Talk:Lombardy

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Regions

Hi can we official up the regions as they seem to be in a slight mess with no proper format, I have here the official list from wikipedia of 'provinces' within Lombardy, see what everyone thinks.

• Province of Bergamo
• Province of Brescia
• Province of Como
• Province of Cremona
• Province of Lecco
• Province of Lodi
• Province of Mantova
• Province of Milan
• Province of Pavia
• Province of Sondrio
• Province of Varese

There is also a good map on the page which would work as well. —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) HJ.Phillips94 (talk • contribs)

This looks like a fine regional division to me, especially since we have a ready-made map. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 21:06, 28 March 2009 (EDT)

Italian WV have recently grouped the official administrative provinces into 4 sub-regions. Any objection If I do the same here? --Saqib (talk) 23:03, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Lombardia as divided up in the Italian language Wikivoyage

Not from me, Saqib, if you're willing to do all that hard work. I assume you will use the divisions outlined in the Italian map with Bergamo and Brescia split asunder? --118.93nzp (talk) 23:29, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, correct. --Saqib (talk) 23:30, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

20 minutes later: I think you may have misunderstood two things, Saqib. While personally I have no objections, others may have objections to such a wide-ranging change. I'd suggest you wait a month or two and use that time to prepare articles (clearly marked as drafts) of the four new region articles you propose. Only when they are complete, should the change be made to this main article in my view. --118.93nzp (talk) 23:48, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

The current division of this en:voy article is based on an administrative criteria instead of a touristic criteria furthermore the articles related to the provinces are almost empty so it's not a big bereavement... --Andyrom75 (talk) 19:17, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

I believe we don't need regional articles at all if we have nothing to say about them at that moment. Italy has layers and layers of administrative divisions, and on top of that many arbitrary divisions created like the one for the Italian Wikivoyage that are not universally understood. There is no benefit in providing those articles unless we have content to fill them with.

If we are worried that the number of cities and destinations within Lombardy is getting too large, we can always split the lists by subheadings and perhaps introduce each province or traditional region with a sentence or two, if we have anything useful to say about them. Creating articles just for the sake of it only complicates matters for the travellers and will make them very disappointed to find them empty or containing useless filler blabber. PrinceGloria (talk) 09:47, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

From a purely theoretical point of view, I am very attracted by what you have just written, Gloria. However, I don't know the region well enough to be much use here. If Saqib (or any others) are able to flesh out 4 good sub-regional articles, it would definitely be a step in the right direction... --118.93nzp (talk) 10:24, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

I just browsed through the other regions of Italy and most articles don't even care to mention the provinces, they go straight to listing the most important cities and some other destinations. Those that do mostly end up with provincial articles being a skeleton list of headings and a few blue links to cities. I don't think we have enough commitment to fleshing out good and meaningful articles for lower divisional levels and less popular destinations in Italy to currently provide an article for more than every region (which is still a challenge, as some regional articles are quite basic and of little us) and the key destinations therein. There is no point in creating articles to just say "X is in Y" or "Z is an arbitrary collection of communes in the region of W". PrinceGloria (talk) 21:51, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

As you wish. Maybe when we'll have finished the articles on it:Lombardia you could decide to trasnslate them in English, or keep the existing. For us (Italian) it's quite obvious the need of creating homogeneous subareas for each region, so the discussion that we had was just on "how" to divide it, not "if". We have started from Lombardia and when the draft of each article will be finished we'll proceed with the other region. Stay tuned ;-) --Andyrom75 (talk) 07:58, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

NZP, I don't know about Lombardia so I won't be able to create the four sub-regions of Lombardia but I've created the required maps. Andy knows the best about Lombardia, after-all, he's from Italy and a good travel writer so I believe his proposed region-list will be useful from a traveller prospective so we should follow their pattern over here as well. --Saqib (talk) 16:11, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

The draft of each sub-region article has been done, so I suggest you to update this article (currently divided with just administrative criteria) into the one present in it:voy and maybe translating each sub article for completeness. --Andyrom75 (talk) 23:25, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Cities

HJ, would you mind cleaning up that city list too? we should only have 9, preferably with short descriptions on them. --(WT-en) Stefan (sertmann) ^Talk 17:48, 31 March 2009 (EDT)

There are now 10 cities listed. Which one of these should be removed?

• Milan (Milano, the capital) – shares with Paris the title of fashion capital of the world, and is Italy's second city.
• Bergamo – a fairytale pastel-coloured city perched atop a hillside, and the gate to Bergamo Alps
• Brescia – a major industrial powerhouse since the Ancient Roman times, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site
• Como – the city that gave the name to the popular lake
• Cremona – home of Stradivarius violins, but also a wealth of ornate romanesque architecture
• Lecco – a little and charming city situated on Como's lake.
• Mantova – the Ducal Palace has a cycle of frescoes by Mantegna that no art lover should miss.
• Monza – a small city overshadowed by its race track, yet it has pleasant pedestrian streets and a cathedral.
• Sondrio – the northernmost provincial capital situated amidst alpine mountain ranges
• Varese – capital of the namesake province full of lakeside resorts, just 30 minutes from Malpensa airport

I haven't visited Lombardy, but I would say that other than Milan, Bergamo, Brescia, Como, Cremona, Mantua/Mantova and Varese are pretty obvious places to keep. I'm not sure about Lecco, Monza and Sondrio. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:47, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

I would take Monza away. Cremona, Mantova and Varese are also of secondary importance, but we need one entry per subregion I guess. PrinceGloria (talk) 09:10, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

I'd point out that there's no rule that we need to have one entry per subregion. Would that change your opinion about which city should be removed from the list? Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:56, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Not really, and my statement above is not because of a rule but because of common sense - with fewer regions than 7, it would look quite stupid not to mention any town in the south and all three in the north. At any rate, Monza probably sees the fewest tourists of them all and rightly so, I guess, with all due respect. Should anybody disagree, undoing is a blast @WV. Let us focus on working on improving this guide and subregions, which are woefully inadequate still. PrinceGloria (talk) 05:55, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

OK, thanks for your advice. I'll go ahead and remove Monza, and as you said, if someone disagrees, they can always make an argument for why Monza should be reinstated and another city should be removed. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:54, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree in removing Monza (even if it has many attraction such as the Villa Reale and the Racetrack used by F1). If necessary I'd delete also Sondrio, in a beautiful area (Valtellina), but with few well-known touristic attractions. --Lkcl it _(Talk) 15:51, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your perspective. It's not necessary to delete more cities unless you'd like to substitute another city for one in the list, because there are now 9 listed. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:28, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

The Lombard language

Has someone ever heard of the Lombard language in its eastern and western varieties? It's also spoken in Switzerland's borders with Italy. - (WT-en) CurvyEthyl 19:39, 27 October 2010 (EDT)

Merge provinces?

The division by administrative provinces seems to have been serving us well, aiding navigation. But we have 12 provinces in Lombardy, which exceeds the 7+/-2 rule. Seeing how few new articles on destinations have been created of late, I would like to propose merging some provinces:

• Como (province) and Lecco (province) into Lake Como - as that's what they essentially are
• Bergamo (province), Brescia (province) and Sondrio (province) into Bergamo Alps (this also solves the issue of Lake Iseo) - quite large, but we have very few destinations there, and touristically it's about the Alps mainly
• Milan (province) with Monza and Brianza (province)]] - the administrative division of the two was actually IMHO quite artificial, Monza is closer to Milan than many other towns in the province of Milan itself.

I do not know enough about southern Lombardy to suggest anything, but perhaps we could see some possible mergers there as well. PrinceGloria (talk) 21:02, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

I re-suggest to adopt the division in 4 areas as on the Italian version of wikivoyage, but if you don't want, few comments:

1. Provincia di Como and Lecco into Lake Come: it's an aproximation, but it can be.
2. Bergamo (province), Brescia (province) and Sondrio (province) into Bergamo Alps: absoulutely no. Firstly because Brescia (Province) includes also a large part of Pianura Padana, secondly because there is a rivalry between Brescia and Bergamo. Finally the new title should be different, perhaps Eastern Lombardy Alps and not only Bergamo Alps.
3. Yes, till few years ago it was an unique province.

--Lkcl it _(Talk) 18:37, 26 October 2014 (UTC)PrinceGloriaLkcl it _(Talk) 18:37, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you User:Lkcl_it - just a note on 2., outside of Italy nobody cares, as much as nobody cares about the rivalry between Silesia and Zagłębie outside of those (and we won't have an article on Zagłębie just because of that, Silesia covers both just fine), and not many people can tell mountain ranges unless they are really into it. If you insist, we can call it Lombardy Alps after the w:Partizione delle Alpi (a small part in the north can be seen as belonging to Leopontine Alps and another to Rhaetian Alps, but we are not after a PhD in alpine topography). Pretty much all of Varese is also Lombardy Alps, but there is a large enough number of destinations in that region for it to stay separate - it is also geographically distinct. We can discuss the name further, let us just try to keep it brief and cut down on the proliferation of provinces. PrinceGloria (talk) 21:22, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Province of Bergamo SRTM

Violet=Pianura Padana

PrinceGloria look at these pictures: that is the other reason because I don't agree with Bergamo Alps: there is also a level ground (Pianura Padana). If you want to do a division of this type you should divide Lombardy into 3-4 areas but not following provinces boundaries. Doing something like this we can solve the problem of Varese: all will be in a same subregion. Than, where necessary, these regions can be divided into other subregions (e.g. Varese Alps, Bergamo Alps, Sondrio Alps ...). --Lkcl it _(Talk) 21:11, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Let's forget Bergamo Alps - how about Lombardy Alps? PrinceGloria (talk) 21:17, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

It's a good Idea, but boundaries will not follow the provinces one. And as said before the division will be like on it voy (see map above - orange area) --Lkcl it _(Talk) 21:28, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

I would not touch administrative boundaries - they give us clarity however imperfect they are. I am just looking for a common name for those three provinces. PrinceGloria (talk) 21:33, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

A name can be Northeast Lombardy. --Lkcl it _(Talk) 17:44, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, it's an obvious choice, but quite uninspired... We'd end up with Northeast, Southwest, Northsoutheast, Leftofcentre etc. Lombardies. I was trying to find a perhaps imprecise, but more inspired name, hence reaching out for Bergamo Alps or Lombardian Alps even if it could be argued their area does not precisely match the region we have in mind. I believe a good approximation will do. PrinceGloria (talk) 18:45, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

<bump> Can we thus agree to merge Bergamo (province), Sondrio (province) and Brescia (province) into Lombardian Alps? PrinceGloria (talk) 07:44, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

What about Lombardian Alps and foothills?--Lkcl it _(Talk) 16:20, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

In Italy the provinces do not have a very strong touristic heritage how it happens for the regions, infact is common that new provinces will born and some of them will disappear. For this reason on it:voy we don't support the province articles, becuase there's no added value for a tourist and personally I suggest you to take this into account for any new territory division that you are gonna make on any Italian region. In this specific case, I would also suggest you to follow the one that has been already discussed and shared within several people that lives there, I would tend to trust autochthonous people ;-) --Andyrom75 (talk) 17:32, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

I have been a frequent visitor to Lombardy (in fact it seems I will be greeting the New Year there), and splitting it into four narrow straps doesn't help. I do not care about heritage and pretty much not about topography. I want guides that will let me gather what I can do in a given region which is easy to get around. It is not easy to get from Varese to Brescia, and it seems odd to me that localities around Brescia and Bergamo would be in a different regions. The way the provinces are now laid out is around metropolitan centres, which makes sense in terms of transit and travelling practicality - if I want to see something close to Bergamo, I stay in Bergamo (most opportunities) and get about. I do not care if it is more "Prealps" or the plain of river Po.

We are also creating a region (the green one) where there is pretty much nothing other than Milan at that point of development of English Wikivoyage. I could maybe see Milan, Bergamo and Brescia in one region given the A4 and the railway connections between them. I do not think we should merge Varese with anything at that point though, as there are already enough articles there. Same goes for combined Como+Lecco. This leaves Bergamo and Brescia alone and both provinces are split between three regions. Does not seem practical to me.

Administrative divisions often determine current local circumstances, e.g. transportation systems, regardless of history or topography. They also make it easier to make decisions where a new article should go - it is easy to find out the province, quite ambigious borders between regions will lead to constant discussions. What is natural for people knowing the area will be weird for somebody visiting. Take it from a tourist and trust him as well. PrinceGloria (talk) 17:48, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

It's fair that anyone would have its own point of view and interests. ;-) --Andyrom75 (talk) 23:33, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, but we need a reasnable division for Lombardy. With the current number of destination articles, having a separate article for each province is too many. We can't adopt the Italian split, as this assumes even more destinations with a two-level regional split. We need to combine provinces for it to make sense. I proposed the above. We can call Bergamo+Brescia+Sondrio whatever (I would prefer something more meaningful than "Norteastern"), but let us move on with that. PrinceGloria (talk) 05:19, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it's appropriate, but if you think that works well for en:voy it's right that you go in this direction :-) You know, Italians are proud of their art, history, natural beauty, etc... so our guide would lead a tourist in this kind of visit :-) --Andyrom75 (talk) 08:32, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

I do know, each local language Wikipedia will have its own country covered much better and in-depth than the others. Let's be realistic, we are all here and quite interested in Lombardy and we still have very limited coverage of it. We need to be pragmatic. If there is no objection, I'd go forward with merging the provinces as proposed above and we will see how it pans out. It's a Wiki, we can always change things down the road if they prove no to work. PrinceGloria (talk) 14:10, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Who am I to say to you what you don't have to do? I just say that you can leverage on a work already done by people that has born there and that know the region very well just to not reinvent the wheel. For example, although I've visited almost all the main cities and lakes of Lombardia (Milan in particular many times) I haven't take part on the division (just as a facilitator of the discussion) because I don't feel to be an expert of that territory. However, as stated above, if you don't want to follow this approach, feel free to follow your inspiration ;-) --Andyrom75 (talk) 18:47, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

PrinceGloria I have only one objection: the name. --Lkcl it _(Talk) 16:19, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Any other proposal that "Northeastern Lombardy"? PrinceGloria (talk) 19:39, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

What about Lombardian Alps and foothills? --Lkcl it _(Talk) 17:47, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Lombardian Alps and Prealps? Sounds more serious than "foothills", and the definition of "Prealps" is pretty much the same as "foothills" (w:Alpine foothills). PrinceGloria (talk) 17:59, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, my fault: I made a mistake in the translation of "Alpi e Prealpi lombarde", I'm sorry. --Lkcl it _(Talk) 20:23, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Not at all, it's a go then! Will proceed in due course. PrinceGloria (talk) 21:52, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Almost there - what about the south?

So now we have Lombardian Alps and Prealps, Lake Como and Grande Milano covered. We can thus delete the following categories:

• Category:Bergamo (province)
• Category:Brescia (province)
• Category:Como (province)
• Category:Lecco (province)
• Category:Milan (province)
• Category:Sondrio (province)

I guess it would be good to double-check after me. Does anybody know a user with appropriate admin powers to do that?

Now, the province of Varese should stay separate due to the sheer amount of destinations there, popularity with tourists and the fact that there isn't much to merge it with, it is quite separate from the neighbouring regions even if close to Milan.

But we have the south with provinces of Cremona (province), Lodi (province), Mantova (province) and Pavia (province). Those articles contain pretty much only the capital cities and stand a low chance of suddenly bursting into something really comprehensive. So, despite the relative lack of cohesive factors other than being on the south of Lombardy, and the fact that the cobbled-together content for all the usual sections may end up a bit convulted, I would propose to combine them now into Southern Lombardy to reduce the number of near-empty subregional guides. And if anybody has a better, more meaningful name, it would be just brilliant.

If we agree on dealing with the above, we could then ask one of the skilled mapmakers to make us a new map of Lombardy to reflect the amended regional split and focus on further improving the region and destination guides within Lombardy :) PrinceGloria (talk) 08:01, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

@ A good name could be Lombardian Padan Plain or something similar (in italian Pianura Padana Lombarda). --Lkcl it _(Talk) 15:26, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Sounds a little strange in English, but makes a lot of sense. I think it should read more like "River Po Valley", but adding "Lombardy" or "Lombardian" makes it super long. Italian sounds better in this case, maybe there is an even shorter Italian version? PrinceGloria (talk) 16:16, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

I looked at a number of sites and guidebooks today and the names were all variations of Po River/Po Valley... Po River Valley, Po Plain, Po Plain Lowlands, Po Valley. I think Lombardian Po Valley could do, even though it is a mouthful. Or the maligned Southern Lombardy, which doesn't seem so bad in the circumstances.

I can whip up a map once things are settled here. -Shaundd (talk) 04:53, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

I guess Southern Lombardy is not bad after all, so I went for it. We can change the name anytime. I guess whenever you'd have a moment, you can start mapmaking, for which we will be most obliged. I'd include airports of Malpensa, Linate and Orio al Serio, the autostradas (their signatures start with an "A"), long-distance and high-speed railway lines and obviously the river Po. PrinceGloria (talk) 18:16, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Just so you know I haven't forgotten about the map, it's in progress. Things have been very busy at home and work so I've only been able to spend a few minutes on the map every few days. It is coming along though. -Shaundd (talk) 22:18, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Yahoo, can't wait to see it whenever it's ready! PrinceGloria (talk) 05:03, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

So I've finally got a draft version of the map up. I still need to add the railroads, fix up the roads a bit and add some names, but let me know if there's anything else that needs fixing in the meantime. Cheers -Shaundd (talk) 06:48, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

HOOORAY!!!!! That's one nifty map! Let me offer my usual nitpicking (bear in mind that I do not know what maps did you intended to add, so my "anything else" may be just that):

• Malpensa, Linate and Orio al Serio airport could use labels
• Malpensa seems a bit off its location - it is closer to the autostrada I believe
• Lodi and Pavia deserve to be marked on the map even if not listed as major destinations
• Lake names should be there as well IMHO
• Province names are missing for Grande Milano and Varese
• "Milan" as the city should be referred to by its English name though
• I think River Po deserves a label, and I would add river Adda as well (even if not labelled)
• I wouldn't bend over backwards that much to put every label right within or next to the object it refers. I find nothing wrong with bubbles / "floating" labels with arrows to link to locations in "densely populated" sectors of the map

Enough for now I guess :) - I still cannot get over how happy I am to see the map up! PrinceGloria (talk) 07:36, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I was hoping I could get away from labeling the Varese and Grande Milano regions since the regions and and the cities have the same name (particularly Varese). Think it might work?

I'll see if I can squeeze the airport names in, but it's not something we've done on EN maps at this high a region level. For Malpensa, I'll double check the location. It's based on OpenStreetMap, but I may have put the label at the southern end of the airport or something like that to cause it to look off. It is closer to the river than the autostrada though.

Everything else should be doable. -Shaundd (talk) 07:55, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I guess with region names the same as city or lake names it is OK not to have them spelled out, but I would insist on airport names - they are luckily located so that labels should fit ("Malpensa", "Linate" and "Orio as Serio", no need to spell out "Milan" or "Bergamo"). I would also believe it would be better to label the lakes and rivers. Railway lines and roads can always be rendered in lighter hues - you seem to be using quite strong hues at the moment. PrinceGloria (talk) 15:17, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

You have done a beautiful job! I'll only suggest to add SS510: the most used road to reach Valcamonica and Sondrio from Brescia and Verona. --Lkcl it _(Talk) 19:32, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Cool. Thanks for pointing out the SS510. I've never been to Lombardy, so it's hard to know what are the best roads to show for places like Sondrio that aren't on an autostrada. -Shaundd (talk) 04:10, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

The next version of the map is up. I added most of the names, although like I said above if there is overlap between the region name, main city or lake, I only put the name once. I added shaded relief to the map since there is varied terrain. Not sure if it works so much at this level or if better used at the subregion level. Let me know if I should take it out. -Shaundd (talk) 07:35, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

I think it's splendid! Thank you! Next stop....? PrinceGloria (talk) 08:30, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

If you think any of the subregions are ready for a map, let me know and I'll work on that. Otherwise, I'm sure there will be something to keep me busy. :-) -Shaundd (talk) 18:50, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, none of the voivodships of Poland has a map, for that matter... PrinceGloria (talk) 20:12, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

What is happening at Lombardy#Drink

Swept in from the pub

In this section of the Lombardy article I see spaces at the beginning of lines that do not result into this:

    line that starts with 5 spaces

In the article it shows like nbsp has been used:
     line that starts with 5 spaces
Copying such lines from the article to this talk page does not have the same result as in the article.

So, what has happened here? Does it require some action? --FredTC (talk) 12:13, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

That's because of the dot point used: so no dot point means

    line that starts with 5 spaces

and with a dot point means

•         Franciacorta

Hopefully that helps. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 12:18, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Thank you for taking a look, but it does not help me to understand. In the article, the line "Botticino produced in the province of Brescia :" starts with 3 spaces, but does not show like this:

  Botticino produced in the province of Brescia :

In stead it shows like:
   Botticino produced in the province of Brescia :
And when I copy your "* Franciacorta" above to below here, it looks the same as wiki-source, but not the same after "Publish changes", see below.

• Franciacorta

So, why has your "* Franciacorta" the spaces in the result, and my version (that looks the same as yours in the wiki-source) have them not? The result of your version looks like this was used:

•          Franciacorta

--FredTC (talk) 13:26, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm not too sure. @Wauteurz:, do you know anything about this? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 13:35, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

I am looking at it as if it were a weird way of making a bulleted list (which should probably be subdivided into the subregions, but that's a different thing altogether), without the use of basic Wikitext functionality. There are loads of spaces in the source text that get suppressed by either HTML or Wikitext rendering (or so I would assume). If indentations are what you're trying to achieve, a combination of * and : ought to do the trick just fine:

• This is a bullet point at the same level as my message above.
  • This is a subsection to that.
• And this is an entirely different line on that base level.

Can't that be used rather than whatever kind of mess these spaces are? They definitely do not improve the legibility of the article in a meaningful way, and I am not sure what using manual spaces (or non-break spaces for that matter) would have as an advantage over using standard Wikitext formatting?
-- Wauteurz (talk) 15:17, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Whenever you see weird formatting, it's a good idea to check for copy-and-paste copyright violations. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:11, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Just a copyvio check here. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 00:09, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

@Wauteurz I agree that Drink should be reformatted. It does not follow the standard lay-out of Wikivoyage or Wiki's in general. But I still worry about the problems that could occur when such spaces, which are not visible differen from normal spaces, are in an article. Shouldn't the Wiki-software prevent such spaces to be stored in an article?

@SHB2000 Thank you very much for including the link to the copyvio site, it is very usefull. However, in this case my guess is that copyvio is the case, but not from a website, but from a book about wine. But then there still is a question of "how did the user produce that type of spaces". --FredTC (talk) 13:46, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

maybe on mobile? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 13:47, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

• . On mobile, it turns out like this SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 13:50, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

okay so on mobile, it’s not the case 2001:8004:27D2:AAF1:7C5B:D44F:7787:E1F8 13:52, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

So here's a possibility of theories that I think has happened.

1. They were using the old Wikitext editor.
2. It's copy paste from a website that has been taken down
3. Some form of &nsbp; was added, but was removed???

I really can't think of any other reason. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 13:56, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Well, as the tags suggest, they used the visual editor, so the old wikitext editor can be ruled out. I see similar patterns in other edits by this person (refer to Piedmont#See and Aosta Valley), so I am willing to be that the simply aren't familiar with the way that wikitext works. Although on the other hand, they changed about thirty thousand bytes just between 10AM and 1PM on June 11th alone. Another anomaly would be the creation of Pavia ( province), which now redirects, but was about 30,000 bytes in size, published at 15:06, only 23 minutes after their previous edit. I have some serious concern about copy-pasting looking at these contributions. Seen as how @Ikan Kekek: has had some interaction with them, perhaps they would like to tune in as well?
-- Wauteurz (talk) 17:11, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

I doubt this is a copy paste thing since it only shows a 11% similarity. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 22:35, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Whatever it is, I don't think it's all manually written. The edits are too big within too short of a timespan for that to check out in my perception. That said, I checked a few of their edits at random and it gave me quite a few <10% results, but also a 44.4% (Aosta Valley), 93.7% (Milan/Centro Storico) and a 97.1% (Piedmont). The latter seems to be a case of us being copied rather than the other way around though. I am not entirely sure what to make of it altogether. Copyvios aren't something I've looked into much before.
-- Wauteurz (talk) 23:17, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Below you see what I was worried about. The first one has the special spaces between name and =. The second has normal spaces between name and =.

• Streetname. 
• Franciacorta, Streetname. 

The same could happen when you have a normal looking "lat = 123.45 | long = 54.321" and you don't understand why the marker does not appear on the map. --FredTC (talk) 07:58, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

For some reason I get just normal spaces when I try to copy and paste the lines above to od (I think my tools have worked before, I don't know what I am doing differently now).

Anyway, this is a real problem, but probably not a problem that can be solved in the listing editor, other than perhaps by highlighting unusual characters. There are lots of invisible characters in Unicode, many of which are useful. There are also lots of characters that are visually close, such as "1", "l" and "I", depending on the font used. What about "ηame" or "пamе"? Do you see the three Greek and Russian letters? This is handled in domain names by not allowing mixtures of characters from different alphabets under most national top domains (there was a heated conflict for Bulgaria, who wanted ".бг" as top domain, while it was thought to be too close to ".br" in many fonts).

We need to be able to use Greek and Cyrillic besides English, but perhaps we could get a tool to analyse a listing (or a page) and flag anything unusual.

–LPfi (talk) 11:14, 13 June 2021 (UTC)