Wikivoyage:Destination of the month candidates/Slush pile/2023

2022 DotM slush pile for 2023 (current) 2024

Place: Cycling in the United States
Blurb: With greatly expanded infrastructure since the onset of COVID, the most difficult part of cycling in America is deciding where to go. (should not exceed ~145 characters)
Article status: guide (must be guide or above).
Time to feature: Year round
Nominated by: ButteBag (talk) 00:48, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Speedy slushed a few weeks ago, I've asked on the pub and at Requests for comment pages, and got one response that this was at guide level. This topic interests me, and I spent a good deal of time breaking out the content into something digestible. It's kind of an armchair travel/bucket-list/thought starter type of article if you think that's interesting enough to be featured. The content is pretty evergreen. I won't spam you again with this, thanks!

Nomination
  • Before I voice my support, I do question this:

    Racism — Sadly, the United States can be a racist place, and BIPOC cyclists should do additional research into their route. Cycling tends to be seen as a "white space", which will impact the amount of discrimination you experience. There are unfortunately no high-quality national resources for "biking while Black".

I interpret the second sentence as only Blacks being targeted, but what if you're of any other race? I haven't cycled in the US before, so I don't know the answer to this, but would I as someone who is not white nor black be victimised by racism? FWIW, I frequently take my bike out and ride for around 60–100 km (37–62 mi) from where I live and have never been a target for racism in my home city whilst cycling. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 07:36, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Is the cyclist community in general a more racist one than the one for motorists, public transit riders, taxi drivers, or any other sector of American society? Are specific ethnic groups targeted? United States of America#Racism has a very different point of view, mentioning East Asians and Russians as particularly vulnerable. Without dismissing any of them, or anyone's personal experience of racism, the section should be more contextual. /Yvwv (talk) 16:58, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think there should be an Understand section, summarising the availability of cycling infrastructure, attitudes of drivers etc. The intro gives the impression that USA is a biking heaven – that's OK for the intro, but you should get readers down to earth before going into details, as I've understood that's not quite the complete picture. –LPfi (talk) 07:56, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    There is some jargon adding to the lively style but making it hard for people like me (second language speaker). What is "a quick RSVP", what is "Hang back and let them do whatever"? I also think some things should be explained more thoroughly; e.g. the article says you should keep away from the door zone of parked cars, but I'd be afraid of getting under the next bus or truck from behind. Can you trust other traffic to keep clear? What happens if you use your right to take a lane, will the drivers behind you be happy to slow down?
    The urban cycling images (Black Canyon Trail, Old Colony Nature Pathway, Colchester Causeway) do not look urban to me. I assume the point is that there are nice trails near cities, but urban cycling to me is getting around the cities themselves. Can you reach your hostel by safe routes? Should the trails go to Trails, perhaps split up into long distance trails and day trip trails in or close to cities.
    The quoted fee of $220 for taking your bike across the country is quite hefty. I would rather hire locally, or buy one at the destination. How widely are those options available? What about cheap used bikes?
    LPfi (talk) 08:27, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    My experience of the U.S. is that suburban or rural cycling is the best, while due to the prevalence of cars and jam-packed interstate routes, urban cycling is a nightmare. Of all the American cities I've known, I'm not aware of one that would be an enjoyable place to cycle. In Europe, where cycle lanes often take priority over automobile lanes, urban cycling is probably more enjoyable.
    Your second paragraph is why I wouldn't cycle in urban areas: most roads have cycling routes because the law mandates it or for PR, but they're virtually unusable in fact. Instead, upscale suburban areas have bike trails in their exurbs, which are perfect cycling destinations. So this should be clarified in the article, in my opinion.
    As mentioned above, obviously minorities should take caution. Suburbs should be safe for everyone, but urban areas and rural areas would be of more concern. Common sense should be able to guide this, though.
    Additionally many roads in my local area don't have enough crosswalks, and people without cars (most of whom are minorities) run a high risk of not being spotted crossing a street at night, whether they're pedestrians or cyclists. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 19:01, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Needs work. Except issues already mentioned, selection of destinations is far too narrow, and the article does not say a lot about cycling in the country as a whole. There is potential to create elaborate articles on states and regions, such as cycling in Colorado or cycling in California. /Yvwv (talk) 12:20, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for your time reviewing and commenting everyone! I know you've got other things you'd rather be working on, so it means a lot to me. I've made a few quick updates to the article based on your feedback. It was especially helpful to hear from ESL readers, I forget that English is not everyone's native tongue. Sounds like I should add an understand section, with more realistic descriptions of what cycling in various American situations is like as a whole. Fair point. Maybe there's something to having sections for both long and short distance trails. Or maybe making the idea that "these are the good trails near this city" more clear that somehow. Not sure I agree that the "selection of destinations is far too narrow", it almost feels like there are too many options as is. I think there is enough content to create additional Cycling in California type articles, but I'm not going to do it lol. ButteBag (talk) 18:53, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks.
    There are plenty of suggested destinations, but they don't cover all the country, and a biker going to an area not covered should get the general advice they need, or enough for them to choose whether to forget about going by bike this time, try to find more information elsewhere or plan for biking anyway. I assume there may be variations even on local level, so you cannot cover all of it, but you probably have some touch on what to expect from places where you haven't been and heard nothing about. So, yes, I think an Understand would be good.
    LPfi (talk) 20:15, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. One other thing I've noticed is the lack of detail about helmet laws. For someone like me who comes from a place where helmets are mandatory by law, whether it's mandatory or not doesn't really bother me (I always wore one in Oslo, even though I knew I might have been judged), but for some others who may be used to cycling in a country with no legal restrictions, we should elaborate more. Looking at w:Bicycle helmet laws by country, it seems some states mandate the use of helmets for children while there are few to no restrictions in others. I realise that having a table for all 50 states + 5 organized territories is going to be very long, but surely we can do better than what currently stands. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 01:26, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    w:Bicycle helmets in the United States has a good table, though we probably shouldn't copy the table as is. Would it be okay to make an exception to the Wikivoyage:Links to Wikipedia policy in this regard? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 07:05, 10 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    The table is collapsed, so not obvious, and the rest of the article is quite thin. Perhaps it suffices to say that helmets are mandatory for children (up to 12–18) in many states or counties (is that the relevant level?), mostly voluntary for adults. Readers should then check for themselves. Articles about individual states could have the info in their By bike sections, where a paragraph should be enough even in complicated cases. –LPfi (talk) 21:35, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Slush? Nominated 10 months ago with zero support votes and only minor improvements. /Yvwv (talk) 23:01, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe best to wait a couple of weeks for some input from ButteBag. And if it's slushed it can be renominated later if the issues have been fixed. Ypsilon (talk) 16:05, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Place: In the footsteps of explorers
Blurb: From prehistoric migrations out of Africa to space flight, humans have always been explorers. (should not exceed ~145 characters)
Article status: Guide (must be guide or above).
Time to feature: {{{time}}}
Nominated by: User:Pashley
Comment: It has taken quite a lot of work by several people, but this article is now rather good, & I think pretty much complete.

Nomination
Slush? No positive feedback for a month. /Yvwv (talk) 08:56, 28 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I'm unsure about this. It's definitely a valid article and as such featurable, but like Yvwv said it has a huge scope, somewhat like visual arts. Basically it would be a good idea to create new articles for the sections/explorers that have a couple of POIs but I'm afraid those might become quite short unless someone volunteers to write more about those explorers... --Ypsilon (talk) 05:25, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Place: Antarctic Peninsula
Blurb: Cruise visits have resumed, and the Peninsula is the most scenic part of Antarctica, teeming with wildlife, and with heritage of the whaling era. (should not exceed ~145 characters)
Article status: Guide (must be guide or above).
Time to feature: Nov 2023, start of the first post-covid cruise season.
Nominated by: Grahamsands (talk) 20:50, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: We've never had an Antarctic dotm, though all that continent's pages are in good shape, and tours have resumed post-covid. This would push out FTT "Churches in Antarctica" but is of far wider traveller interest.

Nomination
Leopard seal on Paulet Island
  • Needs work – one, an article can never fully be ineligible for a feature (unless the destination is really unsafe), so Churches in Antarctica won't ever be pushed back solely due to it being an armchair traveller article; two, Antarctic Peninsula#Bases and points of interest is an absolute mess, but if it is going to stay that way, many markers needs coordinates; three, this one's minor, but this is still too off the beaten path to be considered a DotM. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 21:15, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I should also point out that this won't be our first Antarctic feature (as per your comment), as South Pole has already been featured. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 10:38, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Needs work. Antarctica has been reorganised several times in the last years, and I think many of the articles, including this, still show that some of the content has been broken out from somewhere and just slightly reworded to fit. The list replacing Cities and Other destinations should be broken up, separating destinations that are covered in other articles and destinations covered here. That would get rid of the 22-bullet list, which includes an archipelago with a region article as well as an individual wreck. –LPfi (talk) 08:58, 29 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Definitely not DotM, but maybe OtBP. Pashley (talk) 10:20, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @Pashley: About time to recategorise as an OtBP? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 10:35, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, or slush it since several people above say it needs work. Pashley (talk) 11:56, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't slush the article atm given it's only been 2 days since the article was nominated, but I have recategorised it as an OtBP. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 12:02, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It might be possible to get the article up to guide with some hours' work. Region articles don't need to be complete to get to guide, but their listings and layout should closely match the manual of style, and all the standard sections should have well-developed prose. All or most needed info might be there, just in need of reorganising and rewriting. –LPfi (talk) 12:55, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is a rural area article, though, so the requirements are less lax. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 12:58, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Is it? The template calls it a region article, and there are city and region articles breadcrumbed to it. –LPfi (talk) 14:00, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it was written like one, with a structure similar to Streymoy – I've recategorised it. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 21:31, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Slush? no support for almost a month; I think this can be SNOW closed. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 08:29, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Place: Tezpur
Blurb: The largest city on the Brahmaputra's northern bank has many historic sites from the Ahom kingdom. (should not exceed ~145 characters)
Article status: Guide (must be guide or above).
Time to feature: November to March for weather. Not sure about events; Maybe Diwali (November)?
Nominated by: Yvwv (talk) 15:00, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: India has been under-featured. Many articles on India have improved lately, and we just ran Cooch Behar. We could make it customary to run a South Asian article for northern winter.

Nomination

Outcome: slushed. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 07:55, 12 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Place: Trabzon
Blurb: With an ancient Greek heritage, Trabzon was an empire in its own right during the Middle Ages. (should not exceed ~145 characters)
Article status: Guide (must be guide or above).
Time to feature: Northern summer, as climate is cooler than the rest of Turkey. June for Kadirga Festival, or August for Sultan Murat Festival.
Nominated by: Yvwv (talk) 13:10, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Turkey is very under-featured. Not sure whether Trabzon would weigh in for DoTM.

Nomination
  • Comment. This is one of the greatest articles of Turkish locations, thanks to the hard work by many of our contributors, first and foremost User:NeoRetro. However, it needs some tidying up: some of the information pertains to the region as a whole, not only to the city, and as for the listed attractions, the article currently works as a semi-rural area, with many sites in the surrounding area lumped in together with those in the city itself, including some which should be moved to the places we have articles for. However, most are visited as day-trips from Trabzon, so I'm not sure how big a problem this presents. Vidimian (talk) 15:00, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I’d lean DOTM on this Tai123.123 (talk) 20:45, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Needs work per Vidimian. For dotm/otbp, I'd generally say dotm, but as we have a lot more otbp slots available, I wouldn't mind it being an otbp. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:18, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: The article has been improved a lot since nomination and the first votes, and should be re-evaluated. /Yvwv (talk) 16:05, 15 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Comment: generally looks good, but for me (who doesn't know anything about the area) it's a little overwhelming. Still seems like some of this info should be lifted up to region level pages. See section PoI could use some trimming and better descriptions. Thanks! ButteBag (talk) 17:04, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: zero support !votes for over 10 months – slush? --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 00:51, 12 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: This is a fairly long article that will take me a while to read through. Should Trabzon be districted? I will say that it strikes me as absurd to consider a city of 1 million for OtBP, and that this nomination should be moved to the DotM section. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:06, 12 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Slush? as of tomorrow, this nomination would have been sitting here for a year with zero support !votes. Unless it's significantly improved, I guess it'll just be sitting here, crying for it to be slushed. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 12:55, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Slush - The Eat, Drink and Sleep listings look so thin, and there are rather few of them if we're talking about a city of several hundred thousand inhabitants, that one may wonder if the article even should have guide status. On the other hand See is very long, also with many listings with little information, and unusually formatted with green listings for park and "around" for a great number of the attractions. Ypsilon (talk) 15:29, 16 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Place: Minneapolis
Blurb: Set among many lakes, the third largest city in the Midwest has a diverse cultural and sports scene with something for everyone (should not exceed ~145 characters)
Article status: Usable but please read the comment (must be guide or above).
Time to feature: May-Oct
Nominated by: Ypsilon (talk) 20:12, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Something from outside Europe for a DotM slot next summer? Minnesota is one of the U.S. states we've never featured anything from. Yes, Minneapolis only has usable status, but as a rule of thumb districtified cities tend to have enough information for guide status and all districts are usable. The article needs to be cleaned up (the number of bullet points reminds me of the Stockholm article before it was featured), links need to be checked, closed businesses deleted (also for the districts) and so on - what I pointed out in Talk:Minneapolis#Guide_and_DotM? in 2019. Will help out with this before the article is featured if necessary.

Nomination
I concur. The right way to do it is to re-categorize the article first, and then nominate. That said, the article looks good. /Yvwv (talk) 13:01, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Place: Iquitos
Blurb: A metropolis in the Peruvian Amazon, with great opportunities for boat safaris. (should not exceed ~145 characters)
Article status: Guide (must be guide or above).
Time to feature: While the dry season (April-Sept) is more comfortable, the wet season (Oct-March) is more appealing for wildlife watching. We are short on features for northern winter, and we usually feature Latin American cities for carnival season.
Nominated by: Yvwv (talk) 01:23, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: We haven't too many South American candidates, and this is a rather unusual city. Though its size, it can be considered off the beaten path for the difficulty to get there.

Nomination
  • Close-ish: Top half of the article is excellent! See needs some coords and a subhead or two. I don't understand the "Travelling by yourself" section. Maybe delete or move to a new "nearby" section. "Jungle tours and ecolodges" imho should be split into "Do" and "Sleep" sections? Or merged into the "Jungle lodges" under sleep. "Party and nightlife" should go in Drink. "Renting a vehicle" should go in Get around? The stuff about eating endangered animals, drinking Ayahuasca, etc should probably go in a respect/stay safe/stay healthy section. Sleep needs a few coords. This is a really good one that could be great with a little love. ButteBag (talk) 19:07, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I've schueduled this for June 2023, though if a lack of consensus emerges, we may have to feature Longyearbyen instead. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 11:15, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not ready, and is it even properly a guide? I think it isn't, considering the lack of addresses in "Eat" and the lack of any listing in "Drink." Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:15, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @Ikan Kekek: had a full read through (and not just a skim read) and agree that this does not fulfill the criteria for guide per the Wikivoyage:City article status. Should this be speedily slushed? Longyearbyen can replace its slot. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 11:25, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Feel free to nominate articles of higher quality. We have several months until June, in any case. /Yvwv (talk) 12:23, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I think it should be slushed. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:11, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]