Talk:Western Highlands (Guatemala)

Problems with Lake Atitlán content

Hello! Would anyone be opposed to me removing the towns listed here that are also listed in the Lake Atitlan article? The list is pretty long and it would help reading comprehension imo. Planning a trip to this area and many of these articles are looking pretty dated. Thanks! --ButteBag (talk) 14:25, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

It's actually a problem that there's only one region listed in this article. This area obviously isn't divided into a single region, so what are the other regions, and why don't they have names and articles linked from this article? It looks like someone created a single region article without ever broaching a regionalization discussion on this talk page. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:10, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

I don't get why it's a problem? There's more stuff around the lake, so it gets its own sub-region.

What would these proposed new sub-regions be called? How many would there be? What would they contain? When would they get updated? Most importantly, could visitors identify these new sub-regions as real, visitable, places? ButteBag (talk) 23:28, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

The problem is that the Western Highlands region isn't fully divided into regions. It's irregular in Wikivoyage's breadcrumb navigation structure to do that. I couldn't suggest anything about what other regions there should be, as I'm not familiar with the area. I just know that this way of subdividing a region is irregular and inimical to Wikivoyage's guidelines. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:44, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

I just don't get it I guess. To my mind it makes more sense to wait until there is enough content to sub-divide.

Anyway, generally speaking, are cities in sub-region pages displayed on region pages as well? ButteBag (talk) 02:17, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

The answer is not to have any subregion articles before it's decided how to divide up a region - which subregions and what the borders are between them. When a region is properly divided into subregions, no more than 9 cities should be listed in its "Cities" section. Otherwise, I have no idea how to answer your question. This irregular situation needs to be dealt with. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:05, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

So we should delete the lake atitlan page? I'm really confused. Maybe I'll hold off on making any edits for a bit. Thanks Ikan! ButteBag (talk) 13:44, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Under no circumstances would a page for a legitimate destination, let alone region, be simply deleted. That said, I don't want to merge all the content of a well-developed page back into this page. There are 24 entries (2 red linked) at Western Highlands (Guatemala)#Cities. 8 of them may be duplications of Lake Atitlán#Towns and villages. That would leave 16, still a large number per Wikivoyage:Avoid long lists. A decision should be made on what other 2-3 or so subregions of Western Highlands (including Lake Atitlán) we should have articles for, those articles should be started, a region map showing those subregions should be made, and each region should have around 5-8 "Cities" in it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:47, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Hey Ikan, I had a chance to click around on desktop a bit and I'm not noticing what makes the breadcrumbs broken. I'm also not noticing any other errors, you mentioned there were a few. Can you provide any details? I would prefer we not create additional region pages that don't map to anything in the traveller's mind (eg.. Northern Western Highlands (Guatemala) doesn't make any sense to anyone.). I guess we could promote Lake Atitlan up a level, that's fine. We could also remove most lake cities and sub head the list to get something like this? Then if more content ever got added we could create additional pages like "Greater Quetzaltenango" sub-region. (but not until there is content to support it) Thanks! --ButteBag (talk) 23:18, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

I didn't say the breadcrumbs were broken. I said that it's no good to subdivide a region into a single subregion - which really means it hasn't been subdivided but one part of it is being treated specially, with considerable redundancy. If it works to make Lake Atitlán into a 1st-order region of Guatemala, fine, that could be a solution if it makes sense from the standpoint of a traveler. That looks like a pretty substantial list of cities below. I'd say go ahead and do it, as it's a lot more reasonable than the status quo. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:39, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Ah, ok, sorry. I thought you meant "throwing errors broken", not "philosophically broken". FWIW, I really like the organization/breakdown of pages in Guatemala. It doesn't bother me that region pages can contain a mix of other regions and bottom level destinations. I know it's not WV protocol, but I really like how the content has developed here using this structure. Thanks again! --ButteBag (talk) 15:38, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

If you like it so much, why did you start this thread, discussing what to do with duplicated city listings, which because of the irregularity can't really be just moved to the single subregion? It's not a good way to organize things. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:48, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Yeah poor word choice on my part, sorry. Just trying to help. ButteBag (talk) 14:47, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Cities

• 1 Chichicastenango — known for its colorful markets held every Thursday and Sunday
• 2 Huehuetenango — last major town before or from the Mexican border
• 3 Panajachel — Lake Atitlan's most visited town
• 4 Quetzaltenango — Guatemala's western center makes an excellent base for studying Spanish

Towns & villages

• 5 Almolonga —
• 6 Cantel — a K'iche' village with a glass-blowing factory open to tourists, and a couple of small archaeological sites.
• 7 San Andrés Xecul — a small K'iche' village with a colourful church
• 8 San Gaspar Chajul  —
• 9 San Juan Cotzal  —
• 10 San Rafael Pie de la Cuesta — a coffee-producing town in the foothills
• 11 Santa Maria Nebaj —
• 12 Solola — the capital of the state of Solola has a market that attracts shoppers and vendors from throughout the state
• 13 Sacapulas —
• 14 Salcajá —
• 15 Todos Santos Cuchumatán —
• 16 Uspantan —
• 17 Zunil —

Irregular subdivision of Western Highlands (Guatemala) article

Template:Swrpt Any of you Guatemala experts, please start a regionalization discussion at Talk:Western Highlands (Guatemala). There is but a single subregion article linked from this article, Lake Atitlán. That's irregular. Either a region should be completely subdivided into subregions that cover its entire area, with defined borders, articles for each of them, a map showing them and a listing of every one of them in, in this case, Western Highlands (Guatemala)#Regions, or there should be no subregion articles, because it messes up the breadcrumb navigation and several other things. And a subdivided region article should have no more than 9 cities listed in its "Cities" section, but we obviously can't do that yet in the Western Highlands article because this region is not properly subdivided, giving rise to the discussion at Talk:Western Highlands (Guatemala)#Problems with Lake Atitlán content. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:12, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

My feeling is that there should be subregions, but I don't know the area well enough to have any sense of where they should be. Hobbitschuster, do you know the area? Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:38, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

I've never been to Guatemala Hobbitschuster (talk) 20:56, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Anyone? Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:29, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

I wish. The closest I've been to Guatemala is being friends with someone who went on a school trip to the jungle there.

Maybe we should see what Wikiviajes does, or at least ask for their opinions? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 19:02, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Thinking out of the box, one solution could be to elevate the Lake Atitlán article one level up as a region article directly below Guatemala? As of now there are six region articles in Guatemala#Regions, so per 7 2 there's no problem adding one more. --Ypsilon (talk) 19:41, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Their opinions would be great, but their article doesn't help: the Guatemala article on es.wikivoyage has nothing but red links for the 5 regions mentioned in the "Regiones" section. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:45, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Ypsilon, the real question about your suggestion is whether it makes any geographical or logical sense to excise that area from Western Highlands. It's hard to tell, because Western Highlands (Guatemala) has a dynamic map that doesn't make clear what the boundaries of the region are. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:49, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

The lake seems to be very close to the borders with the Central Highlands and Pacific Lowlands, and turning on the Mapnik layer in the embedded dynamic map it looks like the cities around the lake are all in the same department; Sololá (#19 in the region discussion above at Talk:Guatemala#Regions), so it shouldn't be too hard to cut it out as a separate region.

Another solution involving more work would be merging articles of cities that are close to each other (also elsewhere in the Western Highlands there are clusters of cities each with their own article) to reduce the number of cities in the Western Highlands article, then merging the content of Lake Atitlán into appropriate articles and turn it into a redirect. Ypsilon (talk) 20:25, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ What about our bodies of water policy? Hobbitschuster (talk) 23:35, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

"Some regions or for that matter towns are named after bodies of water. These articles aren't about water, they are about the inhabited area on and around the water, with all the sorts of things that make an destination article-worthy."; in this case the towns and villages around Atitlán that as of now have their own articles. --Ypsilon (talk) 05:19, 20 November 2019 (UTC)