Talk:Villa Las Estrellas

"Prices are very high"

When it comes to Antarctica, prices are usually very high, so some kind of estimate would be good. Are flights US$1000 each way? $2000? $5000? @JamesA, Jonte--: Do you know by any chance? —Granger (talk · contribs) 16:44, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

I vaguely remember reading somewhere (this was a few years ago, possibly when expanding the Ushuaia article for OtBP) that these more or less scheduled flights to Antarctica was $6000 something, but I can't remember if it was one-way or return. --ϒpsilon (talk) 17:06, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

$5500 for daytrips (from Chile?) to Villa Las Estrellas by plane per tours: [1] and [2]. DAP, the airline that flies there doesn't seem to show schedules or fares on their home page, nevertheless this discussion on TA speaks of $1200 and $1500 which seems dirt cheap for getting to set foot in Antarctica, unfortunately the thread is about ten years old. --ϒpsilon (talk) 17:21, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

This article mentions that a day trip with DAP costs $3960. I do not know the exact procedure but I am guessing since it's a civilian settlement it should be possible to disembark and stay, pending the right paperwork of course. The article is since 2013, but it seems to be one of the more recent. I would suggest to write that "air tickets is around $4000". --Jonte-- (talk) 20:23, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

"Eat" and "Drink"

@SelfieCity: I'm a little puzzled by the "Eat" and "Drink" sections. They suggest that visitors should bring their own food and ask permission to boil ice for drinking water—is there some kind of limit to how much non-residents can buy at the grocery store? Do they not stock bottled water, and is there no other source of water available? Why would you need to ask permission to boil ice? And what kind of food do they have at the souvenir shop? In other words, is the material you added to this section just uninformed speculation (in which case it should probably be removed) or is it based on personal experience or other sources of information about the destination (in which case it should be made more specific to answer these questions)? —Granger (talk · contribs) 15:04, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

No, I've never been to Villa Las Estrellas. It's true that I am somewhat speculating about this, but that is better than including nothing about surviving in the place at all. And I don't think there is a grocery store, and least not one I can find by researching for such a business. If you can think of something more informative for these sections, please include it. Selfie City (talk) 15:07, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Which sources are there that mention the grocery store? Hobbitschuster (talk) 15:09, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Exactly. There aren't any. Selfie City (talk) 15:09, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Granger seems to be convinced there is one. So either there are sources you and I don't know about or Granger is under some misapprehension... Hobbitschuster (talk) 15:12, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Here's one from last year. I believe the Spanish Wikipedia mentions it too. —Granger (talk · contribs) 15:11, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

I hope you won't take this the wrong way, SelfieCity, because I think you've made great contributions in other areas, but "Exactly. There aren't any" (when in fact there are) is the kind of comment that concerns me. It seems like you're making a lot of changes and adding a lot of content to articles about an area that you don't really know much about. I'm worried that you may be making our Antarctica articles less reliable and less useful by adding uninformed speculation or content copied from other sources that hasn't been put in context for travellers, and reorganizing them in ways that may not make sense from a traveller's perspective. I've never been to Antarctica and am far from an expert on it, so I haven't been saying much except in what seem like obvious cases, but I'm concerned about this. I don't know, it's possible I'm worrying too much—I don't know if other editors agree with me.

You've made some great additions to articles like Pleasanton. I think improving other articles about places you're familiar with (maybe other cities in the Bay Area?) would be a better way to improve Wikivoyage than these major changes to articles about Antarctica, which is at best an unusual and tricky destination to cover. —Granger (talk · contribs) 16:09, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

I get your point, but I think you're missing some important things that have occurred here. It's true that I don't know a lot about Antarctica (I've never visited it in person); I know some about it, but not a lot. But you're forgetting that there was agreement among the other editors to reorganize the articles — in fact, the others were glad I did the changes and did them quickly. My intention is to get Antarctica up to guide status, and I'm trying to get things added in general about each base. Others who know more can always add more in future.

To improve this website, all of us need to contribute in some way. Please look at Guadalupe Island. I've never been there, and I'm pretty sure none of us have ever been there, but by getting information from Wikipedia and doing research the article has gone up to guide status and is now one of the most useful Guadalupe Island guides on the internet. Granger, these are tough places to cover. In somewhere like Antarctica, we are one of the few travel guides out there that's giving out any information. It's better to provide some information than none at all.

If we only contributed to the places we visited in person, that would be okay and better than not contributing at all, but it wouldn't make large improvements to the site. Unfortunately, debates at the Pub and on the VFD page have taken energies away from contributing, but I won't get into that.

At least one administrator copies information from WP, and it's definitely allowed; I'm not crazy on the idea, but it's better than not having articles or having outline articles. We can always copy-edit to get around that issue.

WV is about editors who know about a place to come together and add what they know. I don't have great knowledge about Villa Las Estrellas, but someone — perhaps like you — who's more knowledgeable can add more useful information if they like, and gradually all the editors come together and produce good content.

I personally think your arguments are valid, but you're over-worrying about the issue. As long as there is nothing wrong in the travel guides about a place, it can be useful to travelers — especially with Antarctica, a continent that is not visited by tourists like most places are visited.

Once again, though, your arguments are valid, and when I think of places or topics I'm more familiar with, I'll definitely put them higher on my list of articles to edit in future.

Also, what are these other sources? WP is perhaps one, but I can't think of any others. I'm using some elements of the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust website to give travelers information and citing their guidelines, etc. but I said that I'm not copying their information. I think some editors who have done too much without consensus and made grand edits without consensus have created in the minds of some of the other users a stereotypical editor that simply doesn't exist here. Selfie City (talk) 17:26, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Not to spread this discussion over too many places, but I think it is quite counter-productive to indulge into too much speculation. The ideal guide is of course one written with on-the-ground knowledge. On a related note, I do not think it helpful to categorize islands just a few kilometers of the Antarctic Peninsula as a totally different thing from the Peninsula. Few places on earth have a line between "island" and "mainland" as blurry as Antarctica and the waters just off the peninsula, including the islands contained therein to me are still part of the overall Antarctic Peninsula region and the travel standpoint is the one we should take here and as such, it matters most which you can visit together. Ross island and an island off the Peninsula are likely visited together less often than an island off the Peninsula and the Peninsula itself. Plus it's easier on maps. Hobbitschuster (talk) 19:04, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

We shouldn't let the "ideal" be the enemy of the good. If Wikivoyage were restricted to "on the ground knowledge", it would be a very slim travel guide indeed. We can hope that by bulking it up with readily-available information, Wikivoyage can grow into a platform that travellers use to share information in a format that is easier to use then Trip Advisor. Furthermore, as most of the information I am adapting from WP is history, I don't think that "on the ground knowledge" is something we are ever going to get due to the continuing failure of scientists to give us the ability to travel through time that we so sorely need. Wikipedia rarely has the "Get in", "Eat, drink, sleep, buy, etc." information that I am adding to articles to turn them from outlines to usable guides. This information comes from a variety of other sources, usefully assembled in one place for the benefit of travellers. Ground Zero (talk) 19:24, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Ground Zero, you're right. If WV's articles were all at guide/star status then it would make sense to have as little speculation as possible and only have the best of the best. But this is a travel guide that needs as much information as possible, and by doing research on places we've never been to and then presenting that information to travelers we are doing a better job than giving travelers no information at all.

But no matter what happens, in the situation of Antarctica, I think we're unlikely to have anything that is far from speculation. Even a scientist from Antarctica probably doesn't have enough experience to write everything without speculation because he hasn't visited every place on that continent. So let's do research on these types of places, gather information, and from our research and new understanding write information in articles like this. I'd rather have a decent article with some speculation than not have any article. Selfie City (talk) 19:55, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

I think it's also important to mention that Ground Zero has been making a lot of progress on WV lately by copying information from the same articles on WP. By doing this, we've been able to see a continued decline in outline cities and an increase in usable cities and guides. What he has done has improved the website without necessarily knowing about the places. And if you're worried about SEO, copyediting is always an option. I think trying to bring an end to what he and others like me have been doing (editing places by doing research about them) will only bring down the productivity of the website. We can get the details solved later, but for now let's keep WV on a path toward growth. Selfie City (talk) 20:49, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the props, Selfie. I still don't like the suggestion that I am copying. In almost every case, the WP history for a town is too long or includes details that are not appropriate for a high-level travel article history, so I cut it down, and improve the wording. (Sometime I copyedit the WP text before moving it over by to WV.) By doing this and adding listings from other sources, I have upgraded every city and park outline article in Western Canada to usable - 169 articles, I think. (I haven't been to Manitoba or Saskatchewan, but started this project as a way of getting to know them better.) I have started on Ontario now. If other users think this is not an appropriate way of building WV, they should raise the issue in the pub, rather than making random comments on discussion pages. Ground Zero (talk) 21:52, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I don't like the word copying too much either (it sounds like a copyright violation, even though it isn't). But I think we agree on the fundamentals — research-based content is acceptable for WV. Selfie City (talk) 22:18, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Wikivoyage would be crippled without it. Ground Zero (talk) 22:25, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘When all is said and done, "speculation" is another word for "making stuff up". When this happens, the chances are, you're going to be wrong, so in this case it is definitely not better to have something rather than nothing. Wrong information misleads, and wrong information about Antarctica could get someone killed. Now I can see there can be times when informed speculation can be useful: when you're speculating about a place you know well you can make an educated guess based on your background knowledge. You've got a good chance of being right, and since you know the area, you can then check your assumption at a later date, and correct if necessary. But speculating about a place you've never been to is a different matter altogether. By all means contribute to places you've never visited, but do your homework beforehand and only add information that you can verify. There is little justification for adding content that can't be verified elsewhere, and there is absolutely no justification for making stuff up. ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 22:41, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

But this isn't made-up by any means. "Speculation" isn't, in this case, "making stuff up". It's making reasonable statements based on knowledge of the area — for example, from the knowledge there's a shop in the town, telling travelers to check out with the shop about food. The same is the case with boiling the water — it's based upon knowledge that such a thing is possible. ThunderingTyphoons, that's not going to kill someone. Selfie City (talk) 23:05, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

However, I'm thinking this through and I can tell that the ice cap-melting idea was far-fetched. But the information about asking at the souvenir shop, now that is different. I think that does really make sense. (Although, as is turned out, it wasn't necessary.) Selfie City (talk) 23:17, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

And saying "bring your own food and drink" is a useful statement as well. That's speculation that could, in certain situations, be live-saving. Selfie City (talk) 23:20, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

I think my comment might have been a little unclear. I don't think it's bad to add information drawn from careful research with other online sources—I've done it myself in articles such as British Indian Ocean Territory. My comment was not intended to criticize Ground Zero's work on Western Canada articles or anyone's work on articles about places other than Antarctica. To be clear: as far as I can tell, Ground Zero has done great work on the Canada articles, and I think in general a lot of good information has been added to Wikivoyage through careful online research.

I just think a lot of major changes are being made to articles about this unusual and difficult-to-cover destination, and I'm increasingly concerned that some of those changes are based more on guesswork than knowledge. Big changes should be done with a lot of caution if you don't know the place, and adding uninformed speculation is just not helpful. (I agree with ThunderingTyphoons! on this.) —Granger (talk · contribs) 23:51, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Adding content that has been thoroughly researched and which can be verified by anyone is not in question. Please do that.

Adding stuff that you have somehow extrapolated based on your own assumptions is what I call speculation, and is something which should have no place on Wikivoyage. And speculating about matters of food and drink in the extremely hostile environment of Antarctica can be dangerous, even if the particular instance that has been cited is not.

All that I and Granger are asking is that you stick to known facts. ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 19:38, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Then the issue is with Antarctica, because I don't see why the content I am putting is assumption-based. Perhaps we should just include one article for all of Antarctica, and make it an extraregion, since if we're going to have nothing based on assumptions for this continent, we're never going to have many useful individual travel guides about anywhere on the islands near Antarctica or on the continent itself. Selfie City (talk) 14:04, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

I am not sure we are all on the same page as to where the line between online research and speculation is to be drawn and which of that is admissable in mainspace. Hobbitschuster (talk) 17:05, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Here's the deal: what I am writing is not anything dangerously speculative. Although one of the things I wrote I think was a little on the far-fetched side when I reconsidered it, I wrote what I could think of at the time, and none of it was life-threatening.

Why aren't the things I wrote known facts? I think they are, based upon knowledge, not assumptions. ThunderingTyphoons, please read the text I wrote on Villa Las Estrellas before you state that these are "extrapolated". My statements are logical statements based on known facts; if the original facts are correct, the assumptions cannot be wrong. Selfie City (talk) 17:42, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

@SelfieCity: I am not talking about any of your edits specifically; I haven't even looked at them. I am reacting to your statements on this talk page and reaffirmed in your latest comment, that indicate you think adding speculation on top of facts is okay.

I ask you once again to write the facts and only the facts (not only here, but everywhere on Wikivoyage), as you find them. If there is uncertainty about certain facts, it is far better to say so directly in the guide, rather than make assumptions, however logical. There is nothing deficient about a travel guide which only reports known fact, and which highlights the gaps in its knowledge. This is after all a wiki, so a traveller with direct experience of a place can always come and plug the gaps.

If you want me to look at your edits in detail, I will once I have access to a computer again, which will be tomorrow (Monday) at the earliest. ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:08, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Four years later: the grocery stores are closed and you need to bring your own food. At least that's what I've written - the discussion above turns on what inferences are reasonable about a seldom-visited place, and especially negative inferences when info is missing. (IMHO we do travellers a disservice if we fail so to infer.) In this example, the closure of the school and run-down of the settlement is described in Chilean press. The covid-enforced retrenchment of polar bases was widely documented. On Google map, the post-office is marked as closed and the village store and Terra Kraken store have disappeared. This is Antarctic mid-summer when any facility that's going to open has done so. I find no press reports of the settlement re-expanding, or plans to do so, whereas the British re-opening of Lockroy made the news. Stores here could never have such abundance as to cater for large groups rocking up, otherwise marking down all the bread with "reduced" stickers an hour before closing. Taken together, it seems fair to advise travellers to bring their own. Grahamsands (talk) 11:34, 23 December 2022 (UTC)