Wikivoyage talk:Tourism Bureau Expedition

Delay?

I think actually approaching tourisn bureaus one might be left until after the move to a WMF site. The extra prestige of the foundation that runs WP would be great help in getting tourist bureaus on board, and trying to explain the current situation would get needlessly complicated. Pashley (talk) 05:52, 27 September 2012 (CEST)

On the other hand, the preparatory work could be done now. Pashley (talk) 06:17, 27 September 2012 (CEST)

Partnership with Local Tourism Boards

Swept in from the pub

Hi! Having seen the update from the Wikivoyage DE team and the arrival of the City of London Visitor Development Team on the City of London article, I was wondering whether it would be worth creating some sort of scheme whereby Wikivoyage could partner with local tourism boards. Perhaps a page could be created on which articles could be jointly adopted by an editor and a tourist board together, benefiting both parties in the long-run. The tourist boards would provide content and information about an area (giving them free publicity for their area), whilst the editor (preferably someone with a knowledge of the area in question) would ensure that the article was balanced and help to induct the board into the ways of Wikivoyage. I don't know whether something like this already exists (I'm quite new here), or whether individual editors would have to invite tourist boards or whether it could be done centrally, but hopefully this would provide a way of creating large volumes of accurate content and spreading the word about this great project. I'm sure mentioning that Wikivoyage is part of the same organisation as Wikipedia would be enough to get many authorities interested and the free publicity element would be lapped up. --Nicholasjf21 (talk) 00:36, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Would be nice... so far, most of what I've been seeing from CVB's is their working against us (by packing entire articles with fluff) when they could be well-positioned to work with us. I'd be inclined not to utter the words "free publicity" and instead explain that we're looking for listings of things to see and do in their area for inclusion in a travel guide. Typically, they do have a relatively-complete list of points of interest (for instance, Cobourg had their entire city-level booklet on their website as a seventy-page .PDF) but we'd need to search online for specific info like pricing, hours and descriptions to properly fill a {{listing}} for each place mentioned. There are also provincial/state or regional-level entities which provide tourism info. K7L (talk) 01:44, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I echo, and amplify, User:K7L's concerns. I think it's important to emphasize that Wikivoyage's goal is to provide readers with a fair overview of what a particular place has to offer visitors as well as what travellers should avoid, whereas local CVBs' goals are purely promotional. Simply put, although we welcome contributions from local CVB's, I would feel quite leery (to put it mildly) about a full-scale "partnership" with entities whose goals are fundamentally different from, and sometimes completely opposed to, our own. IMO, that's asking for trouble. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 02:07, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I think local tourism boards are the best source of travel info, sometimes even better than going there yourself! While they can be touty, if you make it clear that the info will be removed, they will play it safe. I've contacted a few CVBs in Australia, and offered to do the editing myself while they provide information and resources. Another slightly-related idea is that after a CVB's town/city article on WV has been improved to a high standard, we could make agreements for CVBs to link back to us from their website. That means more links from a larger variety of sources, so a higher Google ranking, plus, exposure to those tourists who use CVB websites. We could create a button/banner sort of thing. "Discover more on Wikivoyage" JamesA ^>talk 13:01, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I've added a section Wikivoyage:Welcome, tourism professionals#What to put in, what to leave out in an attempt to explain what we're looking for. We do want to know if there are interesting things to see or do that are missing from our guides, we do want to identify outdated info and fix incomplete listings, but we likely don't want vendors' opinions on whether a destination is "a true vacation getaway" or "a paradise on Earth with cool breezes and beautiful sunsets" as those meaningless clichés have already been applied to every destination on the planet. K7L (talk) 20:10, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I've just seen this - it looks like such an idea already exists, but it appears to be dormant. Perhaps we could reawaken it? --Nicholasjf21 (talk) 20:07, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Cooperating with tourism bureaus

Swept in from the pub

Here´s my lunch-break idea of the day. What if we draft a well-written form letter that can be sent to official tourism bureaus, explaining that an article has been created for their city on Wikivoyage, explaining what Wikivoyage is, and inviting them to collaborate (with the full understanding that their contributions must be compatible with our copyleft, may be further edited/added to/deleted by other contributors, must not be touty, etc. etc.), with a link to their city´s page and Wikivoyage:Welcome, tourism professionals? Especially since we are new and not a lot of people know about us, it might be a good way to spread the word a bit and get some new, accurate information, particularly for smaller destinations that don´t have a well-developed official tourism website. What do you think? Texugo (talk) 17:10, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea to me! That way we could work with agencies from the off, rather than having to curb their enthusiasm. I'd be more than happy to help draft such a letter too. --Nick (talk) 18:00, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

I actually had the same idea a while ago, and I wrote down some thoughts about how to work it out with maximum effect. However, it seems like a bad idea to post it here. I saw a discussion somewhere about bringing some kind of "private" discussion about, did that ever happen? This would be a good example of where it pays to prepare a few things out of the open, imho. JuliasTravels (talk) 19:49, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, why is it a bad idea to post openly about it? Texugo (talk) 19:56, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Because we've seen several times that IB admins monitor our moves and try to influence the effects of actions taken. When contacting external parties, that might actually end in a rather embarrassing and very unprofessional situation which might have the adverse effects. Or am I seeing ghosts? JuliasTravels (talk) 20:03, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Gotcha.Texugo (talk) 20:08, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

This touches on what was discussed above in #Partnership with Local Tourism Boards. AHeneen (talk) 20:54, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

I have sent a few letters to tourism boards encouraging their involvement. One barrier I do find is that the goals of tourism bureaus vary. Some have the goal of increasing tourism in their area and boosting the town/region's profile. However, some are simply trying to boost the prominence of their campaigns and websites so that they get more funding and bigger paychecks... I recently contacted the tourism board in Bendigo, Australia with a letter as per User:JamesA/tourism board letter. I wrote it very late at night and didn't copy-edit. After re-reading, I do see a few errors, but it has some general ideas about cooperation. We really should work on developing relationships, including the possibility of them linking to us in return for our links to them. By the way, it's been 2 weeks and I am yet to receive a response. I may give them a call. JamesA ^>talk 09:58, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

That looks like it would be a good place to start from if we write a generic letter that could be sent to lots of different tourist boards. I might try writing one later on if that's ok? --Nick (talk) 19:06, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I've borrowed JamesA's letter and tweaked it a little, to create a more generic letter that you can find here. Do you think it would be possible to create a list of tourism boards who are onboard with us somewhere and also perhaps to get some testimonials, or results of their relationship with the website? I think that could strengthen our case quite a lot. --Nick (talk) 23:14, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Is it worth creating an expedition for this sort of thing? --Nick (talk) 15:35, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

You mean like Wikivoyage:Tourism bureau Expedition? LtPowers (talk) 15:41, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Almost precisely like that! I actually found that in the earlier discussion of this topic, so I'm plainly just a fool! Seriously though, would it be worth resurrecting that expedition? --Nick (talk) 15:48, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps we could move this discussion over there if anyone's interested - I've posted here: Wikivoyage_talk:Tourism_bureau_Expedition --Nick (talk) 18:09, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Notice - Wikivoyage:Tourism_bureau_Expedition is now up and running. --Nick (talk) 00:35, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

The Beginning?

Is now a good time to start this expedition? We've had two topics in the pub discussing it so far, so it seems that at least there's some interest. Using User:JamesA's original, I wrote a letter that could be sent to bureaux for this purpose - you can read it here. Perhaps it would also be worth looking into testimonials or some sort of evidence by which bureaux could ascertain the benefits of joining in. Any thoughts? --Nick (talk) 17:13, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I might suggest a pilot project for which we choose 8-10 locations of various sized cities and see how it goes. Texugo (talk) 18:51, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

We might also think about coming up with a seal or banner which we could allow them to display on their websites, linking back to us (presumably to the page for their city)..Texugo (talk) 18:53, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I absolutely agree! Perhaps ones that we have a knowledge of personally would be a good place to start. As for the banner, I'll have a play! --Nick (talk) 22:26, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Pilot Scheme

As suggested by Texugo, a pilot scheme with 8-10 locations of varying sizes might be a good way to kick this off. Does anyone have any suggestions as to possible contenders? I think places that we are personally familiar with might be a good place to start. We also need to decide whether we would like to do this centrally or individually. If the former's popular, we might need some sort of Wikivoyage email address and a means of accessing it securely. Does anybody have any thoughts? --Nick (talk) 18:34, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I would think they should be guided from the beginning on the use of talk pages rather than email, to keep things out in the open. Texugo (talk) 18:54, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree - after the initial email, we should keep everything open. Should the initial email be sent centrally? I'll also nominate at this point '''Bolton''' as I know it quite well. --Nick (talk) 23:15, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

I've contacted the Ballarat and Bendigo tourism boards but haven't got a response. I rang the former to see if they got my email, and they just told me they weren't interested. I pointed out that Wikivoyage is over 1 million places above their own website in the Alexa rankings (no joke), and they had a change of heart and said they'd respond to my email soon. We'll see what happens from there. As I have pointed out somewhere before, I did successfully contact the Victoria (state) tourism board who were very interested in getting involved, but weren't really offering anything or didn't have any clear idea on what they could do. It's all well and good to tell tourism bureaus we exist, but what do we want from them? Appreciation? A link? If we can clarify that, I will write again to the Victorian Tourism Board and organise official cooperation. JamesA ^>talk 11:42, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

That's great! I think what we want from these organisations is two-fold: a link would be nice, of course, but it would also be nice to have them on board with the creation and maintenance of their respective pages. There are areas I know quite well, but I certainly don't have the thorough knowledge of attractions and events that tourism boards would hopefully have. --Nick (talk) 11:53, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

So do we want them to edit directly? Do we want them to send editors like me info that we can use in the articles? JamesA ^>talk 11:58, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

I suppose whichever they feel is preferable - either way it would involve a pretty high level of editor involvement; be it fixing what has been written or turning these lists into articles. I think the fact that this is a free and quick way of publicising their area (albeit fairly) would attract at least some organisations. --Nick (talk) 12:02, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I think we should state very directly in the letter that what we are looking for is any text, images, or other details about their city/area which they would be willing for us to publish for free, under our license and subject to editing under our policies, that they are encourage to contribute directly to the article but free to send it to whoever sent them the email if they are not interested in collaborating directly. In the latter case, that editor should probably give an explanation on the talk page. Texugo (talk) 13:02, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

That sounds like an excellent policy. It would be great if they were willing to license any content they provided. --Nick (talk) 13:25, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

It's not just great, it's required. =) LtPowers (talk) 15:08, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Haha, you're absolutely right! Any ideas for areas that you'd be prepared to target? Also, would it be worth making a list of organisations that are already involved with Wikivoyage. --Nick (talk) 17:34, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

I think it would be very important to indicate in a highly visible way that a particular tourism bureau or/and employees thereof assisted in creating or editing an article. The notice could be similar to the notice at the bottom of some articles that indicates that material has been taken from a Wikipedia article of the same name. I hope no-one thinks that this kind of notice would constitute an advertisement; I certainly don't think it would, and any official tourism bureau should be linked from a relevant article, in any case, because it's beneficial to travelers. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:55, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

That does sound like a good idea! I think that would add to the benefits for these organisations and would make our articles look all the more reliable. --Nick (talk) 21:49, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't be opposed to that. It also might make the bureaus more likely to add a button to our site in return. JamesA ^>talk 23:41, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Destinations

Any ideas for places we'd like to nominate to be on the first list? As said above, I'd be happy to deal with '''Bolton''' as I know the area well and have been tweaking the article for a bit. Would it also be worth involving organisations that already have a presence on WV? --Nick (talk) 14:27, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Sure it would. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:20, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I've got a list started below where we can keep track of some destinations we are pursuing. We can keep status updates as well on what the tourism boards are up to.

We could really do with at least a couple more suggestions before we plunge forward and do this. Anyone else willing to venture forth? --Nick (talk) 23:04, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

• Tristan da Cunha - Their website has lots of info...I imagine a lonely soul someone on the island with time of their hands could and would be willing to greatly expand the article. AHeneen (talk) 07:54, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

• Texas - Let´s not forgot that region and state tourism boards often have loads of good info on a variety of destinations (and that our region articles need loads of help). What about Texas? I would love to get them on board - our Texas destinations in general need a lot of attention. Texugo (talk) 11:02, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Those two look like fantastic places to get on board. Would you two (Texugo and AHeneen) be prepared to contact those region's tourism boards yourselves? Please feel free to use and adapt the sample letter at the top of this page if you want, or to write something of your own devising. If you'd rather not contact them yourselves, I'm more than happy to. I'll add both of those destinations to the table on the project page. --Nick (talk) 12:21, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I would be willing to do it (for Texas), though it may take a day or two before I get around to it. Texugo (talk) 12:58, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

That would be great! Whenever's convenient is absolutely fine. --Nick (talk) 13:05, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Haven't got a response from the Texas tourism board. Perhaps I will try to dig up a different email address and try again. Texugo (talk) 11:05, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

They do see and read your email. Just many tourism boards are not interested because it is outside their "mandate". Ie, they're not paid to go above and beyond. They just run the website, or they just shift paper, or they just stand at an info desk, etc. They key is getting your request to someone higher up in the organisation who actually wants to see it flourish. JamesA ^>talk 11:36, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I will definitely try again when I have time.Texugo (talk) 12:08, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Hey guys, it's a great Expedition that you have undertaken, and one of paramount importance. As concerns destinations to start with, may I suggest Netherlands and the locations therein (both regions and specific communes / cities)? Netherlands has a network of VVV kantoors in every commune (VVV being the Vereniging voor Vreemdelingenverkeer, the highly-devolved countrywide tourist board), as well as regional VVVs, and in my experience they are exemplary when it comes to the service they provide, their dedication and willingness to go out of the way to help tourists in many cases. The Dutch in general, and surely the VVV, have very good command of English, and many less known Dutch destinations are currently profoundly "under-covered" by WV. A local VVV in a small Dutch town can really make a difference by contributing to its WV article. PrinceGloria (talk) 22:05, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

That sounds great! Would you be prepared to contact such a town? :) --Nick ^talk 22:12, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Any minute now, although given that you reply to everything I post on any talkpage recently, I am afraid I'd have to introduce the project as "Nicholas and PrinceGloria's WV". I hope there is more life to it than that, though :D

More seriously - I could use an email template with a short universal message to a tourism bureau. I must have overlooked it - where can I find it? PrinceGloria (talk) 22:25, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't think there is one. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:33, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Haha! I do my best! :D

We do have a template, though I can't find the link on this page any more; I'll add it to the main page of this expedition. In the meantime, here it is. Please feel free to do whatever you like with it; it may be a little formal in parts and some of the statistics are a little outdated now. :) --Nick ^talk 22:35, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks a whole lot, I will look it up and act upon it once I am done with Frequent flyer programmes. PrinceGloria (talk) 22:39, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

PS. Yay, the project has no less than THREE active contributors, Ikan Kekek still being awake :D

Banners

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  Banner 1
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  Banner 2
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  Banner 3
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  Banner 4
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  Banner 5

Ok, a barrage of banners! You can't really tell on this white background, but they are 'lozenge'-shaped. Any thoughts? --Nick (talk) 23:07, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I expect most sites would want smaller versions. Something more like the Mediawiki and Wikimedia buttons at the bottom of every page here. LtPowers (talk) 01:49, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it would hurt to have a variety of size options, but yes, I think we should have some much smaller ones. Texugo (talk) 02:23, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

It's very important that any banners or other symbols are in line with WMF's trademark policy since "Wikivoyage" and the WV logo are registered trademarks. Banners & buttons are ok (see the "linking" section of that page). The ® or ™ symbol must be placed after "Wikivoyage". If we decide to make banners and buttons, they should probably have their own page (Wikivoyage:Buttons and banners), with guidelines on use (including some text copied from WMF trademark policy in addition to a link). The page should probably have a note that it is a draft policy and buttons/banners cannot be used until WMF legal is contacted and asked to have a look. A couple things to note:

• Websites using the button/buttons will have to include the following on the same page or a credits page: "Wikivoyage is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation". (Also add this to image pages of the example banner files! Name/logo aren't released into Public Domain!!)
• The banners/buttons must be a direct link to either the Wikivoyage home page or the specific Wikivoyage page of that town.
• High resolution versions of the Wikivoyage logo aren't allowed (those example banners are really big).
• Keep in mind that the logo and stylized name can't be altered.

As for the banners, other ideas are to use "View this [city/town/region] on Wikivoyage" or a customizable "View [name] on Wikivoyage". I like the lozenge shape, but it might look better with a border. AHeneen (talk) 05:34, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

To get the font that is used in the wordmark, go to this website & click download in top right. It is a zipped folder. In Windows 7: unzip folder, open folder, click "Lenka" once (to select, not to open/run), right click, install. To verify that it has been installed, go to Control panel>Appearance and personalization>Fonts and look for it ("Lenka stabilo Regular"). Posting this because it took me 40 min to find the font to download (Rapidshare link is broken) and then figure out how to install. Also: Wordmark (stylized "Wikivoyage"), Wikivoyage logo. It would be helpful to upload as SVG files (if made in a program like Inkscape), so that others can create banners/buttons with minor modifications to ones created. AHeneen (talk) 06:26, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Right, I've implemented the changes you've suggested to the images above. The only thing I haven't changed is the size of the images for ease of editing, but that can be easily done once we have decided on a banner style. --Nick (talk) 10:43, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Lenka is horrible for running text, especially at small size. I would suggest switching to a plainer font. LtPowers (talk) 12:43, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Should I leave 'Wikivoyage' in Lenka? I think I might change the rest to Gill Sans. --Nick (talk) 12:53, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Altered and updated - any better? Would it be worth consulting bureaux that are already working with us on what they think would work? --Nick (talk) 14:42, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, better, although at the size displayed in the gallery above the text is still hard to read. Final legibility will depend on the final size of the buttons. Also, the second one didn't get updated. LtPowers (talk) 18:11, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, we could do with an idea of what size people want - I think we'd struggle to get something of any consequence in a button the size of those on the bottom right. The second one should now be updated. --Nick (talk) 18:29, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Try DejaVu Sans bold. According to the Wikivoyage:How to draw a map page: "It's generally best to use the DejaVu Sans bold font, which displays more clearly at small resolutions, especially when printed for offline use." AHeneen (talk) 22:12, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately it didn't seem to make much difference when I tried it, but thanks for the suggestion! I think to make it more legible at this size, we'd have to resize the text and image and maybe cut some things all together. At present it doesn't look too bad down to about 200px. --Nick (talk) 23:09, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Badge at 200px

Main Page Feature Banner

A proposed banner for destinations that have made it to the front page - I've tried to make it as short as possible so we can keep the text legible. I'm still not completely convinced by this whole style, so I'd welcome any thoughts or suggestions! --Nick (talk) 22:48, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Banner for destinations featured on the Main Page

Related question

Should this include contacting groups that organise major trade fairs? We do cover some of those, see Guangzhou#The_Canton_Fair and Xiamen#Trade_fairs, but we could clearly do a lot more.

Or are trade fairs one or more separate travel topics? Another expedition? Out of scope? Something else? Pashley (talk) 18:17, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

That is a good idea! I think that could come under the remit of this expedition - it's probably best not to spread ourselves too thinly. --Nick (talk) 18:20, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Moving Page for Title Case

Hi! The odd capitalisation in this page's title has been irking me for a bit, so I'm going to move the page to 'Tourism Bureau Expedition' if that's ok. (Petty, I know! :) ) Any objections, please feel free to revert. --Nick (talk) 09:54, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Update

I've contacted both Bolton and Manchester. No response from the former, but the latter seems keen to join in and help out. I've sent an email detailing some specifics of what we could do with Manchester and indeed Greater Manchester, as well as the community's thanks. --Nick (talk) 23:48, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

What do we want?

A rather open-ended question, but a really important one - once we've engaged with organisations, what do we actually want from them? Ideas so far:

• Improving articles within their sphere of influence (the obvious one!)
• Link to WV from their sites
• Engage some of the policy decisions that might directly affect their contributions?

Any further ideas would be gratefully received! --Nick (talk) 16:36, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

DoTM, OtBP & FTT

Just a quick idea - would it be worth contacting the tourism bureau in any area that is about to be featured on our front page? I suppose it might just jolt some into action? --Nick (talk) 12:54, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation

I've been contacted by Manager Publicity & Promotion at PTDC and he's willing to edit, and contribute to articles relating to Pakistan. May I know what further should we should talk about? --Saqib (talk) 08:43, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

That's fantastic! Unfortunately, this project has been very neglected lately, as you can see from the little responses to ideas above. I've also put it on the backburner, and am unable to contribute much time to Wikivoyage at the moment. You can check out some of the other discussions above and maybe even look at Nick and my talk pages for a discussion about what Nick was going to offer for Manchester's tourism board. JamesA ^>talk 11:35, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

That is fantastic news! In my email to Manchester, I suggested an 'informal partnership', as well as links to their web presence from all relevant pages. I then pointed them in the direction of some areas (specific to Manchester) that particularly needed work. --Nick (talk) 09:43, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

There are places in Pakistan that could use more coverage, including photos for Commons. Saqib, I think you would know better what parts of Pakistan need most work than any of us. But I think any place they are interesting in writing and posting photos of would be wonderful, within our guidelines. And of course their contributions should be acknowledged on each page. Did we agree on a format for doing that? Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:12, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure we ever have because we've never quite got to that point before. Unfortunately, I think it's sometimes a bit of a 'chicken and egg problem' - in order to get tourist boards to work with us, we need other tourist boards to work with us: until we get going, we won't be able to get going! I've not heard anything from Manchester, despite a gentle reminder, so I'm not quite sure what to do on that front.

Back to the topic in question: anything like that would be fantastic. If you'd like a copy of the email I sent to Manchester, just let me know and I'll send it to you. :) --Nick (talk) 11:49, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

One place to start might be just to go through the city and province lists and add the links and translations that should be in the first sentence. For example, we have:

Karachi (Urdu: كراچى, Sindhi: ڪراچي) is ...

but Lahore lacks a link and it has an Urdu translation but not Punjabi. Peshawar has no link and neither Urdu nor Pushtu translation. And so on.

This would improve various guides and give a bit of publicity to local tourist boards. It needs a knowledge of the country and languages, especially of government tourist organisations, which the PTDC is more likely to have than the travellers who do most writing here. On the other hand, it does not require great English writing skills. It is basically drudge work, boring enough that volunteer editors may not do it, but perhaps tolerable for a government clerk being paid to do it and a reasonable way for someone unfamiliar with Wikivoyage to have a look around and discover what else needs fixing. Pashley (talk) 12:31, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Pashley, Fyi, this link is Karachi's local government website and not of Karachi's tourism bureau. Is it fine to use local government websites? --Saqib (talk) 13:36, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I think policy is to use the tourist bureau site if there is one, and if not then link to local gov't. I'm not entirely sure. Pashley (talk) 14:46, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I have the same understanding on this as you. But the short answer is that it is definitely absolutely fine to link to local government websites. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:49, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Cayuga County CVB

A user named User:Cayuga County CVB has made a few edits to Auburn (New York), which is indeed in Cayuga County. Is this an effort initiated by any of you? If not, could I trouble one of you cooperation experts to reach out to them? LtPowers (talk) 22:52, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Done - any thoughts? (I'm definitely not an 'expert'!) --Nick ^talk 06:46, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

News from Twitter

So far both The Hague and Eindhoven have expressed an interest in tweaking our guides, and the former in particular seems keen to make contact. I've given them my email address and will let you all know what happens. Copenhagen said that our guide to their city was 'lovely and informative', whilst Pittsburgh retweeted the fact that their city was our destination of the month. Hopefully this should herald the way for many partnerships formed through the social network. A quick reminder: if you'd like to see a particular article mentioned on Twitter or tweeted '@' a particular tourism organisation, please post here. Thanks! --Nick ^talk 19:02, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

That is rather splendid, congratulations! Hats off to you for all the great work you do, it seems to me sometimes you even do the housekeeping in the Wikivoyage server rooms... Looking forward to seeing Eindhoven's and Den Haag's contributions to Wikivoyage! PrinceGloria (talk) 20:09, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks very much! You're very kind, but believe me, I don't do very much at all! Thanks for your suggestions of more places to contact; I'll get in touch with them over the next few days. :) --Nick ^talk 20:31, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

You do and you know it! Incidentally, are you the only operator of the Twitter account? That's quite of work alone! PrinceGloria (talk) 20:34, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Haha! I'm not alone - JamesA, Inas and I all contribute. :) --Nick ^talk 20:42, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Manchester

Just a quick update:

I've received a couple of emails today from Marketing Manchester, the organisation responsible for (unsurprisingly!) marketing Manchester. They've compiled a list of things that they'd liked to see changed in the article and have kindly offered to participate in improving the page. It's great to hear from them again and really encouraging that they're prepared to get involved in the actual editing of articles. I'll let you all know of any future developments. :) --Nick ^talk 21:12, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Lac-Mégantic

From https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikivoyage/Summit&diff=prev&oldid=5667342 originally posted July 2013 regarding corrections to fr:Lac-Mégantic by fr:Spécial:Contributions/Cormier in that town:

• One other recent development: the w:Lac-Mégantic derailment of July 6, a tragedy in which an unattended 72-car runaway crude oil train derailed in the centre of a peaceful 6000-person francophone village on the Québec-Maine border 100km (60mi) east of Sherbrooke, killing forty-seven people and destroying much of the downtown. At one point, a third of the local population had been temporarily evacuated (all but 200 have now returned). The region had long depended heavily on tourism, forestry and natural resources; worldwide news coverage caused panicked travellers to cancel trips to destinations nowhere near the disaster, including a pair of provincial parks up to 50km (30 miles) away. Any printed guide would be hard-pressed to quickly update a listing to reflect what's still open and what's gone. Not Wikivoyage. We somehow went from having nothing on this destination to a one-line blurb "The town is currently closed off to traffic, following the derailment, which torched a good part of the center of town, including the library and several cafes." on July 9 (on en: only, posted during the evacuation) to a hastily-translated first attempt at determining what was open on July 14. An attempt to contact a local CVB in the affected area yielded a series of corrections to voy:fr:Lac-Mégantic on July 19th and the updated info has now been copied from fr: back to en:. Merci Lac-Mégantic, et courage! K7L (talk) 03:11, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Updates?

Hi, how are the current collaborations progressing? Are the bureaus willing to create own profiles? Do they acknowledge Wikivoyage as an additional task that makes sense, generally speaking? Thanks and cheers, Horst-schlaemma (talk) 11:43, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

VFD discussion

Seems to have had no activity since 2014. Alternatively, it could be labeled as historical, but is there really much reason to do that? Apparently, the page has been moved in the past, so this may be worth considering during a deletion nomination. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 23:30, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Keep Even though there is no activity since 2014, this expedition was once active and should be kept and labeled as historical. Out of date discussions are still kept as archive, so that it is still able to be seen. SmileKat40 (talk) 00:21, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Keep per SmileKat40. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:58, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Mark as historical ARR8 (talk | contribs) 15:54, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

• Result: keep and mark as historical. No harm in marking it as historical. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 22:53, 11 April 2019 (UTC)