Talk:Amusement

Page move

I moved this page from List of Amusement & Theme Parks for a number of reasons:

• The & is a special character and interferes with some wiki functions.
• The article title did not really follow the Project:Article naming conventions.
• The article as it stood is on a slippery slope as it confines itself to a list rather than being a full travel topic.
• As it stood it didn't really meet the criteria for an article.
• I cut it down to Amusement because it means we can talk about non-park amusements too. That means those rides or experiences that border on adventure tourism. We can also then link from the word Amusement in Amusement Park articles.

-- (WT-en) Huttite 04:32, 24 Dec 2005 (EST)

Article vision

My vision for this article, if it is to be one, is that it talks generally about the range of amusement experiences that travelers can look out for and then identifies the places where these amusements exist. A follow on article could be Adventure tourism and this article should provide a lead into that topic.

The article should discuss:

• Thrill and adrenalin rush experiences such as travelling very fast, up, down, around and about or otherwise being scared out of your wits for a few minute, in relative safety.
• Fantasy themed adventures or experiences, especially where associated with movies, stories or children's play activities.
• Historic reenactment experiences that involve the visitor as part of the activity.
• Rides on unusual modes of transport, particularly where the rider is subjected to unusual forces by deliberate design.

The article avoid discussing too much about:

• Museums, Zoos, Wildlife preserves, Parks, Gardens and other generally static displays that do not require visitor participation much beyond walking through the exhibition space.
• Dramatic performances where the visitor is just part of the audience, not a significant or prime participant.
• Industrial, Mining or Manufacturing plant tours.
• Public transport in everyday use. Vintage public transport where the ride is the experience is a marginal case.
• Sport, and especially avoid the Adventure Sports such as canoeing, rafting, parachuting, skiing or mountaineering.
• Self organised activities that the ordinary person could go to a sports shop and hire or purchase equipment for an equivalent experience. (There should always be an operator or sevice provider that supplies the equipment and supervises the activity.)

-- (WT-en) Huttite 04:32, 24 Dec 2005 (EST)

I'm afraid I disagree on most counts — not only am I not sure this is article-worthy, but I don't think "amusement" is a good name at all for this as people can also be amused by quilting contests and navel lint. "Adventure tourism", on the other hand, is more about climbing up cliffs with one hand tied behind your back with ravenous bugblatters nipping at your heels and hostile natives shooting at you with curare-tipped blowpipes. Why not the much less ambiguous "Theme parks"? (WT-en) Jpatokal 21:57, 26 Dec 2005 (EST)

I toyed with the idea of Theme parks when I moved it but because there were a couple of amusement park articles being created I went that way instead, then realised that both Amusement parks and Theme parks are a very American (or English) thing. In many other parts of the world you have amusements but they do not take place in a park, unless you consider Queenstown, say, to be a theme park you need some place to hang those oddball activities that everyone wants to do for the thrill. All I could think of at the time was amusement. I could live with the name being changed but I think it would limit the article, or we might need more articles on the subject (not!).

As to being a worthy article, are Amusement parks, Theme Parks and even Expos worthy articles? Some may not think so. But if they are going to be created, and justify themselves, then we need an article like this one to collect them together as another way of seeing travel. This article means we can put both the theme parks and individual attractions of a similar nature together in one article. Think of this as being a cross-reference article that allows the bigger (comparative) picture to be seen. If you are looking for an amusement activity and where to do it, to plan your travel, this page would have the information.

One thing that continually frustrates me with many of the articles I see on Wikivoyage is that people write about a place from the point of view that they are there and what you can do there rather than wanting to do something and where (and how) to travel to do it. -- (WT-en) Huttite 06:35, 27 Dec 2005 (EST)