Wikivoyage talk:Routes Expedition/reboot

Discussion of the proposal

These proposed route articles require a lot of work. Much as in the case of airport articles, I would not want to countenance the proliferation of numerous Outline route articles. However, if someone really wants to put in the work to cover all the bases you list (or most of them), I'd be happy to give this proposal my blessing. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:20, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm afraid I'm still wary of having separate pages for freeways, and it's for the same reason as the last time this proposal came up: I think we're ill-equipped to handle the kind of information being proposed here. Assembling the minutiae of details such as what gas stations are available at what exits or listing every rest area, toll booth, and motel along every major freeway is not only a massive undertaking but would likely be difficult to maintain and keep up-to-date. And honestly, I don't think we're the ideal source for this kind of information; I think this is better suited to a road atlas or a map application than a travel guide like Wikivoyage. Our specialty has always been in separating the wheat from the chaff; that is, telling viewers what's worth doing in a destination, not telling them every single possibly useful thing they'll encounter along the way. And while I appreciate that this web platform allows us to think about other ways of seeing travel, I think we should also keep in mind the pragmatic reality of being the fairly small community that we are. What made the routeboxes such a wonderful solution was that it allowed us to offer an answer to the question "What is along this route?" in a way that worked within the guides we had already created and were maintaining. Adding a bunch of route guides on top of that just seems like a bit too much to handle, in my view. PerryPlanet (talk) 21:55, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm unclear why a new article type is needed - isn't the proposal just an itinerary article where the POIs are arranged by their milepost location along the route? We've already done that with Natchez Trace Parkway, and I think that article worked well. If the proposal is to encourage skeletons for every major transportation route, I'm leery of opening up that can of worms and would instead suggest that we open the door to more itinerary articles for highways, rail lines, etc and see how that goes first. -- Ryan • (talk) • 22:06, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, that's the simple solution. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:10, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Ryan in this. Danapit (talk) 10:20, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Me too. I don't want to start seeing skeletons for routes and don't really think any article is needed unless there is enough info to make a decent itinerary article. Texugo (talk) 12:15, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Not to speak for User:Traveler100, but isn't the intent of this proposal to include information not normally found in our itineraries, and to accommodate routes that don't really make good itineraries? Powers ^(talk) 18:34, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

My comments might have been unclear - I'm suggesting that rather than create a new article type and then create lots of skeletons, that we merely relax what would typically be considered an "itinerary" to accommodate Traveler100's idea and see how things develop. If someone wants to start an itinerary article for a route such as the Pennsylvania Turnpike or the Amtrak Northeast Corridor, we can then use that to see how this sort of thing would work in practice. I think the example of Natchez Trace Parkway might be a useful one to follow for something like a turnpike article, where the POIs would be milemarkers for exits, rest stations, etc. -- Ryan • (talk) • 18:46, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback on the route proposal, I see we are not ready for this yet, need a lot more contributors to the site for this to really work. I will attempt a route that is not a typical itinerary in my talk area and see how it looks. As for danger of many small article that should not happen as it can be addressed with link from routebox to the Get around section of appropriate region. Plan to expand that a little over the next year. --Traveler100 (talk) 07:55, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘I am skeptical of this (but of course willing to be convinced otherwise). As we can see from articles like Danube, rivers don't make for good articles, at least they historically have not. On rail routes there is a focus on places the train stops in for the logical and natural reason that other points are difficult to get to by train. Hence we would not need a "linear" category for them unless we want to duplicate (a lot of) the information, which really only makes sense for major routes of touristic interest and not any old ICE from Hamburg to Montabaur. Or indeed any old set of tracks from Itzehoe to Westerland. Cycle routes can be covered by itineraries if they are interesting enough and not at all if they aren't. Now we are left with car routes. Once again, for renowned routes like the Romantic road there already is the itinerary template and it is used for those. But for any old Autobahn A9? I don't know which benefit to our site and our readers they could bring. Of course there might be something I am overlooking, but one of the reasons why "thematic roads" exist is that the highway/freeway/interstate/Autobahn system is mostly boring in terms of landscape you pass through. The A9 goes from Munich to Berlin via Nuremberg. But I am sure you would not know much of this if you never left the Autobahn. On legacy roads however, that is an entirely different story. And for those an itinerary article might make sense. Hobbitschuster (talk) 18:43, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Traveler100, yes, please put a Route example on one of your user pages—I would like to see what it looks like. Peter Chastain (talk) 01:38, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Traveler100's proposal would let us show a kind of information—which I would loosely call "roadside attractions"—that we currently are not presenting very well, but I am not sure it is the best vehicle for that. When I driving from one place to another, I would like recommendations about places to stop. Not gas stations—there are already mobile apps for that—and not most official Interstate highway rest areas, which are all pretty similar, but stuff like this:

• On trips from the Bay Area to Southern California, I always try to stop in Buttonwillow, to eat at Tita's. (I love their food!) And the Buttonwillow Motel 6 has the lowest room rates of anything along my route, and they offer free WiFi. So, I have listed both of places in the Buttonwillow article. However, most people who pass through there have no reason to read the article, since it's not much of a destination. Pea Soup Andersen's Restaurant in Santa Nella (which will probably never be a sufficient destination for an article) is another example, as is the Maxwell fruit stand where I have bought lovely nectarines.
• I consider date milkshakes a mandatory part of any drive through the Palm Springs area, and my usual place for them is Hadley's, in a non-destination called Cabazon, on I-10, about 30 miles west of Palm Springs. We could add that as an Eat listing for Palm Springs (or any of the other small cities in the area), but a 50–60 mile round trip for a milkshake seems unreasonable.
• A trip from San Jose to Klamath Falls takes me past the Living Memorial Sculpture Garden, on US 97, 13 miles northeast of Weed. I discovered it by accident, found it worthwhile, and would like to share that information.
• When I travel to Lakeview, I need a bladder break at the Hillcrest Rest Area, on SR 299. But it's closed during the snowy half of the year, a fact that the website I just linked omits. Similarly, when I return, I need to remember that the Dunnigan Rest Area is my last chance, because Bay Area interstates don't have any.

These are all examples of places that aren't destinations or parts of leisurely itineraries, but brief stops on a trip where my main purpose is to get somewhere else. The proposed Route article type might help me find them. In an ideal world, I would rather not have to find articles for all the roads I will be on and then look for listings in the segments I will be on. What I really want is a mechanism to ask for an ordered list of places where I might stop on my trip from Point A to Point B. And I can imagine a future version of Wikivoyage being the engine that gives some answers. Perhaps it would assemble suggestions from a list of tiny articles (I think of those more as database entries), each listing one roadside stop. This would require some sort of interactive app. At a minimum, the user could enter route segments (e.g., I-5 north to SR-299; northeast to US-395...) but it would be so much nicer to get those data from a route that Google Maps has already computed. (Is there an API for that?) I don't think we want to reinvent Google's routing feature ourselves.

Meanwhile, I'm interested in whether today's Wikivoyage might accomplish at least some of what I would like to see. I'm glad Traveler100 re-started the discussion. Peter Chastain (talk) 09:10, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Exactly the sort of think I would like to address. In fact I wish I had had the Buttonwillow tip when I drove the I-5, the random exits I made were not very productive. Another example of this is the Petro Diner stop, sort of near Los Banos, as a gas station extension would not normally be something you would think about, but the american style food and salad bar is good. --Traveler100 (talk) 11:14, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

I've bought gas at that Petro but never would have even thought it was in Los Banos or looked in that article to find the listing that you added for the diner. The place is actually a lot closer to Santa Nella, a place for which we have an article that I didn't think existed, when I wrote my earlier comment. So, to find both Petro Diner and Andersen's, I would have to look in two unexpected articles. Peter Chastain (talk) 15:52, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Looking at the Santa Nella article, I notice that its entire content is listings for 1 restaurant and 3 motels, two of which either no longer exist or are called something else. And that underscores a weakness of Wikivoyage, either in its current form or with route articles: listings are added but not pruned. It seems to me that Expedia does a much better job of listing and comparing motels than we can. Peter Chastain (talk) 15:52, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes I spend some effort on deleting old listings but only scratching the surface with the effort. Would be good to have a script that can test for bad web links. Anyway that is another topic for discussion. Your idea of being able to run a program to compile a list gives me another idea. If we get our act together with routeboxes we do have a logical way of jumping from article to article along a route. Can also add key facilities to route box as well as city articles. Any of you programmers out there know how to do this? Maybe something like book creator that creates list by following links through the route box. --Traveler100 (talk) 16:26, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

If I may chip in - I am now getting a better sense of what this could be if it works, though I am still doubtful it would work reliably on what WV is now - for numerous reasons many people go through w:Schkeuditz, mostly in transit from one mode of transportation to another. It is close to LEJ airport, has two major Autobahn's just minutes away and the Leipzig-Halle S-Bahn stops there. Furthermore it is very close to a Bundesland border. However, I would not even dream of calling it a destination. It mostly exists as a function of its airport, its railway line and its Autobahns. Still we recently had the problem of being there, not having much time and me not wanting to eat at McDonald's - unfortunately a Mc Donald's was all we could find to eat at. If and when a "route" article on Autobahn A 9 (or for that matter Autobahn A14) were ever written, we could easily include Schkeuditz as a "rest stop" along that route. As could be done for places like Schleiz or Dittersdorf, whose name only rings a bell because the traffic report always mentions congestion at those exits... Hobbitschuster (talk) 18:15, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Interstate 5‎‎

Since it's often easier to have these discussions when there is an example in place to discuss I've started an Interstate 5 article. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of time to work on it right now, but the current skeleton should be enough for discussion purposes. My thought was that it's basically just an itinerary aimed at highway drivers, calling out exits, rest stops, and interesting sights, but leaving the details to the linked city articles. Is this kind of what others had in mind, or am I way off? -- Ryan • (talk) • 02:52, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I like it, though I did have a question that I posted on the article's talk page. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:01, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

It might also be instructive to look at Wikivoyage talk:Routes Expedition/Interstate 4, our previous attempt at this sort of article. Powers ^(talk) 02:15, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

It is instructive, but so far, I like the content of the entries in Interstate 5 much better, because they specifically indicate what amenities there are for travelers in the immediate vicinity of each exit. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:52, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

New-ish proposal - routes

Swept in from the pub

So always apprehensive about proposing something new on the site and got a little worried when I discovered that it was tried before and failed. But nevertheless I think it is worth proposing again as things have changed in the last 8 years, particularly in the area of mobile web browsing usage.

For those not in a relax and open frame of mind STOP reading now and come back later. :-)

Now your mind is open, please read Wikivoyage:Routes Expedition/reboot and provide constructive criticism on its talk page and additions/corrections to the expedition page. --Traveler100 (talk) 16:51, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

I've started discussion of the proposal at Wikivoyage talk:Routes Expedition/reboot. Please give your input there after you look at User:Traveler100's proposal. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:21, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Quebec Route 389

It has been brought to my attention that this article that I created today may or may not contravene policy. I did not see anything in Wikivoyage:Itineraries that would disqualify this article, but now I see that Wikivoyage:What is an article? says that "itineraries which describe a significant trail, road or highway (such as the Alaska Highway or Oxfordshire Way)" do not get an article.

I was using Trans-Labrador Highway and Dempster Highway as reference points. I realize that the existence of those articles does not necessarily justify creating this article. While those highways are famous, and could be considered attractions in themselves, I am left with the question, where do I put all of this useful information? I don't think it makes sense to conclude that it doesn't belong in Wikivoyage. I also don't think that it makes sense to try to break it up between the articles for the start and end points (Baie-Comeau and Labrador City), and the one place 500km along the route that has merits and article (Caniapiscau).

Route 389 is an isolated route that is a journey in itself because of the difficult conditions. Despite the poor condition of parts of the road, it is the only road connection between Labrador and the rest of Canada. Furthermore, it is the only road connection between the Trans-Labrador Highway, which has its own article, to the rest of North America.

I understand that there has been discussion before about "expedition" articles, and submit this for consideration as an article that, while it is about a highway,

(a) it is not about a mundane one (so it wouldn't be a precedent for someone wanting to create an outline for every highway in North America),

(b) has information that would not fit logically elsewhere in WV, and

(c) is useful to the traveller, so it belongs in WV. Somewhere. Ground Zero (talk) 01:13, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Ground Zero (talk) 01:13, 2 February 2017 (UTC) @Traveler100: @Wrh2:

To be clear, I had a hand in alerting Ground Zero to this issue on my talk page, and I think I may have misinformed him a bit as I was unaware of this page before I made my comments. There seems to be less of a chance than I originally thought that this article would actually be problematic per policy. But, just in case there's any more doubt, I would like to underscore that, given the remoteness of the area it passes through and the distance between towns, services, areas of mobile phone reception, and other outposts of civilization, QC 386 is the kind of highway where the traveller needs as much advance information as possible before setting out. I think this article's value to the traveller is self-evident for the reasons Ground Zero enumerated above. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 01:33, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

It looks like policy has been misread in this case, what it actually says is:

• City parks, town squares or streets. Districts named after streets like San Francisco/Castro Street and Singapore/Orchard are OK, as well as itineraries which describe a significant trail, road or highway (such as the Alaska Highway or Oxfordshire Way).

So by my judgement, that means this type of route is allowed an article, and lo and behold both indeed do have articles. Other than that, I support both of your arguments. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 01:37, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Oops, you're right, but is R-389 "significant"? It's hard to know what is meant by that. It isn't significant by use, but I guess I am arguing that it is significant as a connection. Ground Zero (talk) 01:42, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

I think the vagueness of the wording might be intentional, and in any case works to the benefit of those advocating in favor of this article. I think what's significant about 389 are the challenges it poses to the traveller - there are not many North American highways on which travellers are advised to bring a spare gas can, and to know how to perform basic auto repair work for want of access to tow trucks, etc. As I said above, this is a case where, for the traveller, knowledge is power. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 01:51, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

I see a few possibilities: (a) leave this as it is, (b) rename it to Manic-Outardes and Relais-Gabriel - describing the geographic area covered instead of the road - as this area doesn't have a city (or rural area) destination article, (c) merge this and Trans-Labrador Highway as one itinerary is a direct continuation of the other. Given the length of both this and the Trans-Labrador, I'm inclined to stick with the status quo and not merge or concatenate these. K7L (talk) 04:54, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't have any objections to the article. Although not as well known as the Dempster Highway or the Dalton Highway, I think it's similar to those. And I agree with Andre and Ground Zero that it's remoteness and the difficulties a traveller could encounter while driving the road make it a worthwhile article. -Shaundd (talk) 07:04, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

I also think this article is problematic and, as Andrew said above, we often leave policy a bit vague on purpose, in order to be flexible on a case to case basis. If you can fill this road article with enough travel relevant information, that makes it significant enough for me. Considering how long these drives are, I'd prefer to not merge with the Trans-Labrador Highway but to just leave it as it is. JuliasTravels (talk) 14:31, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

I can see the logic of this itinerary being retained, but in general, I don't wish to see us become a highway repository with an article on every stretch of gravel concrete or asphalt on the land surface of earth. I think we should seriously consider whether we should allow "run of the mill interstates" to get created as articles (which is the logical next step down the slippery slope and may have already happened). Sure, someone may consider the Autobahn A3 the most fascinating thing in the history of stuff, but I am quite sure half-empty outlines (that can never be deleted because they describe "real places") on every long distance road in the world are not and should not be part of our mission and do nothing to make our wiki better. Hobbitschuster (talk) 17:06, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

The arbitrary "real places" rule applies to destinations, not itinerary, and has the effect of redirecting speck-on-the-map points like Toronto (Prince Edward Island) which otherwise should have been deleted. Even then, there are a couple of de-facto exceptions for page creation vandalism or empty skeletons imported from a certain other travel wiki. We deleted Underground Railroad once, for instance. Half-baked itinerary is taken out and shot more readily than the same level of prose in travel topics or any other category; conversely, we are more protective of individual destination articles. K7L (talk) 17:42, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Well I hope that remains the case. As we have seen recently, the hurdles for deletion (instead of utterly pointless redirects) seem to get ever higher. Hobbitschuster (talk) 18:55, 2 February 2017 (UTC)