Wikivoyage talk:Links to Wikipedia

Links to MetaWiki

Shouldn't we also have a way to link to pages on the Meta-Wikipedia? – Minh Nguyễn 19:31, 30 Dec 2003 (PST)

I found that [[MetaWikiPedia:whatever]] works, but shouldn't those interwiki links go into the Other sites/languages section? – Minh Nguyễn 19:33, 30 Dec 2003 (PST)

Why? We're not a Wikimedia project. I have a hard time understanding why we should have twin-page links to meta-Wikipedia. --(WT-en) Evan 11:44, 31 Dec 2003 (PST)

We are a WMF project now, does this change anything? • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:56, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

What would you link to on Meta?? It´s not as if they have a France page or a New York City page to link to... Texugo (talk) 11:06, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

I think there are already a few links to Meta from project pages about software tecnical information or suchlike, but they are not really relevant. Probably makes no practical difference at all. Just wondered. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 13:25, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

I imagine that kind of thing can and should be linked to, but I can't think of any main namespace links that would be acceptable. Texugo (talk) 13:34, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Rendering of Wikipedia links

I'm in favor of changing the convention to put links to Wikipedia in the External links section of pages, rather than burying them in the navigational material. If it's an external link, why should it be anywhere other than there? Either that, or make the Other Sites area into a section. It's really hard to find Wikipedia links below all of navigational items that most users aren't interested in. -- (WT-en) Beland 21:09, 21 Jul 2004 (EDT)

I tend to agree. It is an external link, and not much like a Wikivoyage article in another language. -- (WT-en) Infrogmation 19:30, 23 Jul 2004 (EDT)

+1 vote. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 10:39, 29 Sep 2005 (EDT)

WikiPedia?

This is completely trivial but it annoys me just the same: why on earth is the link syntax "WikiPedia", when the dictionary in question is called "Wikipedia" with a lower case P? (WT-en) Jpatokal 14:56, 23 Jul 2004 (EDT)

It's based on the fact that most wiki engines use CamelCase to make links. Interwiki links like WikiName:WikiPage also usually have CamelCase prefixes. For this reason, the well-known interwiki prefix for Wikipedia is WikiPedia.

This is hard-coded in a number of places in the MediaWiki code, and it'd be a bit of effort to change that each time I updated the software for Wikivoyage. I can change it if we want, but it'll break the existing WikiPedia links. --(WT-en) Evan 15:11, 23 Jul 2004 (EDT)

This annoys me, too, BTW. Why not do it and use a robot to fix all the existing links? (Actually, why not support both, but make the lower case the convention?) -- (WT-en) Beland 02:34, 25 Jul 2004 (EDT)

Link to an article on specific section, not on whole page

> the link you add should be to an article on exactly the same topic.

I added link to GreekWines article at Wikipedia from Wines section of Greece -- under pressure of VFD for Greek_wines as a separate page. Does it comply to this policies?

A similar link to CuisineOfGreece (without precedent yet of creating a separate page) was deleted with reference to policies defined by this article.

How can I comply with the current policy of linking to WikiPedia, and still keep link to wikipedia, which I consider both relevant and useful for online users planning their travel? --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 10:46, 29 Sep 2005 (EDT)

Duplication of Wikipedia efforts

> In general, try not to use in-line Wikipedia links. The traveler may not be on-line when they read a Wikivoyage article, so a link to Wikipedia (or anywhere else) won't be of much use to them. Wikivoyage articles should be as complete as possible in and of themselves. Essential information about a topic should be included in the Wikivoyage article.

That's great in theory, but reality shows that Wikipedia is much more dynamic and populated than WikiTravel. I like the idea that Wikivoyagers should create something much better -- but before that becomes true, why ignore strengths of WikiPedia? OK, we don't have agreements for exchanging content between Wikipedia and Wikivoyage (and thus benefitting to each other) -- but it sounds bit arrogant to IGNORE wikipedia usefulness for a traveller planning his itineraries. Why won't we encourage users to link from Wikivoyage to Wikipedia? It won't affect rate of content accumulation at Wikivoyage -- but will help those looking for info to find it (and ultimately love the Wikivoyage service which linked in a right direction).

Opinions?

--(WT-en) DenisYurkin 10:55, 29 Sep 2005 (EDT)

We (the community so far) have generally felt that linking to Wikipedia or anything else is an easy way for contributors to avoid writing something. It's a bit of a cop-out. What we want is for people to take the time to write their subject up from a travel perspective. This is usually, but not always different from what's in Wikipedia. For instance a discussion of Greek wines should provide the basics in a terse paragraph like summary and then provide some info on where to go to buy the wine, or links to some itineraries of Wine tasting tours or something like that.

Since you've done this the link to Wikipedia is probably harmless, but it's kindof hard for us to make a guideline that says something like "If there's enough info in the article for a traveller to go on already, then you can link to Wikipedia, but not until". So we just discourage linking altogether. -- (WT-en) Mark 11:12, 29 Sep 2005 (EDT)

My point is the following. Giving a link to existing WikiPedia article is not encouraging WRITERS to contribute to WikiPedia instead of WikiTravel -- it's giving an extra benefit to READERS who came to WikiTravel, like its idea and are grateful for relevant info, even if it's not right on the same page. READERS will be grateful for helping them, and would bring new content to WikiTravel from their own experiences (which is quite hard to find place for at Wikipedia -- I think many of you tried, it's OVERcompetitive in terms of contributing new info, esp. compared to WikiTravel). --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 11:22, 29 Sep 2005 (EDT)

Yes I understood that, but I think you've missed my point. We're not being competitive with WikiPedia at all. Rather what we are trying to do is to make sure that when the reader is reading Wikivoyage on a printed page somewhere they don't run into a section which amounts to "there are some great things to do in Barcelona, see this article in Wikipedia" at which point the reader asks "why did I waste my 16 cents printing this article"?

We are not in any way in competition with Wikipedia. I don't know where you got that idea. Maybe I should repeat that: wanting to have travel information in Wikivoyage does not mean that we are in any way competing with Wikipedia. It just means that we want the relevant information here in Wikivoyage. Avoiding links to WikiPedia is about keeping us from being lazy; simple as that. -- (WT-en) Mark 12:07, 29 Sep 2005 (EDT)

I think just looking back over Project:Goals and non-goals gives a pretty clear reason for avoiding WikiPedia links. Goals like:

• For individual article printouts, that is, for printing a list of museums or karaoke bars and putting it in your back pocket for when you need it -- or making a photocopy when someone else does
• For ad-hoc travel guides, small fit-to-purpose travel books that match a particular itinerary
• For inclusion in other travel books, giving up-to-date information for travel guide publishers.

Or the Non-Goal:

'9 Make a travel guide supplement. The WikiWiki technique we use for Wikivoyage makes it possible for us to include information that's not in other travel guides. This doesn't mean that we only include information not found in other guides. Wikivoyage aims to be a complete travel guide -- not just an additional resource on the side of traditional guides.

-- (WT-en) Ilkirk 14:53, 29 Sep 2005 (EDT)

> We are not in any way in competition with Wikipedia

If this edit is in line with Wikivoyage policies, I'd like ask for reasons for deletion of links to wikipedia in this case? Thank you. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 16:25, 6 Dec 2005 (EST)

Interlanguage links

Although I can see no reason to do it, the shorthand for articles in other languages on the Wikipedia would be [[interwiki:2LetterWikiShorthand:ArticleName]]. Therefore, to get to the German article on Los Angeles, you would use wikiPedia:de:Los Angeles. (WT-en) BlankVerse 04:42, 16 January 2007 (EST)

A suggestion: I've been on a couple of wikis that have added w: into their interwiki maps as a synonym for the Wikipedia. On the other hand, you might not want to make it so easy to link to the Wikipedia. (WT-en) BlankVerse 05:01, 16 January 2007 (EST)

That's a good point. I think that should work with all Wikimedia projects and also with Wikivoyage (I think it doesn't work with wikiHow or Wikia sites, but I'm not sure). I'll make a note on this page. --(WT-en) evanp 14:03, 16 January 2007 (EST)

linking to WP for further details

I see several cases where linking to Wikipedia for further information can make sense.

1. When we have enough info on an attraction in See section (enough as defined by MoS), it would be great to point somewhere for further information.
2. When we list local specialty meals and give basic info on a meal, it would help to provide a link for further info for those interested in details.

Yes, both will work only for online reader--and the links should not be printable nor appear in the published guides. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 08:33, 10 November 2007 (EST)

Wikipedia Links

I've read the discussions above, but I still don't understand the following policy: "Links from Wikivoyage articles to Wikipedia articles which have a different subject conflict with the Wikivoyage:External links guidelines. They are generally considered "secondary sources" and therefore should be avoided." This implies that some links to Wikipedia, that is, to articles which don't have a different subject, are acceptable and others, to those which do have a different subject, aren't. Could someone please give an example of each? (WT-en) Sailsetter 16:07, 13 April 2008 (EDT)

Adding [[WikiPedia:Pisa]] to Pisa is good since the topic is the same, the city of Pisa. Adding a link to the wikipedia article on the leaning tower is bad since that is a secondary source, the primary source is the official site at http://torre.duomo.pisa.it/ and that is the one that should be linked. --(WT-en) Nick 16:35, 13 April 2008 (EDT)

Thanks, that makes sense to me. One thing I was thinking is that historical background on a destination might be given very briefly in Wiktravel, referring to an article in Wikipedia (if there was a good one)for more detail. (WT-en) Sailsetter 17:38, 13 April 2008 (EDT)

There isn't really an ironclad consensus on what WP links are acceptable. IMHO it's usually enough to just give the WP link for the destination, because from there users can find out all the background info they need.

One exception for which I support WP links is biographies of authors and other historical figures: obviously (say) wikipedia:Julius Caesar or wikipedia:Matsuo Basho is not going to have an official homepage, and it's not within Wikivoyage's scope to give their life story in detail. (WT-en) Jpatokal 02:00, 14 April 2008 (EDT)

I'm thinking it would be a slippery slope to say it's okay to link to historical or cultural things which by their nature have no homepage. If biographies were to be okayed, why not wikipedia links for wars and battles, religions and ethnic groups, ethnic dishes and ingredients, bodies of water and other articles that would be non-articles here? (WT-en) Texugo 02:19, 14 April 2008 (EDT)

Because we can say so in the guideline. =P (WT-en) Jpatokal 04:21, 14 April 2008 (EDT)

If biographies are ok (still not convinced), I'm going to argue for the others because... Why allow Abraham Lincoln but not the Battle of Gettysburg for the Gettysburg article? Why Quanah Parker but not the First Battle of Adobe Walls? Why Pedro Álvares Cabral but not Tupi or Guaraní. There has to be solid logic behind a rule like this. I'd rather leave that kind of link out altogether. (WT-en) Texugo 19:12, 14 April 2008 (EDT)

I agree, allowing some is a very slippery slope. It is a lot simpler just not to do it at all. Some examples:

1. Most people would probably be OK with wikipedia links to Sir Winston Churchill and Mohandas Ghandi from Ladysmith, but what about a link to a biography of Lady Smith? Even thought the town was named after her, she was really not important in history at all.
2. Johannesburg/Soweto can easily be linked to a biography of Nelson Mandela, but should it then also have a link for Archbishop Desmond Tutu? And if we add Tutu then what about the other couple of thousand freedom fighters?

The other problem with biographies is that people move around...especially prominent people. Ghandi and Churchill above are prime examples. Should Churchill be linked from Ladysmith, London, Madeira ....? We will end up with a huge number of external links leading our readers and contributors away from WT towards other sites.

The external link policy is there to keep us from being lazy and keeping WT for deteriorating into just another list of links. Inline WT links is just that, the lazy way out. If a biography is required, writing a short one in the History section or an Infobox, with specific emphasis on the person's relationship to the article. Add a booksource if really needed, but not an external link.

The slippery slope is easy to see, once we allow those kind of external links, then it is also just a short, easy, logical step before we start linking things like African flora and fauna to wikipedia or wikispecies. Might seem like a good idea at first, but it is not. We then end up with links that contain all the info about about those animals, except the info that a traveller really need, i.e. where is the best place to go if you want to see them and what time of the year is the best. --(WT-en) Nick 01:55, 15 April 2008 (EDT)

Well, I think the policy either ought to be changed to prohibit all links to Wikipedia, or should be rewritten so people will never be in doubt as to what sort of Wikipedia links they can use. (WT-en) Sailsetter 13:01, 15 April 2008 (EDT)

I'm fully in agreement that any links to Wikipedia beyond the one "article topic link" are a slippery slope that would undermine our general external links policy of not linking secondary sources (of which Wikipedia undoubtedly is an example). I'd be happy to slice and dice this policy article a bit to make this very clear, if there are no objections. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 13:15, 15 April 2008 (EDT)

Peter, I don't see here a consensus on this issue... Too many people (including me) sense a great utility to reader (e.g. as further reading). (WT-en) Denis Yurkin even made a suggestion to define a rules more precisely (see "Linking to WP for further details" above). -- (WT-en) Sergey kudryavtsev 03:59, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

I'd like to point out that said conversation above was two and a half years ago, within 10 days of DenisYurkin's first ever contribution here. I don't know about Denis, but my opinions on various subjects have changed a lot in the two years I've been contributing, so I'd rather see this conversation start afresh. (WT-en) Texugo 04:11, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

At any rate, the policy as it reads now already disallows more than the basic toolbar wikipedia link. It's simply not worded very eloquently. (WT-en) Texugo 04:13, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

For me, current policy is still strange. I would rather propose one of the following alternatives:

• I still consider my suggestions in #linking to WP for further details making sense--although understand that list of allowed cases should likely be expanded
• For simplicity and consistency of rules, I would vote for no links to wikipedia, as the current policy only confuses, but adds little value. However, having links to WP from Talk: page in "sources for further research" section sounds logical for me.
• most radically, I seriously believe that wikivoyage's core competence is in having up-to-date eat and sleep listings--and the rest can be referred to elsewhere (I realize I won't find any support in this)

--(WT-en) DenisYurkin 15:16, 20 April 2008 (EDT)

I disagree that there needs to be any change to current policy for the reasons already given above. I find it really easy to look up anything I don't understand independently of our linking there.

Moreover, I find that when contributors add in-line Wikipedia links it generally ends up as a disservice to our readers because they eliminate the usual explanatory phrase one would otherwise use. For example: "Try the local specialty, hummus if you get a chance." rather than "Try the local specialty, hummus, a dip or spread made from cooked, mashed chickpeas, blended with tahini, lemon juice, salt and garlic. -(WT-en) OldPine 16:32, 20 April 2008 (EDT)

I wonder if the best thing would just have a policy not to link to Wikipedia. If I understand, the only links allowed by the current policy would be something like linking to the Wikipedia entry for France in the France Wikivoyage article. But surely anyone who uses Wikivoyage knows about Wikipedia and can go look up France (or any other subject) there if they want to. If that's the only allowed use of links to Wikipedia, then why allow them at all? (WT-en) Sailsetter 20:15, 20 April 2008 (EDT)

Because they link to us, one link per article, and bring us traffic too. And because that one allowed link sits unobtrusively in our sidebar next to the W66 link. (WT-en) Texugo 21:28, 20 April 2008 (EDT)

The truth is in that, one article in Wikivoyage correspond several ones in Wikipedia. This is a nature of both projects. Wikivoyage dissallow a article level deeper then a city part (and i agree with that rules). Quite the reverse Wikipedia have a tend to extremely detailed level of object description. Therefore оne article in Wikivoyage may links to several in Wikipedia (e.g. from sights listings). The contributor's behaviour as explaned by (WT-en) OldPine is just a careless action. It is necessary to talk him, and explain why this is badly. -- (WT-en) Sergey kudryavtsev 06:25, 21 April 2008 (EDT)

My main concern isn't with what the policy of linking to Wikipedia should be, but that the policy should be entirely clear to contributors. A clearer statement of the current policy, if I understand it, is that "A link to Wikipedia for background information is allowed only if the link is to a Wikipedia article heading of the same name as the Wikivoyage destination page being linked from; for instance, the France Wikivoyage destination page could include a link to the Wikipedia France article, or the Cincinatti Wikivoyage destination page could include a link to the Cincinatti Wikipedia article." I still think though that it would be even simpler, and therefore better, just to have a policy of not linking to Wikivoyage, leave the link to Wikipedia on the Wikivoyage welcome page, and remind users in the documentation that they can go to Wikpedia for more background information. Or, alternatively, have a policy that no contributor should make a Wikipedia link, but have the template for all destination articles have a link to the Wikipedia article for that destination. (WT-en) Sailsetter 10:42, 21 April 2008 (EDT)

I like the "no manual links; only one link made automatically by template" idea--at least, it's better than the current policy. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 16:26, 21 April 2008 (EDT)

Well, that essentially is how the policy reads now, except that having the template do it automatically isn't practical, since our naming conventions are different, and since on Wikipedia there is a lot more disambiguation necessary. (WT-en) Texugo 19:20, 21 April 2008 (EDT)

Having read through the above again, it seems to me that there still isn't any resolution. The language of the policy is still confusing. I would like to propose that one of three things be done:

• either the policy statement be changed to read, "The only links from Wikivoyage pages to Wikipedia articles that should be used are links to a Wikipedia article that has the same title as the Wikivoyage page; for example, there can be a link on the Wikivoyage France page to the Wikipedia France article, or from the Wikivoyage Kyoto page to the Wikipedia Kyoto article.

• or the policy statement should read, "Links to Wikipedia articles should not be included in Wikivoyage pages."

• or if neither of the above represents what the policy actually is, then the language should be changed to do so.

At any rate, I think the same article only phraseology certainly shouldn't stand as it is; it should at least be clarified by examples. (WT-en) Sailsetter

allow a link to detailed description of See: attraction only

What if we allow linking to WP for individual attractions in See:, at least for cases when we've written enough on an attraction a traveler (and a travel guide) needs, while WP clearly have much more details and background on the attraction? --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 11:32, 6 February 2010 (EST)

That would be a big change in policy, contradicting Project:External links#What not to link to. I think the rationale for our WP links is that the information on major sights will be accessible via the one link that we provide per page. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 14:49, 6 February 2010 (EST)

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Is that something like "Wikipedia should maintain a list of major attractions on its own page for a destination we link to, and when done so WT user can always find details on an attraction in question, at a cost of extra click after going to Wikipedia article on destination"? --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 15:58, 6 February 2010 (EST)

Precisely. And of course, we don't really want to give readers too much encouragement to leave our site! --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 19:33, 6 February 2010 (EST)

Thanks, Peter. This is one of my first cases with XL slippery slopes where I clearly understand the point ;-) --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 15:34, 12 February 2010 (EST)

Wikipedia Images

Now there is! -- Vmenkov (talk) 01:51, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Swept in from the pub

Hi folks, is there an easy way to add/share images from wikipedia?

Not at this time. You'll have to save the images and re-upload them at Wikivoyage Shared. (WT-en) LtPowers 13:32, 31 August 2011 (EDT)

Now, of course, there is: you just use the usual [[File:...]] syntax. -- Vmenkov (talk) 01:51, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, that's not an image from Wikipedia; it's an image from Wikimedia Commons. =) LtPowers (talk) 02:21, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia parameter in special tags

I've noted the above discussions and think the primary concern should be what will be useful to our readers. Accordingly, I propose that we add a Wikipedia parameter to the special tags <see>...</see>, <do>...</do>, <eat>...</eat>, <drink>...</drink>, <sleep>...</sleep>, <listing>...</listing>; please join the discussion at Wikipedia links in special tags. Andy Mabbett 23:09, 18 November 2012‎

I completely agree.

The "old guard" would, of course, say that it is in the long term interests of travellers that we develop our own content rather than linking to content elsewhere (however authoritative that may be) and are not subsumed by the Elephant in the room - they forget that this is the world wide web and it is designed to hyperlink and that we are NEVER going to have our own articles on non-travel topics that are covered (encyclopaedically well, very often) in Wikipedia - we are specialists. -- Alice^✉ 07:47, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

More importantly, it is not our goal to create an encyclopaedia. We have Wikipedia for that. See Wikivoyage talk:Listings, a lengthy discussion on this which reached no consensus. K7L (talk) 19:28, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Secondary sources

In the discussion of Wikipedia links, I'm a little concerned about this:

They are generally considered "secondary sources" and therefore should be avoided.

If Wikivoyage were to take a general policy position against relying on secondary sources, this has implications well beyond not linking to Wikipedia. We'd be limiting ourselves to anecdotes from people who'd visited the destination recently and to the self-serving descriptions provided by those marketing the destinations. Throwing away a reliable secondary source has implications well beyond omitting a WP link (Wikipedia is a tertiary source, actually) as neutral secondary sources often contain good info we may want to add to an article. If we want to avoid links to travel resellers, say so, but leave it at that. K7L (talk) 21:13, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Absolutely right, on both counts. (Although our ability to use primary sources is one of the great strengths of our travel guide - nothing in WP is going to beat our ability to utilise the insights of people who have visited a destination recently, the conundrum comes in distinguishing which anecdotes we can rely on from those that are self-serving or mendacious). -- Alice^✉ 21:21, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

To clarify, Wikivoyage:External links is about including links in mainspace articles. Use of secondary sources for research or on talk pages has never been discouraged as far as I'm aware. Instead, the issue has always been figuring out where to draw a line as to what external links are allowed to be included in articles, which resulted in the "primary sources only" rule currently in place, but that applies only to inclusion of a URL in a mainspace article. -- Ryan • (talk) • 21:19, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

I understand the slippery-slope rationale for disallowing secondary external links, and I have come to appreciate it, but it seems to me that allowing Wikipedia links (or for that matter, links to all Wikimedia sister sites) should be fine. It seems like a good compromise between a primary-only rule and unrestrained secondary linking. — Ravikiran (talk) 04:21, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

But... we do already link to Wikipedia—from every single article. Would having a more prominent link, with a flashy graphic or something allay some of the concerns? --Peter ^Talk 05:57, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

I believe this proposal is for inline links where appropriate. One use case was a user adding a wikipedia link to Shalwar Kameez in the Pakistan article. — Ravikiran (talk) 06:01, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

If I'm looking at Route 66 and it mentions a w:Coral Court Motel, how many clicks does it take to get from one to the other? Route 66 → w:U.S. Route 66 → w:U.S. Route 66 in Missouri → w:Coral Court Motel seems to be the shortest path? Seems rather awkward. K7L (talk) 06:45, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Errr, one click to get there and one click on the back button to return? Am I missing something here, has something changed (it's now a direct link to your example) or are you in sarcasm mode, K7L? -- Alice^✉ 01:21, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

You are missing something... Route 66 mentions the w:Coral Court Motel but does not link there under current policy. The city-level article doesn't mention the place, leaving this bit of history as an unexplained reference. 66 is an eight-state itinerary, so goes into little or no detail. K7L (talk) 15:37, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

And what's to prevent an infobox summarizing anything interesting about the Coral Court Motel?Texugo (talk) 15:42, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Too much detail for an article like Route 66. There are four or five hundred places on 66 worth mentioning in eight states, but giving each an infobox would be impractical. Giving each the same level of coverage as Wikipedia (where a hundred have their own individual articles, in addition to the eight state-level "U.S. Route 66 in X" pages) would be outside the scope of the project. The history is notable but we don't want an article on this place. K7L (talk) 16:14, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

It seems to me that a lot of the thinking behind this policy is only considering linking to Wikipedia articles on travel topics, destinations, etc. But Wikipedia and other sister sites such as Wiktionary include definitions and details on a great many topics such as terminology and cultural information that are not directly travel topics that would warrant a Wikivoyage page but are very relevant. The two that I linked from Wikivoyage to Wikipedia were w:shalwar kameez and w:No Objection Certificate (NOC). The first is a common item of clothing in Pakistan that some of our readers are surely not familiar with yet it is casually used in our Pakistan article. The second is a term I'd never heard of before. I'm not sure if NOCs would warrant a Wikivoyage article as they seem to be used for things other than travel but sometimes would be equivalent to a type of travel permit. The term is used on two Wikivoyage pages but there is no full description of what it means. The Wikipedia article also wasn't great but such links bring more attention to both pages and both wikis and help to attract people to improve both articles. Blindly removing the links due to "policy" without adding an alternative way of enlightening the readers of the articles can't be an improvement. Updating the policy now that Wikivoyage, Wiktionary, and Wikipedia are full sister sites seems the sensible thing to do. I'd say there's more than one kind of good link from Wikivoyage to Wikipedia (as well as more than one kind of bad link). — Hippietrail (talk) 00:37, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

As an aside, within Wikimedia I don't believe we usually use the term "external link" to refer to links to sister sites. That term is reserved to sites outside the Wikimedia network. Technically the difference is between sites you can link to using the

[[prefix:Article]]

format and those that require the

[http://foo.bar.com description]

format. The latter are external links and will be accompanied by a small icon that won't be there for links to sister sites. — Hippietrail (talk) 00:37, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

You're not wrong!

Unless I've misunderstood the arguments of the old guard, there's actually less utility for our readers in having the one link in the left hand gutter (and more "danger" to WV) than in having in-line w: links (as long as we implement inline links to sister projects as

<a target="_blank" href="

so that the in-line link opens as a new tab or window, so they can afterwards quickly return to reading our article). -- Alice^✉ 01:16, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Without dwelling on terminology, WV guides should be self contained. The history a traveller would want to know, the terminology a traveller should understand should be in the guide. Wikipedia is designed to article hop, and leverage the hypertext nature of the links. A WV guide is meant to be read largely in order by a person visiting the place.

If we are using word for an item of clothing that isn't commonly used, then we really should be describing it in the article. Allowing the link to the WP article just means that someone won't add the description here, because it is just at the end of a link. And now we've lost our guide in continuous prose. I think NOC should also be defined here.

So, the links are not blindly removed. Their removal is considered, and based on this argument and others.

Its not a prejudice against WP articles. WP is great, and we should link to it. However, to place links like this inline, we risk losing focus on this goal.

As far as I can tell, WP is following much the same guideline. Links to WV are permitted one per article, at the bottom. --Inas (talk) 01:41, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Inas' comment covers the reasons for current Wikivoyage policy well. But aside from what he said, I'd have the following question for you, Hippietrail: Can you suggest a new policy that would be sufficiently restrictive to allow for only essential inter-wiki links and not turn Wikivoyage into an unofficial sub-site of Wikipedia? I'd be open to considering that, but I am doubtful that any policy that allows for inline links can be made restrictive enough. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:01, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Well creative writing was never my strong point but a policy something like "Terms which you do not expected to be widely known but for which a full inline definition would be distracting to the article can be linked to a Wikipedia entry on the term for users who opt to read more. If you expect a reasonable number of readers might want to perform a web search for a term anyway, it's helpful to just give them the Wikipedia link. Culture terminology is one such acceptable example"

Like it or not now that Wikivoyage is on Wikimedia it is an official subsite of Wikimedia and will be treated as a poor cousin to Wikipedia until the organization makes some major change of policy. My primary site is the English Wiktionary and the Wikimedia organization gives us very little support despite being pretty big and being around for over a decade. I wish all the sister sites and all the languages got at least proportional support to Wikipedia, equal support is probably too much to even think about. — Hippietrail (talk) 14:04, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

"Terms which you do not expected to be widely known but for which a full inline definition would be distracting to the article" can be easily be placed in an infobox if they are truly relevant to a travel guide. Also, that proposed language is not nearly specific enough to keep out a zillion links about every personality, historical event, or term that someone cares to mention. If it's relevant to travel, we've got all the space in the world to include it here. If it's not, then it's not in our scope and we have no responsibility to be a metadirectory for other sites that talk about it.Texugo (talk) 14:17, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Actually, we don't have all the space in the world. The "wiki is not paper" stance is Wikipedia's, not Wikivoyage. K7L (talk) 16:18, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

If it's relevant to travel, I´d say we do. Why not? Whose to say that that Route 66 article can't be expanded and broken into segment articles the same way we break a huge city into district articles? I don´t see why anyone actually planning to follow the whole thing would expect it to fit neatly into a 5-page printout of a single article.Texugo (talk) 16:40, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Our scope is very clear that excessive detail belongs in Wikipedia, and that even attractions should usually get only 3-6 sentences in a listing, so the "put it in the article" argument does not serve the reader who wants very detailed information. That said, there are two reasons why I don't think that the proposal above for inline Wikipedia links is the right answer:

1. w:shalwar kameez and w:No Objection Certificate should both get a brief (1-2 sentence) description in the Wikivoyage article if they are important, but this proposal would replace that description with a link. As others have mentioned, if it is important enough to add a link to Wikipedia then it's probably important enough to describe briefly here.
2. "Terms which you do not expected to be widely known" is too ambiguous a standard. We just had a lengthy discussion where it was argued that "hot dog" and "hamburger" were not common terms. We need something less subjective before we open the floodgates to Wikipedia links. Wikivoyage talk:Listings#Summary has the benefit of a clearly-defined usage scope, but even that was opposed by a significant number of editors.

-- Ryan • (talk) • 17:02, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikivoyage is also flexible enough that if a listing requires multiple paragraphs, it can be turned into a subsection. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:35, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

• Would anybody like to lead by example and show us how *shalwar kameez* and *No Objection Certificate* should be covered? I'm not a good writer. I know what a shalwar kameez is but not well enough to write about it, and I'm still trying to understand exactly what an NOC is. If somebody advocating the no-wikipedia-inline links could edit each page mentioning these terms to show us how to "do it properly" that would help the discussion. You've already seen and reverted my attempt after all which turned out the be "the wrong way". — Hippietrail (talk) 00:13, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Shalwar kameez was easy: First page of search results from Commons.

Shalwar kameez colours

Perhaps that photo should be inserted in the "Buy" section of the Pakistan article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:55, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

It turns out there are various ways to spell "shalware kameez" and quite a few articles that mention them. Sometimes just for shopping in which case the readers are more likely to know what they are. Other times suggesting what kind of conservative clothing women should wear - in these cases a description or photo showing what it looks like would be best. A description like "a style of conservative muslim clothing" wouldn't be helpful because a reader could imagine anything from a headscarf to a chador or burkha. I've often heard the garment compared to a kind of baggy pyjamas but I don't know if that's the best description for us to use. Here's the articles I've spotted that mention the term: Ziarat, Horanadu, Mantralayam, Patiala, Jalandhar, Nettigere Guruvayurappan Temple Bangalore, Kota, Shringeri, Horsley Hills, Bangladesh, Vijayawada, Rawalpindi, Amritsar, Sylhet, Gujranwala, Bangalore, and Kerala. — Hippietrail (talk) 08:00, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

In my opinion, all that's important is to have a photo or/and description in articles at the national level. People seeing the photo I posted will recognize the clothing when they see it. One problem is that we can't show pictures of people, but that's not a problem limited to Wikivoyage. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:12, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

As an aside, I find the actual topic of the discussion interesting. I've personally no doubt that it belongs in on WV, and not at the end of a WP link.

As to the argument that WV needs to link to WP more to avoid being a poor cousin? I don't see the link. WP will hopefully succeed in its goals by improving its encyclopedic content, and we'll succeed in ours by improving our travel content. We should link to each other when it make sense to do so. We're not competing with WP. --Inas (talk) 08:23, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

That very last point seems to be missed by some.... wikimedia/meta has the label sister projects - maybe poor cousin is a little too displaced... sats (talk) 08:30, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Everyone agrees that we should link to each other when it makes sense to do so. The problem is that what makes sense to some is anathema to others. I am in favour of linking from in-line, with a link which is clearly identifiable as a link to wikipedia, but it has been made very obvious that some of us will not accept that under any circumstances, and claim prior policy consensus as justification. I question whether that consensus still exists in view of the perennial and persistant proposals to change the policy. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 07:21, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't think a consensus against more links from Wikipedia exists, but a consensus in favor of it doesn't exist, either, so the default position continues as changes require a consensus. Perhaps that should not be the way things work here, but they do in fact seem to work that way, by design. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:18, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

It is links to Wikipedia we are concerned with. Links from Wikipedia are Wikipedia's problem, and as far as I know we would welcome more of them.

We don't need a consensus in favour to allow us to add more links, lack of consensus would put the matter in the "whatever works best for the traveller" category, and could be dealt with on a case by case basis. The problem is that there is a policy prohibiting in-line links and only allowing one link to a Wikipedia article with the same topic per page as a sidebar link, which an unknown number of us find unrealistically restrictive. Since it is a policy, one must assume that there was a consensus at the time the policy was originally written. This may no longer be the case. Consensus may change with time, circumstances and community membership. If there is sufficient support for change, assumed or historical consensus may be challenged, and if there is no longer a consensus to support a policy, that policy would no longer be valid. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 07:57, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Correct analysis as usual. -- Alice^✉ 09:33, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

No, it's not. Wikivoyage:External links and Wikivoyage:Links to Wikipedia represent a consensus approach to in-article links that has endured for some eight years or so. Wikivoyage:Consensus#Status quo bias says that a new consensus is required to overturn the status quo. That's how our site works. Regardless of an assertion of what works best for the traveler, our site is governed by the basic rule that you need to convince others that you are right. --Peter ^Talk 20:01, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I stand corrected. Peter F is quite correct, there is a heavy bias towards the status quo, which has existed so long that it must be considered accepted by consensus, regardless of its origins. This makes it extremely difficult to change this kind of policy provided there are a few staunch and unyielding supporters of the status quo. All that is left is to keep testing the waters periodically, and to develop reasoned and logical arguments in favour of a change. This talk page is probably the best place for such work. One of the problems I have with the policy is that for some things for which one might want to provide additional explanatory indormation which is not ordinarily appropriate to a travel guide, there are no primary sources on the internet. This means that if the reader wants to find out more about, for example, Cow sharks, which are frequently seen in shallow water at the dive site Diving the Cape Peninsula and False Bay/Shark Alley, we can not link to a Wikipedia article on cow sharks, but must either provide encyclopaedic information in the travel guide, which is not what we are, or abandon the reader to their own devices. This would normally mean googling the subject, and checking through several links, some of which may be useful, and some of which may be on Wikipedia. It would be so much easier and more useful if we were permitted to link in-line to a suitable article on Wikipedia. Similar examples could be found for other classes of items of interest. As a Wikipedian, I would prefer to have links to Wikipedia. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 12:23, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

If Wikipedia stopped existing tomorrow, would you still support linking to an online encyclopedia for this information? Or is the impetus to link just because we're now a sister project, or because we're both wikis? LtPowers (talk) 15:06, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes I would. My preference is for Wikipedia because A) it is a sister project of the WMF, B) it is a free encyclopedia. C) it is also a wiki, and D) I contribute to it (in that order of priority, though D is a consequence of B and C), however I do not understand why this question is relevant. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 20:54, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

The "if Wikipedia stopped existing" argument would apply to any external link, so I'm not sure that's a valid point. Much moreso than the fact that it is a sister project, the impetus to link to Wikipedia is that it is the accepted primary URL for general knowledge terms (see: Google search results, web sites that pull in Wikipedia articles, etc, etc), and as such is the obvious choice for directing users who want more information that is out of scope for our guides. While I'm in favor of directing users who want more information to Wikipedia, however, I don't think a general policy of simply allowing Wikipedia links will work until we can come up with usage guidelines that prevent every noun in our guides from being linked, ensures that only items that are out of scope for our guides are linked, and also very clearly states that anything worth linking to Wikipedia also needs a brief description here - "w:cow sharks are found in the area" must not become a replacement for something like "sharks in the area include the w:cow shark, a primitive shark that ranges in size from 1.4 meters to over 5.5 meters and is known to feed on other sharks." -- Ryan • (talk) • 16:01, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

That condition seems very reasonable at first glance. Obviously the quality of the brief description wil be variable, as contributors will have different approaches to that sort of description, but I agree that if something is worth linking out it is worth a few words to explain why it is worth clicking on the link. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 20:54, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia, like the Britannica, is a tertiary source and some people should move with the times and allow (provided they are formatted appropriately) in-line links that are helpful to the traveller. By continuing with this inane resistance, all you will do is drive away new editors who find this policy inexplicable and counter-productive. Curate your external link policy with regard to secondary sources but nuance it with a distinction between secondary and tertiary encylclopaedic sources together with a distinction between truly external links to other servers and links to sister projects such as Wiktionary and Wikipedia. -- Alice^✉ 19:45, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Using words like "inane" is no way to try to get a consensus behind any point of view, so if your aim is to indefinitely delay the acceptance of your alleged point of view, you should keep using such language. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:38, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Ryan, our other external links are to primary sources, so if those links became inactive, we would simply remove them. For Wikipedia, though, the proposal to link to them serves an entirely different purpose. The question I'm trying to ask is -- are we trying to link to Wikipedia just because it's Wikipedia, or because it's the most convenient way to accomplish some other goal? If it's the latter, then it shouldn't matter what encyclopedia we link to, right? If it does matter, then there's some other motive going on. LtPowers (talk) 20:57, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

I thought I answered that question ("Much moreso than the fact that it is a sister project, the impetus to link to Wikipedia is that it is the accepted primary URL for general knowledge terms"). IMHO, being a sister site doesn't hurt, but being the widely-accepted internet standard for general knowledge seems far more of a reason to refer to it for information that is out of scope for a travel guide. I realize that some people here disagree and question the value of allowing encyclopedia links, but as should be clear there is a sizable minority (if not majority) that DO see significant value in the idea. -- Ryan • (talk) • 21:57, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

So at some point in the future when Google's search rankings change, we have to change all of our encyclopedia links to some other encyclopedia? And if being a sister site only "doesn't hurt", then why was there no concerted push for inline links until we moved to WMF? LtPowers (talk) 12:54, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Not necessarily, but if it serves the traveller better, then I would not object. Perhaps we should worry about that if and when it happens? At present Wikipedia is bigger, free and supported by the same foundation, so is, to me at least, the obvious choice. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 17:04, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

(re-indent) Before we moved to the WMF, there was no real concerted push for anything. We were so dull and frustrated with Internet Brands that the project had no real ideas or "life". You only have to look at the Pub and WV:Roadmap to see the huge proposals flying around. Back on-topic, I'm a supporter of in-line Wikipedia links on the premise of a restrictive policy. The policy should clearly state that for a Wikipedia link to exist, there must be a summary of the WP article's topic in a few sentences or so. To go with the 'salwar kameez' example above, I have another one to put to opposers under the current policy. What about in cases of our "Get in#By plane" sections? Take a look at what I've done at Doha#By_plane as an example. There are a few examples of countries with direct flights to the city, as well as airlines that fly to the region (I will flesh it out a bit in time). Then I've linked to the Wikipedia section which provides a full list of destinations. Such a link helps users in deciding their flight plans and options. Most users wouldn't need such comprehensive info printed on the road. Even then, does anyone suggest adding all 100+ destinations to the Doha article? Or should such info simply be omitted, even though it is clearly helpful to the traveller? There are other cases like this, such as listings for art galleries, where Wikipedia may provide info on all the works/paintings inside. JamesA ^>talk 13:28, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

That's a damn good proposal, James. It has the great virtue of avoiding two pitfalls in one fell swoop: (1) The laziness of linking instead of adding information; (2) The slippery slope of Wikivoyage becoming purely an adjunct to Wikipedia, due to uncontrolled inline linking. And at the same time that it avoids those pitfalls, it does serve the interests of travelers. I would support your proposal as beneficial on all counts, unless someone can show me how it isn't. Ikan Kekek (talk) 13:35, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree with James on both the problems with IB and his proposal in general. The precise format of the link could be different, as long as it is clearly a link to Wikipedia, and preferably enforces opening in a new tab or window to facilitate return to Wikivoyage. I have no strong feelings on whether the full listing should be required on the WV article, and will probably go with any reasonable consensus on that point. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 17:04, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

To address James' example: What if Wikipedia's article is incorrect? And shouldn't the official web site contain references to which airlines fly to the airport, and be more reliable and up-to-date to boot? And the proposal doesn't address the basic objection, which is that our guides should not be littered with dozens of links to a completely different web site. We already have the sidebar link to Wikipedia, which represents an appropriate level of engagement for sister sites; adding dozens of inline links in addition seems to tell readers that we are not a complete site in and of ourselves, and we invite them to go elsewhere while they're reading our guides. LtPowers (talk) 00:28, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Official sites should always be linked in preference to Wikipedia. I think we can probably get a consensus behind that, though let's try and see. As for your point that "we are not a complete site in and of ourselves," I would think that would be incontestably true. No website is complete in and of itself, as there is always other knowledge somewhere else. And moreover, we already have dozens of links to other sites in many articles, precisely because we know the other sites have more information that we don't include in our guides, as I thought you just alluded to in your comment about official web sites. So would you like to please rephrase your point? Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:18, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't think we link to external sources because they have more content. They're most useful for double checking that information is up-to-date and factual. Official links are basically our "references," as I see them. --Peter ^Talk 04:43, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

1. Wikivoyage is not an encyclopaedia. This is a guiding principle (Non-goals point 11). What links we allow is a secondary policy which should be in support of the guiding principles. If a secondary policy is in conflict with a guiding principle, the secondary policy is the one which should be changed. Or does anyone disagree?
2. There is never a guarantee that the information at any link is correct. There is not even a gaurantee that the information we provide on Wikivoyage is correct. It is actually more likely that Wikipedia will be correct as they have far more stringent requirement for verification. (we have none, other than peer review, which may or may not occur for any given article or item of information). Official sites may also be wrong, misleading, out of date and/or biased.
3. Where there are no official sites, an encyclopedia is a reasonable substitute, probably in most cases the best option available. In some cases it may be better than the official site, but as we dont really have any way of knowing, giving preference to official sites is a reasonable compromise. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:48, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

A few replies:

(1) It almost goes without saying that Wikivoyage is not an encyclopedia. Encyclopedias have a different function than travel guides. I doubt anyone will dispute this. (2) All links should be useful to travelers in planning their trips (e.g., where to stay, what to see, where to go, what to do, what to buy, what to eat and drink, and the like), not merely sources of trivia or something. (3) I do indeed think we link to official sites at least in part because they have more content. There is no way we would ever approve of including all the information on a hotel's website in a "Sleep" entry, nor should we. Similarly, there is lots of useful information on museum websites that goes way beyond the scope of a destination article that is not specifically about the museum. Whether you think the additional information is incidental to why the official sites are linked or not, the fact remains that those links do provide quite a lot of additional information in many cases, and a lot of that additional information can be useful to travelers. (4) The rationale for including links to secondary sources would be only in cases in which the additional information at those sources would be useful to travelers in planning their trips, with the provisos outlined above (some explanation or commentary is needed here, not just a link, the information has to be demonstrably useful and relevant, and there must be no primary site that could be linked to, instead). (5) I agree with this statement at face value: "If a secondary policy is in conflict with a guiding principle, the secondary policy is the one which should be changed." However, I'm concerned that the claim that any additional off-site links to secondary sources would turn Wikivoyage into a site with (linked) encyclopedic scope will continue to leave this discussion deadlocked, when I thought JamesA's proposal, with further clarifications, could break the stalemate. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:23, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Ikan that Wikipedia links (or any links for that matter) should not be added as trivia, but to help travellers plan their trip. Does a link to w:tiger shark on Wikipedia help travellers plan their trip? No, so there is no necessity to add it. If someone wants to know what it is, they can Google it. Does a link to w:The Louvre help travellers plan their trip? Possibly, as many travellers will use information about its history and collections when deciding whether they should visit (of course, we would link to the official website as well). Does a link to Doha airport on Wikipedia help travellers plan their trip? Yes, and I don't know how that can be disputed.

Back on the Get in example, I think others have made it clear that Wikipedia can be wrong, but so can primary sources, and so can we. A primary source should always be used if available, but in many cases, it's not. I tried to look for a list of airlines with their destinations on the Doha airport site, but couldn't find one, making the Wikipedia link the only feasible alternative. Or shall we use a different example. Say, Harare#Get_in. Is there a primary source we could use instead of the Wikipedia article? Of course not; the airport doesn't even have a website, yet alone one they regularly update. The Aviation Authority's website appears to have been last updated in 2008, and all they have about Harare airport is a one-page description of facilities [1]. JamesA ^>talk 10:50, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I may be digressing slightly, but I think that the Louvre is an excellent example of a very important attraction whose official site and not Wikipedia should be linked. Look how much information is on their official site. [2] If we seek to have a very well-controlled policy on secondary sources, I think it has to exclude situations in which primary sources provide excellent information. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:36, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

One thing to watch is that primary sources are written by the management at a particular landmark to urge the visitor to travel to that landmark. They are neither fair nor neutral, but promotional. The wide variation in quality of the sites (where a bad motel might pay for a good website, while something worth seeing might have no online presence at all) is only part of the problem of relying entirely on the property owner to create an online "primary source" and linking only to that site. K7L (talk) 16:54, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Is it worth pointing out that Wikipedia is not a secondary source? Those proposing we expand our policy to allow inline links to Wikipedia are skipping secondary sources entirely and moving straight to tertiary sources. LtPowers (talk) 14:52, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

That was pointed out at the beginning of this section... so what? K7L (talk) 16:54, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, in part, it's confusing as people are talking about allowing secondary sources as if it would allow links to Wikipedia. LtPowers (talk) 18:06, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I just see a plethora of problems with this. I absolutely do not want to see our text peppered with little "WP" icons everywhere, and there has been no criteria proposed that would prevent that.

• The criteria cannot be whether "someone might find it interesting to read detailed information about it on another site" - it's far too subjective. There is nothing in the world that someone wouldn't find interesting to read more about.
• The criteria also cannot be, I think, whether we have some sentences explaining it first - we don´t need people adding a few sentences explaining what WWII was every time it is mentioned so they can justify a link to WP; the same is true for Shintoism, or the Gold Rush, or Art Deco architecture, or Julius Caesar, or sisig. Many things come up too often for us to offer definitions. A travel guide has to have some assumed level of background knowledge.
• Information which may be essential to the traveller and which is not provided by a primary source, such as that airport information, should be able to find a home here somewhere. We are working on a model for airport articles for big airports, which would presumably cover those hub airports with too many destinations to list in the city article.

I don't understand why so many feel that a travel guide should take so much responsibility for pointing people to information that is outside the scope of a travel guide, and are willing to litter our text with WP wormholes to do so. The only justification I have really seen offered is "why not", and that is not good enough for me. Texugo (talk) 18:25, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I think there would be hundreds of examples where there are too many destinations from an airport that are feasible to list in an article. Are you proposing creating airport articles for all of these, even if there isn't much to say about the airport itself? And no, relevant information cannot always find a home here. The information that helps travellers in their travels would include things that expand upon our listings and give more detailed information. On one hand, we're trying to cut down the length of listings to the point where "Mon" is too long and we have to use "M" instead. Yet on the other, we're encouraging the full, relevant history of a particular archaeology site to be written in a listing or all the expeditions of a museum.

I also don't want to see articles littered with "WP" icons. That's why we need a restrictive policy. Only rare situations would exist where "WP" links would go at the end of prose (like the airport/Get in example). Most of the time, they'd sit next to the external link symbol in our listings, which is really no eyesore and would be barely noticeable. Also, why would someone need to link to "World War II" or "Shintoism, or the Gold Rush, or Art Deco architecture, or Julius Caesar"? That does not really serve someone in their travels, so it's not what we're proposing. JamesA ^>talk 06:47, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

And therein lies the problem - I don't know exactly what is being proposed. Aside from the general sense that we shouldn't link every linkable noun, I don't think any two people on this thread have exactly the same idea as to what is being proposed. I have not seen any proposals for concrete criteria that are not either completely arbitrary (only for listing items), completely subjective (things which people may want more detailed information on), or completely unenforceable (having some lines of prose here qualifies it for a link). What you are saying also seems to be fairly arbitrary and subjective, implying that a "full, relevant history of an archeological site" is relevant background info that should be linked to, yet for Miami Beach where the art deco architecture in general is an attraction, that it "doesn't really serve someone in their travels". As for the airport information (as well as detailed train/bus/ferry schedules), I think it's a seperate issue that should be further discussed elsewhere as to the best way to handle that information, and is not necessarily some prime motivating factor for allowing WP links in general. Maintaining complete, up-to-date schedules has never been considered essential around here, and if we are going to make it so, that's a different discussion. Texugo (talk) 11:16, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Indeed; Peter Southwood explicitly mentioned w:cow shark as an article he'd like to link from a dive guide, while JamesA explicitly rejected w:tiger shark. LtPowers (talk) 13:11, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Actually I just used cow sharks as the first thing that came to mind to illustrate a point. Tiger sharks would have done just as well (or badly). It appears to me that there is a lot of difference of opinion as to what is helpful and useful to the traveller. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 11:34, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia links

Swept in from the Pub

I added some Wikipedia links to an article earlier, and LtPower has removed them. I haven't got a problem with that: I'm learning the ways of the Wikivoyage.

But I've got a suggestion. Over on Wikinews, we have a template called 'w' which lets you easily link to pages, and if there is a page on the local wiki, it resolves there, and if not, it links to Wikipedia. What's the general view on linking to Wikipedia? I've started adding links back from Wikipedia to Wikivoyage using sister projects templates. —Tom Morris (talk) 16:52, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

The discussion so far: Wikivoyage talk:Listings#Listings tags and links to Wikipedia. You may want to scroll down to the Summary section first though. --Traveler100 (talk) 17:56, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes. There has been a LOT of discussion about this and opinion seems divided. There are actually several sections on that page which discuss Wikipedia links. AHeneen (talk) 19:29, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Please see Wikivoyage:Links to Wikipedia. For the time being, the accepted way of linking back is to add a [[Wikipedia:Article title]] link at the bottom of the page, which will generate a sidebar link. --Peter ^Talk 19:55, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

As far as I know, the inline link style that you mention for Wikinews would likely not be OK on Wikipedia itself. WP groups interwiki links within WMF with the "external links" because there are many sites which have a mirror copy of the English-language Wikipedia but don't have Wikinews, Wikivoyage or any of the others. We don't have an "external links" section, so we use the sidebar link for now. K7L (talk) 00:38, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

I also today had two links to Wikipedia from the Pakistan article hastily removed by this power lieutenant citing that inline Wikipedia links are against the rules and that's that. I say hasty because he had time to remove them but no time to improve the Pakistan article in a way he saw correct, or to join the Wikivoyage IRC channel to explain the reasoning when I invited him to join the discussion I began after the revert. ... Anyway ... my links were to terms casually dropped in the Pakistan article that I thought many people wouldn't know. One, "shalwar kameez", I did know the meaning of. The other, NOC / No Objection Certificate, I had never heard of before. I am at a complete loss why there's a rule against informative links to our well-known sister project. These links were not SPAM or any kind of clutter, just help on unusual terms. I understand there are many kinds of links to avoid. I understand that before coming to Wikimedia there might've been some reasons to discourage more links from Wikivoyage to WIkipedia. I cannot understand a blanket rule which had a clearly adverse affect in this case. I found this bureaucracy very discouraging and had to wonder if Wikivoyage is already chasing away well intentioned new contributors in the ways that Wikipedia has become sadly famous for. — Hippietrail (talk) 05:54, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi. The reasoning and argument for what you externally link to and what not to externally link to has probably been discussed here more than any other single issue. Opinion is divided. You can join in the discussion, and address the argument specifically, and please convince everyone why we should change. You shouldn't have a go at one of our other contributors for making edits in line with policy. If you can't find the discussions, I'll provide pointers to them.

However, addressing your specific case, if you are using a term in an article that is unfamiliar to most, then you should make an effort to explain it inline in the article. We want our articles to be useful offline. Useful on the road, in a book, in a printout, in an phone offline. So it is no use to have the answer to the question in a link to WP, the info needs to be here. --Inas (talk) 10:15, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

To start with, I am strongly in favor of allowing in-line Wikipedia links. That said, current policy is that only a sidebar link to the WP page of the same (destination) or similar (topic/itinerary) name is allowed. The biggest reason for this is so that we get content added here and not 100 links to Wikipedia, forcing WV users to have to visit multiple pages to get the info they need. One reason we need content here is so that WV guides can be used offline (printed as a book or saved as a PDF/e-reader file for computers/tablets/e-readers/smartphones).

There has been a lot of discussion at Wikivoyage_talk:Listings#Listings_tags_and_links_to_Wikipedia. We do not have a formal voting process, instead relying on consensus. However an informal vote was made at the bottom of that section and it's 11-8 in favor of adding WP links. If there's no clear consensus, then we keep the status quo. Please voice your opinion there. Finally, I don't think many WV admins/bureaucrats use IRC and it's best to use user/guide talk pages to discuss issues. AHeneen (talk) 14:07, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

The Wikivoyage talk:Listings discussion actually didn't provide a proposal to use Wikipedia (or Wiktionary) as an inline-linked source of dictionary definitions. It just discussed {{listing}}s, a somewhat narrower topic. K7L (talk) 05:30, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Position of links

There is a suggestion at Wikivoyage talk:Inter-language links#Position of links that WP links should be placed before the inter-language links. Nurg (talk) 05:06, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Inline links to Wikipedia

Please see Wikivoyage talk:Sister project links#Inline links to Wikipedia. --Piotrus (talk) 13:28, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Allow some links to Wikipedia

Swept in from the pub

User:Ikan Kekek made a change removing a link I'd added to Wikipedia in an infobox, citing Wikivoyage:Links to Wikipedia#In-line links.

While I don't disagree with the policy generally, I wonder if some exceptions can/should be made, particularly for infoboxes that are specifically there to give extra information someone might like to read up on. For example, Hawaii has infoboxes with Wikipedia links to reef triggerfish, forceps butterflyfish, and Father Damien de Veuster. United States of America now has an infobox about the date of Labor Day which mentions the Haymarket affair, which I had never heard of before that info was added; it's not currently linked to Wikipedia, but it seems like a good candidate for such a link.

I completely agree with the stated goal that "Wikivoyage articles should be as complete as possible in and of themselves. Essential information about a topic should be included in the Wikivoyage article, rather than relying on a link to Wikipedia." But I'd like to suggest allowing exceptions in cases such as these, where the subject in question is specifically mentioned for the purpose of providing extra information just for the sake of curiosity, rather than essential travel information. --Bigpeteb (talk) 19:04, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Although a suggestion that off-topic WP links be limited to appear only from within infoboxes may perhaps be a slightly new twist, before bringing this all up again, I would encourage anyone tempted to join the discussion to thoroughly read the previous discussions here, here, here and elsewhere on those three pages before getting too excited. We have have been through this discussion many times, so if you really want to make another proposal for this, you'll need to be able to have an answer for all those previously expressed objections, offering very clear criteria for how we could patrollably identify and allow only a small number of such links without opening the floodgates and without relying on arbitrary rules which seem to defy common sense in allowing some sorta-useful links here but denying some perceptibly super-useful ones over there, and doing all that in a way that identifies to the user when they would be leaving us for a WP page, but keeping the numbers of links low enough that such markers don't stand out like a visibly distracting shotgun blast of wormholes throughout the text. Texugo (talk) 19:32, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, indeed. I favour loosening the policy, as some of my comments at the links above show, but I've given up advocating the idea because I cannot come up with clear nough criteria for when it is a good idea. Pashley (talk) 20:37, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

While it may be indeed useful in some cases it is very hard indeed to come up with a good way to draw the line. Also, if you want to know what the Haymarket affair was, you may just type it into WP or open the WP app if you are using a mobile device. Disallowing WP links also somewhat reduces the risk of this here website becoming too encyclopedic.. Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:14, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

That directly contradicts the repeated refrain of "we don't want WP links because we want the info here" that comes up every time this is discussed... by that logic, "Short description. (See X on Wikipedia for more info)" becomes "Long description, which carries on with a mass of encyclopaedic detail because we don't want a concise summary with the encyclopaedia-level detail left to WP". K7L (talk) 13:08, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Hobbitschuster, I'd like to respond to this comment: "if you want to know what the Haymarket affair was, you may just type it into WP or open the WP app if you are using a mobile device."

The entire point of hyperlinking things is so that you click a link and get taken to other content, which might in some cases be on a different web site.

If we followed the logic you describe, then WV is not leveraging one of its major advantages over print guide books. In a print guidebook, sure: they don't have room to explain everything, particularly when it's not directly relevant to the issue at hand, so if I see mention of the Haymarket affair I have to grab an encyclopedia (either print or online) and look it up myself. But WV is an online guide, which is why we have fewer limitations on length or amount of content. Why shouldn't WV have hyperlinks for this kind of thing? I don't buy that "it's easy enough to find the relevant content by yourself" as a valid reason. --Bigpeteb (talk) 23:55, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

I think all of us understand the arguments for and against more links per article to Wikipedia, since the argument has been made exhaustively on long discussion threads. I consider the pro and con arguments both to be sound. However, it's been clear for quite a long time that it is impossible to attain a consensus in favor of change on this question. I would say that things are unlikely to change unless we get a very large number of editors from Wikipedia who establish themselves and then form an overwhelming majority in favor of new policies. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:08, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the inflexible "we do it this way because WT always did this" attitude is hurting our chances of attracting Wikipedians. We're already at a disadvantage as "sibling project" on WP tends to mean "poor cousin" (Can you name all the siblings off the top of your head? I can't, although I can name a few - some of which I've never looked at.) We also have to deal with the perception that WV is either (a) merely an un-sourced, non-neutral version of info already in WP or (b) a yellow page directory of restaurants and hotels. A policy that states that The Greasy Spoon.  can link to the restaurant's own promotional website but The Louvre. a famous museum  can't link to the WP page specifically about that museum is *not* helping matters. K7L (talk) 00:42, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Are you making a new argument? Why do you think making this argument again will increase the chance of a consensus? We've debated this ad nauseam without advancing the discussion. Without any disrespect for your points or viewpoint, I would suggest that continuing to go over the same arguments over and over is a waste of time. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:32, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Wikivoyage will benefit moreso if there are links coming from the "big sibling" going to the "poor cousin" than the other way around. There are many destinations and travel topics on Wikipedia that still don't have a Wikivoyage link in the "External links" section. We haven't yet exhausted all our interwiki advertizing opportunities. See wikipedia:Wikipedia:Wikimedia_sister_projects for a guide on how and when to link. Gizza ^(t)(c) 11:13, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm sure that Wikipedians will love you using (or abusing) their project as an "interwiki advertising opportunity". Interwiki links to us from WP should only be placed where they are beneficial to WP and its readers. Interwiki links to WP from us should only be placed where they are beneficial to WV and the traveller. Anything more is spam. K7L (talk) 12:12, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Obviously there should be only links when it makes sense and is beneficial to the readers or either WP or WV but my point was that these useful links are missing in many places. And adding these links will create a greater awareness of Wikivoyage. Anyway, I'm more of a Wikipedian than a Wikivoyager, having been an active contributor at the former for about nine years more than latter. I know what's allowed and not allowed over there. :) Gizza ^(t)(c) 10:24, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

K7L, I spent a while last year adding links to some of our best articles here, and exactly zero of them were reverted. If we've got a good page, the community at en.wp seems to be pretty tolerant of the links. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:11, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

(starting at the left again) Well I said what I meant precisely because I know my own browsing behavior.... Sometimes I see a link and think "oh, that might be interesting" click on it and two hours later I have opened three hundred elevnty tabs and my browser crashes, while totally forgetting the original subject. IF people who came to read a travel guide on the USA really care all that much about a subject entirely unrelated to travel such as the Haymarket affair, they can still look it up on their own. There is a reason, why some other sites call excessive links "potholes", because the potential to "fall" in them and get distracted rises by their density... Best wishes Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:01, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Allow a link at the top of a section?

See also X, Y and Z on Wikipedia

X, Y and Z are the best-known attractions of this region, which...

In other words, allow a "see also" link from a section header to a WP page wherever we allow a "see also" from a section header to a WV page. This would seem narrow enough? K7L (talk) 02:36, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

That would solve the issues of number and of warning the user they're going off-site, but I'm not sure how I'd feel about allowing a large percentage of our article sections to start off with hatnotes inviting the reader to leave and read non-travel-focused material elsewhere. It would seem odd to pick up a travel guide where every section starts by encouraging you to read a non-travel guide. Moreover, given that you can't really use it to list more than three or so links without it turning into a paragraph of its own, I also imagine it would pretty quickly come to be seen as an arbitrary rule that would do senseless things like:

• force us to choose only 3 species listed in each typical Flora and fauna section and leave out the others
• either force us to choose only 3 Thai dishes to highlight for the whole Thailand#Cuisine section, or use up to six of these hatnotes in the subsections to highlight more but still in an incomplete manner that might force us to leave out some things there is a WP article for
• for to the Paris#History section, force us to debate and choose only three from among w:History of Paris, w:Paris in the 18th Century, w:French Revolution, w:Paris under Napoleon, w:Paris during the Restoration, w:Paris during the Second Empire, w:Economic history of France, w:Paris Commune, and all the various other leaders, artists, periods, art movements, and conflicts mentioned there.

There are lots and lots of situations where no matter which 3 things we choose, it would still just look like an arbitrary sampling of what WP has to offer. This system would also be arbitrary in that it would either a) allow WP links in prose sections only, disallowing WP links for listing items, which many seem to feel is more useful; or b) allow them in listings sections too, but force us to debate which 3 listings in each section to highlight and which to leave out, in the many cases where a WP article exists for more than 3 items. Texugo (talk) 12:42, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Paris#History should hatnote w:History of Paris (the same topic), because that article already has the others as its subtopics on WP. One could also link to a WP category or a WP list article, which then links to the individual subtopics. We want more than "I stayed in a Holiday Inn express last night *yawn*" as the description to "Understand" a city or destination, but let's leave the encyclopaedia-level of detail to the encyclopaedia. K7L (talk) 13:08, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

The point is that there are many different situations and most of them are not cut and dried as to what and how many links we would allow. If your answer for Paris is just w:History of Paris because it's an umbrella, then my answer is that we already have w:Paris in the sidebar, a more comprehensive umbrella and already undoubtedly links to the others. Texugo (talk) 15:48, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Bottom of the section would be better than the top, but otherwise I agree with Texugo's objections. Powers ^(talk) 23:29, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately, we do often need more than one link. A region which consists of multiple incorporated municipalities usually gets an article for each on WP, while it's likely to be treated as a single community here (unless it's huge, or at least MSP-sized). There's also the problem that one has to click through multiple levels of "umbrella" to get from Paris to w:Paris to w:History of Paris to the individual subarticle about one historical era. That's awkward, and users either won't bother or will stay on WP after they've done all that searching. K7L (talk) 00:54, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

No matter what website I find myself on, if I want to learn more about a specific person/place/thing mentioned, I always know how to find Wikipedia. We still need to attract more readers TO our site, so I don't see any great use in trying to place as many links as we can to flush people out to a site that they probably are already quite capable of finding and navigating. It's only a slight inconvenience to bring up a new window and type (or copy and paste) the desired search term. How much of an issue is that really? ChubbyWimbus (talk) 13:43, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. ChubbyWimbus just perfectly summed it up for me. Wikipedia is already my de facto source for information like this, and I think we can take it as a given that most people know how to use Google. I just don't see any real benefit to adding more direct links to Wikipedia here. PerryPlanet (talk) 17:16, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

By that standard, why do we bother creating wikis at all if (in many browsers) a search engine is just a right-click away and all the info is already available elsewhere? K7L (talk) 17:22, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure how in the world you would draw that conclusion from my statement. Much of the time all the info isn't already available elsewhere, or as neatly summarized as it is on Wikipedia. PerryPlanet (talk) 17:39, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia linking should be allowed and consumer comfort maintained by having a tiny wikipedia 'W' favicon.ico concatenated to each Wikipedia link

I think the current policy of not allowing to link to Wikipedia articles where-ever it seems appropriate is unwise. Sometimes Wikivoayge does not have an article on X but Wikipedia does. Sometimes it just gives more information. Instead we should have the Mediawiki software insert tiny 'W' graphic to the end of each Wikipedia links. This way user does not need to hover over link to determine if Wikivoyage or Wikipedia and is allowed convenient access to further reading. --Jukeboksi (talk) 13:24, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

The matter is actually being debated right now at Wikivoyage_talk:External_links#Revisit_policy_on_linking_to_sister_sites.3F. ϒpsilon (talk) 13:30, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Indeed. Jukeboksi, please share your reasoning there. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:09, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Time to revise this article

The External links guidelines, with a few exceptions, preclude inline links from Wikivoyage articles in the Main namespace (travel articles) to Wikipedia articles.

No longer true. We need to explain how to include Wikipedia links in listings. In my opinion, we also need to make Wikipedia and Wikidata fields standard parts of listing templates, but perhaps that's better discussed at Wikivoyage:Listings. In the meantime, someone who is quite familiar with how to create Wikipedia fields in listings should please add language in this article explaining how to do it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:37, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

I agree. Hobbitschuster (talk) 20:08, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Suggested revision (and Nurg, please confirm that Wikipedia/Wikidata are now standard in all listing templates):

Wikipedia and Wikidata are now standard fields in all Wikivoyage listing templates. Links to the relevant Wikipedia and Wikidata pages should be added to these fields in listings whenever possible. However, inline links to Wikipedia are otherwise generally not used on this site, with primary links (such as to an attraction's own website) added instead, in keeping with Wikivoyage's bias toward primary external links.

What do you think? And which other policy/guidelines articles need updating now? Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:26, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

I confirm: Wikipedia/Wikidata are now in all 7 listing templates. Nurg (talk) 09:45, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. I just edited Wikivoyage:External links accordingly. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:01, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

In-line or Inline?

I've seen "inline" more. Shall we change the subheading? Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:05, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Either is acceptable. Usually words like this start with a hyphen and then over time usage gradually switches to discarding the hyphen. We might as well drop it now - not just in the heading, but also the other use in that section. Nurg (talk) 07:54, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

OK. If no-one objects within 24 hours or so, I'll make the edits. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:27, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

I forgot about this. Done. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:09, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

This article should be more actionable

Recently i had a change reverted due to using inline links. I was linking sights to wikipedia articles.

I think linking is an essential part of the web and what makes it great so was very confusing about the revert.

I was pointed here but it wasnt clear to me what was wrong. While we want articles to be self contained to wikivoyage the things I was linking from where sights so didnt belong in a Wikivoyage article. I later learned about the See and do template.

Had I been a new editor to be honest that revert would have stopped me editing.

While i think this policy is misguided *, at the very least, please update this page to make it clearer about how editors can solve solutions without resorting to inline links (or places thry can use them) so new editors are guided better rather than discouraged from editing alogether.

• links when used correctly, regardless of where they point enrich any article and do good in the name of seo. Of course links to wikivoyage should be preferred but in their absence wikipedia is a good alternative.

Jdlrobson (talk) 16:34, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Where outside a listing template would you think an inline link to Wikipedia a good idea? Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:59, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

They can also be included in markers. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:56, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm seeing lots of opportunities to use these in outline articles e.g. Trinidad_and_Tobago and many of its cities. Information is a little scarce here and I think links to wikipedia would be a good incremental step towards increasing the quality and provide future editors with the information to upgrade the article to a higher status e.g. usable.

While I can see we wouldn't want to encourage wikipedia links in more developed articles they seem essential in these embryonic articles where any links and context are helpful to the traveller.

San Ignacio, Belize makes good use of wikipedia links for example. Jdlrobson (talk) 22:42, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Also... if important, we could make the wikipedia icon show next to any interwiki links to wikipedia regardless of what template they use to make it clearer where links point to wikipedia.

Happy to help write the CSS rule for that if that would be helpful. Jdlrobson (talk) 22:45, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

In many sparse articles I have added listings by looking at the WP article and simply adding the WIkidata thing in the appropriate field (which creates a wikipedia link) Hobbitschuster (talk) 23:20, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Jdlrobson, which version of San Ignacio (Belize) do you want us to look at? I'm not seeing any Wikipedia links out of keeping with WV:Links to Wikipedia in that article. Anyway, my feeling is that there are lots of links to Wikipedia that could be useful, but the problem is, it's very difficult to create guidelines or a policy that separates something useful like w:Intarsia from something useless like w:Dirt - and that's quite apart from the fact that a viable Wikivoyage article about intarsia could be created, and falling back on a Wikipedia link serves to discourage editors from creating content on this site, one of the main reasons for restrictions on Wikipedia links here. And believe me when I tell you, some users have introduced all kinds of totally pointless inline Wikipedia links. Therefore, to make things easier for editors and patrollers, we've limited Wikipedia links to those on the same subject as the article title, listings in listing or marker templates, with other exceptions requiring a consensus on the relevant articles' talk pages. I don't know if you've read through any of the very long threads we've had on the topic of inline Wikipedia links (if you haven't, you should, and I hope someone links them, because I'm not sure what page they're on), but if you want to make a specific proposal, clearly indicating the boundary between useful and non-useful inline Wikipedia links, go ahead. But opening up Wikivoyage to unlimited Wikipedia linking ain't happening any time soon, and a majority will and should oppose it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:43, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

" falling back on a Wikipedia link serves to discourage editors from creating content on this site".

... But, reverting an edit that adds links is also discouraging a very entry level way of creating content on our site. Unlimited linking is not what I'm talking about here. It's about explicitly saying it's okay to link to Wikipedia and Wikidata on sights and attractions, even if inline, provided a red link doesn't make more sense. Ideally users should be guided to do this within the appropriate template e.g. See, but it's not always practical to use templates. I have a lot of trouble with them when mobile editing.

I must admit one of the reasons I liked editing wikivoyage was due to you both (Ikan Kekek and Hobbitschuster) providing useful guidance - writing on my talk page (Notability+Some format and style stuff) to help me improve my future edits. You "showed" me rather than "told me". I felt like if I made mistakes my editing path was corrected not halted and you led by example. I've been put off editing on Wikipedia because the whole experience is so impersonal (links to policy pages with no further discussion). There is a lot of historic information to take in and my brain (and others) can only take in a little at a time, so enforcing a policy requires taking the time to understand the motivation behind such changes.

I see 1 actionable item here which is discouraging more seasoned editors from reverting such changes (unless they are clear vandalism) - instead encouraging these editors to guide the user to use the more appropriate templates rather than linking directly at the page. Jdlrobson (talk) 18:12, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

I agree, of course some users will be put off by any kind of reversion or edit to their edits. But if you feel there is no call for a full listing, why would a marker template be a problem? There's an optional field for a Wikipedia link in a marker template. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:59, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

I remember my first n00b mistake here in 2012. Wikipedia has a good featured article on w:Ontario Highway 401. Wikivoyage doesn't want one. What we may want, though, is an itinerary through the beaten-path region which that road serves, the Windsor-Quebec corridor. My edits weren't rolled back and deleted; instead, someone patiently explained the error and allowed me to fix it.

I also remember the lengthy discussion on links from {{listing}}s to Wikipedia articles, which began soon after this project's 2012 move to WMF servers. It wasn't "a majority opposed" to the links, it was an even split - right down the middle - which left the community deadlocked on this one issue for months or years. I am not in principle opposed to links where they are useful to the voyager, but we need enough information here that a traveller carrying a printed copy (or a downloaded file offline) with one of our articles has the information they need. We also need to be able to distinguish local links from links to other wikis or external sites. As such, there's a difference between:

* Intarsia is as old as dirt.

and wording like:

* Intarsia, a form of wood inlaying which first appeared in Egypt before the seventh century, is as old as dirt. (See intarsia and dirt on Wikipedia.)

If I'm offline and carrying a copy of Wikivoyage on a microSD card, the first version tells me nothing. What is intarsia, anyway? The second version, while it probably also does not follow the policy, is at least usable. If I can't get to Wikipedia, there's just enough here to tell me what I need to know while sparing me every bit of encyclopaedaic detail on the history of dirt.

For something like the individual Trinidad and Tobago beaches? The beach would have a {{listing}} in its home village; that listing should have a wikipedia=... link where available. Similarly, Wikivoyage will indicate that the Louvre is a landmark museum in the 1ère arrondisement of Paris; the description of the history of each notable painting in the museum is in the encyclopaedia, along with a full page on the museum itself. We would say how to get to the museum and devote a paragraph to what's inside, but we wouldn't explain who exactly La Gioconda (the lady depicted in one of the paintings) is nor her family history (as w:Lisa del Giocondo and w:Mona Lisa and w:Louvre and w:Leonardo da Vinci give the historical detail of this fragment of the w:Italian Renaissance. We provide enough for the voyager to find the museum and decide whether it's worth a visit; once there's too much info, the rest belongs in an encyclopaedia. K7L (talk) 19:23, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

I think there actually was a majority against inline links. But anyway, it's not clear to me what guidelines you are proposing that would allow us to police links. The biggest problem with allowing inline links outside of listings and markers is that it is likely to cause us to waste loads of time arguing about why x link was removed by not y link. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:53, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

My experience of adding links was a revert and a link to this page (which had a lot to take in and I wasn't sure where to start). This page like all policies is not particularly newbie friendly. I don't want other people to experience that, especially newbies. Users like myself and (and maybe User:K7L) stick around because editors took time to help them understand where they went wrong. I guess what I'm getting at is I want "less policing" and more "teaching/nurturing". Right now the article talks about what shouldn't be done and gives clear detailed directions on what to do instead, but not how editors should use this article and its contents when dealing with other users. I see it more as a reference for those in the know rather a reference for reverting.

Concretely, how would you feel about adding the text "Remember that not everyone is aware of the many rules and policies around Wikivoyage. When encountering editors constructively using inline wikis, rather than reverting their edits, consider showing them better ways to include those links in the article (markers, listings) and writing on their talk page and pointing to such solutions." IMO all policy documents should have these kind of reminders. Helping others become advanced Wikivoyagers should be a goal for us all. I know I'd like to be one!

User:K7L thanks for sharing your opinion here. I completely agree with everything you have to say there. Jdlrobson (talk) 21:36, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Jdlrobson, I am sorry that you and I got off to a bad start. I do not want to do anything to put you off contributing to Wikivoyage, and look forward to seeing your future contributions.

As I've explained to you, your first round of edits on Trinidad_and_Tobago was so problematic because of the errors that you later told me were introduced by the listings editor, that I had to revert them. It wasn't just that they violated policy, some of the links were just plain bad links. Although I provided a link to the policy on Wikipedia links, you restored them in violation of the policy. I removed the links again, and posted comments on your talk page to encourage you to propose a change to the policy on its talk page instead of ignoring the policy. So then you posted in the pub. I do feel I've tried to coach you on this, and that you haven't really being listening. The idea of using the listing template to create Wikipedia links did not occur to me. If it had, I would have proposed it. I don't think I can be expected to think of everything.

With respect to your specific proposal, the issue of how to deal with "unwanted edits" is not unique to creating links to Wikipedia. It relates to all of out policies, so we have a special page on that here. I don't think we need to single out this policy for special treatment.

I believe that I have responded to this situation in a way that is consistent with that policy -- maybe not perfectly, but let's be clear that it does not recommend letting a new editor make mistakes in editing just because they disagree with the policy.

Joining a collaborative project is always going to involve a learning curve, and making mistakes is how most of us learn. It is certainly how I learned to edit in Wikipedia and then in Wikivoyage. I do hope that you continue to learn and continue to contribute. Regards, Ground Zero (talk) 17:58, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks User:Ground Zero for chipping in and my frustration is by no means aimed at you, but the policy itself. I know you were just following policy and I'm sorry for the confusion in our exchange - I had originally thought the reverting was due to the bad links that were added to articles like "Wales" due to VisualEditor trying to be clever and autocomplete "W:". With my head clearer, I can see that my reaction could have been worded better, and I'm sorry for that. 🙇

I guess where I am finding frustration, is that I do not see a link to a Wikipedia page as an "editor make mistakes" but rather "an editor not following a policy that they have not been involved in the creation of that they may not understand". I personally don't understand, nor agree with this policy, having read it in full, so it's hard to know what to do in this situation, other than to avoid editing sights where I don't have the time. This policy, in fact prevents me from making edits, that I feel push us towards where we should be aiming to get to. To me, adding a link to a Wikipedia page for a sight, seems like a stepping stone to migrating an entire "See" section to quality article status, with a map, but I can see I'm in a minority here. 😫

I've hit a couple of policies now which personally I think are fundamentally flawed and IMO hurt the collaborative building of a travel guide - this one and the discouragement of adding images to articles Wikivoyage:Image_policy#Minimal_use_of_images - with my limited understanding of the project and energy it seems to require, I just don't now (yet) how to drive change against them. I'm not giving up yet! ✊ Jdlrobson (talk) 17:52, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

But you understand, right, that you can and should be adding Wikipedia links for sights, within the listings or markers for those sights? Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:35, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

One point which is not made clear in the documentation: what's the appropriate level of detail at each point in the hierarchy (country, region, city)? Trinidad and Tobago is country-level; should it contain just a brief mention of the beaches and direct the reader to the city/town-level articles for the rest of the info?

Also, is our position on images the same as pre-split WT's? I presume the voyager is no longer trying to access Wikivoyage on EDGE/EVDO or dial-up speed connections? There's also {{listing|image=... which is only partially documented (it causes an image to display when clicking on a dynamic map marker, but wouldn't appear at all on a print version). I presume our position on these images is less restrictive than on galleries of inline images in the destination guide? K7L (talk) 06:10, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

I think the answer to your first point is clearly indicated in documentation for WV:Article templates, but if it should be clearer, by all means edit it accordingly on any relevant page or propose a change in wording.

On your second paragraph, Wikivoyage:Image policy#Minimal use of images still applies, within reason. We had a long discussion at Wikivoyage talk:Image policy#Minimal use of images - not appropriate. I'd encourage you to read through it and post your thoughts if you're inspired to do so after you've finished reading. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:35, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia in markers

Hi.

This is a continuation of a discussion at the pub, Wikivoyage:Travellers'_pub#Listing_(including_WP_link)_instead_of_marker_for_cities/towns_(on_region_level)_that_do_not_have_a_WV_article_yet_but_only_a_WP_article, seeking opinions from the whole community. Ping the users involved in that discussion, @Ceever, SelfieCity, Matroc, Ikan Kekek:.

To make a long story short, I've created, on request, an experimental version of the {{marker}} template we use for listing destinations in region articles. Here's what it does: if we list a destination with no Wikivoyage article, it automatically links the Wikipedia article. As soon as a Wikivoyage page for that destination is created, the Wikipedia link automatically disappears. That way, there is always a WMF link for readers to go to find more information on a destination. At no step along the way is the Wikipedia link added or removed by editors. You can see this in action at Valles Calchaquíes.

I've opened this discussion to get feedback on the idea from the community. Please comment with your thoughts. I'll add some of my own arguments on why I support this below.

Without this, a reader looking for more information is stuck, link-wise. If they really want more information, they will likely go to a search engine. From there, they will most likely find a Wikipedia article, but they may also find the destination at other travel sites. It is in our interest to try to ensure that readers stay in the WMF network: if someone is reading a WP article on a destination we do not have here, they may nevertheless click a wikilink there to yet another destination, and, there, there will likely be links back to Wikivoyage. Someone entering a Wikitravel link they found on Google will not be led back here through interwiki links. Additionally, it will help cement the Wikipedia-Wikivoyage link in readers' minds, and readers who go straight to Wikipedia when looking up topics of interest may begin to go straight to Wikivoyage, rather than doing an internet search.

Some of the oppose arguments raised up in the pub aren't valid due to the technical implementation being presented here. Ikan did bring up, however, that having an interwiki link next to a redlink may lower the rate at which new and anonymous users create articles, a relatively common occurrence. I have no answer to this, but I will add that many newly-created articles were not created from redlinks, but for destinations which were never linked at all, and linked subsequently to the creation of the article. I can list some examples here if needed. ARR8 (talk | contribs) 16:23, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

It's a really clever idea that I quite like. How easy would it be to implement this? Would editing the template be all that's necessary? If it's that easy to implement, then I'm definitely a supporter.

How does it work, though, if there's neither a Wikipedia article nor a Wikivoyage article for a destination? What should we do then? --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 16:33, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Yes. The edits are done in the sandbox version and all it would take to roll out across the site would be copying them over to {{marker}}.

Good question. Currently, nothing. The other option that comes to mind is to add a link to Wikidata. This would be easy to implement if it is decided that that is what the community wants. I like the idea of Wikidata links, but I get the feeling that not everyone will, so I am not pushing for it. I wouldn't mind being surprised, though. ARR8 (talk | contribs) 16:38, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

In my opinion, while Wikidata links may seem like a good idea, Wikidata entries aren't very user-friendly and for someone who's looking for travel guide information, it wouldn't likely be what they're looking for. But I'm not opposed to the idea; I guess you could say I'm neutral about it, since a link to Wikidata is better than nothing at all. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 17:14, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

It looks good. I see that one of the cities in Valles Calchaquíes has a detailed WV article in german - de:Cachi. I only got to this by going to the WP article and then Wikidata. Would it be possible to offer Wikivoyage articles in other languages when there isn't one in English?

If there is no WP article, I think that the average reader would rather see the Commons page than Wikidata - I think only experienced editors would know how to use WD to find other language WV and WP articles. AlasdairW (talk) 22:15, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Very interesing ideas. From a bit of research, it should be possible to get all language links, but a module would have to be written for it. The other alternative would be manually curated: if an editor notices a redlink with a detailed corresponding article, such as this German one, there could be a field in {{marker}} for those and only those languages to be linked as long as there is no local link. This is the easier-to-implement alternative. Presumably, that field would not do anything if an English WV article exists.

Regarding Commons: I agree that we should be linking to Commons more, and such a link would be a great candidate for the neither-wikivoyage-nor-wikipedia scenario. However, I'm not sure how many places there are with Commons categories in Wikidata but no Wikipedia articles. From what I notice, the Commons community doesn't bother linking their categories to Wikidata before a sitelink exists. ARR8 (talk | contribs) 23:16, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

I don't know about cities, but a lot of WD entries were created for historic buildings as part of Wiki Loves Monuments (at least they were for listed buildings in the UK). Wiki Loves Monuments was keen on adding photos to the WD listings of these buildings and some Commons links were added as a by-product. AlasdairW (talk) 23:58, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

• I think the best thing to do is to just go with WP for now and then later we can consider WD and Commons. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 22:49, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

I understand the argument for these links to Wikipedia, but I remain skeptical, concerned that linking to Wikipedia for destination articles is at least somewhat likely to provide a distinct disincentive for the creation of Wikivoyage articles on those destinations. Therefore, at this point, I'm continuing to oppose. If a consensus develops behind this, I would suggest the requirement of a statistical analysis 6 months after the provisional adoption of links to Wikipedia destination articles in markers, seeing how many of those links turned into Wikivoyage links. Of course, that presumes someone's willingness to do such an analysis. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:53, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

I'm as concerned as you are about article creations. I think my page traffic argument above is also valid, though. Which of the two downsides is greater? We have no way of knowing, of course, without some kind of data, so I think an analysis would be a great idea. What did you have in mind that would be possible with the constraints of the platform? Maybe we should reach out to the meta community, which frequently runs technical surveys? ARR8 (talk | contribs) 23:20, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Special:NewPages currently lists 39 articles created since 1 March. This is a rate of 1.34 articles per day. Unfortunately I don't know a way to get figures over a longer period. AlasdairW (talk) 23:48, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

I would support reaching out to the Meta community. It could be a good idea to do this as an experiment if we can get data. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:53, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

I've reached out to a WMF researcher at meta. ARR8 (talk | contribs) 02:22, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

@Ikan Kekek: (though of course anyone is welcome to answer) Have you got an idea how I should answer this question? ARR8 (talk | contribs) 21:40, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

I think a 5% drop would be statistically significant, but 2% probably wouldn't be. What do you think? Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:24, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

• I support this template modification as it is done in Valles Calchaquíes, and I think it should last for six months, when it should be reviewed per above. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 00:07, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

@ARR8: I think it may be worth waiting a while to see if you get any other responses. If not, it's unfortunately going to be difficult to make clear that, as I understand, you want them to do the data collection and not ourselves. But is it possible that we could do the data collection ourselves? --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 23:36, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

We are currently running at 1-2 new pages per day. In 2018 there were 570 new city pages. To get 5% drop being significant we would be looking at 6-12 months after introducing the change. I need to play with Petscan to get some more figures to see how things normally vary month to month. I think that the threshold might be a 50% drop in the first 1-3 months . AlasdairW (talk) 07:17, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

What do you mean by threshold in this instance? Also, there's another stat I'd consider relevant: How many of the Wikipedia links turn into Wikivoyage links because someone created an article or considered that the term was appropriate as a Wikivoyage redirect. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:44, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

By "threshold", I meant the amount of change that we would regard as a big enough reduction in new pages to cancel the use of the new template. I am going to look at the past year or two's data to see how much random or seasonal variation we can expect if we look at quarterly new page figures. AlasdairW (talk) 18:13, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Statistics on new articles

I have run a few Petscan searches to build a picture of how many articles are being created in each quarter. A couple of the searches are provided as links. If using these, enter the date range in the Last Edit field on the Page Properties tab, and note that the end date goes on the left and the start date on the right. I have used Category:City articles as the main selection, as this is the main page creation which could be impacted by the change. Unfortunately I could not find a way of selecting by type of editor, as it would be interesting to exclude articles created by experienced editors (autopatrollers).

• 578 new city articles in 2016 (726 destination articles)
  • 200 new city articles Jan - Mar 2016
  • 83 new city articles Apr - Jun 2016
  • 160 new city articles Jul - Sep 2016
  • 135 new city articles Oct - Dec 2016
• 460 new city articles in 2017 (604 destination articles)
  • 112 new city articles Jan - Mar 2017
  • 111 new city articles Apr - Jun 2017
  • 116 new city articles Jul - Sep 2017
  • 121 new city articles Oct - Dec 2017
• 572 new city articles in 2018 (737 destination articles)
  • 162 new city articles Jan - Mar 2018.
  • 125 new city articles Apr - Jun 2018
  • 168 new city articles Jul - Sep 2018
  • 117 new city articles Oct - Dec 2018
• 125 new city articles Jan - Mar 2019

I have not done proper statistical analysis, but I think that we should investigate if less than 110 city articles are created in the quarter after the change. We should also investigate if there are less than 26 new city articles in the month after the change (this is number from last month). AlasdairW (talk) 21:43, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Appearance of the content

• As I understand, this is not how it would work if San Francisco had a WP article and not a WV article:
• 1 San Francisco

I assume it will look like the original plan,

• San Francisco.  

I support the second but not the first. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 23:55, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

You understand correctly. ARR8 (talk | contribs) 00:12, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

It seems to me it should look like neither of those but rather like

• San Francisco.   (without the punctuation)

Right? —Granger (talk · contribs) 00:23, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Good point, that would indeed be typical. ARR8 (talk | contribs) 00:34, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

In that case, I tentatively support this proposal. I share Ikan Kekek's concern about encouraging article creation, but I think on balance it's worth trying. If we can find a way to quantitatively evaluate the effect of this change on article creation, that would be ideal. —Granger (talk · contribs) 00:43, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

I agree. If we do this, it should be in the second format, as SelfieCity also alluded to above. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:25, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Yes, Granger, you're right. It should be a redlink. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 01:54, 31 March 2019 (UTC)