Marvin The Paranoid

Hello, Kenneth Stephen! 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. Hobbitschuster (talk) 05:50, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

"Cope" section

I had typed a response to your question about where and how to list a laundromat in Munich, and when I tried to save the response, it got unrecoverably deleted because you had reverted your post. So what did you decide to do? I don't feel inclined to recreate my post, but look here for the placement of the "Cope" section, which is usually used in the huge city template but is optional in district articles. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:12, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Hi. Please list the laundromat in full, crucially including address and hours of operation, in the relevant Munich district article, rather than the overall article for the whole city. Thanks. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:15, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

I thought about its placement a little bit. Intellectually speaking, I agree that what you say makes sense. However, in practical terms, while I was there in Munich, staying in one of the non-central districts, nobody could point me to laundromat services within those districts. I'm sure there are some, but I couldn't find them. The only place I _could_ find was in the city - which is why I thought it would be better to post my info in that location. Still, if you feel that re-posting to the appropriate district is better, I can do that.--Kenneth Stephen (talk) 18:32, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

It's the standard thing to do, but post your reasoning at Talk:Munich. I see the sense to it, and perhaps others may agree with it. You will probably want to link to this page for context in your first sentence when you create the thread. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:38, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Cash in Sweden

You added "info regarding a bias against cash payments" to Sweden. I am not sure the statements are correct. The theft risk was indeed a cause for bus drivers not carrying cash anymore, but ordinary people and businesses? I am especially worried about the statement on remote areas, where theft is no concern, but costs of card handling devices and shaky connectivity may be big concerns. Do you have experience or information to back this up? --LPfi (talk) 11:16, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I do have experience, but I will qualify this with the statement that I was in Sweden for a grand total of 5 days. I flew into Stockholm from the UK on the night of the terrorist attacks downtown, and the airport was pretty much closed with no currency exchange services open. So I was a bit worried about how I would survive. But I got to the hotel in downtown and they reassured me that my lack of Swedish currency wouldn't be noticed. They told me that even the people standing in the street selling flowers would have an electronic register to ring up the payment (never saw anyone in the street selling flowers, but it was quite cold....so maybe this is a thing that happens in warmer temperatures). After two days, I was flying into Luleå -which is quite north, and I was worried if I needed to now convert currency, and I was told that there would be even less need for me to have cash when compared to Stockholm. How true this is, I do not know, but I survived very well without changing anything into Swedish currency. By comparison, the UK, rather annoyingly needed cash in a lot of places. It seemed like Sweden is perhaps even more advanced than the US (where I live) where I have gone for a few years without cash (I exaggerate: my kids who don't have credit / debit cards do get cash from me for going out with friends, etc), but where I do know of cash-only businesses.--Marvin The Paranoid (talk) 23:27, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

I have not been much in Sweden the last years (mostly just Stockholm or passing through), but I suppose the situation is like that in Finland, where I live. I do use cash and have yet to see anybody thinking it not being normal or safe (although many of my friends mostly use cards). Any normal business will handle cards, but in the market place, in flea markets and with small businesses in the countryside, I think you often need cash. The machines are quite expensive and require Internet access. Luleå is in the north but is still a relatively big town. I think theft is rare in the countryside (so handling cash is not an issue), and pickpocketing or robbery seem extremely unlikely (when everybody knows everybody, you'd be caught in no time). --LPfi (talk) 09:24, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't want to give out incorrect information, but on the other hand, this sort of information is certainly useful to the casual traveller. Is there some wording that we can reach a compromise on?

It is OK to say that you get along with a card in most places. The crucial thing is that I think you need cash in some situations also in Sweden, as mentioned above. I am not convinced that cards are more commonly used in the countryside, neither that people avoid carrying cash to lessen theft. I think these latter points should be left out unless we find some more evidence (perhaps some Swede used to travelling around the countryside, also in real backwoods). --LPfi (talk) 17:09, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Banner change

Hi, the banner you created for Kastelruth was not compliant, so I created a new one here:

New banner

The problems were:

• Dimensions were not 7:1
• Format was PNG, which is not good for image compression. JPG format is much smaller

I am not able to change image formats on Wiki Commons, so I had to create a new JPG image based on your PNG instead. I included full attribution to yourself.

Please let me know if you have any questions around this. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 05:33, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

American Tobacco Trail - what kind of a page to add?

Swept in from the pub

This is a running / biking / riding trail that spans the towns of Apex, Cary, and Durham. One approach would be to add mention of the trail in all three pages for these towns. Or have a separate page for the trail that covers it all.....but I'm not sure what kind of a page template to use for this. Any suggestions? Marvin The Paranoid (talk) 23:58, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

We have an itinerary template for articles like this. If you put your title into the search box & click search, you can check whether it is already covered somewhere. If isn't found, you'll get a "create the article" option. Click on that & it gives you a menu of article types. Click on itinerary & you get a skeleton article with the main headings already inserted. Edit some & save it & you will have created an itinerary.

There's a list of current Itineraries. Have a look at some of those for inspiration. Once yours has progressed a bit, add it to the list. Pashley (talk) 00:45, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

American Tobacco? Seriously?--Renek78 (talk) 20:55, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes, seriously, and this is a good thing. Its the old railroad used by the tobacco companies to move goods between the farms and the factories. Only the tobacco business dried up, so they covered up the rail and made it into a trail. Whats not to like about this story? Marvin The Paranoid (talk) 01:51, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Ah, that's interesting. Already thought there is a running trail sponsored by the tobacco industry... Thanks for the info! --Renek78 (talk) 11:02, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

What edits are not minor

Hello, and thank you for adding images to articles! Small favor, though: that's not a minor edit, and your edit summary should say "added image". Minor edits are to fix typos and the like. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:51, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Noted. --Marvin The Paranoid (talk) 00:29, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Galleries

Hi, Marvin The Paranoid, and thanks for adding so much content!

About galleries, though: We don't like them here and use them only in very limited circumstances. Please read Wikivoyage:Image policy#Montages and galleries. Please convert galleries back to individual, regular-size thumbnails, however many there are room for. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:04, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

By the way, another way you can help is to space images more evenly throughout articles, but do that only if you feel like, as others can do that, too, and adding and updating more content is the most important thing. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:03, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Made the changes. I do feel that two of the images on the Carinthia page will not create the right impact unless they are larger than the default size, so they are sized at 300px. Marvin The Paranoid (talk) 16:50, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, and that's fine. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:23, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Achenkirch

Hi Marvin, based on 178.255.156.181's editing style and choice of articles he chose to edit, it became apparent that the editor was a banner user (ArticCynda). Please see this discussion for why ArticCynda was banned. Essentially AC was inserting racist (in particular antisemitic and anti-African) content into articles for a long time and showed no remorse for doing so despite his other edits being beneficial on the whole. And the current policy is that all edits of banner users, even if some of those edits are net positives, are to be reverted per WV:DENY. I can also see the argument for keeping some of the good edits for users like AC but a new consensus would need to form (you can raise it at the talk page if you like). Also have a look at what I told Ikan Kekek, who asked a similar question here. Cheers, Gizza ^(roam) 23:42, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Anti-Muslim, too. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:53, 26 January 2020 (UTC)