Wikivoyage talk:Policies

Earlier version of this project page is now at meta:Wikivoyage/Migration/Policy clean-up.

Sidebar link to policy outline?

Swept from the pub:

Now that we have a Wikivoyage:Policy outline article, should it be added to the sidebar menu? • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 08:57, 25 September 2012 (CEST)

Yes! Atsirlin (talk) 09:17, 25 September 2012 (CEST)

Any idea of how it is done? • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 22:10, 25 September 2012 (CEST)

I added the link to the Main Page. --Globe-trotter (talk) 22:46, 25 September 2012 (CEST)

Also a good place for a link.• • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 23:06, 25 September 2012 (CEST)

Shouldn't Community policies be redirected towards Policy outline? --Globe-trotter (talk) 15:27, 26 September 2012 (CEST)

Possibly, I will check if there are any links that should be transferred. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 15:56, 26 September 2012 (CEST)

As far as I can tell the article is now redundant. all links appear to be included in the policy outline. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 18:22, 26 September 2012 (CEST)

Policy outline has been added to the sidebar menu. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 17:57, 28 September 2012 (CEST)

Wikivoyage:Wiki

On our article page we currently have:

"Note: Things are here because the proper section is not obvious. Please add suggestions for the appropriate section for any of these items.

Wikivoyage:Wiki

Note: Is this page still relevant?"

To me, Wikivoyage:Wiki still seems relevant.

But maybe I'm just showing my ignorance. Are there other articles that render it entirely superfluous? --W. Frank^e-mail_talk 13:24, 26 September 2012 (CEST)

No specific page, it just seems generally redundant, as in everything appears to be covered somewhere else, No pronlem keeping it though, as it does summarise the concept reasonably adequately. Where should it go? Lead item in Organization of the wiki? • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 13:53, 26 September 2012 (CEST)

Yes, that seems a good place for it, Peter. --W. Frank^e-mail_talk 22:06, 27 September 2012 (CEST)

Rename to policies

I think we can rename this page to "Policies" and let it take its place of Wikivoyage:Community policies. "Policies" would also look better in the navigation bar to the left I think. --Globe-trotter (talk) 19:18, 28 September 2012 (CEST)

I would say "Policies and guidelines". --Saqib (talk) 20:00, 28 September 2012 (CEST)

Those names would not be entirely accurate. The page is more of a directory or index of policies and guidelines. The actual policy pages should all be linked from it, and maybe one or two very simple policies are on the page itself, but the larger parts of most of the policies are not on the page, just "nutshell" summaries. Policy index, Policy directory or Policy guide would be more accurate descriptions. Nevertheless "Policies" is nice and short as a link, so I would suggest "Policies" for the sidebar link text, and change the actual article name to "Directory of policies" or "Directory of policies and guidelines". I will change the link text as it is a trivial change and easily reverted, and leave the article name open to a bit more discussion.

Wikivoyage:Community policies should probably be a redirect, I will make the change.

I have some ideas for page formatting to make it more easily navigable, but the extensions are not currently available on Wikivoyage, so I will leave that until after the migration. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 22:23, 28 September 2012 (CEST)

Doesn't "List of policies and guidelines" seems bit better. --Saqib (talk) 22:37, 28 September 2012 (CEST)

To me it is a bit more than just a list, and the format I want to try using collapsible boxes does not seem to fit too well with "list". • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 23:21, 28 September 2012 (CEST)

"Directory of policies and guidelines" sounds good to me. --W. Frank^e-mail_talk 23:32, 28 September 2012 (CEST)

Oof, that's quite a soulless, bureaucratic sounding name. I don't know whether it's a visceral thing being a Washington, D.C. native, or whether I'm just focused on names at present... But why wouldn't "policies" suffice? It's straight and to the point, and doesn't make us sound like dull Wikipedians (I didn't say that) a stodgy bunch. --Peter ^Talk 04:49, 5 October 2012 (CEST)

I agree it doesn't have the simplicity of "Policies". All it has in its favour are accuracy, completeness and unambiguity. At the time they seemed sufficient reason to change. I would be happy to see a better name. Policies didn't cut it for me as there are actually no policies on the page. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 07:51, 5 October 2012 (CEST)

Yes, of the two, "Directory of policies and guidelines", is the best. The left side link should remain "Policies", though. --W. Frank^e-mail_talk 10:04, 5 October 2012 (CEST)

I'm with Peter F. on this one. Directory of policies and guidelines makes me feel that some WPer start stalking me or that a compliance officer tries to setup new punishment rules. Let's keep it simple. Jc8136 (talk) 10:26, 5 October 2012 (CEST)

Um, there are hundreds of policies listed on this page... Anyway, how about :Project pages? Or even :Policies and guidelines (still too long). As it stands right now it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. --Peter ^Talk 00:08, 7 October 2012 (CEST)

I'll try this again: Wikivoyage:Meta pages, Wikivoyage:Policies, Wikivoyage:Project pages, Wikivoyage:Guidelines? "Wikivoyage:Directory of policies and guidelines" is too long. --Peter ^Talk 21:27, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

I would go with a consensus. lets see if we can get one.

I am in favour of utility above all other considerations. The name should suggest the full range of contents to any user. No more, no less. Other than that, I really don't mind one way or another. A pretty name which prevents a new user from finding it when needed is not useful. That given, the most common way to access the page will probably be via the sidebar link, and provided all the descriptive names are retained as redirects, it really doesn't matter what the page is called.

Policies is probably the least confusing destination to arrive at when you click on a sidebar link called Policies. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:51, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

How about using "Policies" as the title and adding a nutshell/subtitle "Directory of policies and guidelines" at the start of the lead? • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:55, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

I think that sounds sensible. --Peter ^Talk 07:11, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

No, a nutshell at top of this page makes no sense to the traveler at all because this page is not itself a policy and the nutshell therefore contains no policy. That is just a no no nutshell move. I am removing the nutshell so that travelers don't step on it. I will bold the appropriate intro text instead. --Rogerhc (talk) 17:55, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I have now done this, and look forward to not typing "directory of policies and guidelines" again ;) --Peter ^Talk 09:11, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

The traveler comes first, again! I approve of short and simple labels that work. Thanks Peter. --Rogerhc (talk) 17:51, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Abbreviations / article purpose

I see that shortcuts are written on this page, and that makes me wonder. I figured that this page is more meant for people just figuring out how things work here, rather than for those of us who know how things work, and just want a convenient reference. If the former, I think it would be best to hide the alphabet soup. If the latter, though, we certainly should keep them. --Peter ^Talk 01:50, 29 September 2012 (CEST)

I have been working "here" for a while now, and I was surprised to find out how much I didn't know while putting this together. I had never seen a fair number of the policies before, and others were familiar, but had been forgotten, and it can be seriously frustrating to try to find a policy you know exists, but can't remember what it's called, as the search function is not particularly effective. Even worse when you think you have seen it before, but are confusing it with Wikipedia, and it doesn't actually exist here. (I probably work more on WP then here). So yes, the page was originally intended as an easy way for new editors to find out how things work, but soon developed into a tool for anyone who doesn't use everthing often enough to remember it all - probably most of us. I put the shortcuts in because I thought it would be a handy reference, but they should be formatted differently. The simplest would be to put them in a line below each policy name/link, headed "Shortcuts", but the whole layout and structure of the page was intended as an interim measure until we have the tools to make it more user-friendly. The page is useful as it stands, but not complete - like the travel guide.

I am sure the page content and layout is biased towards what I find useful, but that is because I have written most of it. This is easily improved by more input from more people, but we have been fairly busy, and have been relying on each other to do a decent job wherever we chose to work.

One thing we should not lose sight of is that the page is not the policies it links to, just a way of finding them, and the nutshell definitions help to identify whether the linked policy is actually the one you are looking for, but are not in any way intended to substitute for the real thing. There are also notes, many of them intended to show where the page still needs work, or where there is an anomaly of some kind. Ideally most of those will become redundant as the work is completed. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 09:56, 29 September 2012 (CEST)

Potential policies

I think it might be putting the cart before the horse to put policies in this list that haven't yet been agreed upon. A WP-style conflict resolution policy, for example, is something I hope we won't ever need, but that's just one example. Let's sort out the new ideas first, add them to the policy navigation later. --Peter ^Talk 02:37, 29 September 2012 (CEST)

Those were originally put there for a variety of reasons, including that they were under discussion somewhere, or seemed like something that should be considered, and were left so they wouldn't be forgotten. More a matter of marking a place for something that looked reasonably likely, so don't take them too seriously, they are not the policies, the whole point of this page was easy policy navugation, so if there is no policy there can be no link (ie there would be a red link) I have found this useful while constructing the page. In a way they also serve a useful purpose, in that a person looking for a conflict resolution policy, reasonably expecting to find one, would be informed that there isn't one, so could stop looking instead of trying to think of other search strings. Sort of like trying to find Rule 6 at the Philosophy Deparment of the University of Wallamaloo. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 09:32, 29 September 2012 (CEST)

Personally, I favour User:Pbsouthwood's approach on this - and for the reasons he has stated above. It's very easy to forget what we need to do otherwise. --W. Frank^e-mail_talk 11:18, 29 September 2012 (CEST)

Relatively major changes

I finally have a moment to work on this, and will make some fairly significant changes. If they are controversial, please revert and/or bring it up on this discussion page. --Peter ^Talk 01:50, 29 September 2012 (CEST)

Good, It needs a different viewpont for a while. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 09:20, 29 September 2012 (CEST)

Why TWO "Geographical hierarchy" article links?

Why do we have TWO "Geographical hierarchy" articles?

(One in the main namespace: http://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Geographical_hierarchy

and one where I would expect it: http://en.wikivoyage.org /wiki/Wikivoyage:Geographical_hierarchy ) --W. Frank^e-mail_talk 23:00, 29 September 2012 (CEST)

We don't -- Geographical hierarchy is just a redirect to Wikivoyage:Geographical hierarchy. Most policy articles have similar convenience redirects. -- D. Guillaume (talk) 23:05, 29 September 2012 (CEST)

[[Image:En.wikivoyage.org_2012-9-29_22-20-16.png|right| Illustrative screen dump of relevant article section]] Sorry, D. Guillaume I put that badly. Why are there two separate links in the article? --W. Frank^e-mail_talk 23:55, 29 September 2012 (CEST)

Your screenshot link is broken.

Yes, but I can't see the syntax error. Perhaps it's part of this reported problem? --W. Frank^e-mail_talk 01:23, 30 September 2012 (CEST)

From context, though, are you referring to the parenthetical note? As the top of the page explains, "Each heading links directly to the policy with that name. (Shortcuts to the policy are listed in parentheses)" Several dozen other entries on that page are formatted similarly. -- D. Guillaume (talk) 01:01, 30 September 2012 (CEST)

Clunk (sound of penny dropping). Thanks for putting me right, D. Guillaume! --W. Frank^e-mail_talk 01:23, 30 September 2012 (CEST)

I guess this illustrates the need for reformatting the page so that the shortcuts are positively identified, and to a lesser extent for keeping the shortcut links so that more people will know we have them. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 07:29, 30 September 2012 (CEST)

Removal of help pages

With these two edits, Globe-trotter removed several pages because they were "help" not "policy" pages. I'm not sure that represents the original purpose of this page; is the distinction between "policies" and "help pages" really so clear-cut, especially to the end user? Regardless, I'd hate to lose the compilation; were the links moved anywhere? LtPowers (talk) 20:28, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

I deprecate the excision. In the context of this article, the distinction is not useful to either the Traveller or the Wikivoyage editor. -- Alice^✉ 21:09, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, didn't think this was controversial. As the title indicates, I thought this was supposed to be a list of policy pages. There is a clear cut difference, as categories were added dividing the pages into help, policy and collaboration pages. I also think this split is wanted, as policy pages and help pages have a different purpose. Eventually I think the Help page should give links to the pages about helping newcomers, while the Policies link in the sidebar should give an overview of existing policies. But I have reverted my change for now.--Globe-trotter (talk) 00:23, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Well I could be wrong... I just want to make sure those help pages are listed somewhere. LtPowers (talk) 04:15, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

If Globe-trotter were taking his Librarian exams in semantic organisation his logic would be marked as faultless. However, until and unless there is some other indexed place that intermediate standard editors think of looking for help and guidance on how to accomplish specific tasks, the excision is definitely not helpful in my opinion. -- Alice^✉ 05:00, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

The "Help" link in the left sidebar? It's right above "Policies".--Globe-trotter (talk) 12:03, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

That would be a good spot, if we can make sure the list is complete, and perhaps import the nutshells we have here. Though there are a few pages where the distinction may not be clear, like Wikivoyage:Using talk pages -- is that really a help page? Or does it describe our policies for using talk pages? LtPowers (talk) 18:35, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

New pages?

There are about 10 new pages essentially proposed by the existence of red links on this page. I don't think we need any of them outside those under the Creating travel guides header and Wikivoyage:Climate. Others seem to duplicate functions of other policy articles (especially Consensus) or are just unnecessary (e.g., Sitenotice policy). Does anyone care to make a case for the ones I'm not listing?

We need to create these before launch. --Peter ^Talk 21:25, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

The red-links were intended as placeholders for things that looked liked they might need clarification at the time the article was being compiled. If there is no pressing need for a policy, they can be delinked. If a policy is written at a later date they can be replaced. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:10, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Shortcut template

I see that a shortcut template has been created and an experimental example used in the lead. Are we going to use this template for the other shortcuts? (I like it, but what is the general feeling). • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:09, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Isn't that template in all policy and guideline pages, or am I missing something? You're talking about the broken-line square containing the bolded word "Shortcut" and examples of shortcuts for the page, right? If so, I think it's fine. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:58, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

That's the one. I will change all the shortcut links to the template as I think it is clearer. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 07:42, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Page talks to much about itself

The page talks too much about itself. Neither travelers nor editors want to wade through all that text to get to the policies. Page should present the policies as simply and directly as possible, as it was clearly designed to do, without talking so much about itself. The layout must be usable without reading instructions about the layout. Editing instructions can instead go in a box at page bottom, not page top, if on page at all. But instead I suggest the page layout talk go into a info box at top of the Talk page. If that is not enough, an HTML comment may be put at page top that will only show in the wiki markup that reminds would be editors of the page to read this proposed info box on the talk page before changing layout. I'm oiling my pruning shears. --Rogerhc (talk) 18:08, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Prune away, as far as I'm concerned - your suggestions seem logical. In general I would expect this page to mostly be edited by experienced editors, so either removing the editing instructions or moving them to the talk page makes sense. -- Ryan • (talk) • 18:16, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Done. Moved article structure and editing explanation from top of article to an notice box at top of the talk page. --Rogerhc (talk) 19:10, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Missing >

The shortcut box in the Manual of style section is missing a >. Jusses2 (talk) 07:30, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Sorted, thanks, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 08:57, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

How "binding" are inherited policies?

A general question: Have we discussed to what degree the Wikitravel policies and guidelines that we inherited are "binding" on Wikivoyage? Do we treat them as if we formed them ourselves, amendable only by the usual process of finding consensus? Or are they only provisional/suggested? Or somewhere in between? (Or do I misunderstand the situation?) Athelwulf (talk) 01:09, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

There is previous discussion at Wikivoyage_talk:Cleanup#Which_policies_need_new_discussion.3F.

As I see it, this is still the same project I joined at WT some years back. We did form the policies ourselves, at least for some values of "we". More-or-less all the admins from the old project are here now, plus some other active users, so to a great extent it is the same project.

That is far from the whole story, though. Most of the German & Italian admins bailed out of WT about 2006 and started WV. That project had its own policies, and those should be considered too. Then too, we have now joined WMF so we have to consider WMF policy and look at ours in a different context. Also, there are huge numbers of new users, many of whom will want their say.

It is complicated, but I think consensus can work as the change mechanism. Pashley (talk) 01:46, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Plus a willingness to accept change by the "old guard" where rational arguments have been made that the change proposed would be better than the status quo'. -- Alice^✉ 08:59, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

We're looking for a bit more than simply a rationally made argument, you know. LtPowers (talk) 21:58, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Proposal to spruce up the Policy page

In adapting the format of this page to make a policy page at pt:, I have decided that this page is super ugly, a super long list with too much white space. Obviously all this content needs to be here, but let´s present it in a more usable nice-looking way. I have taken all the same content and arranged it into two-columned sections with individual boxes for each subsection. Everything inside is exactly the same, except that I have added a box for quick search of the Wikivoyage: namespace. (might be useful?). I´m not a master with wiki formatting and it could probably use some tweaks, but I think it turned out much easier on the eyes, and makes another nice way we can be different from WT. What does everyone think?

• Proposal here

Texugo (talk) 14:53, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Looks good to me, although if we're going to start doing this sort of thing then it would be good to standardize somewhat - Travel topics and Itineraries are using a similar (but slightly different) layout, Phrasebooks has something else, etc. I'm sure others can find other examples, so perhaps creating a standard two-column layout and applying where appropriate may make sense. -- Ryan • (talk) • 16:01, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Well, I like that idea too, starting with the mos.Texugo (talk) 16:16, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I like the idea, but there seem to be quite a few whitespace gaps where one column ends before the other. Can that be fixed?

Another idea would be to collapse the boxes as default and open them when you click on "show". This might require a bit of template engineering, but similar things are available on WP, so it should be possible.

How would this two-column layout be handled on mobile phones? Could there be an accessability problem? • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 17:24, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Good questions. As I am not a formatting whiz, I do not know. The only way I know to fix the white spaces would be to break up the section at the even point, making a "continued" section at the top of the second column. At least it has a lot less white space than it currently does. As for the collapsing idea, I have no idea how that would be done. Perhaps someone can make a mock up? Texugo (talk) 17:28, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Collapsible boxes are available on WP, but they require a number of fairly complicated templates. I dont understand how they work, so would have to cut and paste and mess around by trial and error unless there is someone here who actually understands this stuff and can do it with some confidence of getting it to work.

The lead paragraph before the first subheading of "Fundamental Guidelines" is a distinct improvement since it contains the Table of Contents and a search box dedicated to pages in the Wikivoyage namespace.

However, the subsequent two column layout is not only problematic for narrow screens and for the amounts of white space it creates; it makes it much more difficult for a conscientious newbie to read through our policies without using a mouse to go up and down and backwards and forwards! (Previously one could read the page by just consecutively tapping the spacebar). A giant leap backwards for readability, I'm afraid. -- Alice^✉ 21:23, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I was going for consultability rather than readability. I wouldn't expect many readers to sit and read this entire long thing at once, especially on a mobile or any device inconvenient enough to not have a scroll, but it is a reference that many of us go back to again and again to consult specific policies, in which case twice the vertical length, as the current article has, is actually inconvenient. As for the white space, I don't see how this "creates" more white space-- it fits the same information in about half the space, so to me, there is a lot less than the current page.Texugo (talk) 21:45, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Also, I built the page on one of the narrowest screens I've ever used and it looked fine. Mobile would be different, and I understand that concern, but there are probably ways around that. Texugo (talk) 21:49, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree it is super ugly and super long, but I don't agree that "all this content needs to be here". I have done some clean-up over the last two weeks but more is needed. For example, there is a long list of Special pages - this is not policy and duplicates what can be found elsewhere. There are also a lot of links to the Manual of style - why are these duplicated here when they are listed at the Manual of style page? If this is just a navigational aid, do the nutshells need to be so long, and do we need the repetitious "Related pages" links? The introductory sentence claims the page is "a simple guide to the policies". It is anything but - it is not simple, nor is it limited to policies. We need to be clearer about the purpose and scope of the page and what entries are included; how much content there should be for entries; then it will be easier to decide on the best format. Nurg (talk) 23:38, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I would agree that the Policies page needs to be cleaned up; right now it's a bit tl;dr. --Rschen7754 01:16, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

I do not disagree that the content needs to be cleaned up. But That can be done before or after changing the format. Format and content are not that linked, which is why I didn't propose changing both at the same time. I don't see why we would need to reapprove the current content before making it look nicer.The content can always be improved, but Compared with what we now have, surely this proposed format is more usable than what we have, am I so wrong? Texugo (talk) 06:11, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

(ec) I agree that these are separate issues, though there may be some cross reference. However they do both fit into the the current section title. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 10:44, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

To clarify, it's mainly just the formatting; it's not very user-friendly to read right now. --Rschen7754 06:31, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps you could clarify a little further: What do you see as the purpose of the article and how would you like to use it? If we can define how the article should be used, it will provide guidance to how it should be formatted. It works quite well for me, but I am biased because I laid it out to suit my needs, and I am familiar with the contents, so I can find what I want quite quickly. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 10:59, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

	Note: Do NOT mess with Template:WMFLEGAL Disclaimer, currently under the "Cooperation with other sites" section of this page. This has been mandated by WMF Legal, per a settlement with IB. There is a couple lines of noinclude text (stating not to remove the template until Feb 2016) which needs to remain next to the template.

Purpose and scope of the page

When I assembled this page from the scattered policy pages of Wikitravel in preparation for the migration, my intention was that there should be a single place where you could find a link to every policy page and any other page that was useful for understanding the policies and how things should be done on WV. This is why it was originally called Directory of policies and guidelines, and the name defined the scope and purpose. During this process I discovered policies and guidelines I had never seen before in some 5 years of editing. The length is a consequence of the number of pages found, and an effort to provide some indication of what each article is about so the reader can tell where to go for the details. The related pages links are repetitive because those pages are related to more than one policy or guideline, and it saves time to know which ones are related to the policy you are considering at the moment. The name was changed because the descriptive title was thought to be too long and clumsy, now it looks like the contents will be trimmed to fit the title and the utility trimmed so that it looks nice and compact.

As this is a Wiki, the original title, purpose and scope can be changed by consensus, following the policies and procedures of this project. However, it would be nice if it can retain the original functionality of a one-stop directory, which I find useful. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:02, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

I do find it nice to have all in one place too, though I do find in particular that the places where it lists the individual links to all the article templates and the (incomplete) list of special pages are unnecessary. Otherwise though, I think there should be such a place to have all the policies together, especially given the impossibility of definitively stating that a, b and c are policies while d, e and f are manual of style. There is a huge gray area between pure policy and style guidelines that not only would be hard to justify splitting into two distinct categories, but would likely be undesirable to cover in two separate pages without significant overlap. (much as I am against overlap in main space article organization)... I rather like having it all here, and would suggest only minor changes to the organization, leaving a more focused and organized presentation of the style-related policies to the mos page.Texugo (talk) 06:53, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

The simple guide to policies and guidelines is actually Wikivoyage:Namespace_index#Policies and guidelines. This page is the verbose guide. Nurg (talk) 10:01, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

That is a concise listing, rather than a guide, as it gives no indication other than that which is obvious from the article titles, of the content of the pages. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 10:51, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

"gang" shortcut

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post about this, but I don't like "gang" as a shortcut for "Goals and non-goals." I don't think "gang = goals and non-goals," but rather that gangs are criminal organizations, etc. I'd rather have "goals" be the shortcut. Your thoughts, ladies and gentlemen? Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:20, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Agree. Precisely my thoughts. Nurg (talk) 05:39, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

We can have as many shortcuts as are useful, as long as they are useful and reasonably unambiguous. "Goals" is a good one, "non-goals" may be worth having too, sometimes one wants to emphasize that side of the policy. I made "gang" because to me it is an obvious mnemonic, and is likely to be one of the first possibilities someone might try. YMMV. If we ever have a travel topic on gangs it would become a problem. Is this likely? "G&ng" is another option, but gang is easier to type, which is the basic reason for a shortcut. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:34, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

It seems that "Goals" was already a redirect, so I just added it to the list. It is quite possible that there are other redirects/shortcuts to policy pages that I did not find. These should be added by anyone who finds them. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:42, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Why can't Goals still be used as the shortcut? (It's already the relevant redirect?) However, there is ongoing discussion elsewhere regarding Shortcuts in general that may be pertinent; eg: Wikivoyage talk:Shortcuts -- Alice^✉ 08:09, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Goals is still used as a shortcut, it just wasn't listed on the policies page as I didn't know about it and apparently no-one else did either, or they didn't bother to add it to the list, or it got lost somewhere or something... It has now been added to the list, which just means it is now easier to find. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 09:24, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, were you thinking of a Gangs travel topic that would help travelers avoid them, travel among them, or see them as an attraction? --Peter ^Talk 22:02, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Gangs need travel advice too. [1] --Inas (talk) 03:03, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't, Avoiding them would be a destination specific item, as most gangs are fairly localised. Travelling among them would also be specific to the gang in most cases, so also localised, similar with gangs as an "attraction", though that would not be the right word for most people... All of these seem to be content for a regular destination page, probably in the "Stay safe" section. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:08, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

OK, I should have included a winking smiley ;) --Peter ^Talk 06:10, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Rationalise Policies?

Swept in from the pub

I was just reading this interesting reaction to Wikivoyage's birth over on H2G2. One comment in particular highlighted the length of our policies page and I can (to some extent) understand their point - it is a long page and doesn't seem particular clear to the reader. Could we perhaps cut it down to a few key commandments and then reserve the rest for a 'reference page', to be used when resolving disputes or for people who are particularly interested in how a certain topic should be handled? Any thoughts? --Nicholasjf21 (talk) 18:59, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

My impression is that the OP wanted to see the scope of the project change to look far more like a travel blog and less like a yellow-page style listing of attractions, food and lodging. Certainly travelogue would be a significant change that goes beyond the formatting of a few obscure policy documents. K7L (talk) 20:05, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree, I think the OP does have rather the wrong end of the stick about Wikivoyage and perhaps I confused the issue by including the link. I have no desire to change Wikivoyage's aims or goals, but perhaps its policy page could be condensed into a version that could be absorbed quickly, with more detailed explanations reserved for a 'reference page' or the like? --Nicholasjf21 (talk) 20:12, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The hitchhikers seem to think that travel guides without personal stories are dull and uninteresting, but I suppose that's the nature of the h2g2. I think Nicholas' point refers to one specific comment on that thread, which indicated that the author got only a quarter of the way through Wikivoyage:Policies before falling asleep. I have no idea what he or she expected to find there, or why he or she felt it should be among his or her first stops on our wiki, but so be it. To Nicholas, I would say that Wikivoyage:Policies is the reference page; if you want commandments, that's what Wikivoyage:Goals and non-goals is for. LtPowers (talk) 20:13, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Brilliant, thanks for clarifying that for me - the commenter's immediate jump to that page just confused me a bit!--Nicholasjf21 (talk) 20:50, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Somewhat related, I did make a proposal to make that page a little easier to digest. Discussion here. Texugo (talk) 21:01, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I also think that the Policies directory is way too long and daunting. I would not urge people to go and modify it, because it is a very difficult and contentious process. I will only say that on Russian Wikivoyage we used the pre-launch period to clean up, and reorganize the policies. We ended up with about 20 articles that cover all policies and manual of style. Plus ~10 non-essential articles like "Welcome, Wikipedians" or "Short guide to wiki markup".

It is also true that hitchhikers, wikivoyagers, and wikipedians see travel content differently. Hitchhikers tend to have more freedom and less policies=) --Alexander (talk) 21:12, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Texugo's comment above points to a number of locations on talk pages on wikivoyage where issues are discussed: but there seems to be a collection of conversations that seem to go no-where - no resolution, no further discussion, sort of left hanging, sometimes for quite a length of time... perhaps there is a time-but-no-time issue, if a conversation of support/oppose hiatus, perhaps there is a need for a bureaucrat (or uninvolved party) to wander through the unresolved issues and review whether action is required, or filing away, or requesting further discussion. As it is, at times, it looks like someone has left the lights on, and the door open, and there is no one there... on other small wikis bureaucrats are active and excellent at the cleaning up process of something like this sats (talk) 06:19, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Not to derail this discussion, but can you provide any pointers to documentation of how this resolution process is done on other wikis? I'm also greatly dismayed at the lack of resolution to many discussions, but thus far haven't been able to come up with a proposal that significantly improve the situation here. -- Ryan • (talk) • 06:27, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Apologies - I have literally just had lunch with a crat from another small wiki, and I cannot provide specific documentation at this stage, as his explanations were anecdotal personal experience from that wiki, and the way he conducts his tools. The advantage of letting things sit is there is always the possibility of extra comment coming 'down the line'. sats (talk) 06:33, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

I would suggest more widespread use of the Requests for comment page, as a central location of things needing comment. You could also create a template and post it on a lot of places to publicize. --Rschen7754 06:40, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Another fairly major wiki I edited at turned their equivalent of our Pub into a forum layout, with each topic getting its own "Forum:" page that is linked to from the main list. When a new topic is added or a topic is edited, it is pushed to the top of the list. Topics therefore don't disappear into the abyss and there are less ideas that are wasted and forgotten. Before a topic can be archived, it must be officially closed by an admin with the consensus implemented. Topics should not be closed merely for inactivity, although there were occasions where there was no clear consensus and topics had to be closed. I will try and work on an example in my userspace. There are really no significant downsides of such a system, though many benefits. JamesA ^>talk 07:56, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

A Forum extension would need to be installed before it would work, but you can see a similar setup at Wikia here. I think it would be worth trialling, to see if our community can be more efficient in its decision making and implementation. JamesA ^>talk 08:20, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

I think that what Rschen and JamesA are saying is good and close to what my friend the crat elsewhere was alluding to - I do think that crats here need to be seen to be active, and a regular activity which requires their actions would be good to include in the process sats (talk) 10:11, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

I strongly oppose that idea. 'crats on Wikivoyage are nothing more than soulless functionaries; we have no greater authority to interpret consensus than any other administrator. We just have one or two extra buttons, purely as a technical measure. LtPowers (talk) 16:44, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

I can't see an obvious solution to this issue, but I think some means of ensuring issues were resolved is very important. Having read through this page, lots of interesting ideas (Tourist Office etc) appear to have just stagnated and ground to a halt, which I think is a shame. Could we somehow integrate the 'Request for Comment' page within the Travellers' pub? At present it doesn't seem to be attracting much interest really, which is a shame. --Nicholasjf21 (talk) 17:05, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

LtPowers - I'm not sure that assigning bureaucrats the job of "interpreting consensus" is necessarily the right solution, but having a group of users who have been given the specific responsibility of reading through a discussion and summarizing the apparent consensus (or lack thereof) when called upon to do so might be useful. As it stands now, unless there is a very, very clear consensus we tend to debate endlessly with no one willing to say "I think this is where we are", so giving some users the specific job of summarizing discussions to help move things along might be an idea worth pursuing. An alternative might be to change our discussion norms to insist that when discussions get long we add a "Summary" sub-header that should contain a short summary of the current discussion status along with proposed action items; that would eliminate the need for any new user roles. I'm just spitballing, but something along this line might be useful. -- Ryan • (talk) • 17:17, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Ryan, that's just the sort of thankless task we would inflict on our crats. Rattle the cage occasionally to wake up the inmates. Seriously though, it would be good to have someone keep an eye on stagnant discussions and suggest a conclusion. At the least it would give interested parties an opportunity to agree or disagree with the suggested results. It doesn't have to be a crat though, the task could be rotated amongst volunteers or the whole janitorial staff. If we all take a turn on a rota it would spread the load. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 17:34, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea to me. In many cases a simple statement of where the discussion is at would, I think, lead to a consensus. --Nicholasjf21 (talk) 17:48, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't see why it should be anyone's assigned responsibility to do this. I certainly have no interest in doing so. Anyone can find a stagnant discussion and attempt to clarify the consensus found there. In fact, people do it a lot. LtPowers (talk) 21:35, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

I really don't like this recent trend towards assigning non-janitorial tasks to admins/crats. Agree totally with LtPowers --Inas (talk) 10:26, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree, I don't think it's necessary for the 'Summariser' to be an Admin or a Bureaucrat, I just think we should encourage (perhaps the person who started the discussion?) to sum up where the topic's at, showing any consensus but also 'bumping' the topic at the same time. --Nicholasjf21 (talk) 10:38, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Public transportation

Does Wikivoyage have a specific guideline that addresses public transportation articles? I've seen the "transportation system" but that could be interpreted in different ways. At Wikipedia, we have seen many public transportation articles be recommended for "transwiki" to Wikivoyage. These are commonly articles like bus routes and schedules. The problem we have is that they're often quickly outdated, not maintained, and not of a large interest outside of the locality. I'm concerned that editors at Wikipedia are blindly recommending transwiki with out knowing the actual policies and guidelines for inclusion. When I searched bus routes, I mostly come across sections that mention the bus routes and provide a link such as the city and region articles in the mainspace. Mkdw (talk) 23:25, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

We also have made it a point to not include bus timetables, for the same reasons. The articles we do have that are focused only on transport are travel topics, and those tend to be a little bit more limited in scope. Take a look at everything in the right column here for an idea of what those are like. Otherwise, we put the information in the destination guides itself, and try to keep it from growing into something unmaintainable/overwhelming. --Peter ^Talk 23:34, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I wonder if a mention of this should be added to the Wikivoyage:Policies page? Mkdw (talk) 04:14, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Moved to Wikivoyage talk:What is an article?. Mkdw (talk) 09:56, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

"gay and lesbian"

"gay and lesbian" needs to be changed to "LGBT" to avoid biphobic and transphobic usage. Nicole Sharp (talk)

"LGBT" may not be widely recognized outside of activist circles. And of course, the two uses are not always interchangeable. LtPowers (talk) 13:13, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

GLBT, LGBT, LGBTI, LGBTQ, LGBTQ+, LGBTQQ, LGBTQIA, LGBTQIAUC, LGBTIH, FABGLITTER, QUILTBAG, SGL. Just how detailed, specific and inclusive can we really be? These distinctions between these acronyms are only important for people who are looking to be offended, and we'll never find a way to please everybody. I think the status quo is just fine on this point. Texugo (talk) 13:35, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

"Gender and sexual minorities" (GSM) is the most inclusive term and includes everyone but rarely seen outside academia and some Asian/Oceanian organizations, "LGBT" is usually second-best and is typically used as a shorthand/elision for "LGBTQIA" which includes pretty much everyone except genderfluid, crossdressing, pansexual, and heteroflexible/homoflexible: lesbian, gay, bisexual/bicurious/bigender, transgender/two-spirit/third-gender, queer/genderqueer, intersex, asexual/ambisexual/allied - Nicole Sharp (talk) 13:25, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

For a US American English usage however "LGBT" (short for "LGBTQIA" or "LGBT*") is generally the preferred term and understood to include the elided groups; "LGBT American" has become part of common usage since the last US Presidential election. Nicole Sharp (talk) 13:25, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Gender and sexual minorities has the advantage of giving some hint of what it refers to, whereas the alphabet soup of acronyms does not. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 15:23, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Some hint, yes, but I daresay one could consider cisgender males a "gender minority". LtPowers (talk) 17:59, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I personally see no problem with "LGBT". In fact, when in the course of my work on Wikivoyage I've needed to make a reference of that nature, "LGBT" has been my first resort unless I'm talking about gay men only, lesbians only, transgender individuals only, etc. I also strongly disagree that the acronym is "not... widely recognized outside of activist circles"; from where I sit, at this point it appears to be used far more often than "gay and lesbian". -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 08:02, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

It may be best to avoid usage like "Gymnasium for men only, extensive LGBT clientele, popular among everyone from twinks to bears" where a venue isn't of interest to every group listed but the extra letters are being added simply for political correctness. List the extra groups only if they're actually applicable. K7L (talk) 16:03, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with using LGBT either, though I think most of the other acronyms on the list above should be avoided as not being recognized by many people. What I do have a problem with though is mandating that any mention of "gay and lesbian" must be changed to LGBT "to avoiding leaving people out", which is what the original poster seems to be suggesting. Texugo (talk) 16:54, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm a little unsure about the label "cisheterosexual people", as used in Wikivoyage:Information for LGBT travelers. Does anyone self-identify using this terminology? K7L (talk) 00:53, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

It's neither in dictionary.com nor in urbandictionary.com. I vote that we kill the term. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:10, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

The term appears to be ambiguous as constructed. "cis-" as a prefix is the antonym of "trans-", so "cissexual" describes someone who is not transsexual, and "cisgender" describes someone who is not transgender. But "cisheterosexual" doesn't make any sense, any more than "transhomosexual" would. LtPowers (talk) 15:14, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I edited out the word in question. If anyone feels really strongly about it, perhaps they can indicate what clearly recognizable word they'd prefer (I used "hetero[sexual]"). Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:05, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

New layout

What do you guys think of this new layout? --Saqib (talk) 07:08, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Looks OK to me, but what happened to the guiding principles? • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 13:56, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Some quick thoughts:

• I like the idea of a guiding principles section that calls out the most important policies (similar to w:Wikipedia:Five pillars), but as Peter noted that is currently showing up blank.
• We can probably combine "Manual of style" and "Core content policies".
• The shortcut boxes should be removed - those shortcuts link to the actual policy pages, not these index pages.
• In the future it would be better to create these types of pages in sandboxes. Anything in mainspace, particularly the project space, should ideally be discussed before it is created.

-- Ryan • (talk) • 14:13, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Ryan, guiding principles section is fixed and shortcuts have been removed. Yes sure, I'll be careful next time to do such things in sandbox. My apologies. --Saqib (talk) 14:19, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

If we do go with something like this, I would like to use a more conventional naming scheme. These oddly hyphenated pagenames do not do it for me. It needs to be either with a slash, as we do for sub-pages, or they should each just be given a simpler, singular name. Texugo (talk) 14:43, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Does this address the objections to my previous proposal above under #Proposal to spruce up the Policy page? I thought it looked pretty neat. Texugo (talk) 14:46, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Could you maybe summarize the discussion about your previous proposal in a sub-section in the above discussion? I like that approach better (minus the shortcuts) but it's not entirely clear to me what prevented that discussion from moving forward. -- Ryan • (talk) • 14:58, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

To be honest, I am not sure what prevented it from moving forward either, other than a bald assertion from Alice that the two-column layout isn't viable and some vague stuff about a presumed need to overhaul all the content itself before reorganizing the policy index. After that point, the discussion seemed to get off track and then forgotten about entirely. Texugo (talk) 15:11, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Both proposed new layouts have their good points and not so good points. Saqib's is nice and compact, but splits the information over several pages, so it is more difficult to refer back to a part on a different page. Texugo's keeps it all on one page, but it is a very big page (same problem as existing layout). Also, the boxes are of different lengths, so lots of white space.

Another possibility would be to group the sections in collapsible boxes, all on the same page. This would allow the user to open as much or as little as is useful at the time. Texugo's layout using collapsible boxes would be worth looking at, as the groups are of manageable sizes. Not sure whether single or double column would work better with this arrangement. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 20:15, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Peter, I didn't got. How's is it "difficult to refer back to a part on a different page"? --Saqib (talk) 06:13, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, difficult is not the best word, inconvenient may be a better choice. When you click on a link, the new page opens in the same tab, unless you intentionally do otherwise, so if you want to go back and try another page, you either have to leave the new tab or reload the original page, whereas if the content is in collapsible boxes you stay on the same page all the time. I think I got this wrong.

The page has been changed and now works very well with the scroll bar. Is it possible to have a ToC at the top of the larger pages (which need a scroll bar)? At present the only way to know what is in them is to scroll through.

Will this layout work on mobile phone? • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 08:35, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

You can see here ToC. --Saqib (talk) 09:30, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

It looks good on my (large) screen. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 10:14, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

And works well on iPad too. --Saqib (talk) 10:16, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Since the objections to User:Texugo/Policies were mainly based on whitespace, rather than organization or functionality, I've updated Wikivoyage:Policies to include a search box for the Wikivoyage: namespace, which seems like a useful addition. -- Ryan • (talk) • 03:34, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Links to non-travel information on Wikipedia

I recently added a link to the Wikipedia article w:Brutalist architecture to the Wikimania 2014 London Guidebook as the venue is a important example of that architectural style. Styles of architecture are not within the scope of Wikivoyage, so I added the link to Wikipedia so that people who don't know about it can find the information about it with a single click (as is common on every other Wikimedia project I am familiar with). This was reverted with a link to the external links policy. I discovered that these links aren't allowed per policy, but I have not been able to find any explanation why they are prohibited nor any discussion of this aspect of the policy. Links to encyclopaedia articles about places (e.g. w:London) are irrelevant to this discussion as the policy on them is explained in every discussion about external links I've found, so please don't repeat that here. I'm looking for either an explanation of the policy about links to encyclopaedia articles about subjects that are not travel information, and links to relevant discussion about this part of the policy.

Examples of the sort of links I'm referring to are w:Brutalist architecture, w:Black-headed ibis, w:Hyacinthoides non-scripta (common Bluebell), w:Bath stone, etc. Thryduulf (talk)

Styles of architecture are not outside the scope of Wikivoyage: They can be travel topics. See Gothic architecture. I wouldn't travel to see important examples of Brutalist architecture, because I don't like it, generally, but feel free to start a travel topic about it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:41, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Also, this topic belongs in Wikivoyage talk:External links, not here. There has been extensive prior discussion of Wikipedia links, including just the kinds of links you are bringing up. Look through that page and its archives. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:42, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

In addition to at least 4 discussions at Wikivoyage talk:External links, as mentioned by User:Ikan Kekek, other relevant past discussions on this subject include but are by no means limited to these as well:

• Wikivoyage talk:Listings#Links to Wikipedia#Different subject
• Wikivoyage talk:Listings#Listings tags and links to Wikipedia
• Wikivoyage talk:Links to Wikipedia#Wikipedia Links
• Wikivoyage talk:Links to Wikipedia#Wikipedia parameter in special tags
• Wikivoyage talk:Links to Wikipedia#Wikipedia links 2
• Wikivoyage talk:Sister project links#New proposal: Encyclopedic other-subject links inline
• Wikivoyage talk:Sister project links#Inline links to Wikipedia
• Wikivoyage talk:Sister project links#POI editor: Wikipedia_page?

I suggest you read all of them thoroughly to understand why there are objections before getting too involved in rehashing this all again.

Texugo (talk) 02:12, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

So you intend that Wikimania 2014 London Guidebook doesn't link to Wikipedia? As much as every discussion in recent memory on Wikipedia links has utterly deadlocked without consensus, in this instance I suspect that we will be the laughing stock of Wikimedia as an article on Wikimania is a WP self-reference. K7L (talk) 03:06, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Well it does link to WP in the sidebar, just as our other articles do. Anyway, I most certainly wouldn't want to start facilitating the laziness of linking to WP every time something within our scope happens not to have an article here yet. What ought to be done in this case is to start an article at Brutalist architecture, as Ikan said. Texugo (talk) 03:17, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

10th annual international Wikimania conference is also linked in the article, as is natural. K7L, if you think something in that article needs a link and doesn't have it, just post to the article's talk page and try to get a consensus for the link. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:23, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Mayday and changes on Swedish Wikivoyage

Swept in from the pub

The last days the Swedish Wikivoyage has with kind support and hours of helpful work by users Andyrom75 och Nastoshka (assisted by their Steward Vituzzu), undergone some positive changes, and had its city factboxes upgraded to the QuickbarCity. The first changes can be seen on Florens (Firenze) on sv.voy as an example, and more will come so the pages will look like the the source location Firenze on it.voy, so please wait some time with major contributions there that involves factboxes and scripts, but please add plain content like submitting images and text!

Theres an ambition to develop and promote the sv.voy, and make it more attractive so its gets more traffic and more users in the near future, and this change is one step in this direction. Soon user rights as autopatrolled and patrollers, rollbacker and other relevant functions is planned to be implemented.

The sv voy has been more or less dead for some time, which is a pity, and the entire Wikivoyage network benefits from when any site grows in numbers of users. Cooperation over the language sections is of course essential in such situations, so please support if you can, your presence will mean alot, and just that theres more than one persons edits on the recent changes would be fantastic. To insert a missing picture is of course possible without any knowledge in Swedish language.

I presently have temporary adminship user rights from Meta-Wiki, why it would be helpful and beneficial if you would be kind to cast your votes for permanent adminship.

Any ideas, suggestions and assistance will of course be highly and greatful appreciated and at least for some time the Swedish Travellers Pub may as well be multilingual for this purpose . Since months, I have been almost the only contributor, and it would be great if that situation can be changed.

When time comes, I hope to pay back with more contributions here on en.voy :) Dan Koehl (talk) 00:31, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Cool! You might be interested in https://github.com/nicolas-raoul/transvoyage which can convert an article from the English Wikivoyage to the format used on the French Wikivoyage. Modifying it for your language is just a matter of modifying a few strings in the script. Good luck! Nicolas1981 (talk) 07:22, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Nicolas, sounds very good, sounds very useful, I will look into that. Dan Koehl (talk) 14:06, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

User account migration

Isn't this no longer possible, and therefore, shouldn't the link be removed? Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:13, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

I think you are right, but I don't know the technical details, so not entirely sure. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:10, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Removed or archived, I suppose. Powers ^(talk) 00:53, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Travel Stack Exchange

Swept in from the pub

Any Stack Exchange users here?

When I write Wikivoyage articles, I often get difficult-to-answer questions such as Is there a train from Antananarivo to Antsirabe? or Where is the night market in Ayutthaya? for which Google has no obvious answer.

Whenever I have such a question, I post it at http://travel.stackexchange.com and I am always surprised at the quality of the answers.

When I post a question or answer, I link place names to the relevant articles on Wikivoyage, I believe this is good for SEO, so I invite you to do the same.

Also, I created "community ads" that get displayed on that website's front page. While the Wikivoyage ad has been highly upvoted already, the new Wikivoyage Offline ad needs your upvotes before it gets shown on the front page, thanks! (only users with some Stack Exchange reputation can vote) Syced (talk) 07:44, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Meanwhile, the 2016 vote is at http://meta.travel.stackexchange.com/a/3536/54727. --Krinkle (talk) 22:42, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Cooporating with Travel Stack Exchange?

Travel Stack Exchange is missing from our list of external travel sites. Can we add? Andrewssi2 (talk) 10:42, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Excuse me, please! My move is mistake.

Excuse me, please! My move is mystake. I was loocked to namespaces in Wikivoyage and I was pressed "Move page". This is mistake. Excuse me, please! --MDsmajlik (talk) 14:50, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Organize policies more coherently - if so, how?

Swept in from the pub

So looking at the above topic (and judging from my own experience) there are, despite our best efforts to keep this site light on policy, a few policies or de facto policies that are a bit tricky to find because they are spread out a bit. Maybe we would like to have a page with (a couple of) the most important policies / standing consensuses such as they are and link to pages that go more in depth on them. We could have a brainstorm here what policies that initially stumped us are. Judging from what I observe in my occasional recent change patrols, it is probably what we link to and what we do not link to, including our policy on WP links. Hobbitschuster (talk) 01:24, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

I do see many times a comment such as "Definition Y on policy X was achieved by consensus a couple of years ago, but I can't find the thread". Some level of traceability would be desirable, although under the firm proviso that consensus achieved in the past should not dictate the policy forevermore, and just be for reference only. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 01:46, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

For what it's worth, here are my observations on what policies and at least conventions if not explicit guidelines new users most often run afoul of: (1) Creating inline Wikipedia links; (2) violating the touting rules; (3) violating copyright/copyleft by copying and pasting wholesale from copyrighted sites, or from Wikipedia or Wikitravel without credit; (4) arbitrarily deleting fields in listing templates or changing the order or number of fields per line (putting non-alternate names in "alt" is also extremely common but generally a form of touting) (5) posting in the first person in destination or itinerary articles; (6) edit warring; (7) putting information in the wrong fields in listing templates or posting the description after the close curly brackets that end the listing template (the latter is very common); (8) posting tour listings that violate the tour policy or a single car rental agency for no obvious reason except touting; (9) posting so many thumbnails that they go beyond the end of the article or take up too much space left, right and center (posting photo galleries outside of the exceptions in image policy is pretty common, too); (10) posting photo captions in foreign scripts or which otherwise don't make great sense in English; (11) posting thumbnails of poor-quality photos when better ones are available or they are just too bad to be worth including; (12) posting links to promotional tour agency sites instead of municipal sites. Occasionally, large swathes of foreign-language text are posted, too. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:24, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Left hand side of page - Policies - appears to be fairly organized (with linked pages and a search box) - maybe tweek it a bit and add section or place more emphasis on the top most important issues (some of which are already mentioned) -- Matroc (talk) 01:01, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Wikivoyage:Policies is a helpful page! It is however very long, and a lot of the linked articles are not actually 'policy' at all. It may be helpful to make it more concise with new user relevant articles at the beginning, and with more 'advanced' content (for experienced users) at the end. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 01:53, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Wikivoyage:Policies was written during the migration. There are now other ways to format information pages. Wikipedia now uses a formatting with tabs at the top of the page to open sub-pages such as at W:Wikipedia:Good articles which might be usefully applied to Policies. Each major section could have its own tab. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 12:09, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Which Wikivoyage policy and guideline pages do you consider the core ones?

Swept in from the pub

Through the years I have translated many of the policy and guideline pages to the Hebrew Wikivoyage. I mostly translated the ones which I perceive as the core ones necessary for the Hebrew Wikivoyage to import and take to heart (I am hoping this work would have a strong affect ones many more editors join the efforts at Hebvoy). The ones which I have translated have been in "draft" status since the site was created in 2013, as my goal has always been to finalize them once a larger community of active editors would help me decide which ones should be included and what they should include exactly. Unfortunately, we haven't yet gotten a larger community of active editors at Hebvoy, so therefore I plan to finalize them mostly by myself in the upcoming weeks... maybe with the help of a couple of other Hebvoy editors whom are partly active at Hebvoy if they would agree to assist me.

As part of this effort, I would appreciate if the veteran community members here at envoy would be willing to advise us what in your opinion are the most important "core" policy and guideline pages of Wikivoyage, which you believe are most important to import/translate to all other Wikivoyage editions, and specifically to Hebvoy. The ones which I have chosen so far as the core ones are:

The above template is used at Hebvoy at the bottom of all the core policy and guideline pages, and was inspired partly by this template. As you can probably notice, some of the policy and guideline pages that we choose to import have been imported by Wikipedia, even though they don't exist in the English Wikivoyage.

Do you think the selection of pages I included in the above template is good? If not, which changes would you recommend making? ויקיג'אנקי (talk) 12:09, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm looking at the mos page. Do you have travel topics or itineraries at Hebvoy? If you do, you should add WV:Other ways of seeing travel. I'll keep looking and will post more things if I see them. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:35, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Depending on your policies on MediaWiki templates, you might want Wikivoyage:Using MediaWiki templates. I wouldn't call it an absolutely core policy, but it does come up from time to time that we don't believe in an uncontrolled proliferation of templates on envoy. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:37, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

I find Wikivoyage:Article skeleton templates crucial. Wikivoyage:Where you can stick it is useful but less urgent to have. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:39, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Wikivoyage:Avoid long lists is IMO good policy but if you don't have the page, you can just discuss such things. I don't think you want country guides that list 100 cities, though. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:41, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

If it's your policy to avoid listing things just to slam them, some version of Wikivoyage:Avoid negative reviews might be more important than "words to avoid", Wikivoyage:No advice from Captain Obvious is useful, and you could consider adding Wikivoyage:Use of pronouns if that's an issue. That's all I can see that seems to maybe be important. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:45, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

The one other page you might consider adding is Wikivoyage:Using talk pages, but I find I rarely refer to it, but instead ask someone to start or add to a thread on a specific talk page that I provide a link for. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:47, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Redlink

Wikivoyage:Destinations is a redlink and is linked as a policy by this page. Should a policy be drafted under the title or should we just remove the link? Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 07:58, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

It seems nothing was ever there. Wikivoyage:Geographic hierarchy might be the one that should be linked. –LPfi (talk) 09:17, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

No policy on changing policy

I've proposed a change to a policy. There has been discussion, and an apparent consensus. How long is reasonable to wait before implementing the policy change? I haven't found guidance on this, or even discussion. In this particular case, it's only been a week, so I'm not going to rush things. But how long is polite? I find it curious that we don't provide any advice on this. Ground Zero (talk) 20:35, 21 May 2024 (UTC)