:41, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Why wouldn't listings that are not in a city be listed in the "Nearby" sectioning the nearest city? Travellers will usually be using a city or town as a base for visiting the POI, so putting it in the city article would usually be the most convenient for readers. I think that would be best advice, and then there would be the rare exception to the guideline where it doesn't make sense to put it in "Nearby", and it would have nowhere to go but in the region article. Ground Zero (talk) 15:54, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, that's fine in many countries, particular English-speaking ones. But the "exceptions" are not as a rare as you think. Some countries, including France, but also lots of developing countries, don't have the article density for it to be practical to list things in "Nearby". Look at the dynamic maps for, say, Hauts-de-France, Grand-Est, or the departments of Brittany, and you see big white spaces - great swathes of countryside and village that we don't (yet) cover, not because there's nothing there, but because those areas don't get the same attention from a rather limited editorship. I'm not arguing for one approach or another in all cases, just that we should be flexible and adapt our approach to the situation.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 16:52, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree we should be flexible, and I also agree with Ground Zero that typically the best option is to put it in the closest city article. Sometimes no city is particularly close, though, or there may be two cities that are often used as starting points to get to the attraction. (In that last situation, I think it's a good idea to have a link from both city articles to wherever we put the main listing.)

Another option is the "rural area" city article, exemplified by Rural Montgomery County. —Granger (talk · contribs) 18:20, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Trattorie in the countryside that serve cucina tipica (basically, authentic home-style cooking) are popular in Italy, too. But ThunderingTyphoons! and everyone else: Don't you get my point that emphasizing only far-flung attractions (in this case, eateries) in a region article has the effect of giving the reader the misimpression that the major cities in the region aren't as interesting as the countryside or small towns that don't have their own articles? Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:30, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

These are all valid arguments for why a particular solution might not work well on a particular page; but it's clear that there's no single right way. My argument therefore is that the style of the guidance should be to set out these options with their pros and cons, and positive examples, so the contributor can mull those over or discuss. It also captures what we already actually do - and if there are other solutions let's hear them. I suspect that casual readers will opt for "hell this is way too complicated, I'll just mention the place on Tripadvisor and forget WV". Negative glaring examples belong on a Talk page, to attract editorial attention to remedy them. Grahamsands (talk) 09:38, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

That's fine, as long as the con that I mention is acknowledged. It's not clear to me that everyone is even willing to recognize it, but I think that historically, it's been the main reason that we've frowned upon leaving listings in region articles. Of course the point isn't to discourage people from adding listings in general. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:05, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ @Ikan Kekek: There have been a lot of points made by different people over the previous paragraphs, and if we all responded to every single point made by everyone else, we wouldn't get anywhere. That said, I recognise the problem of giving undue weight to small attractions at a region level, and have no problem with it appearing as a "con" in a list of pros and cons.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 10:20, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

I think the ideal situation is for every area that has any points of interest of whatever kind to be covered by a bottom-level article. Whether that bottom-level article is in fact just of one city, a city and environs, a bottom-level district (county, etc.) with no separate articles for the villages in it or some other kind of bottom-level region article with a city article template is not a problem. If there are any specific areas that are a concern in this respect, we should discuss them. If we would prefer to ignore listings in region articles for now as not a priority during the pandemic, we can do that, too, although this could also be a good time to tie these loose ends. Meanwhile, perhaps we should have another thread to give specific examples of localities that need better coverage, so we can figure out how to best cover them. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:52, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Even I would see the restaurant listings in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté as 'temporary' (albeit indefinitely temporary, until a better solution is found).--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:49, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

@Ikan Kekek: I agree that overemphasizing far-flung attractions can be a problem. That's a factor that should be taken into account. I think now is a good time to deal with this issue, if anyone has specific examples of articles that we can look at. —Granger (talk · contribs) 13:00, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

I'll throw this idea out to see if it has any traction. To address the "undue weight" concern about having descriptive paragraphs about the food of a region, and two or three remote restaurants, what about creating a separate section for listings that would be preferably shifted to a destination article when one is created? Ground Zero (talk) 13:44, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

What name are you thinking of for the section, and where would you place it in the context of the article template? Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:16, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

This isn't a fully developed idea, so I'd welcome suggestions. Maybe "Places of interest" after the See, Do, Buy, Eat, Drink sections, with introductory text below the heading that says: "Here are some places in the region that lie outside of its cities and towns. Please check the destination articles for more listings." If others think this is a good idea in principle, let's work on the specifics together. Ground Zero (talk) 01:42, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I'd be open to it as an optional section that represents a temporary holding place, with the caveats discussed above. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:56, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Please add whatever wording you think would capture those ideas so that we can get others thinking about it. Ground Zero (talk) 02:13, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

"Rural attractions"? Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:35, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I was thinking of something that could include remote restaurants and hotels. I don't think readers would think of them as "attractions", generally. Ground Zero (talk) 12:13, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Surely we already have the option to do something like this, with subsections called "Rural" or "Further out" or whatever? I suggest an experiment (which shouldn't cut across Ground Zero's idea) - Ikan, name us three of your worst examples where putting listings in a region has seriously messed up that page. If these could represent varied terrain (eg rural, semi-urban, or developing country) all the better. We discuss each on its own talk page to see what a better solution looks like. Put a time limit on this, because if the answer's not obvious within 2-3 days then that's an answer in itself. What comes back here is the summary outcome, it establishes case-law or precedent, and as a bonus you've had three horrible pages attended to. Meanwhile the other conversations and angles to the issue can continue here uncluttered. Grahamsands (talk) 09:50, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

There are really two related situations: "movetocity" and "movetodistrict". We can concentrate on the "movetocity" issues on this page, but it'll take a considerable amount of time to look through a whole bunch of region articles and find the issues. Seems like a good cotm. I quite honestly usually just patrol recent changes and otherwise work on whatever I like, rather than doing the Collaboration of the month tasks, but I may propose looking for listings in non-bottom-level regions and districted cities and dealing with them in whatever way seems most useful (usually but not always by moving to city/moving to district). Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:21, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Here is a partial list of region articles with "Eat" listings. This should get us started. That said, I suspect in most of these cases the restaurants aren't remote or isolated, it's just that no one has gotten around to moving them to the correct city article (or the city is still a redlink). —Granger (talk · contribs) 13:24, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

That's quite a list, with some 202. I would like to have a go at the examples from Ireland because that nation has been on my to-do list for a long time. A first glance suggests exactly as you say, most of them just need folding into the relevant city. However my interest in this topic is that the nature of the land is such that many may remain unassigned, and I anticipate that the county pages will be a good home for them. Counties continue to have a strong identity in Ireland, where you've got the fascinating Museum of Pigs Ears way in the wilds with no plausible "city" home, and so on. But I'm reluctant to work on the place if disproportionate grief will ensue from adopting that solution. Grahamsands (talk) 14:59, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I doubt there will be much grief about adding a fascinating attraction to a county article, even though some of us may feel it's not the ideal place for it. Having clear examples to look at should help us in comparing different options too. I think you should plunge forward, and when you get to examples that are relevant to this discussion, please share them. —Granger (talk · contribs) 15:24, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I'll also give an example of a listing I added to a region article, at Northern Gulf Coast. In this case it's not an isolated restaurant, but a large and fairly complex attraction. It's most conveniently visited on tours from Hua Hin or Cha-am (but tours from Bangkok are available too), but it isn't very close to any one of those cities, so listing it in one of the city articles didn't make much sense to me. In addition, since it's such a noteworthy and fascinating attraction, I wasn't too worried about overemphasizing it by placing it in the region article. But I'm interested to know other people's thoughts about this example. —Granger (talk · contribs) 15:36, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Good listing, and a worthy example; anything with elephants is a must see for lots of people, so referring to it in the region article, and as possible excursions from Bangkok and Hua Hin, would make sense. But I don't really know why it isn't a 'Do' listing in Cha-am - it looks close on the map.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 16:16, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I thought about listing it in Cha-am or Hua Hin. It does look close to Cha-am on the map, but the shape of the roads means that in practice it's not that much closer to Cha-am than to Hua Hin. On my tour, the driver first picked up two passengers in Cha-am, then stopped in Hua Hin to pick up four or five more, then drove to the wildlife center. Another factor is that Cha-am is a small, off-the-beaten-path destination compared to Hua Hin, so I have the sense more visitors do the trip from Hua Hin. —Granger (talk · contribs) 16:34, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Another example: where should Capulin Volcano National Monument be listed? Raton? Clayton? Northeast New Mexico? Or should it get its own article? —Granger (talk · contribs) 17:53, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

My question would be how long would the articles for the volcano monument or the wildlife rescue centre be. We have a sizable Usable article for Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and articles for a number of volcanoes around the world. The wildlife centre feels less likely to work as a complete article on its own, but I don't know. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:56, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

The volcano monument seems to be smaller and less complex than Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. There are no campgrounds within the park, though there is one nearby. I'm guessing it might be on the edge of viability as a separate article, but I don't know for sure. More info here.

The wildlife rescue centre does include a small lodge, but at best it would be a very short article. I don't know of any comparable existing articles—our park articles are generally for much larger, more complex places. —Granger (talk · contribs) 11:47, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Task done on the Irish county pages, which had almost 200 listings. About 2/3 of them duplicated listings on a city page, and it looks like they were copied outwards by someone trying to populate a sparse county page - is this the pattern elsewhere? A third needed migrating and I picked the nearest city, which in some cases was very approximate and unlikely to be their long-term home. A dozen or so had no plausible home and were left as is. This does render them more prominent than other POIs, but not glaringly so. I think it will be a non-problem once all the county and constituent city pages are properly built, but that will probably be the same day that WV is able to display markers for crocks of leprechaun gold at the ends of rainbows. Grahamsands (talk) 08:09, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Hah! You're probably right. Thank you very much for all this diligent work! I've gotten sidetracked by a request to help translate an article from it.voy. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:20, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

And just when I thought Ireland's counties were done, I saw listings on higher-level pages, so that was another 30, and still there are the parks to clear, such as Burren. It feels more like tail-gunning than editing. To see if this pattern might be typical, I looked at Aegina near Athens and Pilbara on the northwest coast of Australia. Both would easily resolve by broadening a nearby city page, eg Karratha's scope could include Dampier, Roebourne and Point Samson, 50 km is nothing in that vast territory. Also several examples on Granger's list are called "regions" or equivalent but are the lowest level of the local hierarchy, so listings do belong there. What I'm coming to is, there's a legacy problem with misplaced listings that mostly has swift solutions, but we've no reason to get antsy over the few that might remain or later get added. It's better than not listing, and we need to make life easy for occasional contributors. So that's what the guidance needs to reflect. Grahamsands (talk) 14:20, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Could you give some examples of "region" articles that are the lowest level of the hierarchy? As I understand it, most of those should probably be tagged as "park" or "city" articles instead, like Rural Montgomery County. —Granger (talk · contribs) 15:45, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Okay here are some:

- Many islands are single pages, the majority called cities but others are regions eg Jersey. In that example, it was de-structured by merging the main town and a dozen itsy-bitsy villages. Barbados is divided into four pages: one is called a city, Bridgetown, the other three are called regions, with no lower structure.

- The Western Desert of Egypt has five oases, which get a page each. They’re the size of counties and are called regions. Their towns are small dusty places, and the POIs are antiquities lying some way out that haven’t been built over.

- Some examples are mixed. Thus, County Limerick has pages for the city of Limerick and the small tourist town of Adare. But beyond that, attractions are scattered: the listings don’t belong to any obvious centre and sit well at county-level. The second-largest town doesn’t have a page, nor is there much reason to create one, there’s little there and it wouldn’t cover those POIs. I expect this will be a common situation across rural Ireland.

- There are counter-examples of bottom pages called cities that are actually regions. McMurdo Station in Antarctica covers all the POIs in the NZ sector of the continent, a vast terrain, because it was broadened to include whatever you’d visit from there.

None of this should matter to the reader / traveller, so long as they easily find what they’re looking for. Is there some rationale around curatorship of the knowledge base why bottom-level pages need to be cities? Grahamsands (talk) 13:48, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Agree that our internal terminology shouldn't matter to the reader. I suppose it's useful to follow the standard that bottom-level pages are called cities or parks instead of regions—that makes it easier to apply guidelines like Wikivoyage:Region guide status and Wikivoyage:City guide status, and avoids cluttering maintenance categories like Category:Empty regions. —Granger (talk · contribs) 14:58, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, the standard is useful for templates and guidelines, but as they are confusing to readers they should be as invisible as possible, not as in "This city travel guide ..." for non-cities. --LPfi (talk) 15:22, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Good point. Should we modify Template:stbox so it doesn't show the word "city"? Alternatively we could modify it to allow editors to choose whether to display "city" or "rural area". —Granger (talk · contribs) 16:43, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

I'd prefer it not to show. There are many cases where neither fits well, and on one hand many editors will leave the default wording, and on the other, if one is supposed to make up a wording, they will vary widely. It would be good, though, to give some visual clue, so that more seasoned editors see which template is used (perhaps the categories are enough, do people look at them?). --LPfi (talk) 17:46, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

We could remove the word "city" in case of city/rural area guides, while leaving in "region", "country", "park", etc. for other articles. Then editors who see that the type of article isn't specified in the template would know that it's a city-level guide. Would that work? —Granger (talk · contribs) 15:44, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

I think that would solve the worst problem for me, although "country" may still be problematic for disputed territories. --LPfi (talk) 17:51, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Good point, that's a reason for relying on categories and making the type of article visible only to editors. That would be fine with me. How do others feel? Should we gather wider input with a message in the pub? —Granger (talk · contribs) 18:06, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Seeing no objections, I've plunged forward and made the change. If anyone disagrees, we can discuss some more. —Granger (talk · contribs) 17:19, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't think this change was publicized enough considering it touches nearly every guide on the site. I would ask you to revert it and post in the Pub to get wider opinions. In particular, by removing the article types, we also lose the links Wikivoyage:Geographical hierarchy, which is a useful page for the reader and not just for the editor. Powers ^(talk) 02:05, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

We don't have to revert the changes in order to continue the discussion. By all means, start a thread in the pub and make your argument there for why we should undo this work. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:18, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Are you serious? That's not how status quo bias works. (Plus, this is a huge change proposed at the end of a long, unrelated discussion, which isn't good form even without notifying the Pub.) Powers ^(talk) 17:27, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

• As a side note, without any knowledge of this discussion I have been moving listings in region articles in Florida Panhandle and other Florida region articles to city articles. Now I'm aware of this discussion, does anyone disagree with those changes? --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 17:59, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

@LtPowers: I don't mind if you'd rather revert the change while we have a wider discussion in the pub. It's true that not many people commented on the proposal here. —Granger (talk · contribs) 18:43, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Just another list of arguments pro "Region as a mix of Country and City style articles"

Let me make some points here why I feel the Region article style should actually be a mix of Country article style and City article style (including specific listings):

1. Most region articles will never reach the level and comprehensiveness of a country article, still they have to stick to pretty much the same rules.
2. There are often many city-like topics/listings that would wonderfully fit into a region article but are really lost in city articles.
3. We already have so many region stubs lying around, especially where we decided to have e.g. 3 levels of regions (see Greece, Italy, Brazil) that are barely ever going to be filled with useful information (or if mostly with duplicate information) because all have to stick to the country style and are often just too similar. Having the rule that also listings can go into region articles would definitely give the feel that region articles are actually of any use.
4. We have now introduced the Rural area article style for listings outside of cities, but I feel this just adds more complexity to the already diffus WV and makes it even less readable. To me WV always seems like a maze, not to imagine what travel information newcomers are actually able to find without the awareness of the complexity and different article levels.

Maybe these can be used in a future discussion ...

Cheers Ceever (talk) 10:40, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Cities vs. towns

Swept in from the pub

In a recent edit, User:TagaSanPedroAko changed a heading in the Mindoro article from "Cities" to "Cities and towns". My first reaction was to want to revert, thinking along the lines "No, that heading is a site-wide standard & you cannot change it."

But is it the right standard? In Mindoro, Calapan is officially a city & has pop. around 150,000, but I think everything else would be better described as towns. Should the heading just be "Towns"? Should that be our site-wide standard? Or perhaps, since some articles currently list even villages as "Cities", should we make the heading "Settlements"? Pashley (talk) 07:15, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

I think these kinds of headings can be changed as appropriate. However, we don't want to get into the business of defining the difference between cities, towns, villages, hamlets and what have you, site-wide, because then we'd run into the problem of very small cities and very large villages. In quite a few places, "village" and "hamlet" are merely administrative categories. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:25, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

The use of 'Cities', 'Towns', 'Villages' etc varies quite widely on Wikivoyage. Certainly in articles about the British Isles, where the difference between these types of settlement is set out in law and instinctively obvious to most people, you'll rarely find a cities list just called 'Cities'. As long as this local discrepancy is allowed, I don't see the problem with every built-up area article having the default name 'city'. I would find 'settlements' inadequate, as to me that brings to mind a small village and is also reminiscent of Wikidata's ridiculous 'human settlement' description tag.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 07:29, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm completely fine with renaming the "Cities" header in region pages if the local geography permits. For the region article in question (Mindoro), I'm fine if that can be changed to "Towns", if we can safely ignore the fact Calapan is a city only in administrative terms (though it's somewhat borderline, at least for a local like me).

Whether to call a small city a city or a town or a large town a town or a city is also an issue affecting some Philippines city or town articles (such as Los Baños (Laguna) — administratively municipality or town, but a city for its population and its moniker). We also have many Philippine region or province pages that have no places described as city, but the header is not changed to reflect the geography (so are city/towns in those list without a one-liner that can aid in the appropriate section name). --TagaSanPedroAko (talk) 20:08, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Wikivoyage:Region article template#Cities already covers this scenario and explicitly notes that using a different header is fine where it makes sense:

Lastly, if calling the settlements in this region "cities" is a real stretch – say, for remote or rural areas with only towns and/or villages – it's OK to rename this section 'Towns' or 'Villages' or 'Settlements' or whatever. But if there are lots of different kinds and sizes of settlements, just leave it as "Cities".

-- Ryan • (talk) • 18:17, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

"Best of" in the region pages

Swept in from the pub

As all know, WV doesn't have enough editors and we definitely don't have editors in each country nor region of country... For longest time, it bugged me that WV doesn't have functionality like some competitors, where you can easily find highlights of a region. For example, if one arrives to Landes, using WV it's very hard to find what to see there. OTOH, a nearby region Dordogne has quite nice "See" section with the overview. Could we do something about it, without having region-local experts - any idea? We still have no listing "rating" functionality, so that's off the table.

Only thing I came up with is using some incoming users data, if that's available to us. E.g. if someone comes from google, is it possible to find out what were they searching before clicking our article? Or get some search data from mediawiki? (if even someone uses that) I guess we would need per-region histogram of most searched terms... Perhaps it's not worth it/not nearly possible, or worthless data, dunno - comments are welcome. -- andree.sk(talk) 20:18, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

You could use page views (e.g., Landes, Mont-de-Marsan) on city articles, to figure out which city's pages are getting the most attention right now, but that wouldn't tell you which section of the article was most interesting. I'm not sure it would tell you much beyond what you would expect, though. Big cities will almost always get more page views than little places. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:59, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Yup, sure... But that wouldn't of course help us :-( I was rather wondering, if the wiki admins or someone has some better data - though I doubt google shares that info with visited pages :) I guess we could do the reverse - search google for the listings and pick the ones with most hits. But for small articles, it probably won't be too helpful... -- andree.sk(talk) 20:04, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

As a general rule, almost all incoming traffic, especially if you exclude traffic due to registered editors, comes from a search engine. We can't get internal search data (e.g., to identify search terms that didn't lead to page views); it seems that the WMF's Legal team considers that to be private information at some level. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:28, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Why isn't buy listed

If both city and countries have a buy section why doesn't the region template have one I'm currently revamping the Kiso Valley as a region and want to add a buy section can I? Tai123.123 (talk) 23:18, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

"Buy" is not a required heading in region articles, and most region articles do not have it. If if there are regional products that you think would be of interest to travellers, you can add the heading. The region articles should not include listing for stores, though. Those belong in the city articles. Ground Zero (talk) 11:03, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes. I'd add that if an individual store is among the main attractions of the region, then it can be mentioned in the Buy, with a link to the city. But not added as a listing in the region article, other than perhaps if the city isn't yet covered in any existing lowest level article. –LPfi (talk) 11:08, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Do we need a rule limiting the use of markers in non-bottom-level articles?

Please have a look at the Talk:Santorini#Style, length and detail issues in this region article. There are 33 markers in the "See" section of this non-bottom-level article. User:82.132.214.224 has persistently argued that this does not violate the 7+2 rules, because those rules apply explicitly only to listings and Santorini#See was divided into 4 subsections with no more than 9 markers per subsection, but even mentioning 33 sights in any form in a non-bottom-level region article has to violate a rule on avoiding long lists (and when geocoding is included, cluttered maps, as you can see in Santorini#Islands), don't you agree? The example the IP user gave of an article that similarly, in their view, helps travelers, is Tenerife, but that article has 9 markers in its "See" section.

I rather feel that we need some guidelines on the use of markers in general, because the problem is that they appear on maps, and if we want to keep control on how many points appear on maps for non-bottom-region articles, unless we arrive at some standard, we are going to continue to risk long arguments like the one at Talk:Santorini.

Shall we state that there will be no more than 9 markers in any section of a non-bottom-level article, or would any of you like to offer a less permissive standard, such as no more than 9 items even mentioned?

Also, should we be a bit more liberal in country- and continent-level articles, by perhaps limiting the markers to 9 in any section but permitting the mention of 9+x (number to be determined) points of interest with internal links to the city (or whatever) where they are located, or should we simply not change anything in the guidelines for articles at those levels? As an example, I consider India#See impressively brief for a vast, extremely populous, fascinating country and don't think we'd want to limit attractions mentioned to 9.

I look forward to reading your views. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:22, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

The places to see should not have any markers at all. The map in the article is not really legible. It would have enough on it if it showed only the 15 towns. The See, Do and Eat markers should appear on maps in the town articles. The See and Do sections should describe places in general text, and viewer the readers to the articles that have detailed information and map markers. Ground Zero (talk) 00:39, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Should we limit the use of markers in non-bottom-level articles to "Cities" and "Other destinations" only, then? And what limits should we have on mentions of places to visit even if they are mentioned without markers or listings? Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:49, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

I support not allowing markers in non-bottom-level articles for anything other than cities/towns, and "other destinations" (which are usually national or state parks, or other exception natural areas).

I agree that Santorini#See is too long. I think that in mentioning every point of interest, this article violates Wikivoyage:Region article template#See, which says, "This is for an overview of the types of attractions as well as the principal attractions in the region." Similarly, Wikivoyage:Region article template#Do says, "This is for a summary of activities in the region...." I think that this addresses the issue you are raising, without adding more rules. Ground Zero (talk) 01:22, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. But we could still add the limitations on the use of markers that you mention. Let's see what other people say and whether we can get a consensus behind this. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:56, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

+1 for not allowing markers outside the cities and the other destinations sections. While the IP-who-thinks-they-know-everything was correct that 7+2 doesn't apply outside the "Cities" and "Other destinations" sections, putting markers in other section headers is absolutely not Wikivoyage-style (not just en, but all language Wikivoyages). I was quite surprised until yesterday that this wasn't mentioned in the policy page. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 05:41, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

I agree that the Santorini See section violates policy, that the map has too many markers and that attractions shouldn't usually have markers. I wouldn't forbid them though. There may be special cases where such markers are warranted, and I think the editors of an individual article are better equipped to judge. One could add some wording discouraging them, but I haven't seen any problem with this before, so I doubt such wording really is needed. Rule creep is probably a bigger issue. –LPfi (talk) 07:17, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

I don't think rule creep is a bigger problem than some reasonable limitation. At the very least, we should be able to agree on a maximum number of markers per section in non-bottom-level region articles. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:19, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

I strictly oppose not allowing markers in non-city articles... Perhaps you like walls of text, but maps and graphics are a big and important part of traveller guides. "A picture is worth a thousand words"...

Doesn't seem to me that all Santorini listings are in the overview, on the first look I have a feeling it's been relatively carefully picked out. In any case, perhaps we could think about grouping the various markers into multiple maps, to unclutter the main one a bit. -- andree 06:19, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

This general proposal against markers seems a bit of a red herring from the stated issue with one specific article: the See section of Santorini is too detailed, with too many suggested sites of interest. Removing the markers wouldn't solve the issues with that section; it would still be really long and detailed. Whereas if the correct 7±2 standard were implemented for the number of entries, the markers wouldn't overwhelm the map.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:29, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

In region articles markers should only be used for Cities, Other Destinations, other things that have articles (itineraries, dive sites etc), and occasionally for sights that are outside a city. They should also be used for major "Get in" transport features like airports and ferry ports as these are often not in a city. AlasdairW (talk) 13:24, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Yes (in general). Important cities usually have important attractions near their centres, and the see markers can hide city markers like for me in this case,. That shouldn't be allowed to happen. If we need language on this, I think something along the lines of "other points of interest should usually not have markers in region articles" is enough. If somebody adds markers you can remove them, point to the template, and ask them to make their case on the talk page. –LPfi (talk) 13:47, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Clearly, the Santorini#See section style opposes the usual 7+2 thing. But TBH, when it's structured like that, it gives a nice introduction to the whole area (with all the main attractions, even though only from the view of the author). If it was just a long list of sights, that would be useless and I'd be all in for pruning, but it's pretty nice currently. A common tourist will be able to pick up the destinations by reading the rather nice text, without clicking through all the cities. 7+2 makes sense for places that didn't have too much effort put into them - but if someone wants to make a really good guide, I imagine it should look exactly like this. Granted, it's pretty impossible to structure e.g. USA like this, but for such a tiny island with only two layers of articles (1 Region + Cities), I'd reconsider strictly enforcing the rules... TCF -- andree 06:19, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

But then what's the point of the city articles? Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:28, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

The point of them might be to tell what else is around locally when you have decided on what sights you don't want to miss. You mostly want to eat without taking a bus to that Michelin restaurant that also was mentioned in the district article (and Santorini has none). I don't know why the see markers are important though. If "Folklore Museum" would be written "Folklore Museum (Fira)", you'd at least see what attractions are in the same town, and you wouldn't have to look at the address bar (my smartphone doesn't even show URLs of links; showing it is often a configuration option in desktop browsers) or scroll up in the city article to see what town it is about. The markers don't help particularly well in showing what's nearby: you'd need to open the map in a separate tab or window too easily switch between map and description. The map is near the city descriptions, not near the See listings, by design. –LPfi (talk) 07:26, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

It would definitely be better if 33 markers for "See" listings were removed from the article, but if Bali is a starred article without 33 "See" listings, why is it best for there to be so many in Santorini? First things first, though. If we could agree to either limit or eliminate "See" markers from region articles, that would be helpful. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:33, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

I don't agree this needs to be an absolute rule. Of course, marking urban POIs that clash with the marker for a city article is not helpful, but marking rural POIs that are away from other markers might be, depending on the region article. The furthest I'm willing to go is the wording suggested by LPfi, i.e. "other points of interest should usually not have markers in region articles", which at least leaves the option open in particular cases, where the article's editors can decide what's best.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 08:06, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Your point on the reason for exceptions is well taken, and I'd be fine with such a guideline. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:34, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘As the author of many of Santorini's latest revisions, I greatly appreciate the feedback on the article. I rewrote the article as an experiment, to illustrate what a modern travel guide could look like within the technical framework of the existing wiki. As many have already pointed out, it is the last incarnation of a series of such experiments.
I find these constructive comments valuable because they revealed that there are several radically different opinions, some of which are mutually exclusive. Some find the See section too long or too detailed, others would prefer a more condensed list of items instead of text, and some don't like lists and would prefer a text with or without markers. Some enjoy background information, others find it too encyclopedic. Some find the pictures illustrating attractions an added value, others see them as clutter. All views have pros and cons.
What we can all agree on, I think, is that we're now 2 decades in the 21st century, and our methods of travel have radically changed since Wikivoyage was forked in 2012. When Wikivoyage's policies were written, few Wikivoyagers travelled with mobile devices, and Wikivoyage was designed to mimic the format of a printed travel guide: loads of text, few maps, and minimal pictures. A decade later, I suspect most of our readers take a mobile device with satnav capabilities along when travelling, taking advantage of fast free wifi and/or free roaming in the EU. As a travel guide, it is only normal that we try to take advantage of such social and technical evolutions to give our readers the best experience both when planning a journey and when navigating on the ground during their journey. Interactive maps linked to markers with coordinates that help planning or navigation are an excellent example of such an opportunity. And like User:Andree.sk already pointed out, a picture still says more than a thousand words.
With that in mind, I invite contributors here to forget existing policies for a moment, and stop assuming travellers are reading Wikivoyage with a dial-up connection or printing out articles on paper. Instead, think of how policies can be updated to reflect current travel requirements in the 2020s. Preferences such as having See markers on a map or not, few or many pictures, or markers in a text should no longer be a source of dispute but merely a technical setting that can be enabled or disabled in reader preferences. Rather than trying to find a middle ground solution that works for everyone, technological means can be used instead to give everyone a personalised travel guide experience. —The preceding comment was added by 82.132.213.72 (talk • contribs)

Please sign all your edits on talk pages by typing 4 tildes (~) in a row at the end. We don't forget about Wikivoyage policies and guidelines, and you are making proposals to change several different aspects of Wikivoyage policies and guidelines at the same time, which is not the likeliest way to gain a new consensus behind them and is likely to require separate discussions on different talk pages. That said, one thing that it's important to understand is that like every other website or printed publication, this site has its own house style. I would refer you to the long discussion at Wikivoyage talk:Image policy/archive 2014-2019#Minimal use of images - not appropriate and the "Resolution?" subsection at the end of that. In that discussion, I made the following point, in regard to an Eyewitness guide:

Sure it's a guide, as were the Touring Club Italiano guides I used for Firenze e dintorni and Toscana (the latter of which covered all of the region other than Florence and environs), which identified every single artwork on every wall of every church, internally and externally, and the name and architect of every building on every street but didn't show pictures of any of them. I think that what you are finding in this discussion is that most of us want this site to be somewhere in between the two extremes.

And part of the reason we don't make our guides picture galleries with only a few words is that we link to the Commons category that's analogous to each article, where people can scroll through pictures to their hearts' content. But again, this is not the thread to discuss changing Wikivoyage's image policy. If you want to discuss that, read through the threads I linked for you and feel free to unarchive them and restart them at Wikivoyage talk:Image policy if you really think you have something new to say that might change any minds.

I would further say that the place to "experiment" on what a radically different type of article than one called for under Wikivoyage policies and guidelines should go is your user page, not articlespace. You should have created your version of the article in a sandbox page, linked to it in a thread in the Travellers' pub, and asked for comment on it. And you could have included all the excessive images that were left-justified and so forth (which I've already edited out) and seen what our reactions were. What you've done instead is to create a mess and refuse to cooperate in deciding which 9 "See" destinations should be featured, giving those of us who don't know the island the choices of: (1) letting you to continue to operate in bad faith; (2) arbitrarily deleting all but 9; (3) waiting, perhaps indefinitely, for someone else who knows Santorini and is willing to act collaboratively on this wiki to step in and deal with it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:31, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

I agree that the sandbox approach is much better when trying to radically change the way we are doing things. I also note that something being technically possible doesn't mean it is feasible in practice. Please make an article in your sandbox, where people with different connections, devices and preferences can get the version that is optimal for them. With the Santorini article as example: as long as the see markers (which you re-enabled) hide the cities on the map, they are utterly unhelpful. Make them toggleable and toggle them off as default, and I could have some symphathy with your arguments. –LPfi (talk) 18:23, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Hiding the markers is a good solution, although we then face the additional issue of how many sights should even be mentioned in a region article (but that's a different issue). Thanks for hiding the markers! Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:53, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

I added this based on discussion here and at Talk:Santorini. Any objections? Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:01, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Convert regions section to regionlist instead of bullet points (cities/other destinations)

Would it make sense for the skeletions of all the region sections in region/country/continent/huge-city skeletion templates, be converted into the regionlist format instead of the bullet points like they are now? It would also provide a guideline on how to deal with static vs. dynamic maps as well. The skeleton format could also be put into the quick copy-paste section without the placeholder text, so new articles can go up with the template already in it.

I'd also wonder if it'd make sense for the city list bullets to be converted into markers, for similar effect.

Here's a sample:

---

Region article template regions - Color-coded map — switch to interactive map

Region article template regions - Color-coded map

The South 1-5 sentences describing the highlights of this sub-region.

The North 1-5 sentences describing the highlights of this sub-region.

The Coast 1-5 sentences describing the highlights of this sub-region.

Inland 1-5 sentences describing the highlights of this sub-region.

Cities

• 1 City 1 — 1-5 sentences describing the highlights of this city.
• 2 City 2 — 1-5 sentences describing the highlights of this city.
• 3 City 3 — 1-5 sentences describing the highlights of this city.
• 4 City 4 — 1-5 sentences describing the highlights of this city.

Other Destinations

• 1 Park 1 — 1-5 sentences describing the highlights of this park.
• 2 Park 2 — 1-5 sentences describing the highlights of this park.
• 3 Island 3 — 1-5 sentences describing the highlights of this island.

---

Toran107 (talk) 21:59, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

I don't think the regionlist can be included in the skeleton templates: the syntax is not at all obvious to those who aren't used to Mediawiki templates, and quite complicated also for most seasoned Wikipedia editors. Let's keep the skeletons simple. If we decide to prefer the regionlist, it can be substituted later, and those in the know can paste it in from the template documentation instead of from the skeleton. –LPfi (talk) 06:17, 22 May 2023 (UTC)