Wikivoyage talk:Extraregion

Earlier discussion

See Wikivoyage_talk:Geographical_hierarchy#Extra-hierarchical_regions & elsewhere on that page. Pashley (talk)

And also a longer discussion at Wikivoyage talk:What is an article?#Proposal for a Meta-region article template. Texugo (talk) 13:51, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Extraregions can't get a status rating?

Please have a look at this edit. In order for an extraregion article like D-Day beaches to have been a Featured Travel Topic, it had to have had a status rating of Guide or above. Now it has none. I see no logic in this. To be sure, some extraregion pages like Persian Gulf, which are essentially complex disambig pages with short explanations, could never be more than Usable and don't need a status rating any more than any disambig page does, but while I definitely see why not all extraregion pages need a status rating, I think that it doesn't make sense to deny a genuine extraregion article like D-Day beaches its Guide - or maybe someday, Star - rating. And I don't think we should have to turn the article into a Travel Topic. The idea that extraregion pages by definition cannot have a status rating is overly rigid in my view. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:24, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

as you say most extraregions are not much more that complex disambig pages where locations are collected in a different way to the main region hierarchies.The intention of this class was to allow alternative region definitions but to have major information on other region and city pages, not to make guides out of these pages, The D-Day beaches does deserve a status high status, but I have to ask, why is this not a travel topic page? --Traveler100 (talk) 05:23, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

There was some discussion at Talk:D-Day beaches#Travel topic or Destination? Perhaps there should be more discussion, but I don't see why, in principle, there's a problem with an extraregion article being given a status rating, where warranted. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:08, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

I think extensive extrahierarchical region articles like D-Day beaches could indeed be treated as travel topics (itineraries are travel topics too) and we could use the status criteria for travel topics. ϒpsilon (talk) 07:38, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Lake Tai is another example of a fairly well-developed extra-hierarchical region. I see no reason such articles should not be Guide or even Star. Pashley (talk) 08:40, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

I'd like to hear from User:Texugo, since he was the one who made the edit in question. What's the reason for Extraregion articles to never be eligible for a status rating, since some of us think they should be and thought they could be? Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:59, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

It's not so much that I object to the idea itself, but as it is set up right now, "extra" is the status, as evidenced by the fact that the box inserted by {{extraregion}} is modeled after the other status boxes (and thus adding a status to an extra region currently results in two such boxes stacked at the end of the article). They are also counted separately by the current maintenance panel setup, so giving an extraregion a status tag designed for a regular region causes the article to be counted twice and throws the totals off. I personally don't care that much whether we give them statuses, but if we do determine that we want to assign them statuses we need to: (a) determine criteria appropriate for each status level, as they are bound to be different than those for regular regions, (b) give them their own set of status tags like {{outlineextra}}, {{usableextra}}, etc., rather than using the tags designated for regular regions, and (c) assign every extra region a status — doing some and not others makes tracking them difficult. I'd personally lean toward not bothering since the majority of extra regions should never become more than extended disambig-type pages, and sticking a low status ranking on there implies that we want a full article for each when that is actually not the case. Texugo (talk) 21:21, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining that. That is a problem. What should we do with extraregion pages that merit a status? I guess we have to turn them into some other kind of article, but that would be a problem for an article like Lake Tai. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:28, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

One possibility would be to make the Star/Guide/... status tags independent of the article type City/Region/Topic ... tags, scrap all the merged tags like "guidecity". I've always thought that was a cleaner method anyway. Pashley (talk) 22:31, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

How would the article type be identified on the page, in that case? The reason the identification matters is that there are different standards for Guide status for regions than cities or districts. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:33, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Separating the tags into status tags and independent type tags would not only make it impossible to have our status boxes customized for each article type; it would also make it impossible to have our current cross-referenced categories such as Guide cities, for example, because the type tag would be unable to determine what status tag the article contains, and vice versa. The tags would thus be unable to automatically categorize with more detail than just the broad type categories (all city articles, etc.) and the broad status categories (all guide articles, etc.). You'd no longer have any way to cross-reference them and see a list of guide cities or usable countries or star travel topics. This would consequently kill all the functionality of the central grid of the maintenance panel as well. Texugo (talk) 22:57, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Maybe we should bite the bullet and give status ratings to all extraregion articles, while understanding that "Usable" is a perfectly adequate rating for most of them. Can we tweak the text to say something other than a message that encourages people to make what are essentially complex redirects with introductions into "Guides," which are not needed? Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:04, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Standard layout for extraregions

I think we should form a standard article template for extraregions, since many of the articles in Category:Extra regions have non-standard layouts, and I don't think we should use WV:Region article template in all cases. --Soumya-8974 (talk) 07:35, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't see how we can, as witness the discussion in the thread immediately above this one that mentions that many extraregion articles are really extended disambiguation articles. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:50, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, true. This is why there won't supposed to be the "Regions" (or whatever) heading in the extraregion articles, and therefore warrants a different article template dedicated for the extraragions. I have created a draft of the template at User:Soumya-8974/Extraregion article template. --Soumya-8974 (talk) 08:17, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

I have changed my mind and decided that extraregions will be intended for basic info and links of regions within the hierarchy only. They should not be expanded further. --Soumya-8974 (talk) 14:01, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Another requirement?

It has been suggested at Talk:Tibetan_Empire, Talk:German East Africa and Wikivoyage:Votes_for_deletion#German_East_Africa that these articles cannot be tagged as extra regions because the empires in question do not currently exist.

Some editors seem to think that is quite obviously correct, though the policy page does not mention it. I think it is quite obviously nonsense; these are regions & they do not fit into our hierarchy, so clearly they should be tagged as extra-hierarchical regions. Their current political status is irrelevant.

The current text at Wikivoyage:Extraregion gives examples of what can use the tag, including:

• historical names not in current use, like Bactria, Soviet Union or Tibetan Empire

but Soviet Union is already tagged as a travel topic & people are arguing that Tibetan Empire should be.

Can we clarify what policy should be here & then alter the page so it is correctly stated? Pashley (talk) 07:18, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm one of the people who believes that "X Empire" that no longer exists can't be a current-day region. However, if former lands like Bactria have recognized boundaries and still function unofficially as regions today, they can have viable extraregion article topics. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:59, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Agree with Ikan here. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 08:07, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

• I propose removing “historical names not in current use, like Bactria, Soviet Union or Tibetan Empire” from the list of possible article types. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 11:22, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Is Bactria no longer in use? Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:14, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

According to w:Bactria it was a province until a thousand years ago, but it's not a historical region with which I'm familiar, so maybe the term is still used for the region. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 19:51, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

My feeling is, if an old region name (or a local version thereof) is currently in informal though unofficial use and stands outside our breadcrumb hierarchy, it's a fine candidate for an extra-region article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:09, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm looking at the Bactria article now. I wouldn't support deleting it. It has some useful information, and I think that even if the name is no longer in use, it wouldn't be good for travelers or the site to delete it. We have to be flexible enough to have guidelines and not rules. I remember with some sorrow how many "personal itineraries" with some useful content were to my mind overzealously deleted when a decision was made to grandfather in only guide-level and not decent usable ones. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:30, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

• Support deleting “historical names not in current use, like Bactria, Soviet Union or Tibetan Empire” from the list of possible article types. If Bactria is in current use or has some sights listed, leave it. German East Africa and Mercia are not in current use, and belong in a history book, not a travel guide. This is not a time travel guide. They are not region names in current use, and the articles provide no points of interest relevant to the history of either place. If there are relevant points of interest, then they should be converted to travel topics. Ground Zero (talk) 02:58, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
• Support that goes in wikihistory, Wikibooks, Wikisource or Wikipedia not Wikivoyage. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 03:04, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
• Support removing the bullet. The preceding bullet "region names in fairly wide use that do not fit our hierarchy" covers historic regions that should be kept as extraregions. Historic regions that are not used for the geographic area today are not of interest as regions, but as travel topics. They should not be deleted, but their focus should be changed. –LPfi (talk) 09:09, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't support deleting the Bactria article. If the term is used informally then I'm in full support of letting the article remain as it is. However, I remain in agreement with LPfi and others here that other bullet points in the list cover what articles count as region articles, while the ones covered by this bullet point would be better served either as travel topics or not as articles at all (though expanding the article with travel information is always better when possible). --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 17:09, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

I think we should be clear that removing this bullet point does not consequentially mean that any of the articles listed in it would be deleted. Any of those articles would have to be nominated for deletion following the standard process, like any other article, if anyone thinks they should be deleted. Ground Zero (talk) 17:24, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 17:32, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

• Support (no, I'm not using the template that the community didn't approve).--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 10:44, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

As there appears to be a broad consensus to do this, I have removed that line from the page. Ground Zero (talk) 12:13, 7 August 2021 (UTC)