Talk:Judaean Desert

Discussion from Project:Votes for deletion

Judean Desert

Nice start to an article, unfortunately this region badly overlaps with our existing Dead Sea, West Bank and Negev regions. Redirect to West Bank...? (WT-en) Jpatokal 22:24, 15 December 2008 (EST)

Not to be disrespectful, but I think you lack a certain knowledge in the geography of Israel, and I don't think you should automaticly propose to delete regions, just as I shouldn't delete regions in France or Syria, without even discussing and asking about it BEFORE. Here are some explanations:

1 - "The Judean Desert is not a region.." The Judean desert was for thousands of years and still is a very clear geographic region. It is considered a region of its own in Israel, just like the Carmel, Gush-Dan, the Galilee and the Negev, unlike the West Bank, which is a political definition, and the Dead Sea, which is a lake, not a region. Only the Negev is another real region in Israel, and it BORDERS with the Judean Desert, it does not overlap it.

2 - "Its already written about in other articles.." As I said, the Judean desert is an actual a region in Israel, unlike the West Bank and the Dead Sea. The fact that it wasn't mentioned is wrong. And worse, now that it is mentioned, you wish to delete it because people just included it in the regions around it. Well, two wrongs won't make a right. Wikivoyage should bring the correct information about the diffrent regions in Israel, and we shouldn't redevide Israel as we see fit because someone already wrote about it somewhere.

3 - Dead Sea refrences If anything, we should delete the article "Dead Sea", it is not a region, it is a lake, and worse, its a lake between two diffrent regions in two countries. Its like creating an article about the Mediterranean Sea, or about the Lake Superior, though its the same lake, its devided into diffrent regions and diffrent countries, and travelers should get information about the region/country they are going to, not about the lake itself. It might be a helpful article, due to the fact that the Dead Sea is unique, but it should definatly not replace the articles about the actual regions it is located in, both in Israel and in Jordan.

4 - West Bank refrences The West-Bank is the a political region of a diverse area. It DOESN'T overlap the Judean Desert. The Judean Desert is partly in the west-bank(and btw, more than half of the Judean Desert is inside the "green line" and not in the west bank), like other geographical regions in Israel such as the Shephelah, the Judean Mountains, Jerusalem, the Lower Galilee and so on... because it is a political region, determaned by the truce lines set by Israel and Jordan in 1949. and furthermore, the Judean desert is populated mostly (with the exception of Jericho and small bedwin villages) by jewish communities and cities, and therefore even the travelers' experience is the same as inside the "green line", and not as in the arab cities of the west bank. So other than a political statement, there is absolutly no reason to move the Judean Desert article into the West Bank article.

5 - General overlaping and mistakes in the ISRAEL articles The regions that are written in the "Israel" article are not accurate and greatly overlap each other.... for example, the Jezreel valley and Beth-Shaan valley both have articles of their own, even though they are both parts of the Lower Galilee. The Sea of the Galilee also has an article of its own, even though again, its a lake not a region. The western coast of the sea is the Galilee, while the eastern coast belongs to the Golan heights region. My plan is to fix those overlaps and errors, and thats why I started by creating the Judean desert value, in hopes of giving the travelers in Israel good, true and reliable information, which will tell them more about the diffrent regions in Israel, with the historical and current status of each region, with good intresting pictures from the diffrent areas, and most importantly, clean from any political references, as much as possible. And as you can see, I gave information both on the southern part of the desert, like Ein-Gedi and Masada, and also about the northen part of the desert which is in the West-Bank, such as Jericho and Qumaran. From the travelers POV, and since there are no palestinian towns in the region (again besides Jericho), also from the Israelis and Palestinians POV, this region is the same as the Galilee or the Negev. The only diffrence is political, but this is not WikiPolitics, its Wikivoyage.

I hope you will help me to improve the ISRAEL articles, instead of just leaving them the way they are just because its already here regardless if its accurate or not.

(WT-en) Govrin 09:52, 16 December 2008 (EST)

Hi Govrin. I have a few comments. First, while you're right that designations like "West Bank" are political in nature, we do sometimes need to make regions based on political boundaries. You can't deny that the experience for a traveler is going to be different depending on whether he is in the west bank or not!

But of course, that isn't necessarily enough to justify using "West Bank" as a specific article title. What it seems you're proposing is a reorganization of the regions of Israel. Rather than just go and create a new article for a region whose content is apparently covered (at least in part) in other articles, I would suggest you discuss the matter at Talk:Israel and garner support for a reorganization of the regions. To do so, you should probably have a good idea of what those regions should be, keeping in mind that they should cover the entire area of Israel without overlaps or gaps.

Thanks for contributing to Wikivoyage, and for plunging forward!

-- (WT-en) LtPowers 10:37, 16 December 2008 (EST)

Agreed with LtPowers. I could be argued into changing Israel's regions (esp. Dead Sea, as you note), but as it stands right now, the cities you list as being in the Judean Desert, namely Ein Gedi, Jericho and Arad, are already covered in the Dead Sea, West Bank and Negev articles respectively.

I've opened a discussion on Talk:Israel, let's continue there and put this on hold for time being. (WT-en) Jpatokal 10:43, 16 December 2008 (EST)

i'm sorry, but you are simpley mistaking. I think as an Israeli for all my life, I have a more inside view about the regions in Israel and the diffrent atmospheres in the west bank and in the green line. The majority of the Judean desert, including the parts in the west bank, is considered to be Israel de facto. it has only jewish cities, and it is protected by barriers and the military. Traveling there is like traveling in Tel-Aviv or Haifa, its NOTHING like being in Hevron or Beth-Lehem. I should know, since as a native to this place, I traveled here more than other people and more than I myself traveled in other places. and either way, like i said, more than half of the Judean desert is outside the west bank.

As for the Dead Sea, like it or not, its simply not a region. Its not up to you and me to determan the regions, just like the Tibet article is based on the chinese government value of Tibet, and not by our standards. China decides its regions, Sweden decides its regions, and Israel decides its regions.

As for the coverage in other articles... I think its fairly stupid to assume that if the cities gathered here have values of their own, the region doesn't need to be explained. This is like deleting the value of "California", because places like LA and San-Diego have values of their own. This region is more than just those few chosen cities... sadly, instead of imrpoving and expand about it and give more information about the regions that are yet to be talked about, you prefer to shut it down and simply keep the old ones not because they are right, but because "they were here first".

anyway, I was highly disappointed by the very inactive and unincoraging approach of this community. I wondered why so many articles and values about diffrent countries and regions here are so low on information, if they even have anything. Now i know why. Sadly, i cannot help to develop a community that doesn't welcome development. I am deleting my article and the pictures i have posted, and i will no longer try to contribute here. I hope some day, you will understand that acting like this only damages wikivoyage, and keeps it to a limited group of "elite" people with limited knowledge.. instead of being the open project it should be.

cya

Alternative banner for this article?

Banner currently used in this article

Suggested new alternative banner

I created a new alternative banner for this article (I initially created it first and foremost so that it would be used at the top of the parallel article in the Hebrew edition of Wikivoyage, yet I later decided to also suggest that the English Wikivoyage community would consider using it here as well). So, which banner do you prefer having at the top of this article? ויקיג'אנקי (talk) 04:45, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, the new banner has a really nice composition. I support the change. Danapit (talk) 15:01, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

The new banner gives more of a suggestion of vastness (I assume such a presumption to be accurate) plus it is a tad less dark. While it is not by any means a huge difference, I slightly prefer the new banner. Hobbitschuster (talk) 15:20, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree. The current banner is fine, but the new one is an improvement. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:06, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Proposed Syced (talk) 08:06, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Extraregion?

Since the Judaean Desert is in both Israel and the Palestinian Territories, is it irregular to breadcrumb the article to Israel instead of making it an extraregion that is part of two entities? Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:17, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

For the record, I'd be fine with this, but only as the product of consensus achieved through discussion, rather than unilateral action.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 14:54, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree. Most of the sites in the article (and in Hiking in the Judaean Desert) are in the West Bank, not Israel. Arad, an Israeli city, should probably not be listed on this page as the Hebrew and English Wikipedia articles for Judaean Desert indicate that Arad is not part of the Judaean Desert (at most, it's on the border between the Judaean Desert and the Negev), and it's currently breadcrumbed (as it should be) to the Negev. Ar2332 (talk) 20:36, 18 July 2021 (UTC)