Wikivoyage talk:What is an article?

Archived discussions Wikivoyage talk:What is an article?/Archive 2003-2013 Wikivoyage talk:What is an article?/Archive 2014-2015

quasi-monopolists?

I find the changed text (bold below) somewhat confusing:

Companies, even those holding a de facto monopoly or those owned by the state (hotels, restaurants, bars, stores, nightclubs, tour operators, airlines, rail or bus operators, etc.). It may however in some instances be okay to redirect certain quasi-monopolists, such as Amtrak, which redirects to rail travel in the United States.

Actually I don't get the difference between "De facto monopoly" (not allowed) and "Quasi monopoly" (can be allowed). I also don't get under what instances a quasi-monopoly would be allowed. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 22:15, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

I think that the point is that you should not create an article about a De facto / Quasi monopoly, but redirects are allowed (as they are likely search terms). However it is confusing to use the two similar terms, and they should be changed to be the same. AlasdairW (talk) 23:33, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Then should the bold text be changed to Companies that are likely to be used as frequent search terms may be created as redirects to the relevant article, such as Amtrak, which redirects to rail travel in the United States ? --Andrewssi2 (talk) 23:53, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

That sounds doable. Though I am not really in favor of creating even a redirect on Delta Airlines or Ryanair as this is bound to end up being a s lippery slope... Hobbitschuster (talk) 00:17, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Seems Ryanair is already there :)

How about change the first word to Monopolies that are likely to be used as frequent search terms may be created as redirects to the relevant article, such as Amtrak, which redirects to rail travel in the United States ? --Andrewssi2 (talk) 01:57, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

I think it should be made obvious that policy dictates the article not to be under the name of any company. And I would vfd Ryanair if it weren't a redirect to a page currently vfd'ed... (btw, am I vfd'ing too much lately?) Hobbitschuster (talk) 02:51, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Check out Disney . Anyway, policy is allowed to be very obvious. It removes any potential ambiguity. Andrewssi2 (talk) 03:00, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

How to not bite a newbie

Swept in from the pub

Hi.

Some user (apparently a newbie) has just created Matangi Private Island Resort, which IIRC is not one of the things we usually have articles on. What should we do to avoid biting them? Hobbitschuster (talk) 20:21, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Well, Welcome them on their talk page, point out our policies and ask if they would consider an alternative compliant approach.

That said I'm not completely sure if a private island meets What is an article criteria or not. It is a valid travel destination, albeit one that is effectively a standalone business occupying the whole island itself. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 22:04, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Like Andrewssi2 said, welcome them. Another possibility is to leave a note on the guide's talk page, reference and explain the guideline in question, and ask if the author thinks it will meet the guideline. Don't rush to put merge tags (or vfd, unless it's obvious vandalism) on the page, especially if the author is still working on it. Don't treat it like it's a big deal.

At the risk of looking like the old guy at the pub telling stories from a youth long past, one of my first edits was to create a new page with not a whole lot of info and somewhere in the text was "typically a day trip from Vancouver". One of the site's co-founders picked up on it and left a simple note on the Talk page querying if the place had accommodation and whether it should just be a listing in Vancouver. I was on vacation at the time and didn't respond for a couple of weeks. I saw the note when I got back and realized I needed to add more info so I did. And that was it. The fact that no one made a fuss about it helped considerably in giving me confidence to continue editing.

My point of this is relax, provide some helpful pointers and see where it goes. It's not a big deal in this case (or most) if the article hangs around for a week or two. -Shaundd (talk) 23:23, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

I am not sure that there is a policy against articles about islands which are monopolies. (Islands which are private and visitors are not allowed is a different matter.) For example we have Lady Elliot Island which is being considered for dotm and Holy Island (Arran). These may not be quite as private, but they both have only one operator of eat or sleep. AlasdairW (talk) 23:49, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Holy Island (Arran) may only have one operator of eat/sleep, but (AFAIK) it is perfectly accessible to the casual visitor with no obligation to use the facilities offered. This island is more tricky because it seems that the island IS the business and vice-versa. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 23:59, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

I think regardless of the details of this particular case, it might be good to have a policy page on this issue. Maybe Wikivoyage:Private Resorts or Wikivoyage:Private Islands or something of the sort? Hobbitschuster (talk) 00:06, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure we need a whole policy page on it, clarification in Wikivoyage:What is an article? is probably sufficient. If we decide Matagi Island shouldn't have its own article, it would be good to point out how it's different than Holy Island (Arran) and Sveti Stefan. -Shaundd (talk) 00:14, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

I would strongly suggest removing the merge tags (and did on the article's talk page). Sveti Stefan can not be visited by non-guests, but it's beautiful to look at and certainly deserves its own article. So far as I've seen, the article has not had a touty tone, so I think we should give the article-starter plenty of latitude to fill out the article before making a decision on whether to merge it or not. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:27, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Our policy against articles on individual businesses does not obligate us to ignore real places that are privately owned. That's why we have Disneyland, after all. Powers ^(talk) 01:35, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

(starting at the left again) I do think nonetheless that we should clarify our policy on that. Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:41, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Do you have any specific suggestions for improvements in wording? Powers ^(talk) 02:41, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't think there is a way to distinguish Matagi Island from Sveti Stefan that would suggest keeping Sveti Stefan and deleting Matagi Island. On the contrary, Matagi Island actually has things to see/do which is a lot more important than a list of hotels which is what Sveti Stefan is, so it would have a stronger case. I'd just leave it be and hope the user adds to other Fiji articles. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 07:49, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Given that the policy has evolved into something quite complex, I think it would be good to have it spelled out on its own page, just like we do for our policy on bodies of water Hobbitschuster (talk) 17:58, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Would it be ok to create a Rail Travel, Day Trips and Attractions on MBTA in Eastern Massachusetts page?

Swept in from the pub

Hi! I'm interested in creating a new page on Wikipedia to list day trip destinations that are accessible on the commuter rail here in eastern Massachusetts. Examples would be Salem, Crane Beach, Providence, CapeFlyer, Ski Train, Bike Train, Ayer rail trail, and many more. The target audience would be people who live in the Boston areas as well as visitors to Boston.

Do you think this would be ok to create? If so, do you have a suggested title of the page? Maybe something like "Rail Travel, Day Trips and Attractions on MBTA in Eastern Massachusetts"?

Tjmather (talk) 22:36, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

You write that you want to create a new page on Wikipedia. Do you mean Wikivoyage? If you want to create this page on Wikivoyage, I'm unsure about it and would suggest that you try creating it in your Sandbox first. Have a look at some of the various travel topics and itineraries to see how they're structured and whether any of them are comparable to the kind of article you'd like to create. You also might want to look at regional transportation articles, such as the Bay Area public transit article in progress. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:10, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

I think this is an interesting idea (and I might actually use articles like that). It should probably be structured as an itinerary. Maybe Eastern Massachusetts via commuter rail? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:58, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

I agree that it's an interesting and potential valuable idea, but it doesn't sound like a single itinerary to me; rather, the article as proposed would facilitate various itineraries. That's why it looks like a travel topic to me, rather than an itinerary article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:04, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Country article length/when to fork

Swept in from the pub

Can anyone direct me to a guideline on how much or little detail should go into a country article? The Switzerland article had a lengthy driving section, including an infobox with a long list of traffic fines. I branched that off into a new Driving in Switzerland article, which i think works well. Looking at United Kingdom, I see long sections on getting around by car and by train, and think they might be branched off, but I want to see what the policy is on doing so before I go ahead. Is there one? I would also discuss on the article talk page before doing anything radical. Ground Zero (talk) 15:16, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

There are already articles for Driving in the UK and Rail travel in Britain, and I have already been cutting down the corresponding in the UK article itself (per this talk page discussion), but if there are other bits of info you feel are superfluous go ahead and get chopping ;-) --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 15:22, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. That's helpful. I would like still like to know if there is general guidance, if anyone knows. Ground Zero (talk) 15:28, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There are already articles for Driving in the UK and Rail travel in Great Britain, both already referenced from the United Kingdom article, so can you clarify what would be "branched off"? Typically popular articles tend to accumulate excessive amounts of detail and require some trimming from time-to-time, so rather than creating new articles, in this instance it would be best to just reduce the amount of detail in the country article and ensure that anything removed is covered in the existing topic articles. For the official guidance on when to consider splitting content out into separate articles see Wikivoyage:What is an article?#Exceptions ("A good rule of thumb is that information about attractions, sites, events, and transportation should always be initially placed into an existing article, and only when that information becomes too large and complex (more than 3-4 paragraphs) should a new article be considered."). -- Ryan • (talk) • 15:29, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

(all the edit conflicts) I realised I didn't answer that part of your question. We have templates for every kind of destination article. The exact specification for a 'Get around' section of a country article reads: "This is a spot to give general information about how to get around the country once you are there. An overview of domestic travel possibilities: air, train, and bus travel, long-distance taxis, ferries, etc. Try to keep the information general, with specifics on distances and schedules between cities in the country left to the city articles." --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 15:32, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

I think it is not a bad idea at all to have a more focused section in the country guide and if people want to go into details have more detailed articles. This also serves our readers - if someone for instance does not own a driver's license, they would want to skip the "by car" section entirely, and similarly there are people who won't consider e.g. buses or trains for their travel plans. So for each of them, not having to print all of that (to them) superfluous information out is a plus. And if someone knows that they - for example - want to make good use of the superb Swiss train system they have heard so much about, giving them a detailed article with all the information they could ever want also makes a lot of sense. Keep in mind that there is another factor with mobile use as you can collapse two deep headlines (those with == at both sides of the headline title) but you cannot collapse three deep headlines and all the subsections of "get in" and "get around" are three deep, so you'd have to read or scroll through them on mobile. Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:39, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

(unindent) Just to answer the original question, I don't believe that there are any guidelines on detail level or article length. I guess The Traveler comes first would apply, but that is so broad in interpretation that it could be taken either for more or less detail.

If moving the text to another articles improves both articles then it should be done. I moved a large amount of text in United States about study to Studying_abroad#United_States which worked well. Andrewssi2 (talk) 21:30, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I had overlooked that there were already articles on driving and trains in the UK. I had moved a fair bit of text from the article that was duplicated in the branch articles, and moved some that was not. I am glad to get a sense of agreement that keeping the country article as an overview is desirable. Ground Zero (talk) 22:57, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Just to be clear to everyone, I do not support keeping country articles as 'overviews' as such, but rather move excessive detail that is better addressed in specific articles is sometimes desirable. Andrewssi2 (talk) 06:40, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Fair enough. Sorry if I created the wrong impression. I gather I inadvertently reopened an old debate of which I was unaware by choosing my words badly. Ground Zero (talk) 22:19, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

New shortcut

I think it would be useful to have a shortcut to the list of things that are not articles, e.g., WV:WIAANOT. Any objections? Ground Zero (talk) 17:56, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

There's got to be a better name? WV:NOTARTICLE or something similar? K7L (talk) 18:24, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Sure. That works too. Ground Zero (talk) 18:26, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

What about WV:NAA? - both sounds like rejection and abbreviates N(ot) A(n) A(rticle). Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:05, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

We could create both of those shortcuts. Ground Zero (talk) 00:38, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Is this an article?

Swept in from the pub

Hello! I was starting to work on Boston/Outer Neighborhoods, and could only find one "Sleep" listing. It's a bad place in a bad area and I do not feel comfortable listing it or endorsing it in any way. That would leave us with 0 sleep listings and then it's potentially not an article. Can I get consensus to give me a "pass" on this one? There will be a decent amount of other things listed here to make it worthwhile (IMHO). Is there an agreed upon piece of text to use for an empty section? Like "No accommodations are available in Location, please see Main Article#sleep for advice on the best places to stay while in town." Or something like that? Thank you for your help! --ButteBag (talk) 17:58, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

We shouldn't say "there are no accommodations" if there are. I would list it and note your specific concerns with it, e.g., security, cleanliness, Mormons, rather than saying it is "bad". Ground Zero (talk) 18:05, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

@Ground Zero: "Mormons"?! —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:42, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

When we run into something like Nunatsiavut#Natuashish about all we can do is lay it on the line - yes it's a real place and yes there are serious problems. Wikivoyage:Avoid negative reviews does make a bit of an exception for venues which are prominently located, widely advertised or which the voyager is likely to find from other sources - and the one lone, dysfunctional hotel in some place which otherwise has nothing would usually qualify. K7L (talk) 18:49, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

The so-called sleep test being taken too literally is a longstanding (though understandable) problem on this site. Asking the question "can you sleep there?" was never meant to imply that any place without a hotel doesn't deserve its own article - it was more meant to help people weed out the types of places that shouldn't get their own articles (e.g. city parks, bodies of water, tiny "dot on a map" hamlets with no attractions or services). If there's no recommendable hotel in Boston's outer neighborhoods, just say so and carry on with the article (but I would also agree with K7L that in a case like this one, we should feel freer than usual to list lower-quality hotels that we might otherwise prefer not to). -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 18:59, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

I feel like Andre is on the right track--in principle you couldn't sleep on a rock in the middle of the ocean (well, you could but if you're sort of person who does that, you're not reading a travel guide anyway). We avoid negative reviews but we also give information that is useful for someone's safety. If none of the lodging there is really safe or clean, then simply note that and implore travelers to sleep elsewhere. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:24, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

My ancestors might've been crazy enough to colonise a rock in the middle of the ocean. To each their own, I suppose.

Certainly, the "can you eat there" and "can you sleep there" questions have come up often before in a few tiny, out-of-the-way places. For instance, is Cartwright (Labrador) promotable to "usable" if there are few choices available locally after the Cartwright Hotel burned to the ground in 2013? Are any of these tiny Labrador outports promotable to "guide" if a guide article is expected to provide a few good choices and alternatives in each section – and there really is no menu of multiple options in the tiniest villages as they're lucky to have anything locally. For that matter, will the Moon ever progress beyond "outline" until all of the Apollo-era infrastructure is rebuilt or replaced?

There's a distinction between "poor coverage of a viable destination" and "reasonably complete coverage of a marginal destination" that gets lost somehow. We apply (nominally) the same 'what is an article' and 'article status' criteria in a big city as in a remote subsistence fishery outport.

Boston is a different animal, admittedly, from Labrador. If there's nothing in one spot, the next village is a few minutes away – instead of 200km on bad gravel roads with no services under sub-Arctic winter driving conditions. It's easy to say "there's nothing worthwhile in this area other than one bad hotel in a bad location, so try (some other district)". Try that in Nunatsiavut and it's some absurdly-long way away and there's no road. All we can do is lay off the "Achieving euphoria is easy in this virtual Xanadu..." hype and explain honestly and factually why a fun-filled trip to Natuashish might simply not work out as planned. K7L (talk) 19:53, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

I meant like w:Rockall which can just be mentioned at Next-to-impossible_destinations. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:36, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ If there are a bunch of decent hotels and a few bad ones, there is no reason to include the bad ones. If there is only one hotel, we should include it, identify its issues, and let the reader decide for themselves. I've stayed in a lot of hotels I wouldn't recommend, but for one night at the right price in that location, it was okay for me. I don't think we should decide for the traveller who wants to stay in a particular location that they are wrong and have to go elsewhere. I considered staying a dive in London - a city with billions and billions of hotels - because what was important to me was staying close to a sick friend (fortunately, there's Airbnb). Give them the info, and let the reader decide for themselves. Ground Zero (talk) 20:02, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

How much information do we include about that one hotel, if we're just going to indicate that it's bad and send the voyager to some other district? I've been inclined to leave one sentence (enough to explain that there is a hotel and identify the issues) but not a full listing of the style used for somewhere worth staying. K7L (talk) 20:12, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, this is my main question, and I appreciate that I am talking about the weather here and not the climate. Ground Zero makes a compelling argument, list everything and let the user decide. I don't want to do that in this case, however, because I don't want to list a place where (at least) two rapes were reported in 2013. I think the city shut the place down, but I can't confirm. In my opinion I would "serve the traveller" better by doing what K7L says: mentioning there are no listings, and letting them pick an option that appeals to them from airbnb, vrbo, homestay, homeaway, etc, etc, etc. --ButteBag (talk) 20:31, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Not being able to confirm that is open is another matter. That would be a reason not to list it. There are, unfortunately, rapes even in good hotels, and often more recently than three years ago. We should not be sending any one anywhere. We're not the reader's mom.

If the place were open, I would identify the address, phone, website, and in the content line, something like, "This is the only hotel in the district. Two rapes were reported here in 2013." A lot of cheap, and not so cheap, hotels around the world are used by prostitutes and their clients, and often the clients are not very nice people, so rapes are probably fairly common, even though they may not be reported. Ground Zero (talk) 20:44, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

We're not the reader's mum, but we are a travel guide. If something isn't worth visiting, we say so or we outright refuse to list it – much like there's no sense putting the traveller on the RMS Titanic if we know the mighty ocean liner is as doomed as doomed can be. K7L (talk) 22:41, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Probably not a great analogy: if we had known that we could have stopped it with a concisely-worded warning on our web page. ;-) Refusing to list the only hotel in town because we don't think it's good enough is playing mommy. I fully support not listing bad hotels where there are good ones available. We don't know the reader's circumstances and why they might stay in a hotel we say is a bad one, but we should not make that decision for them. As I've mentioned, I've stayed in a number of bad hotels for good reasons, location being one of them. One place, the only one I could afford that night, turned out to be a homeless shelter that had a "travellers' dorm". It was okay, for a night. As long as we report on the conditions factually, it provides useful information for the reader to make their own decision. Ground Zero (talk) 01:01, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Also, I tried several sources for finding a hotel in the area covered by the article, and came up with nothing, so I think the scary place is gone. Ground Zero (talk) 01:04, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I totally feel you. It's a bit of a slippery slope once we start saying this place is "bad" but that place isn't. (but that place was legit bad!) It's hard to be impartial when you're trying to rep your set, you know? Thank you again User:Ground Zero for your thoughtful and reasoned arguments. I've added a sentence in the Sleep section now, could someone else have a look and adjust the article status accordingly? Thanks to everyone again for their help. --ButteBag (talk) 03:06, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

That looks fine to me, but I'm an old-fashioned guy: I'd prefer it if you'd at least buy me a drink before you feel me. Just saying. Ground Zero (talk) 10:36, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Is this an article: Policy?

Given the preceding discussion, should these policies be updated to deal with the case where a village's one hotel or lone restaurant shuts down or fails to meet minimum standards?

• Wikivoyage:Usable articles and Wikivoyage:What is an article?#The test for destination-style articles: "The most common and quickest assessment of whether a place merits an article is Can You Sleep There?"
• Wikivoyage:Avoid negative reviews doesn't fully address the case where a village's only hotel gets a lovely review like this.
• Wikivoyage:Article status and Wikivoyage:City guide status: "Has different choices for accommodation and eating/drinking, and information on multiple attractions and things to do" and "Guide - The article would be helpful for the average traveller, such as offering alternatives for where to stay and eat, what to see and do, how to get in and out, etc. and provide enough information for at least a few days there."
• Wikivoyage:Guide articles: "For example, an article about a city must have multiple hotel and restaurant listings, but that doesn't make sense for an article about an entire region" vs. "Not only would you not need to consult another guide, you'd really have no reason to want to: it's all here"

If we've listed all there is to list for a place (it's all here) but the "eat" section looks like "Bring what you need and leave no trace when you leave. Be bear aware; stored or cached foodstuffs may require bear-resistant containers." is this an article and is it promotable to usable or higher? This has come up before on Talk:Cartwright (Labrador) and again on Wikivoyage:Destination of the month candidates#Labrador as going off the beaten path often means limited or no options. "What is an article?" has also come up for ghost towns... where's the best place to eat in downtown Glenrio tonight if it doesn't have all the amenities of urban Val-Jalbert? Any conclusions from these discussions (or the one above) should be reflected in policy, or the same questions will continue to arise. K7L (talk) 20:16, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

It is worth discussing this. The 'sleep test' is a pretty imperfect tool and I'd like to see more direction around grouping a few smaller destinations into one useful article rather than feeling every hamlet/ghost town needs its own dedicated article. Andrewssi2 (talk) 21:01, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

I would second that. There are way too many almost-empty articles that survive simply because they have one or two sleep listings, or a single visitor attraction. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 21:08, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes, policy needs updating here, but I'm not 100% sure how the best way to proceed would look. Maybe we need a standalone policy on WV:Wilderness Outposts or WV:Hamlets? Hobbitschuster (talk) 21:59, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Just throwing this out there but instead of "Can you sleep there?" the barometer could be:

• Must have at least 10(or whatever number is good) listings combined in See, Do, Buy, Eat, Drink, Sleep.
• Must have enough content to hold a travelers attention for more than 3 hours (or whatever number)
• Must take a user at least 5 minutes to read the entire article (or article must be larger than 100kb, or whatever)

--ButteBag (talk) 22:50, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Absolutely not. Wikis are built from small pieces. Just because we have few listings currently doesn't mean it's a permanent situation, nor does it mean the article is unworthy of its own travel guide. Childs is a guide article that was featured on the front page. Sometimes a rural-area region with listings and no subpages is appropriate, but certainly not all the time! Powers ^(talk) 01:04, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Actually Wikis grow organically, with the organization and potential merger of articles being flexible. That said it is unlikely we will ever agree on a quantifiable metric that can be used to determine the viability of an article.

One practical example is Jervis_Bay which contains a few small towns within one rural area. It is open for potential splitting in the future, but as it stands it is serving the traveller far better as one article. Andrewssi2 (talk) 01:44, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

As part of growing organically, there's nothing stopping these 'grouped articles' becoming 'ungrouped' (i.e. split back into city articles) over time, if and when the level of information is enough. Wiki or no, keeping hundreds of very sparse articles just in case someone decides to fill them up in a few years, makes Wikivoyage look unprofessional, and I would bet on them putting readers off. They also spoil the chances of any number of region articles ever being promoted to 'usable' status, despite many having enough content to do so on their own merits. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 02:11, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Hello! I agree that having hundreds of sparse articles makes Wikivoyage look unprofessional. Just look at Lynnfield and a hundred other pages in Massachusetts alone. I would also argue that "can you sleep there?" is a quantifiable metric. (If there is more than one sleep listing, than it is an article.) I also get that CYST is a rule of thumb and not meant to be taken literally, but it seems like a reasonable number of contributors are making this mistake? That's why I threw out a few suggestions as conversation starters. The question I have about the article Powers linked, Childs, is why isn't it a star? It seems to have a static map and all sections filled out, good images and prose. Nothing seems to be missing. Could it ever be a star? Incidentally, Childs seems to conform to 2 of the 3 criteria I listed, and is very close on the other one. Thanks! --ButteBag (talk) 02:51, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes,CYST is quantifiable, but often unenforceable because frankly others object to the potential deletion.

And yes, merged articles can absolutely be split again in future if a contributor with serious content wants to give it a go. The traveler is best served by one good article with good content rather than a skeleton article that is easy to create but expecting someone else to do the hard work is not useful at all. Andrewssi2 (talk) 04:44, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

A group of outer Boston suburbs is one thing — these likely could be grouped or combined as they're fairly close together — but a truly isolated outport like Cartwright is a very different animal. There's nowhere to merge this. We only have eight pages covering all of Labrador, an almost province-sized geographic area, because there's very little out there except sub-Arctic wilderness. A policy that a guide-level article should be "offering alternatives for where to stay and eat" is viable for a big city, but a Cartwright-sized w:Newfoundland outport might never meet those criteria. It's a tiny place, there really aren't "alternatives" locally for much of anything and the next village might be 200km away.

Likewise, the Glenrio Historic District is (a) on a state line and (b) nowhere near much of anything, which makes it difficult to merge into another article. It's not merely a Tucumcari suburb if half of it is in Texas.

Whatever policy we apply needs to handle both large cities and tiny, isolated coastal subsistence fishery villages... unless and until they get to the point of not being worth visiting (or listing) at all. CYST and the "usable city" criteria assume every village with something worth seeing or doing also has a restaurant and a hotel; "guide" assumes multiple viable options. I don't agree with creating empty {{subst:smallcity}} skeletons for points which could be included in an adjacent destination, but at some point we've listed everything there is to list in some of these outports and the result still looks sparse. K7L (talk) 05:00, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

I really don't see a compelling need here to monkey around with a status quo that, in my view, works perfectly well. The flexibility in the current policy is a good thing - it allows Powers to write an article about a worthwhile microdestination like Childs and K7L to have one about a wide area like Rural Montgomery County that's treated as a bottom-level destination, and both of those ways of looking at geography are considered valid on an equal standing. Why proscribe any of those approaches? And, as for the empty skeleton articles that this conversation is really about, I don't understand why people are afraid to take the initiative and plunge forward. Policy already allows us to merge and redirect articles whose information would better serve the traveller as part of some larger article. You don't even have to put them through the vfd rigmarole (in fact, please don't vfd them; you'll only get told for the 5,000th time that real places don't get deleted) - policy states that discussions about redirecting are to be conducted on the talk page of the article itself, but clearly in the case of an empty skeleton that no one has looked at in years that's just a formality, and it's doubtful anyone would object to a user skipping that step. (And I don't buy K7L's above argument that "sometimes there's nothing to redirect to", as with Cartwright (Labrador) - in fact, one need look no further than our coverage of Labrador to find a bounty of creative examples of how to deal with geographically isolated communities that are too small to sustain their own article, such as Nunatsiavut and Port Hope Simpson#Nearby). -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 13:43, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

I strongly agree with AndreCarrotflower on this. There's no need to make policy more strict or limiting. The flexibility has always helped us. It's true that deleting is usually not an acceptable solution for skeletons, but creating combined articles or redirecting where that makes sense is, in my experience, typically uncontroversial. While this strategy should obviously not be used for larger destinations which simply haven't evolved into a proper article yet, there's wide support to group rural destinations together. The only issue I would like to raise is that when redirecting, we should probably try to include some kind of mention of the redirected destination in the target article, to avoid confusion. JuliasTravels (talk) 14:36, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

I believe that deleting should be an option if there is truly nothing to list. Toronto (Prince Edward Island) redirects to Cavendish and Rustico Harbour why exactly? That destination article doesn't mention "Toronto PEI" because there's nothing in Toronto PEI - it's a random, empty speck on a map that never should have been created. I recall an incident with one user, a "page creation vandal", adding a long list of various pointless specks-on-a-map in Maine which had one bar, no hotel, less than 1000 population; those were deleted, as were some fictional points.

That said, CYST taken to the extreme could create an outcome like Cartwright NL initially being listed because we need it as a jumping-off point to get to isolated points like Mealy Mountains National Park or Eagle River which have no road. There's little here - a village of about 1000 people - but there's nowhere to merge this as the next town down the actual road is 200km away. The Cartwright Hotel burns down? Well, that invalidates the entire destination. It's not a city any more so it gets redirected to some point that's actually further afield than dumping New York, New York into Philadelphia#Nearby. Frank Sinatra did say NY, NY was "the city that never sleeps" (presumably causing it to fail CYST, even though Glenn Miller did provide a telephone number for a hotel) but at some point this is a stretch. Grouping the six Nunatsiavut villages made sense as they are part of the same native first nation and joined to each other by a coastal ferry. If grouping Cartwright (Labrador) to Port Hope Simpson#Nearby makes no sense geographically (short of creating a bottom-level "large rural area" for the entire east coast of Labrador below Nunatsiavut) then we don't do it... even if that means grasping at straws like "tent camping" in chilly Labrador. I doubt we'll ever have a "guide"-level article for Cartwright. There's too little here. We list what we can and move on. It's "usable" but even that is tenuous. One business closure could knock Cartwright back to "outline" at any time.

The Boston suburbs are obviously an entirely different environment. We have some flexibility to group and bundle them, much like city districts, into articles of manageable size. Does CYST require we draw those lines carefully so that each of the districts lands on at least one decent hotel? We sometimes run into districts like Manhattan/Central Park where there is plenty to see or do, a wide assortment of vendors and food, but nowhere (lawfully) to sleep. I suppose we need a bit of wiggle room, as one size does not fit all. K7L (talk) 15:57, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for the discussion! For me the explicitness really helps, and I've compiled a list of what I learned from these comments. Maybe someone with more experience than me can edit some of the relevant policy pages, (assuming these are even accurate at all) I do not dare.

• A valid (and high quality) article may have no Sleep listings. (examples? Boston/Outer Neighborhoods?)
• Conversely, a location with only one or two places to sleep isn't necessarily an article. See Rowley, or Boxford (Massachusetts).
• The flexibility in the current policy is a good thing - it allows Powers to write an article about a worthwhile microdestination like Childs and K7L to have one about a wide area like Rural Montgomery County that's treated as a bottom-level destination, and both of those ways of looking at geography are considered valid on an equal standing. -- Andre
• Some places, like Glenrio, will remain at "outline" status for years, possibly forever. In other words, articles may be created that even when completely filled out, can never achieve star status. This is desirable and good.
• Although you will see hundreds of them, we don't actually like having so many bare bones skeleton articles on Wikivoyage.
• If you found a skeleton article you know something about, please take the initiative and plunge forward. Policy allows you to merge and redirect articles whose information would better serve the traveller as part of some larger article. -- Andre
• Check out Labrador and its sub-pages like Nunatsiavut and Port Hope Simpson for good examples of how to group content in rural areas. Another good example is Jervis Bay.
• The traveler is best served by one good article with good content. -- Andrewssi2

Hope I made things better, and not worse, thank you!--ButteBag (talk) 16:25, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm glad things are more clear for you now, ButteBag, but I'm not sure which policy page you think should be changed or updated based on this list of established practices and personal statements you made. To change policy, you obviously need a consensus, not just someone's comment, although in this particular case it doesn't seem all that relevant as most things are already covered by policy and status quo as it is. @K7L, while it is policy to not delete real places in principle, I think we all agree there is always some wiggle room for specific cases. TTCF always gives us room to make exceptions. Since those instances are rare, I do think it's perfectly acceptable to require a quick consensus, though. Trying to catch these individual cases in quantifiable policy is almost impossible and hardly worth it. In the case of page creation vandalism, deletions should be uncontroversial - regardless of any usual policies or practices. JuliasTravels (talk) 16:51, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the response! Although I don't agree with all the bullet points I listed above, I guess my goal was to make the status quo of current policy more explicit. The current set of policies evolved over years (I'm guessing), and when a new contributor arrives they are consumed all at once. Since these rules are more "Bazaar" than "Cathedral", you'll occasionally notice a few edge cases that aren't covered perfectly. I guess I was thinking the bullet points above (if reworked by someone with greater domain experience) could be useful as a "tips for n00bs" guide, or the like. I think I've done a not-that-great job of communicating my ideas, so thank you for bearing with me while I learn. --ButteBag (talk) 02:09, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Going back to K7L's remarks earlier, one change to this area of policy that I would certainly get behind would be to clarify that if we have an article for a small community where there simply aren't any hotels in town to put in "Sleep" (or restaurants/grocery stores for "Eat", bars for "Drink", etc.), but we have already agreed the article merits existence per wiaa, then the article should not be forever stuck at Outline or Usable status so long as it otherwise fulfills the requirements for promotion. I've cited Childs before as the classic example of this; let's look at it again. Wikivoyage:City guide status says all bottom-level destinations at Guide level must "ha[ve] different choices for accommodation and eating/drinking" (emphasis in original). Someone reading policy in an overly strict way would take issue with Tillman's Historic Village Inn being double-listed in both "Eat" and "Drink", and would further hold that double-listing in the same sections a gas station that sells beer and has an attached sandwich counter is an exceedingly weak "different choice", and would likely conclude that Childs should be demoted to Usable. However, we also have Wikivoyage:Guide articles which says "Not only would you not need to consult another guide, you'd really have no reason to want to: it's all here", which is clearly accurate in describing Childs. The fact that we hold the latter specification to supersede the former is evident in the fact that not only is Childs' Guide status designation uncontroversial, but we even saw fit to feature it on the Main Page as OtBP a few years back. Similarly, K7L describes Cartwright (Labrador)'s Usable status as "tenuous" because "one business closure could knock [it] back... at any time", but I feel that it handily falls into the same category as Childs. If there's nothing to list, there's nothing to list, and saying so and moving on does just as much by way of providing accurate information to the traveller as any listings would. IMO there's no point in penalizing an article for that reason. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 03:45, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

I agree with this too. Most logical, Captain. :-) Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:50, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Indeed, the guidelines for article status assume that there exist a variety of options in a destination. If all of the available options are there, then there's nothing more to add and no reason to demote or resist promotion on that basis.

Re: ButteBag's summary, I don't understand the animus against outline articles. Do we want to appear complete, or do we want to appear as if there are opportunities for the public to contribute? Powers ^(talk) 02:38, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Totally agree with User:LtPowers, there is nothing wrong with outlines, they're great and invite participation. What I was trying (poorly) to express, is that in my mind, the most beautiful version of WV is one that covers every corner of the globe, without overlapping, and every article is a star. Working backwards from that vision, I thought something like "if it can't be a star, it can't be an article". Then I saw a bunch of regions that (IMHO) could never be star, and got a little frustrated with that. I looked around for policies, or how-to guides, or something. Like a yearly "state of the voyage" address or something, and didn't notice any. (I'm sure something exists, I just didn't see it.) Thanks! --ButteBag (talk) 15:43, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

I'd think we would hold a place back from star status if, while it's a real place and you can sleep there, it isn't worth visiting. A "star", much like a featured "destination of the month", is supposed to represent our best work. Expecting every article to be a star is a bit like insisting "...and all of the children are above-average". It just doesn't work that way. If Fort MacKay is an environmental nightmare with little to see or do other than prospect for black gold, so be it. We cover what's there (one local annual festival, a doughnut shop and a few oil sands camps) but it would be lucky to progress beyond "usable". There'd be no reason to nominate it for destination of the month, even if we managed to cover it comprehensively in the future. K7L (talk) 17:51, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for this context and example! This is extremely helpful! I was assuming articles captured places that someone would want to visit for some reason. And maybe in a hundred years it would eventually have enough content to become a star. The way that I was seeing it, if we know Fort MacKay is functionally complete, and stalls at outline, it might not be considered an article and should eventually be merged into a sub-section of Fort_McMurray somehow. Then eventually Fort McMurray would be complete and perfect and could be starred, and so on. I think I'm pretty alone in this line of thinking, but it might be helpful to include your comment above on the Wikivoyage:Star_articles page or somewhere, for the errant few who see it my way. Thanks again! --ButteBag (talk) 19:13, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

I could not disagree more with this idea. Star status is a recognition of high-quality writing, no more and no less, irrespective of how "worthwhile" (by whose judgment?) a destination may be. Same deal with DotM - if a place is not a massive tourist mecca, it'd probably be better off as OtBP, but you can't just disallow it from being featured if it fits all the other criteria. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 01:12, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

I concur with Andre. Powers ^(talk) 00:51, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

The test for destination-style articles

Wikivoyage:What is an article?#The test for destination-style articles currently says:

The most common and quickest assessment of whether a place merits an article is Can You Sleep There? That is, are there any types of accommodation open to the public: hotels, hostels, campgrounds, cabins, wigwams, yurts, space station bunks, etc. If a place, such as a national park, has no facilities, but has rules for pitching a tent in the wilderness, that can work too. On the other hand, while there are numerous hotels and other lodging options in a city like London, you can't sleep in a museum or park within that city; such parks and museums should thus be listed as attractions within an article about the city.

Sleeping isn't all that travellers do, though, and there should be some content to fill out our other standard article sections: content regarding what and where to eat, how to have some fun in the evening, stuff to do, things to see, etc. If you know there really is no place to find food, nothing to do, and nothing to see at a location, it's likely that the article won't meet the criteria established in this policy.

That seems a bit harsh; one blank section and the destination is penalised, no hotel or camp ground and the destination fails "what is an article?"

If that wasn't the intention, would this wording be more appropriate:

The most common, quickest assessment of whether a place merits an article is "Can You Sleep There"? Is there accommodation open to the public: hotels, hostels, campgrounds, cabins, wigwams, yurts, space station bunks, or even a place to pitch a tent in the wilderness of a national park? Sleeping isn't all that travellers do, so the types of places that merit their own articles provide "attractions or activities" (to see or do) alongside basic travel "infrastructure" (some way to get in, somewhere to eat, somewhere to sleep).

While there are numerous hotels and other lodging options in a city like London, one can't sleep in a museum or park within that city; these attractions and activities should merely be individual listings within a larger article about the city. Some types of places typically won't have enough content to fill our standard article sections: these include small city parks, bodies of open water and tiny "dot on a map" hamlets with no attractions or services.

Asking "can you sleep there?" is a guideline. It doesn't infer every community without a hotel will inevitably be relegated to permanent "outline" status or will never deserve an article. Wikivoyagers exercise wide discretion to group handfuls of smaller villages into one larger article or split huge cities into individual districts of manageable size, wherever this best suits the destination. Where no lodging in one district is safe or clean (or there's nothing at all), simply note this and move on.

Comments? K7L (talk) 08:30, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

I do particularly like "Wikivoyagers exercise wide discretion to group handfuls of smaller villages into one larger article or split huge cities into individual districts of manageable size, wherever this best suits the destination." Hopefully everyone else can get behind this wording as well. Andrewssi2 (talk) 09:09, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

The new third paragraph is good (though "infer" should be "imply"). But the changes to the other two paragraphs are not good. The new second paragraph starts by explaining the other side of the Can You Sleep There? test that was introduced in the first paragraph, then continues on to address an unrelated topic: places that do meet the test but still might not be suitable for articles. Powers ^(talk) 22:23, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

I apologize, but now that similar changes have been made, I think it's even worse than the text proposed above. Perhaps we should have hashed it out a bit before plunging forward on changing a policy page? Powers ^(talk) 01:53, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Sure, here's the piñata if you'd like to take a whack at this. I've reverted for now. What wording did you have in mind? I presume we want Manhattan/Central Park (lots to see and do, nowhere to sleep) and Cartwright (Labrador) (with its one barely-there six room motel) as valid but a destination in which most of the sections have no suitable venues worth listing is not a valid article?

I'm a bit uncomfortable about this bit: "Sleeping isn't all that travellers do, though, and there should be some content to fill out our other standard article sections: content regarding what and where to eat, how to have some fun in the evening, stuff to do, things to see, etc". Last I checked, some of these sections were optional for a usable article - if there's no "drink" listing that isn't already part of a restaurant or hotel, so be it. Otherwise, WIAA is actually more restrictive in its requirements than {{usablecity}}. K7L (talk) 03:01, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

The most common and quickest assessment of whether a "type of place" merits an article is "Can You Sleep There?" That is, is there any type of accommodation open to the public: hotels, hostels, campgrounds, cabins, wigwams, yurts, space station bunks, etc. If a place, such as a national park, has no facilities, but has rules for pitching a tent in the wilderness, that can work too. On the other hand, while there are numerous hotels and other lodging options in a city like London, you can't sleep in a museum or park within that city; such parks and museums should thus be listed as attractions within an article about the city.

Sleeping isn't all that travellers do, though, and there should be some content to fill out our other standard article sections. If there really is no place to find food, nothing to do, and nothing to see at a location, it's likely that the article won't meet the criteria established in this policy.

Nonetheless, Wikivoyagers exercise wide discretion to group handfuls of smaller villages into one larger article or split huge cities into individual districts of manageable size, wherever this best suits the destination.

Asking "can you sleep there?" is a guideline. A particular division of territory into pages of reasonable size might make sense for the destination, but leave one article without a hotel. That's fine. Where no lodging in one district is safe or clean, simply note this and move on.

Comments? K7L (talk) 15:15, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

I would join the second and third paragraphs together, and make sure the word "guideline" in the final paragraph is italicized. Other than those minor copyedits, it looks fine to me. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 16:55, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

I agree. I also wouldn't mind if the sentence "It doesn't infer every community without a hotel will inevitably be relegated to permanent "outline" status or will never deserve an article," was re-added. —The preceding comment was added by LtPowers (talk • contribs)

On second thought? Maybe the introductory "can you sleep there?" blurb in WIAA should remain short and sweet. Article status is an unrelated question to "Wikivoyage:What is an article?" and the various 'exceptions' already in that page. Other project pages discuss whether a city or district is "usable" or "guide". K7L (talk) 03:56, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Let's leave well enough alone instead of trashing the wording we've so painstakingly hashed out. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 04:12, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

The National Trust (England and Wales), National Trust for Scotland...?

Swept in from the pub

I was wondering if there was a policy about specfic organisations.

In the UK , The National Trust is a major operator and owner of a number of heritage sites ( already listed in region/city/town articles.)

Would policy allow for a specfic article on them and the top 15 or so major sites, they operate?

Naturally they produce their own listings for members. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 08:40, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

My own opinion is, as a general principle, that it is the sites that are interesting rather than the organisation operating those sites. And one can get into "challenging situations" when it comes to focusing on organisations. e.g. the National Trust has it's controversial/political aspects and create an article about them as an organisation and you start needing to ensure balance (which means the "good" and the "bad" and that can get harder to achieve). PsamatheM (talk) 19:20, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I think that an article on a specific National Trust would be against the spirit of the policy, which says that companies don't get their own article. I also think that both organisations have two almost separate types of properties - historic homes and countryside which would make it harder to have a travel topic that covered them.

However the properties in the care of the NT / NTS should almost without exception have listings in the relevant city articles, and the organisations could be mentioned in the relevant country articles (currently only done on Scotland and England). Also remember the other National Trusts, e.g. in New South Wales. AlasdairW (talk) 21:38, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

You could do an article on stately homes and castles in the UK, which would cover properties owned/managed by National Trust, English Heritage, CADW, Historic Environment Scotland and others. -- WOSlinker (talk) 11:13, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

True, Historic properties in the United Kingdom would be the most appropriate title for the stately homes I think, and would be in keeping with the unoffical naming rules used elsewhere. That said the National Trust does A LOT more than Stately homes, they own quite a lot of Senic Landscape as well.ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 11:17, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Maybe create the page in user space so it has plenty of content before creating just a "stub" ? PsamatheM (talk) 14:46, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Has the "sleep test" outlived its usefulness?

Swept in from the pub

In light of these two diffs, I'm starting to be of the opinion that the "can you sleep there" passage in wiaa does more harm than good. It's simply too ripe for misunderstanding: we've explained and explained and explained to people that it's not intended as a hard-and-fast rule that says a town without a hotel is automatically disqualified from having its own article, but rather as a general guideline to differentiate the types of places that get their own articles (i.e. cities and towns themselves, not individual attractions therein). But this continues (understandably given the fairly ambiguous wording of the policy) to fall on deaf ears no matter how often we repeat ourselves. So I think it's time to come up with a better metaphor with which to illustrate this concept. I'm going to ping Powers here because I know this has frustrated him too in the past. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 04:21, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Agree there are some cases where no sleep is not a reason to remove the article but the examples you give are not particularly good ones. On Hazettville maybe a little more information should have been moved to the region article but unless someone creates a more detailed list of stores and restaurants for the place then it is not worth having a separate article. On the Westmoreland article the timeline needs to be taken into account. At the time of the original merge there was no useful information in the article. That has now changed, so an article for here is now justified. If wording needs to be changed then it should be to do with the amount of information the article has not how much information it could have. --Traveler100 (talk) 04:50, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

I really don't agree on merging everything just because there is not yet much information in an article for a town or city that actually has a fair number of sights, activities, hotels, restaurants, etc. However we define it, it has to take into account how much content an article reasonably could have as well as the amount of content it currently has. And I'm really not sure what metaphor or definition would really be clear enough. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:00, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

"How much content an article currently has" is in fact a very poor indicator of whether it qualifies as an article per wiaa. There are cities of millions of people that have less well developed articles than the one for Childs, a small hamlet with a population of a few dozen that's a previous OtBP and current Starnom - that's just the nature of the beast here. And for newbie contributors who aren't intimately familiar with the workings of our site, filling in the empty sections of a skeleton article is a much more straightforward thing to figure out than how to de-merge an article that's been merged and redirected to some more geographically broad entity. The determination should be made entirely on the basis of how much content the article conceivably could have, if it were complete. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 05:18, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

So it sounds like it might be a good idea to ask yourself a range of questions when considering if something counts as an article. "Can you sleep there?", yes, but also for the other 'main' sections; "Are there drinking establishments / restaurants?"; "What can you do?"; "What is there to see?"; or even more broadly "Can I imagine someone wanting to spend time there for any reason?"

Since having useful information under 'sleep' is a prerequisite for an article being 'usable', "Can you sleep there?" has never struck me as a bad guideline; the problem with the two diffs is with people applying the guideline too literally. Hence why asking a longer list of questions would guide people into sticking to the "spirit of the law, rather than the letter" and keep and develop articles for places that are obviously worthy of an article, even if there are no hotels. ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:48, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

It would be great to remove the sleep test, but I'm not sure how we are going to judge the amount of content an article could conceivably have. Conceivably a guide could be written about the tiniest hamlet with 2 houses, therefore the test will probably always be passed.

Could we perhaps require at least one substantial 'Do' or 'See' listing? (and not the Telstra style 'Church' and 'Town hall' listings) Andrewssi2 (talk) 11:49, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

I agree that there are problems with the sleep test, but I think we also have problems with (mostly unregistered) editors creating articles for every little place with little more that "Whoville is a town in Who County". These articles are frustrating as the links to them draw in readers who tuen learn nothing about Whoville. I suspect that most are created by editors who feel that they have contributed by creating articles, or who expect that other people will come along to fill out the articles. This is not a productive activity, and we must have a way of managing it.

Andrewssi2 may be on to an alternative test. Maybe something like "an article should be merged if it has fewer than three listings in the See, Do, Eat, Drink, and Sleep sections". This would avoid problems where a village ends up with an article because a business owners wants to let people know about his/her guesthouse or restaurant.

I understand AndreCarrotflower's objection to "How much content an article has" as an indicator of whether it qualifies as an article, and I'm trying to figure out how to balance that objection with the objection to contentless articles. While in principle empty sections of articles may attract useful edits, in practice we have lots of articles that just don't. Ground Zero (talk) 15:22, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

[edit conflict] That might work as a general rule, but if a region is quite well covered or being worked on, having a few places mere skeletons as placeholders might be better than messing up the structure by having them merged into the region article or some (not so) nearby destination. --LPfi (talk) 15:26, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Redirecting doesn't delete the content. If you're working on an article and it's redirected, you can easily restore the content and expand the article by going into the history and editing the version before the redirect. Not really a problem. Ground Zero (talk) 16:09, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

A church or town hall could be a great sight, indeed, so I would strongly disagree with excluding them as a reason for an article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:38, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

A church or town hall could be a great sight, but not simply the word Church or Town Hall. Andrewssi2 (talk) 13:46, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Under "Eat" we could put "restaurants", and under "Sleep" we could put "hotels" or "in a bed". Ground Zero (talk) 14:00, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

If there are such eateries – but then say so: "Several eateries along the main street, probably none for gourmets" and "A few bed and breakfasts in the town. You could probably find a cottage to rent at the lake". Them not being proper listings is not a big problem as long as there are enough beds that you don't need to book. --LPfi (talk) 14:15, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Somebody redirecting articles while I am working on them is frustrating, not a catastrophe, but merging the content requires some work and revering the merge is not always straight forward. Merging and redirecting, reverting, and again getting merged and redirected because of policy is a stupid way to collaborate. I'd very strongly advice not to merge if region or destination article has been worked on lately, and it thus seems likely the outline is going to be worked on in the foreseeable future. I'd also prefer keeping outlines without much content if the other destinations in the region have reasonable articles. One such outline is not that frustrating for a reader, it is trees consisting of mostly empty outlines that are the problem. --LPfi (talk) 14:09, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

The merger proposal process gives time for someone to say, "hey, I'm working on this - it will get better", in which case regular contributors will back down. The only time I'd merge without proposing it first is when an article will never qualify (e.g. a single site), or when the article has been untouched for a long time (as you suggested). Ground Zero (talk) 14:48, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

(reset) How about this one for a new test: "Articles are for destinations — not individual attractions or establishments. Anything you can fit into a listing should not get its own article".

Maybe it would be a good idea to allow listings not only in the lowest articles in the hierarchy, but also in the layer immediately above (lowest region article) for listings in small towns/middle of nowhere that do not have an article yet and might have so little to offer that they may not need an article at all. I've suggested it before but people didn't think it was a good idea. How would this sound: if the destination doesn't have a minimum of (say) three attractions and travel-relevant businesses combined it should not get its own article and listings should added to the region article instead. If needed — say a big theme park opens there with all sorts of amenities, we can later create an article for the destination and move the listings there. --ϒpsilon (talk) 19:23, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea. Happy new year, BTW. ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 20:28, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

I like the idea of some bottom-level regions (presumably rural) having listings for tiny towns and villages that will never have enough content to stand on their own. If the region article does grow to a substantial size, we can split it at a later time just like we districtify huge cities. Gizza ^(roam) 21:02, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

The issue of having listings on bottom-level regions was discussed at length a couple of years ago, without resolution or consensus. Might be worth re-examining. –StellarD (talk) 21:15, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the link StellarD. In the case of the Option 2 examples in Wikivoyage:Destination guides to rural areas, I would support creating new bottom-level article types called "island group" and "rural area". At the moment, we sometimes call these article cities (e.g. East Frisian Islands and Rural Montgomery County) while at other times regions (East Coast (Suriname) and Thousand Islands) which is inconsistent and confusing. It won't be appropriate in every situation as the wide range of examples in the discussion show but whenever it is suitable, I think calling them island group or rural area would make it clear that they are bottom level and can have listings. They will be the equivalent of districts for thinly populated spread out areas of the world. Gizza ^(roam) 22:05, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

There has been criticism from some (I can remember User:PsamatheM, but there have been others) that Wikivoyage is too city-oriented in its setup, and doesn't cover rural areas well enough, but what you propose could go towards relieving that. A mixture of city and rural entries is certainly what you'd expect in a Lonely Planet or Rough Guide book. I'm not saying we should ape them in every way, but they're successful for a reason. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 00:17, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

I think there is some truth to the criticism that Wikivoyage is too city-oriented and doesn't cover rural areas well enough. I'm not sure what the best solution is, but maybe DaGizza's suggestion would help. —Granger (talk · contribs) 04:26, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

I don't like the idea of listings in non-bottom-level articles. However, what could make a lot of sense would be to have a region with two children: The city and the remainder of the region, or x-number of rural subregions. I don't agree with insisting that each article have at least 3 attractions. Childs has one listing for "See and Do", with 5 sublistings. And Chiusure has one "See" listing, but it's spectacular and the village couldn't really logically be listed in any other article because it's sufficiently remote to be its own destination. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:30, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

The existing policy has exceptions (that I think we should retain) that would cover Child's and Chiusure: "... when that information becomes too large and complex (more than 3-4 paragraphs) should a new article be considered...." The list of examples also demonstrates an intent to allow articles in these two circumstances. Having separate articles for them would be easy to defend in a merger discussion on the basis of the policy. Ground Zero (talk) 12:10, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

(reset indent) Re: Sleep TestI would agree that the "sleep test" could do more harm than good and could actually have negative consequences (e.g. somewhere that deserves a listing not getting one as it's merged into an already too long page for somewhere nearby that does happen to have a hotel. It all comes down to "judgement" (rather than a set rule) and different people will always make different judgements but the thing about borderline cases is that they are borderline so it's not such a big deal. Having "rules" and "policies" (even with "flexibility") can be counterproductive as there will always be some who regard it as their duty to enforce such rules on the basis that they are rules. The challenge is to achieve an appropriate level consistency so there needs to be something. The challenge is that different places around the world don't fit into set rigorous rules and policies - too much variability PsamatheM (talk) 11:36, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Re: Listings at higher levels The difficulty is that different places around the world don't always fit into a single structural policy. Too much variability so I think it sensible to allow listings in non-bottom level articles. It all depends on the particular place, how it is geographically organised in relation to things of relevance/interest to a traveller. I'd be in favour of greater freedom with the author (who knows the area) being questioned but those questioning NOT using "our policy is ..." to push for "listings only in bottom level articles". Defer/accept to local knowledge with the qualification that some contributors might not be aware of the consistency considerations but prioritise usefulness to the traveller. There will always be conflicting pressures to provide clear, useful, accessible, etc. content and the force the world into a single structural policy is unlikely to meet any of those aims. Unsigned comment by User:PsamatheM

Thousand Islands is not a region article and has not been a region article since 2013. It is a vast bi-national rural area with a few villages (Marysville, Fineview, Stella - and including the latter is a stretch as it's on Lake Ontario), none of which have a thousand or more people. That said, I'd prefer that bottom-level destination articles be drawn in area so that one ends where the next begins, even if that means the 28' tall novelty architecture Big Apple (as the lone attraction in tiny Colborne, Cramhe Township, Ontario) is listed at Cobourg#Nearby -- which ends where Trenton (Ontario) begins. Yes, there are issues with certain things being taken too literally - like the section headers (is "Drink" nightlife, or is it somewhere to stick winery tours like Westmoreland (New Hampshire)#Drink?), the sleep test (do we assume that Cartwright (Labrador) is a city but stops being one the day the hotel burns to the ground?) and the concept of what constitutes "a city". In general, we size articles (and their geographic coverage area) so that the text is of reasonable length (as the print and mobile versions still matter) instead of following the official city limits. I'd prefer not to push listings into higher levels as that does encourage the condition where every hôtelier thinks that their tiny five-room motel absolutely belongs in United States of America#Sleep and it's just one more article which the voyager needs to print and carry-on as baggage. K7L (talk) 14:09, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

I think part of the issue is that our writership has historically skewed and still to an extent skews "First World" (in the actual 1950s definition, even: NATO and allies) and urban. Exhibit A: I am writing this in a train at more than 125 mph going from big city to at least moderately large city. It is thus only natural that we struggle somewhat with more rural areas and our setup is not the best for certain types of rural attractions. There have been several proposals to remedy this, all of them workable in principle, but none gaining all that much traction. Hobbitschuster (talk) 18:50, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

So maybe this was done to provoke the conversation (or just me) but this is a good western example: Randolph (New York). Town appears to have restaurants and a few shops but closest hotels are in Salamanca (New York) and Jamestown (New York). As it stands is just annoying click for readers to an empty page (yes I know it could be expanded but past cases have not). Andre I know you don't want to hear about this {from you) again, but you started the conversation again. --Traveler100 (talk) 06:26, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

I wasn't suggesting allowing small motels in the United States article or any of that sorts, but explicitly listings in the layer immediately above. ϒpsilon (talk) 06:50, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes, that struck me as a particularly absurd use of the 'slippery slope' fallacy. Surely the proposal to allow listings in bottom-level regions (especially for rural areas, or those areas otherwise lacking a large amount of tourism infrastructure) is better than having hundreds of near-empty city articles whose only purpose is to act as a vessel for one or two listings or a solitary routebox that can't be placed anywhere else? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:23, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Traveler100, if you had bothered to click "edit" and get a look at the <!-- hidden notes to myself --> that I'd embedded in the Randolph article, or if you had checked the article's edit history and looked at the edit summary I left, you would have seen there was plenty of content that I intended to fill in later - yes, including one of your allegedly nonexistent hotels, plus a couple of campgrounds to boot. I just got done doing that, and I even got the article up to Usable status. So instead of running with your baseless assumption that there's nothing to do or see in this town that I just created an article for, and using it as a pretext to unearth this beef that you and I had years ago, I wish that you would have instead deferred to my local expertise (I had earlier added Randolph to Cattaraugus County#Cities precisely because it would make a worthwhile article) and proven record as a valuable contributor to this site, and maybe just given me some time to develop the article before jumping down my throat. Sorry that I didn't add the content all at once, but I do have a life outside this site, you know. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 04:19, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

In the past few comments on this thread I'm seeing an excessive preoccupation with the reader experience, almost to the point of tunnel vision, and frankly I find that to be problematic. I think that at this stage of Wikivoyage's existence, the perspective of the editor, and in particular the newbie editor, is equally if not more important. Right now, the number one thing this site needs more of - even more than readers - is content. And the way to get more content is to make it as easy as possible for people to contribute. As I said above: for editors who are just starting to learn their way around the site, it's a lot easier to add listings or other material to a skeleton article than to de-merge an article that's been merged and redirected somewhere else. In fact, I'd go so far as to say the best way to ensure that no one ever adds information about a particular place is to redirect it to another article, which of course is a completely self-defeating thing to do if we want more content. And if readers are really all that annoyed when they come across a skeleton article (I have my doubts about that, but that's a whole other story), then let that serve as motivation for them to do something about it, and cross over from being a reader to being an editor, which we also need more of. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 04:58, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

And finally, mark me down as being in full support of Ypsilon's proposed solution. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 05:02, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

For the record, I also fully support Ypsilon's proposal. –StellarD (talk) 09:22, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Listings at region level for small settlements or attractions in rural locations sounds like a good solution. Also can add red-link to city list with text as alternative. Suggest have a review and additional input on Wikivoyage:Destination guides to rural areas. Can this be moved on from a draft proposal? --Traveler100 (talk) 11:28, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

I think it's a messy solution. I'd really rather have a separate city-level article for "Rural areas of [region name]" and put the listings there. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:37, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

So far, the main options seem to be:

• Replace tiny-town articles with articles about larger semi-rural regions
  • If you want to write about something in tiny Mulberry, Kansas (population 520, and home to the state's smallest newspaper), then make an article on Area around Pittsburg, Kansas, and stick it in there.
• Allow listings for tiny-town/rural areas in the next layer up.
  • Put the listings in Southeastern Kansas (or make another regional child of that region called Crawford County, Kansas, and put the listings in there).

I think that both of these could work. At the moment, in this example, people seem to be doing the second one.

In terms of the narrower question, maybe the "sleep test" could be usefully re-framed as a "36-hour test". The idea is that the test (usually) includes sleeping, but that the point is having a reason to be there beyond stopping off just long enough to sleep, on your way to your real destination. You could spend 36 hours in a large airport or any town with an amusement park, but you would probably not volunteer to spend 36 hours in Mulberry, even if it were possible to sleep there (which it's not, unless you have family and friends in town. The nearest lodging is a campground five miles north, and across the border). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:50, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing - I think the "36-hour test" is definitely a nonstarter. Childs - which, again, is a previous OtBP and current Starnom - would handily fail it. As for your list of main options, you're missing one: the status quo of tolerating skeleton articles unless they can be conclusively demonstrated to fail wiaa, which is the one I endorse. (It's true that I voiced support for Ypsilon's proposal above, but I don't see that as necessarily mutually exclusive with the status quo. If a skeleton article could have three travel-related listings, it should be left alone even if it doesn't currently have them; if not, the article likely doesn't fulfill the requirements of even the current version of wiaa.) -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 18:01, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

I have to disagree with the notion of if a skeleton article could have three travel-related listings, it should be left alone. This will just lead to 100s if not 1000s of empty articles. Clicking through multiple links in a region to find little or no information is just frustrating. Listing all settlements in the world is a task for Wikivoyage not a travel site. If I am visiting an area I would prefer to just read through pages with at least 4 or 5 entries. Better to have an area article or list on the region page. Once there is enough information then create the article. --Traveler100 (talk) 20:46, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Andre, I think some people could spend a happy 36 hours in Childs: Start at 7:00 p.m. with dinner at Tillman's. Sleep at the Fair Haven Inn. Spend the day wandering around the museum complex. (The formal tour takes two hours, but that doesn't mean that someone couldn't spend longer there.) Pick up lunch from Crosby's. Eat dinner at Tillman's again. Sleep again. Leave at 7:00 a.m., 36 hours later.

Now, whether we should have an article about a "town" that is actually just a cluster of buildings around one intersection inside Gaines, rather than an article that covers all of Gaines, is an open question, but I don't think it would necessarily fail a 36-hour test. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:32, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Again, can we all please stop looking at everything exclusively through the reader's eyes? Not to say that they're not important, but let's face it: at the present moment we don't have a very good product to offer the reader. So we need to focus on expanding and improving our content before we get into anything to do with attracting more readers. And that means we need to think about the editor experience more so than the reader experience.

Now I already brought up the point about how much easier it is for newbies to deal with skeleton articles than redirects, and the response has been crickets chirping. Let me rephrase what I said before, this time in terms of two hypothetical scenarios involving a newbie editor.

• HYPOTHETICAL SCENARIO #1

Newbie Editor X lives in Small Town Y. He hears about Wikivoyage and decides to see what improvements he might make to the article about his hometown. He types "Small Town Y" into the search box and presses Enter, and then up comes an empty skeleton article. Newbie Editor X knows about a few interesting things to see and do, restaurants, and hotels in his hometown, and it's easy enough to figure out how to add them to the article: just click "add listing" next to the section title. Within a few minutes, the article for Small Town Y has a few listings and is on its way to being Usable.

• HYPOTHETICAL SCENARIO #2

Newbie Editor X lives in Small Town Y. He hears about Wikivoyage and decides to see what improvements he might make to the article about his hometown. He types "Small Town Y" into the search box and presses Enter, but instead of Small Town Y's article, he somehow lands on the article about Larger Region Z. Now that's all fine and dandy, but there's nothing specifically about Small Town Y in the Larger Region Z article, and Newbie Editor X has a lot of things in mind that he'd like to tell people about. What he really wants to do - what he was trying to do all along - is to write an article that's only about Small Town Y. But how? Small Town Y is a redirect, of course, but Newbie Editor X doesn't know what that means. It's all Greek to him. He keeps typing "Small Town Y" into the search box over and over again, but somehow Larger Region Z keeps coming up. He eventually gets frustrated and leaves. The end.

Now do you understand why skeleton articles are important?

-- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 23:05, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

I guess the third hypothetical scenario would be Newbie finding that Small Town Y is a redlink (probably the most common situation for small towns outside the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand). Not that I support outright deletion of all skeletons, but from my experience of wikis most newbies will plunge forward and start the article from scratch. It will have the wrong formatting but that's fair enough since they're new. I wonder how many people were first drawn to Wikivoyage because of wanting to improve coverage of their hometown as opposed to their region (state/province/county) or nation, a destination where they don't live or a completely different article like a travel topic or phrasebook. Gizza ^(roam) 23:24, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

"I wonder how many people were first drawn to Wikivoyage because of wanting to improve coverage of their hometown" - I would say it's greater than the number who stumble across Wikivoyage in the course of looking for information on a vacation they're planning. We don't have the brand name recognition or Google search rank of a Lonely Planet or a Frommer's. As for the option of deleting all skeletons, I think the disadvantage of that is clear: in virtually every instance, those who plunge forward and forge articles out of redlinks end up creating stubs, which then have to be manually retrofitted into Template:Smallcity skeleton. With preexisting skeleton articles, that step is eliminated. I think having a few "annoying" (and are they, really?) skeleton articles in the interim is more than a fair tradeoff. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 23:31, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I agree that outlines serve this important role. My favorite example is Rock Hill, which I created as a fairly barebones outline, and a few months later it was expanded substantially by a new IP editor who went on to improve many other articles in the region.

I think the suggestion of a 36-hour test (or some other variant—maybe a 24-hour test or even a 12-hour test if need be) seems feasible and might do a better job than the sleep test of capturing what makes a place interesting or important enough to merit an article. The fact that Childs only dubiously meets it is perhaps a sign that Childs is only dubiously big enough for an article—the article seems fine, but it's plausible that it could be covered perfectly well in a "rural area" article or something like that. —Granger (talk · contribs) 23:28, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Also, a piece of my response to Traveler100 that I forgot to add: "This will just lead to 100s if not 1000s of empty articles" implies that, in hundreds if not thousands of cases, people will go to the trouble of creating article skeletons for small towns and then not bother to add information. I think this is a stretch. (Yes, Traveler100, I know you took issue in the past with me creating skeleton articles for the sole purpose of adding them to routeboxes. In some ways, you were right that it was a stupid thing to do and that's why I stopped doing it. That doesn't mean I think skeleton articles, even the ones I created, shouldn't exist. And also, I created 10, maybe 20 skeletons, not hundreds.) -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 23:39, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Granger - I think Ypsilon's three-listing test is a better measure than any time-based threshold. By their very nature, some attractions simply require more time to take in than others, and I don't think that really correlates with their worthiness for travellers. In fact, speaking on behalf of countless people I spoke to in the course of my work in the hotel industry: those who don't have a high tolerance for tacky tourist schlock might very well find themselves bored at the end of 36 hours in Niagara Falls, and I certainly don't think there's an argument for that not passing wiaa. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 23:47, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is saying that a place only merits an article if all travellers would want to spend 36 hours there—just that some travellers might plausibly want or need to spend 36 hours there. I've never been to Niagara Falls, but from what I've heard about it, I imagine it must meet that standard, or at the very least the weaker 12-hour standard I suggested! Certainly some attractions require more time than others, but if a town is so lacking in attractions that no visitor would want to spend more than a few hours there, how can there be enough to say to fill a whole article? —Granger (talk · contribs) 23:54, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

I think the majority of towns that would fail one test would also fail the other. I'm not saying it would be impossible to find a time limit that's a rough approximation of the threshold between worthy and unworthy articles; I just happen to think that when it comes to edge cases, number of listings is a better metric. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 00:01, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Fair enough. I guess the most important thing to remember is that any rule we come up with is just a rule of thumb, and there will always be edge cases and oddball destinations where we have to use our best judgment and make exceptions as needed. —Granger (talk · contribs) 00:19, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I see a fair number of empty articles started by people who just seem to want other people to do the work. I think they make Wikivoyage look bad. I agree with Andre that Ypsilon's three-pronged test is a better way of managing this that a time-being rule that would be subjective. The existing exceptions should be maintained where a location has one or two really good and well-explained listings. Ground Zero (talk) 03:57, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Some thoughts I have on this discussion:

• I like the Can you sleep there? test as a good first question (not as an absolute rule), but I’m fine with a three-listing guideline that Ypsilon mentioned, or using it in combination with an hours test or other rules of thumb we agree on. When considering whether a small place should have its own article, be lumped in with another guide or form part of a “rural area”, I usually find a need to consider a number of factors beyond the sleep test before deciding how to proceed.
• I agree with Andre that empty or nearly empty skeletons shouldn’t be deleted if they could meet the test for wiaa for all the reasons he listed.
• I don’t really like listings in non-bottom level destinations but I think it’s OK as a measure of last resort when it's not clear how the listing should be handled (i.e., can't determine whether it should have its own article, be part of a rural area or included in a existing nearby guide). I find listings in region guides can overwhelm the See/Do/Sleep/etc sections and it gives me the impression the region is about the listings and not the important stuff in the cities that do have their own guides. I’ve also found it sometimes leads to listings creep where listings are taken from a bottom-level region and added to the next level up. It’s fixable but creates janitorial work to clean up. -Shaundd (talk) 05:55, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

finding a better way of encouraging new contributors is something we need to look at and I agree once a redirect is made it is not clear to a newbie how to create a city page. We need to think about a better way of doing this (maybe some sort of recreate button?). But there are already over 3000 city pages without listings, does this site benefit from more? --Traveler100 (talk) 06:58, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

I suppose Moldavia could be an example to think about. For readers, I think the current format is good, given our actual coverage, but is it ideal for newbie editors, either locals or tourists from abroad? Those would probably have info on places just mentioned (most redlinks have been unlinked) and places not even mentioned. I think creating a skeleton region subdivision with redlinks or skeletons for all article-worthy places is the last thing to do here, while encouraging creating and linking new guides also for those smaller places could work. The problem then is reaching the 9-threshold with small destinations without having intermediate ones even mentioned. The small ones may be so spread out that subregions would not help very much, meaning real work for some experienced editor. --LPfi (talk) 09:06, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Another example. Eltville] - has information on POIs in other villages in the area, namely Erbach, Hattenheim, Kiedrich and Walluf. Now all of these do have more than 3 possible listings (hotels, campsites, places to buy wine, ruins, hikes, restaurants, ....). In an ideal world we should put the effort in to create each of these pages and expand to all attractions in each. However it could be some time before this happens, so if we split this currently useful usable page we end up with 5 poor outlines with one or two listings in each. Is it not better to add to this page until the content is enough to start splitting into individual settlements? --Traveler100 (talk) 09:41, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Regarding newbie editors and listings in rural areas (including sleep) and tiny places not deserving of articles, I’d like to share my own experience. When I first began editing here, Southeast Arizona (an area which I know very well) was the barest of outlines, and inexplicably a bottom-level region of another region (which really should be fixed, when I get around to it). I did not know how to create articles, nor did I know how to deal with the random skeleton articles for places which in my opinion did not warrant them. So I simply began filling out the city and region articles, placing listings where I saw fit. Later as I learned about this site’s regional hierarchy, the assertion by some others that rural regions should be classified as ‘city articles’ simply confused me (and to me still makes no sense).

Now, after 4½ years of active editing, I’m still unsure of the best way to handle this region. Ikan Kekek’s proposal of having two parallel articles, one as a shell container for the cities, and another just for the rural listings, I cannot see working here. Perhaps to ease confusion I should add city marker listings to the dynamic map, so that both individual listings and population centers are shown on the same map. Some of the other rural regions highlighted in the discussion above are in more densely populated areas, so perhaps there IK's solution would work. I’m not sure this could be applied to every rural region across the globe, however, which is why I like Traveler100’s proposed amendment to the draft policy.

My point is that I think there should be maximum flexibility to accommodate any potential newbie who may happen along and want to edit a given region but finds the imposed region structure nonsensical and then doesn’t know what to do with it and gives up. –StellarD (talk) 12:37, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Bottom articles such as city articles should still be the primary place to put information and if a newbie (or whoever) wants to put some effort into a new article about a small town, then (in the most cases) I'd say go for it. Even if they do not write much, the article shouldn't be merged or deleted without looking up the place in WP, on a map or satellite picture. Does it look physically possible that the city meets a low threshhold of e.g. three travel-related POIs? Or are we talking about a hamlet of 8 homes and a convenience store that nobody will ever be able to write a serious travel article about?

Different destinations and POIs need different solutions. For instance POIs that aren't officially located in one city, but are in practice always accessed through it, it can be considered part of this city. "Lone places" in the middle of nowhere that cannot be easily tied to a certain city with an article are the ones I'd like to see in the region articles. If the aforementioned hamlet happens to have one (or two) attraction(s), the attraction(s) would also go in the region article.

Then there's IMO also another aspect of rural listings, that StellarD just brought up. If we have a regional article about Region X, and under it some cities plus just one "Rural X" article that would geographically cover so much of its parent article that we would in practice have two articles about exactly the same area; one with and one without listings. Wouldn't it look sort of silly? This is why I'd rather have such listings in the regional article, having them look like Suriname's regions. BTW I also remember discussions about the lack of content in regional articles so this would to a small extent address this problem as well.

On the other hand, if we get a ton of listings in a regional article (I imagine this will rarely happen), we can do what we always do with articles that have grown large — subdivide it into several rural articles and move the listings there. ϒpsilon (talk) 13:03, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Here's what I think will happen if we allow listings only for rural areas in region articles: (1) A lot of readers will think that's all there is in the region, not realizing that there are more listings in city articles. Yeah, even if we tell them so, some of them will miss the notice while skipping through the article. (2) We'll constantly have to police the article to remove listings for places in cities and towns that do have their own articles. (3) We'll have to explain why it's fair to exclude such listings, denying city listings equal billing in a regional article when they are very often more important attractions to someone visiting that region.

The problem with maximum flexibility for editors is that it also means maximum work for patrollers. We've previously taken steps to create bright lines, such as the policies excluding non-primary external links, inline links to Wikipedia and links to all garden-variety tour agencies. This would be going in the other direction. Try it if you like, but be prepared to deal with the issues I lay out, and probably other ones I didn't think of. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:14, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

I definitely agree with your predictions, Ikan Kekek. The question we should ask ourselves is whether such extra work for patrollers is justifiable by the improvements moving listings up the hierarchy would bring. Possibly not, as any extra patrol work by experienced editors is less time that those editors could be getting on with creating content, rather than managing other people's work. So if there is a move / consensus against the status quo (we're not there yet), then the city article-style 'rural district' articles, on the same level as city articles may be preferable. Either that or (throwing yet another option into the ring), having 'city plus' articles for rural areas, whereby a city / town and its surrounding countryside and villages are included in one article; this is something we already do to an extent.

As a point of transparency, I am always going to be in favour of pooling our content into fewer and better articles where possible (more meat and less bone or fat), to create an overall more complete-looking guide. In opposition to the idea that skeleton articles encourage new editors, while I don't doubt that does happen at times, it is usually the case that articles created as outlines stay that way for years and years, because we don't have enough editors such that we can rely on every country / region / city in the world having someone who knows the place and who is passionate about writing a great up-to-date article. A travel guide that has far fewer stubs and outlines, and more guides and stars, will always attract more readers, and those readers will be more likely to become editors, because success breeds success. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 16:52, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Wikivoyage is littered with empty articles that diminish the traveller's experience here. Special:ShortPages is filled with pages that tell the reader little more than "A is a village in B". Take a look at the 500th shortest article, Gračanica (Bosnia and Herzegovina). It says: "Gračanica is in Northeastern Bosnia, located east of Doboj and west of Tuzla." The article has been sitting around for five years now waiting for useful information to be added. The 1000th shortest article, Waynesburg (Pennsylvania), says "Waynesburg is a borough in Pennsylvania." It has been waiting for seven years for anything substantive to be added, and hasn't even been touched for the last 4½ years. And it's not some remote village in India or Siberia, it's in the United States, 50 miles (80 km) south of Pittsburgh.

Not all of the articles in the bottom 1000 are that sparse, but there are hundreds. (Maybe 10-15% are regional articles that contain links to only a few articles, but are useful for navigation.

I don't buy the conjecture that we are going to get many editors who start by editing their home towns and then become faithful contributors. It happens, but I think that most people who edit regularly do so because they are travellers who enjoy reading and writing about travel. I support continuing to put the traveller first. Ground Zero (talk) 18:41, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Copying my comment from Talk:Chora (Greece)#Merger? that's also apropos here:

"I think one element that's been missing from the ongoing policy discussion at the pub is the fact that getting an article to a place where its existence can be justified actually requires very little time and effort. Estimating liberally, it took me about half an hour of work to elevate Randolph (New York) from non-existent to Usable, and that's a situation where I took special care to craft good prose and be as complete as possible. Even if you multiply that by four villages on Alonissos, you still have a very easy fix that, more importantly, adds content - and I don't think there's any better way to put the traveller first [cf. Ground Zero's remarks above] than by doing that. In my opinion, no one has any business adding a merge tag to an article without at least trying to find content to add first."

-- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 19:28, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

We have the benefit of hindsight here. We know that although these articles have been around for years (Chora (Greece) has been around for almost a decade with almost nothing of value for the reader), no-one has turned them into useful articles. I also have been turning stubs into useful articles (Laguna San Rafael National Park, Campobello Island and Lane Cove National Park recently), but clearly we do hot have editors to deal with the thousand (?) empty articles that make Wikivoyage look like one of those business listing sites that just gather basic info and ask people to write reviews. Of course it is dead easy for anyone who opposes a merger to spend a few minutes to add a few listings to an article to shut down the merger discussion. Ground Zero (talk) 20:12, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Exactly. 2 years ago I started adding Sleep and See listings to articles that did not have them. Have done a few hundred in the United Kingdom and Germany and a few other places too. As of today only 6526 city articles left to do. --Traveler100 (talk) 21:05, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

The point that is being made is that we shouldn't be overeager to propose merging everything. If it's dead easy to add a few listings to an article, whoever would propose a non-obvious merger should do that instead of trying to crusade for a merger, not leave it up to others. The time it takes you to discuss a merger or even do one without seeking a consensus - which you shouldn't do unless it's really obvious (e.g., a district guide for an otherwise undistricted city) - could be spent adding content. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:02, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Wiaa starts off by identifying two principles, one of which is "Articles should be relatively self-sufficient so that travellers can print them out, put them in their back pocket, and use them for travelling around." The "A is a town in B" articles violate this fundamental principle. The old approach of proposing and discussing mergers has ensured that Wikivoyage is littered with non-articles. I would be more comfortable with having fewer mergers if we could agree that the empty stub articles can be redirected without discussion. Then we could focus on improving articles like Chora. And, as I've noted, those opposed to mergers can easily end the discussions by making the articles worth keeping instead of arguing on talk pages. It works both ways. Ground Zero (talk) 22:43, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

So can you. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:57, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I think some of us in this discussion are holding this site to an impossible standard. On any wiki, even huge ones like en:wp with behemoth populations of active editors, the work will by nature never be done. There will always be stubs, outlines, or whatever the local term for incomplete articles may be - that's just the nature of the wiki beast.

And, burying the lede a little bit here: though many people in this conversation are talking about how "readers are put off by seeing empty articles", "it makes them doubt the quality of our content", etc., I have yet to see any non-anecdotal evidence of this. In fact, the available evidence suggests the opposite: readership is growing, slowly but steadily, and the gap in Alexa rankings between us and Wikitravel is closing rapidly. Specifically, I would have to ask if the average reader even notices the abundance of skeleton articles. I think we can assume a correlation between reader traffic on a given page and editor traffic, and many of these skeleton articles don't have so much as a "hey, where can I find actual information about this place" on their talk pages. Other than those of us who seek them out intentionally, who exactly is being bothered by these skeleton articles? The one person every six days, on average, who stumbles across an article like Chora (Greece)? (And how many of those are actually people looking for information as opposed to editors clicking around the site idly, people who typed an incorrect search term, etc.?)

Perhaps someday there'll be a concerted effort, on the part of more than one editor working alone, to address this issue - it might make for a good cotm. But even if not, I think that even if only a tiny minority of skeleton articles ever see a meaningful amount of content added to them, the benefit of that still outweighs the drawback of the rest remaining skeleton articles indefinitely, especially if no one ever notices them anyway.

-- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 23:08, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Your points are well taken. To make a different point, I'd like to remind everyone that there is a status quo bias on this site, so those crusading to merge loads of articles have the burden of explaining why in each case and gaining a consensus. "Those of you who object to the crusade can add listings, thereby proving a merge is unwarranted" is not Wikivoyage policy or practice. So since it takes time to discuss and do mergers, I would again suggest that the amount of time devoted to this should be taken into consideration when deciding whether a particular merge proposal is important enough to make. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:25, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) I don't mind near empty articles if there was a better way to encourage readers to add more content. We do have the outline template at the bottom requesting the reader to plunge forward and help it grow but on empty articles with the skeleton headings, the reader may not see that template unless they scroll or slide down. On Wikipedia stubs, you would see a similar template after 2 or 3 lines so it much more prominent. But I agree that Wikivoyage is growing anyway and am not too fussed if we either take an inclusionist or mergist approach. Gizza ^(roam) 23:29, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Article status

I'd be happy for all the article statuses to be moved to the top of the article if that could help in any way. I'm not sure how much work that would take - if there's a consensus behind this, would it be a simple thing for a bot to be programmed to do? Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:30, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

I don't agree with putting our business (article status) ahead of the information the reader is looking for. Ground Zero (talk) 00:36, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Me neither. I suppose most likely contributors know what a wiki is anyway, and there are enough meaningless sites asking for contributions that a mere notice does not help. And if the notices are important, we should figure out what pages to link to – I think they are very unhelpful as of now. Why do they not explain what is missing? (it took me ages to learn how to find the status descriptions, and often tried to get at them via those links: very frustrating).

The current links explain our geographical hierarchy, discuss the merits and dismerits of outlines, present the templates, tell where to stick available info (first somewhat useful link for the one wanting to improve the outline), tell you may edit, and then how editing works technically. Does any of those present the info a newbie with knowledge about the destination needs, in a way that maximizes probability of engagement?

-LPfi (talk) 07:47, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Moving event articles into project space when they are over

@AlasdairW:, @DaGizza:, @Ikan Kekek:, @K7L:, @LPfi:, @ThunderingTyphoons!:,

In this discussion, there was a proposal that articles for events that are over should be moved from the article space to the project space, e.g., London 2012 games would be moved to Wikivoyage:Past events/London 2012.

It is useful to keep these articles to use as a base for articles about similar events, and there is going to be done interest in historical events. But once the event is over,nthere generally isn't anyone interested in updating the verb tenses and cleaning up the article to turn it into a historical record. For example, the article linked above says,

"The... Summer Olympic Games of 2012, will based in London, with selected events held throughout the United Kingdom. The official 16 days of the games will be July 27 through August 12, though some events will begin to occur before the official opening ceremonies."

Re-writing the article to make it a historical record wouldn't be a good use of anyone's time. While there is a banner at the top of the article that says "This event has closed and is no longer open to the public", let's face it, the article doesn't mean the standard of a good article anymore.

I propose to amend WV:WIAA in two places:

1. Under "What does not get its own article?", add the bold italic word in the following:

Festivals or events, except upcoming large-scale international events such as the Formula One or the Olympic Games.

1. Under "Exceptions", add the bold italic word in the following:

Upcoming huge international events like the Olympic Games or the soccer/football World Cup (as travel topics)

... but not purely-regional events such as the Windsor–Detroit International Freedom Festival, which are listed at city level. (After an exceptional event is finished, the article should be moved to Wikivoyage:Past events/Name of event.)

Comments? Ground Zero (talk) 01:17, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

• I agree, but couldn't we use a word like "future" in one place and "upcoming" in another to make it sound a little more varied? Selfie City (talk) 01:20, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
  • I think that using the same term reduces the room for confusion. The two statements above do not appear anywhere close to each other in the policy, so I don't think we need to vary the language for the sake of reader interest. Ground Zero (talk) 01:23, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
    • What about large annual recurring events, such as Burning Man? We seem to sidestep this by redirecting the event as a geographical place, but once the event packs up for the year there's nothing at that physical spot but empty desert. K7L (talk) 02:43, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
      • Since the next edition of an annual event would always be upcoming, there would be no need to move the article into project space. Ground Zero (talk) 03:08, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
• Good proposal, IMO. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:24, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
  • I agree, it seems like a good idea to me. —Granger (talk · contribs) 11:22, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Me too. Pashley (talk) 12:01, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
• If we do move the articles, then we must be sure to update the links to the articles on Wikipedia, as well as any internal links we have here. I think that it is immediately obvious to a reader that London 2012 is about a past event, so I don't see the need, but I am not opposed to the idea of moving the pages. Would having them as Past events/Name of event rather than Wikivoyage:Past events/Name of event make it easier for readers to find the article, which they may want to do after they get home from the event. AlasdairW (talk) 22:48, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
  • I think it would be very easy to find the article since London 2012 would be a redirect to Wikivoyage:Past events/London 2012. Of course links would have to be updated too. It would take some time, but could be done. Ground Zero (talk) 00:24, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

As long as we keep the redirect, updating the links wouldn't be essential (though it would still be nice to do, I guess). —Granger (talk · contribs) 03:27, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

For some reason, I didn't get a notification for this via email or through the alerts up top, but I do support the proposal. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 15:57, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Done. I took the liberty of adding words about leaving a redirect behind. Ground Zero (talk) 16:15, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

I believe that I have moved all of the past events according to the policy, with redirect left behind and in-article links fixed. If anyone knows of an article I've missed, please post it here. Ground Zero (talk) 20:06, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Dive sites, why not hiking, cycling routes?

Swept in from the pub

I don't want this to be another long debate, although this could potentially be a more important issue than the Genesis 1:3 quote or keeping/deleting the Esperanto phrasebook: I do not know how dive sites got to be on Wikivoyage. They're not quite like anything else on Wikivoyage. However, I've been thinking recently about why Wikivoyage hasn't reached the heights of Wikipedia. There are several notable reasons.

1. First, Wikivoyage and Wikitravel have for several years now been operating like competitors, and Wikitravel has managed to steal a lot of potential Wikivoyage readers and users. Having both of these competing, along with Tripadvisor and other travel guides, have stopped Wikivoyage from becoming the world's main travel guide in the same way that Wikipedia has become the world's main encyclopedia. Unfortunately, there's not a lot we can do about this issue.
2. Second, we lack content in many articles. Although major city articles are mostly well-developed and have been a Wikivoyage success, there are probably thousands of Wikivoyage destinations that are outlines - still. It would take a lot more Wikivoyage editors and years of work to change this, so dealing with this issue isn't very practical at the moment (unless we stopped debating, which is obviously not going to stop in real life - just check out #Let's improve the articles, not argue over minor issues to see why).
3. Third, practically every article on Wikivoyage has an article on the bigger site, Wikipedia, with the same name. Pretty much ever Wikivoyage destination is also a Wikipedia article. So why would people come here when there's a much more well-known site that covers just as much and more (think Wikipedia's biographies and other articles). However, we could deal with the issues of the second point: create some more specific destination articles so we could go more in-depth about travel than Wikipedia does. For example, create hiking trail guides that have a similar page layout to diving sites. The same could be done with cycling routes. I know most of these article possibilities don't pass the sleep test, but dive sites don't either - people don't sleep underwater while scuba diving. This one could be expanded and really improve the usefulness of Wikivoyage.

Finally, I'd like to say that if most people don't agree about this, I'm not going to continually debate it because improving articles should the priority. However, if we added these types of travel guides, it would give us more opportunity to expand articles and make Wikivoyage just as good as Wikipedia. Selfie City (talk) 00:32, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Go ahead. They would be Itinerary articles. I believe we do already have some. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:35, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

I just want to clarify first, though, that I'm here referring to (for example), a three-mile trail in a park; I'm not referring to the Appalachian Trail. What I'm more talking about is perhaps a guide to a three- or four-mile trail, with some pictures of the trail and a description of where it goes, or something like that. Selfie City (talk) 00:47, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

I think in some cases that can make sense. Land Art Trail on Mt. Učka is one example of an itinerary article about a shorter hike. Sometimes a simple route can be incorporated into another article instead, as in Florianopolis#Do. Another possibility is writing a travel topic article with information about multiple hikes in a particular area, like Hiking around Ljubljana. —Granger (talk · contribs) 00:55, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

I'd say more on hiking or cycle routes is a fine idea & anyone so inclined should go ahead & write about them.

Some existing itineraries like Karakoram Highway say something about cycling that could be much expanded. Pashley (talk) 01:48, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

We have a principle established in Wikivoyage:What is an article? that could be extended:

"Cases where exceptions are made include attractions, sites, or events that are... so large and complex that the information about them would overload the city article. A good rule of thumb is that information about attractions, sites, events, and transportation should always be initially placed into an existing article, and only when that information becomes too large and complex (more than 3-4 paragraphs) should a new article be considered."

I think that a hiking or cycling route for which we have more than 3-4 paragraphs in an article could be broken out into its own article. What we want to avoid is a bunch of articles that have no more content than "The Waterfront Route is a 3-mile-long cycling route in Springfield." Ground Zero (talk) 02:01, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Speaking of which, we could perhaps have an article about Rail Trails, where abandoned railway lines are converted for pedestrian or cycling use. When I lived in Australia, there was a nice one that ran through Clare Valley, and there is also the Coast to Vines Rail Trail. I've never completed them, but if anyone here is a cycling enthusiast and has done so, please plunge forward. The dog2 (talk) 02:18, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

We do have Hiking and Cycling articles but yes we could have many more. A good example of a short distance one is Ad's Path. --Traveler100 (talk) 06:25, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

In reference to the first point made, it is not that WT steals readers or contributors from WV, it is that Google treats WV as a fork of WT and whenever there is identical or similar content between the sites, we are the ones that get punished, always. From personal experience, any WV article which is 90% or more identical with the WT equivalent cannot be found on Google at all. And there are still many articles (I suspect thousands) which have not had a non-minor, non-bot edit in over 5 years. These articles are virtually ghosts on the internet and can only be seen by a link or search within Wikivoyage (or a sister wiki). And articles with an overlap of less than 90% but still quite high will at best appear on the 3rd or 4th page of search results. This severely hampers organic growth. And it's worse for some countries than others. Gizza ^(roam) 07:41, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

I have cycled on some rail trails. They're great. None of the ones I cycled on are probably long enough to merit their own article, but rail trails certainly can be covered in itinerary articles. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:37, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

One example cycle path that could be expanded is Little Miami Bike Trail. --Traveler100 (talk) 10:02, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

A lot of out walking itineraries are multiple day tracks like Milford Track, but there are some shorter ones, for example:

• Ben Nevis and Ledge Route and the Carn Mor Dearg Arete (Ben Nevis) are both day hikes up the UK's highest mountain.
• Hikes in the Lake District are two half-day walks in England.
• London South Bank Walk is a 2 hour city walk.
• A seaside stroll in Helsinki is a half day walk.

In the past there has been some negative comments on itineraries being "too personal", which did result in a number of itineraries being deleted. I think that we could clarify what are "personal" itineraries - whilst it is obvious that "stopped here to visit granny" is personal, it is not clear that one selection of a set of paths in the woods is. AlasdairW (talk) 23:01, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

For point 3 in the original post, of course WP is better known than WV. We should be taking advantage of that as much as possible by ensuring that there are plenty of WP->WV links. Pashley (talk) 02:25, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

See Wikivoyage:Links from Wikipedia --Traveler100 (talk) 09:20, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your input, everyone. I've just done a couple articles in the Tri-Valley area with hiking routes in mind: Hiking in the East Bay and the Ohlone Trail itinerary. I'm also just about to work on a shorter hiking itinerary. This is an area I know well, but I can't do these types of itineraries for every hike in the world. It would be great if others could work on hiking itineraries for areas they know, so we can really expand our Wikivoyage hiking itineraries. Selfie City (talk) 01:00, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

What would be really useful for me to see is how bikeable different places are. Information like "this highway has no shoulder, heavy motor traffic, and hundreds of roadside memorial crosses on it" is very useful to me. I don't know WikiVoyage that great, but I know biking. So some of this may be more relevant than other bits, but that's my context. Some traits off the top of my head that are worth considering for the voyager-by-bike:

- How many people walk/bike/etc on this road/around here?

- Will many drivers honk at you?

- Do the drivers give you room when they pass?

- Is there a narrow shoulder/wide shoulder/painted barrier/painted buffered barrier/physical barrier between cars and bikes?

- Could a family with small children take this route?

- Is there a sidewalk for pedestrians?

- What's the safest "getting there" route?

- Any local riding norms? Take the lane vs hug the side of the road, etc?

- How many roadside memorials will you see if you take this route? 0? 1? 2-5? 5-20? hundreds?

- Is this a recreational route, transportation-only, or both?

- Can I take the most direct route, or is there another, less-direct route I should know about?

- Are there any frontage roads I should know about?

- Are there lots of cars or not lots of cars?

- How's the visibility?

- Is it legal to bike on this road?

- How hard is it to find camping (legit? side-of-road?) in this area when you're traveling no more than 20-50 miles per day?

- Why do all the bloggers take this route, and nobody is taking this other seemingly-obvious route?

- Is the route paved or unpaved? If unpaved, how unpaved? Do you need fat tires or will a standard bike make it through?

- Are there any weather conditions or dangerous weather seasons (seasonal heat/snow/fire/fog/hurricanes/tornadoes/etc) bicyclists should know about?

172.58.19.12 18:14, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

I hope you don't mind that I moved your post, as the most recent post is normally at the end of the thread, and people will look for it there. I think this kind of information is great (with the one exception that we don't cover bloggers on this site, per what not to link to), but what I also think is that if you're covering that much information for a single route, it's probably best to take the next step and create an itinerary article about it. Please have a look at Wikivoyage:Itineraries (the "how-to" page on how to create an itinerary) and Itineraries, a page from which you can see lists of all itineraries within different continents and between continents. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:45, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Some of this information can also fit By bike in country, region and city articles, both in Get in and Get around. E.g. in Finland#By bicycle 2:

Most Finnish cities have good bike paths especially outside the centres [...] Farther from cities, where the bike paths end, not all major roads allow safe biking. You can often find suitable quiet routes, but sometimes this requires an effort. Locals often drive quite fast on low-traffic gravel roads; be alert and keep to the right. There are cyclists' maps for many areas.

The roads are generally paved well, although gravel roads are sometimes unavoidable. As long as you don't go off-road, you will not need suspension or grooved tyres.

Beware that a good bike path can end abruptly and force you out among the cars; the bike network building efforts are not too well coordinated. Also at road works, directions for cyclists are often neglected.

(and a few paragraphs more on traffic rules, hiring bikes, taking bikes on public transport, climate, terrain etc.)

There is a problematic middle ground, where circumstances vary from road to road in irregular patterns and you wouldn't want to describe every road. You can cover a few important routes in Get in if you can do it in a few sentences, but if the best route is difficult to navigate, you'd really need an itinerary article.

I made a try at describing a biking route in E8 through Finland and Norway#By bike (much of it is narrow-shoulder highway, but the former highway is left as local roads, or other roads can be used, and there are cycleways at some stretches).

–LPfi (talk) 10:45, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Does the sleep test really apply to remote destinations?

Swept in from the pub

This discussion has been evolving in Talk:Antarctica. Of course, Antarctica is a remote destination, and has many bases that should or should not be articles, but my main intent here is point out that, around the world there are extremely remote destinations where the whole point of visiting them is survival — how to get food, where to sleep, etc. Most people don't go on these types of vacations, but I'm sure there are some people that do.

For an example, let's take a fairly well–supported OtBP nomination, Guadalupe Island. There are no hotels on this island, almost definitely, and none are listed under the article's sleep section. The article instead suggests alternatives; it says that "you will have to rely on getting a room from one of the residents" and "[a]nother option would be to camp on the island". Should Guadalupe Island be turned into a redirect just because there are no obvious sleep options? A more than 23,000-byte guide article gone to waste?

The same is probably also true with a lot of the Arctic. A lot of these places don't strictly follow the wiaa guidelines, but they need to be included so Wikivoyage doesn't have "gaps" geographically, if you want to call them that. The point is this: some travelers/tourists will enjoy the act of getting to the destination, finding a way to sleep there, and finding a way to get back. Since the traveler comes first, we should serve those tourists too. Therefore, I think the sleep test should perhaps be reconsidered when it comes to certain places, like research stations in Antarctica. Selfie City (talk) 17:56, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

The key point not to forget is this is a travel site, not a geography site. Notability is an argument for a Wikipedia page. Maybe best though to keep this discussion in one place at Talk:Antarctica#Articles for individual bases--Traveler100 (talk) 18:11, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

I think the discussion on whether to have articles for individual bases is separate for how to reinterpret or maybe change the sleep test for remote places in general. I have also heard people define the sleep test as "you can't sleep in a museum" and hence not the question of whether there are hotels and so on relevant but the question whether one can pitch a tent there or the likes... Hobbitschuster (talk) 18:16, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't know about tent-pitching rules in Antarctica, though. I wish I knew. Aha — the answer. Selfie City (talk) 18:18, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

In future, though, I somewhat agree with Traveler100 — Antarctica talk ought to stay on Talk:Antarctica. However, if this is being covered as a wider issue including round-the-world destinations, it does belong here. Selfie City (talk) 18:19, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

I have understood that if you can pitch your tent there (possibly after getting a permit), and visitors do, then the destination passes the sleep test. No problem with that. On the other hand, you do not get an article on every block with a hotel, neither on every wood where you could pitch your tent. In remote areas, where hospitality or your tent are the main options, the split into separate articles simply has to be decided on other factors. --LPfi (talk) 19:26, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

If we have articles on scientific stations then there are other places that could have an article and contain more content; what about the accommodation and shops in Ramstein airbase or the restaurants and coffee shops in GM's Detroit facility or the accommodation and work options at High Desert State Prison Nevada. All more lightly to be visited by readers. --Traveler100 (talk) 19:35, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

I believe very few individual bases have enough to offer visitors to merit a whole article for itself. ϒpsilon (talk) 19:47, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Right, ϒpsilon. For example, summer-only bases wouldn't be included, and only the largest bases could do with such an article. I think Port Lockroy, McMurdo, Villa Las Estrellas, Esperanza Base, and a few other bases in Antarctica deserve articles. Normally Artigas would be a no, but WP has a lot of very useful information about getting to the place and what's there (although it's not well-sourced). I don't think Vostok, though, would make it. Selfie City (talk) 20:09, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Spanish WP was extraordinarily helpful when it came to Villa las Estrellas and Esperanza Base Hobbitschuster (talk) 20:17, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

What is the point of having articles like this one?

Swept in from the pub

In my opinion, the article is too small. Is this even a place of interest to tourists? I thought it was decided that the English Wikivoyage would only have articles of places that are of interest to travelers and not have articles about any place just because it is on the map. ויקיג'אנקי (talk) 14:19, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing out such an article exists. If this place passes the sleep test, hopefully someone can expand it — either through someone who has been there or someone who is willing to do research about the place. Selfie City (talk) 14:30, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Instead of complaining, you could just do something about it. Either expand the article if there's something to add, or merge it to a nearby place / the next level up in the hierarchy. If you think this is a unique case, let me disabuse you; there are plenty of outline articles like this on English Wikivoyage. They don't all need a pub debate. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 15:40, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

What harm is it doing? -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 16:07, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Or, what harm was it doing. ThunderingTyphoons! redirected it to Central Tennessee. I think this did have article potential, so I'm not sure about redirecting. Selfie City (talk) 16:10, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

If you can find a single thing to see or do there, and put that information in what was a completely empty article, along with the single possible sleep listing (a Hampton Inn, I think), and somewhere to get food, then by all means reinstate it. But a Google search for "things to do in White House, TN" came up with absolutely zilch. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 16:13, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Made a disambiguation page to include a well-known destination known by the same name. /Yvwv (talk) 16:15, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘According to TripAdvisor, there are 6 hotels in White House. Selfie City (talk) 16:22, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

I think the disambiguation page should be restored & a link added to it for Casablanca, which is "white house" in Spanish.

As for " I thought it was decided that the English Wikivoyage would only have articles of places that are of interest to travelers and not have articles about any place just because it is on the map", that does more-or-less hold for actual articles but it is very common to have redirects for lesser places. Pashley (talk) 16:29, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

6 hotels and what else? The sleep test can only apply if there's a reason for travellers to spend the night somewhere. The disambiguation solution is perfect. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 16:31, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

I did a bit of looking around, and AFAICT the best reason to go to White House is if you can't find a hotel room in Hendersonville (Tennessee). White House has a population of about 11,000 (and booming), but I couldn't find much to do in the city. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:15, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Are travel topics about specific computer games in scope?

Swept in from the pub

I know we have a wide scope when it comes to travel topics, but I'm not sure about the travel implications of specific games such as Minecraft tourism and Sid_Meier's_Civilization_tourism. There are some conferences held around these games, but shouldn't this be under Video_game_tourism (currently a redirect to Fiction tourism ? Andrewssi2 (talk) 23:30, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

"Are travel topics about specific computer games in scope?" - Yes, I think so, just like any other fiction tourism. However, I don't see the value or travel focus of the two new stubs you've linked.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 00:03, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

See Oregon Trail, which is as much about the 1980s-era educational computer game as about the actual real-life trail. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 00:22, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Sure, a computer game can represent a valid fiction or non-fiction subject. Does that then lead to every subject becoming a valid travel topic, or does there have to be at least some travel related content involved? (The two linked articles currently lacking this). Andrewssi2 (talk) 00:33, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

The creator of these articles has assured us he will be back to flesh out the articles in more depth. I have my doubts, but I think it would be good to allow a certain grace period before we delete the articles (which we should regard as pcv if they're not developed beyond what we have currently). -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 00:36, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

What about this text from WV:What is (not) an article: "People, animals, objects, or non-travel-related concepts (though sometimes notable people can be the subject of itineraries or travel topics: e.g., On the trail of Marco Polo and Astrid Lindgren tourism)." Emphasis on non-travel-related concepts.

The other one is "Companies, even those holding a de facto monopoly or those owned by the state (hotels, restaurants, bars, stores, nightclubs, tour operators, airlines, rail or bus operators, etc.)" Yeah, sure, Minecraft isn't a company technically, but you get what I mean; it operates like one. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 01:54, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

I guess the article is painting Minecraft as a community or minor cultural movement, which could be valid if they decided to complete. I'm fine to have a grace period, I just don't see the articles having value 'as-is'.

I also noticed we don't seem to have a travel topic dedicated to Computer games. Given there are significant tournaments and events held around the world, should we create one? Andrewssi2 (talk) 02:51, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

In principle nothing against articles on specific computer games but skeptical about these edits as contributing also editing Rocky Top, created by LibMod and edited previously buy Telstra. Suggest giving it a few day to see if improves, if not delete. A general article Computer games may be a good idea though. --Traveler100 (talk) 07:22, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Yeah, I'm pretty relaxed about travel topics (I created Deserts — for example), but I don't think Computer games is at all within our scope. We have quite a few users who don't like any travel topics not directly related to travel, and I do not think they would support a travel topic of this nature. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 13:34, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

It could be, I think, but it would have to be a good article, not something that smacks of page creation vandalism. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:08, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Basically yes, just like individual movies or tv series, if there are real world places to visit, individual computer games can very well be themes for travel topic articles. But the original author should not just create an article but take the responsibility to write a decent amount of content. Also a general computer games article can be warranted, provided that there exists enough places worth visiting for a decent sized article (and provided the person starting the article adds some of them). ϒψιλον (talk) 16:08, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

There is a Wikipedia article on w:Esports that seems to have good travel content. w:List_of_gaming_conventions could also be in scope. Andrewssi2 (talk) 01:26, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Does Wikivoyage need to add articles on the type of sightseeing spot?

Swept in from the pub

I have been active on Chinese Wikivoyage for more than four years, but many netizens have responded that Wikivoyages can't create sightseeing spot articles, and instead go to Wikipedia to watch sightseeing spot articles, so Wikivoyage is not an attractive condition, even though Wikivoyages is a travel guide website, but they want to know the details of the sightseeing spot need to go to Wikipedia, very troublesome.

I know the specifications of Wikivoyage to create articles, but their reaction is also worth discussing this topic us. so does the Wikivoyage need to add articles on the type of sightseeing spot?

I think the sightseeing spot article can cover the chapters of arrival, history, characteristics and nearby etc. If everyone can agree with me, I hope that everyone can provide more opinions so that Wikivoyage can become a diversified travel guide. Thanks.--✈ IGOR ／ ✉ TALK?! ^{．WIKIVOYAGER !} 13:36, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

We can say some details and not descriptive, but I oppose to create new articles. --Streetdeck (talk) 14:24, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

The Chinese Wikivoyage can do whatever it wants. The English Wikivoyage isn't in control of the Chinese Wikivoyage. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:03, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

@IGOR: I don't really understand. Can you link to an example of what you're describing on Chinese WV? --Bigpeteb (talk) 18:04, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, and equally, if Yuri or any other member of the English Wikivoyage community would like to change our policy on attraction articles, they need only head over to Wikivoyage talk:What is an article? and make a proposal.

As things stand, we have a rough guideline for whether attractions get articles or not called the "sleep test" - can a traveller legally sleep there? This way, Disneyland Paris gets an article, but the Eiffel Tower does not. But we can and should add enough information about the tower, both of practical use and just stuff that is interesting for visitors, to Paris/7th arrondissement. Any new proposal would have to address and counter this longstanding arrangement. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 18:05, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

As everyone said, I also tried to explain it to netizens, but it seems that they can't accept our policy. This is what I explained to Chinese netizens.--✈ IGOR ／ ✉ TALK?! ^{．WIKIVOYAGER !} 23:46, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Zhizu wants me to download an app just to read the comments, which I'm not going to do, so all I can read is the badly translated OP by Summer of the World. Some of her criticisms make no sense, probably due to getting lost in translation. They are about the Chinese Wikivoyage, of course, but I doubt Chinese Wikivoyagers are indulging in self-promotion within the travel guide. If they are, then it should be obvious what you need to do. One of her points is that you won't find opening hours for a particular park on Wikivoyage - did she forget that this is a wiki, and that she can add those opening hours herself? That is exactly the information all Wikivoyages should contain, in my view.

But as stated above, the Chinese community can make any policies it likes for its own Wikivoyage. If you and your colleagues think articles for individual attractions would best serve your readership and encourage more participation, plunge forward! --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 05:55, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

@ThunderingTyphoons!: I am very pleased that your advice and view, Chinese wikivoyage and other language communities are following the same rules and policies. However, her criticism is that she does not understand the ecology of wikivoyage. Her criticism is not only the Chinese community, but It is all Wikivoyage community. I also explained a lot about the role of creating article policies and wikivoyage to her know, but she never agrees; of course, the article on creating sightseeing spot does violate the established policy, and our Chinese community will follow this.--✈ IGOR ／ ✉ TALK?! ^{．WIKIVOYAGER !} 14:55, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

@Yuriy_kosygin: Are we talking just about the opinion of one person here, or is there a group of people saying there should be articles about attractions? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 16:44, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Basically, there are both. --✈ IGOR ／ ✉ TALK?! ^{．WIKIVOYAGER !} 22:12, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

@Yuriy_kosygin: Some but not all famous landmarks redirect to the relevant section in a destination article. For example Taj Mahal redirects to Agra#Taj_Mahal, Statue of Liberty redirects to Manhattan/Financial_District#New_York_Harbor while Buckingham Palace redirects to London/Westminster#Buckingham_Palace. Large landmarks or heritage sites which pass the sleep test have their own article like Pyramids of Giza. I personally think many more famous landmarks should redirect to the relevant city or district. Colosseum and Terracotta Army for instance are redlinks. This would at least ease the concerns that readers have that our coverage of sightseeing is not good enough. Gizza ^(roam) 21:50, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Also see this related discussion nearly two years ago here. Gizza ^(roam) 21:51, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Articles on people

With articles such as Dracula, Frank Lloyd Wright and Voyages of Roald Amundsen (which all seem legitimate) should we still have a general policy against articles on people? /Yvwv (talk) 00:17, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Probably. We also have Ned Kelly tourism too. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 00:21, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

The policy says:

People, animals, objects, or non-travel-related concepts (though sometimes notable people can be the subject of itineraries or travel topics: e.g., On the trail of Marco Polo and Astrid Lindgren tourism).

The Frank Lloyd Wright, Roald Amundsen and Ned Kelly articles are itineraries. They are travel articles that list sites that readers can visit that are associated with those people, not articles about the people. The Frank Lloyd Wright article should be has been renamed Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, or something similar, to make this clearer. (Dracula was not a person, but a book, and the article lists some sites associated with the author, with films made from the book, and with Vlad Țepeș, upon whom the fictional character was very loosely based. Vlad Țepeș was not a vampire.)

Yes, we should continue to have a general policy against articles about people because Wikivoyage is a travel guide, not a biography site. Ground Zero (talk) 00:33, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

We also have "on the trail of" itineraries for Alexander the Great, Marco Polo & even fictional Kim. Some important people get redirects, e.g. Genghis Khan & Tamerlane. I'd say all those are fine. Pashley (talk) 02:24, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

It doesn't seem like the current language of the policy needs to be edited, but if it were, how would we make it clearer? Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:28, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

We do still want to keep general articles about people out. Someone's Aunt Tilly may have a very nice travel diary or list of recommendations, but we don't want Retracing Aunt Tilly or Aunt Tilly's Best of Southeast Asia Tour. The article makes it clear that notable people can be the topic of travel itineraries, which I think everyone agrees is good. Is the issue the article names being unqualified people's names? ChubbyWimbus (talk) 04:15, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

No. I don't think we've seen such articles, other than the joke article, "My House". Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:19, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Commonsense should prevail in this scenario, I will say. Of course, having an article about some random person's grandmother is beyond our scope, but regarding notable persons, I'd say it's within our scope. For instance, if people want to go to Omaha and visit sites connected to Warren Buffett, I'd say yes, that fits within the scope of a travel article. Perhaps we should apply WP's notability criteria in judging which people we can justify creating travel articles about? The dog2 (talk) 23:27, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

I would support keeping the existing policy in this case. Has there been an issue with this yet, or is this a solution looking for a problem? --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 23:35, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

The idea to write an article on Voyages of Greta Thunberg got a reasonable objection that articles on living people would be difficult to keep up to date, and to a neutral point of view. A person honoured with an article should at the very least be deceased. Some case studies are Astrid Lindgren tourism and Carl Linnaeus tourism. /Yvwv (talk) 00:10, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. We could write that into our policy, though I don’t know of any articles created about living people yet. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 00:14, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

If we're not going to allow articles about the voyages of living people, do articles about movie or TV series have to be about series that we presume are over for good and all? I feel like it should at least be OK to have articles about the voyages of someone who's stopped traveling or stopped making notable trips. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:34, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

With a TV series, I'd say the series should be over. Maybe exceptions could be made for a long-running series that is still on to have an article created for it. I think I'd support a general rule that living people shouldn't get articles, but if someone has a living person in mind, they can always make a case for it. "The exception that proves the rule" and so forth. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 11:07, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ We have a Presidents of the United States article but there is a president currently in office, so I’d note we already have exceptions in place to the proposed living persons policy. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 12:16, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

As I said, let's just apply commonsense here. I would not support a Ben Shapiro tourism article any more than I will support a Greta Thunberg tourism article because of how politically contentious these figures are, and political disputes are things we should stay out of. But if you're talking about a Warren Buffett tourism article for instance, that should be relatively uncontroversial, if someone knows enough to write the article. The dog2 (talk) 16:13, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. I'd also question whether either of those two people (Shapiro and Thunberg) have done enough to constitute a travel-related article. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 16:24, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Being a politically controversial individual shouldn't be a bar to having an article about your travels, if they're truly likely to be of interest to more than a small number of actual terrorists who kill people or something. However, young people hopefully have most of their lives ahead of them, whereas Warren Buffett may be old enough to have established most of the traveling he will do. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:37, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

How are they related to travel? Sure, they've travelled, but why would we spend time on a list of places Thunberg has spoken, or a list of factories Buffet has toured? They aren't important to our understanding of these historical figures.

Explorers are critical to our understanding of the world. Internationally famous architects have a legacy of built heritage that people want to see. Fans of books often want to visit places they've read about in novels about fictional people. These places are connected to the people in a way that is interesting from a travel perspective.

The list of cities and towns that Ronald Reagan visited on the campaign trail or during presidential tours would be exceedingly long and dull. (I also have a problem with or historical articles that are just lists of cities and countries.) Listing his presidential library and various museums in the Presidents of the United States article, on the other hand, will be of interest to those who want to understand his presidency, and can be the basis for a travel itinerary. Ground Zero (talk) 17:58, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

I brought my parents to Omaha because they are Warren Buffet fans and wanted to have a look at the sites connected to Warren Buffett and his company, Berkshire Hathaway. For instance, they wanted to eat at his favourite steakhouse, to shop at some of the shops owned by Berkshire Hathaway such as Nebraska Furniture Mart and Borsheim's, and to also have a look at his house from the outside (of course, without actually invading his privacy). And every year, thousands of shareholders travel to Omaha for Berkshire Hathaway's AGM.

To be clear, I am not starting the article because I do not know enough to be able write a good article, but yes, there is potential travel relevance for such an article if someone can do it well. The dog2 (talk) 18:14, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Superdog, if there’s some of that you want to add to Corporate tourism, it might appeal to that niche. But I agree with Ground Zero’s comment, which I think accurately summarizes why some individuals may deserve travel content and why some may not. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 18:33, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

To be clear, I actually agree with your points on specific individuals' travels, Ground Zero. I was just responding to the idea that someone's travels are off-limits for an article here merely because someone they are politically controversial. I think some of those explorers are and should be very controversial today. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:47, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

I think that The dog2 has made a case for a Warren Buffet article. There seems to be something there to provide a basis for a travel article -- more than just factories he's visited, so I amend my remarks above. I think that might be an exception to a general rule, but it would depend on how the article is written. Ground Zero (talk) 20:29, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

In the case of itineraries and travel topics, doesn't it always depend on how they're written? Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:50, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

National parks with basically nothing for travellers

Technically, under the wordings of this article, national parks with absolutely zero things to see or do like w:Barakee National Park are eligible, despite actually failing the test (Here's the info from the NSW Parks website on Barakee Nat Park). Would the statement below sort of explain it all?

• National Parks with absolutely zero info on what is there, and zero things to see and do, and let alone eat or drink.

From all I know, these situations only arise in eastern Australia, Israel and to a lesser extent, Thailand. Never seen this situation arise in the US nor Canada, and don't know about most of Europe.

Would this be a good addition?

--SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 23:02, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

The guideline says:

Sleeping isn't all that travellers do, though, and there should be some content to fill out our other standard article sections. If there really is no place to find food, nothing to do, and nothing to see at a location, it's likely that the article won't meet the criteria established in this policy.

We don't have to have articles on every place where you could sleep. We write articles on national parks if we think they are interesting and worthwhile visiting, not to get a complete set of articles. And what is a dull place for somebody isn't for somebody else. If you feel a place is dull, don't write about it – if an article is created, better that it is created by somebody who appreciates the place.

I don't see we need any addition to the guideline. Has there been a problem?

The park you cited as example was already mentioned at Talk:New South Wales National Parks#Parks that will never get its own article, where I wrote:

The page links to this, which includes real information, such as:

• "Barakee National Park and Barakee SCA form part of a vegetated corridor extending from the Manning River floodplain to the Great Dividing Range, linking a diverse habitat assemblage and supporting a number of threatened fauna species. Vegetation communities are dominated by [...]"
• "Barakee National Park and Barakee SCA protect habitat for the threatened glossy black-cockatoo, scarlet robin, flame robin, eastern false pipistrelle, koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) and eastern bentwing-bat. [...] Other threatened species likely to occur include [...]"
• "The parks protect a high diversity of forest ecosystems and vegetation communities, including significant stands of old-growth forest and rainforest habitat.
• Although the parks are remote and difficult to access, resulting in low visitor numbers, Barakee National Park offers visitors a natural bushland experience. Nature-based recreational opportunities available at Ernies Flat include camping, fishing, four-wheel driving, swimming and walking."

I don't know how common these features are ([...]), but I get the impression that some people indeed would like to visit this park after having read the description.

That description includes the things to see and do (or part of them), I don't know how you interpret it as "absolutely zero things to see or do". And for drinking and eating, there are many parks where you need to carry your water and food, and which are popular nonetheless.

–LPfi (talk) 15:59, 23 August 2021

(I expanded the linked Wikipedia article a bit. Look in the history for the previous stub, –LPfi (talk) 00:22, 30 September 2021 (UTC))

how not to bite a newbie #2

Hi I received a deleted page notice that said something like "campground fail wv:wiaa" with a link to this page. It took some help from a helpful editor to get me to realize that that person was even offering me a link to a reason. All I saw was "campground fail" because wv:wiaa had no meaning to me. "Campground fail" also had very little meaning to me.

I know that it takes a lot of work to keep a wiki tidy and organized. This is a request to all editors with the power to tidy and organize to not use seemingly-meaningless abbreviations like wv:wiaa in delete notices without any context. Context is helpful. Please and thank you, and tell all your fellow editors wherever this topic is supposed to go. Lots of love.

Signed, A newb who cares a lot about welcomingness and works in volunteer-run collective spaces elsewhere. 172.58.19.12 17:46, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

The deletion message was "campgrounds fail wv:wiaa," with wv:wiaa being a clickable link to a page that explains why. However, if you didn't know that blue text was clickable, your confusion is completely understandable, and we can always do better. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:38, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

I agree and I do apologize for not being very clear enough. I'll take better care next time when dealing with articles that don't meet the criteria for an article. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:26, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Articles for complex train stations?

Swept in from the pub

It has been in the news that Howrah and Kolkata railway stations in India will be upgraded with an airport-like experience, and Howrah railway station is already the largest train complex in India. This means that very large and complex train stations might get its own articles just like very large and complex airports within the foreseeable future. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 08:17, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

That would require a discussion. So far, neither train nor bus stations can have their own articles. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:29, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Until such articles are warranted, I'll list stuff in the respective city articles instead and see whether they will overload the existing listings. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 08:32, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

I a little bit wish we could have articles like Public Transit in $CITY_OR_REGION_NAME. Often the main page goes into too much detail on this topic for my tastes. I'm a city person so I just want to read the barest of essentials, and folks who need more help can dig in to the details. Agree with Sbb, we should wait until there is content to support the creation of these pages, like in London for example. ButteBag (talk) 13:35, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Wasn't there a discussion about creating station articles a few weeks ago? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 13:56, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes. It didn't focus on stations, though.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 14:00, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Linking Wikivoyage talk:Airport Expedition#Metropolitan airport, train and bus station articles if the former doesn't work. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 14:02, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

I have no objection in principle to having articles about complex train stations. I could see such articles being useful for travellers to countries like China or Japan, where stations some stations can be a really complex maze with many different lines. If you've been to the train stations in Tokyo or Shanghai, you'll find that some of them can be as complex to navigate as airports. The dog2 (talk) 15:36, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

+1 to ButteBag's suggestion of more articles like Public transit in the Bay Area and Public transit in Israel. Unlike city folk, though, I sometimes wish for step-by-step walkthroughs (do you just need to buy your ticket, or do you also have to do something with it after you board the bus?), maybe with pictures (e.g., maps of train stations, what the ticket machines look like). WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:55, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Oh, huh, so theses articles do exist! I thought they were banned or at the very least frowned upon. Getting back to the original question, I thought airport articles were allowed because they often include hotels or a place to sleep. (I am a low information contributor, so please take this with a grain of salt.) So following that logic, if a rail station includes a hotel it should be OK? But for me... the whole "sleep" thing turns the Bay Area Transit article into something we should delete, which I don't agree with. I'd like to see something like:

• "Transit options of sufficient complexity (and with plentiful existing content), may be treated like the district of a city or any other bottom level destination page."

I don't know, just throwing it out there. ButteBag (talk) 18:06, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

I think you'd want to start with a slightly more general article, and build a single-station article only if we needed it. For example, we have Rail travel in India and we have Kolkata#By train, but why not write something in between the two? Public transit in Kolkata could be a very good travel topic, if you wanted to focus on travel within the city and its suburbs. The Rail travel article is more about rail service between cities. From what @Sbb1413 says, it would not be reasonable for it to have a solid section on Kolkata's main train station on some page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:34, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing thank you for your input. I've created an article on public transport in Kolkata and all I have to do is to link this article to the main Kolkata article. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 05:33, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

If you have two hours between trains, it is usually straightforward to walk out of the station and explore the surrounding area. This is rarely possible with at an airport. The shops in a railway station are usually available to non-travellers. Thus railway stations are much more part of the city that they are in. They may be a few railway stations which are more isolated from the city, like stations where you go through immigration and customs before entering a sealed waiting area.

We do have Rail travel in India which is a guide article which has been featured on the main page, but still has scope for improvement. AlasdairW (talk) 22:04, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

That's true for many parts of the world, but it's not universal. In China, for example, train stations are much more similar to airports in that you'll have to show your passport and go through security when you enter the building. If you have two hours between trains there, you'll spend them inside ... El Grafo (talk) 07:43, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

For stations like that, it may well be necessary to split the info off into a separate article, but these should be the exception rather than the rule, and it should be first demonstrated that the travel-relevant info is overwhelming the city/district article, not just that it could. If we do allow this, we're going to have to be quite strict on the requirements, because I really don't think that even stations like London St Pancras and Paris Gare du Nord (which do have sealed-off areas behind passport control) need separate articles, but the temptation might be there to create those once we have others.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 09:27, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Public transit in London and Public transit in Paris would both make useful travel topics. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:35, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

And naturally, Public transit in Tokyo too. The dog2 (talk) 16:38, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

We also have Public transport in Sydney, Public transport in Stockholm and Trams in Melbourne as well. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 20:55, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

London Underground was a topic that existed previously before being redirected. I would have no objections to some of the Lengthy Get around material in London being moved to it's own topic page, with a summarised version in the main Lodnon article. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 08:32, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

It even had a banner that could be re-used - File:London_Underground_banner.jpg , although a Red London Bus or black cab might be more representative of the topic. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 08:35, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Since an underground expansion in 2017, Stockholm's central station is notoriously complex, but it is not really a destination in its own right. The station could most suitably be described in the Public transportation in Stockholm County article. /Yvwv (talk) 11:49, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘So what was the outcome of this?

Creating pages for complex train & bus stations is permissible, however it's a very high bar to clear. Before creating a new station article, it should first be decided that there is an "overwhelming" amount of pre-existing content. Generally speaking, it would be preferable to create a new travel topic page Public transit in $LOCATION, before any individual station pages.

Does that sound about right? --ButteBag (talk) 19:35, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

I doubt it. How about:

This site does not have pages for complex train & bus stations. Before starting one, you must demonstrate that there is an overwhelming amount of pre-existing content and attain a consensus behind your proposal. Generally speaking, it would be preferable to create a new travel topic page Public transit in $LOCATION, before any individual station pages.

Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:55, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

We might suggest Rail travel in $LOCATION as another useful name.

The points of difference between these two appear to be:

• whether it's "permissible" or "hasn't happened yet" (Ikan, I assume you're trying to make a statement of fact, rather than prohibiting them? The wording will be interpreted both ways.)
• whether you need to get written permission in advance.

Are there any other key points? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:01, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

It is currently prohibited. Permitting it would require a discussion. That accounts for the phrasing I propose. The default answer is "No", and to get to "Yes", there would need to be a convincing argument. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:53, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Another question, whether the name of the travel topic should be "Public transit in Foobar", "Public transport in Foobar" or "Public transportation in Foobar", as it would solve the inconsistency among the names Public transportation, Public transport in Sydney and Public transit in Israel. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 05:15, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

I think this boils down to ENGVAR. Public transportation is an American term, public transport is a British term (also used in British-influenced varieties of English), while public transit is a mix-mash of the two. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 07:24, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

No reason to standardize/standardise across the site, in my opinion. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:51, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

If the thing boils down to ENGVAR, I'll stop talking about such so-called "inconsistencies", as the different words meaning the "conveyance of people from one place to another" are associated with certain English variants. The name Public transport in Kolkata and Howrah is fine as India use British English and "public transport" is the British term. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 18:18, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Does Wikovoyage accept articles about individual castles?

Swept in from the pub

Some castles are very large, UNESCO level, need their own maps, etc. But I checked and Louvre, Himeji Castle, Wawel, Windsor, Nueschwanstein, anything else I checked is just a listing, occasionally a section with several listing in an article about a given location (the only exception I found so far is Beijing/Forbidden_City. Is this intentional? Would any attempt to create an article about a castle or similar attraction in the form of a dedicated article be reverted? For more context, one of my students (see few posts above) wanted to write a guide for Suwon Hwaseong (a large castle, UNESCO heritage site, in Korea), now just a short listing in Suwon. Can he start to write stuff at Suwon/Hwaseong Fortress or should I tell him to chose a different topic? Piotrus (talk) 05:54, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

No, castles should be listed in the article for the nearest town. The Forbidden City is far from being just a castle. See Wikivoyage:What is an article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:59, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Most listings for castles have links to Wikipedia articles. You could add any info to those articles if it's relevant. -- WOSlinker (talk) 10:02, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

...but we have articles on some ruins (Ephesus), also on some airports. If it's a few pages long article with floor maps, links, pictures, some 'short history'/context info... I'd reckon such a castle article would be OK? Basically a better equivalent to guide pamphlet (or audioguide) you get along with your ticket in such places... -- andree 08:44, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

What article do we have that's about a single building? A castle is a single building. If this is more than a single building, I don't think it's just a castle. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:56, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Based on w:Hwaseong Fortress, this is much more than a castle and might fulfill the criteria of Wikivoyage:What is an article. But I'd suggest starting it as a listing and seeing how much travel-related (non-encyclopedic) information is in the listing and whether it starts to overwhelm the Suwon article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:59, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Yep, iterative approach sounds like the right way... -- andree 11:01, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Basically I was thinking about something like Versailles, sans the city POIs. Indeed, if it's just one small-ish building, it may not make sense. But if there are gardens, multiple buildings, various interesting statues or whatnot, I could imagine an interesting article (something like inventory, even without encyclopedic details). Just my 2¢ as counterargument... -- andree 11:00, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Suwon might benefit from Districtification. A major attraction could perhaps have a ===Subsection=== with several paragraphs about it.

If there are many important things to see in Hwaseong Fortress, then it might be possible to write an itinerary. Another possibility is adding it to the pages about Cultural attractions, like the Imperial tombs of the Ming and Qing dynasties. If you look through the list at UNESCO World Heritage List then you can see the many different ways various attractions have been handled. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:06, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

See also Wikivoyage:Listings#Historic buildings, sites and natural formations. A private mansion unlikely to draw visitors, would not be listed at all. A small castle of historical importance would in the typical case be a see entry. A colossal castle with various amenities (a gift shop, a restaurant etc) could have multiple entries in different categories. /Yvwv (talk) 11:09, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks everyone. I think for now I'll direct my students to work mostly on articles about cities/town etc. Maybe a province if they insist as some occasionally do, but probably city/town level is the easiest. Piotrus (talk) 07:51, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Waypoint cities

Swept in from the pub

I am wondering whether cities that are on a way to a destination should merit an article if the cities have other amenities but no attraction or activity. For instance, Rampurhat is a waypoint city to Tarapith (a temple town) in most cases and Rampurhat has hotels and restaurants but no attractions. These two cities along with Nalhati were merged to North Birbhum on the basis of "See" listing only. The same problem is observed in Kargil (a waypoint city to Leh), which has only one "See" listing. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 08:32, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

I also like to point out that travelling is not for pleasurable or pilgrimage purposes only. After all, we have travel topics on various reasons to travel. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 08:36, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

I recently wrote an article about New Italy earlier this month, which is a roadside town along a freeway. While it does contain a museum and an art gallery, it is only visited because it's a highway attraction. I think it would be fine creating such articles; I agree that travelling is not just for pleasure or the alike. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 09:08, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

I agree with SHB here. In some cases one-sight destinations are best covered in an itinerary, but they could also be mentioned in Get in and described in a Nearby section of the next town with article, or in some cases in the region article (if they are on an artery road of the region).

In this case Rampurhat and Tarapith are both handled in the rural area article of North Birbhum, which I think works well (although the article could be improved). Although the area is said to be "vast", there is just 20 km or so between the towns (that's nothing in Finland, but I understand distances in Bengal may feel longer). I don't understand the benefit of splitting it up if Rampurhat mostly is just a waypoint city of Tarapith. If the article becomes unwieldy, then one can reconsider.

See also Wikivoyage:Listings#Listings outside a destination and perhaps some of the long preceding discussion Wikivoyage talk:Listings#Listings outside of the destination, but

–LPfi (talk) 15:43, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

I want to split North Birbhum mainly to split Nalhati from Rampurhat and Tarapith, since Nalhati is a separate destination and may or may not be covered along with Tarapith. And I think Rampurhat can be best covered in Tarapith instead, since the distance between Rampurhat and Tarapith is about 8.8 km (5.5 mi) and can be covered in about 17 minutes. So I plunge forward and do the split. For Kargil, I will merge its nearby destinations to Kargil. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 08:21, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Yes. Do according to your best judgement. In this case your solution doesn't even conflict with the guidelines on the geographic hierarchy (if it would, one could rethink the division when trying to get some of them featured or up to star). –LPfi (talk) 10:11, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Using the advice on this page, I've just created Coolongolook, a town of ≈380 with zero things to see or do but popular with travellers heading north from Sydney and Newcastle (New South Wales). WV:OUTSIDE doesn't really give any advice for this, but I think it is a useful addition. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 09:19, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

I've seen that certain New York suburbs in Hudson County, NJ (excluding Jersey City) have very few "See" and "Do" listings, proving that a city that has few to no "See" and "Do" listings but has other listings (Learn, Buy, Eat, Drink, Sleep, Connect etc.) do make sense. After all, seeing and doing are not the only reason to travel. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 09:20, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

City or other destination?

@LPfi, Sbb1413: With no documentation outlining whether such waypoint towns should be in the cities or other destinations section, it left me wondering where should these be listed. I'm undecided on this; it's why I'm starting this discussion. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 10:53, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

A waypoint town seems to me by definition to be en route to a certain city. Shouldn't it then be described in Nearby of that city (and mentioned in its Get in)? There are of course special cases, such as when they warrant their own article ("city", if it's about the town itself), or when they are part of a "rural area" ("city" or "other destinations" in the region article, depending on whether there are more city-like places in Cities). Having them described only in Cities or Other destinations is awkward, as you would like to have their listings somewhere else, be they just a museum, just a restaurant or just a bus station (a bus station could be handled by a marker or listing in Get around, with no mention in Cities/Other destinations, but if there are restaurants and a hostel also, it could be a short city article unless there are other good solutions). –LPfi (talk) 11:20, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

I just realised I never mentioned why I asked this question, but I asked because I was wondering where Coolongolook would go in Mid-North Coast. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 11:25, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't know the place (never been down under), but it is described as a village of 300-some while it looks that the other "cities" are more or less real towns. There also are 11 "cities" in the region and only 3 other destinations, so i would be inclined to put it as an other destination. However, the other towns are also small, so it might fit in the list of cities as it is now. A few words more in the description (and some description for every "city") would make a bigger difference than the placement. –LPfi (talk) 20:02, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Border checkpoints

Should the cities that are primarily (or only) known as border checkpoints between nations be valid articles? If so, what template should we use for such cities? Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 18:32, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

If you just pass through, then a listing or subsection in a suitable Get in section (country, region, nearby town) would suffice. If it is a real city, even a dull one, then I think a proper city article is warranted. The small city template is probably the one to use. As the info should be linked from several places, I think the threshold for creating an article should be low, unless there is some suitable other article where it can be handled (perhaps in Get in or Nearby). –LPfi (talk) 19:14, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

There is a discussion at Talk:Jaigaon about a specific example where Sbb1413 has redirected an article about a town to India#Get in without transferring any information. I would ask that we have the discussion there about the specific example, rather than dealing only in generalities. Ground Zero (talk) 22:04, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

I thought I have transferred some of the information in Jaigaon to India#Bhutan as a summary, something I have done with Benapole and Panitanki. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 04:44, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

You didn't transfer any information about the town in this edit. The hotel listings, which are the valuable information were not transferred, and they shouldn't be, but where should they go?. If you have an opinion on whether the Jaigaon article should be restored or not, you should express it at Talk:Jaigaon. Ground Zero (talk) 11:45, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

There is a similar discussion at Talk:Hasimara. That article had a listing for the town's train station. Now it is redirected to a section of the India article that doesn't mention the town. Ground Zero (talk) 12:09, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

I haven't looked at these specific articles yet, but in general I think it's useful to provide information about border towns, even boring ones. They're often visited by travellers for a variety of reasons, and it's not uncommon to end up spending a day or more there – to change forms of transportation, to take advantage of different laws on the other side of the border, or to deal with visa issues. Many years ago (long before the Schengen Agreement) some of my relatives were stuck at the border between Spain and France for several weeks due to a visa issue.

So we can provide a valuable service by giving advice about border towns (hotels, restaurants, practicalities like ATMs and photocopy places, the border crossing itself, and whatever the most interesting attractions are in case a traveller is stuck at a border and needs to pass the time). I've worked on articles like Desaguadero, Villazón and La Quiaca, and Chuy with these considerations in mind. —Granger (talk · contribs) 02:15, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree. However, should that be extended to border crossings in the middle of nowhere? We have a few in Finland, where the nearest town is quite some distance away (50 km to Ivalo from Raja-Jooseppi, described in the fifth paragraph of Urho Kekkonen National Park#Get in). Kivilompolo in Enontekiö and Kelloselkä in Salla are similar (some 20–50 km from the towns); the nearest lodgings could be mentioned along with suggestions for wild camping and advice on services (go for the town). A redirect to a relevant article and a paragraph or two in Get in might be ideal for the latter two. Now the names redlink. The articles on Russia seem to have no information on border crossings (I added mentions of ones to Finland to some articles). –LPfi (talk) 06:32, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

To reply to the question; it depends. If the border crossing is a complicated one and/or there is a lot that the traveller needs to know like common scams happening there, then it should get its own article (see Poipet). If crossing the border is easy, and the place is just a border crossing point rather than a town on its own, the information can be added to the article about the last town before the border, or possibly to the region article. Ypsilon (talk) 06:50, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Roads?

I propose adding a line in the section "What does not get its own article?":

• Roads and highways, unless they are legitimate itineraries. Scenic roadways can be mentioned in region or destination articles.

Thoughts? Mrkstvns (talk) 13:54, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

What makes an itinerary "legitimate"? Ikan Kekek (talk) 13:56, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

I would say that a legitimate itinerary is baased around points of interest (things to "see"). That could be great scenery, like on the Pacific Coast Highway, or it might be places of historical interest around a common theme (like a modern art tour, Civil War battlefields of a region, etc.) An itinerary is definitely not an ordinary highway that people use to get around or transport goods. Mrkstvns (talk) 14:05, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

I think an itinerary can be thought of more like a "plan" and that may, or may not use multiple roads. The road is typically not the crux of an itinerary, the theme is. A good itinerary might be a travel plan that includes recommendations for great places to stay, things to do, or even places to eat or drink (I could write an itinerary for a taco tour of Texas, for example). Mrkstvns (talk) 14:14, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Take a look at Illinois_Route_173. Does it provide any genuine value to a traveler? Seems out of our focus (not to mention ridiculously boring). Mrkstvns (talk) 14:00, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

The advice should explain what we mean, rather than using "legitimate", which is open to interpretation. The exceptions should include challenging or remote routes like Quebec Route 389, which may not be scenic, but its remoteness means tjat our article provides value to readers. (I created the article as part of my research for a planned trip there.) Ground Zero (talk) 14:24, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

The Illinois Route 173 article looks fairly useless in its current state. Still, some decent itinerary articles are based more on practicality than scenic appeal. Here in California, Interstate 5 is an ordinary highway and a not-very-scenic way to get from San Francisco to Los Angeles (for the scenic route, take the Pacific Coast Highway instead). But if someone is driving up or down I-5 for practical reasons, our article can provide value by recommending whatever roadside attractions are available and practicalities like where to stop for gas. In other cases, an itinerary provides value by helping travellers get from Point A to Point B when the best way to do that is complex (Kota Kinabalu to Brunei by land was formerly a good example of this, though nowadays that article is less useful because the journey has become easier with a direct bus). I think Wikivoyage has room for many types of itinerary articles, some that are more about getting from A to B and others where the route is chosen simply to be enjoyable. —Granger (talk · contribs) 14:31, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

I totally agree. Illinois Route 173 is currently a stub, so of course it's pretty useless at present. Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:42, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

[edit conflict] I think what is in scope for an itinerary should be defined in Wikivoyage:Itineraries, nor here. Anyway:

The challenging and remote routes are certainly show that the route does not need a theme and sights to be in scope as itinerary. We also have articles for many European Routes ("E roads"), which aren't remote and don't seem to be intended to cover a specific theme, but rather to help with practicalities and roadside service and sights. A good example would be Highway 4 (Finland) (part of E75). E8 through Finland and Norway is actually scheduled for featuring. Those highways are indeed used for getting around, and to the extent there are sights on the way, that's a happy coincidence (although the articles do try to include them).

–LPfi (talk) 14:43, 2 April 2024 (UTC)