Wikivoyage talk:Article status/Archive 2005-2013

Status rating discussion

Originating discussion moved from Wikivoyage_talk:Articles_needing_attention#Another way of marking articles. This was refactored into Project:Status rating. -- (WT-en) Huttite 17:12, 18 Nov 2005 (EST)

I've been having some problems with the way that we mark articles on Wikivoyage. It's been a problem for a really long time, and I think we need to change it.

Right now, we have two states of "doneness" for an article: either it's a stub, or it's a well-made, usable, perfectly formatted, excellent travel guide. In other words, we have just two ways of marking an article: perfect, or not yet perfect.

I think we should consider a more gradated list of article states that more reasonably reflects the level of completion of an article. I'm thinking that a 5-tier system makes more sense. Here's my idea; feel free to edit.

Wikivoyage guide maturity values

Number	Name	Description
1	"Stub"	An article with little or no information in it, or not formatted even close to the MoS. An empty template would have this state.
2	"Getting there"	Has at least the template skeleton laid out for the article. Some of the sections of the template exist, but not all of them. Does not have enough information to get you to the destination and keep you alive.
3	"Usable"	Has at least a Get In section and one Eat and Sleep listing each with contact information. An adventurous person could use the article without recourse to other information sources to get to the destination, eat, and sleep. They would probably be able to find at least the most prominent attraction at the destination.
4	"A real guide"	The article is a usable 3 guide; in addition, it gives you different choices for accommodation and eating out, and information on attractions and things to do for at least a few days at the destination (if possible). Listings and layout closely match the MoS. There will be multiple ways to get in, some suggestions for moving out, and information on getting around. At least a few things are missing to make this a 5 article.
5	"Star quality"	The article is a real guide; in addition, it has a tourist-style map showing how to get around the destination, with major attractions, restaurants, etc. that match the listings in the guide. Layout and listing formats either match the MoS exactly or are the exception that proves the rule. Prose is not only near-perfect grammatically but also tight, effective, and enjoyable. At least one good-quality photo accompanies the article; preferably 2-3 showing famous or important attractions. Enough variety of content is presented that residents and experienced visitors would have little to point out as absent. Changes to this kind of article more reflect changes in the destination (a museum closes or a hotel price changes) than improvements in the coverage.

I thought originally about considering an article on several dimensions (grammar and spelling, conformance to MoS, amount of information), but I think that this scale is clear and simple and more oriented towards usefulness to the traveler.

I suggest that we use this scale to markup the articles in Wikivoyage, using a {{Template}} thingy. Better names would be welcome. --(WT-en) Evan 10:10, 31 Oct 2005 (EST)

I like this idea lots! Do you want to build the templates? -- (WT-en) Mark 11:56, 31 Oct 2005 (EST)

Bump. I dig the idea as well. I've got the time to build the templates if Evan is too busy with RDL/Turtle. Seems like the two would eventually merge, as well... -- (WT-en) Ilkirk 17:13, 17 Nov 2005 (EST)

Yes, great idea! Let's start Template:Status1, Template:Status2, Template:Status3, Template:Status4, Template:Status5 (unless someone has a better idea for naming scheme). We can also have a page called Project:Status levels (or something like that) to list out the above criteria for status levels. Sound about right? --(WT-en) Evan 17:20, 17 Nov 2005 (EST)

I've got status 2-5, choosing some one-word titles along the way, but I've got a problem with status1 - it's a stub! We've already got stubs, and it would represent a decent sized change. Should it be changed? -- (WT-en) Ilkirk 19:00, 17 Nov 2005 (EST)

Surely we can think of better names than integers? How about Template:Stub, Skeleton, Usable, Guide, Star? (WT-en) Jpatokal 23:53, 17 Nov 2005 (EST)

Those are great! --(WT-en) Evan 00:19, 18 Nov 2005 (EST)

I wasn't sure about the naming, so I just stuck with the integers to begin with. I'll go through a remake them today. -- (WT-en) Ilkirk 08:21, 18 Nov 2005 (EST)

Rated as

I think the wording "rated as" in the template notes is ugly. Why not say This article is a ... Rated implies some sort of censorship as well as being obtuse English. Using "rated as" also implies an opinion and that is not a neutral point of view. and why should it be in bold?

What we have with these article notes is more like a statement of fact, rather than an opinion, with a relatively objective an reasonable assessment criteria. Dropping the words makes no real diference to the meaning. All the Wikivoyage main namespace articles will fit into one of these categories, or else Votes for Deletion or (former/proposed) Destination of the Month. (That implies there are some missing or duplicate categories.) -- (WT-en) Huttite 16:38, 18 Nov 2005 (EST)

I have no problems with changing away from "rated." I chose that word to be an active verb instead of a passive - trying to give the statement a little more... If you have a better word or words, please go for it. I dove into this knowing that it is a Wiki and things will change with everyone else's input... I've never felt as if it would be perfect the first time through. -- (WT-en) Ilkirk 10:30, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)

Using "status" is a better word, too. Also, let's not forget that part of the Wiki way is doing something first, and making it perfect as time goes on. Ilkirk got these status templates started, which is absolutely fantastic and worth some applause. Getting anything started means someone has to plunge forward. Let's improve them all together. --(WT-en) Evan 11:16, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)

Wording

I think the wording of each of the template notes needs to be discussed. I think the wording for each note should be different. Very different. The notes should be small and unobtrusive, with them getting smaller and less noticeable as the article improves. That way inexperienced Wikivoyageers will tend to not to badly edit the really good articles but will be encouraged to edit the short, incomplete or really bad articles. -- (WT-en) Huttite 17:26, 18 Nov 2005 (EST)

Stub wording

Until it is discussed I have reverted the change to the wording of the stub template. Please discuss there, not here. -- (WT-en) Huttite 17:20, 18 Nov 2005 (EST)

Skeleton

I disagree with both the naming and wording of the Skeleton template. Skeleton does not really describe the sort of article we want. I think Outline is more understandable and familiar to most people and really describes the sort of article this template will be used on. I also think the current wording is verbose and the border should be dotted. I am discussing this at on the template talk page. -- (WT-en) Huttite 17:48, 18 Nov 2005 (EST)

Outline sounds good to me - that may be a better term than Skeleton, and still carry the same connontation of being incomplete. -- (WT-en) Ilkirk 10:52, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)

One problem is that most of the long-standing "Stub" articles (as opposed to the ones targeted for this designation in the new scheme) in fact do follow an "outline," i.e., one of the templates. Do you want to use this terminology if it means having to go through and sort the current "stubs" according to whether they follow a template or not? If you (we) don't do that, the term will be misleading, but it'll take a lot of effort. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 11:02, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)

I think there will be a shift... there are plenty of articles that have stub reminders that will have to change up - it will be a community-wide type of change and will be labor intensive. I don't it'll be a situation where everyone of them will be located and re-evaluated right in the beginning. As we work through the articles, we'll spy a stub that is really something that should be a different state and change it.

To paraphrase, I think the definition of a stub is changing... -- (WT-en) Ilkirk 11:10, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)

I concur. I see the REAL stub articles as being articles that have been contributed by anonymous or inexperienced users that do not have any (or only one or two) sections. (Often the do not even have a stub notice.) These are the ones where there is no table of contents and no template sections to guide contributors about what needs to be filled in. The Outline has, as a minimum, an introductory paragraph and a template added. In other words Stubs are all those articles without templates - if that makes categorisation easy. Outlines are all those pages with templates and a stub message ... which is probably about 5000 articles. Changing the messages sounds like a job for a robot. At this stage I would suggest that we just change the templates for articles to put a different note on the bottom. We then migrate pages as they get edited from the Stub state to the Outline state as we find them. I.e. It is still a stub while it has the stub note on it, unless somebody (including a robot) assesses the page and decides to change it to something else. -- (WT-en) Huttite 19:43, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)

Note borders

I think the solid border on some of the notes is too obtrusive. It looks like a rubber stamp that says Top Secret or Confidential and implies the article is complete, when it may not be. That will tend to inhibit editing. I think a broken border should be used for any article that is not substantially complete. This would indicate the article has holes in it. Borders could be made more solid as the article changes status. -- (WT-en) Huttite 17:59, 18 Nov 2005 (EST)

I think that makes sense. Start with dots, move to dashes, then single line and finally double line? -- (WT-en) Ilkirk 10:53, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)

Stub border - solid or dotted

I noticed that the stub note border has changed from dots to a solid line. This will introduce an inconsistency with stub notes on existing articles. Unless someone is going to refresh every page, I suggest that the old dotted border be returned. Besides where is the discussion for changing the border? I cannot see anything recent. I also think that the other borders should vary too. -- (WT-en) Huttite 16:48, 18 Nov 2005 (EST)

Until it is discussed I have reverted the change to the stub template. Please discuss there not here. -- (WT-en) Huttite 17:20, 18 Nov 2005 (EST)

So, I can refresh all the pages on the server in a few minutes. I'm going to try and build in a refresh-this-page for use by any user and refresh-all-pages for admins only. I hope that caching issues don't get in the way of design decisions, here. -(WT-en) Evan 17:36, 18 Nov 2005 (EST)

I was not aware of that sort of facility. Good to know it exists. However, I think the issue here is more about change management, rather than technical issues getting in the way of the design. Irrespective of what features can be used, major style changes need to be discussed considered and agreed to by a broad range of users, especially when the change will affect a lot of articles. -- (WT-en) Huttite 18:00, 18 Nov 2005 (EST)

Ryan just changed all statuses to use the same border. I liked the old style better: you could tell the article rating at a glance just from the 'completeness' of the border, without actually needing to read what the box says. (WT-en) Jpatokal 04:33, 3 April 2006 (EDT)

I missed this discussion before changing. The borders seemed to be somewhat inconsistent, but I'll revert my changes on the status articles for now. -- (WT-en) Ryan 04:37, 3 April 2006 (EDT)

(Meta)Article Name Change? - The concept of states

I think the name of this (Meta)Article should change to Project:Article status. The use of the word rating gets to me. It has connotations of opinion, not fact. It also implies a relative or subjective comparison, not an absolute or objective one. There is also the issues of popularity, censorship, criticism that come with the word rating.

What this meta article is really describing is an assessment of an article's completeness or usefulness and how one goes about assessing, describing and representing that. Although it talks about how to assess articles for a particular category, the relative merits of any two articles within a category are not assessed. Also the existing categories, while having an implied ranking, if looked at from one point of view, are not necessarily linearly related but are really descriptions of the various states that an article can acquire.

As such there are other states that articles can acquire. The current states reflect articles by usefulness as a travel guide but what about the other states that articles might be in. There are already the following article states that do not fit the current linear scheme, including: disambiguation page, famous place, CIA factbook country article, article needing attention (because something is wrong with it), non-article (because it is off topic) and vote for deletion. Each of these article states could do with a template message, and some already have them.

I believe that by confining ourselves to rating rather than status we are left with needing to have a separate meta article about all the other states an article can be in. Instead we should bring all these states together on one meta page. -- (WT-en) Huttite 20:10, 18 Nov 2005 (EST)

I'm good with changing the name to "Article Status"... and I think the reasoning makes good sense. Like I said eariler, I wasn't making this as a defintive process, simply plunging foward like we've all been charged to do. I was, and have been, slightly uncomfortable with "Rating", but that was all that I could seem to drag from my head at the time. -- (WT-en) Ilkirk 10:39, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)

Maintain article list with Whatlinkshere

moved from Project:Skeleton articles needing attention

How about linking (integrating the contents?) of the Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Skeleton to Project:Skeleton articles needing attention instead of adding articles to the list by hand?

For me it is a bit crazy to maintain 5 lists of articles by hand, especially that the engine does it for us. --(WT-en) JanSlupski 10:24, 18 Nov 2005 (EST)

Is that actually possible? Seems like a discussion along those longs was held on Stub talk page at some point... I'd support that whole-heartedly if it's possible! -- (WT-en) Ilkirk 10:29, 18 Nov 2005 (EST)

Well, if you click the link mentioned - it is partially supported already. This is the list of articles that use given template. Of course it would be better if Wikivoyage... articles could be skipped, and there is no hierarchy, but since Stub talk page talks problem is 5 times bigger now. I just don't believe that these 5 lists will have any value if maintained by hand.

Well, I doubt if these kind of lists has any value at all, but this is a different topic. --(WT-en) JanSlupski 10:39, 18 Nov 2005 (EST)

This is one of the applications for Categories. Put the category in the stub message etc. and then all pages with the message on them end up on the category page, but in alphbetical order. It then becomes a simple matter to track down the uncategorised pages, because you really want to find the pages that are NOT on the Stub Whatlinkshere list, but should be. Any thoughts Evan? -- (WT-en) Huttite 20:55, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)

Next step: automatically add hierarchy & entry comments

Another challange would be to use isin: info to create hierarchy automatically.

And eventually to use template parameter as an entry comment on the Skeleton articles needing attention listing.

• eg. In Torun article {{skeleton|need to add Sleep and Eat entries}} could display Toruń - need to add Sleep and Eat entries on the skeletons listing page. --(WT-en) JanSlupski 10:34, 18 Nov 2005 (EST)

No it should be obvious that Sleep and Eat entries are needed because they are empty. What you could do is put a template message in each empty section that asks contributors to fill it in. Then all the empty sections are linked to a page relevant to that empty section, so you can find them. Displaying a message on the page, alone, will not help finding the missing information. This is perhaps a novel idea for a search engine. Search for pages that have missing information i.e. you want to find pages based what is NOT there! -- (WT-en) Huttite 20:55, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)

Oh, this is misunderstanding. My idea was that the comment will be displayed on the automatically generated Project:Skeleton articles needing attention page. Also need to add Sleep and Eat entries was (maybe bad) example. Consider something more subtle like Reword history section and a few more cheap sleep options. Something that is not obvious as looking into empty header, but rather similar to advise given on Project:Destination of the Month candidates --(WT-en) JanSlupski 03:43, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)

I second the idea of entry comments. I think there are places where they will be useful. For example, it would be great if there were some way to tell the contributors to Bangalore that it has way too many restaurant listings and someone should pare it down or split the article into district pages. Of course, the obvious way would be to put such a comment in the talk page, but it looks like most people adding the listings are IP editors to whom it will not occur to look at the discussion page to or any other policy page to see what Wikivoyage really needs -- (WT-en) Ravikiran 04:12, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)

Status rating templates

I wonder that if every single page is going to have it's own status, isn't a smart idea to replace stadard "template" message with something integrated to the navigation/toolbox or footer bar. After all this is pure meta-information not the article content. Well, I didn't read the WikiMedia source, so I have no idea how much hacking this would require. Just an idea. --(WT-en) JanSlupski 20:02, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)

Every single page already has its own state from which the status can be assessed. What we are trying to do is provide human readable metadata about the page. -- (WT-en) Huttite 21:00, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)

Every single page already has its own state (...). Oh, Didn't know that.

Anyway my point was about the way these human readable messages are presented. I'm proposing to separte the rating message from the article contents/frame, and display it in similar way as the information about authors. --(WT-en) JanSlupski 17:44, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)

Decisions to make

From the above conversations I feel there are a number of decisions to make. These may need to be explained on the relevant meta pages.

• Decision? - The term Skeleton changes to Outline - Is this agreed? -- (WT-en) Huttite 19:57, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)
  • Support. -- (WT-en) Ilkirk 21:18, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)
  • Support. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 15:06, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)
  • Support. (WT-en) Jpatokal 21:25, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)
• Decision? - Stub is an article without a template - Is this agreed? -- (WT-en) Huttite 19:57, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)
  • Support. I believe that the table on the accompanying article page more or less says this already. Maybe it should be made even clearer? -- (WT-en) Ilkirk 21:18, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)
  • Comment - An article with a template but nothing filled in except perhaps the first sentence saying "X is a city in Y" is also a stub right? --(WT-en) Ravikiran 04:25, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)
    • Reply - I am thinking it should be the bare minimum for an outline. But if it says "X is a city in Y" and has an empty template that already has a stub note on it it doesn't get changed. -- (WT-en) Huttite 07:44, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)
  • Support. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 15:06, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)
  • Support. (WT-en) Jpatokal 21:25, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)
• Decision? - Stub articles remain in the Stub article state until somebody, including a robot, assesses them and changes the notice to something else. And we do not worry about it or proactively change the notes unless the page is edited. - Is this agreed? -- (WT-en) Huttite 19:57, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)
  • Support. I think it's way too big of a project to say we have to go change them right away. -- (WT-en) Ilkirk 21:18, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)
  • Don't support. I don't see a reason to wait on this. --(WT-en) Evan 22:32, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)
    • How does it get done then? Start with the Stubs Attention page, then the Stubs:What links here? Seems like that will take the whole team of dedicated editors a good while to get sorted... or do you have a decent way to automate it? -- (WT-en) Ilkirk 22:40, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)
    • My reason for proposing this was that if we went and changed the stub note on all existing articles that were stubs before starting new ones then that would hold us up. I was thinking that we start using the new messages straight away then go back and change the stub notes on the pages that have them as they get edited. That is as each article appears on recent changes it gets the stub note changed to whatever state the article is in. Or is that too much work? But if someone wants to trawl throught stubs needing attention then great, especially if they also improve the article at the same time, but I wouldn't want it to slow us down. See the decision about a robot to do this. -- (WT-en) Huttite 07:44, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)
      • OK, I think I understand what you're saying. We're not going to change Template:Stub to something else so that all stubs are changed; we're going to let human beings or possibly a bot (I think humans is more reasonable) assess and change. I do agree with that. I thought what you were saying was, "Don't change an article's status just to change the status,", which I don't think makes sense. --(WT-en) Evan 15:55, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)
  • Support. --(WT-en) Evan 15:55, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)
  • Support the first part, don't support the second. (Evan, is that what you were saying?) I don't see any reason why someone who chances upon an article mistakenly labeled "Stub" shouldn't be able to correct the label without adding content -- although there is no obligation to. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 15:06, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)
• Decision? - The Stub message on article templates is changed to give the Outline message. - Is this agreed? -- (WT-en) Huttite 19:57, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)
  • Support. -- (WT-en) Ilkirk 21:18, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)
  • Don't support. It just produces a different set of incorrectly labeled pages, and the Law of Unintended Consequences argues against it. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 15:06, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)
  • Support. That sounds fine. --(WT-en) Evan 15:55, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)
  • Support. (WT-en) Jpatokal 21:25, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)
• Decision? - We may think about having a robot or script change the stub messages and how this should be done but do not wait for one to be developed - Is this agreed? -- (WT-en) Huttite 19:57, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)
  • Support. How much of an effort will this bot be, any opinions? -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 15:06, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)
  • Support. I think the effort for making a bot to do this would be huge, and I don't think it's worth the effort. --(WT-en) Evan 15:55, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)
  • Support. (WT-en) Jpatokal 21:25, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)
• Decision? - The details for implementing individual states should be discussed on their individual pages. This page is for the overall concept. - Is this agreed? -- (WT-en) Huttite 19:57, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)
  • Support. This is the logical place for an overall concept discussion. If there is debate about what makes up a "Guide" state article or a template's wording, that's the best place for it. -- (WT-en) Ilkirk21:18, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)
  • Support. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 15:06, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)
  • Don't support. I don't think these statuses are independent; for example, I think an outline is an article that's got a template but is not yet usable. --(WT-en) Evan 15:55, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)
  • Support. (WT-en) Jpatokal 21:25, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)

To add another:

• Decision? - This metadatabase change it's name to "Article state" "Article status" instead of "Status rating" - Agreed? -- (WT-en) Ilkirk 21:18, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)
  • Support. Though I did suggest Article status, Article state is close enough and does it for me. Your choice... -- (WT-en) Huttite 21:42, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)
  • Support. "Article status" looks right to me. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 15:06, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)
  • Support. Done by me without waiting for this. --(WT-en) Evan 15:55, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)

Metapage Move

• METAPAGE MOVE - I cannot move this metapage to Project:Article status at this time. Either it gets copied and pasted then we redirect this one or we leave it here until someone sorts out the problem... -- (WT-en) Huttite 22:13, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)
  • Done. It's a problem with the move tabs code... I'll see what I can do to sort it out. --(WT-en) Evan 22:30, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)
    • Thanks Evan , your a champion and I didn't even report it as a bug! -- (WT-en) Huttite 22:57, 19 Nov 2005 (EST)
      • I see: It's leaving out the namespace. I'm on it. Meanwhile you can just add the namespace to the URL in your location bar. -- (WT-en) Mark 04:41, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)
      • This is fixed in my Arch repository: mark@sdf-eu.org--arch/mw-cache--mark--0.5--patch-5 -- (WT-en) Mark 05:25, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)
        • I thought I tried that and it still gave me an error. - Perhaps I didn't persist with all possible combinations. (I didn't try BFI=the Brute Force and Ignorance method!) -- (WT-en) Huttite 07:51, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)

Elevation to Star

I'd like to see some sort of more formal process to control elevation to Star status and also give these articles more visibility (more on the next point). For starters, I'd suggest that Destinations of the Month should automatically become Stars — but would it make sense to have a separate page for selecting Stars, and then choosing DotMs from the Stars? (WT-en) Jpatokal 21:41, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)

I agree. I was thinking that candidates for DotM be Stars before they be DotM's, and those that have been DotM's should be Stars. They should follow the same nomination process. -- (WT-en) Huttite 04:43, 22 Nov 2005 (EST)

I agree in principle, but the requirement of a good map has made stardom all but impossible to achieve. So I guess we should choose the DOTMs from among the guides. -- (WT-en) Ravikiran 05:35, 22 Nov 2005 (EST)

Main Page

I'd like to suggest that articles linked in from the Main Page should be limited to those in the "Guide" and "Star" classes. Discuss =) (WT-en) Jpatokal 21:42, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)

Seems like a reasonable end state, but give this some time. There is still real uncertainty as regards what constitutes a "Guide" caliber article (particularly for things other than cities), let alone a "Star." Let these stabilize and rankings get applied, then re-visit this suggestion. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 21:54, 20 Nov 2005 (EST)

Definitely should be at least a Guide and preferably a Star. -- (WT-en) Huttite 04:43, 22 Nov 2005 (EST)

Agree. When we finish rating a decent number of guides and stars, why don't we have some kind of automatic rotation among the guide and star rated articles? Every day for one continent, someone picks up the next guide-rated article and drops the oldest one. The next day it is the next continent, and so on. My biggest complaint about the main page is that it does not really reflect the dynamic, continuously evolving nature of a wiki. It remains static for days on end. --(WT-en) Ravikiran 05:41, 22 Nov 2005 (EST)

Wikibooks development status

I saw this morning that Wikibooks also has a 5-stage rating for books developed there (I assume developed independently). Kind of a good indication that we're on the right track with this. --(WT-en) Evan 11:05, 28 Nov 2005 (EST)

What's a usable state article?

North Carolina and Hawaii are usable. How so? The Eat sections don't have restaurant listings, and there is no Sleep section. -(WT-en) phma 21:51, 2 Dec 2005 (EST)

These are regional articles, which discuss the whole region. There is little point in having listings for restaurants or sleeping places, etc. if you still have to travel somewhere in the region to get to them. Those attractions should be listed on the destination pages such as Cities. Besides, usable means you could survive, if you got there, based on the information in the article. I think the article tells me more than enough. I know what cities to read up on and do not need to do more research about the region just to stay alive. Compared to the current state of the Ischia article, which is a region article that does have a Sleep section, North Carolina and Hawaii are far more informative. -- (WT-en) Huttite 22:06, 2 Dec 2005 (EST)

Who is rating articles?

Can Project:Article status clarify who is ranking articles? Is it any editor who thinks a page is worthy of a certain rating? Does it require discussion on the Talk page of that article? Is it controlled by a cabal? There's some talk on this page of the "we" who make these decisions: who is that? This being a wiki, I appreciate that the answer is most likely to be "anyone does it, until we develop policy that says otherwise" (eg, the suggestions for Star above), but it would be great to have that, or whatever the situation is, briefly summarised in the policy. (WT-en) Hypatia 20:14, 15 Dec 2005 (EST)

Anyone! The criteria are actually fairly objective: the article can't be a Star without a good map, the article can't be Usable without a place to sleep, etc. If there's a debate it should be carried out on the Talk page. (WT-en) Jpatokal 22:10, 15 Dec 2005 (EST)

Well said, and agreed. Article status is more of a project-management signpost than an award. --(WT-en) Evan 00:10, 16 Dec 2005 (EST)

Standard style

I notice that some but not all of the status pages are starting to develop some non-uniformity in the style with which pages are identified. For a long time the standard has been that destinations within a country/state have been presented list-style, e.g. under Wyoming (USA), one would have

Buck Snort | Casper (Wyoming) | Chugwater | Lost Dog

(BTW, yes, each of these really is the name of a place in Wyoming; I'm not kidding.) Recently, however, there have been some additions with commentary, e.g.

• Chugwater - needs somewhere to sleep, if there is one
• Lost Dog - content OK but needs copyediting (etc.)

The new entries have the advantage of presenting (one person's thoughts on) possible ways to improve the article and advance it to the next status level, but if this is done for all of the entries, it's going to produce a horrendously long page. What do people think is the "right" way to go about this? Let's discuss. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 22:12, 31 March 2006 (EST)

I think this happens because it's not quite clear, from the rating only, which kind of attention is needed - form or content - and to which extent. So if I read that Ciudad Perdida (where I've never been) needs a template, proofreading or has a potential copyright violation, maybe I'll go in there, check what the article is about and give it a template, do the necessary edits or work on the copyvio. However, if I know beforehand that the kind of attention ite needs is additional information, I won't even go inside because I feel I couldn't make a decent contribution. That's why I'm all in for commentary. I understand, however, that this can eventually lead to some "horrendously long" pages. If that is the case, maybe we could split the page(s) into smaller ones according to the type of attention needed or by continent, or something else. -- (WT-en) Ricardo (Rmx) 22:55, 31 March 2006 (EST)

Template updates

The various status templates weren't all using the same borders, so I've updated them to try to be consistent. I've also widened them slightly from 50% to 60% as that looks noticeably less "squished" in my browser. -- (WT-en) Ryan 03:43, 3 April 2006 (EDT)

(They were previously reverted to their (deliberately) different border styles.) I've just tweaked the borders to provide a smoother progression from weak to strong, switching to pixels as the thickness measurement instead of millimeters, because that renders more consistently on-screen. - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 17:51, 10 April 2006 (EDT)

Travel Topic standard

I've added a draft of guidelines for rating the development of Travel Topic articles. Feedback/suggestions/criticisms are invited. - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 18:25, 7 April 2006 (EDT)

Well done, Todd. As for "If practical, it should contain a listing of relevant destinations, which closely match the manual of style" on the proposed Guide status rating, it's not only the listings that should match the MoS, but the whole article (section headers, use of bold and italic and so forth). (WT-en) Ricardo (Rmx) 19:48, 7 April 2006 (EDT)

Beyond travel topics

Thanks 10^6 to User:(WT-en) TVerBeek for expanding this process to include travel topics. I think it's a good step, but now it's got me thinking: could we do this for other types of articles, too? I think that itineraries and phrasebooks would benefit from this kind of status tagging, as well as other types of destination like countries, regions, and districts. I think that would let us focus on concrete milestones for moving an article forward.

I propose that we keep Project:Article status as an abstract description of each of the 5 status levels, and that we link out to different pages for concrete steps for each kind of article, e.g. Project:City guide status, Project:Country guide status, Project:Phrasebook status, Project:Region guide status, Project:Itinerary status, Project:Travel topic status.

Does this make sense? Is it too complicated? Comments and ideas, please. --(WT-en) Evan 16:38, 10 April 2006 (EDT)

I think it makes sense. What makes a "complete" article varies depending on what kind of article it is (e.g. only "city" guides need Sleep and Eat listings), so it'd help to have applicable milestones for each kind. The "stub" and "outline" statuses are pretty generic, but the criteria for "usable", "guide", and "star" wouldn't be. I've created first drafts of these. Some of the "This is a real guide" type phrases could probably removed from them if those subjective criteria are going to be outlined here. - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 17:20, 14 April 2006 (EDT)

I've abstracted the descriptions on this page, and took out the corresponding language from the type-specific criteria pages, making them very checklisty. I've also created the templates for all the type/status combinations. For consistency, I duplicated {{usable}} {{guide}} {{star}} as {{usablecity}} {{guidecity}} {{starcity}} but left the existing ones in place to avoid wreaking unfathomable havok. :) I figure we can phase these new tags in as articles get updated.

Are there any other types we need? The City criteria don't apply perfectly to national parks and such, but I'm not sure if they need their own type or if that's getting too specific. - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 14:34, 15 April 2006 (EDT)

National park status

I'm trying to develop article status guidelines and templates for National Parks. I have personally been using the Region templates on National Parks, so I thought I would base the templates and guidelines around them, but add in a reference to attractions (including flora and fauna) and accomodation.

So far, I've got Template:usablepark. I know the wording isnt great, so please play around with that until it's perfect! (WT-en) Tim 13:23, 18 August 2006 (EDT)

linking to article ToDo from status banner

I am using ToDo section on talk pages for articles for a while, and I found them particularly useful for improving articles: adding something to the ToDo list is a halfway to be done :-)

I'd like to extend article status banners so that they link to the ToDo list for those willing to help, but stuck in understanding where to start. This extension will ONLY affect those articles where ToDo section is explicitly specified when template is used (thus most articles having no ToDo section yet will have just exactly the same banner they have now).

Here's how I'd see extended banner (I would appreciate a better wording):

This article is an outline and needs more content. It has a template, but there is not enough information present. Please plunge forward and help it grow! Check [[Talk:Wikivoyage:Not_an_article#ToDo|ToDo list]] for an idea of what is specifically needed here.

Here're some examples of how ToDo sections look like: Budapest, Buda, Hungary, Eger, New Year holidays in Hungary. The idea of ToDo sections came from this discussion in Manual of Style.

Any objections on plunging forward to extend the status banner templates in such direction? --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 04:54, 11 February 2007 (EST)

This could be a good idea, but I'm not convinced that adding something into the status banners is a best way to go about doing it... -- (WT-en) Tim 16:40, 11 February 2007 (EST)

Maybe you have in mind some other method of better connecting ToDo lists with those willing to improve an article? Of course, this idea does not apply to articles of Guide/Star status. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 17:39, 11 February 2007 (EST)

Other opinions, maybe? --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 18:05, 13 February 2007 (EST)

Putting status icons on the title bar

So, in browsing around it: today, I came across it:Parigi, which has a cool UNESCO logo in the title bar. I read back through it:Template:UNESCO to it:Template:Icona del titolo, which has the (impressively tricky) HTML that puts an icon on the title bar.

Anyways: I wonder if we should use this trick in our article status templates to put up different icons for our status levels (stub, outline, usable, guide, star)? --(WT-en) Evan 21:17, 2 March 2007 (EST)

Is there any way this can be implemented without the absolute CSS positioning (perhaps using RDF or some other magic) that would allow for more than one icon? It seems like this could be useful as a way of tagging a few different things, such as star articles, previous destinations of the month, articles with docents, etc. Wikipedia does something similar with WikiPedia:Wikipedia:Featured articles. -- (WT-en) Ryan 22:08, 2 March 2007 (EST)

Agree with Ryan: if we're going to do something like this, there are other things that could go in the title bar (CotW in addition to the ones he suggests). All strike me as being in the nice-but-not-urgent category. If you're going to pick one to start with, it should probably be either Star status or DotM/OtBP. Not sure there's really much point in putting Stub or Outline status in the title bar; the reader will discover that the article is of less-than-stellar status soon enough. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 22:53, 2 March 2007 (EST)

This conversation continued at Project:Destination of the Month candidates#Tagging former DotM/OtBPs?. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 20:43, 19 June 2007 (EDT)

Status

Swept in from the pub:

As a contributor, can I change the status of an article on my own judgement, or is there supposed to be some discussion? (WT-en) Sailsetter 10:22, 7 April 2008 (EDT)

Are you talking about stub/outline/guide/star etc? Read over the qualifications and decide on your own. If you think it meets them, change it. If someone else thinks something else, they'll either change it or discuss it. (WT-en) Jordanmills 12:19, 7 April 2008 (EDT)

Yes, that's what I mean, thanks. —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) Sailsetter (talk • contribs)

Qualifications are detailed here: Project:Article status, also see Wikivoyage:Usable_articles#What_to_do_with_them --(WT-en) Nick 13:31, 13 April 2008 (EDT)

Only an upgrade to Star status requires discussion/approval - see Project:Star nominations. (WT-en) Gorilla Jones 20:58, 13 April 2008 (EDT)

Incentives

As I understand this, status' are for judging how complete an article is and to provide an incentive to improve the article to star status, correct me if I am wrong. Yet Star status can only be achieved if there is lots of specific information given, and in a region specific references are irrelevant. So what is the incentive to improve region/non city articles if the highest status they can achieve is outline. This system is aimed at city travel guides, surely travel is about more than just cities?(WT-en) HJ.Phillips94 12:38, 10 June 2009 (EDT)

Regions and even countries all have potential to reach star status, but it's sort of a pyramid sort of thing. The articles that it links to (in this case, the cities within the region) would need to all be at guide status in order for the region article to be a viable star nomination. People often find their own incentives for improving articles. A popular incentive is to get the article to guide status in order to make it the Destination of the Month, featured on the Main Page. I think a love for the area is perhaps one of the biggest reasons people choose to add information to any article, whether it be a city, region, or country.

Although city articles are of high importance, there is information that is often region-specific that only a region article can provide. Some things to do may cover larger areas than just a single city/town. Although specific restaurants are not listed in region categories, regional specialties are perfect for a region article. Regional dialects exist in many places. It's also often a better place for historical accounts to be written, since most historical happenings occur over broader spaces than just cities. Region articles are also great for highlighting all of the very best attractions in the area for those who may not want to stay planted in the same city for their entire trip.

They are similar to country articles, really. (WT-en) ChubbyWimbus 13:02, 10 June 2009 (EDT)

• • Thanks for all that info, but I have a small counter point for you, some of the more remote regions may not have any 'cities' or even towns that could make guide status, as there is simply nothing there. The appeal of some places is the lack of civilization. So surely an article like this could be missed out by the system. --82.43.118.89 07:24, 21 June 2009 (EDT)

If a region article has no subregions, towns, other destination articles, then its status is judged solely on the basis of its own content. I can't think of any examples, and I think "empty" regions tend to get the park template, regardless of whether there is any official park. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 17:55, 21 June 2009 (EDT)

Article status

swept in from the Travellers' pub

I am a little confused as to the precise meaning of ...listings and layout closely match the manual of style. I see for example that Gili Islands has just been bumped to guide status. Yet many of the listings there are effectively bulleted prose and do not use listing templates. There are other similar examples. The first ever article I did any serious work on here was Nusa Lembongan and I was told then that to have guide status the article needed to use standard listing templates and not the mass of bulleted prose that was already present there (spent many hours putting that right!!). What is the policy please? --(WT-en) Burmesedays 09:56, 30 September 2009 (EDT)

The policy is as you state it. If you disagree with Jani's promotion of the article to guide status, the proper place to discuss that is on the article's talk page. (WT-en) LtPowers 11:50, 30 September 2009 (EDT)

I am not specifically disagreeing with any promotion of any article - this issue is widespread. I used the Gili Islands article as an example as it happened today. I was seeking a clarification of policy for which I believe this is the correct place? Thank you. --(WT-en) Burmesedays 11:54, 30 September 2009 (EDT)

Since we don't follow a nominations process for guide articles, they are often promoted by users who are unfamiliar with the ins and outs of our article status criteria. Re: Gili Islands, they use a city article template, and thus follow Project:City guide status. I would, though, call Nusa Lembongan a strong guide—not terribly far from star status, and the Gili Islands a rather weak guide. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 16:50, 30 September 2009 (EDT)

I think you may be right about Gili Islands. Almost none of the listings are formatted properly. I think sometimes when users notice a lot of content, they bump up articles that may not actually meet the criteria. Also, I think some people prematurely bump up articles that they have worked on, because they are proud of them. You can always bump them down. In this case, because the user who gave it guide status is known, you could message him about it. In cases where you simply notice an article with an inappropriate status, you can change it without discussion. If someone is watching the page and disagrees with you, you can discuss it from there. (WT-en) ChubbyWimbus 22:36, 30 September 2009 (EDT)

I think the method of plunge forward first, and then revert and discuss if anybody objects generally works well. If it came to a discussion, I'd certainly support Gili Islands being a guide. I see the using of the listing templates as very optional, as the listings there are formatted well, and I think the text is good. --(WT-en) inas 23:53, 30 September 2009 (EDT)

Agreed -- AFAIK templated listings are not a requirement for guide status, it's sufficient for listings to be properly done in the "old format". For third-world places like the Gilis, it's also important to remember that there are no street addresses, fixed line phone numbers etc, so "Name. Description. Price." really is a complete and compliant old-style listing for many places.

Also -- and this may be more my view than site policy? -- all statuses up to and including guide are fundamentally about how much content the article has. On this count, the Gili article certainly qualifies, the lack of map being the major issue as far as I see. It's only Star that demands near-perfect formatting as well. (WT-en) Jpatokal 00:00, 1 October 2009 (EDT)

If bulleted listings in the "old format" are acceptable to meet the bar of closely follows style etc., then I do think this should be made very clear. I am sure I am not the only user who has spent a lot of time changing perfectly clear bulleted prose into template format. Time which could have been spent creating original work. --(WT-en) Burmesedays 00:09, 1 October 2009 (EDT)

I suppose it would be presumptuous of me to suggest that you find the appropriate policy document, plunge forward to make that part of the documentation clear, and if anyone reverts or objects, we'll discuss it there :-) --(WT-en) inas 00:44, 1 October 2009 (EDT)

Please don't feel that your formatting was done in vain! Cases like what JPatokal mentions (a city where none of the attractions have opening/closing times, addresses, prices, etc.) are exceptional. Most locations will have these things, and formatting things properly makes them more complete and brings them closer to star status. Even those places that lack some of the categories will eventually have to be formatted with as much information as is available, so your work is good for the page!

Actually, I made the suggestion here [1] to make formatting a prerequisite for Destination of the Month, because a lot of problems with nominations are related to improper formatting. No one has given their thoughts yet, but proper formatting is definitely a good thing, although it can be tedious work. (WT-en) ChubbyWimbus 02:52, 1 October 2009 (EDT)

Just to be clear here, converting everything to the proper listing templates is definitely Good(tm) and a long term goal for every article on the site, but we haven't started enforcing their use as a requirement yet. (WT-en) Jpatokal 03:22, 1 October 2009 (EDT)

Article Statuses

MOVED HERE FROM THE TRAVELLER'S PUB

I have a few questions about article status:

1. For a district or small city article to become usable status, does it need attractions from both sections of See and Do? Or is just from See ok?
2. For a region article to become usable status, how many important major cities and other destinations must be usable? Half? 2/3?
3. Do guide articles need overview paragraphs? Discussion: Talk:Manhattan/Theater District#Guide Status?

It would be really helpful if someone helped answer these questions for me! (WT-en) Sumone10154 00:04, 21 January 2011 (EST)

Hi Sumone10154;

1. According to Project:City guide status a Usable city guide Has at least a Get In section and one Eat and Sleep listing each with contact information. At least the most prominent attraction is identified with directions. No mention is made of both see and do. In fact "the most prominent attraction" is singular, so only one is essential.
2. A Usable region Has links to the region's major cities and other destinations (the most important of which must be at usable status or better), and a Get in section describing all of the typical ways to get there. The most prominent attractions are identified with directions. This implies a minimum of one major city must be usable, as attractions dont generally have their own articles.
3. There is no requirement specified in Project:City guide status for overview paragraphs in the sections as requested in Talk:Manhattan/Theatre District. Guide articles aren't necessarily perfect... just very close. For example, a city guide might not have a map, some of the listings might not exactly match our manual of style. If a City article can reach Guide without a map, then overview paragraphs do not seem critical to me. This is a judgement call. For me, in the case in question, I think they are not essential. Again, as a personal judgement call, I would suggest if you know the place well enough to do a good job, humour the request and write an overview paragraph. If you dont, say so and suggest the person making the request Plunge forward (the locally polite way of saying do it yourself if you really want it), but go ahead and rate the article guide if it meets the listed criteria and you think it is deserved.

If there are other references, it is not immediately obvious which take precedence, but I would say the name "Wikivoyage:(Article type) status" implies that it is the primary reference, specially when it does not link to another page indicating that the other page must be consulted. So if anyone disputes this, it becomes a policy change discussion. Of course we have those all the time, whenever needed, and they are just part of the background.

These are only my interpretations, but I will argue them if pressed. Hope this helps, • • • (WT-en) Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 01:58, 21 January 2011 (EST)

For #2 I think "the most important of which" is intended to be plural. In some cases, there may be only one major city that is "most important", but in others there may -- and probably should -- be more. For example, in Mid-Atlantic, I would consider New York City, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia to be the "most important" of the listed cities, plus Niagara Falls (New York), Adirondacks, and Appalachian Trail for the "most important" other destinations. (WT-en) LtPowers 08:56, 21 January 2011 (EST)

That is your interpretation. I am not saying it is a bad one, but based on the wording, there is no plural specified, and we have to guess at the intention if we were not involved in the original decision (uless you can point us to the records). There may even be cases where there is only one major city in a region, not that I can think of an example. If we want to require a plural except in exceptional cases, it should be specified, and in that case the preferred number should be specified for clarity (as is done for star articles), with the condition that if there are not enough to go round, a smaller number is acceptable. I think it is understood that a larger number is better, but that does not preclude an article from being usable and getting rated as such if there is only one. I think this is something that is best argued for a specific case • • • (WT-en) Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 15:45, 21 January 2011 (EST)

I agree that in relation to #2 the wording in the policy does not necessarily imply that it should be more than one. But in my opinion, it does not make sense to define a region as usable if any important cities or any important other destinations are not usable. Therefore, I suggest that we change the wording to make it clear that all important cities/other destinations must be usable before a region is usable, --(WT-en) ClausHansen 17:10, 21 January 2011 (EST)

All could be a large number. Should probably be limited to the more or less standard 9. I think we have a case of serious upwards creep here for the standards. Changing this will mean that all existing usable articles will have to be checked and a large number may have to be downgraded. Do we want or need this?

My personal opinion is that an article can be usable even when important items are missing. Look again at the wording of the usable templates.

At Project:Article status, Usable is defined as: An adventurous person could use the article without recourse to other information sources. For most articles, this means they could probably get to the destination, eat, and sleep with just this information. It would probably enable them to find at least the most prominent attraction there. • • • (WT-en) Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 00:59, 22 January 2011 (EST)

To me, that sounds like there should be more options. I would never consider promoting a city to "usable" status if it only had one attraction, one restaurant listing, and one hotel listing along with "Get in" info. Look at Mombasa, Lilongwe, or Soja. They don't quite look "usable" to me, but they seem to qualify with 1 sleep, 1 eat, and 1 see listing, and no one else has upgraded them either. I think part of it is that perhaps we all know/believe there is too much left out (especially with the African cities) to even make the claim that an "adventurous traveler" could get by on our current guides. We wouldn't still call Chicago "usable" if we hacked it down to the Sears Tower, Vito and Nick's restaurant, and the Hyatt Regency Chicago hotel, even though that would seem to be all we needed, because we all know that only giving that information would really not make it usable at all. There are definitely standards used that are perhaps beyond what is written. (WT-en) ChubbyWimbus 16:22, 22 January 2011 (EST)

Having written the article status guideline, I can say with some certainty that the intended meaning was plural ;) Granted, there may be some regions where really only one town is of any importance, and is generally the only place travelers visit, but that would only happen with bottom-level regions in obscure locations. The feeling in the discussions behind this criterion was that determining which cities need to be usable will always be subjective, and that that's OK.

For #1, See is all that is necessary. For #3, I think the answer is no. We have always held that to be a requirement for star articles, but not for guide status.

As an aside, it may differ from the text at Project:City guide status, but I tend to think that if a city has many restaurants and hotels, there should be at least a few in each section before calling the article usable (if, say, Indianapolis had just one restaurant listed, that should not be a usable article). --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 23:33, 22 January 2011 (EST)

Yes, I think that's pretty much how I had interpreted it. Some smaller towns might be very usable (or even guides) with only 3 attractions while it would be absurd to apply that to huge cities like Beijing or Paris. Three listings would not even begin to list even the most famous sites in such large cities, and the same applies to the other categories (maybe not "buy" as much...). At usable status, I think we should be able to confidently say that our article is a good overview; it doesn't have everything but it does offer some good options. The number of options required can and should vary by city. Some locations that are more famous for their "Do"s than their "See"s also exist and that should be taken into account when determining status for such locations. (WT-en) ChubbyWimbus 00:09, 23 January 2011 (EST)

I have no objection to an upgrade of the requirement descriptions in Project:City guide status to comply with these last two opinions, as long as the new text is reasonably unambiguous. It should also preferably be clear to a person who has not been to the destination whether the article is likely to fit the status description or not. Any other opinions? • • • (WT-en) Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 00:38, 23 January 2011 (EST)

I agree with (WT-en) ChubbyWimbus --(WT-en) inas 01:23, 23 January 2011 (EST)

• Why do articles have to have a status anyway? (WT-en) Shep 01:41, 23 January 2011 (EST)

I guess that question equates to how necessary is it to have a measure of completeness? It can give us examples to emulate, and focus activity on less developed areas. --(WT-en) inas 02:17, 23 January 2011 (EST)

I think it is also important for letting casual viewers know that if XCity is an outline, it does not represent our best article. Having a standard to allow visitors to know that an article has not reached its full potential lifts some burden off us, I think, by providing acknowledgment that certain articles are substandard and not how we want them to be. Then when they want to blame us, we turn on them with the "Plunge forward" bit to place the blame for a poor article on THEM. lol It's also good motivation for someone working on an article to know that they don't have to go from nothing to a star just to get somewhere and gives us leads on possible features for DotM/OtBP. (WT-en) ChubbyWimbus 03:19, 23 January 2011 (EST)

I agree with the combination of reasons given by Inas and ChubbyWimbus: the status labels are useful to both contributors and casual users• • • (WT-en) Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 11:46, 23 January 2011 (EST)

Terminology

Philippines, along with several others, was just demoted from "usable" to "outline". OK, maybe it does not meet the criteria for usable, but it seems distinctly silly to me to label a rather large and detailed article as an "outline". The TOC shows 20-odd sections and most contain at least a paragraph. If anything, the article is too large and needs sections like History cut to a summary, rather than being too small and needing filling in, which is what I think ""outline" means,

I think we need to change the term. I'm not sure if we also need to revise the criteria. Pashley (talk) 21:18, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't see the problem. The status doesn't cover just the article Philippines, but covers the "Travel guide to the Philippines" as a whole, including underlying cities and destinations. It's been a practice here for quite a while. If just the page itself is good, but underlying destinations are lacking, it'd be strange to call the guide to Philippines "usable". Me and JuliasTravels spent a lot of time getting the Netherlands to a proper usable level, it'd be strange if we'd just consider the country page itself now (that would mean hundreds of countries would be bumped to "usable" level without having the required content in underlying articles). Globe-trotter (talk) 21:33, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

These have been very educational comments for me. I think they would be for many other editors too, not just casual editors, and I am wondering if either of you would care to place a prominent notice on the discussion page at each of the articles demoted, firstly by way of explanation and secondly as a spur to encourage the development of the linked articles that will need upgrading before the countries can be promoted? (I don't feel qualified to do this myself.)

On a linked issue, may I enquire about St Helena, Globe-trotter? The edit summary was "downgraded to outline -- with only one place to go, this island does not have a valid regional structure" Assuming that you are talking about Jamestown (Saint Helena) as being the "one place to go", I fear that you are misunderstanding that St Helena is not really a region. It is an island nation of some 4000 souls that is no less a nation than Liechtenstein, Andorra, the Holy See or San Marino. In fact, due to its extreme isolation, I would argue that it is even more of a nation than any of those. It certainly has the trappings of nationhood such as its own flag, anthem, banknotes (the insertion of this URL was blocked by the MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist:www.banknotes.com/sh7.htm), long history and internet TLD. However, since it is only about 16 by 8 kilometres and the terrain is rugged, St Helena does not (and is unlikely to ever have) several settlements worthy of their own articles. It is for these reasons that I intend to move the very little information at Jamestown (Saint Helena) that is not already on the island article to our St Helena article and then make a re-direct from Jamestown (Saint Helena) to St Helena. I shall then (after a few copy edits) promote St Helena to Usable status, but I would welcome your comments in case I have missed something important here. -- Alice^✉ 22:04, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that would be fine of course. Globe-trotter (talk) 22:54, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Globe-Trotter - Sorry if I sound rude here, but what was the reason for United Kingdom being demoted from 'Usable' to 'Outline'? --SU FC 12:07, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't fulfill the criteria yet. For example, Hadrian's Wall is at outline status. Globe-trotter (talk) 03:37, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I bumped Hardian's Wall up to usable status, but the Channel Islands and Isle of Man are not in good shape. --Peter ^Talk 08:42, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• I have two thoughts:

1. I don't think it's the best of ideas to dictate certain content standards for daughter articles in order for the mother article to be promoted, beyond being bluelinks. There are certain things mother articles need to have to be "usable", and if they have them, they should be promoted, regardless of the daughter article. If you want to have some promotion that combines mother and daughter articles, you could have something along the lines of a WikiBook. But how many descendent articles do you want to have? Are you going to deny United States as a book because Boron, California is a redlink and East LA is a stub?
2. The criteria for what makes the United States article complete has to be different from what makes the Saint Helena article complete. Saint Helena only has 4,000 people, one seaport, and an under-construction airport. The U.S. has loads of roads, railroads, seaports and airports. The United States has fifty states, several possessions, and thousands of cities and towns. Saint Helena has one settlement Purplebackpack89 19:06, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I tend to agree with both your thoughts but with a slight modification. If one looks at the #Incentives discussion above, it's clear that some thought there were clear incentives to mandating a "pyramid" of statuses. However, it is clearly "unfair" if huge continental countries such as the US have to get all their underlying articles in the whole vast country up to scratch. Equally if would be absurd if important internal links in the USA's valid regional structure such as New England or Great Plains were coloured red.

My suggestion for Usable country status would be to clarify that All internal links in a country's valid regional structure must be at "Usable" status or better. This clarification would mean that countries containing many travel destination articles (like the UK) would not be put at a disadvantage vis a vis those with few (like Monaco). -- Alice^✉ 01:10, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Per Wikivoyage:Country guide status, only the linked destinations in the cities and ODs lists need to be of usable status, in order for the overall guide to be considered usable status (so Boron doesn't matter, but places like D.C., New York, Chicago, LA, etc. do need to be usable—a complete USA article with nothing underneath it would be just about worthless to a traveler). Region guide status is just a little more relaxed than country guide status. Perhaps this policy article should be renamed to "guide status," as the rating isn't about the article itself (in the case of huge city and region/country articles), but rather the actual travel guide. --Peter ^Talk 20:51, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Again there seems to be some inconsistency here, Peter. When you promoted Hadrian's Wall to "Usable", all of the UK's 9 "Cities" and 9 "Other Destinations" then were at "Usable" status or higher. However, you did not then reverse G-t's demotion of the UK from "Outline" to "Usable" again and your comment above about the Channel Islands and Isle of Man seems to indicate that, in your opinion, for a country to reach better than "Outline" status, not "only the linked destinations in the cities and ODs lists need to be of usable status", but also entries in their valid regional structure need to have reached a certain status. Could you clarify this, please?

Can a country retain "Usable" status with a whole regional structure showing "red links"?

What about if all the links are blue in the regional structure, but are linked just to stubs - does that pass muster?

Is it necessary, for a country to attain or retain "Usable" status, for all the internal links in the regional structure to have at least "Usable" status, or can some of them just be mere outlines (as the Channel Islands and Isle of Man are in the case of the UK)? -- Alice^✉ 00:54, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

So the problem is that since Douglas (Isle of Man) is outline-status, Isle of Man is also outline status, and thus United Kingdom must also be outline status? I agree this seems absurd, but I'm not sure how to fix it. LtPowers (talk) 19:47, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Basically, yes.

My personal preference is always to have

a) clearly stated policies that are as unambiguous as we can make them

b) those policies consistently applied - but always for the benefit of the traveller

My suggestion above for Usable country status would be to clarify that All internal links in a country's valid regional structure must be at "Usable" status or better. Since we only currently require a Region to have "...links to the region's major cities and other destinations (the most important of which must be at usable status or better), and a Get in section describing all of the typical ways to get there" together with "The most prominent attractions are identified with directions" to achieve Usable status, this clarification would mean that it is relatively easy for both the UK and USA articles to be given Usable status by fixing less than half a dozen destination articles in each case. However, and to paraphrase Peter above, a complete USA or UK article with nothing underneath it would be just about worthless to a traveller. -- Alice^✉ 20:33, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Isle of Man and the Channel Islands have nothing to do with it, they are not "cities" or "other destinations" (actually, they're not even in the UK, so not sure why they're listed there). If Hadrian Wall is the last of the "cities" and "OD" lists to get to "usable" status, then the UK can be bumped up to usable. Globe-trotter (talk) 21:25, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

The distinction is made quite clear in the UK article and the rationale for the Royal appenages remaining there is that the UK country article is both where the traveller would expect to find them and that they share much information with the UK (spelling, currency, hints in respect, phone country code, cuisine, etc, etc).

So effectively you are saying that the regional structure has nothing to do with a country's status and a country should retain "Usable" status with a whole regional structure showing "red links", G-t? -- Alice^✉ 23:25, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not. The UK has a fine regional structure with blue links. Globe-trotter (talk) 00:35, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

It appears I did misunderstand a little bit; the Isle of Man must be Usable in order for the UK article to accede to Guide status, but there is no similar requirement for the UK to move to Usable. I apologize for the confusion. In general, I would like to see our status requirements pay a little more attention to the status of subordinate regions, and a little less to linked destinations. The former poses the problem of accounting for cascading restrictions on status promotions, but I think it can be avoided. LtPowers (talk) 15:57, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

• Let me clarify my position: A usuable parent article should be allowed to have daughter articles that are outlines, but no redlinks. A guide parent article should have daughter articles that are usable, but it should be permissable for its "granddaughter" articles to be outline Purplebackpack89 17:56, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

The basic problem with that is that the guide wouldn't fulfill the criterion for usable:

An adventurous person could use the article without recourse to other information sources. For most articles, this means they could probably get to the destination, eat, and sleep with just this information. It would probably enable them to find at least the most prominent attraction there.

If the actual destinations of any importance, as opposed to the overview region article, lack meaningful content in the form of transportation info, as well as see, eat, and sleep listings, then the guide doesn't meet the threshold—a traveler would have to use other resources to fulfill those most basic travel needs.

I think there might be some benefit in renaming this article to "guide status," rather than article status, since this is a frequent point of confusion. I've already started on the templates a while ago [2] in the sake of clarity, but didn't finish. Unlike, say, Wikipedia, our destination articles don't always stand on their own, and depend heavily on the content of articles above and below them. I think that our status criteria make sense in that regard. --Peter ^Talk 22:51, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand; why "guide status"? What is confusing about "article status"? And I don't think the current criteria accomplish your stated goal. A guide to the United States might be incomplete without a decent guide to, say, Yellowstone National Park... but it may be perfectly usable without a good Yellowstone guide -- especially if the person reading it doesn't want to go to Yellowstone! LtPowers (talk) 00:12, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

It's "guide status" rather than "article status" because the criteria are not limited to just the article in question. Chicago's star status rating is dependent upon the quality of the district articles as well as the overview article—the rating really is for the overall travel guide to Chicago.

To a certain extent, at a high level like United States of America, the linked destinations status is a little arbitrary, but only insofar as our choices of linked destinations are arbitrary. For a smaller country or region, a traveler aiming to "see Rwanda" or to "see the Adirondacks" could reasonably do so in one trip, and our linked destinations should be pretty much representative of that "standard" trip. So back to the USA, imagine a tourist wanting to "see the U.S.," and think whether an itinerary covering the cities and ODs listed would fulfill that goal. --Peter ^Talk 01:31, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Okay, that makes more sense now, but there is a conflict between "guide" referring to our travel guides (the sense used in Template:Cityguide) and "guide" referring to the status level below star (the sense used in Template:Guidecity). It would be a little weird to start saying things like "Is this a Star guide or only a Guide guide?"

I do see your point about linked cities and other destinations, but it still feels a little off for large regions and countries (and continents!), especially given the de-emphasization of the subregion statuses. If the subregions had to be filled out a bit, it would make more sense to me to continue the city/OD requirement as well. LtPowers (talk) 02:23, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

That conflict is a problem. "This region guide is at guide status" looks pretty weird. Switching to "good status" might be better, but it would render an enormous amount of discussions confusing. I could fudge it by only altering the templates for huge city, country, and region guides, and calling them "this collection of articles about PAGENAME" instead of "this guide"—or something like that. --Peter ^Talk 02:46, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Status statistics

Wondering if people would be interested in having a table like this?:-

Moved table to project page

Would only require a few modifications to template to achieve. Would it be useful to split into categories the status of articles based on type of articles. --Traveler100 (talk) 19:37, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I´d love to see a statistics page like this.Texugo (talk) 19:40, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Any bot needs to discern when the template is used to denote status of a page and when the template is simply on a project page. Pages that should not be included in counts are: all talk pages, Project pages ("Wikivoyage:"), user pages ("User:"), Mediawiki pages ("Mediawiki:"), help pages ("Help:"), and special pages ("Special:"). AHeneen (talk) 20:22, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Was not intending to use a bot, just a count of the contents of categories defined by the already existing templates in article. But yes discarding the non article pages that are in those categories at the moment needs to be sorted out before the number are totally accurate.--Traveler100 (talk) 21:00, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Should lists be created for unranked articles and placed as links to a category in a column of the table or would it be better/easier just to set any article without a status to outline?--Traveler100 (talk) 07:17, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Any article without a status should be a stub, unless it has a template. It would be better to under-rank pages than over=rank stub pages so that they go unfixed. AHeneen (talk) 15:31, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Table no reflecting current status.Traveler100 (talk) 07:49, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Only 13693 of 24387 (56%) destination articles have type template such as cityguide or regionguide (not to be confused with ranking templates guidecity or guideregion). These templates do not serve any purpose. Should they be removed as the ranking status templates also identifies what type of article a page is?--Traveler100 (talk) 07:55, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes - but only after some of the relevant templates get a consensus for their wider use.

For, example {{outlinecountry}} is still experimental and (technically) should only be in use on "one low visibility article" (I chose North Korea and then went mad and also added it to the Faroe Islands). -- Alice^✉ 08:42, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Any reason for marking North Korea as an outline? The level of detail is adequate, given the situation in that country. K7L (talk) 15:41, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

The most important linked destinations and subregions need to be at least usable for the country guide to be usable. LtPowers (talk) 16:03, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that was the proposal advanced in sections above. My suggestion above for Usable country status was also to clarify that All internal links in a country's valid regional structure must be at "Usable" status or better, meaning that if an article about a country did not have a valid regional structure (and, to clarify, countries as small as Pitcairn or Aruba might not need to have any regions listed at all), then, however great and comprehensive that country article was otherwise, its status could not be promoted beyond outline status.

Given the way discussion's are going here, I will now remove the "Experimental" tag on {{outlinecountry}} since we really do need to use it more widely than on just one article to get meaningful statistics. -- Alice^✉ 23:44, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Consolidation proposal

• City articles with {{outline}} and {{cityguide}}: replace these templates with {{outlinecity}}
• Park articles with {{outline}} and {{parkguide}}: replace these templates with {{outlinepark}}
• Region articles with {{outline}} and {{regionguide}}: replace these templates with {{outlineregion}}
• Articles about countries with {{outline}} and {{countryguide}}: replace these templates with {{outlinecountry}}
• then delete {{cityguide}}, {{parkguide}}, {{regionguide}} and {{countryguide}}.

• support: Proposing as the type templates serve no purpose and only get confused with the status ranking templates. --Traveler100 (talk) 18:40, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
• Makes sense to me. Particularly with the removal of the RDF the cityguide, countryguide, etc templates don't serve much purpose. -- Ryan • (talk) • 18:47, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
• Support: per rationale proposed by Traveler100 -- Alice^✉ 23:30, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

What is the alleged point of this? Why conflate article type (city/region/park/country) with status (stub/outline/usable/guide/star) in a single tag? I see no reason to even consider it because for n statuses and m types it requires n*m tags instead of n+m. Pashley (talk) 00:02, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

The combined templates already exist, albeit with some missing coverage - see Template:Guidecity, Template:Usablepark, etc. As I understand it, this proposal creates the combined templates that are missing and then gets rid of the type templates, which would no longer be needed. The end result is that we're more consistent and instead of having to use two templates only one is needed. -- Ryan • (talk) • 00:22, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

As far as I know, the combined tags were created so that the messages displayed can be tailored to the article type, giving a brief explanation of what makes the article a given status. If they all use one "guide" tag, for example, we have to write a very generic message because the criteria for a guide city are very different from a guide region or a guide itinerary, etc. As a bonus, combined tags allow us to track things like in the table above. If they were separate tags we couldn't do that.Texugo (talk) 00:49, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

If it wasn't clear, I support this proposal as well.Texugo (talk) 13:47, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

• Looks good to me. However, there are some unique cases. Right now Singapore's still a denom, but it used to have {{starcity}} and {{countryguide}}. Will it get {{starcountry}} or just leave it as a singular city? The latter doesn't seem right to me, when Monaco is rated as a guide country. I think Vatican City may have the same problem. - Torty3 (talk) 09:57, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

There is now a proposed bot for this; see Wikivoyage:Script_nominations#User:Traveler100bot. Pashley (talk) 18:19, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

The templates {{cityguide}}, {{parkguide}}, {{regionguide}} and {{countryguide}} have now been removed from all mainspace pages. --Traveler100 (talk) 08:37, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Well done. great work! -- Alice^✉ 08:51, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

So what is missing

So the status table is in a good state with what I understand are all the main space article types. The total from the categories does not however match the total of pages for Wikivoyage. Now there will be always a little difference, for example new pages with no category (but I think I have most of them) and delete requests, but the different I expected the other way as there are still articles with more that one type template on them. So is there another type of page that the NUMBEROFARTICLES counts? Is there another category or template that is missing from the table that can explain a difference of about 60 articles? --Traveler100 (talk) 12:21, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Redirects? LtPowers (talk) 15:41, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

I was wondering about that but I do not think they are counted. Also I think there are more than 70 redirects. --Traveler100 (talk) 18:18, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

There is a specific definition of what MediaWiki considers a "valid article", it needs to be in mainspace (or a namespace listed in the configuration file as 'content'), it needs to contain at least one [[wiki link]] and there's a length minimum (IIRC, a little over a hundred bytes or so). Unfortunately "'''X''' is in [[Y]] {{subst:smallcity}}" qualifies despite being basically useless. I'm sure the definition is in the docs somewhere. Redirects are plentiful, but are not counted. K7L (talk) 23:00, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Soft redirects, then? LtPowers (talk) 14:13, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Just one mainspace page with Soft redirect. --Traveler100 (talk) 15:06, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Soft redirects would likely fail the minimum length requirement, therefore not be counted as articles. K7L (talk) 15:20, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

May of found the reason for the mismatch. There are redirect pages with the #REDIRECT tag that still have some content in them. Would these be counted in the article total?--Traveler100 (talk) 07:32, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

article type templates

Swept in from the pub

Only 13693 of 24387 (56%) destination articles have type template such as cityguide or regionguide (not to be confused with ranking templates guidecity or guideregion). These templates do not serve any purpose, only confuse users. Should they be removed as the ranking status templates also identifies what type of article a page is? Additional information and further discussion at Wikivoyage talk:Article status#Status statistics. --Traveler100 (talk) 07:57, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

The way I assume this evolved, is that once upon a time we had cityguide, regionguide templates that happily coexisted with outline, usable, etc templates. Then one day someone thought wouldn't it be good to have the article type in the ranking, so we ended up with guidecity, usablecity, etc. As you say, this is both redundant and extremely confusing. The best solution is to move fully to the combined rank/type templates, and remove (what I presume are) the old ones. --Inas (talk) 08:05, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Exactly what I was thinking of doing. Just wanted to check I was not missing some other use for them, and was not sure of the history.--Traveler100 (talk) 08:07, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

The cityguide and regionguide templates were part of an RDF scheme which is no longer in use. They are likely blank or disabled and should be scrapped. K7L (talk) 03:51, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Split stub and starnomination into stubcity, subregion, …, starnomcity, starnomregion, …

When nominating an article to be classified as star, the {{guidesomething}} template is replaced by {{starnomination}}. This is quite strange because you lose the information about the type of destination (city, region, country, …). It would make more sense to separate the {{starnomination}} template into {{starnomcity}}, {{starnomregion}}, and so on.

Similarly for stubs, they should rather be classified as {{stubcity}}, {{stubregion}}, and so on.

As of now there are only 5 stubs and 4 star nominations, so this change will not affect Wikivoyage much anyway.

I would be happy to do it if there is no objection, but maybe only administrators can create/delete templates (I’m not very familiar with mediawiki).

Fractal (talk) 16:57, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

I think we can leave the stub template as-is - any cleanup work on such articles would be better focused on converting the stub to use the appropriate template, at which time it would get tagged appropriately. As to {{starnomination}}, wouldn't it make more sense to leave the existing guide template and simply use the nomination template as a disclaimer at the top of the article to promote feedback? I don't think it should be a replacement for the existing status if that's how it is currently being used. -- Ryan • (talk) • 17:12, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

That is how it is currently being used. If we are to take your suggestion, the appearance and content of the template should probably be changed to match ombox style instead of the style for the status tags at the bottom, and the stats table at WV:Article status stats should be changed so as not to count them separately. Texugo (talk) 17:18, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

I just got rid of all five stubs (by turning them into outlines or merging them in more appropriate articles). Actually I’m not even sure the stub template should exist at all, it doesn’t take long to change a stub to an outline. I agree with using both starnomination and guidesomething, that makes sense. What should be changed in the content of the template? Probably at least remove "Guide-quality", but I don’t see anything else. Fractal (talk) 17:38, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

What about the following: Churchill (I didn’t change the actual template yet, but of course I will if it looks ok to you)Fractal (talk) 17:51, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Stub travel topics are a little trickier since they don't have standardized article templates, and if we didn't have the stub tag, then whenever someone found a stub they would have to either fix it immediately or risk losing track of it.

I think what you have at Churchill is just about right, though it would be cool if we had some kind of appropriate icon for it. Texugo (talk) 17:54, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

I either didn't realize or forgot that we were using the star nomination template as a replacement for the normal status template, so I think converting it to a message box (as you've done) makes more sense - the article is still at guide status until the star nomination is successful. A better icon would be nice, but I don't think that needs to be done before making this change. I'd suggest waiting a bit for further comment, but if a day goes by without objection then I'm 100% in favor of the change. -- Ryan • (talk) • 18:01, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Here's an icon that matches the star used in the star templates: . Texugo (talk) 18:04, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Ok, then I will change the template (with the star), the articles and the table tomorrow if there are no objections. Fractal (talk) 18:15, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

By the way, for travel topics, isn’t outlinetopic basically the same thing as stub? Fractal (talk) 18:22, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

I went ahead and put that icon in the sample box at Churchill, just to see how it looks. Texugo (talk) 18:33, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

I also took out the italics, since they are not usually used in notice boxes. Texugo (talk) 18:35, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

That’s indeed better without the italics, thanks. The star looks a bit small, what about 50px? (I just changed it to 50px) Fractal (talk) 18:37, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Looks fine to me! Texugo (talk) 18:41, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

I like this too. It always seemed weird to strip starnoms out of the guide articles category, and the notice is more visible at the top anyway. --Peter ^Talk 20:09, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

I always thought it strange to remove the article status. Agree this is a better way. Note now need to change the text explaining the process at Wikivoyage:Star nominations. Traveler100 (talk) 00:08, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Done (template, nominated pages, nomination process, table). For the table I can’t figure out how to get the number of star nominated cities (for instance). I would need something like {{PAGESINCATEGORIES:Star article nominations|City articles}} but I didn’t find anything like that. Also the numbers in the last two columns do not match, I’m not sure if I did something wrong or if there are broken pages. Fractal (talk) 16:09, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, you won't be able to get starnoms broken down by type, but now that starnom is no longer a status in itself, it should probably be removed from the table altogether. Texugo (talk) 16:21, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Ok, I have removed the two columns (starnom and destarnom) from the table. Maybe the numbers should still be somewhere on the page? Fractal (talk) 16:34, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh yeah, the destar nom template should probably also be changed to match the starnom one.

And yeah, perhaps the number should still be on the page somewhere, but I was planning to let User:Traveler100 mess with it since he was the original designer of the stats page. Texugo (talk) 16:45, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Right, what should be the image for the destarnomination template? Fractal (talk) 16:55, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

I think the same image could probably work. Texugo (talk) 16:57, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Remove {{phrasebookguide}}

The {{phrasebookguide}} template seems useless. Its only effect is to add the category Phrasebook, but this should probably be done in the templates outlinephrasebook, usablephrasebook, guidephrasebook and starphrasebook instead. Fractal (talk) 17:10, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

is on my todo list. Was think however to do the change in combination with adding breadcrumbs to phrasebook and itineraries. Seeing as these are starting to have banner pages, should keep the look and feel consistent.--Traveler100 (talk) 17:54, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Is there any nontrivial hierarchy between phrasebooks? What would the breadcrumbs look like? Fractal (talk) 18:18, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

That is one of the reasons I have not rushed into doing this, needs some discussion. Could either do by geographical area or families. --Traveler100 (talk) 12:13, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Geographical area would only work if/when we are get the ability to have multiple parents. Where would Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, etc. go? Families would work, but not really make sense for a travel site—geography on the other hand would be appropriate. --Peter ^Talk 18:53, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't think we need to try to force phrasebooks into a hierarchical structure the way we did with travel topics. LtPowers (talk) 00:37, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Upgrading the article status

I found some Itinerary articles currently at outline status but can be upgraded at usable level. I would like to see a place where we can put the articles needing to upgrade the article status. --Saqib (talk) 11:05, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Saqib, you can evaluate them using criteria from Wikivoyage:Itinerary status and change the status accordingly. If there is any doubt, you can discuss it at the articles discussion pages. Only star status needs nomination process. --Danapit (talk) 11:14, 23 August 2013 (UTC)