Talk:Finland in ten days by car

How is this not a personal itinerary?

We discourage "personal itineraries" along the lines of "a weekend in New York". How is this article not exactly that? If there are good reasons to keep it, please state them. Otherwise I recommend merging the relevant content to Finland and deleting this article. Best wishes Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:12, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

We've made some exceptions in the past for "personal" itineraries that cover a clearly defined route (see question #1 under WV:Itineraries#Valid itinerary article subjects) and that are relatively complete such as Three days in Singapore. We definitely don't want to encourage creation of any more of these sorts of articles, but when it comes to merging a relatively complete older article that includes a map outlining the route, I think it's worth considering an exception. I don't have strong feelings either way on this particular article, but before proceeding @Ypsilon: should weigh in since he/she was the main author of this article and should be able to provide additional insight. -- Ryan • (talk) • 03:06, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

If there is a good reason to keep it, I am the last one to argue for removing it, but I see the problem that if we allow "some" exceptions to the rule, more and more personal itineraries will crop up, with the potential of angering newbies who create this kind of articles, and don't understand why "theirs" get a vfd, while others are "left alone"... Hobbitschuster (talk) 13:55, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

My points for keeping this itinerary are:

• It is not subjective: it covers most of the main Finnish attractive cities. It covers all 4 regions and therefore also all different types of landscape in Finland. Although I haven't contributed to this itinerary, if I was asked someone to create an itinerary for a roundtrip in Finland, I would come up with something very similar. And, piecewise, I have also followed the same track myself.
• It is quite useful, that you can "enter" the circle in several points (in Helsinki, Tampere, Rovaniemi, Turku), depending on how you enter the country: by a ferry (Turku, Vaasa, Helsinki), train (Helsinki) or plane (Helsinki, Tampere, Rovaniemi) + car rental.

That's why I think this itinerary has it's place in WV. Perhaps we could think about a better title... Danapit (talk) 18:51, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

It would sure be interesting to hear from somebody how this might not be a personal itinerary. :D

Namely it IS a personal one, I should know, I've pretty much written all of it — as a helpful suggestion for people who want to see almost all of Finland in a reasonable amount of time. I wrote it in good faith back at WT when such itineraries were still allowed, and when we had a lot more of them. Personally I'm one (of the few Wikivoyagers?) who would prefer to allow personal itineraries here, and I've used some of them myself (including the aforementioned Three days in Singapore). Nevertheless, I'm not going to argue, and if you wish to delete the article, go ahead.

BTW one major reason for discouraging personal itineraries is that they too often aren't finished by the author. This one actually describes a complete route... ϒpsilon (talk) 19:49, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

We can keep it if that serves the traveler, but as mentioned above there are some things that speak against "personal" itineraries. Not least of which that what to include and what not to include cannot usually be determined well in a wiki. This is one thing where a "classic" guidebook with authorial fiat has some "advantage". If Lonely Planet says x is what you should do on a weekend in Transnistria and y isn't than that is gospel truth, at least for some backpackers ;-) Hobbitschuster (talk) 20:05, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

As a side note I think it could be a good idea to have a general Tips for travel planning article. Probably we have some readers who've been on trips to X and back, but would like some tips for planning more complex independent journeys. ϒpsilon (talk) 20:29, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Please put it on our list for requested articles. I agree, this could be helpful. Hobbitschuster (talk) 20:57, 31 May 2015 (UTC)