Neotarf

Hello, Neotarf! Welcome to Wikivoyage.

To help get you started contributing, we've created a tips for new contributors page, full of helpful links about policies and guidelines and style, as well as some important information on copyleft and basic stuff like how to edit a page. If you need help, check out Help, or post a message in the travellers' pub. If you are familiar with Wikipedia, take a look over some of the differences here. sats (talk) 08:20, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, sats. I've got slow page loads at the moment, but I will try to look them over.—Neotarf (talk) 08:45, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Ethiopia

Hi Neotarf. You added some good info to Lalibela and I figured there were better articles for it so have moved it. Keep up the additions of info. cheers. Nurg (talk) 19:53, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, it's a nationwide holiday, the Lake Tana church is only the most nationally significant one for this ritual, so I have added a brief mention back to the Lalibela page. As a religious site that is in active use, Lalibela will certainly be effected by this holiday. Graham Handcock's book The Sign and the Seal has an interesting eyewitness account.

This really points up the huge navigation problems with this site. —Neotarf (talk) 00:38, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. What do you see as the huge navigation problems? For places like Ethiopia the content is still quite thin and undeveloped, so I'm wondering whether the nav problems are just a result of that, or whether you see additional nav problems. Nurg (talk) 07:12, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

I mean the number of page loads needed to find what you are looking for, whether it is a particular city, region, or just a list of possible destinations in a particular area. Imagine an internet cafe in a remote area where it takes 20 minutes to load a page (I have seen twice that). So you load your personal email and log in, to tell your mother you have not fallen off a cliff, that's 3 pageloads and one hour. Then suppose you want to add something to WV about some unique thing you did during the day that was really worthwhile, before the power goes off, or it rains and the internet connection goes down. You need to be able to go straight to that page with one pageload, and edit, with a second pageload. Is that making sense? --Neotarf (talk) 07:24, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

You've raised a very important and neglected concern, Neotarf. We should not overlook the needs of users in locations with slow, poor or expensive connections. I would encourage you to put this perspective forward at Wikivoyage talk:How to add an image#Usual image syntax? --118.93nzp (talk) 20:30, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

It's not about images so much as about navigation. I have already made a comment here. --Neotarf (talk) 01:47, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Time and dates

Hi Neotarf. Nice to see you around. I notice you've entered the time and date discussion. Hope you have your seat-belt fastened :-) --Inas (talk) 01:09, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

There is no reason to adopt one major variety of English over another. The English WP has solved that problem in one way. WV should solve the problem as well, but without making the same mistakes. —Neotarf (talk) 01:19, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

That may be, but you have to try to persuade a consensus to agree with you. When I inserted the US-style date format, that was because I thought (perhaps naively) that I had a consensus on the talk page (Wikivoyage talk:Time and date formats‎‎). You do not have one, so though I would normally agree with your change, I will revert it. It's important to respect rule by consensus on Wiki sites, because it's fundamental to what Wiki is and how it operates.

All the best,

Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:06, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Answered at your talk. Whether such a consensus existed at one point in time, it clearly does not now. --Neotarf (talk) 06:15, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Ah, but you see if a consensus once existed, in order to change it we need to form a new consensus. Just because a previous consensus dissolves, doesn't mean the policy it formed does. This is supposed to make us focus on writing superb travel guides, and not really worry to much about what way a date is written. However, it seems to be human nature that we reach consensus quite quickly on travel content. and then spend thousands of words debating the format of dates and times. --Inas (talk) 22:00, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Apparently there was never a consensus, it was just something that was migrated over from WT. It was originally added by someone from New Zealand, who presumably speaks BrE. [1] All in all they didn't do too badly, since they seem to be a techie type, and not a linguist, but there is no good reason for not adding other formats that are both correct and internationally recognized standard forms of English.--Neotarf (talk) 00:48, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

All good arguments, with which you (after a deep breath) should try and convince people on the appropriate policy page. --Inas (talk) 00:59, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I have the energy for it at the moment, especially if such discussions here are as colorful as they are on en.wp. Hmm, how to proceed. So many priorities, so little time. And yet, it seems a necessary feature of the website. Is there a huge EngVar division here, with everyone just arguing for their own idiolect, or is there some recognition of the need for a more global standard? --Neotarf (talk) 02:15, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I tend to agree on the other priorities. There have been EngVar debates here since the first weeks of the site, with U.S. spelling mandated across the site for many years for consistency, slowly being compromised to geographical based spelling, and debates over pretty much every country that doesn't have a clear history of spelling. Times have been AM/PM in 12 hour time, again slowly giving way to 24h time in geographies that use it. The dates in non-U.S. style is therefore slightly anomalous, but at one stage offset the overwhelming U.S. centricness. I've always proposed that being a travel site, we should adopt the opposite standard to the country, so our U.S guides would be commonwealth styled, and Australian guides written in U.S. style - because we want to show our tolerance of cultures and different ways of doing things. Needless to say, I'm yet to get any support on that one. --Inas (talk) 03:46, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

So anyone who wanted to add something to a page would be required to learn a different variety of English first? :) Or you would have a team of translators, who would take pages written in one variety and translate them to another variety? Nah. Sometimes the best solution is the simplest. I hate to bring up the English wiki all the time, but one thing they did to prevent either edit-warring or dominance by one nationality was to say the person who starts an article gets to decide what variety of English it get written in. Why not apply this concept to individual comments or entries?

I would take this a step further to wonder if anyone has ever taken time to write down the principles these things are based on. Not just for language, I'm thinking about the Signpost's sex tourism article, and something someone emailed me about the effect of tourism on endangered animals as well--ethical considerations. I suppose the concept of "eco-tourism" encompasses some of this. --Neotarf (talk) 12:25, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, a simple reason to not let the initiator decide the English variety, is simply because when we push towards a star status we want regional articles to have consistency. Our articles are overwhelmingly based on geography - which isn't the case for WP.

If there is one basic principle that we all agree on it is that the traveller comes first. The needs of the editor are always subservient. So, I don't really give much weight to what makes things easier for editors as the expense of travellers. Editors can always write how they like if they have good information to contribute, we have enough wikignomes seemingly at the ready. --Inas (talk) 22:49, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Excellent summation, Inas! - and all those wikignomes typically need is either clear rules to establish the EngVar (or even better a sign or category that indicates the EngVar it should be...) --118.93nzp (talk) 06:36, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

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The last wikignome I saw around these parts was Tony, and he seems to have left the building.

But "star status"? I'm afraid to ask. When I see a word like "status", I immediately conclude that it will end up trumping anything commonsense like "the traveler comes first". --Neotarf (talk) 10:58, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Civility

I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings.

Obviously I know that I am not Frank and, presumably, you know that you are not Frank, so perhaps you would join me in supporting a checkuser request?

My apologies once again for having to be the messenger. --118.93nzp (talk) 00:17, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Hahahahahaha.

Thanks for that, it made my day. --Neotarf (talk) 00:49, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, we both know that these allegations are farcical but I thought you might wish to help me prove how daft they are... --118.93nzp (talk) 01:03, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, there are some technical limitations of the checkuser, wrt how long information is kept, so I doubt if it could be used to prove or disprove anything at this point. And even if it could, this would be against the WMF privacy policy. The English WP has extensive (and controversial) sockpuppet investigation (SPI) procedures, You might be interested in their criteria. --Neotarf (talk) 01:10, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

My Son

Hi. My reasoning in reverting your edit making My Son a "See" listing in the Hoi An guide is very simple: It has its own not inconsiderable article. It really doesn't make sense to have the same place as a "See" and a "Go next" in the same article. So if you don't think it should have its own article, my suggestion would be for you to argue that the My Son article should be merged to Hoi An. My prediction is that, because the My Son article is not short, such an argument probably won't win, but I'm going to again revert your "See" listing of My Son in the Hoi An article for now. Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:23, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Answered on your talk page.--Neotarf (talk) 12:58, 19 November 2013 (UTC)