Wikivoyage talk:Sister project links

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Initial discussion[edit]

Not sure if it's appropriate to start the talk page before the actual article, but anyway... Let's get some discussion going on this one. I'm happy to make a start on it later this week. I think most of it could be derived from the Wikipedia policy, although theirs is slightly different as it's more generalised and not just about links. An important factor is to decide on new sister project templates. Wikipedia uses the small boxes at the bottom-right of the page. Do we just want to use the same sort of thing, or are there some other ideas?

This policy should also list in what circumstances we should link to other projects. The following is some circumstances I think are relevant:

  • Wikipedia for factual content on most destination articles
  • Wikimedia Commons for further photos
  • Wikinews inside our current warning templates at the top of pages with Travel Warnings
  • Wikibooks for language lessons/phrasebooks (something else we need to decide on: are we moving our phrasebooks to Wikibooks)

I can't see any particular reason to link to Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikispecies, Wikiversity or Wiktionary at this stage. Thoughts? JamesA >talk 15:17, 20 September 2012 (CEST)

There are two cases here, I think. One is akin to interwiki links -- sister projects links that cover the same topic as one of our travel guides. We traditionally do this in the sidebar, and I think it's a good solution. I do like the way Wikipedia does it, but I think I'd like to stick with our sidebar method until it's demonstrated that it's insufficient. (Wikipedia, Commons, and Wikinews only for these.)
The second case involves inline links. (This is the only use case for Wikibooks, I think, while Commons will probably not be linked this way.) That's something we don't currently do, because we want our travel guides to be self-contained. But there is an argument to be made for inline links for interested travelers. The trick is distinguishing them from intrawiki links. LtPowers (talk) 17:02, 20 September 2012 (CEST)
  • I agree with JamesA on no obvious reason for links to Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikispecies Wikiversity or Wiktionary, but there may be reasons we have not seen yet. I think we should leave those decisions for when the reasons become apparent, i.e. no rush. If a reason does turn up, a similar style of in-line link to that described below for Wikipedia may suffice if a sidebar link is inappropriate.
  • Sidebar is fine for articles on the same subject, but if you need to link to something that is relevant specifically to a section of an article, it should be linked from that section, which I can't see working in the sidebar.
  • For Wikipedia amd maybe Wikibooks I would suggest a footnote style link, which uses a superscripted text as a link, for example: Houses of Parliament[WP], as it is clearly different from an internal link, moderately obvious where it links to, and will not disrupt the page appearance much.
  • Commons links are for images, and do not need any new policy, as we will continue to link images as usual.
  • Moving phrasebooks to Wikibooks sounds logical. I don't know much about Wikibooks, but if the phrasebooks fit there, it is an option. They could equally appropriately stay on the travel guide. Do you file them under langauges or travel? I don't see it as a big issue either way, but some might.
  • The little sister project icon links would be appropriate on the main page at the bottom in a full width box, as is used on most of the sister projects. There may be other places where this would also be appropriate, but I can't think of any offhand.
  • The little box-icon links don't have any immediately obvious use if we use the left sidebar links.
  • When Wikidata comes on line we will probably want to use it too, but I think that will be more like media links to commons than any of the others, as we will want to display the data in the article. I think that will be someone else's problem, and we will just use the software and data when it is available. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 23:01, 20 September 2012 (CEST)
  • I forgot Wikinews. I suppose we would want to transclude the relevant text, possibly in a textbox with a wikinews icon. I dont know if this is technically practicable. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 23:09, 20 September 2012 (CEST)
Using Wikinews in that way is not feasible right now, AFAIK. They'd have to provide some sort of machine-readable interface that allows us to select news items based on location and topic. For Commons, a link to a Commons category for a destination is what I was thinking of, as in commons:Category:San Francisco, California. LtPowers (talk) 03:38, 21 September 2012 (CEST)
If we would want to transclude a few relevant headers from WIkinews onto our Main Page, it would require changes on both ends. I think the most feasible way would be to ask Wikinews editors to add a specific "Wikivoyage" category to any news items they feel are relevant to this wiki. If that doesn't catch on, we could always have our users going over there every once in awhile and adding some categories. And of course, anyone who wants to write some travel news from here can go over there and write it, adding the category. It's a discussion we should start with them now at their Water cooler forum.
I see Wikibooks as a logical place to put our phrasebooks. It's just a better way of organising our info and supporting the movement. But then again, that may mean it gets lost in the mess and is not as easily found. Another option is to keep the phrasebooks here, and link to their in-depth learning guides from our phrasebooks. Again, it may be a discussion to have with them at their Reading Room forum.
I like the way we use the sidebar, but sometimes it can overlooked. If we are going to keep images on Commons, it is important viewers know where to go to find heaps of photos. We can't (and shouldn't) keep all our photos on the guides, or else they become overloaded; look at Na'in as an example. To improve their notability, I suggest we add a small icon, a little like the inline template at Wikipedia. JamesA >talk 07:33, 21 September 2012 (CEST)
  • Where would you put the inline template style links?
  • I get your point about Na'in. The page is overloaded, but the images add value. A possible option is to add a gallery as a subpage. You would only click on it if you actually want to look at the pictures and have the bandwidth to do it, and it allows the pictures to be arranged and annotated in a way that adds value to the images. This option has already been used on WV on a star travel topic article. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 08:01, 21 September 2012 (CEST)
I mean just an icon/logo about the size of the one in the inline template, and put it on the sidebar. It wouldn't be a sentence, just one word still. So "[ICON] Wikipedia", or whatever. The subpage gallery is a good idea, but Wikimedia Commons is meant to act like an image gallery/repository, so we might as well make use of it. That also means that viewers can see many more pictures; not just the ones users decide to add the galleries. Plus, it's automatic, if people add categories to their photos. JamesA >talk 10:32, 21 September 2012 (CEST)
Using commons is OK when the categorisation is done properly, but often it is not. I have used a fair number of images from commons on WP, and sometimes the categorization is surprising or incomprehensible. However your suggestion for a sidebar link to commons is, I think, a good one. I see no reason why both should not be options: A carefully crafted gallery sub-page with the best images, complete with relevant captions, and a sidebar icon-link to the commons category for the full catastrophe. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 13:03, 21 September 2012 (CEST)
Na'in has way too many images, shouldn't have more than 4 in the article. But such a Wikimedia Commons link could definitely be useful. I'm more doubtful about moving the phrasebooks to Wikibooks—they're more useful for travellers than for book readers and would be lost among travellers here. However, I think a collaboration with Wikibooks could be an option—it could basically function as a Wikivoyage Press, turning travel guides and phrasebooks from Wikivoyage in "bookform". --Globe-trotter (talk) 14:36, 21 September 2012 (CEST)
That's not what Wikibooks is about. They create textbooks like we create travel guides. It has nothing to do with physical printed books. LtPowers (talk) 02:38, 22 September 2012 (CEST)
Yes, Wikibooks has a different focus to that. I think the best way to cooperate with them is to keep the phrasebooks here, then link to their in-depth learning guides. Having both a Commons link and a gallery (for large articles) is definitely a good option; of course, with galleries we can organise them how we see fit and add captions. I'll get started on the policy in a short while and we can review it from there. JamesA >talk 05:55, 22 September 2012 (CEST)
Wikipedia has a facility for creating printable "books" from selected articles, which would presumably be available. I have not used it yet, so don't know the details, but it allows any user to put together articles and (I think) parts of articles and store the result, which can be output to a printer. A suitable printer and binder would be necessary of course, and I don't know how many are available or where they are. We could put together selected travel guidebooks of this type as options for users to have printed and link to them from articles (perhaps with an icon at the top -"Part of the XXX printable guidebook"). I think they are automatically up to date on content, or may be set to a particular version of an article as you choose. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 07:34, 22 September 2012 (CEST)
That is an excellent idea!! The user has the option to save as a PDF and print themselves, or they can be sent off to a professional printer (PediaPress) to be done, with hardback/colour as an option. That would look very professional and be a huge bonus for our new wiki over the old IBtravel. We should get in contact with someone at WP or the WMF about implementing this. JamesA >talk 08:23, 22 September 2012 (CEST)
I've created the policy. Please make any amendments if you see fit. Of course, most of it is largely irrelevant until we move to the WMF. Also note, most of the links at the bottom of the article don't actually work; that function would need to be added by the tech people. JamesA >talk 09:03, 22 September 2012 (CEST)
I see above a reference to wmc:, that former interwiki prefix pointed to wikimedia commons, right? Planning on adding it to the todo stuff for my bot, if that's the case (I thought so but didn't know how to verify it). Snowolf How can I help? 10:57, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes, "wmc" stands for "WikiMedia Commons". Replace away! LtPowers (talk) 14:49, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Discussion of proposed policy[edit]

Good basic policy. I have made some additions for proposed different applications as discussed above, to show how they might look and work. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 10:30, 22 September 2012 (CEST)

Superscript links[edit]

I'm not sure I like the superscript "[WP]" links and the like. They certainly serve to define them as different from both internal and external links, but I'm afraid it might disrupt the flow of reading the prose. (I find WP's superscript footnotes similarly distracting, but apparently a necessary evil.) If we do keep them, we should templatize so that we can reuse the code and update formatting universally if we ever decide to do so (for example, it may be worth adding code to prevent them from printing on hardcopies). LtPowers (talk) 17:33, 22 September 2012 (CEST)

I will have a go at putting a template together for that purpose. If you can think of a less obtrusive method, please suggest it. This is the best I could come up with. Would it be less obtrusive without the brackets? That's an easy change. I don't know how to code for non-printing, but I think I may have seen something somewhere on WP. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 18:15, 22 September 2012 (CEST)
Following much banging of the head against the wall I appear to have finally battered a hole. I have produced an apparently functional template for in line interwikimedia linking. At present full functionality only for Wikipedia, but could be extended if the need arises. I have eliminated the square brackets and the superscript is now less obtrusive. No luck with non-printing yet. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 22:52, 22 September 2012 (CEST)
Some research reveals that it should not be difficult to prevent templates from displaying in print. WP has a Wikipedia:Category:Exclude in print • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 23:31, 22 September 2012 (CEST)
I'd suspect there's a CSS class that says "don't show this element in the printed version". WP loves to plaster articles with maintenance templates, so it's a necessity over there. Would Wiki puzzle.svg Pan-American Highway be a suitable link format from city descriptions to WP? It's no more obtrusive than Pan-American Highway as a true external link.
MediaWiki tags interwiki links with class="extiw" and true external links with rel="nofollow" class="external text". Neither of these classes is placed on an internal link. The default style sheet shows the familiar box-and-arrow symbol of a MediaWiki external link, but does nothing special for the interwiki link. A simple CSS change potentially could create an icon which appears on interwiki links, much like one currently is applied automatically on external links. No need to template anything. K7L (talk) 03:44, 18 October 2012 (CEST)

In-article links?[edit]

From my reading of this [1], there is not a clear consensus (or really even a vague consensus) to allow in-article links to sister projects. --Peter Talk 17:50, 23 September 2012 (CEST)

True, there are those who think it is a good idea and those who think it's a bad idea, and a large number who haven't commented at all. The draft has a few exmples of how they could be done relatively unobtrusively, but the discussion continues. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 18:38, 23 September 2012 (CEST)
Is this acceptable? --Saqib (talk) 21:14, 30 September 2012 (CEST)
In a word, no. The current policy is that no in-line links are allowed to Wikipedia. Not even visible links in the article text. The reasoning includes the argument that in-line links from articles should only be within the travel guide main article space. I advocate allowing links of this sort to Wikipedia as in-line links which are clearly and immediately distinguishable from internal links by giving them a different appearance, because I strongly feel that links like your example improve the usefulness of the guide to the traveller, without cluttering it unneccesarily and inappropriately with encyclopaedic information, but agree that is should be clear that it is not an internal link. I have proposed a format and template for this purpose. However there is opposition to the proposal and at this stage the existing policy remains valid.
Tradition is that a change to a policy requires consensus, whereas the existing policy may remain even if there is opposition, even if it wouldn't gather sufficient support if it was proposed as a new policy. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 22:18, 30 September 2012 (CEST)
There are many topics which are of interest to travellers but would not qualify as the topic of a WV article. For instance, visitors to Toronto would find everything from Lake Ontario to Nathan Philips Square to Ontario Highway 401 has a viable article on WP, even though you can't comfortably sleep on any of them. Many topics are useful but not within the narrow "what is an article" scope to merit being on-wiki here (as we're not an encyclopaedia, but Wikipedia is). I see no reason why they shouldn't be linked inline, just so long as this isn't done in a way that the article relies on them as a substitute for content and is missing too much info internally to be useful without the interwiki link. To exclude them just because we allow "see", "do", "eat" and "sleep" to link to the vendors of these services is an odd double-standard; the vendor site is more likely to be advertising and less likely to be factual. There are also no official sites for geographic features, roads or landmarks which are not commercial businesses. As for an icon to indicate that this is not a local link, whatever is used should be less obtrusive (or at least no more intrusive visually) than the existing icon for an entirely external link. K7L (talk) 03:18, 18 October 2012 (CEST)
I agree that we should allow linking to those articles on en wiki. --Piotrus (talk) 13:14, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Soft redirects[edit]

Should soft redirects be part of this page? Or should they get their own separate page? sumone10154(talk) 21:56, 5 October 2012 (CEST)

I don't know that we actually have a use for soft redirects. What did you have in mind? LtPowers (talk) 23:06, 5 October 2012 (CEST)

We do have soft redirects, usually pointing to policy or help pages on "wikitravel shared" or common from individual Wikitravel languages. They're rare (and shouldn't ever appear in main article space) but do exist. K7L (talk) 17:07, 20 October 2012 (CEST)

There's also soft redirects pointing to meta, mediawiki, commons and stuff like that, it's simply a neat way to point to pages not residing on this wiki, however I don't see a use for them in mainspace at all. Snowolf How can I help? 10:55, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
I don't think soft redirects should be mentioned here or on their own policy page. Instead, they can just be explained using documentation on Template:Soft redirect. JamesA >talk 11:03, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
There's also Wikivoyage:Soft redirect which was a red link and so I created it yesterday. Snowolf How can I help? 11:05, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
Oh, okay. I can understand why you created it then. I've gone ahead and redirected it anyway, as there's not a lot to say. JamesA >talk 12:28, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Linking to Wikipedia[edit]

Swept in from the pub

I expected [[:en:Birmingham]] to link to the relevant page on the English Wikipedia, as it does on other Wikimedia projects, but it doesn't. How should I make such a link? Pigsonthewing (talk) 14:27, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Use [[:w:Birmingham]]. Language links link to Wikivoyage in the corresponding language. --Stefan2 (talk) 14:33, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
There's also [[WikiPedia:Birmingham]] for use in articles, where it generates a sidebar link to en.WP K7L (talk) 14:42, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikidata?[edit]

Swept in from the pub

Hello,

Does anyone know how to add link for WV in Wikidata? Yann (talk) 15:21, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

d:Wikidata talk:Main Page#Wikivoyage appears to be using wikivoyage: to link to :en:voy: but it should be no different from any other WMF project. The logo is Wikivoyage-Logo-v3-icon.svg Wikivoyage favicon.svg for links to Wikivoyage from WMF, not sure if there are any templates yet but that's already being discussed over there. K7L (talk) 15:30, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
Wikidata should not be linking to Wikivoyage yet, nor should any sister project. We are still in beta stage and have not "officially" launched. I believe some of the devs and crats have previously said we don't want to kick up a fuss at this stage. JamesA >talk 23:38, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
Wikidata does not have this functionality yet. Currently, only links to Wikipedia can be added on data pages. sumone10154(talk) 03:15, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia parameter in special tags[edit]

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 (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:57, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikisource[edit]

Although it's stated earlier that Wikisource links aren't an immediate priority,

I will note that archive travel guides show up in The Internet Archive, and can definitely recall seeing an ancient Bradshaw Guide amongst others.

Where links to Wikisource woulod be most useful is probably in Understand sections, I am partly biased here as I was partly responsible for Wikisource starting to to transcribe various out of copyright guides to UK historic Buildings Sfan00 IMG (talk) 23:50, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

To what end, though? Out-of-copyright travel guides are likely also out-of-date, and any information they do contain that's still useful should be in our guides. In fact, we have specific guidance at Wikivoyage:External links that we should avoid linking to other travel guides. LtPowers (talk) 00:54, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
I've seen them quoted as a source of historical info, at least in Wikipedia. "Wagon Wheel Cabins on U.S. 66, the east side of town. 9 newly constructed stone cottages each with a private tub or shower bath. Very well furnished; gas heat; fans in summer; enclosed garages. Rates $2.50 to $3 per day for two persons. This is a home away from home. Splendid surroundings. Café; laundry services; rest rooms; super service station. One of the finest courts in the state. Very good." —American Automobile Association (1939) gives an idea of the history of the place, even if the prices are now outdated. Duncan Hines used to review fine dining and lodging for a night; his review of a Corbin KY roadhouse where a certain Kentucky colonel used to operate a fuel stop, restaurant and motel is mentioned even if all that's still there is a fried chicken museum. Then again, Wikipedia likes citing sources for any quoted material. K7L (talk) 01:11, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
I do not personally have enough time to do anything myself but there are a few other reasons for linking to Wikisource.
Similarly Wikisource itself will normally have few reasons to link to Wikivoyage. However, there are links already in place from certain portals. For example, Wikisource:Portal:Australia links to Australia in the header (near the top right of the page). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 13:28, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
I've also noticed sections such as Cultural References in London/Hampstead and Literature in Chicago, both star articles. Sections like this may benefit from links to Wikisource if public domain/freely licensed sources are available. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 18:41, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
Yes, in any "Read" section links to Wikisource texts would be great. Ideally, we could do that with a Wikisource icon? Or just an icon of a book? --Peter Talk 06:12, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Shortcut[edit]

Swept in from the pub

When will we have alias "WV" for Wikivoyage namespace? --Saqib (talk) 08:50, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

No technical changes are required, it's just a matter of creating the redirect pages. Although it may have to be discussed whether this change is necessary, as right now the abbreviations are simply without the "WV:" prefix. JamesA >talk 09:46, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
On Wikipedia, the "WP:" pseudo-namespace is explicitly aliased to "Wikipedia:", which means that shortcuts prefixed with "WP" don't need to be created explicitly. I would favor that over needlessly creating dozens of redirects, but I don't think either one is a priority because we have non-prefixed shortcuts available. LtPowers (talk) 15:26, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
I think the WV alias is a good idea, as a shortcut to the Wikivoyage namespace. If nobody objects, I can make a request on bugzilla. sumone10154(talk) 19:59, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps you haven't noticed, but it already exists. WV:Travellers' pub is the same link as Wikivoyage:Travellers' pub, as you can see by the auto-bolding. This, that and the other (talk) 00:16, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
Oh. Yes, it must have been enabled recently. sumone10154(talk) 00:42, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Now that we have the WV alias, should we move our shortcuts there? It's two extra letters, but I think having shortcuts in the mainspace is a little strange. sumone10154(talk) 00:46, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't see any advantage to moving them. They're nice and short now! --Peter Talk 05:40, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
I just think that the main namespace should only contain destination articles and travel topics. sumone10154(talk) 05:59, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
I agree that we should keep the mainspace "pure" with travel content and not be redirecting between various namespaces. JamesA >talk 06:49, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
Why? --Peter Talk 07:07, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Sumone and JamesA, it's a bit odd for links to redirect to a different namespace. I think there should be a clear difference between links for readers (in the main namespace) and for editors (in the Wikivoyage namespace). --Globe-trotter (talk) 23:50, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
Again, why? There is a disadvantage to changing dt to WV:DT in that it takes about six times as long to type (about the same as typing Wikivoyage:Don't tout, actually). But what exactly is the advantage? --Peter Talk 07:16, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
w:Wikipedia:Cross-namespace redirects provides some of the arguments for and against. The main arguments against are that certain functions that operate on the main namespace (like Search or certain mirrors) may erroneously see these redirects as part of the site's main content, and thereby confuse readers. Our case is somewhat different from Wikipedia, though, because our pages are so strictly limited in scope. I don't think cross-namespace redirects pose a significant problem due to the small number of them we actually have and the very low level of overlap between travel search terms and our policy pages. LtPowers (talk) 22:12, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
Some discussion has taken place at and Wikivoyage_talk:Internal_links#Shortcuts Wikivoyage_talk:Shortcuts#Shortcuts_for_everything as well. --Inas (talk) 00:58, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Icons next to sidebar sister links[edit]

I mentioned this above when the policy was first being formed, but it must've been overlooked. The current sister links to Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons in the left sidebar are rarely noticed by editors as they do not stand out as much as the large box templates used on other WMF wikis. I am not suggesting we go down that path, but rather make the sister links a little more noticeable by adding small, text-sized logos next to the words. This will better provide viewers encyclopaedic information and a huge range of photos which we try to avoid on Wikivoyage. An example is at [2]. Thoughts? JamesA >talk 14:43, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

/* CSS: display Wikipedia 'W' puzzle piece icon to the right of RelatedSites sidebar link */
li.interwiki-wikipedia {
background: url(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/Wiki_puzzle.svg/25px-Wiki_puzzle.svg.png) center right no-repeat;
padding: 0 25px 0 0px;
}
Dunno if it'll make a huge difference to anything, but it's certainly doable and trivial. K7L (talk) 15:11, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
I did some testing at User:JamesA/common.css, and also added the Commons logo. The Commons logo is a tall rectangle, so gets cut off, but it actually looks quite professional. The only issue is that it overlaps the text. Would it be possible to move it further to the right, or maybe even just make the wording "Commons", "Wikicommons" or "WM Commons"? I changed the W puzzle icon to the actual orb used in the Wikipedia logo. Another alternative would be the "W" used in the favicon. It is very trivial and there will be no harm from its implementation. Thoughts? JamesA >talk 14:24, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
I would use the favicons for both Commons and Wikipedia. "Wikicommons" is an abomination and probably contravenes the WMF's identity guidelines; just "Commons" should be fine if "Wikimedia Commons" is too long. LtPowers (talk) 15:18, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
I've used the favicons as suggested. You can see the results by copying the code above Auto-width for Main Page test at User:JamesA/common.css. The Wikipedia icon looked slightly smaller when at the favicon size of 16px, so I made it 20px instead. However, that now makes the Wikipedia icon slightly off-centre to the left. Does anyone know how to force the Commons logo to the left a little to align them? Also, how can we shortern "Wikimedia Commons" to just "Commons"? Once that is sorted, then the code would be ready for deployment if there's no opposition or further comments. It's only a minor change, anyway. JamesA >talk 06:08, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Sister project link templates[edit]

Swept in from the pub

Does Wikivoyage have any of the sister project link templates? Like the ones shown here I can't find any. 86.45.191.101 21:24, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

We put our sister project links in the left-hand sidebar, using wikilink syntax (like [[Wikipedia:Kinsale]]). Thus, no need for boxes on the articles themselves. LtPowers (talk) 21:29, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
Oh. Would the boxes not look better and easier to find for readers? And also help with cross wiki consistency, as the other wikis have similar boxes (although the ones on Wikibooks do look different). 86.45.191.101 21:33, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
Both would work - the boxes you expect at the bottom, but the links are going to be near the top. -mattbuck (Talk) 21:42, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Also might be a good idea to check if the other projects have templates for Wikivoyage. Wikipedia has but I don't know about the others. 86.45.191.101 21:49, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Earlier I suggested on Wikinews that we ought to add Wikivoyage links. —Tom Morris (talk) 21:54, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
Even in Wikipedia itself, many languages still need to be changed to use Wikivoyage templates and links. #Links from Wikipedia in other languages. K7L (talk) 22:02, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
Wikisource links to Wikivoyage through its headers (it doesn't use the Wikipedia-style templates either). Currently all of the country-specific portals should contain links (eg. Australia, Mexico, etc.). I've left some ideas on Wikivoyage talk:Sister project links about some circumstances where links from Wikivoyage to Wikisource might be appropriate but there is currently no support for them. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 17:43, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Good news: Wikinews now supports links to Wikivoyage from category pages, and I've started adding a few. See n:Category:London and n:Category:Manchester for instance. Do feel free to pop over and start adding them, although they won't appear immediately because we use pending changes. Is there any chance we could get reciprocation for Wikinews links, just like there are sidebar links for Wikipedia and Commons? —Tom Morris (talk) 12:50, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Where would this link fit into the project? Individual news articles usually wouldn't be of use in a travel guide to a city, unless they provide background for a specific travel warning (for instance, the big red box listing Somalia as a war zone). If you have a page describing the city itself, that might fit (much like a commons: category with pictures of a city is included now). The list of which links go into RelatedSites is in a configuration file on the server (like LocalSettings.php in the default MediaWiki install) so adding a prefix to the sidebar would require asking through bugzilla: that the system administrator edit the config files. Even with some sort of consensus, our local admins and bureaucrats don't have control of the servers to do this. K7L (talk) 18:57, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
I absolutely think we should have sidebar links back to Wikinews categories—being able to click through to news on any particular destination you are considering visiting would be really cool! --Peter Talk 20:47, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Peter, I'm delighted to see you keen to try and make use of Wikinews, the discussion Tom mentioned is one you're most-welcome to give input on.
But, Wikinews is still a fairly small project. So soon after Wikivoyage joining the WMF family, it may not be all-that-obvious how we can help Wikivoyage with cross-project links. I do not know enough about Wikivoyage to know how you handle things like "travel warnings" issued by governments, and so on, but the most-logical place for those is as news articles. I know we can't ask Wikivoyagers (is this the correct term?) to dive into Wikinews and write the articles for such, but we'd certainly do the best we could to help get people on the right track were they interested in doing that. Equally, you have a wide range of news events that might raise interest in travel to some places (a new stable government and cessation of hostilities, major drop in crime, etc). I think the argument in the linked-to Wikinews discussion regarding Wikivoyage's lack of NPOV is irrelevant.
Looks like (at a guess) some of the attempts to link over here are 'a bit broken', but from my own contributions to Wikinews, our category on Southern Thailand's insurgency problems is one Wikivoyage would want to link to, and one where we would want to link to Wikivoyage. We'd want people to be able to reassure themselves the rest of the country is perfectly safe, much as Wikivoyage would want to link to news from higher-risk areas and give their readers an opportunity to be far better-informed when choosing travel locations. --Brian McNeil (talk) 10:34, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
We generally link to sister projects with interwiki links appearing in the sidebar, and that would be great to see on any pages that have a corresponding category on Wikinews. Realistically, that will require a bot.
I would be thrilled to see a way for us to put a "feed" of sorts on the Main Page. Wikinews could tag articles as being "travel warnings," or "travel news," and we could then feed that into a box showing the most recent items. This may require some feature development to make it work well, but we could do this manually at first. The work would at first be more on Wikinews' end, but I think it would be a great way to feature the work Wikinews does, while also adding some great content to our Main Page. --Peter Talk 18:50, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
I agree this would be great to get our travel news from Wikinews. I'd be happy to contribute travel news now and then to the site, and have it appear here. I think this would be a much higher profile feature than the sidebar stuff, that with the current content may not be that relevant. --Inas (talk) 00:46, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Related sites[edit]

Swept in from the pub

The current list of interwiki prefixes moved to the sidebar ( 'wikipedia:', 'wikitravel:', 'dmoz:', 'citizendium:', 'gen:', 'commons:', 'tech:', 'assoc:', 'wmc:', 'wtp:' ) by mw:extension:RelatedSites contains a few prefixes which no longer exist or are being removed. I presume we want to keep 'wikipedia:', 'commons:' and 'dmoz:', WT is useless as the underlying interwiki prefix is going away, gen: tech: assoc: were specific to Wikivoyage eV (and are redlinks), wtp: was WT Press (defunct, redlinked) and wmc: (broken, redlinked) was probably an alias for commons:

Not sure how citizendium: ended up in this set; while valid, it's just not anything I've ever seen linked from Wikivoyage. The list is in one of the server config files 'wmgRelatedSitesPrefixes' so presumably any additions or removals would need to go through bugzilla:

Are there any new additions ('wikinews:' categories were mentioned once?) or are keeping just 'wikipedia:', 'commons:' and 'dmoz:' enough? K7L (talk) 03:55, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

We should definitely add Wikinews and Wikibooks (for phrasebooks). --Peter Talk 04:08, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
Links to OpenGuides appear there too, at least acc to Wikivoyage:Cooperating with OpenGuides. However I have queried that at Linking to OpenGuides not approved?Nurg (talk) 05:46, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
Maybe Meta for policy pages? What about Wikisource and Wikiversity in addition to Wikibooks? Wikiversity would be great to link with Phrasebooks...for example, today's featured is the Breton Language Department with several lessons for beginners (see: The Center for Foreign Language Learning for more languages). Wikiversity also has "Portals" (rather than categories) for some countries, like Portal:France. Like us, these other projects (Wikibooks, Wikisource, & Wikiversity) are in development, so they may not have relevant categories presently to match our pages, but may in the future. It's also worth noting that if we link to these site, someone should leave a message in their equivalent of the Travellers' Pub to encourage cross-linking to Wikivoyage. Our guides are somewhat like books (some people on the Travel Guide RfC that opposed though our project would fit into Wikibooks) and many Wikiversity portals prominently Wikipedia (on the page, not sidebar).
While not concerning the sidebar, any ideas on how to coordinate with Wikibooks once we get the Wikivoyage:Books up and running with community saved books? Specifically, could the search function on Wikibooks contain links to relevant Wikivoyage book. Someone searching for "Germany guide" could be linked to a WV book with all Germany-related pages or maybe a book about visiting concentration camps. AHeneen (talk) 06:32, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
I recently went ahead and created b:Template:Wikivoyage on Wikibooks, with the approval of an administrator. I also went ahead and added links to all the Wikijunior countries. In terms of what links to add to the Sidebar, I'd say add all the WMF projects, as we don't necessarily have to use them right now. It gives us the option of doing so later, at least. I'll also draw attention to some open questions about the dmoz link here. JamesA >talk 08:18, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
I disagree with this template linking to Special:Search/{PAGENAME} by default. It should always link to a specific article here, if it does anything at all. A link to a search page is useless for SEO (as Special: pages are excluded in robots.txt) and not particularly useful to the reader (as it encourages editors to dump the template blindly onto pages without verifying the destination article even exists). The default link to a page of the same name was tolerable (it's in many templates where I've been replacing WT → WV in various obscure foreign languages, some of which should have no default as the character set isn't the same for that language) but the link to the search page was a kludge. It's unfortunate it exists already in the English-language verion of w:template:sister project links and is certainly not desirable in new templates. K7L (talk) 19:44, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
One issue with cross-linking WP-WV is the naming policy. We should create redirects using the WP naming policy, so Pueblo, Colorado redirects to Pueblo and so forth. AHeneen (talk) 04:08, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Why not just link directly by specifying a destination in the template, ie: {{wikivoyage|Pueblo}}? No need to go through redirects, Special:Search or anything else. K7L (talk) 23:30, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
If we get w:Template:Sister project links modified to include WV by default, then there will be many incoming links that haven't been explicitly synchronized with our titles. LtPowers (talk) 04:04, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Have we requested that the other sister projects be added to our Extension:RelatedSites list yet? If not, where should we do that--Bugzilla? It would be really handy to be able to add more than one link in the sidebar per sister site, too. For example, we sometimes combine municipalities like Clinton-Camp Springs, and those should have two WP links (to Clinton and Camp Springs). --Peter Talk 03:57, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Agree, it would be useful to be able to add more than one link in a sidebar. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 06:00, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

How to link articles on WP?[edit]

Swept in from the pub

Wikipedia has an article on Yowah. We have an article on Yowah, with some images that were here, that have now been transferred to commons. Can someone who has done it, write a couple of liner as to what we should add to the WP article to make it link to the right places? --Inas (talk) 22:44, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

I have put in interwiki links on the two Yowah articles. Wikipedia to Wikivoyage and Wikivoyage to Wikipedia. The appear to display as the documentation describes.
  • Both links go at the end of the articles.
  • The Wikivoyage link to Wikipedia [[Wikipedia:Yowah]] displays in the sidebar, so I don't think it makes a functional difference where you put it, but it makes it easier to find.
  • The Wikipedia link to Wikivoyage {{Wikivoyage|Yowah}} goes in the "External links" section, as that is where it will display as a small box with icon and text on the RHS. This is the place recommended by WP:MOS.
I am not sure if this is what you wanted. If not, please explain. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 06:14, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
That is exactly what I wanted to know. Thanks. It looks like the WP template needs to be the first thing in the section to format correctly. --Inas (talk) 02:55, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Inline links to Wikipedia[edit]

I want to restart the last years discussion from #In-article links?, where we seemed to have a consensus that it's ok to do some form of inline links to Wikipedia - but only a few people paricipated. For example, in article Katowice, districts Giszowiec and Nikiszowiec (and others) are mentioned - they don't have article on Wikivoyage yet, although eventually they might. Nonetheless there're a good articles on en wiki (w:Giszowiec, w:Nikiszowiec, others), but they are unlinked from WV article. Similarly, the article has a poor section on town's history, but no link to w:History of Katowice. Official pages of some - often commercial - institutions are linked, but not their (more unbiased, sometimes more extensive) Wikipedia entries. For just one example of this, our current link to event venue Spodek gives a 404 entry ([3]), and does not link to a nice en wiki article on this object, w:Spodek. When I tried to add some links, ex. to unlinked w:Katowice railway station , I was reverted by an editor who told me "links to Wikipedia are forbidden" ([4]). IMHO such "censhorship" of Wikipedia vastly diminishes the usefulness of Wikivoyage; we should figure out how to link Wikipedia articles mentioned in Wikivoyage, since Wikipedia coverage of most topics is still much superior (as in, most of the times Wikipedia will actually have an article, whereas Wikivoyage won't). --Piotrus (talk) 13:24, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Does Wikipedia scatter links to other wikis throughout their articles? No. So why should we? LtPowers (talk) 13:52, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
Is there an instance where something that gets just a one-line mention in Wikipedia has an entire page in Wikivoyage? It's usually the other way around... we might have a page on Route 66 or Tucumcari, but if you absolutely have to know what got the w:Blue Swallow Motel on the national historic register there's Wikipedia for that level of encyclopaedic detail. Wikipedia does "scatter links to other wikis" for terms which have a Wiktionary dictdef but don't merit an encyclopaedia article. There isn't a 1:1 correspondence between Wikipedia articles on incorporated municipalities and Wikivoyage "cities" as outside major centres the latter are prone to cover huge, Anticosti-sized areas instead of one w:Port-Menier, Quebec-sized village.
There were a few RMS Titanic landmarks which were simple memorials in public venues; no promotional "official site" for those, but they're in WP. It's not uncommon for one WV article to correspond to several WP articles, for instance fr:Lac-Mégantic links to Wikipédia for a mountain, an old mill, an observatory and two provincial parks. That page also has a {{mapframe}} with a locator map showing two dozen points of interest which was omitted from en:Lac-Mégantic because of the attitude here that new templates are "experiments" and to be avoided on more than a few test pages. Translating the updated page from fr: back to en: meant actually removing content. K7L (talk) 14:43, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
I am not sure about scattering links throughout article but do think it would be a good idea to have them on listings. Wikivoyage should for a castle or notable hotel give a little detail on the building, plus opening times, directions if needed and other information useful to a tourist (which is not covered on Wikipedia) but for a detailed history of the location a link to Wikidpedia would be useful. The sites should compliment each other. For example look at the See and Sleep sections if User:Traveler100/Glacier National Park/sandbox --Traveler100 (talk) 14:56, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
Nice page, but seems to miss links to Wikiedia articles about many things it mentions. --Piotrus (talk) 16:32, 28 July 2013 (UTC)--
Traveler100's sandbox page links to w:Many Glacier Hotel, which contains this text: "Today, the hotel still maintains its historic character, in part by not placing televisions in guest rooms. Most rooms either have views of Swiftcurrent Lake or the surrounding mountain scenery. Facilities include the Ptarmigan Dining room, the Swiss Room Lounge and Interlaken Lounge, Heidi's Snack Shop, and Grizzly Track Traders Gift Shop." That information should be in our Wikivoyage article, not linked on some other web site. This illustrates one of the reasons why linking to Wikipedia is a bad idea: it discourages adding information to our guides. LtPowers (talk) 19:33, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
@User:LtPowers. What K7L already said, i.e. your criticism is wrong as Wikipedia does that very thing. Also, Wikivoyage is not Wikipedia, and different rules may apply. In particular, as Wikipedia is 10x times as comprehensive as Wikivoyage, linking to many articles that exist there is useful. I also explained clearly why WV should do this, which you totally ignored: because Wikipedia has useful entries, which if linked from our article would add to them. As in - why bother creating a poor man's "history of Katowice" section at all - we should simply direct the reader to the relevant article at Wikipedia, perhaps use article's lead as our summary. Explain to me what is beneficial in having no link at all to Katowice train station as compared to linking to it on Wikipedia, please. Etc. --Piotrus (talk) 16:32, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
(ec)I am in favour of links which are useful to the traveller. What Wikipedia does should not dictate what we do. There are many things which are not suitable content for Wikivoyage as they are encyclopaedic, which are nevertheless information which is potentially useful or interesting to the traveller using Wikivoyage, and which I would like to see linked in a useful way from the article, however current usage following historical consensus forbids such links, and the requirement to change the policy is a new consensus, which would require sufficient support to overwhelm the resistance to the proposed change. I expect that this will eventually happen, as it is a perennial proposal, but I am not sure that the disruption it may cause will be good for the project, and I am not keen to start a civil war, since when those happen both sides generally lose more than they gain. I would support a plebiscite, but suggest that a clear proposal detailing how links should be made would make a potential change less disruptive than it might otherwise become if left as a free-for all. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 16:50, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
Wikivoyage talk:Listings#Listings tags and links to Wikipedia is the most detailed thread on this subject. As Peter noted, there is strong opposition to adding more Wikipedia links from a significant number contributors here, so any effort to include such links would need to enumerate strong limits on their usage. I'm in favor of adding a "wp" attribute to Template:Listing as that would be a very clear limit on the implementation of such links, but I would oppose a free-for-all in which every name, date, book, or building suddenly started getting a Wikipedia link - it isn't helpful to have dozens of links in an article taking users away from Wikivoyage, nor do I think it's a good idea to encourage users to begin using links for important terms since if something really does warrant a link to Wikipedia then it's probably worthwhile to have at a few sentences about it here, too. -- Ryan • (talk) • 17:21, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The average Wikipedia article doesn't link to external wikis at all, except in the External Links section. Even Wiktionary links are rare. Why? It's not because of comprehensiveness; it's because it violates one of the precepts of good site design. (But then, you'd know this if you all would read some of the many arguments against linking to Wikipedia made above.) If we invite people to leave our site to go to some other wiki, that's exactly what they're going to do. Why the hell do you want to encourage people via link to go off to some other site for their browsing? And why encyclopedia articles? Links to TripAdvisor would be useful, right? So why not include links to TripAdvisor? Or Yelp? Or Joe Schmoe's Spiffy Travel Blog where he has lots of great advice about that yurt down near the beach? LtPowers (talk) 17:24, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

External Links sections are permitted on Wikipedia, but not on Wikivoyage.
Wikivoyage is a travel guide, not an encyclopaedia. Therefore we are expected to provide travel information on Wikitravel, rather than directing the user to other sites, but not detailed information on attractions.
So on the one hand, we are not allowed to provide the information on Wikitravel, on the other we are not allowed to provide a link to a sister project specifically intended for providing that kind of information in as much detail as you want.
And then to top it off, we have the guiding principle that the traveller comes first and advice like "Travellers are at the top of the hierarchy. Creating a travel guide for them is our primary goal; everything else is secondary. Everyone in the community should do whatever it takes to make sure that travellers have clear, concise, up-to-date and reliable information on wherever they're going, however they can."
It is hardly surprising that this sort of contradictory guidance leads to disagreements about sister project links. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 18:08, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
I am in agreement with Ryan's comments above.
Is it possible to format a link so that it opens a pop-up window, so that when you leave that window you are back where you started from? • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 18:08, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
The arguments have been repeated ad nauseum, but I'll go for it again ;) Numbers 1 and 2 are the most important reasons.
  1. Allowing links to Wikipedia encourages lazy editing—why write about something when you can just link to a more complete article? This isn't a hypothetical reason, it's something we already have seen for years and years (and doesn't just apply to links to Wikipedia).
  2. Using links to send readers elsewhere means they might... seek their information elsewhere. Probably our single biggest issue right now is exposure and readership, so this is a real issue.
  3. We already link to Wikipedia from every article. Putting links into listings and prose would mean links numbering 50+ to one website in some articles. That seems like overkill.
  4. Wikipedia is a top 5 search result for most search terms, and certainly for the sorts of search terms we would be linking. Readers don't need our help finding that content (they need help finding our own).
The common counter-arguments are: 1) This is true of other external links, which we do allow. 2) Ditto. 3) Who cares, people want them, and what is overkill anyway. 4) We shouldn't force people to do a search for sister project content.
And the counter-counter arguments are: 1) Primary source external links are a necessary evil, for checking whether our guides up-to-date. 2) Ditto. 3) Subjective judgments are a fact of life, and disagreement about what is overkill does not invalidate the justness of opinions. 4) It's not onerous to enter a search term to the bar at the top of your web browser. If users have some sort of problem with using search engines, they can navigate via the existing WP link.
These arguments continue in a circle, crowding project talk pages ;)
Lastly, and this is kind of tangential, but Wikipedia seems like less of an issue, since we already link to them from all articles. What is an issue is that we're not linking to other sister projects, because we need a Bugzilla request to get them linkable from "Related sites." Wikibooks for phrasebooks, and Wikinews for countries and major cities really should be linked as a rule. Those sites, unlike Wikipedia, would benefit from our help, too. --Peter Talk 18:49, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
There's a simple reason why I'm all in favour of selected (!) inline links to Wikipedia: they're a huge advantage for travellers. It's not at all about competition or about what WP does or doesn't do in return. It's about us creating the best possible guides, which can compete with other sites. Being able to use the huge information resources of our sister profits is a major asset, which we're just not exploiting at all. As much as I like WV and enjoy editing it, I can never use it as a standalone guide. It just lacks the detailed information I want: e.g. I want to know about the history behind those great buildings in old European capitals when I look at them. Paper guides can never have all that information as they're limited in size. No size limit is a fabulous advantage we have over them. Sure, we have to limit the information per attraction in order to keep our city articles comprehensive. And arguably we're not an encyclopedia and we don't want a separate article with background information on, say, a cathedral. But I've never understood why we won't make all that useful info just an easy click away. I'm well able to use a search engine, but I find it frustrating and silly that I have to for almost every attraction I want to see, when it could be so easy. The existing wp link is not convenient at all (if you find it in the first place): if I want to read more about a particular sight in London, the link to the full wp article is just not handy. Lazy editing can be mostly prevented by having strict rules on which and when such links are allowed. And as for readership: I think it will help as it makes us more attractive. Wikipedia and Wikivoyage complement each other. We have no reason to be afraid of losing readers: virtually all know and use our big sister site already. Yet on WP, you will not find the practical information we have on hotels, restaurants, money exchange etc. I think both sites make an excellent team and as far as I'm concerned, this discussion may crowd as many talk pages as it takes ;-) JuliasTravels (talk) 21:38, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
Exactly. I rarely use Wikivoyage, as most articles I find here are pitful shadows of what I can get on Wikipedia. Yes, occasionally Wikivoyage will have some useful practical info, but that's rare enough that I stopped bothering with the old Wikitravel years ago. From my (mostly end user here) perspective, not much has changed. Worrying about siphoning editors away to Wikipedia is reasonable, but the sad truth that many may not want to hear is - it will happen/is happening anyway, because Wikiepdia is bigger, and in the wiki world that means, as annoying as it may be, better. This is why the closer integration is the savior: use Wikipedia to improve Wikitravel. Steal from it left and right, integrate with it, and this will result in Wikivoyage growing. Don't ever try to duplicate Wikipedia contents. "History of" is a great example: there should be no (poorly written, unreferenced, underlinked, short) history of sections here; they should all direct readers to Wikipedia. There should be a tool (bot? some kind of interwiki transclution template?) that would dynamically import those section from Wikipedia, or perhaps just the leads of the those articles or sections. This would instantly prettify Wikivoyage, leaving editors to focus on the "traveler" angle - sections on lodgings, restaurants, tourist attractions, and so on. Denying that Wikipedia does certain things better is counterproductive, and smells to me like some interwiki rivalry, with some people refusing to admit there's a bigger wiki out there covering some related topics much better. Get over it and use it to your advantage, rather than trying to deny reality. Wikivoyage should use the big brother Wikipedia to lift itself up and then try to surpass it.--Piotrus (talk) 22:21, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

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Is there any accommodation that could be made to those who would like to see Wikipedia links implemented as a resource here? As Peter noted, the discussion continues to move in circles, but if we truly work by consensus then this discussion needs to try to find a solution that addresses both of the opinions represented. The original proposal of limiting Wikipedia links to usage only in listings would have been a compromise between those calling for no additional links and those calling for no restrictions on links. Is there some further limit that might be acceptable? -- Ryan • (talk) • 22:24, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

We already have Wikipedia links implemented as a resource here. What some people want is more Wikipedia links. But the more links we have, the more opportunities we give readers to stop reading our travel guides. I can't countenance that. Do any other travel guides link to encyclopedias? LtPowers (talk) 01:04, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm still kind of undecided on this question. The argument that linking to Wikipedia can give Wikivoyage a competitive advantage seems strong to me. But the thing is, the current limitation - that all links to Wikipedia have to be on the same subject as the article itself, and placed at the end of the article - is clear and easy to patrol. I doubt that mandating the inclusion of Wikipedia links in entries but not inline in explanatory text would be clearly logical or easy to patrol. For example, in an article about a park, why would inline links to Wikipedia articles about various types of more or less unusual plants and animals be excluded, whereas a Wikipedia link to an article about the park itself - probably unnecessary because the official link would often be sufficient - would be acceptable? It seems to me, if we change our policies, we should throw Wikipedia links wide open and not make an illogical compromise. As for history sections, Piotrus' point is probably a good one, but I feel like we should argue about this in another thread, because unless we can agree to sanction more Wikipedia links, we certainly won't agree to delete all "history" sections. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:05, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
Size matters, and Wikipedia does some things better. Some editors and users will prefer a niche wiki. That's why we're here. However, if we have poor content, our real aim should be to improve it. If we have a poorly worded section, we need to fix it - not abandon it. I'd also dispute (for all its references) that WP on the whole is more reliable than WV. I think many overestimate how little value secondary references themselves really add. The real key is editors that are committed to accuracy. I don't think interpolating WP content would give us a better or more reliable travel guide.
Secondly, in terms of links to WP, I've seen times when think it would be useful. Where describing something in WV inline distracts from the travel prose. Some lists on WP make sense to link to - I really don't think we need Big things in Australia to reproduce w:Australia's big things. I think we should permit considered links where coverage of the topic in WV is necessarily encyclopaedic. However, I can't say I agree with links to every attraction for more information on it. We just link farming then.
If I take Ikan Kekek's example about a Botanic Garden. I really don't think we need an link from the Botanic Garden's article in WV to WP. It is significant enough to cover ourselves from a traveller's perspective. I think all attractions should be covered fully here. However, if we start taking about a particular species in a Botanic Garden, or particular relic in a museum, then WP comes into its own. --Inas (talk) 03:56, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
Inas, your remark makes a lot of sense. But how can we propose a reasonably enforceable policy based on it? Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:07, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
Well, a good first step would be to make sure we are on the same page w/regards to what we are talking about. Let's create a few draft of a selected, short page (Katowice?) with various ways that links to Wikipedia would be handled. Then people can comment about which is the best, while actually seeing what we mean, rather than thinking they do, where they can in fact be confused about something. Next, once we settle on representative examples, we can have a wider community discussion, advertised in the pub and elsewhere where appropriate. Finally, once we select the most popular version, we will adjust the rules to reflect the (new?) best practices. --Piotrus (talk) 13:30, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
Inas, we need Big things in Australia because the WP article doesn't link to our articles; it only links to WP articles about those locations. Our article links to our travel guides, which is the whole point. LtPowers (talk) 14:49, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
(ec)Piotrus,That would be a reasonable approach. Do you intend to use the actual article or to create a user space copy for the demo?• • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 14:54, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
I do not really even think we are at a point where it would be reasonable to start experimenting in an article, though of course you are welcome to do so in a user-space copy. I find it exceedingly unlikely that seeing how it works in one article or even 5 or 10 will produce any logical, patrollable set of criteria that would avoid turning us into a meta-directory of Wikipedia. All the potential types of links have been discussed in much greater detail elsewhere, and I don't think anyone so far has even managed to get close to any solution which is both logical and enforceable. Like some other users, I am pretty much deadset against the whole idea of allowing more links to WP. We are a travel guide, and I don't feel even a little bit bad that we cannot be a complete source for any additional detailed reading a traveller might want to do about history or botany or local biographies. Those things, like many many others, are outside of our scope, and we have zero, zero obligation to pepper our site with links to a million different out-of-scope things a reader may potentially feel like reading intimate details about. Out of scope is out of scope. If you want a jumping off point full of links which will lead you to other travel-related pages on WV, start here. If you want a jumping off point which will lead you to tons of pages with encyclopedic detail, click on the link in the sidebar to the corresponding WP article, and find all the WP links you could hope for. Texugo (talk) 15:39, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

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The history of a place is very much within scope as it may be the only thing that makes a place interesting enough to merit a visit. We just include less detail in a city-level WV page than in WP, where individual landmarks like w:Louvre or w:Eiffel Tower have a page each to give their history (or the content of a museum or cultural venue) in rich detail. What's here is a summary and an overview; it's enough that someone carrying a printed copy of Paris and its arrondissements (districts) from WV could find their way around but is not a replacement for the full encyclopaedic description. We're not here to duplicate WP. If something is on-topic but too much detail for our purposes, we include a brief summary in the listing; a link would allow the traveller to find the rest of the info if desired.
As for Big things in Australia? I have no idea why this was tagged "usable", there isn't enough info here to explain how to visit these places or why... and that's an issue which has nothing to do with Wikipedia. K7L (talk) 16:42, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
But that's just it -- most travelers don't need a "full encyclopaedic description"; if they did, we'd include it, because we aim to be self-contained. Those travelers that do want the gory details already have a plethora of ways to find them. LtPowers (talk) 17:04, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
Exactly. To the extent that history is within scope, we want it here. To the extent that is it not within scope, the WP article we already link to is a far more appropriate starting place for random detailed reading. There are just too many possible things someone might want to read about for us to try to be an index for everything.
And incidentally, I don't think any new points have been made on either side here that haven't already been discussed more than once. Nothing new under the sun. Texugo (talk) 17:21, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
<rant> As these repeated discussions make clear, there is a large contingent of people that think making detailed information (that is out of scope for Wikivoyage) one click away would vastly improve our guides. However, despite efforts to find a solution that works for everyone, the answer continues to be "most travelers don't need that" or "I am deadset against that". Proposals have been made that would be very clearcut about when such links are OK, and would be easy to patrol (add a "wp" attribute to Template:Listing - clearcut usage, simple to patrol), but despite efforts to accommodate concerns the response continues to be a "no" rather than any attempt to find a compromise solution. I get that people are concerned about having links leading away from Wikivoyage or of having people use Wikipedia links in lieu of adding content, and I'd like to find ways to address those concerns. What I'd appreciate in return is some indication that those arguing against this proposal recognize that just saying "no" is completely dismissive of the opinions of those making this proposal. If we truly work by consensus, we need to shift the discussion to "I understand your concerns, here are mine, now let's try to find a way to address both". </rant> -- Ryan • (talk) • 17:48, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure it works like that. We have people who want no WP links and people who want some WP links. There is no halfway compromise between "none" and "some". Either we have none, or we have some. So far we have none. And status quo bias is going to keep it that way unless everyone can agree on a plan. And the problem with your "clearcut, simple to patrol" proposal is that it provides a completely arbitrary criteria for what can be linked to and what cannot, where you can link to an article about Mozart's house but not Mozart himself, a pharaoh's tomb but not the pharaoh, Graceland but not Elvis. I would indeed be willing to compromise and discuss more if I see a proposal that sharply limits potential links in a patrollable way yet still has a traveller-based logic behind what is allowed and what is not. But everything that has been thrown out there so far seems to draw lines quite randomly, and I'm not really willing to work with that. Texugo (talk) 18:09, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
If there really is no possible compromise then our consensus building process has broken down and this is something that should go to a vote to get a sense of how much support there would be for a change, but it would be far better if we could attempt to find a middle ground. As to the point of allowing Wikipedia links in listings but not in prose, I don't think it's any more arbitrary than the current external link policy. If someone can propose a guideline that would provide clear limits on Wikipedia links in prose then that should be considered, but I'm not aware of any such proposal. We do, however, have a very clear-cut proposal for adding Wikipedia links to listings. -- Ryan • (talk) • 18:42, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
I don't think pointing out that there is no such thing as halfway between zero and non-zero means our process has broken down. It just means that it will remain zero until consensus supports having non-zero. And I'm not sure if you got my point, but I'm saying that allowing WP link in listings and not prose is in itself quite arbitrary and I think, in many cases, exactly where they are needed least. Texugo (talk) 18:55, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
I think I'm with Texugo on this, in that listings commonly are linked to primary sources that have information about them, whereas a rare plant or historically important person has no obvious primary link, and a link to a good Wikipedia article about them could be helpful to a traveler who wants to read more background. So I'd be more supportive of a coherent, patrollable policy that allows WP links to subjects other than listings than one restricted to listings. But the challenge, as Texugo lays it out, is to propose a coherent, patrollable policy that has logical limitations. I don't see where restricting WP links to listings is logical, and I'd be hard-pressed to explain to an editor why it makes sense for him/her to be denied the right to add helpful explanatory inline links when a totally unnecessary WP link to an article about the Louvre would be allowed. I think it's incumbent upon the advocates of more links to WP to give a clear proposal and a clear justification for it, and so far, the only logical and clearly patrollable proposals I've seen are to keep the status quo or throw open the floodgates. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:00, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for expressing that more eloquently. Texugo (talk) 19:05, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
Ryan, we've already polled, and opinion was effectively split. It's at Wikivoyage talk:Listings#Ongoing feedback (granted, it addressed only the proposal to add WP links to listings). What would more polling do? LtPowers (talk) 19:20, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
To Ryan's rant, I don't think it's fair to say that opponents of having more links to Wikipedia (per article) have not advanced arguments for why they/we think the proposal is a bad idea. I see valid concerns on both sides of the debate, and personally find the "no" side more compelling. Wikivoyage:Consensus#Status-quo bias acknowledges that this happens (it can happen often in cases like this when the change would have both positive and negative effects), and that our time is better served by a collective shrugging of the shoulders and moving on to something else that is unambiguously good for our guides. Since we've been improving our site's policies, features, and design by pretty huge leaps and bounds throughout this year, I don't think we've been poorly served by that policy. --Peter Talk 22:06, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm inclined to agree with Peter. I'd point out there are many arguments being made here in favour of WP links that have been made in the External Links arguments over the years. I don't think anyone thinks we have that balance exactly right. We omit really good reading and links just because we have to draw a line.
However, pushing my point a bit further, does anyone think, for example in the Isreal article, that a WP link to w:Six Day War is inappropriate inline? We obviously don't want to discuss the details of that conflict here. But we do find it significant enough to mention in our article. However, a significant percentage wouldn't know enough to understand what we mean? --Inas (talk) 23:10, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
You've given another good example, Inas. But it's much less difficult to give good examples of where Wikipedia (or Wiktionary, etc.) links could help most than to design a policy that does something other than allow no links, a single link (as at present), or however many links people want to introduce. If the new policy proposal will leave decisions on whether links are helpful (and therefore used/allowed) or unneeded (and therefore not inserted/deleted) to the judgment of whomever is patrolling edits, the results will be bad. So if someone could please propose a draft policy that could allow just those links that are most helpful to our readers, that would be great. I don't think I can, but clearly, the things we'd want to allow links to, if we aren't going to either maintain the status quo or throw open the floodgates are: (1) those that are not otherwise covered in primary external links that already are or should be in the article (2) nor are they suitable for explaining in detail in a Wikivoyage article. That would _exclude_ any links to Wikipedia articles about listings such as the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and other sights that are covered quite adequately in their own websites. It would _include_ links to articles about specific dynasties, historical events, artists (e.g., Simone Martini would be linked in the "Understand" section of the Siena article), and unusual plants. I'm not confident my proposal is sufficiently clear to be advanced as a draft new policy. Is anyone, or would anyone like to try to formulate this into a coherent, reasonably enforceable policy? Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:50, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
I forgot in my list of five reasons one of the more important objections, and it relates to this point: having in-line wikilinks to a different wiki is confusing site design. So yes, it would be helpful (more to a curious reader than an actual traveler...) to have a link to w:Six Day War. But if we universalize that rule, even with the sorts of stipulations Ikan Kekek suggests, having in-line encyclopedia article links to a site that looks so similar to our own would really muddle site navigation. People expect in-line links to take them around one wiki, not bounce them to a much bigger project from which they may not come back. Icon links, as suggested elsewhere, help with this at least a bit, but I'm still quite concerned about creating more and more ways to send readers away from our site for information. --Peter Talk 06:10, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
About that old poll: I don't think it was well advertised. Talk page polls are not that representative, for important issue, they should be widely advertised. A side notice wouldn't be amiss, but at least - advertise it in the pub and at the community's portal. --Piotrus (talk) 10:09, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

I really don't agree it's of more use to a random curious reader than a traveller. For random readers, WP will always be the better place, as it has all the interesting info without the listings and time schedules. Perhaps I have a different way of travelling, but reading up on the places I'm in or on my way to is a key element in my travels as it gives so much more depth to the experience. Of course I don't do any of that either when I'm on a beach or hiking in a forest, but I spend huge parts of my time visiting national or world heritage sites, discovering towns and cultural attractions and so on. For me it's massively interesting to have that info available in a travel guide. I'm still not convinced the readership concerns are correct, but isn't there any way we could test if people really navigate away, more than we would gain users? Just for the sake of discussion, in a world where we wouldn't be restricted by Mediawiki software options, would more creative linking take away some of those concerns? I'm thinking for example of review sites I use. They have links to the e.g. restaurants' own websites, but those are opened more or less within the overall review site frame. There remains a header of the review site on the top, saying "want to go back to X?" making navigation back very easy. [5] If navigation away is really a problem (also for normal external links) something like that might be a good solution, although perhaps hard to realize (I don't know). JuliasTravels (talk) 11:13, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Julias: I suspect you and I have somewhat similar ways of thinking about travel. One of the best travel guides I ever used was the Guida Toscana of the Touring Club Italiano, which had descriptions of every building on every street of every town and went into exhaustive specifics on every chapel of every church and every artwork in every museum. It was what we would consider "encyclopedic" here, but it was a travel guide and very useful as one, though without any listings for hotels or restaurants (though it had very good general information about the cuisine of each area, as cooking is considered an art in Italy, just as intarsial woodwork, painting, sculpture, and architecture are). We have chosen not to be that kind of guide, but I definitely agree that there are travellers, not just readers, who will for example want to know something about Rembrandt, Cuyp, Vermeer, Hals, and van Gogh before they go to the Rijskmuseum in Amsterdam. And if we choose not to cover these artists in detail in our guide, we could help travellers who want to educate themselves by linking to some good site that tells them something about these artists. Or we could choose to let them do their own searching, figuring that it's a wide web with room for 100 flowers or something like that. :-) Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:17, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
I'll try to refrain from commenting after this, but I wanted to voice my agreement for what JuliasTravels says above about wanting to know a great deal of detail about some of the places I visit. When I read an article like the Chicago skyline guide or Washington, D.C./National Mall I want an overview of all the buildings and monuments from Wikivoyage to help me plan my trip, but I also want an easy way to read more than just a 3-5 sentence overview of the history and background of the places that the Wikivoyage article helps me to choose to visit. Yes, I could do a Google search, a Wikipedia search, or hope that the primary URL (if there is one) for a listing isn't just a marketing brochure, but a small icon would provide a hugely useful shortcut that instantly alerts me to the fact that a place is notable enough to warrant a Wikipedia article, and more importantly that a non-marketing, encyclopaediac article is available to provide the deeper level of detail that I want (even if some fraction of those articles are less than complete, as LtPowers notes above). While I also agree with Ikan and others that having a limited number of curated Wikipedia links in prose could be valuable, currently we don't have any viable proposal to make that happen, but we do have a proposal (Wikivoyage talk:Listings#Format) that I can very emphatically say would make Wikivoyage a vastly better and more useful travel guide for me, and apparently for others who have suggested allowing such a feature. -- Ryan • (talk) • 03:55, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
I think another proposal is possible: Allow a larger number of Wikipedia (Wiktionary, etc.) links as "related articles" on the left marginal menu, so that there would be the usual same-subject link, but also other-subject links for, say, relevant plants and animals, types of terrain, unusual games, important details of history that don't bear covering in great detail on this site, artists, etc. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:01, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
One possibility would be a box like w:template:sister project links but with multiple related articles, which would be designed to fit in the "understand" section (as there is no section "external links" in the WV article template). K7L (talk) 14:05, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
I think I like my idea better, which is that other-subject links would go at the end of the article, after links to same-subject content in Wikipedia, Commons, etc. - they wouldn't show up as an "external links" section, but as a series of links in the left-margin menu. To show you what I have in mind: [[Wikipedia:Rafflesia]] could appear as an other-subject link in an article that covers a destination with a botanic garden featuring that flower. Is my new proposal clear? I think it addresses both travellers' desire to do more relevant research for their trip and the concern that overly prominent links to other websites will cause readers to leave this site while they're in the middle of a sentence. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:13, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
It is somewhat intriguing, but I still don't think it would have a patrollable way to keep it from becoming a jumbled list of 75 Wikipedia links. Would we be limiting such sidebar link sections to 7+-2? Texugo (talk) 19:23, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
Great idea, Texugo. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:26, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
Or maybe the other-subject links could themselves be limited to 9, with the same-subject links excluded from the count. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:28, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm having trouble seeing how useful and patrollable this would be. Would we (for example) be linking to w:George Washington, w:United States Capitol w:History of Washington, D.C. and w:Federal government of the United States from Washington, D.C./National Mall, but excluding links to things like the Smithsonian, Lincoln Memorial, etc in order to stay within a 5-9 item limit? -- Ryan • (talk) • 19:32, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
I see your point. So, how many links can the left-hand margin menu hold? If we know the answer to that, we can limit the total number of end-of-article links to that number. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:29, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
Side point: Given that listings like Smithsonian and Lincoln Memorial have primary links, they're probably exactly the kinds of topics that need a Wikipedia link least, if at all. I would support a policy of excluding Wikipedia links to listings with good primary links already in use or available for insertion. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:32, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
I don't agree with this. I think the Smithsonian and the Hermitage and similar would make perfect itineraries, and there is no limit to the quality of the guide we could one day make for them. I see any links we would want to make being necessarily encyclopaedic. Not just linking because they happen to have better information then we do right now. --Inas (talk) 22:56, 31 July 2013 (UTC)<
I would like to clear up a point here. At present we do not allow articles on attractions. You are suggesting itineraries covering a single institution where you cannot sleep, which are in essence, articles on attractions. Or am I missing something here? • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 05:33, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
Our structure is geography based, supplimented by travel topics and itineraries where they are appropriate. We have no limit to how much information we can include as long as we remain travel focussed. You've made articles about reefs, and they fit within the guide. As would a museum guide to St Petersburg or D.C fit quite nicely within our guide. My point is that its okay to send people off to Wikipedia for encyclopaedic information. If we send them there for travel attraction guides, then we're doing our job wrong. --Inas (talk) 05:58, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
So these articles on attractions would be travel topics? I just want to clarify terminology here, I am not by any means opposed to them in principle, and agree with your point about sending people to WP for encyclopaedic information but not for travel information. The trick is to know where to draw the line, as it is often not clear. In reality there is a continuum of information between encyclopaedic and travel related, and the question arises of whose turf is the grey area. I would prefer to see a slight overlap than a huge gap. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 12:29, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
I think you may have misunderstood me. My suggestion is that we should continue to prohibit Wikipedia links to articles about sights like the Smithsonian and Hermitage for which primary links are perfectly adequate, but to include Wikipedia links for purely encyclopedic subjects like detailed explanations of particular articles of clothing (shalwar kameez was given as an example in a previous discussion), flowers (e.g., Rafflesia), artists (e.g., Duccio, Hals), important historical events or entities we wouldn't cover encyclopedically (e.g., Tang Dynasty, Gandhara), etc. - all background information we consider beyond our scope. If you'd like to exclude all non-primary links describing sights, on the basis you lay out above, I have no strong objection. But surely, we are never going to cover the kinds of things I've laid out in this reply (nor George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Chiang Kai-Shek, etc.) in any great detail, and a "see also" list that's unobtrusive and stays in the left margin is a helpful, friendly thing to provide to our readers. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:18, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I did misunderstand you, and I do agree. --Inas (talk) 00:28, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

New proposal: Encyclopedic other-subject links in sidebar[edit]

I want to lay out the proposal I started discussing above clearly, so as to solicit more discussion:

1. Wikipedia and other non-primary links to articles about listed items (museums, monuments, houses of worship, etc.) would continue to be prohibited.

2. Links to encyclopedic or definitional articles about background information topics not appropriate for extensive coverage on Wikivoyage could be linked in the sidebar after same-subject links.

3. The number of permissible links would be limited to the maximum number that can be retained by the sidebar on a single viewing screen, at most, and is otherwise up for discussion.

Rationales:

A. Links in the sidebar do not interrupt anyone's reading, thereby seemingly obviating the risk (or at least most of the risk) of people going to another site in mid-sentence and never coming back. However, they do provide a useful service for readers who want to do more background research for their trips than we've considered appropriate to include in the texts of our pages.

B. The types of topics I'm suggesting links to are neither about destinations nor about listed items, and are restricted to content that will never be treated in detail here, because of the very nature of this site as we understand and have developed it.

Discussion:

Several of us have given examples above of the types of topics we would want to include as other-subject links, but basically, they could include locally prominent articles of clothing; locally important artists; historical entities, periods, and personages; and otherwise unusual local flora or fauna.

I would propose that the number of permissible other-subject links be greater than 9, because: (1) links in the sidebar are unobtrusive and are simply there for whomever wants to use them; (2) it is easily foreseeable that some articles could use more than 9 other-topic links. I'm unsure whether a hard limit needs to be set, but if it does, I'm thinking of an upper limit in the 15-20 article range for articles that can really use a lot of background information (like maybe those about India and Italy, countries with particularly long histories of civilization and very rich cultural heritage).

Your thoughts, everyone? Is this a good idea, and do you find it workable, patrollable and satisfying? Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:44, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

  • Which viewing screen would be the measure of number of links? A large high resolution desktop screen — or a phone?
  • How will the average user know to look in the sidebar for a link to a specific item seen in the text? Will it be tagged in some way to identify it as listed in the sidebar? In that case how is it significantly different from directly linking from the text other than being considerably less convenient? If not, how should the reader guess to look in the sidebar?
  • We allow a primary link no matter how poor in quality and useless as a guide it may be. We prohibit a secondary link, no matter how useful and high quality it may be. This speaks for itself. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 05:58, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
Some replies: (1) Desktop computers are clearly on the way out, so though I still edit from one and usually use one to view this site, our standard should be either a laptop or a smart phone, and probably a smart phone. (2A) The average new user may not immediately know the links are there, just as the average new user may not currently know to look on the sidebar for same-subject Wikipedia and Commons links, nor a whole host of other things - this site has a learning curve (which may be worth discussing elsewhere). (2B) I would not suggest a special tag, as the currently-used "Related sites" is quite sufficient. And please note that the whole point of putting the links in the sidebar is to trade off the greater convenience for the reader of having inline links with the concern you and others have that the ease of clicking a link to another site in the middle of a sentence risks hemorrhaging readership from this site. You can't have it both ways: Either we put the highest possible premium on readers' convenience and allow inline links in text but risk being overwhelmed with scads of inline links to Wikipedia and Wiktionary, or we put several links on the sidebar, so that they're there for our readers' reference and relative convenience but don't interrupt or distract the reader from the text while they are reading. I disagree if you're suggesting that's not significantly different from inline links. (3) I'm not sure it speaks for itself, and it's actually not true: We do allow one link per article to Wikipedia, Commons, and DMOZ - all in the sidebar. All that's at issue here is whether it would be a good or a bad thing to allow some other-subject but nevertheless instructive links to also be in the sidebar, to take greater advantage of our being part of the Wikimedia family and assist travellers in planning and getting the most out of their trips. I think it would be, and I believe that my proposal is the least radical way to give our readers the greatest amount of help. I oppose the addition of Wikipedia links only to listings, where they can do the least help and have the potential of hurting the relevance of this site by setting up Wikipedia, rather than primary links, as the go-to authority on sights. It seems to me that my proposal takes greatest advantage of the complementarity of sister sites by focusing only on relevant background topics we would never cover in detail here. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:43, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Whether desktops are on the way out in general isn't particularly relevant, as no-one travels with them anyway, so I agree with you entirely on that point, but there isn't much sidebar on a phone if limited to one screen.
  • I wonder how many casual users make it half-way up the learning curve. I think we should be trying to make that curve shorter and flatter by making things as obvious as possible.
  • I don't have a smartphone so I don't know how the site looks on one, so when I mention them it is from a position of not being able to make a recommendation, and wanting to be sure their particular problems have not been overlooked.
  • I am one of the people who would like to have more links to Wikipedia for encyloaedic material whic is not appropriate for WV, but would also like them to be in the most useful place. If you are reading about say Rafflesia, to use that example again, how will you guess that it is linked from the sidebar? Particularly if the sidebar is not visible at the time?
  • I don't see a significant difference to leaving WV through a sidebar link or an in line link. Maybe there is and I haven't noticed, If so, enlighten me.
  • I take your point about the single links in the sidebar. My point is about links from listings. I think our policies are a bit internally contradictory, which makes them contentious when people choose to interpret them in different ways.
  • I don't see that we would be hemorrhaging more readers from the site by providing links to Wikipedia than by making it necessary for readers to google something they need to look up. A link to WP is returned by a single click on the previous arrow, or if you open in a new tab, by simply closing the tab, which is to me the better way to go. Ie: Click on the link to open WP in a new tab, read what you need to know, and close the tab. You return to exactly where you were in WV. You don't even lose your place in the text. I think we should be looking at how best to bring the user back to the link in WV which took him or her out. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 12:15, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
I actually don't have a problem with inline links to encyclopedic or definitional information on sister sites, but though I may be wrong, I think there is probably a psychological difference between inline links and links in other places - whether a "links" section at the bottom of the page (which we've deprecated and probably don't want to revive by any name) or the sidebar. It certainly is less convenient for readers, though, and if we could get a consensus behind inline links to this kind of background information, I would certainly support them. The new policy would in any case have to clearly spell out that links cannot be to non-primary sources on listings or destinations, only background material.
I don't have a smartphone, either (though I used a loaner Iphone 3 while in Europe this summer), so someone else would have to inform us how many links can fit on a smartphone screen. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:15, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
I don't like this; I'll propose an alternate proposal below. --Piotrus (talk) 08:58, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

New proposal: Encyclopedic other-subject links inline[edit]

See User:Piotrus/Bangok for a draft example.

Ok, here's how I'd like this to work:

  • whenever a Wikivoyage-only-related topic is mentioned, upon the first mention, it is linked to Wikivoyage only
  • whenever a Wikipedia-only-related topic (ex. a biography) is mentioned, upon the first mention, it is linked to Wikipedia only
  • whenever a topic of relevance to both Wikivoyage and Wikipedia is mentioned, upon the first mention, it is linked to both sites

Example: this sentence is adopted from our article on Katowice. It current does not have any links. I think it should look as follows (note: I work under the assumptions that all buildings and monuments are worthy of an entry on Wikivoyage):

"The next industrial site was the Baildon steelworks (Baildon steelworks at Wikipedia) founded in 1828 (named after their founder, John Baildon (John Baildon at Wikipedia) a Scotsman)."

Rationale:

  • per w:WP:RED, red links are good as they encourage readers to create articles. We want readers to create articles at Wikitravel, so we should make sure we have red links and (if we haven't already) adopt WP:RED for WV.
  • whether we have an article or not (and you know the likely answer to this...), Wikipedia usually does, and one that is is likely larger, more referenced, and with a somewhat different purpose as ours. In other words, it is highly complimentary, and useful to may travellers. Making it easy for them to find them is IMHO a no brainer, putting aside some people's weird hatred/envy of Wikipedia (yeah, it's bigger and more successful - get over it and use it for WV benefit).
  • to avoid confusion which link points to where, I suggest using superscript to clearly mark Wikipedia entries. This ensures readers will not navigate to Wikipedia by accident, and will only go there if they want to. Superscript is also smaller, thus diminishing the "visibility" of those links. In fact I'd like us to have some scripted feature, where the still lengthy in the above example Wikipedia links would be collapsed to a single word of perhaps a symbol. Imagine something like Baildon steelworksWikipedia-logo-v2.svg , with the Wikipedia picture linking to the article. In an even more elaborate and cool version, imagine a symbol that would give options to access pages on other sister project, Wikimedia commons being most useful (thus the traveler could quickly go to the relevant gallery, instead of having to visit flickr/picassa or such). Perhaps it could even link to a map, if the target article has GPS coordinates (i.e direct the reader to https://tools.wmflabs.org/geohack/geohack.php). (So, our Baildon Steelworks example would also give a 2-click links to commons:Baildon Steelwork and [6]). Now, personally, I think this would be a very useful feature, greatly improving WV usefulness: when you read WV articles, you can with two clicks access encyclopedic entries/image galleries/maps for most items mentioned.--Piotrus (talk) 09:35, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
I hope you are wearing your flame suit, because I think this is going to get some incandescent responses.
Some time back I suggested a very similar concept, using [WP] for the link. It was rejected by enough people that a consensus was not possible at the time. (see "#Initial discussion" at the top of this page and several sections following.)
Some of our community do not take kindly to references to Wikipedia policies, on the not entirely unreasonable grounds that this is not Wikipedia. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 11:52, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
A truly great plan by a great visionary. Just to see what it will look like, I have made a start here and implemented the suggested changes in the Bangkok article. A monumental improvement to this site. If only Wikipedia would follow and add similar links to Wikivoyage... Globe-trotter (talk) 13:14, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
Very funny. That would be regarding as over-linking on Wikipedia and would be reverted. --Traveler100 (talk) 14:44, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia does not have any external links inside the main article. A logical and good decision. Globe-trotter (talk) 14:58, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
Modifying the above to remove POINTless straw men argument, here's how it should look like, once overlinking is taken into account, and a prettier markup is used: User:Piotrus/Bangok.--Piotrus (talk) 09:19, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
Although I am in favour of allowing in-line links to Wikipedia in principle and where they are genuinely useful, those WP-globe icons are too obtrusive by far. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 13:14, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
So what would be less intrusive yet still visible? --Piotrus (talk) 09:35, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
On Chrome the WP Icons are quite large and, to me, very intrusive. They stand out very strongly against the text and disturb the flow of reading. I would not consider anything that disturbs the flow of reading even more than a regular blue link to be an improvement. The best offer I have made for relatively unobtrusive, yet intelligible link is a superscript like this[WP] or possible thisWP, Many people are used to reading with superscript footnote reference numbers, and they don't get in the way for us. There may be better methods, but I have not seen them yet. A logo of similar size toWP is not likely to be legible, but if you think it would be, lets see an example.• • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 10:50, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
I agree that the globes are much too large and obtrusive. Alas, at a smaller scale, they are also not intuitively indicative of Wikipedia for readers. I think we need to be very sparing in our introduction of Wikipedia links. In your Bangkok example, I think most of the links are not justified. This would be my absolute maximum for that example section: User:W._Frank/Bangkok on the basis that we do not yet have an article for the Chao Phraya River (and may never have) and that articles on King Rama I, Chakri dynasty and (แขวง khwaeng) are all either out of scope for this Travel Guide or are always going to be inferior to the encyclopaedic detail of our sister project.
There will always be editors here that vandalise articles by not putting the interests of travellers first in a mindless knee-jerk response of preserving orthodoxy. At the end of the day, no rules or policies that we can come up with can replace sound judgements for individual circumstances and articles, together with a continual asking of that most important question "What would be most helpful for travellers to read here?"
"Defiance of policy" may be a potential opportunity for our community to review the policy in question. Is our policy really the right way to serve travellers and make a good travel guide? Are exceptions to our current WP links policy ever justified?
Our current draft policy states: "As a general policy, we do not use in-line links for external sites when logically avoidable. All links to sites external to Wikivoyage must be instantly recognisable as such..." - surely this implies that exceptions are countenanced. Is it really so bad for the traveller to have a recognisable inline hyperlink to a Wikipedia article on HMS Bounty in our Pitcairn article when such an article would either be out of scope here or always inferior? --W. Franke-mailtalk 14:24, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

If you believe an exception is justified, it's incumbent on you to post to the talk page of the article in question and try to gain a consensus. Individual acts of defiance are never useful. You surely know this already from experience. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:27, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi Ikan Kekek, Your message above appears to respond to Frank's message of same date, but the indentation (or lack thereof) suggests otherwise. I respond on the assumption that it is a reply to Frank.
I think that your interpretation of policy on this point is excessively restrictive and contrary to the guiding principle of Plunge forward. Use of an external link following the policy quoted by Frank is not an "individual act of defiance", it is a personal judgement of the appropriateness of something which is implicitly allowed in exceptional cases. However if someone disagrees with the use of an inline link they can challenge it - either in a relatively friendly way on the talk page, or in an unfriendly way by reverting without discussion. At that time discussion may begin. It is more likely that an external link will be understood if there is a message on the talk page, but it is not obligatory. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 07:20, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
I disagree, Peter. After we've had this long discussion and it's obvious that there are strong objections to that kind of link (recall that I proposed just such kinds of links and was unambiguously shot down), posting it without discussion is not likely to be taken kindly. If people want to either change policies or create exceptions that are not reverted, persuasion through discussion is a more effective method than plunging forward, in full knowledge that you are acting in direct contradiction to the clearly-expressed and strong feelings of others who will not let your edit stand. As for the non-indentation, I was afraid the reply would get lost in the middle of the thread, otherwise. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:45, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I agree that it is obvious that there are strong objections, but that means that your links are more likely to be reverted with prejudice, not that you are obliged to explain them first. Probably more of a technical disagreement than a philosophical one. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 09:39, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
It sounds like you're actually agreeing with me. What was your point again? ;-) Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:30, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
I think Ikan was correct in this case - when a discussion is going on about a change, implementing that change despite strong objections is more like edit warring than plunging forward. -- Ryan • (talk) • 15:29, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
Oops, looks like I misread Frank's quote. Seem like it was from a draft policy not an agreed policy. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 16:32, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
I do not like this suggestion at all; it inserts far too much text and makes articles unreadable. To me, Globe-trotter's test page is a prime example, an appallingly unreadable mess & very clear demonstration of this point.
I do favour adding inline WP links, but keep it simple.
In general, we do not do articles on attractions, so in general they should not have WV links. The few exceptions (& we need clearly stated criteria here) can be handled in a number of ways:
If it is important enough, give it an article & link to that
Give it a section in the Katowice article and create a redirect at "Baildon steelworks" pointing to that
Create a redirect but point it to Katowice#See
As for WV links, I think we need them but their use should be limited and the display kept simple so as not to clutter up our articles.
I see no real problem with Baildon steelworks
Distinguishing WP links with Baildon steelworks(WP) or an icon would be better
The arrow indicating an external link must remain
Basic rule is keep it simple, especially visually for readers. Simple for editors is good too, but less important. Pashley (talk) 14:06, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
If it's important for travelers, it should be added here. If it's not important for travelers, it shouldn't be here and we also shouldn't link to it. I really don't understand why others would want to violate this principle. Globe-trotter (talk) 14:20, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
In general, yes, but there are places where links would be useful. For example, at Nanjing#See we have some explanation of what the local museums commemorate but many travellers will have no clue about the w:Taiping Rebellion and we do not want a long complex essay on that here (clutters our article, is a lot of work, we might not get it right & large parts would likely be copied from WP anyway) so a link is a reasonable solution. Pashley (talk) 14:45, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
(ec)Probably because there is some information which is useful and interesting to a traveller which would be considered too encylopaedic to include in Wikivoyage. I don't understand why others would want to violate this principle either. Perhaps you think that this travel guide should include everything which is useful and/or interesting to every conceivable traveller, but some of us don't. We don't all travel for the same reasons, so the information which I would find interesting and/or useful may differ from what you consider interesting or useful. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 14:51, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
We don't want long complex essays about the Taiping Rebellion because it's out of scope for a travel guide and irrelevant information for a traveler on the go. If travelers need more information about the rebellion in order to understand things they may encounter on their trip, it should already be included in the article itself, not linked to an external site. Globe-trotter (talk) 14:58, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
Sights are the least likely things to benefit from a Wikipedia link, as they can generally be linked to primary references. I'd much rather have Wikipedia or Wiktionary links to actual encyclopedic or definitional topics that would never be covered in detail on this site. I don't foresee this proposal being adopted any time soon and don't favor it, but I am having trouble understanding why a proposal for other-subject links wouldn't be accepted. And the obvious answer to your point, Globe-trotter, is that "out of scope" information is information we consider too detailed as background information, but that is still relevant and useful. And if you as a traveler on the go haven't read encyclopedic information about a particular artist or historical personage, that doesn't mean others like me haven't done so, for example on a long-distance train or a municipal bus. We are never going to include detailed information about Rafflesia, shalwar kameez, or any number of other background topics that are relevant to travelers' experiences in various places. Unobtrusive links to Wikipedia or Wiktionary coverage of such topics - and not of sights - is helpful to those travelers who want to read more. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:10, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
I don't think anyone is saying that there aren't topics on Wikipedia which are too detailed for us to cover here which might be interesting background a traveller might want to read, but as you can see from Globe-trotter's hilarious example above it can go overboard real quick, and even if we eliminated half of those links and turned the other half into tiny W icons, there would still be a shotgun blast's worth of wormholes in our text. The question is "should we attempt to be a meta-index for finding all those wikipedia articles directly from here?", to which my answer is no. We already have one link to the corresponding article on WP, and one click will take you to a far better jumping-off point for research, with links to far more interesting things than we could ever try to cram in here. If you click on the WP for Nanjing, you'll find a full history overview with links to articles about the Taiping Revolution and dozens of other related historical and cultural topics which may be of equal interest to the reader. Pretty much any background you could possibly want to read is already going to be linked from the corresponding WP page. I see no reason to clutter our text with all the same such links, repeatedly inviting the reader to leave us and start their background reading at any moment, in addition to other disadvantages mentioned such as confusing new readers and letting a wp link be a replacement for descriptions and information that we should really have here in the first place. I have not seen any convincing argument as to why the link we already have to the corresponding article on wikipedia is not enough and why that calls for us to install a zillion other passages to there. Texugo (talk) 15:36, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, he's shown how impractical and unwise this proposal is. My proposal is in the section above this one. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:10, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
(Response to Ikan) "Relevant and useful" is subjective, and you need to understand these terms in the logic of this project. All information in encyclopedias, dictionaries and atlases is useful by definition. Wikipedia is a fantastic project. But it is not useful for our target audience. If we exclude information as irrelevant background information, that means it's irrelevant for our target audience and thus we shouldn't link to it either.
Travelers come here specifically to read a travel guide. We should only assume they come here for the travel guide and not make any other assumptions about what other interests our readers may or may not have. Everyone is different and has different interests, we can't include links to every kind of site or reference work someone may be interested in. Some like to read background knowledge in Wikipedia, some like to look up the etymology of words in dictionaries, some like information that can be found in atlases. If they are interested in reading these, they will do so elsewhere. Globe-trotter (talk) 15:45, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
I admit your remarks have a logic to them, Globe-trotter. But there really is an issue here, which is that it makes a lot of sense to explain what a shalwar kameez is, what a Rafflesia is, etc., but any detailed explanation is routinely deleted from Wikivoyage as out of scope. So is it really a problem to at least have a few other-subject links in the sidebar? Or, conversely, should we be a little more flexible in allowing a greater amount of background information into articles where it is really useful? I would like to see the opponents of any and all additional links ever to acknowledge that there is an issue here, and moreover, that it's a recurrent issue in some Wikivoyage articles. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:04, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I'm in favor of some inline Wikipedia links only if we can come up with very clear guidelines that make it obvious when a Wikipedia link is and is not appropriate, otherwise our articles would slowly turn into Globe-trotter's example above. Unfortunately we don't have a viable proposal for making that happen, although I would suggest that one criteria be that a Wikipedia link only be allowed for subjects that already have 2-3 sentences of description in Wikivoyage. If "Rafflesia" is important enough to link to Wikipedia, then it is important enough to get 2-3 sentences of description here. While detailed information on non-travel subjects is clearly out of scope for us (per Wikivoyage:What is an article and Wikivoyage:Goals and non-goals), I strongly disagree that it is "irrelevant information for a traveler on the go" - providing significant detail on the history, architecture, wildlife, geography, etc for places is important for a huge number (if not majority) of travelers, and I think we fail as a travel reference when we explicitly disallow a greater level of detail and can only suggest "use Google" for those who want more, particularly when we could easily provide an inconspicuous Wikipedia link.
To Ikan's point that "sights are the least likely things to benefit from a Wikipedia link", I actually disagree 100% - historical sights, monuments, etc rarely have a primary link, and those that do seldom present the type of information present in a Wikipedia article. Consider Manhattan/Midtown#Architecture - per our manual of style we provide a 3-5 sentence overview about the Chrysler Building. As far as I can tell the primary URL would be [7], which has some bullet point history and information about leasing. Meanwhile w:Chrysler Building has details about construction, architecture, awards, etc (all of which I would want to know when visiting). Unless we want to discuss changes to the MoS or increasing the scope of Wikivoyage, the info in the Wikipedia article doesn't belong in Wikivoyage, but if we're trying to provide the best possible travel reference then we should be trying to find a way to make that information easily available to readers. -- Ryan • (talk) • 16:46, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
So "use Google" is bad, but "use Wikipedia" is good. I don't see the difference. I've never been against adding information about history and culture, it should just be included in the article instead of making our guides dependent on third party websites. You could easily add a lot more information about the Chrysler Building if relevant for the visitor going there. See e.g. Bangkok/Rattanakosin#See. But of course there should be a limit, as a visitor there you're really not interested in reading a 100 page book about the Chrysler Building. And if you happen to be interested in that, you'd buy a 100 page book about the Chrysler Building, not consult a travel guide... Globe-trotter (talk) 16:58, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
[Edit conflict]If we decide we are OK with Wikipedia links to articles about sights, I could countenance them only if there is no decent primary link at all. Wikipedia links to articles about museums with good sites, for example, will never be needed.
If you think my proposal above is not viable, even as a basis for discussion, how about suggesting your own? Though the difficulty is that there is at least a strongly-held minority view that there should never be more than one Wikipedia (Wiktionary, etc.) link to any article. And as long as there is no possible consensus behind even the idea of more links in any form (including unobtrusively in the sidebar), I guess this discussion may be a waste of time.
And to me, the alternative suggestion would be to allow for more background information on this site, the difficulty being that Wikipedia has done that job better, and I don't see why it's more beneficial for us to give detailed explanations of what a shalwar kameez is than to give a Wikipedia link or a link to another good non-marketing site that explains what it is. But if that's the alternative and it's agreed to, we should pick it up and run with it, I guess. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:00, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
Globe-trotter: The reason why it's better to link to sister sites than tell people to "use Google" is that it's user-friendly if done the right way (not the wrong way that you demonstrated), and they are sister sites, so just like it's a competitive advantage that we can link to and use Commons photos, it could be a competitive advantage to integrate ourselves a bit more with Wikipedia. That, at any rate, is an argument that could be advanced. I know you don't agree with it, and neither does Texugo, and perhaps some other people. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:05, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

I certainly don't think it's too much detail for Wikivoyage to tell you that a shalwar kameez is a "a traditional long tunic and loose pajama-like trousers", and have no idea why we would find it necessary to include a link for people to read about the early history and etymology of such garments. Similarly, I think it relevant for us to briefly mention that rafflesia are "large parasitic flowering plants that stink like rotting flesh" but I don't think we should be expected to provide links to further reading about all the individual species, the scientists who discovered and classified them, and the other tedious scientific details. Texugo (talk) 17:22, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

What about the length and detail of history and architectural elements of a Gothic church or a 1930s skyscraper? If we can come to a rough agreement about the appropriate scope of background information for inclusion in this guide, I'd be quite content with that. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:26, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
We should have topic articles for Art deco and Gothic architecture which give an overview of the styles and their histories written for the layman, mention prominent examples, discuss and list the best places to see them, with links back to our relevant destination pages (whereas WP articles will only reference other WP articles). Architecture is a very valid reason to travel, and if our overview is not enough, those topic pages will have their own link to the corresponding topic page on WP where the reader can dig in deep if they want. Texugo (talk) 17:44, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
I like where this discussion is heading now. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:50, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
That actually looks like it might be a workable solution, lets have more detail, see if it will work universally. I have a feeling there will be cases where it won't be ideal, but lets worry about those later, this should cover a large class of items. At the very least it would reduce the number of things people will want to link to WP, though it would require a lot more work writing the topics. It inspires me to write a topic article on the marine life of the Cape Peninsula and False Bay, which would be relevant for diving the region and also whale watching, shark watching, angling and maybe other things. But then I will have to write a similar article on Wikipedia that I can use to link to the detail articles for all the species. I see a problem in that an article on the wildlife of a region will refer to dozens, maybe hundreds of animals and plants, but to link to their WP articles I would have to write a topic article for each one, which would be somewhat over the top. The same problem could come up for architecture or art, where the topic article might need to refer to dozens of other articles, which would be basically recreating Wikipedia in a simplified form. A way out of this spiral would be to allow travel topic articles or some classes of travel topic articles to link in-line to Wikipedia.• • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 16:28, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
It was a lot of work to write an article on Gothic architecture, but I know enough about the topic that I think it was a very good start, and a good article to have on this site, in my opinion. Do you think it's just a simplification of Wikipedia? I don't, not least because it's based primarily on preexisting knowledge I gained from taking a tour with a brilliant art historian in Chartres, reading physical books, and visiting Gothic churches, with Wikipedia articles used as more specific references. We need for people who have at least a good layman's knowledge about different topics and are enthusiastic about them to start similar articles. Anyone here a maven about art deco? As a New Yorker, I have a personal experience of art deco skyscrapers, but if I start the article, it is not going to begin with as much information and context as the Gothic architecture article.
In the case of the article you're contemplating, Peter, if there are really hundreds of species of interest to many divers, it will be a very long article, but in that case, it could also have loads of beautiful photos! Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:16, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
I also think Gothic architecture is a good start, but while reading through I had a constant urge to add links for terma I am a bit uncertain of, like nave and choir, but I guess they should be defined in the article anyway.
I suppose you could refer to WP for information on Art Deco. You can use the information without linking to it in line.
The article on marine life of CP&FB would be pretty long by the time it is finished, but like any other, can start off small and grow. I does rather split my efforts, as I am working on similar subjects on WP, so a certain amount of overlapping work would be necessary, but in a way it is the answer to another problem, ie where to put the original research.... • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 06:03, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
Another possibility to consider is allowing a section link to Wikipedia in the form of a specially formatted hatnote. That way it would be possible to have Neo-Gothic architecture in the same article as Gothic, with its own link, and if it grows enough to split, the link would go with it. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 06:20, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
You are also right about the style of the articles. They should not just be simplified versions of WP, they should have a different perspective on the subject, but who knows what will actually happen until we try. Some guidance in the MoS would be in order perhaps. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 06:27, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
What strikes me, now that I'm reading up on this discussion again, is how strong the opposition is to WP links, and how buried even our side bar link is under "related pages", while we seem to find it self-evident to place links and even in article templates and in-line links from Wikipedia to us, hoping it will increase search engine visibility and readership. Of course travel information is out of scope for an encyclopedia, yet WP actively encourages links to sister projects. What a difference :-) JuliasTravels (talk) 15:39, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
WP does not and would not encourage inline links to any single sister project a dozen or more times per paragraph. That would make reading more difficult and confusing, just as it would here. Texugo (talk) 16:01, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
If there is a suggestion for how to make our Wikipedia link (from every destination guide+) more visible, I'd be all for that. I just don't want our articles to turn into category pages/indices for Wikipedia articles ;) --Peter Talk 03:16, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia does not allow in-line links at all, just like Wikivoyage. I tried to add a few links to Wikivoyage in the external links section, which apparently is allowed there but wasn't met with a good response to say the least. On the other hand, almost all Wikivoyage articles have a link to the corresponding Wikipedia article, so I'd say we're more lenient. Globe-trotter (talk) 06:20, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
I haven't placed any recently, and I'm not sure how individual editors on wp might reply, but policy surely is quite lenient.[8] I imagine it might make a difference whether there's useful additional information in our article, or not. Many links to us have in fact been added though, in terms of the very visible templates, and we're waiting for a bot to do the rest. No, I really don't agree we're more lenient. As far as I'm concerned, the side bar links we currently have may as well not be there. For a random visitor they're not to be found. For a link to be useful, it should be visible, not behind another, not necessarily obvious header in the sidebar. But well, I'm not trying to say we should be more lenient, or allow dozens of links. And sure, we make our own policies. I just found it a remarkable comparison, worth keeping in mind. That's all. JuliasTravels (talk) 07:45, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
As we have no "See also" nor "External links", perhaps the links to WP should be in the "Understand" section of the article, maybe in a box or sidebar of some sort. There is plenty of background on the Underground Railroad in WP which would be useful to readers of that itinerary here but not important enough to actually include in Wikivoyage in toto (as we're a travel guide, not a US civics textbook, an entire page on the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 is out of scope).
I'm not convinced we're "more lenient" than WP. Usually a topic which has one page here has many pages there (a WV article describes a city, a WP article describes one notable item in a city) so it's rare for there to be more than one valid WV target from an encyclopaedia page. K7L (talk) 14:34, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Associating Wikipedia articles with Wikivoyage articles, and how to do it.[edit]

Recently, links to Wikipedia articles were added to the four subregions of Finger Lakes (Rochester and Suburbs, Western Finger Lakes, Eastern Finger Lakes, and Finger Lakes Apple Country). The first was linked to w:Rochester, New York metropolitan area, while the others were linked to w:Finger Lakes. But in each case, the Wikipedia article covers a much larger area than the Wikivoyage article. For example, Rochester and Suburbs covers one county (plus two adjacent townships), while the Rochester metro area comprises six counties!

This doesn't seem to be an appropriate use of our linking facility to me, but I could be wrong. Am I off-base in thinking that there should be a much closer correspondence between articles before we link them, or is it more important to just link every WV article to whatever WP article is large enough to include the same territory?

-- LtPowers (talk) 01:54, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

My first question would be: Is there an article with much closer correspondence on WP? If not, then it is reasonable to link to a wider scoped article which contains the relevant information. The most focused vs the best general coverage is a more difficult case. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 06:55, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
In the case of the first, yes, w:Monroe County, New York is a much closer correspondence, though it excludes two towns outside the county compared to our article (which is why it is titled differently). In the case of the others, no, but w:Finger Lakes is already linked from our Finger Lakes article, and it seems weird to link these subarticles as well. LtPowers (talk) 15:32, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
I am a utilitarian in these matters. We can't assume that the reader will go to another article to find a link, so I think having more than one article linking to the same WP article is OK if there is no better choice, and the WP article is actually useful in all cases. We can't expect a 1 to 1 correspondence between our articles and WP articles in all cases, so must be flexible and use what works best. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 16:18, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
I'd expect that these sort of one-to-many links will not be supported by Wikidata, but will give "item already in use" type errors? K7L (talk) 16:21, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
That's a concern, but I'm also of the opinion that not every destination article needs a link to Wikipedia; only pages that correspond precisely (or nearly so) with a Wikipedia article should be linked. That makes it easier to backlink from Wikipedia to us. For example: How would a bot know which of our four articles that link to w:Finger Lakes should itself be linked from that Wikipedia article? Surely not all four, since three are subregions of the fourth? LtPowers (talk) 13:51, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
Hear, hear! No robotic "rule" is ever going to replace the individual (and fallible) judgement of individual editors. We're in danger of getting the worst of each side of the argument here. WP does not need any Googlejuice boost from us and casual readers don't usually find the generic link in the left hand margin to WP. Far better for editors to individually assess the utility of WP articles for our readers (a very, very few WP articles are not worth linking to - not because there is not a one-to-one mapping but - because their content is sparse and inferior) and to place that discrete (but signalled) external link in-line like this. --W. Frankemailtalk 15:40, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
Please limit your proposals for in-line links to the already existing discussions. We don't need to re-discuss that stuff with every thread. Texugo (talk) 15:49, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
Many of these discussions have split right down the middle in such a manner that the only thing one can do is wait a few months and rediscuss to see if consensus can be found in the future. K7L (talk) 15:30, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

POI editor: Wikipedia page?[edit]

Swept in from the pub

How about adding a link to Wikipedia for POIs that have a Wikipedia article? That would allow readers to get in-depth information for a museum, monument, park, waterfall, or any famous place. The French Wikivoyage actually has that. Wikipedia articles could then be used to populate the mini-picture of each POI in the dynamic POI map. Nicolas1981 (talk) 10:10, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Do you have a French wikivoyage link that would illustrate this? --Andrewssi2 (talk) 10:54, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
I must have dreamt, I can't find anymore... it was probably not the French one, actually. Nicolas1981 (talk) 09:08, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
Lac-Mégantic. But discussion of this has been previously carried out at Wikivoyage talk:Sister project links, and should continue there. It's a rather turbulent discussion, so it would need some new insight for any productive work. -- torty3 (talk) 12:16, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, please read all the various previous discussions on this at Wikivoyage talk:Sister project links, Wikivoyage talk:Links to Wikipedia, and Wikivoyage talk:Listings#Listings tags and links to Wikipedia. After reading all those very divided and deadlocked discussions, if you don't have some absolutely novel, revolutionary proposal that will address all the issues raised, you might not want to open that can of worms again. It hasn't been long since the last such discussion finally died down. Texugo (talk) 13:09, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
I'd think the term "can of worms" is a bit harsh. It's just en: that's deadlocked on this, as far as I know, as on some of the others (like fr:) the links weren't debated on any huge scale and the sky hasn't fallen. Ultimately, we do need to attract new en.WP authors to write here or the project (much like the deadlocked {{listing}} debate) will stagnate. K7L (talk) 15:00, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
The point is that we've already been over and over the same arguments quite thoroughly three times in recent months, so if no innovative perspective is brought to the table to address the concerns which have led to the deadlock, it will be a waste of time to drag it all out again and rehash the same stuff. Texugo (talk) 16:35, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
To be clear, the intention isn't to stifle discussion or shuffle it somewhere else. The open-door policy (never closing discussions) is good, but sometimes it will probably be better to let the idea rest and then reassess community support after a set amount of time. Although closing discussions would have prevented fiascoes like the spelling issue. Reading back on it, I think Ryan's comments about Wikivoyage:Consensus are extra relevant now. Maybe a debate style of statement and rebuttal is needed or better summaries, rather than the wall of text discussion in which good points are lost. And if en.WP authors are not contributing just because they cannot add Wikipedia links here, I think that's too bad. -- torty3 (talk) 04:48, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Duplicate links to WP & Commons[edit]

Swept in from the pub

Links to WP & Commons are appearing twice in the menu down the left side – once under "Related sites" and again under "Other projects". That's not supposed to be happening, is it? Nurg (talk) 08:22, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't see an "Other projects" header. Are you seeing this on all pages, or only a subset? Powers (talk) 14:52, 10 November 2014 (UTC)
But the snuffleupagus is real! I've seen him! Why does no one see him but me? K7L (talk) 17:32, 10 November 2014 (UTC)
Ah, right, "Other projects" is a beta feature I enabled in my prefs when I was fiddling with beta features recently. I don't think we would want both sets of links, so have said so at Wikimedia. Now to turn it off in my prefs. Nurg (talk) 07:28, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
Was just adding comment about turning on this Beta feature to see this condition. (Beat me to it!) - Matroc (talk) 07:32, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

How to allow more links to Wikipedia (and to Wiktionary, etc.)[edit]

tldr version: Only in exchange for unlimited germane links from Wikipedia, and perhaps other Wikis


I just reread the discussion and disagreement about when it's appropriate to link to sister sites. I think current Wikivoyage policy is OK, but I think there's one good way to integrate Wikivoyage much more closely to Wikipedia, and it would involve decisions by both sister sites, and probably others: Allow inline links from Wikivoyage to sister sites such as Wikipedia that are limited only by germaneness (that is, no unnecessary content just in order to link to a sister site) in exchange for unlimited germane links from Wikipedia to Wikivoyage, which would mean for starters that every article about a destination that has a Wikivoyage article would be linked from Wikipedia. (The specific mechanics of how the links would appear can be worked out later.) If someone thinks there's any possibility of this proposal being accepted on either site, it would probably need to be proposed on both sides as conditional on consensus approval on both sites, and I would also very much want Commons to link to Wikivoyage as well as Wikipedia when there's a Wikivoyage article about a Commons category, etc. If such a policy is approved, it would integrate Wikivoyage much more closely to Wikipedia, and I think that would be fine; it would change the character of this guide, but it would also make it more unique and more evidently the travel Wiki. But requiring Wikipedia to link from every article about a travel destination to the relevant Wikivoyage article and, if you think it's important, also allowing inline links from Wikipedia to Wikivoyage, would mean that both sites are closely integrated, rather than that we'd be simply hemorrhaging readership, I believe.

I'm guessing this proposal is unlikely to be approved on either site, but I'm putting it out there because the proponents of more links to Wikipedia are still feeling frustrated about the lack of acceptance of any of their proposals to date (not me, as I believe my concerns were pretty well addressed, but some are) and continuing from time to time to propose and work for "compromises" that I think are worse than either the status quo or the kind of sea change I suggest here. I'm also putting this up as something that can be referred to if we ever get to the point when there's a developing consensus for inline Wikipedia links, and I won't be disappointed if there's no discussion on this right now. Ikan Kekek (talk) 13:34, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't understand. Links to Wikivoyage from matching Wikipedia articles is already acceptable and widespread (if not universal). Powers (talk) 14:53, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
Also, the very broad subjectivity of what is and what isn't considered "germane" is one of the main problems we seem unable to overcome. Texugo (talk) 16:49, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
How widespread are such links from Wikipedia? Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:26, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
I don't know, but back in 2013 we added a whole bunch. The only thing keeping them out is the manpower necessary to put them in. Powers (talk) 02:51, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
Well, essentially, my proposal was to throw this site wide open for inline sister site links, with germaneness as the only basis for reverting or deleting such links, in exchange for something that is no longer really an issue. OK, I guess that's not happening. Move along, nothing really to see here, I guess. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:48, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Wikimedia news banner image confusing our articles?[edit]

Swept in from the pub
Wikimedia_Commons_Picture_of_the_Year_2010_Banner_2.jpeg

Is it just me, or does the new Wikimedia information banner look very confusing above our own? If so, do we have any control over this? --Andrewssi2 (talk) 22:57, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I think we should tolerate this. We get so much good use out of Commons that allowing Commons to promote its Picture of the Year voting, which I participated in after accidentally clicking that banner, is a good sisterly move by us. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:23, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
Right. Me too participated in the voting and it was fun. You're right Andrew, at times the banner can be annoying but I don't think we have control over such central notice banners. Neither I think the WMF will allow anyone to disable showing central notice banners which are important announcements made by concensus across Wikimedia sites. --Saqib (talk) 23:34, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
Aside from that, it's a great picture. In fact, I'd love to make it the pagebanner for our article on whatever place that picture was taken in. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 23:36, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
And while voting for photos, I found some really brilliant photos that can be used as page banners. --Saqib (talk) 23:38, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
I don't mind it. It's temporary and I had a lot of fun looking at some of the nominations, which I probably wouldn't have done if it hadn't been for that eye-catching announcement. PerryPlanet (talk) 01:15, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
Fair enough :) I had concerns from a usability perspective, although the banner will of course be temporary. Andrewssi2 (talk) 04:01, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
Down now (Round 1 has ended) but there will be new banner after 14 Feb with notification for round 2. — Revi 16:29, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Update on WP links to WV/WT situation[edit]

Swept in from the pub

So, I've been looking into this for the last couple weeks. As it turns out there were still quite a few links to WT all over the many different language versions. I've now gone through the entire list of Wikipedias here. I haven't kept a precise log but judging by my edit count I'd estimate something like 1500-1600 links replaced so far. Portuguese had the most overall with 150 links but in general the worst were medium sized 'pedias without corresponding Wikivoyage editions. Large enough to have plenty articles, small enough to fly under the radar when many links were changed a few years back in the larger projects. Something that stood out was that many links were repeated over and over. Basically the way it works is that the smaller editions will often import and translate articles from larger "seeder" wikis and the links go along for the ride.

There are still five languages with WT links, three of them Finnish, Japanese and Hungarian (also the last that still uses a WT template) link to their respective WT language editions which Wikivoyage lacks so I won't be working on them. The other two I'm going through now, if anyone wants to help:

Georgian and Czech

The Georgians have a WV template so use that, for Czech just replace the URLs. PS: This isn't just about the clicks those links get, WP content gets reproduced online all the time, the copycat sites don't necessarily use nofollow so the links count for google ratings. Acer (talk) 13:21, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Your diligence is much appreciated! Powers (talk) 00:39, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
Wikitravel links I don't think it's a problem for us to have links to editions of Wikitravel that don't exist--again, ttcf, right? —Justin (koavf)TCM 02:12, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
I'm not sure I understood you, but I have intentionally *not* replaced links to WT language editions without WV counterparts (Finnish, Japanese, Hungarian and a solitary link in Esperanto). I might eventually add links to enWV but I won't remove the originals. Acer (talk) 09:29, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
I just realized I used the word "remove" above instead of "replace", now changed. In case it wasn't clear I'm substituting WT links with Wikivoyage ones, not removing them outright. Acer (talk)
Great work! /Yvwv (talk) 18:03, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for this. But isn't there some kind of bot that could be used for repetitive tasks like this? I guess if you'd contact someone on Wikipedia who knows how to write bots, they would gladly help out, given that this is about a sister project in need for more visibility. ϒpsilon (talk) 19:04, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
I considered that but didn't want to wait on someone to do the coding. It would have to be somewhat flexible since the links have to be changed into different formats. Wikivoyage templates, sister project templates, direct links etc. But anyway, it's all done now. Acer (talk) 15:52, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
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