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Wikitravel:Travellers' pub

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Revision as of 16:18, 3 July 2006 by Ori Mosenzon (Talk | contribs)

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The Travellers' pub is the place to ask questions when you're confused, lost, afraid, tired, annoyed, thoughtful, or helpful. Please check the FAQ and Help page before asking a question, though, since that may save your time and others'. Also, if you have a question or suggestion about a particular article, try using talk pages to keep the discussion specific to that article.

If you are having a problem that you think has to do with the Mediawiki software, please post that on the Bug reports page instead.

Please add new questions at the bottom of the page and sign your post by appending four tildes (~~~~) to it, but otherwise plunge forward!

Archives

Keeping the Pub clean is a group effort. If we have too many conversations on this page, it gets too noisy and hard to read. If you see a conversation that could or should be moved to a talk page, please do so, and note the move here.

Stuff that's been moved:

Also, see the Travellers' pub archives for older archived discussions.

Please sweep the pub

So, the TP has been getting kinda crowded and messy. I'd really appreciate if we could all make an effort to clean up a bit by moving discussions to places more appropriate or deleting discussions that have reached their conclusions. It's a tedious job, but like most, it's easier if we do it together. --Evan 16:44, 20 Apr 2004 (EDT)

Checklist for Wikitravellers on the road?

Is there anywhere a list of suggestions for someone on a trip who wants to maximize the usefulness of their experience to this site? If not, would it be worthwile to create such a list. I'm thinking of something like:

  1. Does the existing description in "Get In" fit with your experience of arriving? If there is no description of your mode of travel, start one. What was unusual about the experience that other people should know?
  2. Did you stay in a hotel or other paid accommodation? If so, would you recommend it to others? If so, please add it to "Sleep". If not, please delete it from "Sleep" if it's there, but explain why in the Talk page.

Etc. Jonboy 09:51, 20 Feb 2006 (EST)

I just saw this for the first time for some reason. Jonboy, this is a great idea. I don't have a good name for it... maybe Wikitravel:Field research checklist? --Evan 11:28, 10 April 2006 (EDT)
I have some ideas here that are related to this. — Ravikiran 14:43, 14 May 2006 (EDT)

Watching all the articles within a region

I think that this question has been asked a while ago, but anyway...

Now that we have the really good Breadcrumb navigation (IsIn) working, is it possible to use this to "watch" all the articles within a region eg. Sicily? DanielC 08:13, 23 February 2006 (EST)

Disclaimers?

1. Why does the Disclaimers link at the bottom of every page go to an Old Bug Reports page? (Is this a mistake?)

2. Do we need a Disclaimer page? (Wikipedia has one, several actually.)

--Rogerhc 01:35, 6 March 2006 (EST)

If we don't have a real Disclaimers page, how about redirecting Wikitravel:General disclaimer to Wikitravel:Terms of use instead? That's at least a little closer-to-topic than the bug-reports page. - Todd VerBeek 12:36, 10 April 2006 (EDT)

Oregon Contributor Activity

There seems to be quite a number of newbie contributors in Oregon for some reason. If you see anyone contributing there, check it out because they often seem to need some guidance. -- Colin 13:30, 10 March 2006 (EST)

One of them wrote me and said
As an assignment for a business class at Oregon State my classmates
and I are required to update a public wiki with "valuable contributions."
so that explains that. -- Colin 22:15, 10 March 2006 (EST)
There has been a huge rush of contributions this afternoon (16 March) that appear to be from this group. Maple Canyon, Waldo Lake, Great glen way, and a ton of images. A lot of the images appear to be copyvios, but I've run out of time to keep tracking them down so anyone who has a chance to look into them it would be much appreciated.
To the contributors: your contributions are much appreciated and very valuable additions. The concerns are that they are not copyright violations (see Wikitravel:Image policy), that they are valid article topics (see Wikitravel:What is an article?), and to a lesser extent that they are formatted correctly (see Wikitravel:Manual of style). -- Ryan 20:57, 16 March 2006 (EST)
Also to the contributors: It would also be a good idea to pay attention to the Wikitravel:Article templates applicable to what you're writing, so that your contributions are indeed "valuable." (I'd bet that that Oregon State instructor is aware of the templates -- or soon will be.) Using the templates to begin with will save some rewriting later that may simply wipe your contribution out, with a possibly similar wipeout on your grade... -- Bill-on-the-Hill 22:30, 16 March 2006 (EST)

Did anyone attempt to find out the professor(')s(') name? I'd be more than happy to send him/her a letter explain that we welcome the help from his/her students and how exactly he/she should instruct the students to contribute i.e. MoS, templates, and the copyleft. - Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 05:29, 11 June 2006 (EDT)

Logo/Icon

I see the new logo's been put into place, and it looks nice. But I'm still seeing ye olde globe-and-arrow icon as the favicon for the site (the little icon that shows up in the URL field, "favorites" listing, and/or title bar of better web browsers). I'd be happy to make a favicon.ico file, but obviously I can't update it on the site myself. Todd VerBeek 22:11, 18 March 2006 (EST)

If you take a look at Image:Compass star emblem coolvetica logo.png and Image:Treatment.png I think Mark has actually already created an image suitable for a favicon, but I'm not sure what the status for getting it on the site is -- rumor has it that there's an entirely new skin in the works that uses the new logos, but either Evan or Mark would probably be the only ones who could provide an update. -- Ryan 04:36, 19 March 2006 (EST)
Thanks for the reminder; I've got the new icon up now, too. You may have to load http://wikitravel.org/favicon.ico directly in your browser before it realizes that the icon has changed. --Evan 09:09, 19 March 2006 (EST)

Suggestion: Article Improvment Drive

I would support an Article Improvment Drive like the one in Wikipedia. We already have the cotw thing for usable articles, but I would suggest AID would be for Guide and Star articles that need to be perfected. Would anyone like this???????? --Worldtraveller 14:20, 22 March 2006 (EST)

Wikitravel:Collaboration of the week -- Colin 16:42, 22 March 2006 (EST)

Vandal

Alert a vandal is ruining the bahrain and NYC articles! 169.244.143.114 09:38, 31 March 2006 (EST)

Uh, maybe I'm comfused here, but aren't you the vandal in question? If so, I'm amused. Majnoona 09:53, 31 March 2006 (EST)
He was at least partially undoing a vandal's changes, though not always perfectly. I think it was a successful (and moderately amusing) attempt to confuse some of us... -- Colin 10:08, 31 March 2006 (EST)

No maj... i wanted to revert 66 ip sorry i just talked to you on ip 169.244.143.114 09:55, 31 March 2006 (EST)

Whoa Colin nothing like that 169.244.143.114 10:11, 31 March 2006 (EST)

New article type suggestion

I was walking around in Paris today and found a great walking path from central Paris to Chateau de Vincennes in an eastern suburb. My immediate thought was: 'I want to tell other people about this on Wikitravel!' But, as I see it, we don't have any place to put such info...

I therefore suggest that we create a 'Walk'/'Stroll'/(insert better name suggestion here) type of article as a sub-article to cities. The layout could be about the same as Itiniraries and the articles could include photos, recommended stops, etc.

What do you think? Comments, suggestions? -- Jelse 13:20, 1 April 2006 (EST)

I think Itiniraries would already cover that. Or if the walking path is very short, just add it as something to "Do" within the city/district. -- Ilkirk 13:27, 1 April 2006 (EST)
Yeah, "walking tours" are a very nice way to see a city or part of one. I think this fits in nicely with itineraries, since a) it's directed and b) it will have waypoints. Jelse, why don't you get it started, and let's see how it goes? --Evan 13:37, 1 April 2006 (EST)
OK, plunging forward. I started the Walk to Vincennes itinerary. I have limited internet access at present but expect it to grow in the coming weeks. -- Jelse 10:06, 3 April 2006 (EDT)

Retaining users

I've been editing and adding less information than I normally do so I've been welcoming new users instead. I've also been checking how often some users and I've noticed that many travelers seem to contribute for a month or up to three months and then seem to cease activity. Anyhow, my point, or rather my question is this: How do we retain these users? There seems to be the core devotees - Admins and then some lowly users who love WikiTravel, but even with our expansive knowledge of destinations and such we unfortunately don't know everything about Earth. We really do need to retain these users, because they offer key expertise in various regions and cities. How can we inspire them to further contribute to WikiTravel? Sapphire 20:34, 3 April 2006 (EDT)

That's a good but not simple question, because the answer depends on the average profile of Wikitravellers and we don't have a good estimation on that. Maybe we could identify a few categories:
1) People who like to travel and write about it - I guess those make up most of the "regulars" here
2) People who are into Wiki stuff - those normally are into travel/writing too, but also feel comfortable enough to plunge forward into MediaWiki templates, markup etc.
Most people in the categories above have some sort of ideal/belief in the importance of the Wikitravel project as a whole. On the other hand, there are also people who:
3) Just want to welcome visitors to their countries/cities, make some more or less extensive contributions to a couple of articles then leave;
4) Just want to promote their establishments as much as they can;
5) Are curious about the Wiki, insert a link to anywhere then leave
There are probably more, but I'd say that we're less likely to retain users in categories 4 and 5. People in categories 1, 2 and maybe 3 could be more easily retained as long as long as we are able to make them more enthusiastic about Wikitravel - the inspiration you mentioned. I guess, though, that this would require some marketing-like techniques: advertising, rewards and, of course, excellent customer service like our welcome messages :o) Ricardo (Rmx) 21:24, 3 April 2006 (EDT)
As simple a thing as it is, I think the My Talk new message notification will help somewhat because new users will notice their welcome message a little sooner. If they are welcomed, they'll feel included, if they feel included, they'll be a little more involved, so forth and so on. I guess we all need to jump even quicker on the Welcoming party bandwagon... -- Ilkirk 23:18, 3 April 2006 (EDT)
Agree that the new-message notification and similar stroking will help, but in any event, this kind of transient interest is entirely normal, not just on participation-oriented web sites but in Real Life (tm). If you could figure a way to solve this problem, you'd be so busy solving it for for-profit outfits that you wouldn't have time to post here :-), and filthy rich in the bargain. Yes, it would be nice to keep folks longer, but I wouldn't obsess about it. -- Bill-on-the-Hill 10:03, 4 April 2006 (EDT)
Great conversation here. I guess I have some quick thoughts: first, if people come here, work real hard, and then move on to other projects, I don't want to make them feel bad. I think that's part of the ebb and flow of Internet communities, and it's something we'll have to deal with naturally. That said, we do have a sharp learning curve here, and it seems a shame to lose the contributions of experienced people.
I hope that the docents project picks up steam, since I think that's a great way for people who are working on a single destination or group of destinations to stay interested. I think beefing up our watchlists with RSS and email or IM notification would be nice, too. Finally, an email newsletter might serve as a reminder for users who haven't been back in a while that we still exist and we could use their help. --Evan 10:22, 4 April 2006 (EDT)
I am new to wikitravel and maybe I belong to categorie 3... Writing in WikiTravel was big fun last weekend and I spend a lot of time doing it. It's just like if you get a new toy, you stop playing with all others and concentrate on the new one. But it is totally normal that after a while things will get balanced again. What can be done to motivate users? Ask questions. If you spend hours on an article being not sure, if anyone will ever be interested in, this is not very motivating. I think the talk page would be a good place for a list of open questions. But the Using talk pages does not stress that it is desired to ask questions there. --Flip666 09:16, 10 April 2006 (EDT)
I'm started to read and write about two months ago and my first impression was that I felt a bit overwhelmed but all the formats, frames, navigation etc. (that a good page needs!). I think the main point is that after people brought in their travel knowledge it is about getting part of the wikitravel community. The talk pages and the travellers pub are good points to discuss topics but unexperienced IT people (who are frequent help line callers at their work...) might see it as a hassle (why a { or [ or # and not a normal bracket). I still copy and paiste all codes for formats from the link in my welcome meassage and jump from maj's message in my talk to Evan. My suggestion to make life easier for newbies is:

1. Search function: Now when i write "evan" nothing about Even arrives until i click after the first hit another time below the boxes user, talk etc. People are used to google and may not allways look for destinations

2. Quickbars, codes, shortscuts: Their should be one general document with all basic codes and a short example how it looks like. If I don't have a clue of codes and download the basic codes and you don't need to go everytime you need something back to the help page.

3. Docents: Good idea

4. Feedback: Sapphire and Maj encouraged me with their feedback to continue writing. Especially if you are new here you are unsure if you are welcome and it's ok the way you do it. The welcome message helps to find around

jan 05:08 (EDT), 27 April 2006

Claiming my input

I just created an entry for Avebury, and being conceited, think it's pretty snazzy, but somehow it lost my id somewhere along the line, so I'm not attributed in the history.. any way of 'reclaiming' an article in the history log ? If someone wnats to argue with me, I'd rather they didn't argue with an IP address! --TheBigYin

Since there's no such thing as an articles that's finished, just make sure you're logged in from now on, and put a note in the next edit summary that you're "213.48.98.142". Credit will thus be duly given. - Todd VerBeek 12:06, 6 April 2006 (EDT)
Just FYI, I've been having the same problem lately, on three different computers! (Even after I'm logged in, and my preferences are displayed along the top, it still saves the changes under my IP address.) Thanks for the advice; I'll do the same. -- Haem85 02:53, 22 April 2006 (EDT)
MediaWiki 1.6.x seems to be a lot more aggressive in expiring people's login cookies, and that's caused some bad interactions with our javascript-and-html caching system. An easy work around is to log in with the "remember me" flag set, if you can do that. --Evan 07:28, 22 April 2006 (EDT)
Doesn't seem to help, at least not for me. -- Mark 09:14, 22 April 2006 (EDT)
Ditto. At least the new login page cooperates with Firefox's auto-fill capability, making re-logins less of a hassle. - Todd VerBeek 10:23, 22 April 2006 (EDT)
No, it didn't help for me either. When I first went to the site and had to re-login, I checked the box again, and it still logged me back out. Oh well! -- Haem85 00:14, 23 April 2006 (EDT)
I've done considerable looking and searching, but can not see how one eventually gets credit at the bottom of an article. So far, it's not happening for me. OldPine 22:58, 16 June 2006 (EDT)
Credit should be automatic. If I look at the Cape Cod article, the line at the bottom of the page reads "This page was last modified 22:58, 16 June 2006 by David", so you appear to have been credited. The way the software works is that the last person to modify a page is listed as the "last modified" user, and everyone else who has made a change is listed under the "Wikitravel users" credits block. It's not perfect - if I'm 99% responsible for an article I get no more credit than someone who simply fixed a comma - but that's hopefully not a huge issue since there isn't much glory to be gained from Wikitravel contributions :) -- Ryan 23:04, 16 June 2006 (EDT)
Ah, I see. The format appears me such that one looks to get better credited by not being the last editor. Last guy merely made a modification. Previous editors did "work". As you point out, no biggie. I guess. I can always hype myself on my user page if I want glory. Muahahahaha :) OldPine 23:20, 16 June 2006 (EDT)

TripAdvisor adds wiki

While writing up this week's Wikipedia Signpost news roundup, I saw that high-profile travel website TripAdvisor has added a wiki called the "Inside Pages" to its site, allowing visitors to write articles about travel destinations and so forth ("TripAdvisor imitates Wikipedia"). They're doing beta testing on U.K. and California information right now; I don't see any obvious notice of the copyright/license terms for the info. Thought you might like to know, and I'd like to know what you think; it's possible we may write more about this in the Signpost next week. -- Catherine)

Hi Catherine, thanks for pointing this out. While it's an interesting development (and the sincerest form of flattery...), Evan and I think there are a couple of important points to keep in mind:
  • Their community features are poor, as well as their personal identity features, and thus the main motivators for people to contribute to a wiki are missing.
  • There doesn't seem to be any participation whatsoever by users in policy, style, or process. We also don't see clearly delineated goals. In other words, there's no feeling of community ownership of the site.
  • We think that our Creative Commons license gives contributors an idealistic goal for creating Open Content guides. TA leaves the license unspecified, and their reputation as a "roach motel" for user contributions suggests that they won't be making any changes along those lines in the near future. --Majnoona 10:49, 17 April 2006 (EDT)

Merchandise

I am interested in buying a wikitravel branded piece of clothing for when I next go backpacking. However there appears to be no link on Wikitravel to anything like this. Therefore,

1) Could we create an easily found page directing people to the Cafepress.com merchandise (they have 25 products with the Wikitavel logo on it) at:http://www.cafepress.com/buy/wikitravel/-/pv_design_details/pg_/c_1/id_8949393/fpt_/opt_

2) Is there anywhere else that sells merchandise related to Wikitravel, if so, could that be listed too.

Thanks, Witty lama 07:33, 18 April 2006 (EDT)

I think people buying Wikitravel merchandise would like to know that the profits go to help Wikitravel, and alas, the commercial/financial/legal backend for this is not yet ready. (This also explains why there's no Donate button anywhere on the site.) Evan & co are working on this but it'll be some time until things are finalized, so I think the "official" merchandise link will have to wait -- in the meantime, plunge forward, make your own or contribute designs! (Time for a Wikitravel:T-shirt design contest?) Jpatokal 08:13, 18 April 2006 (EDT)
I put up the CafePress "store" (zero profit) hoping to get the merchandising started. So I think it is time to start the T-shirt contest now so we can have an official T-shirt before summer. Or a T-shirt of the year contest every spring. I do not know how to set up the financial backend, but it is important just to make Wikitravel more visible on wikitravellers. --elgaard 10:33, 18 April 2006 (EDT)

Drink/Local Beer

I'm a self-admitted beer nerd (and seeking help through ethanol therapy, thank you!) and like to try out local offerings. I recently wrote most of what's currently in San Marcos and added a "local beer" section under drink. I should probably get around to this for Houston and the like. Does anyone see a problem for me adding this to other pages (or have ideas for a better way to work the information in)? I'm not a wine person, though I know that Texas and California have some pretty decent local wines that the traveller might want to know about too, so I guess there could be a more general name for this section, but I can't think of a good one. Jordanmills 21:25, 23 April 2006 (EDT)

This seems to me like perfectly appropriate information to include under "Drink". I've including info about local beers and wines in this section on a few pages. One simple way to do that would be to include a bar-type listing for the brewery's pub or the vineyard's tasting room, if they have one. - Todd VerBeek 21:41, 23 April 2006 (EDT)

Wikitravel ownership

This isn't an announcement board, but as a common gathering spot, I figure it's be a good place to point out a bit of news that might otherwise slip under people's radar: Wikitravel.org is now owned by Internet Brands, and is going to be managed by Evan and Maj - still as an open-content travel guide - as employees. IB also now owns World66, another open-content travel info site. See Wikitravel:Internet Brands for more info about what this means for us, them, and the other them. - Todd VerBeek 12:55, 24 April 2006 (EDT)

See vs Do

Hey folks, is there any guideline to help figure out what is "See" and what is "Do"? Would a museum count as see or do? 70.51.81.178 20:40, 30 April 2006 (EDT)

Where you can stick it should help. SHC 20:47, 30 April 2006 (EDT)
Rule of thumb: If the main activity there consists of sitting in a vehicle/walking around and looking at things, it's a "See". (This includes all but the most fun museums.) If it includes more involvement than that and/or getting your heart rate up, it's a "Do". - Todd VerBeek 21:00, 30 April 2006 (EDT)
Thanks! Adina 22:18, 30 April 2006 (EDT)
The explanatory paragraphs of the article templates could be helpful too. Ricardo (Rmx) 22:51, 30 April 2006 (EDT)



City Centres(sic) and Districts

I am interested in people's opinions on cities where the districts are really inner suburbs, with most of the sights concentrated in the centre and it doesn't seems productive to go all the way in creating districts. In this case, an anonymous user created Headingley and Chapel Allerton, which are part of Leeds. I moved these to discrict pages, but I don't feel we should move all the city centre info to a Leeds/City Centre page, as it seems happy enough where it is. Is this acceptable?, and could it be used in a few more cases where the main article could become the de-facto city centre article. -- DanielC 16:50, 4 May 2006 (EDT)

Hi Daniel, I think I responed to this in some of the Leeds 'burbs, but for the record: we only really want districts for huge cities such as Mexico City and New York (city). The other options are "neighborhoods" or stand-alone destinations for actual suburbs. I don't know Leeds well enough to say, but I'm pretty sure it's not Huge, and that folks think of Headingley et al as 'seperate' (ie the Get in sections all say "take a bus from Leeds" whereas I would not say "Take a bus from New York to get to Queens"). Hope this helps! Majnoona 10:47, 5 May 2006 (EDT)

Esperanto version

Hi I´m new to Wikitravel but have been using Wikipedia & Vikipedio (the Esperanto version of Wikipedia) for at least a couple of months. I´m certainly no expert at Esperanto but I have a basic understanding of it (which is not hard) and I was wondering what other Wikitravellers think about starting Wikitravel in Esperanto. I would be able to help out with it, although I would feel better if there was someone better at it than me who was in charge. I don´t know what´s involved in being an admin, but if it´s no harder than being a user (other than a little extra time) then I´m willing to do this if no-one else is. Let me know what you all think. User:AussieDingo1983 2006-05-06 05:52 (UTC)

See Wikitravel:How to start a new language version. Long and short of it is, you need to get three people (at least) to sign up and translate the interface files. Jpatokal 03:08, 6 May 2006 (EDT)
Actually, our glorious leader, Evan speaks Esperanto too. You may want to leave something on his talk page. Sapphire 03:17, 6 May 2006 (EDT)
Wikitravel:List of related projects mentions an Esperanto travel wiki. I cannot currently connect to it, but I'm behind the Great Firewall of China and connected through a remarkably flaky university network, so that may mean nothing. Pashley 06:06, 6 May 2006 (EDT)
Took a peak at that and though my Esperanto is a bit rusty, as I've never even heard of this language until about a week ago, it seems that wiki isn't very active. This language seems to be German with an "o" added to the end of words so I was able to navigate some what and it underwhelmingly boring. - Sapphire
It definitly is not German with an "o"! ;-)) - Felix, 06/May/2006, 18:29 GMT
There's a Wikibooks Esperanto course as well as a number of Web resources for the language. I think we should probably have an Esperanto phrasebook, since there's a lot of value for travellers (I've visited Esperanto associations around the world while travelling -- it's pretty cool.)
I think that if anyone's interested, it'd be great to start an Esperanto Wikitravel Expedition. Esperantists are net-savvy and committed -- the success of the Esperanto Wikipedia is a good indicator that a travel guide would probably thrive. Aussie-D, do you want to get the expedition started? --Evan 11:09, 6 May 2006 (EDT)
I, for one, would be interested in both an Esperanto Wikitravel Expedition and a complete Wikitravel in Esperanto! Few people travel more than those who speak Esperanto. Go for it!
--Verdlanco 15:49, 8 May 2006 (EDT)

Special:Contributions/63.108.178.2

I hope someone is keeping an eye on the IP user's contributions, just to make sure that the listings are only to primary sites and the linking is not excessive. — Ravikiran 15:50, 11 May 2006 (EDT)

I have it in my head to wait until they're done and go back and MoS them (though anyone else should feel free to jump in). I want to wait until they're done to avoid getting into an edit war with them, which happened briefly with Telluride. They seem to be sort-of primary. I mean, if somebody is a realtor who has a bunch of vacation homes to rent, I guess that's primary. Even though they're an intermediary, they're the intermediary the traveler would contact. Thoughts? There doesn't seem to be as clear of a line as there is with hotels. -- Jonboy 15:56, 11 May 2006 (EDT)
I investigated one of the contributions that was being scattered about the Outer Banks. It really did have complete descriptions and pictures of each offered rental, a schedule of when the rental was booked vs. available, and had extensive widespread listings so that it was pertinent to many articles. From this I infer that they are the Primary Source for this information -- unless realtors have some way of sharing the booking info that I don't know about.
In the past when we get corporate contributions like this, there has been inconsistency between stuff which is a good addition to the guide vs. stuff that we wouldn't normally link to. So just because I investigated one set of contributions doesn't mean the rest are okay. We definitely need to MoS. There seems to be some sort of irresistable urge among advertisers to give the accomodation a Google friendly name instead of using the actual establishment name; this contributor is no exception. -- Colin 16:01, 11 May 2006 (EDT)
Oh lordy, this issue is such a tricky one. It's come up a couple of different way but it's just so hard to have a firm policy on "vacation rental" type things. (Full disclosure: I'm currently a big fan of vacation rentals-- they're super great if you have kids!). On the one hand they are useful and on the other they tend to be tinted a slight shade of spam-pink... I guess I jumped the gun and rolled back one of their submissions without really looking at it. I think the "wait and see" approach is a good one... Maybe we should bring together all the seperate converstaions about this in one place, on Wikitravel:External links? Majnoona 16:54, 12 May 2006 (EDT)

Country/region oversight

Does Wikitravel have general overseers for the world's various geographic regions (e.g. an overseeing mod for Western Europe, or Brazil)? It might be useful to copy Wikipedia's example of nominating uber-mods who have the final say on matters pertaining to a specific subject. This would ensure that there was a long-term editor watching over a set of articles who had proper perspective on how they were set out.

For example, an overseer for all article about France would be the ideal candidate for making sure that all France articles conform to Wikitravel standard formats, could be a responsible figure to turn to for consultation when major changes to that set of articles were proposed, could flag articles which need bringing up to par with the best France articles, could coordinate other mods interested in France, could coordinate efforts to remove systemic bias/failings (e.g. the UK article has problems with semi-humorous regional and class conflicts emerging in the article), and could be the final arbiter on matters to do with France articles. Most of those jobs are already performed by editors working en masse, but haphazardly and in pieces. Appointing someone with a little more power and responsibility to deal with major groups of articles might make the editing of those articles more efficient.

I hope I haven't missed this feature's existence! Polocrunch 17:48, 11 May 2006 (EDT)

We have a system of Wikitravel:Docents, where the docent can answer questions about a destination from readers who have questions.
I don't think that travel has the same kind of specialization requirements that deep coverage of a scientific or technical topic requires. I mean, is any particular resident or visitor to Minot really so super-qualified that they should have exclusive and final say over what goes in and what doesn't? That just doesn't seem very reasonable. Things have worked very well so far where people contribute proportionally to their knowledge, dedication to the subject, and free time. A more rigid hierarchy doesn't seem healthy for Wikitravel at this stage of the game.
Do you have some links on that Wikipedia program? I've never seen it. --Evan 20:07, 11 May 2006 (EDT)


For those of us who are visual learners

Has anyone discussed the possiblity of creating some standard icons for various systematic information, such as hours of operation, admission charge, telephone number, guided tours available, photography not allowed, handicap access, restaurant or cafe at the location, etc? Perhaps a small section behind each location description that would include the icons and the related information? I can provide a Photoshopped proof-of-concept if anyone is interested. - Cybjorg 12:37, 15 May 2006 (EDT)

A little bit of that may be coming with a current project to develop custom tags to format listings. You can see an experimental example of a little telephone icon at Singapore/Sentosa#Sleep. I'm not sure that all of the things you mention would be practical, however. For example, handicap accessibility is mandated by law in the U.S., so that icon would have to be added to pretty much every hotel, restaurant, etc. in the country. - Todd VerBeek 15:07, 15 May 2006 (EDT)
I like the idea of tags for various subsets of information. I can't, however, see the telephone icon in your example. My browser (Firefox) simply displays a question mark in place of the icon. Here is a basic sketch of what I had in mind, although it far from refined. - Cybjorg 02:13, 16 May 2006 (EDT)
If you're not seeing the phone, that's probably a font issue; this is using a font character rather than a font image, and the font in use on your system probably doesn't include one. I do like the idea of using icons like this in the listings. It helps break them up visually, making it easier to find information quickly. - Todd VerBeek 08:04, 16 May 2006 (EDT)
Mark's new stylesheets automatically use a section-appropriate icon instead of the usual bullet for the "bulleted list" -- this was part of his style redesign which was done as his entry to the new logo contest. It's a bit of a mystery to me why Evan hasn't implemented it. See his demo site -- Colin 15:42, 17 May 2006 (EDT)
It's a nice looking redesign. I would like to see a full page option, as well as a refined print style sheet, but I like Mark's ideas. I especially like the Table of Contents floated to the right-hand side. - Cybjorg 01:16, 18 May 2006 (EDT)
If you click the arrow in the upper-right of the page, it will widen to full-width. -- Colin 01:32, 18 May 2006 (EDT)
Now that I've explored the page a bit more in depth, I also notice that he placed links to various style sheets, including one for print. Very clever. - Cybjorg 02:27, 18 May 2006 (EDT)
Colin: sorry about the mystery. I think there are some great features in the skin. I'm currently adapting some of the ideas from Mark's skin into Wikitravel, but it will probably not be included in toto into the site. --Evan 10:05, 18 May 2006 (EDT)
Which ideas make the cut? Which ones don't? I wouldn't have spent quite so much time on it or worked so hard to satisfy Niels' requirements if I'd known that it was only ever going to be a demo. -- Mark 16:47, 18 May 2006 (EDT)
I like the sharp edges and the colors as well as moving the table of contents. I like the stylesheet switcher -- it's elegantly executed. I'm not so hot on the per-section listing icons, since we've already got so many images loaded per page. I understand the motivation, but I'd rather reduce than increase the number of files that need to be loaded to see any one page. (See [1] for some points about optimizing our pages.)
I also think it might be possible to do the per-item icons using CSS2 rather than by reparsing the HTML output; Maybe with a CSS selector like: h3#Eat + ul li, but that would require changing how headers are generated (a good thing, in my opinion). I'm not sure how well the "+" in a CSS selector works.
Do you have some key parts that you think are vital to include? --Evan 17:13, 18 May 2006 (EDT)
The one-column style is emotionally important to me since it took the most time, and since I made it directly in response to a user's (Neils') requirement. Do you really think that the listing icons are so heavy? They are less than 1k eeach after all, and should get cached anyhow.
As for the method for delineating the sections, there's a comment right there in the PHP code begging for a better way to do it. -- Mark 17:54, 18 May 2006 (EDT)
Considering the size and repetition of the wee icons, I can't see them adding substantially to the "weight" of Wikitravel's pages. I developed a web site 10 years ago that used several images that size in much the same way, and even at 19.2 or 33.6kbps it didn't noticeably affect page-load times, even on the entry page. (Of course all of my HTML was lovingly and optimally hand-coded with height and width attributes, but still...) - Todd VerBeek 18:16, 18 May 2006 (EDT)

Sites of interest as opposed to the city/region/etc. focus Wikitravel has so far

A lot of the most interesting places to visit in China — for the "adventure tourist" at any rate — are, for historical reasons obvious to anybody who knows China's history, in way-the-Hell-out-of-the-way places nowhere near a city or town. Examples would include Longhu Mountain, home of one of the most important Taoist temples in China and White Deer Academy, the world's oldest university. (Other standalones which could at least plausibly be associated with nearby cities would include Shaolin Temple, Donglin Temple, Tiefo Temple, etc. but I think they'd still be better served as separate destinations rather than as simple entries in a city page.) I'm really not sure how I'd go about adding information on these kinds of places given the editorial policies in place and the templates provided. And yet I really want to actually document these out-of-the-way places which I've grown to love in my stay in China. Could anybody with some suggestions on how to do this drop a line on my user talk page? --Michael 06:49, 17 May 2006 (EDT)

Wikitravel:Plunge forward and write them up as small cities, which is the 'default' template for oddballs (cf. Panmunjeom, North Pole). Alternatively, if they're national parks (as eg. Longhushan seems to be), then the park template is also a good option. Jpatokal 02:15, 18 May 2006 (EDT)

"Discover" page created for Wikitraveltrivia

So I took TVerBeek's suggestion and created Wikitravel:Discover for the "Did you know?" stuff. Debates about naming and how to display this on Wikitravel talk:Discover, please. Jpatokal 13:48, 23 May 2006 (EDT)

Equivalent of wikipedia's reference desk

Is there currently an equivalent of a reference desk in wikitravel? Andjam 01:13, 25 May 2006 (EDT)

Sort of: some destinations have docents, but in general feel free to post questions to talk pages and someone will try to answer! Majnoona 22:42, 27 May 2006 (EDT)
It might be cool to start it, though! I like the idea. Wikitravel:Information kiosk, maybe? Or just Wikitravel:?, like the road signs ? --Evan 10:48, 1 June 2006 (EDT)
Or how about Wikitravel:Concierge? Concierge means keeper of the keys and that's essentially what anyone volunteering for that job would be. - Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 04:50, 11 June 2006 (EDT)

Factbookectomy

Ahem.

As far as I can tell, there are no articles left in Wikitravel (not counting archives or reference copies) which consist entirely, primarily, or substantially of CIA World Factbook imports.

If you manage to find any, please plunge forward and fix it yourself.

I do have to say: de-factbooking the last few dozen remaining imports the past couple days was a rather interesting excursion through many tiny little islands, some vast swaths of Africa, and... how did Mexico manage to go so long without a full factbookectomy?

- Todd VerBeek 15:02, 5 June 2006 (EDT)

Congratulations! Here's a millstone milestone to wear around your neck. Would you happen to remember what was the last one? Jpatokal 05:03, 7 June 2006 (EDT)


Is this still a community?

Sorry but I begin more and more to wonder if wikitravel is still a community or just one or two navigators plus a bunch of content providers. It seems that important decisions are done outside the community, while important actions that could restore faith (database dumps or xml exports) are postboned. While we can discuss about the reasons not to have a public vote about selling whatever to internetbrands, we - as a community - should definetly have discussions (and votings) before significant changes in the look and feel are made. Btw, I never saw a change of the ToC on the "Requested Feature"-page. Of course, consensus takes time, but where is the problem. We had white spaces for years, I think we could have lived with them a few weeks more until a decision was made.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I get the sad feeling that parts of this project are slowly dying. I think this is especially true for the german language version. I'm not saying I'm quitting right now, but I definetly lost a lot of joy I found in the work here. Just to give some feedback, Thorsten 16:52, 6 June 2006 (EDT).

Thorsten, I'm sorry you feel that way; there's a discussion going on at Wikitravel talk:Table of contents location to figure out the best place to put the table of contents. If you'd like to participate in that conversation, please do; I really want to get this worked out. We've had people complain about the whitespace in the ToCs, I moved stuff over as a bug fix. I don't think it's a major change, but some people seem pretty attached to it, so I'd like to figure out the right thing to do. My personal feeling is that moving the ToC to the right side of the screen is the best bet.
Typically I haven't asked people's opinions before adding features or fixing bugs in the past, especially if the impact isn't very severe. I don't plan on micromanaging the development process in the future, either; we aren't going to have referendums on what order the "Search" buttons should go in.
That said, the strength of this project is and always will be the community. I'm open to suggestions, feedback, complaints and protests (that's what Wikitravel:Bug reports and Wikitravel:Feature requests are for). One option User:Cjensen suggested was having a read-only "demo" wiki where new UI ideas can be tested. The last thing in the world I want is for people to think that they don't have a voice. My job is to keep the servers running and keep the software going so that you and other contributors are more effective and have more fun making travel guides.
I'm also really concerned about de:; I miss de:Benutzer:DerFussi, who was a great anchor for that community and a really great go-between and a nice man. I think we need to rebuild the bridges between de: and en: and make sure that German contributors are getting the support (technical and administrative) that they need. de: Wikitravel is a really great project and I want to see it keep succeeding. --Evan 17:54, 6 June 2006 (EDT)
Hi Evan - the point Mark made about the importance of communication is a much bigger deal after the sale to Internet Brands. A lot of people are a bit uncomfortable about the current arrangement, but we're also happy for you and Maj and want to see things work out. More communication, involvement of the community in the change process, and discussion about why changes are happening would be a very good thing, and would probably make everyone a bit more comfortable with the way change is handled.
Based on your previous comments it seems like you see certain things as being solely in your control (in some cases with input possible from the community), while other things are in the community's control. However, where that line is drawn does not seem to be clear to everyone, so it might be helpful to specifically spell it out in something like a Wikitravel:Project infrastructure policy. Identifying cases where you don't feel community consensus is needed (server work, MediaWiki software updates, bugfixes) and what you see as driven by you with community input (look & feel, new features) would be helpful. Additionally, a Wikitravel:Project infrastructure plans page would be helpful to provide users with a timeline of planned changes and provide a forum for discussion. Setting up the infrastructure policy to say that "infrastructure changes will be made unless there is a consensus within the community NOT to make them" should be fine as long as it's clear what is infrastructure; a change like the TOC change would be fine since there wasn't a clear consensus against it. The benefit would be that people would have a few days to hear the reason for a change and to make suggestions. Thoughts? -- Ryan 19:35, 6 June 2006 (EDT)
I think that sounds like a really good plan. I'd also like to emphasize the reversability of the process (stuff that gets added can get removed if people are adamant) and the importance of giving new tools a try before giving up on them. --Evan 20:07, 6 June 2006 (EDT)
Meh. We already have too many words and too little action about community participation. I like the idea of the read-only demo site better, it would've been the best way to handle this little TOC thing and any future, more far-reaching skin/UI changes. Jpatokal 22:16, 6 June 2006 (EDT)
Evan, I didn't want to put that on the ToC discussion site, because I think my considerations are more of general concern. And I also think that there is some difference about adding a feature or removing a bug compared to changing stuff on the site. And I think the UI is not "micromanagement", because everybody working in the web industry will agree that the look-and-feel of a website is more than very important. And about people having a voice: I think there were more voters for categories than for this new ToC? Having a test wiki were WE can decide about look and feel, is also a good way to increase transparency.
But putting the ToC aside, right now the situation is more like I'm not sure what to find on wikitravel the next day. And that's why I would appreciate the above mentioned roadmaps for wikitravel. But please, now publish those plans and not just agree here and then leave it. There are not many actions yet done from the April 20th discussion. I'm still waiting for a download version. But then again, I don't feel much community when I have to get an approval by you or ib or anyone to download the xml export.
The german language version is sure suffering from some exits of important contributers. But I don't think it's technical or administrative support the is required most. The reasons for quitting were 1.) selling wikitravel to a "commercial" enterprise and 2.) your communication policy. Maybe it's a cultural thing that this hit the other language versions more than the english version? Thorsten 03:52, 7 June 2006 (EDT)
More information is defintely better and a test Wiki would be great. I think everybody is a bit uncertain about what the future (IB) will bring, so as more transparent your movements are, the more people will trust you. The community here not only wants to contribute. What Thorsten mentions about culture is in my view very true. Most people in German speaking countries see companies transactions like these with IB very negative because free distributed work by individuals get sold to an investor who takes advantage of it. Jan 04:26, 7 June 2006 (EDT)

I'm very concerned about the current development. There was no real reason for changing the TOC. Evan wrote, that there were several complaints about it. For those, there are other solutions such as Template:TOCleft - with an advantage of individual use. If the current change will be maintained, I will quit contributing on German language Wikitravel. -- Steffen M. 05:57, 7 June 2006 (EDT)

@Jan: I think the real reason for the current crisis on German language Wikitravel was not simply the selling out of Wikitravel, it was the undemocratic and abrupt decision of Evan. There was no chance for discussing the issue and finding alternatives, for example founding a society such as Wikimedia. Furthermore, we really don't know until today, why he sold Wikitravel. The change of the TOC is just a continution. It's true, especially in Germany we hate it to see the power in one man's hand (the reasons should be known). -- Steffen M. 07:11, 7 June 2006 (EDT)

Hi Evan! You have almost done it. Wait some weeks and you can declare the German Wikitravel officially dead. It's not enough to cut your losses and explain your actions afterwards. You've said that the bridges between en: and de: have to be rebuild. Just idle talk. I've never seen any attempt of you on the Traveller's pub on de: Only some small answers on some user pages. -- DerFussi 08:37, 7 June 2006 (EDT)
I know nothing about the past history of this relationship, but based on the attitude I'm hearing, it doesn't sound like you're giving Evan much of a chance. I agree that he has sometimes done a poor job of communicating, such that changes like this come completely out of the blue for most of us, and that's something that needs addressing (he's getting some flak for it here in EN as well), but ultimatums and thinly veiled comparisons to a certain late Chancellor aren't helping. - Todd VerBeek 09:34, 7 June 2006 (EDT)
DF, if there's a conversation that you'd like me to participate in, please let me know. I've been trying to keep up on User talk: pages because that seems to be where the conversations about Wikitravel are happening. I don't think Wikitravel de: is dead by a long shot. --Evan 09:54, 7 June 2006 (EDT)
Steffen, I'm pretty amazed that you don't know what happened with Wikitravel. I'd recommend reading Wikitravel:20 April 2006, in which I laid out why the sale happened, and Wikitravel talk:Internet Brands, which has a lot of questions and answers. If you have some questions not answered there, absolutely ask. --Evan 09:54, 7 June 2006 (EDT)
Sure, I know these pages. You explained, why both projects (Wikitravel and World 66) should work together, but not, why you sold Wikitravel to a commercial enterprise. Providing leadership and resources is no justification for that. -- Steffen M. 10:21, 7 June 2006 (EDT)
Do you mean, why we sold to a commercial company as compared to moving to Wikimedia or starting a foundation, or continuing to pay for it ourselves? Money, of course. B-) Maj and I were able to cover costs and donate our time for 4he time being, but it was getting more and more expensive and we had to find a long-term solution for the site.
I think Wikimedia Foundation is a great project, but I was concerned with the level of support and attention that wikis that aren't Wikipedia en: get from the WMF. There are 600 wikis with 1 full-time programmer at the WMF; we didn't think that Wikitravel would get the resources it needed to thrive if it was just another project at the WMF.
My experience with non-profit foundations and Free Software/Free Content projects is poor. There are some notable winners and a lot of losers. It seems like donations come in quickly the first time you ask, and go down and down and down from there. An example is the Freenet Project, which gathered a few hundred thousand dollars in donations, and now has $500 in its bank account (according to the front page on their site). With donations we could probably have paid for server resources, but not for programmers' and sysadmins' time. And we'd be competing with other non-profits for donations and attention. A non-profit foundation to run a big Web site seemed like a really big gamble -- not a secure plan for the future.
So, when Internet Brands approached us about Wikitravel, we thought hard about their proposal. Our primary concern was making sure that the project continued and thrived. They offered to employ us to work on the site full time, to pay for hardware and network bandwidth, and to put sysadmins, programmers, and designers at the site's disposal. They wanted to keep the site community-oriented, maintain the license, ensure its editorial integrity, and support its growth. They were clear about wanting to make money from the site, but we thought that the way they wanted to make money (ads on the site) was the most transparent possible business model, and it would support the continued growth of the project. Lastly, there was an option to form a partnership with World66, which was very attractive. The upshot: a secure site, ready for growth, with little change in the culture and content, and a long-time competitor turned into a collaborator. There wasn't an alternative even remotely as attractive.
The project's long-term future was our responsibility; shirking that responsibility wasn't an option. We didn't want to put our relationship with the project to a vote; it was a personal decision we had to make. --Evan 11:44, 7 June 2006 (EDT)
Hi Evan, thank you for your detailled reply, this was something I missed up to now. I don't support, but I also don't oppose the commercialisation of Wikitravel. However, I think that I speak for the German contributors who have left Wikitravel since April 20. Why didn't you inform the community before? Do you have no confidence in it? And referring the collaboration: Especially non-English language versions have no advantage from a collaboration with World66.
As I mentioned, I strongly oppose the current change in the TOC style; this was initially the only reason for my complaints here. Is there another solution? I prefer the individual use of TOC templates (TOCleft and TOCright). -- Steffen M. 12:26, 7 June 2006 (EDT)
I think there are a number of possible solutions, which are under discussion on the Wikitravel talk:Table of contents location page. I've rolled back to the old format until we come to a decision about what to do. I have to say that I find complaints about the layout with the ToC in the content area very reasonable; I just don think pages like this give a good first impression for readers. --Evan 12:52, 7 June 2006 (EDT)
Hi Steffen. I just want to follow up on what Evan has said and maybe answer the questions about why we didn't inform the community "before." I think it's important to understand that we did not decide to sell the site and then go shop around for buyers. In fact, we had turned down a number of different commercial venture offers of different types in the past. When we realized that there was the possibility of coming to an agreement with IB, it was not realistic, either from a legal or business perspective, to publicize the negotiations. I'm not sure what level of involvement you would have liked: +10k users could hardly have fit into a meeting room, nor could we set up a wiki for community-editing of the legal agreements. We made the announcement as soon as it was feasible and have been working hard to answer issues and questions as they come up.
I'm sorry there has been problems communicating with the other language versions-- I try to follow along with Google Translate, but it's far from perfect. I hope continuing the conversation here in English is helping to clarify things! Majnoona 14:31, 7 June 2006 (EDT)
But this is not a software problem. You can solve it on individual ways without destroying the style of other articles, see my Version of San Diego. -- Steffen M. 14:13, 7 June 2006 (EDT)
That wouldn't work on pages with a picture or a country quickbar in the upper right corner. Unless you're suggesting that we should put the TOC on one side or the other from one page to the next, which throws consistency out the window, and is a Bad Thing. - Todd VerBeek 16:10, 7 June 2006 (EDT)
Todd, I totally agree with you. I think some users got a bit carried away in this discussion, but that only shows how deeply emotionally they are involved in wikitravel. Of course I wanted to do some fingerpointing, but I agree with you that we should not start a tribunal. On the other side it is important to remind Evan of past promises and warn him about the mood in some areas of wikitravel. So let's wait and see how Evan will react - not with words but with actions. I'm very interested to see the Wikitravel:Project infrastructure plans page that's hopefully coming up soon. Thorsten 10:03, 7 June 2006 (EDT)

Problem displaying location hierarchy after a redirect?

Umea redirects to Umeå. If you follow the link for Umea, the first line of text after the title is "(Redirected from Umea)," but on Umeå, it's "Scandinavia : Sweden : Norrland : Umeå." Shouldn't this line also be present after following a redirect? Philbert2.71828 15:37, 7 June 2006 (EDT)

  • You might argue that it "should" be there, but this is how it's designed to work. :) What's happening is that the "redirected" message takes over the on-screen slot that the breadcrumbs otherwise would use. - Todd VerBeek 18:01, 7 June 2006 (EDT)

Movies

guys , english is not my mother tonguage , i just want to search for movies about different countries before i travel to it..movies speaking about natural places maybe animals..anythng interesting about the country i m heading to? i just want to know what is the name of that kind of movies , is it documantry?i always search documantry movies but it just speak about history of the country.. and just a suggestion can we add a topic for every place or city with movies made by us..i mean most of the travellers do some photoing and make small movies while they are travelling , can we add a section of ( movies ) to every country so every one can upload his own movie about it  ?

A movie like that is sometimes called a "travelogue" or "travelog". Putting movies on Wikitravel would introduce some major technical difficulties, including questions about what formats (QuickTime, Windows Media, etc?), and the amount of bandwidth they would take to download. And that doesn't fit well with Wikitravel's goal of producing a guide that can be printed. - Todd VerBeek 00:22, 11 June 2006 (EDT)
This would be more in line with what World66 is doing... Jpatokal 01:14, 11 June 2006 (EDT)
I don't think he or she's suggesting putting movies on Wikitravel, just asking how to find them. If we know of a good movie or book specific to an area, it is worth pointing out in the article. e.g I linked to one of each in Nurestan and Macau#Read suggests a book on the history. It is not entirely clear in Wikitravel:External_links that such links are OK. I'd say it should be. Pashley 02:08, 11 June 2006 (EDT)
I think he was asking to create a section for uploading videos because of this quote: "so every one can upload his own movie." The 'where you can stick it' page is good with directing people on where to put a good book about a destination/topic (In the Understand section) and I believe a good film should go there too. I'm not particularlly fond of the idea of linking to another website for information on books or websites. I think it should be sufficient enough to give the title and the author/director and let the user go to the nearest book/video store. - Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 03:45, 11 June 2006 (EDT)
If you're recommending a movie or a book generally available to bookstores (i.e. not a self-published tourism-agency publication), simply typing "(ISBN 1891830600)" will autolink to B&N, Amazon, and a couple sites that do online scans for the best price. - Todd VerBeek 08:29, 11 June 2006 (EDT)


i was suggesting uploading movies to wikitravel .i think wiki travel is good source for travel in there journy , but simple question what make u do ur journy?i mean what make u to go to sudan and not to korea?simply it will depend on some information u gather or a movie u see , maybe a book , maybe some of ur friends tell u something or alot of other resurses..why not try to make wikitravel help us not just while the journy but also before the journy!help us in choosing our destenations..if a traveller made a movie(nice )one ,about certain place , and then he uploaded to the other travelers to have an idea about that place , i think that will help alot!

the next step is about the practical problems , like the format of the movies and teh extra bandwdith needed , well i think that can be solve.for the format i think we can leave it free for anyone to do what he want..maybe he has low internet connection so he will upload low quailty movie , maybe other has higher band , and can do better.. teh next problem of the extra band , i don't know but i can think of 2 solutions, maybe we can depend on the torrent tecnology so the role of the server in wiki will just act as manger of teh process and no need for large extra band , or we can just depend on other torrent sites which can do that and just link to it..

in either cases i think the practical problems must not stop us..for example take a look at legeltorrent.com , u will see a nice movie about sibria in russia!

Requests for Quickbar-ectomies

The recently introduced quickbar template is now in use in over a hundred articles, but there are still a substantial number of articles using the old quickbar. Converting to the new format is pretty easy, so anyone interested in helping out can use this link to locate pages still implementing an HTML quickbar, and then edit the page to use the following syntax:

{{quickbar
| image=[[Image:image|noframe|250px]]
| flag=[[Image:flag]]
| location=[[Image:location|noframe|250px]]
| capital=[[Capital]]
| government=Type of government
| currency=Currency used
| area=Country area
| population=Population
| language=[[Language1]], [[Language2]], Language3, ...
| religion=Religion(s)
| electricity=Electrical voltage and current
| callingcode=Calling code
| tld=Internet top level domain
| timezone=Time zone(s) in relation to UTC
}}

If you don't feel like looking up a field it can be left empty, such as "timezone=". In addition, Todd points out the following:

It's not terribly difficult; I've done dozens of them already. The most time-consuming part of it is looking up the usually-missing bits (which are all optional, but as long as you're there you might as well), and picking a pretty picture if you're so inclined. Here are some handy references: TLDs [2], electricity [3], calling codes, and time zones. - Todd VerBeek 13:58, 7 June 2006 (EDT)

This isn't a critical task, but the more people who feel like helping out the faster it will get done. -- Ryan 22:22, 13 June 2006 (EDT)

And it looks like, after a few weeks of mostly Ryan and me tag-teaming it, we've finished! At this point, it is theoretically possible to move, reformat, etc. all of the country/territory quickbars at once by editing a handful of templates. - Todd VerBeek 22:02, 2 July 2006 (EDT)

Compliant external use of Wikitravel

Seems to me e-journey.net [4] is one of the very few external sites properly obeying the CC-by-SA 1.0 license. I found them early on June 14th and it appears that the articles they copied and pasted are very old, because all of the articles I looked at had "External Links" on the bottom. I also like how they copied and pasted the links to images, but didn't use any of the images. - Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 01:42, 14 June 2006 (EDT)

They are incredibly old - the mirror dates back to November 2005. — Ravikiran 16:00, 16 June 2006 (EDT)

Wikitravel on IRC

Is this used much? The link given on the help page didn't work in my browser. I haven't used mIRC in about 7 years, but I downloaded it in the hopes of getting some quick answers to easy questions. (Instead of asking in my edit summaries :)). When I got to #wikitravel I was all alone. Sup? OldPine 11:16, 16 June 2006 (EDT)

Bah... was on the wrong server. My bad. OldPine 11:22, 16 June 2006 (EDT)

Marco Polo

As discussed here earlier, I've done On the trail of Marco Polo. So far, I'm the only editor. I think it is finished. Others please look, comment, perhaps improve. Pashley 05:15, 18 June 2006 (EDT)

Wow! Very nice! I enjoyed this very much. A map would be great (but they are so hard to do in my estimation). Nice work! OldPine 08:57, 18 June 2006 (EDT)
Great job! It will take some time to read it. A map would be good to follow the route. But take some rest before. Jan 09:54, 18 June 2006 (EDT)


Template:Unsigned

Any objections about importing Wikipedia:Template:Unsigned and starting to use it? -- Jonboy 17:19, 23 June 2006 (EDT)

I think that it should be more explicit on Wikitravel:Using Mediawiki templates, but here would be my suggestion: copy it over, explain what it's used for on Template talk:Unsigned, maybe add a note to Wikitravel:Requests for comment, try it in a few places for an example, then wait to see what the support for it is like. It doesn't seem like such a bad template to me; if it's used gently and helpfully, rather than as an accusation, I think that it's pretty OK. --Evan 18:04, 23 June 2006 (EDT)
OK. Done, the way you suggested. I've started to deploy it on my talk page as a first test. -- Jonboy 13:52, 26 June 2006 (EDT)

Quickbars on states?

I've noticed whilst trawling through Wikitravel upgrading the old quickbars to the new template that alot of the states in the US and also a few of the departements in France have quickbars... Do these actually need quickbars? In most cases, the info in the bar is merely a summary of what is already written in the wordy bit of the article or a copy of what is written in the country's quickbar, such as language spoken, currency, internet domain, time zone etc. A few examples of this are Maine, Poitou-Charentes. For the sake of uniformity throughout wikitravel, I believe we should either

  • quickbar all such states/departements/provinces with a tailor made region quickbar template

OR

  • remove quickbars from states/departements/provinces.

However, in my opinion if we put region quickbars in, the kinds of things that could be put in - such as main sights - would require explanations in the See / Do sections.... What do other people think? Tsandell 07:54, 26 June 2006 (EDT)

Those quickbars don't appeal to me. The timezone info is nice to have. OldPine 09:44, 26 June 2006 (EDT)
See Template talk:Quickbar#Quickbar for States. -- Ryan 10:27, 26 June 2006 (EDT)

TMI on Airplane Routes

User:172.158.93.238 has added large tables of airline connections to a bunch of articles (for example Abbotsford). I think they are too much detail, and should be deleted. But I'd like a second opinion first -- Colin 16:18, 28 June 2006 (EDT)

Seconded. It appears to be User:172.177.249.236 popping up again. Evan and I tried to talk to him/her about it to no avail. Let the reverts begin. -- Jonboy 18:21, 28 June 2006 (EDT)
Oh good, it's already been discussed. -- Colin 18:25, 28 June 2006 (EDT)
I've been reverting this for a couple days and started a discussion for him to see on the article he repeatedly added the tables to - Alesund. - Sapphire
The IP address for this user changes spontaneously so we have to vigilant. Today (June 29) his IP is - 172.182.3.234. (This has since changed multiple times.) -- Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 04:47, 29 June 2006 (EDT)
TMI? WTF is that? C'mon, it's not even in the jargon. OldPine 06:57, 29 June 2006 (EDT)
TMI = Too much information. Have you seen these tables? He even lists what kind of aircraft someone flies on if they go with a specific airline. -- Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 07:09, 29 June 2006 (EDT)
Ah, I see. If I were NewPine I might have got that. No, I haven't peeked. I haven't moved into cop phase yet, but I truly appreciate how the admins are on top of things like that. OldPine 10:06, 29 June 2006 (EDT)
I agree that the info here is excessive; I wonder if there's a way we can make space for this information. I think there is a case for saying that it's another way of seeing travel, and maybe we could make a new article category for precise bus, train, and air schedules. but I could also buy the idea that they're pretty hard to keep up to date. --Evan 09:53, 29 June 2006 (EDT)
Some of this is useful (e.g. savvy travelers like to avoid certain aircraft for safety/comfort reasons), but with the possible exception of a certain Israeli bus line, most carriers do a pretty good job of keeping this information accessible and up to date on their own sites/publications. Let the primary sources handle that. - Todd VerBeek 10:13, 29 June 2006 (EDT)
I refuse to fly on Boeing jets and do research the aircraft I will be flying on, but for Wikitravel I just don't think the information is relevant, because so many airlines are changing their routes selling off older jets for newer ones that are cheaper to maintain and use less fuel to prevent bankruptcy. I like listing the airport that serves a city then provide information about the airlines have big operations at the airport. I.e. If someone wants to use the Philadelphia airport I'd mention that U.S. Air has its hub there, but I wouldn't bother listing that U.S. Air or KLM have a single gate that they use at the CVG airport in Cincinnati. -- Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 12:34, 29 June 2006 (EDT)

Wikitravel on PDA

I'm new to this project, so forgive me if I'm posting in the wrong section. Anyway, I feel the real wikitravel revolution would come from PDA compability. A simple program installed in your PDA both for reading wikitravel and adding new information. I would use wikitravel a million times more and contribute ten times more than now if I could read and contribute through a handheld computer and just "sync" (downloading all new information and uploading all contributions) when coming across a WiFi hotspot or a internet connected computer with a USB-port. Has this been discussed? Is there such an application already? Why isn't it top priority? -- Fridday 20:35, 29 June 2006 (EDT)

There's an independent project that's been started to format Wikitravel articles for downloading to iPods. For most full-featured PDAs (e.g. PalmOS, WinCE) it's mostly a matter of downloading web pages and reading them offline, which isn't terribly difficult to do. Offline updates are much trickier, because you don't know whether someone's edited the article online since you downloaded it. As for priorities, developing the content itself – and letting that drive the development of offline readers (and updaters) – seems to be closer to the top of most people's lists. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by TVerBeek (talkcontribs)
There's also a project that's part of Wikitravel called Wikitravel:Offline Reader Expedition. PDA and mobile phone versions of Wikitravel are one of the project's targeted platforms (see Wikitravel:goals and non-goals), but we don't have any standardized output for PDAs. There are a couple of reasons. First, mobile phone and PDA providers have in the past had widely disparate content standards for text and hypertext, and those phones and PDAs that do support standards like WAP and XHTML-Basic do so inconsistently. Second, there aren't already good apps for editing hypertext on a PDA or mobile phone, nor for syncing with a remote server. Third, the platforms are very split -- Java, Symbian, Windows Mobile and PalmOS all have significant distribution -- so making an editor ourselves would only get part of the market, or be spread across 4-5 platforms with lots of bugs and errors.
Lastly, it seems like a really important thing to people who have mobile phones with big screens and PDAs. For the other 99.999% of the world, it's better to have a Web page that looks good printed out, or a printed book. --Evan 11:12, 30 June 2006 (EDT)
Great, thanks for your answers! I don't own a PDA myself, but would most probably buy one right away if there was an offline wikitravel application. The expedition mentioned seems to be right on target. But do you really think it is that diffcult to work out a system for offline updates? It would be easy to start with an integrated notepad in the reader, with the notes linked to a specific article. The traveller could just copy and paste after reading the latest versions. And doesn't the system already check if there has ben a simultanious update while you were writing your contribution online? Couldn't that be used for offline updates? -- Fridday 15:31, 30 June 2006 (EDT)
The software on the web site tries to keep track of whether more than on person has a page open for editing at the same time, which works pretty well over the course of a few minutes, but there could be a delay of days between when you download a page to your PDA and when you upload the edited version, and there could be dozens of edits in the meantime if it's a popular destination. That's a bit much for a simple wiki database to keep track of. Your thought of manually copying and pasting new/updated info is more practical. - Todd VerBeek 16:06, 30 June 2006 (EDT)
I'm sorry, but I believe you are plain wrong. This is the error you get if someone has changed the page while you were editing:
Someone else has changed this page since you started editing it. The upper text area contains the page text as it currently exists. Your changes are shown in the lower text area. You will have to merge your changes into the existing text. Only the text in the upper text area will be saved when you press "Save page".
I don't think the wikiscript "keep track" of people having the page open for editing. It just checks if the version you try to edit is the last one.
It seems to me an offline editor could work something like this: You have made four offline updates. When online you manually click "sync". The program tries to add the first edit to the database. If the page has not been changed while offline, itwill just move on with the next update, if it has been changed you will be presented with above message and you copy and paste and then push a button for the program to move on with the other updates. I really don't see why everybody seems to think that an offline editor is such a problem. -- Fridday 18:50, 1 July 2006 (EDT)

Linking to downloads

User:deepinlife has been linking to movies on the Siberia article. At first I directed him to include the links in the understand section only if the movies were informative and useful similar to what we would do for a book. I thought the links were linking to an informative website about the movies, but I later realized that the links were actually links to download the movies. I'm very hesitant about allowing this because the potential abuse. What do others think? To see the discussion I had with Deepinlife please consult my talk page. -- Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 01:57, 2 July 2006 (EDT)

This has come up before (I will try and dig up a link) and I think the consenus was that we dont want to be linking to multimedia, at least for now. Reasons I can remember included: not useful offline, hard to review for appropriate content, generally not inline with Wikitravel:Goals and non-goals and Wikitravel:External links. HTH Majnoona 10:33, 2 July 2006 (EDT)
can u just tell me what it do violate in Wikitravel:Goals and non-goals ?[[User:deepinlife|deepinlife] 19:03, 2 July 2006 (EDT)
Non-goal #8: Building a web directory. Also note that it does not match any goal. -- Colin 13:58, 2 July 2006 (EDT)
Just upload the video as though it were any other image. Of course you'll have to release it under our liscencing terms. Wikitravel now has support from a commercial entity, so there's no reason for us Wikitravellers to concern ourselves with anything as mundane as bandwith usage. -- Mark 14:18, 2 July 2006 (EDT)
According to Wikitravel:Image policy#Other media non-images should not be uploaded to Wikitravel. I sympathize with Deepinlife's desire to include what he or she sees as valuable content in the guides, but the past consensus has been to limit external links to primary sources and to not include multimedia other than images. I don't see any new arguments that show a compelling reason to change that policy. Perhaps in the future, especially if integration with World66 becomes tighter, there will be a place for such things, but at the moment it seems like they would distract from the current efforts of creating the most useful travel guides possible. -- Ryan 14:37, 2 July 2006 (EDT)
At this point I see no reason at all not to reform the image policy to allow video uploads. We no longer have to worry about backups, bandwidth, or disk space, so therefore the image policy should be ammended. Let's take advantage of the IB deal!
However, I'm totally against linking to external video. That's a slippery slope, and besides since we don't know what the copyright terms or license is for the external video it might well compromise our goal of making a Free travel guide. -- Mark 15:02, 2 July 2006 (EDT)
I dont think it's a bandwidth issue at all. Just cause we can host things doesn't mean we should. I think multimedia would take us down a Wikitravel:Slippery slope away from our goals. I'd love to see a place for this, and other creative travel-related content, in the future, but I'm really against it here and now. Majnoona 17:20, 2 July 2006 (EDT)
Mark, could you point me to the statement from IB that they'd commit unlimited resources to the project and that we should stop exercising any kind of reasonable restraint in that area? I must have missed it. - Todd VerBeek 19:36, 2 July 2006 (EDT)
Before we go too far down this path, I'd just like to reiterate that the issue isn't one of resources but of goals... Majnoona 23:32, 2 July 2006 (EDT)
Non-goal #8: Building a web directory. Also note that it does not match any goal.
then why there is externel links to books and different other things..we may cancel externel link then...
it match some goals
Wikitravel articles can and should have links to external resources about destinations, itineraries, travel-oriented companies, and other travel-related Web sites. However, it's not a goal to collect all links about any destination. External links should support and complement the content of articles; they're not a goal in and of themselves.
why speaking about uploading to wikitravel?we just speak about externel link..May teh licence of teh movies violate teh free licence we have , yes but what is teh problem...anyone from us can copy something or upload image which violate this and then reviewers will delete it!!!even if we uploaded it to wiki , there will be someone who will check if it don't violate our licence or not!
speaking about bandwidth is nothing to do in that disscusiion because we are speaking about externel servers not ours..
the only problem i see right now will be teh licence violating but as said earlier it is reviewers work to correct the bad of the new commmers..
what willl be better , making use of free movies which serve us or just stop thinking about teh idea because it has some problem...i think wiki idea itself was built to resist this idea...if we was not writing the wiki articles because someone may copy something which violate teh licence of our articles, we was not to make such great site!!!
it is teh same idea , i see no difference...
maybe someone think that movies is not vaulable offline ,maybe that is true..but movies is there just to help u choose ur destentation and know ur destentation more...not to help u while travelling..
jsut wanna ask what wil be better when i want to discribe my journy to ploto?
an article containg some papers .,or an article and a movie which is not having my own photo or photos of my grandma..jsut a movie about ploto and creatures living there???!!deepinlife

Two Questions

I apologize if these questions have been asked before:

  1. Why isn't this great project one of the Wikimedia Foundation's projects?
  2. How can one initiate a Hebrew Wikitravel?

Ori Mosenzon 10:56, 3 July 2006 (EDT)

Hello and welcome! Take a look at Wikitravel:Language version policy for more about starting a Hebrew Wikitravel. Hope this helps! Majnoona 11:16, 3 July 2006 (EDT)
thanks!Ori Mosenzon 12:14, 3 July 2006 (EDT)
Hi, Ori. Lots of good wikis aren't part of Wikimedia. --Evan 11:51, 3 July 2006 (EDT)
I know, but I think this one is so fundamental and has such a great potential to grow that maybe it should be a WikiMedia's sister project.Ori Mosenzon 12:14, 3 July 2006 (EDT)

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