Wikivoyage talk:Destination guides to rural areas

Tag in some way as not yet settled

First of all, I think it is a good idea to create a policy on this. However I don't think we are really settled on to what to do Hobbitschuster (talk) 17:21, 29 December 2015 (UTC) Hobbitschuster (talk) 17:21, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

This is just a start, please suggest further input or correction. What specifically do you feel is not settled. If possible please give specific examples if possible. --Traveler100 (talk) 08:46, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Well I think right now it is evident from the body of this "policy" (for lack of a better term) that we ourselves don't know what to do with rural areas save for a few one off cases where different solutions were found Hobbitschuster (talk) 12:12, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

As with the discussion on Travellers' pub, I am still at a loss to see where you are having problems. A number of people have discussed solutions and given examples of how to handle cases. If you are struggling with an article or or point of interest then please state specifically what it is (a real example) so we can advice on possible solutions. --Traveler100 (talk) 12:17, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

My problem is that it is pure chaos. We have found one solution for thousand islands and East Frisian Islands yet a different one for the places surrounding Eltville and are having policy debates ares to East Coast Suriname. How is this not confusing to both our readers and our editors? Plus we might give touts ares good chance to list their business multiple times if we are seeing not sure ourselves where to put a listing. Hobbitschuster (talk) 12:26, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

The thousand islands and East Frisian Islands are just a different flavour to the solution for Eltville. Ellville definition is jsut basically the municipality plus a village that it just about surrounds and there is no other clear name for that rural area apart from the region it is in. I think common sense which of these two solutions to use. As for East Coast Suriname, the only real problem is that it is described as a region article rather than a city article, although it does have one city article so I guess the exception that proves the rule. Again give us an example that you cannot fit into these two solutions. Remember these are policies and guidelines not laws. --Traveler100 (talk) 16:31, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

There's one more case, beyond the "group of rural villages" (Rural Montgomery County) or the "town or small city plus surrounding villages" (Napanee) already addressed. One tiny village surrounded by a huge provincial park, Anticosti style, would be grouped into a single article. K7L (talk) 17:28, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

There is another scenario, as discussed in the pub, of a region which contains both city articles and individual listings, eg. Southeast Arizona, Dhofar, and East Coast (Suriname). Maybe a flowchart might be helpful here. –StellarD (talk) 11:30, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

The East Coast (Suriname) I get, difficult to see a better way of solving that without lots of bitty articles that probably will never be expanded. However I do feel a little uncomfortable with the Southeast Arizona and Dhofar articles (although I see how else to ahdle the small itineraries is a bit of a challenge). There are city pages near the listings on the region page. Highlights of places of interest should be mentioned on region pages but the detailed listings should be on the city pages. Not sure we want to encourage this solution. --Traveler100 (talk) 13:36, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Both SE Arizona and Dhofar are more similar to East Coast (Suriname) in my opinion. As I pointed out in the pub discussion, in both articles soe destinations are hours and many miles away from the nearest article-worthy city; the closest settlements are tiny places often without even a convenience store. In Dhofar, the UNESCO-listed site of Shisr/Ubar is literally in the middle of nowhere. There are many more such regions – what would you propose to do with Kamchatka, for example, which has only a handful of settlements but a number of sights scattered throughout the peninsula? What about the Musandam Peninsula, which was previously featured as an OTBP destination? Visiting such places involves learning and planning at the regional level, not the city level. –StellarD (talk) 15:19, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

On initial look I think the SE Arizona should be broken down to include one or two park articles. For example Coronado National Forest park.--Traveler100 (talk) 16:41, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

The Coronado National Forest is not a park but a designation of federal lands, and encompasses at least 17 mountain ranges; I suppose individual articles could be written for each mountain range, but that still won't eliminate all the stray listings. What about the sites administered by the BLM (a federal agency), which are not on forest land? Or the sites administered by the state of Arizona, or the ghost towns (some on federal land, some on state land, some on private land), also in the middle of nowhere? You might be able to reduce the total number of individual listings, but there will still be plenty left over, which again leads to our original dilemma. –StellarD (talk) 17:03, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

A large number of the sleep lisgting can be move to the Chiricahua Wilderness article. --Traveler100 (talk) 19:02, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Our coverage of rural areas. Again

Swept in from the pub

If you look at the discussion above, it appears to me that at the heart of the issue is how we deal with small and tiny places or rural areas in general. I don't claim to have a solution, but quite clearly status quo is not working all that well, judging by the number of barest of the bare outlines on tiny places and some of the statements made in the discussion above. How could we be better on that front in the year(s) to come? Hobbitschuster (talk) 21:05, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

You can create an article for a rural area for hamlets or collection of villages with only a few listings. For example Brookfields and Worcester Hills. --Traveler100 (talk) 21:12, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

You can, evidently, but it is usually not what people do. Look at this for instance. Hobbitschuster (talk) 21:33, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

With the example Dipperz I would merge into Fulda. It only mentions one hotel and I (so guess others) would consider driving 15 minutes from the town centre to stay at such a place. Just make sure you add coordinates to the listing on moving. Alternatively create an article for the Rhön Mountains area. --Traveler100 (talk) 07:09, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Done --Traveler100 (talk) 17:24, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Covering rural areas is difficult because good knowledge of the area is required. Every map tells you that cities X, Y, and Z in a given region are big enough and probably relevant to travelers, but no map tells you which rural area is worth visiting, and which one is not. In my opinion, the only viable solution is that every regional scheme is discussed very carefully including not only the list of cities (as it happens now resulting in lots of weird regional subdivisions), but also the list of attractions. The list of attractions should be then juxtaposed with the list of cities, and attractions not belonging to any city form potential articles for Other destinations, be it parks or rural areas in general. An implicit assumption here is that not every attraction merits a listing. An unremarkable church or a manor house, or yet another motel in the middle of nowhere may be of no relevance to anyone and should be just skipped. This will reduce the number of rural areas that need to be covered.

Another important aspect is that the Get Out section can be (and should be) used for listing objects located in the vicinity of a given city as long as they are visited in conjunction with this city. --Alexander (talk) 21:34, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

I'd like to see what a 'county' template could look like for experiment and discussion. Inje for example is a rural district in South Korea that I don't feel is best described as a city, and East Asia is full of such rural counties.

It is true that putting such an article together without local knowledge is very difficult. I could easily create a destination for any city in Africa armed with Google and no personal knowledge at all, but a rural county in a country that I live in could be harder to put together. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 22:51, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure a separate template is all that is needed - we already have articles like Rural Montgomery County and Perhentian Islands that use the city template fairly successfully. Where problems tend to be encountered is when the region contains one or more cities and lots of small towns or rural areas, in which case we can't create a "region using the city template" article, but "region containing city articles" leaves huge gaps in coverage and promotes the creation of lots of stubby articles for tiny towns. Kern County is a good example of that - Bakersfield is a huge city, and a few of the towns might have enough to merit an article, but overall that county is made up of tiny towns and lots of open space. Trying to present that geographic area via a handful of tiny town articles results in lots of mostly-empty articles with huge gaps in geographic coverage, but I'm not quite sure what the right solution is. -- Ryan • (talk) • 23:17, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Why not just be a little bit flexible with the region article then? See for example East Coast (Suriname), which has one city with a separate article, but is otherwise covered in the region article. So we had to be a bit creative, but not in a way that takes away from our goals or style, imho. I agree our coverage of rural places is not always ideal, but to me, it seems a matter of actual work rather than theory. For more or less individual villages that don't merit an article - mentioning it in the closest city article or low-level region with a redirect works fine. For rural areas with several destinations worth mentioning but not worth covering in separate articles, a collective article is a good choice. That could be an article like Brookfields, if there are several "villages", or an article like Surinamese Rainforest for a truly rural area with scattered settlements, attractions and places to stay. For adjoining villages with some sights, sometimes a combination (covering both in the sleep, see and eat sections) can be a win-win situation. In the end, I think all of these options are perfectly fine, as long as it's clear for the traveler and uses our templates. It will always remain a case to case decision how to handle a small place - but that's fine. JuliasTravels (talk) 23:32, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

I have been thinking... maybe the problem is this: In cities the city itself usually is the attraction. In those rural areas we can and should cover (and we should most decidedly not mention every single Eremit's hut that appears in census forms) human settlement is an accompanying factor at best and an annoyment at worst. Sure some of the places to sleep and eat might still be in or close to settlements (though that is not even going into the freeway off ramp hotel or roadside diner), but the things to see and do will be elsewhere more often than not. And some places just don't have anything going for them, period. A village fifteen kilometers out of some mid sized town may well have grown to a couple of thousand people. Chances are it will still be a place where residents sleep and do little else. What value would a travel guide on such a place be? Hobbitschuster (talk) 02:08, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Actually South Korea and China are literally full of commuter towns where the residents sleep and very nearly nothing else. They will never become DOTM due to being, well boring, but they are valid destinations. For example, your daughter might be teaching English in a really boring Chinese town and you are going to visit her.... Andrewssi2 (talk) 04:30, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

East Coast (Suriname) currently violates our geographic hierarchy policy. Articles can either be containers for other subsidiary articles, or they can be leaf-nodes with listings for hotels and restaurants and attractions, but not both. Powers ^(talk) 19:04, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

It's creative, sure, but I don't think it actually violates policy or practice. If there is no relevant city article (like in this case), the lowest region article is the only place to put listings or information about destinations that can't fill a separate article. If you have a better solution though, I'm happy to hear it. JuliasTravels (talk) 19:21, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Deviations from policy can be made if there is consensus for them. Though if they become commonplace, a change in policy might be the better solution... Hobbitschuster (talk) 19:36, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps it is the policy that should be changed. Because I think we should not put contributors in a situation where there is no place for whatever information (or probably in this case, individual POIs) he or she would like to add; be it a monument or a restaurant or whatever. Normally stuff is added to individual destination articles, which are located at the bottom of the hierarchy. However, I've noticed (I've not had much spare time for the last couple of weeks) there's been a project underway to reduce the number of "unnecessary" outline articles. Fine, but in that case I think it should be possible to add things to the article one level up in the hierarchy, the region article. If the individual village or town sometime later gets its own article, the content can be moved there just like listings are moved to districts when a city is districtified. ϒpsilon (talk) 19:59, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

(Indent reset) So which policy do you propose be changed and how? There seems to be at least some disagreement as to whether policy currently allows that or not. And I might sound harsh saying that, but: I don't want to have another round of discussion that ends up accomplishing nothing. Hobbitschuster (talk) 00:31, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure a policy change is required, but possibly a new way of thinking for districts which consist of associated tiny settlements and probably 'look' like a Region but are used like a City. Andrewssi2 (talk) 00:36, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

I agree. In my understanding, policies have always been our guiding principles, the spirit of our common understanding of how things work. We follow them in almost every case. I don't think we should start interpreting them as hard and fast rules with no options for consensus exceptions, though. It should be perfectly fine to talk about creative use of our templates and any other policy when that's needed, and we shouldn't need to jump to policy revisions. We even have a policy for that ;-) It says "what is best for the traveler" should always guide decision making. That said, I'm perfectly comfortable discussing other solutions that serve the traveler equally well. And sure, if any given exception or wish becomes common, we should probably adapt policy to reflect that - but let's cross that bridge when we get to it. JuliasTravels (talk) 12:00, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

To my understanding, an article that has subordinate articles may not have any listings, isn't this also what Powers said above about East Coast (Suriname). If there's a region article "Example Coast" with "Bigcity", "Supercity" and "Hugetown" with their own articles and then a lot of rural areas around. In that rural area we have "Littlevillage" that in itself for one reason or another does not deserve to have its own article. Some contributor however would like to add something travel-relevant about "Littlevillage"; a sight, a good restaurant or winery or whatever. What would he/she do?

My suggestion is that individual listings would also be allowed on the hierarchy level called "More regions" in the case there is no "geographically more exact" article for the place. ϒpsilon (talk) 12:53, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes; and I would say that's actually exactly what East Coast Suriname does too. The policy says: "Other divisions are essentially deliberate agglomerations of areas that don't fit into our city articles. Choose names for this section that best represent their nature." Listings are specifically allowed for such "other divisions/rural areas" within region articles. For East Coast Suriname, we're talking about towns. Small, rural towns with hardly anything to see and often no hotel, but clearly towns. So from a traveler's point of view, it just makes most sense to call it what it is. The only departure from explicitly mentioned policy is calling these rural settlements "towns" instead of "other divisions", "other regions" or "rural areas". Especially considering the call for appropriate naming, I don't think there's a conflict with our hierarchy policy at all. JuliasTravels (talk) 22:39, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

The hierarchy is designed to be "symmetrical". That is, as a tree-shaped hierarchy, each node's children should all be the same type. For example, a region should not contain both cities and other regions; that's confusing for both editors and readers. This situation is not exactly the same, but it is similar. Having the region article be both a leaf-node (containing listings) and not a leaf-node (containing cities) is confusing.

So let's say we have Region A, with Big City Q and lots of small villages. Our prose in region articles is supposed to summarize the things that are present in that region. So the "Eat" section for Region A might mention that the region specializes in paleo cuisine, with a flagship paleo restaurant in Big City Q and a great little spear-to-table place in Village Z. Under the proposed change to our hierarchy, we would then include the full proper listing for the restaurant in Village Z, because Village Z doesn't have its own article. But we wouldn't include the restaurant in Big City Q, because that restaurant's listing is in the Big City Q article. So we mention two restaurants in the prose, but then only have a listing for one of them? That's confusing, both to readers and editors.

-- Powers ^(talk) 02:36, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

There is no proposed change; this is our hierarchy policy - but only for cases where the reality doesn't fit our usual hierarchy. The case of 1 big city and otherwise only rural places that can't fill an article is exactly the case in that East Coast Suriname article. I do understand your concern, but I'm not sure what you're proposing as a better solution in these cases. The policy says "If helpful, you may think of other divisions as "bottom level regions," in which listings are allowed." - so we do allow a combination of leaf note and not leaf note for such rural regions. The towns in East Coast Suriname are treated in that way. Having one Eat section for the whole region, with restaurants scattered over a an area that would take hours to cover in transport makes no sense and is, as you said, confusing. That's why they're listed per town/extra division. From a traveler's point of view, I'm confident that this is the least confusing way to cover East Coast Suriname. Again though, if you have a better idea I'm open to that. JuliasTravels (talk) 10:10, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

(indent) This is mostly an issue regarding how to best create articles covering multiple towns. I agree that having regions act as both city-holders and as the bottom of the hierarchy is confusing and it really doesn't make a lot of sense to avoid listing certain things while others are listed. This begs the question; does "East Coast Suriname" need to exist as a region? If it truly only has one city worth an article, then what purpose does the region serve? It would seem that one or two articles covering wider areas around the city would be better and show more focus than some pseudo-region that mostly covers the same thing as the capital. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 10:52, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

What about "donut regiions"? I.e. excluding the town but summarizing the villages? Hobbitschuster (talk) 11:43, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Just mention the villages at the start of the larger city article and add listing in that article. For example see Eltville which has a few small villages around it. If the lists start to be of a reasonable size for a village then split it out then. --Traveler100 (talk) 12:04, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Julias, I have no idea what you're talking about. Bottom-level regions have listings, yes, but they don't also contain other articles. You can't keep pointing to the Suriname article as evidence against this statement because, as I noted, that article is not in line with the policy. I'm afraid I don't know the region at all, so it's difficult for me to propose alternatives, though there are some good ones immediately preceding this comment. But whatever we decide to do with that article, it has to be in line with policy, or the policy should be changed to accommodate a different structure. You can't just do something unique and then claim it's within policy because it exists. Powers ^(talk) 16:43, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

East Coast (Suriname) is really a bottom-level article. The issue with it is that it includes a link to Paramaribo, as though that is a subdivision of it, when in fact it is on the same level of the hierarchy. Paramaribo should probably be removed from the "Cities" section and the definition of the area in the first sentence. (It is linked in the "Get in" and "Go next" sections.) Nurg (talk) 21:35, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

There are more such articles of bottom-level regions containing both listings and city articles than some here might suppose, for example Southeast Arizona and Dhofar. In each of these regions sites of interest may be hours away from the nearest article-worthy town. Both of these regions are very sparsely inhabited, and it would not be helpful to the traveller to further subdivide the region, nor to attach a cluster of such listings to the nearest town which may be 30-50 miles away. Learning about and planning a trip to such places is best done at the regional level, I believe. –StellarD (talk) 17:19, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

what about the proverbial cabin in the woods or the Highway off-ramp motel, though? You can sleep there, but any article on them runs into the danger of being mostly empty space Hobbitschuster (talk) 18:39, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ To get past this somewhat theoretical discussion, I think we need the "strict interpretation" group to offer a practical solution for what we should do when reality doesn't conform to the narrowest reading of the policy.

So here's my practical question: I know of an interesting restaurant, located in a town of 250 people in the middle of nowhere Iowa. Many people will drive an hour out of route to eat dinner there. There's no article for the town, and as the restaurant is almost the only thing in the town, I strongly believe there should be no article on that town. There is the region article, there are several dozen city articles within driving distance, and there's the state article. We can help travelers by providing a listing somewhere. On which page(s) will you provide this listing to the traveller?

• Will you provide this listing in the region article – in which case, we'll have the asymmetrical outcome that is being decried above, with some individual listings in the region articles, and some individual listings in the city articles?
• Will you provide this listing in dozens of city articles?
• Will you provide this listing only in some city articles? (How will you decide which ones to include it in?)
• Will you omit the listing entirely, on the grounds that there's no obviously policy-compliant way to include a listing for a restaurant that exists in a non-valid destination that happens to be located in the same region as some other, obviously valid destinations?

I don't really care what the answer is, but I want to know what the answer is. IMO if there is no way to include this listing somewhere on Wikivoyage in a policy-compliant way, then the policy is broken and needs to be changed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:48, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't have a problem creating an article on such a place, so long as there's something interesting there. Powers ^(talk) 23:56, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

To avoid misunderstandings: you would create an article on a place that most likely contains only one listing - worthy thing? Including a highway off ramp hotel or restaurant? Hobbitschuster (talk) 00:19, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

It's not a case of "most likely contains only one listing"; it's a case of "most definitely". There is no off-ramp motel, because there's neither a highway nor a motel in town. If you're sleeping within city limits, then you're most likely staying in your grandmother's house, because there are no commercial alternatives. There is exactly one restaurant. There is nothing to see, nothing to buy (except steaks), and nothing to do. I don't even think there's a gas station in town. An article about it would have driving directions, a single listing under ==Eat==, and all the other sections could only say, "Travellers can't really do that here. Try <list of small cities nearby> instead." I would not create such an article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:52, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

There’s guidance on how to handle one-off listings in little villages in the intro to the region article template. If the village doesn’t meet the criteria for an article, then consider (1) adding the listing to the See/Do/Eat/Sleep/etc. section of the nearest city with an article, (2) listing it in a “Nearby” section of a adjacent city article, or (3) create a rural area article if there are enough listings to support one. From my experience, there’s no single answer that works in every situation. I think I’ve used all three of those options in different cases. I also thought our policies were flexible enough that exceptions were permitted when they were the best solution (i.e., the “exceptions that prove the rule”).

My primary concern with listings in region articles is it becomes confusing and potentially misleading to readers. The examples provided by JuliasTravels and StellarD are all well-written and have been given lots of attention. An example of where it doesn’t work so well (when there hasn’t been editorial attention) is Prince Edward Island. The province is difficult to breakdown because it’s primarily rural with many small settlements so listings have accumulated at the region level over the years. Prior to some cleanup last year, there were several duplicate listings at the region and city level. In an incomplete article like PEI, the volume of listings also gives the impression that those are the main sights to see, activities to do, places to eat, etc — which, in the case of PEI anyway, leaves several key attractions not mentioned at all on the region page. Even in a fairly polished one like Southeast Arizona, my impression from reading the region guide is there’s nothing to see in the towns/cities, it’s all about the listings in the See, Do, etc sections. Perhaps this is an accurate portrayal, I don’t know, but if it’s not it reinforces my perception that including listings at the region level is confusing. -Shaundd (talk) 06:50, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

For my example, (3) won't work, as nearly everything else in the region could be associated with another town (or perhaps a couple of them). I think that would be useful in other cases, although it seems to be drawing complaints above, because the bottom-level rural area articles get misinterpreted as mid-level region articles.

(1) or (2) would be possible, but how do you decide which article(s) to include it in? All of them within a reasonable driving distance? All the ones that don't have a steakhouse in town? Only the geographically nearest one? The biggest or most popular of the several nearby ones? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:07, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Sorry I have lost the thread here somewhere. What location are we talking about there? --Traveler100 (talk) 07:04, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

To reply to Shaundd, in the case of Southeast Arizona, the towns/cities should share equal ranking with the listings in See/Do. If a traveler goes to the Visitor Center in Sierra Vista, the largest town in the region, s/he can pick up brochures not only for Sierra Vista but also for Cochise County (which is essentially Southeast Arizona). Many, if not most, sites of interest are indeed far from towns, are managed by state or federal (not municipal) agencies, and are promoted by the county tourism board.

Regarding WhatamIdoing's example of the restaurant in rural Iowa: if there are other middle-of-nowhere sights/restaurants in the region, would it be possible to develop the lowest-level regional article more fully and then list these places?

To me it is clear that this one-size-fits-all policy approach to regions simply does not work well in rural areas, and trying to twist reality to conform to some abstract organizational model does a disservice to the traveler. Perhaps it is better to address these areas on a case-by-case basis.

–StellarD (talk) 12:35, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Developing the lowest level region and including listings there is exactly what made the Suriname example controversial in the eyes of some, because then it would hold the listed cities as well as the individual rural listings. I think it's the only traveler-friendly way to go, though, for those kinds of places. The above discussion has become a little bit confused, because we are discussing a range of different rural examples. Individual listings in rural places close to a city are not the problem. We put them in the city article. The problem is large, rural regions where there might be one or two cities with an article, but also a range of listings in the rest of the area - but far away from those cities, or with dozens of listings which would clutter the city articles. Putting those listings in a city article is not a good option. As for WhatamIdoing's example; we would only mention any listing once, so the only options would be to pick a city and list it there, or to create a rural region. Despite earlier accusations at my address, I'm not hung-up on the East Coast (Suriname) structure at all, and I'm not looking to prove any policy. I'm only using it because it is a very clear example of the problem, and because it has a clear example of how we could fix it. What I tried to say is that in my interpretation, policy leaves some room to be creative in particularly rural areas. If that's just me: fine, but then we should fix policy or someone should come up with better solutions for those specific cases. To stick with my example, Suriname as a country has only 1 real city, the capital. Listing all the points of interest of the country in the city article obviously makes no sense, so our coverage consists of 3 rural region articles, and one city article for Paramaribo. Apparently, the only big problem is the fact that Paramaribo is listed in one of the region articles, which means that that one rural region also holds a child-article: the city. Now, some have said that this is confusing for the traveler, but I would like to understand what exactly is confusing, or how we could make it better. I'm fine with not linking the city as a child- although that seems to be more confusing, as it would leave the city on the same level as all the country's regions: directly under the country article. I don't really care how we do it, as long as we make sure to put the traveler's needs before any policy. JuliasTravels (talk) 21:47, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

To reply to WhatamIdoing’s question, I think you need to pick one city to list it in because we don’t put a listing in more than one guide. As to which city, I think it’s a judgement call. I’d say usually the closest one or sometimes the most popular of the nearby cities — whatever makes the most sense in that situation. -Shaundd (talk) 23:47, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

arbitrary break

I don't know if having not even some polite suggestion of where those listings are to be put absent a clear case for one specific place does much good. Hobbitschuster (talk) 11:23, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

On the Suriname example, I don't see why it would be confusing for there to be a capital article and 2 region articles if it's true that there are no cities elsewhere. It seems no more strange than our United States article listing the states of Texas and Florida as regions alongside a multistate region like the Mid-Atlantic. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 13:13, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Very well. What seems confusing to me though, is that the city of Paramaribo lies in that region. Omitting the city in the relevant region article, and putting it only in the country article seems more confusing than listing Paramaribo in the East Coast region where it is located. In your USA reference, it's like putting Washinton DC up there next to New England, Florida, the Midwest etc., and not putting it under the Mid-Atlantic region. If it settles the matter for Suriname, that's fine. It would imply however, that for rural regions with one or two cities, the cities can not be listed in their relevant regions, but only one level higher. The Paramaribo example is at one of the region borders, but in some cases, the city might be in the middle of the rural region. There it would be very odd and confusing for travelers to not list the city, only because we don't want child-articles and listings in the same rural article. I wonder if by doing that, we're not putting our hierarchy concerns before the traveler's convenience. JuliasTravels (talk) 14:04, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Guideline page about rural destinations?

I think our main problem is that we do not have good guidance and are not pointing at good examples on how to treat mostly rural areas. Choosing any solution and implementing it in a well-written guide is probably not very controversial, but somebody new to the site cannot be supposed to choose a good solution on his/her own, especially as it should match a host of guidelines and practices. I think some rural areas could be better covered if we told people how to write those guides. It is easier to plunge forward when you know what you are supposed to do.

Would it be good to create Wikivoyage:Destination guides to rural areas, where we give the guidance, point at good examples and discuss the merits and problems of the different solutions? Thousand Islands is often mentioned and e.g. Suriname is mentioned above. I do not know which model would fit some other areas discussed. I myself have been working with Archipelago Sea and (to some degree) Kittilä. I think both are against policy (both incomplete, the former a "region" with listings, to a large degree about a national park and its surroundings, the latter a "city" with links to a ski resort "city" article and two park articles), but I cannot see how to handle them much better. Also Kolari is a problem, as it is not a tourist destination (as far as I know), but has a train station used to reach many real destinations (OK, it has something to see, somewhere to stay and somewhere to eat, but it could very well lack those – none of them tend to get used unless you miss your bus). It was earlier handled as part of the nearest ski resort (which happens to be inside the municipal border), but that made little sense.

--LPfi (talk) 19:03, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

So where are we?

Apparently this effort has stalled once more. How do we progress from here? Hobbitschuster (talk) 23:20, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Did it stall? I got the impression it turned more into a discussion around how things can be done, but no concrete proposals. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 23:31, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

The first paragraph of the page is unclear due to poor grammar. Can someone clarify it? Nurg (talk) 22:16, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Should we create an "island" template?

Swept in from the pub

For relatively small islands that are neither cities nor regions. We would need outlineisland, usableisland, etc. Many of these island articles have in the past been region articles but have then been changed to "cities". Neither quite fits the description. Therefore, a new "island" category may make things easier. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 18:06, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

Maybe, but people will be confused about why larger islands like Madagascar, Greenland, Sumatra or even Long Island don't use it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:11, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

I think we should focus on function, rather than nomenclature. The city template works well where the article covers the whole island; the region template works where there are two or more cities on the island. No island template would work well in both circumstances.

We do use the city template for towns, villages, hamlets, counties and regional municipalities, and we use the region template for districts, counties, regional municipalities, provinces, states, rayons and oblasts. Ground Zero (talk) 18:56, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

My intention is for the island template to be used for articles about the whole island, not for regions. It could also be called "small island". --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 19:01, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

Anticosti is not a small island, yet because of it's very low population, it has only one article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:32, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

I can't find where the previous discussions have been swept or archived to but many editors have mentioned that the region/city hierarchy doesn't always work for sparsely populated rural regions and islands. In theory, as per above, the bottom-level article should always be a "city" (or a district) but there were many examples provided where this wasn't the case. Gizza ^(roam) 00:49, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Here is Wikivoyage:Destination guides to rural areas, but I also cannot find the discussion on island template, which we have had before. Problem with sweeping to different places. --Traveler100 (talk) 06:54, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

This is a very complicated question, like Green Island itself is a township, should it put a city template or an island template? and it is necessary to find out the islands of these hanging city template, I think this is a very complicated problem.--✈ IGOR ／ ✉ TALK?! ^{．WIKIVOYAGER !} 16:37, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

In natural and human geography, continental islands are not inherently different from mainland. In some cases (Södertörn) it is not clear whether a geographic region is an island or not; and in other cases (Sylt) it is periodically part of the mainland. Small islands without the minimum number of venues can usually be described as part of an archipelago (Stockholm archipelago, Smålandsfarvandet) or a mainland region. /Yvwv (talk) 16:57, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

The word city as used by this template should not be take too literally. It is basically the bottom of the destination's breadcrumb hierarchy. Can be a small settlement, and island, a rural area and also a city. There was a discussion some years ago about a different word but I do not think any consensus was achieved for a rename. --Traveler100 (talk) 20:23, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

If people really have difficulty with the idea that a destination could use the city format without actually technically/legally "a city", then I think we have two reasonable approaches:

1. Tell people that if they're confused, the whole list is at Wikivoyage:Article skeleton templates#What are all the possible section names that can be in a destination article, and their correct order?, and they should use whichever items seem relevant.
2. Rename "City" to "Bottom-level destination". If you just can't stand the idea of copying a list of section headings out of the "Small city article template", then maybe you'd be happier copying it from the "Small bottom-level destination article template". Either way, the point is to get the correct list of section headings, no matter what page (if any) you copy them from.

w:en:Continents#Number might be interesting reading. Since we live in a world in which people cannot even agree how many continents exist, I think that an effort to "correctly" label all the island articles is beyond hopeless. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:15, 8 April 2019 (UTC)