Wikivoyage talk:Where you can stick it/Archive 2013-2018

Theatrical and concert venues

Theatre, opera and live performance are currently listed as activities to "do". I realise this point has been raised years ago (#Theatres and Performance Acts) but normally you see a show, you don't climb up on stage and "do" anything to make a spectacle of yourself (I hope!). I've been listing these as "see" insofar as the audience are passive spectators to these events. I'd also list comedy clubs as "see" and not "drink" if they are primarily stage venues. K7L (talk) 01:19, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with a move. AHeneen (talk) 07:41, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

As a performer, I agree with K7L, in a literal sense. However, I think people consider going to performances (or for that matter, movies) an activity, in a way they don't think about going to museums or art shows, because performances have a specific start and end time on a given day, whereas you can simply go to a museum for a couple of hours during a day when it's open from 10-6 (or whatever). Moreover, in the specific case of bars that feature jazz, rock, or comedy performances, it is certainly true that you may well be there primarily for the music or the comedy, but there is some likelihood that you are there to have the experience of drinking while listening, and the performances are taking place in bars, so it doesn't seem improper to put these kinds of clubs in separate sections of "Drink." The upshot is that while I'm not opposed to K7L's viewpoint, it is not the only one, and I'm also concerned lest a lot of time be unnecessarily spent moving lots of entries from one section to another. Do you think that is an important use of our time? Let's just say that if this proposal is accepted, I would not want to prioritize moving existing entries. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:29, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Museums do sometimes offer guided tours at fixed times, yet these remain things to "see" and not activities. (An exception may apply to specific educational programming where kids learn art or craft - activities - as a class in a museum or library building.) I see we have a fair amount of cinema, professional athletic, theatrical or musical performance already in "see" and am not proposing to go through large numbers of existing articles to re-classify listings. If existing usage accepts a spectator viewing performances as things to "see", the project pages should reflect this. I realise there are always grey areas and overlap - the British-style pub or "bar and grill" as restaurant, the hunting/fishing outfitter who also rents cabins or a hotel on a golf course with a restaurant, bar and marina. The question of where to put the comedy club may depend on whether the business appears to make most of its revenue on admission to shows, or on selling food or drink. We've traditionally allowed editors some flexibility in deciding where to list, just so long as a venue only appears once. I'd put "NHL Gardens. Passively watch squabbling, over-privileged owners and players show up for only half the regular season" as "see" while "City Memorial Arena. Skate rental, equipment, go out on the ice and get in shape" is an activity to "do". K7L (talk) 17:27, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Let's please not change this. Moving current information to a new home would require reconfiguring every well written article on the site, changing Wikivoyage:Attraction listings and Wikivoyage:Activity listings, and generally muddying up where to find information. For what benefit? You could argue performance art belongs in either "see" or "do," but the main thing is consistency, and our "do" section has traditionally been used for sports events and performance venues outside of bars. --Peter ^Talk 18:34, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Peter. As a side note, I would think that nearly every venue that serves drinks probably makes at least as much money from drinks as from tickets or cover charges, if not more. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:25, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Potential rename

First, I hate to bring this up as this guideline's title harks back to a much snarkier time in the project's history. That said, the title has a fairly negative double meaning (see #Where the sun don't shine) and I've been worried that I'm scaring off a new user when I add a message to their talk page saying "Thanks for your contributions, but please see where you can stick it". I'm struggling to come up with a title that contains a similar amount of snark, but can be referenced on a user's talk page without potentially making them think I'm telling them they should shove it up their... you know. Any thoughts? I know that this policy title name is a popular one, so I'm hopeful that there's a suggestion for something similarly humorous without the negative connotations. Anyone? -- Ryan • (talk) • 00:16, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Well when you put it that way... LtPowers (talk) 15:48, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure it was meant to be snarky. Evan said (at the top of this page) at the time, "The title is purposefully bad, because I couldn't think of a better one. Suggestions more than welcome (or just plunge forward and move the article)." On the MOS main page it was changed a few weeks ago to "Where you can put it". Shorter to type is "Where to put it". No humour in these, though. Nurg (talk) 04:37, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Some possibilities:

1. Where to put it
2. Where you can put it
3. Choosing a section
4. Everything in its place

Anyone others? I kind of like #4, which is mildly snarky (see w:Everything in Its Place) but still pretty clear as to what the policy is for. -- Ryan • (talk) • 23:46, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

How about "Where you should put it"...this sounds kinder/less authoritative to new users, but on the other hand, "should" makes it seem like this policy isn't set in stone. If concerned about sounding too snarky...just use a shortcut and cover the link with something nicer...like "Thanks for your contributions. We have a style manual that [[wycsi|specifies sections where listings should be placed]]. I've moved the listings to the right places." AHeneen (talk) 00:45, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

"Should" is more proscriptive than "can". LtPowers (talk) 18:35, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Chambers of Commerce

In the U.S. they sometimes coordinate visitor information services or run the regional tourism bureaus. Not sure if this reflects a worldwide view, though (Wikipedia). Chambers of Commerce are listed in a couple tourism brochures/magazines I've picked up, listed under titles like "Other services" or "Visitor services". My best guess is "Cope", unless there is no local tourism promotion agency (tourism/visitor/convention bureau) and the chamber provides tourism information, in which case it may be listed under "Understand#Visitor information". Sound reasonable? AHeneen (talk) 04:23, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

If there is a visitor bureau, I'm not clear on what services the chamber of commerce would offer a traveler. LtPowers (talk) 01:02, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Adding a Hookah Bar to a city's Food section?

Swept in from the pub

The city I live in has a Hookah Bar, which I understand to not be a terribly common thing. Is including that within the Food section within the scope of the project? It is the only Hookah Bar in town. Zellfaze (talk) 04:03, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Bars and nightlife usually go into "drink", as the "eat" section is for food and restaurants. K7L (talk) 04:07, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't know the answer to that (it is not listed at wtsi). Do they serve any food/alcohol? We stick bars and comedy clubs in the "Drink" section and if the hookah bar serves any alcohol, that would be the place for it. I don't think a "smoke" section with one listing would be necessary. AHeneen (talk) 04:09, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Even if they don't serve alcohol, they should go in Drink. It's a problematic heading, but it covers "non-eatery places where you go hang out and talk while paying the owner." --Peter ^Talk 05:04, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

I was wondering this myself, actually. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 05:21, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

They serve both food and drink. Most people come, smoke a bowl or two, eat some food, have a drink and leave. I love their hummus and pita bread. They have alright Pizza too. Thursdays are 50 cent beer night. I'll go ahead and add it to the Drinks section. If later on it becomes an issue, I'm sure that it will be taken care of (Plunging Forward/Being Bold and all that). Zellfaze (talk) 23:31, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Turns out that Hookah Bar is within scope and listed on Wikivoyage:Where_you_can_stick_it#H. Fantastic. Thank you for your help guys. Zellfaze (talk) 00:24, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

IMO, the "Drink" section should be renamed "Nightlife" to take focus off alcohol. /Yvwv (talk) 03:33, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

It's also for daytime coffeehouses and cafés. Globe-trotter (talk) 05:18, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree entirely. Drink is such a limiting name. - Cardboardbird (talk) 05:21, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

"Drink" was used to match the pattern of using short imperatives as section names (see, do, buy, eat, sleep). It looks even more awkward on fr: where it was translated as "Sortir/Boire une verre" ("Go out/Drink a glass"). I've also noticed that in the smallest villages "Eat/Drink" should be a single section as the only places selling drink also sell food ("licenced restaurant", "bar and grill", "English pub" and the like). Then there's the Starbucks-like cafés which don't serve full meals. Drink? K7L (talk) 06:11, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

We do sometimes combine the two sections—here's a star that does. I think the various stuff we put in there does go together. I'll hang out and chat/socialize after dining out at a bar, a club, a lounge, a cigar bar, a hookah bar, a coffeeshop, a teahouse, etc. They all serve that function. --Peter ^Talk 06:27, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps we can think about this section heading after the current Connect one. Meanwhile, I think Peter's description of what the Drink section means is about the best I've seen. --Inas (talk) 04:06, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

'Cope' section

Swept in from the pub

I see one problem with moving "stay safe", "stay healthy", "stay connected" or anything else to be subsections of "Cope"... the only one of the blank outline templates to include "Cope" is {{bigcity}}. It simply doesn't exist in the blank {{country}}, {{region}}, {{smallcity}}, {{hugecity}} or {{district}} outlines. (I haven't checked to see whether this matches the documentation for each of these page types). K7L (talk) 23:46, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Cope is sometimes where religious services are listed, such as in places where there are not many members of a religion or denomination. We can discuss whether such listings are very helpful to travelers or not (I think they can be), but they certainly wouldn't fit in any of the other sections you mention. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:50, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

What the heck is Cope supposed to be in the first place? --XndrK (talk) 22:56, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

→ Wikivoyage:Where you can stick it#Cope. --Peter ^Talk 23:11, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Cope doesn't work so well in big cities with well developed tourist facilities, where all of the things you'd expect to see there exist multiple times over and are relatively easy to find. And we're not really a directory service. --Inas (talk) 00:10, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikivoyage:Huge city article template indicates "Cope" is a valid section, even though it is missing from {{hugecity}}. It's useful for lists of consulates, high commissions and other embassy-like entities (such as Taiwan Economic & Cultural Offices). K7L (talk) 00:43, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

I would strongly oppose the deprecation of "Cope". I'm in the process of districting Buffalo, and as can be seen from the two district articles I've completed so far (#1 and #2), both of them make heavy use of the "Cope" section for information on hospitals, places of worship, district-specific print media, and other necessities. If this section were eliminated, I would, frankly, be hard-pressed either to find another appropriate section for most of this information or to justify omitting it. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 02:23, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Any reason for pushing consulates into district articles? They usually serve the whole city or region, not just the one district in which they are located. Also, Buffalo aren't 'districted' they're 'herded'. :) K7L (talk) 18:12, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

At the moment the small city article template is our most heavily used template and it includes a "Contact" section, which is supposed to contain listings for staying in touch (phone, internet, postal). "Cope" is supposed to be the dumping ground for travel-relevant listings that don't fit into other headings, and tends to be where everything from embassies to laundromats to religious services end up; adding internet cafes and post offices to that section wouldn't be much of a stretch. It has always struck me as odd that "Contact" became a separate, and standard, heading when we live in a world where phone and internet services are fairly common in all but the most remote villages.

In the cases where a town is small enough to warrant having individual listings in a "Contact" section then it would probably also warrant a "Cope" section. IMHO, combining the two in such a case helps keep the article more focused while still presenting a traveler with needed information. To the argument that this section could become a yellow pages listing, if we apply a similar rule to this section as we do with car rental agencies (if a business type is common, don't add individual listings) it would help keep this manageable.

To be clear, I'm not strongly married to the idea of having one combined section, but I think it would be a good way to capture information that is sometimes under-represented ("Cope") while de-emphasizing a section that isn't as important as it was back in 2007 ("Contact"). -- Ryan • (talk) • 04:38, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Spot on! -- Alice^✉ 05:12, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

The reason "Cope" is underrepresented is because it's unimportant information. It's basically a category to stack a lot of unrelated things, like laundromats, religious services and local newspapers. I don't think it needs to be emphasized. Globe-trotter (talk) 18:10, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Just because "Cope" is something of a catch-all category does not mean that the information is unimportant. Travelers who are religious, and there are a lot of them, will obviously want to know where they can find a religious service of their denomination. Travelers who want to avail themselves of local news or event listings, and there are a lot of them, will obviously want to know the name of the local paper and the URL of their website. Travelers who prefer clean clothes to dirty clothes, and that covers virtually everyone, will obviously want to know where they can do their laundry. If the result is that the "Cope" section ends up looking like a directory, so be it. I don't see the harm in that; the paramount question ought to be whether the information is useful to the traveler, and I think it's safe to say that it is.

When in doubt, I think it would behoove Wikivoyage editors to err in favor of including information, rather than withholding it. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 03:29, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Well said! (Especially now that the "Book Creator" option in the left hand panel offers the ability to select or de-select individual sections of articles...) -- Alice^✉ 07:38, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Sure, some people do laundry and visit religious services while traveling, but it's not crucial for a travel guide. Not at all even. It's daily life fluff that could easily be left out. To add Contact to Cope wouldn't make sense, because then every article on Wikivoyage would need a "Cope" section, and a lot of relatively unimportant information would be added to the articles. Globe-trotter (talk) 15:51, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikivoyage is not a telephone directory. K7L (talk) 16:07, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

If someone could direct me to the specific, written policy stating that Wikivoyage is to avoid looking like a telephone directory at all costs, I'd be grateful. Certainly Non-goal #7 applies in many cases, but where it comes into conflict with Wikivoyage:The traveller comes first I think the latter policy ought to take precedence (if the traveller "comes first", that means he comes before our other policies). The nature of travel guides is that they bear a certain degree of similarity to telephone directories. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 18:15, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

The reason consulates should be placed in city pages, instead of regional pages, is that the regions they serve do not match up with Wikivoyage regions. So either 1)we'd need to list which consulates serve each region (state/province level) or 2)just list the consulate in the region (state/province level) it's located in. Even then, a state/province might be served by multiple consulates for a particular nation. Listing consulates in a city article seems like the easiest option. Doing anything other than to not list consulates at all would necessitate the creation of a policy (with a few different criteria) to determine where a consulate should be listed. AHeneen (talk) 20:35, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

City pages I can live with... but the proposal was to push a consulate into an individual district Buffalo/Downtown#Consulates. That's overcategorisation. K7L (talk) 23:30, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Everyone agrees with placing them in the City article I think. Globe-trotter (talk) 15:51, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I quickly placed the information regarding the German consulate into Buffalo/Downtown based on a misreading of User:K7L's comments dated 29 January, 00:43 and 18:12. I agree with the overcategorization remark and will revert that edit now. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 17:30, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Cope sections do need to end up as Directory listings. We just need to focus on what would be useful for travellers. Some cities still have laundry services on every other corner, but in some it is actually not easy to find one (just realized I forgot add the Amman one). Some places have lots of gyms, but only one or two where you can get a daypass or pay for just a few days. They might be trying to sell you GSM cards but which ones give you affordable internet? Elgaard (talk) 13:28, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

I think the goal should ultimately be to have information like laundromats or hair salons contained at Wikidata as part of a comprehensive listings database. That way, we wouldn't have to overload our travel guides, but the information would just be a click away for readers. They could click for example a link for Catholic churches within a certain radius, auto-plot them on an OSM map, etc. --Peter ^Talk 17:55, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Using my work on the upcoming Buffalo district articles as an example, whenever possible, I try to add a few interesting factoids about each listing in the Cope section in order to jazz up the prose and make it look less directory-like, and at the same time, provide readers with some interesting background information that, I think, adds a lot to an article. I wonder if a site like Wikidata (I'm not familiar) might not be set up to incorporate that sort of thing. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 20:21, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

How to deal with diseases?

Swept in from the pub

Is there an example of how we'd like health risks like malaria etc. explained in country articles? Peru#Stay_healthy addresses each disease separately, while e.g. Brazil#Stay_healthy is just a short overview. Is there an agreed upon preference, or is it just a case to case thing? JuliasTravels (talk) 00:09, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

We also have Tropical diseases and a number of articles on specific diseases, including malaria. It seems worth asking where we should be drawing a line. What should be covered in a travel guide, versus what should be left to encyclopedias or government-run health advice sites? Pashley (talk) 01:48, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I would expect basic information about something like malaria on Wikivoyage, but I imaging in every particular articles, the explanation should be short, with a link to more info. That would however mean that it's not there when printed. I'm not sure how much of a problem that is. JuliasTravels (talk) 10:02, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

The really useful stuff to have for individual country stay healthy sections deals with particulars of treatment, geographic spread of infection, and language. So for malaria: Where can you expect high-standards of treatment for malaria and about how much would it cost? What parts of the country are malaria-free? How do you ask for x number of pills of doxycycline at 100mg in the local language? For that matter, what is the local term for pharmacy? (I didn't think to ask for an "apothecary" in rural Ghana.) You could go through those first three questions for each important infectious disease in the country, and it would all be helpful, and not duplicate what's at Tropical diseases. --Peter ^Talk 22:29, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

What I am interested is for Health Tourism and mental health abroad. For example travelers with Asperger's syndrome and Schizophrenia. My Aborted attempt at the Southmead travel guide should be seen as a specimen for wikidoctors. Normsdale (talk) 16:22, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Farmhouse

Where to stick recreation purpose farmhouses? --Saqib (talk) 11:00, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, you might need to elaborate. I'm a city-slicker so may not understand. If you visit the farmhouse for scones, tea and coffee, then Eat. If you go and pat the lambs and ride a horse, then Do. If you go and look at the animals, look at the old homestead and the various tractors/tools, then See. Do you have a link to the actual farmhouse you speak of? :) JamesA ^>talk 11:05, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

And if it's an agritourism location where you stay, it can go in "Sleep"! Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:56, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

You'll have to visit few links provided here to get a better understanding of farmhouses I'm talking about. --Saqib (talk) 12:40, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

I looked at Al-Jannat [1], Shangrila [2], and Al-Syed [3]. They look like combination park/theme park/resorts. My feeling would be, if more people go to these places as day trips than stay overnight, put the listings in "Do," and if more people stay overnight than do day trips, put them in "Sleep." It might be necessary to make a case-by-case judgment on each farmhouse. Or to make things simple, just put them all in "Do" or "Sleep," according to your best judgment in general.Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:03, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

They look like resorts (that is, accommodations) to me; they're not much of an attraction are they? LtPowers (talk) 22:32, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

They offer facilities for both day time visitors and night stayers. --Saqib (talk) 09:21, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Can you be more specific? Throughout this conversation, you seem to have gone out of your way to be as vague as possible. LtPowers (talk) 18:39, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Clothing stores?

Swept in from the pub

Would adding a section or three to a Buy section of a city for just clothing stores be acceptable? L. Challenger (talk) 22:17, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

In a longer "Buy" section with various subsections, one or more subsections on clothing stores is perfectly fine. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:16, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

In cities noted for their haute couture trends then the guides deserves sections about their more notable clothing ranges and the best stores for them to buy them. Normsdale (talk) 08:41, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, what sort of clothing stores? I'm not entirely sure that adding all the national chains would be too beneficial. --Rschen7754 09:45, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Very few of the clothing stores on the lists in the city I've been working on are national chains - there are neighborhoods full of them. L. Challenger (talk) 16:34, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

The key point to consider is whether the stores are of particular interest to travelers. If there is an entire neighborhood full of clothing stores then a general section about that neighborhood might be more useful than a long list of stores. If there are a handful of truly unique stores that would interest travelers, then listing those stores probably makes sense. See Culver City#Buy for a similar, although relatively poorly written, example of how the myriad art galleries and furniture stores in Culver City were handled. -- Ryan • (talk) • 16:56, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

One example (not ideal) where we already have such a section is Shanghai#Clothing. Pashley (talk) 16:39, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

An example from a star article with a lot of buy listings is at Washington, D.C./Georgetown#Buy. Georgetown is a big time shopping destination. I noted which major chains are where, since most tourist shoppers are looking for some of them, but only created listings for very small chains, local stores, and one for the Urban Outfitters just because it is a landmark. --Peter ^Talk 19:28, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback everyone - I added a listing for clothing that branched into Womens and Mens. How did I do? [4] L. Challenger (talk) 17:26, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I think that looks great, and will be especially great with descriptions ;) --Peter ^Talk 18:02, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

To "Buy" or to "Eat", that is the question...

Swept in from the pub

Parkside Candy is a chocolate and candy shop that's very famous in Buffalo. It also has a small counter where ice cream, coffee etc. are served. However, by far the primary business there is retail sales - I doubt whether many Buffalonians even know about the eat-in option. Does this belong in "buy" or "eat"? -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 17:55, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Buy. LtPowers (talk) 18:36, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with LtPowers. If it's overwhelmingly a place to buy these things to take out, I think it should go in "Buy." If you put it in "Eat," I wouldn't move it, however. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:41, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

That settles it, then. Thanks. I haven't added it yet but when I do, it will be under "buy". -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 19:45, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

format change

I strongly disagree with the recent change to format this page as a table. I do not find it easier to read and much prefer the prior format. LtPowers (talk) 22:38, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Really?? I thought it would be a no-brainer that keeping the wordwrapped text off the left margin makes it easier to scan through the entries. Other than that there is essentially no change except for the cell divider lines. What do others think? Texugo (talk) 23:16, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

I like the cells. I agree; I find the table easier to read. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:31, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Under the old format only one entry (suburb) is long enough to wrap for me. But the presence of the bullets mitigates any issues I would have if I shrunk the window down anyway; that's the whole point of bullets, after all. Tables are for when different pieces of data need to align; I don't see any reason for anyone to be skimming down the second column. It's the exact same theory behind our one-liner listings, which the entries on this page used to strongly resemble. I think the same reasoning applies to both. LtPowers (talk) 01:52, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Would anyone care to refute my argument against the table format? LtPowers (talk) 20:31, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

I have mixed feelings about this change. I do prefer the table style visually - it also provides a quick clue as to where the first section ends.

However, WikiTables are challenging for a lot of newbies to edit and for this reason alone I think there needs to be a good reason to use them. In this case, since it's probably only going to be experienced editors making additions or amendments here, I think the table format just clears that test. --118.93nzp (talk) 21:09, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Agriculture - where you can stick it?

Swept in from the pub

In Wikivoyage:Where you can stick it there appear to be no entries for agricotourism. Is picking your own apples/strawberries/blueberries an activity ("do"), a marketplace ("buy") or food ("eat")?

It looks like we're missing these:

• Barn dance, square dancing - "Do"
• County fair - "Do"
• Farm - "Buy" if the farm primarily sells produce, antiquities or souvenirs to travellers; "do" for tours, horse or wagon rides, corn mazes, haunted houses, "sleep" for rural B&B-style accommodations, "eat" if food is served for immediate consumption on-site
• Farmers' market - "Buy"
• Horse riding or lessons - "Do"
• Maple cabin/sugar shack/érablière - "Eat"
• Orchard - "Buy" if produce already picked and packaged for takeaway, possibly "do" for pick-your-own or "eat" if food consumed on-site
• Outfitter - "Do" (hunting/fishing as activity), possibly "Sleep" if cabins and campsites are offered or "Buy" if selling equipment
• Petting zoo, hobby farm - "See"
• Wagon ride, Hay wagon, farm tour - "Do" section
• Vineyard, Wineries - "Drink" if wine served on-premise, otherwise "buy" (wine sold for takeaway) or "do" (winery tour)

with all of these at city-level for the nearest village which has an article.

Do these look reasonable? I'm trying to place a "pick your own blueberries" in Nantes (Lac-Mégantic) somewhere but there's no wcysi for this. K7L (talk) 17:25, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Those look reasonable to me, although I don't recognize the term "maple cabin", and I don't think a farm would ever be an "Eat" entry - if the farm has a restaurant or similar business on its property then it would be more common to create a listing for that business than for the farm itself. -- Ryan • (talk) • 17:31, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Is this reasonable to add:

• Pioneer village - "Do" (historical theme park as living, open museum for walking tour)

The w:Pioneer village format is an "open" museum in which a large group of historic buildings has been relocated and restored to 1800s operation, complete with the various trades (agriculture, blacksmithery, manufacture of clothing and household items) being carried out as they were historically. Effectively a museum ("see") on the scale of a theme park ("do") and focussed on one region in one historical era, so it falls between two existing wycsi classifications. K7L (talk) 18:42, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

I think I'd put it in "See" (without the Wikipedia link). It seems more of a thing to see than do, to me.

I'd put a petting zoo in "Do," because it's about petting the animals, not just seeing them. I'm not sure what a hobby farm is. What is it? Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:58, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

These can be difficult, because there can be so many reasons at once to visit one farm. Trader's Point Creamery is listed in do section of Indianapolis, which I guess makes sense, but I only ever went there for the restaurant, which is absolutely fabulous. It's hard to handle that without a double listing, (especially in such a long article). --19:12, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Petting zoos should be in See with the other zoos; pick-your-own-produce farms should be in Buy with the other farm markets. While I understand the activity-related aspects of each of these, it's more important to my mind to group like with like. LtPowers (talk) 19:26, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

I guess the concept I'm looking for is a farm where one can see, visit or feed the animals.

It looks like agritourism just generates more "see also" topics which need to be put somewhere:

• Agricultural show
• Rodeo (event)
• State fair

I presume these are events and therefore "Do"? K7L (talk) 19:28, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, Do. Rodeo is already on the wycsi list, actually. Texugo (talk) 19:49, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

The article on agricultural show pretty much says it's the same as a state or county fair, even though these are separate articles as travel topics. K7L (talk) 20:16, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Re: Ryan's comment, as someone with a good deal of expertise on the region in question, I can provide some enlightenment on the subject of maple cabins. They're a very popular seasonal ritual in Québec, and to a lesser extent in anglophone Eastern Canada and northern New England. At the very beginning of the spring thaw (Feb-Mar), people go up to the sugar shacks (cabanes à sucre) to draw the sap out of the maple trees and boil it into syrup, with lots of merrymaking during and after the harvest including games, a big communal dinner where regional fare can be had - taffy made by partially freezing maple syrup on snow (tir à neige) is obviously a favorite. At any rate, maple cabins very obviously fall under "Do". -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 20:51, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

I've added the agrotourism entries, but have a couple of other questions:

• duty-free store

We currently have this as part of airports but not freestanding (at the border). Should the duty-free at the international bridge be Buy?

• event, fair, festival, rodeo

We currently have these as Do, but there are many of these that run briefly for a weekend or a week in each town. A subsection Do - Events may be justified if these are numerous locally. K7L (talk) 04:58, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

That is basically standard practice to put them in an Events subsection. Texugo (talk) 17:30, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

You could view my user page for an idea with crowdfunding. --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 10:37, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Shopping arcades

How about an arcade/laneway lined with specialist shops? These are prominent in Melbourne/City_Centre, and I also visited a few in London as well when I was there. See this for what I'm on about. On one hand, they are tourist attractions in their own right with historical significance and good photo opportunities (so, See). But on the other, they are retail precincts where tourists go to shop (Buy). Thoughts? James A ▪ talk 12:50, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

I'd say these generally should go in the Buy section unless the historical/sightseeing aspect is really overwhelming. As you are actually talking about an area rather than a specific listing, I don't see a big problem with mentioning it in more than one section either, if appropriate, though preferably not with both in identical listing format. For example, if it is already listed in See, you could mention it in the prose intro to the Buy section, and then highlight certain shops with Buy listings.Texugo (talk) 12:55, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

[2 edit conflicts] I think this calls for a judgment on what their primary purpose is likely to be for a visitor. The Galleria in Naples would be an attraction I'd sooner put in "See" than "Buy," but I might be wrong because I haven't been to Naples since 1998 and things could have changed sufficient to flip that judgment. I think when in doubt, put it in "Buy" and include a photo of it so that readers can see some of its interest as a sight. Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:58, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick input, guys. I think in this case, I'm leaning towards Buy, but will definitely put a mention into See with a link. I'll give them their own section seeing as there's so many. And should it be added to this page for future reference? James A ▪ talk 13:10, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Worship listings

Swept in from the pub

Would it be appropriate to add information on worship and religious services to city pages? If so, what section would it go under? Edge3 (talk) 22:49, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Cope?

New Zealand is probably one of the least religious countries on earth, but even here there are lots of travellers that would find this useful - especially for non-majority sect/religion meetings where the local in the street might not know too much. --118.93nzp (talk) 22:54, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

I have seen it a few times under 'cope' (e.g. Jinju). I believe it is appropriate as long as it traveler specific, with listing regular services that a traveler may attend but not going as far as long term activities such as bible study groups. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 23:04, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Buffalo's district articles (my work) have them listed under "Cope". -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 23:11, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

The Buffalo listings look like a good description for the many different faith options.

Is there actually formal guidance for religious listings? For example, would it be acceptable for someone to list Scientology churches? And how large should such a section be allowed to be without overwhelming the host article? Andrewssi2 (talk) 23:22, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

I'd say this is probably worth looking into. --Rschen7754 23:54, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

See Wikivoyage:Where you can stick it. "Cope" is for listing religious services, "See" is for religious structures of historic interest. Just as we would with any other listing type (hairdresser, post office, etc), if the list of religious services in "Cope" gets too long then we usually trim it, and anything that strays into proselytizing is usually removed per Wikivoyage:Don't tout. -- Ryan • (talk) • 23:59, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

And our kinda general rule, is that if there are so many of something in a city, that a traveller isn't going to have any problem seeking them out, we don't try and be a yellow pages. A church that has many travellers visiting it, or that gives services in English may be worthwhile mentioning in that case. --Inas (talk) 00:10, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Can I place a cathedral under both the "Cope" and "See" section if many travelers visit it for both religious and historical purposes? Edge3 (talk) 00:20, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

You can't list it twice. If it really is worth seeing for people not of that particular religious persuasion, then list it under See, including the fact that you can attend services there. If you still think it is worthwhile mentioning it under Cope, then you can add it to the prose in that section. However, in most of these case, I think a listing under See will be sufficient. --Inas (talk) 00:35, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I think this bears repeating. Churches are not hard to locate with a quick online search, in my experience. If there are a lot to choose from, they are probably easy to find, and if there's only one, then you don't have a choice assuming you find it in the first place. But I think it's far more useful to have good listings for the rest of the page, since most travelers eat 2-3 times a day, sleep every night, and want things to do during the day, but only go to church once a week, or on vacation often not at all. Looking at the aforementioned Buffalo example, I see that Buffalo/North Buffalo lists a whopping 18 houses of worship with lengthy descriptions, but 30 Drink listings have no description whatsoever. There's a happy median somewherel, but that's too far in the opposite direction for my liking. --Bigpeteb (talk) 15:00, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

A relevant discussion can be found here. For what it's worth, I agree with Bigpeteb. And aside from being once a week and being something that many don't do on vacation anyway, people who will go to church on vacation most likely have a strong preference for a particular denomination, and even most small cities have multiple congregations of multiple denominations. (The number of churches to be found in medium and large cities gets absurdly high). Taking all that together, this means that the likelihood of usefulness for any given worship listing is extremely low, and I would personally rather we not list them at all unless we are listing places that have service in English in a country where this is unusual. For anything else, it's easy enough to pick up a phone book. Texugo (talk) 15:10, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree with the two Andrews, Ryan and Inas. --118.93nzp (talk) 00:41, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

• I generally agree with Tex. There's not really a need to enumerate anything but a handful of significant churches (i.e. the cathedral and the structures that carry a historic designation), even for a large city. Purplebackpack89 17:29, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

And, I might add, if they are historic, they actually belong in See, not Cope. Texugo (talk) 17:56, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

I disagree. I am not a religious person and hardly ever visit churches or places of worship when I travel, but I can appreciate the needs of a religious person. A service in a non-popular religion at a destination, or a service in a foreign language can be very important to such travellers. I do not think we should list ALL places of worship, and those qualifying as landmarks should go to "See", but I agree information on otherwise hard-to-find religious services should go into "cope". PrinceGloria (talk) 19:53, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

I disagree with Purplebackpack89 and agree with PrinceGloria. There are a significant number of travellers who are religious and who will want to attend religious services while out of town. It is the job of a good travel guide to direct them where they need to go—it's really not any more complicated than that, IMO.

I think this is the perfect example why Wikivoyage needs to move away from vigilantly emphasizing that we're "not the Yellow Pages". Certainly there's a large number of things that could hypothetically be listed that will never be part of Wikivoyage's scope, but we should also keep in mind that just because a person is travelling doesn't mean all their day-to-day necessities - clean clothes, religious services, etc. - can simply be put on hold. And I don't see how forcing people to refer to a different source for that information like the phone directory can be reconciled with our goal that each of our articles should be the one and only source a reader needs for travel to that destination. (See the guidelines for Guide article status, where "not only would you not need to consult another guide, you'd really have no reason to want to: it's all here" is presumably part of what makes Guides better than Outlines and Usables).

Not to be vain, but again, I invite folks to look at the Buffalo district articles for a model as to how this could be done. In my writing, most of the congregations in any given district are listed (if Buffalo were a much larger city like Manhattan, I can see how listing them all might be a problem, but the fact remains that we need not limit ourselves to the two or three largest). As a counterbalance, our desire to avoid dry, boring lists of addresses and phone numbers is addressed by including lots of background information on each one, which also does the double duty of helping to further familiarize the reader with the history and character of the place s/he is visiting.

-- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 20:17, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

But, Andre, what goes and what stays? It's not uncommon for an American city of 100,000 like my hometown to have 40 congregations, and what if you're dealing with something significantly bigger, like the City of Homes and Churches? Furthermore, Prince's criteria seems to privilege the hard-to-find and uncommon at the expense of the larger, more prevalent congregations. Consider something in the South or the Heartland of the United States. In those places, foreign-language services (even in Spanish) are uncommon, as are any religious institutions that aren't Catholic, Baptist or mainline Christian. By Pride's criteria, we'd have the uncommon and leave off the common. I'm not sure I can abide by that, and this is speaking as someone who just wrote an article on a potential pilgrimage. Purplebackpack89 21:11, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure any change from existing practice is needed - if you want to add a church that isn't a "See" entry, put it in "Cope" per Wikivoyage:Where you can stick it. If there are only a handful of churches in a town, or if the article only lists a handful, then we have no problem. If the list gets long, just as we would with any other long list we can assume that churches are fairly common and replace the individual listings with a paragraph stating that you can find a church on every corner - we already do this with fast food chains, car rental agencies, and other businesses that are easy to find in a location. Do we need to make this rule explicit in Wikivoyage:Avoid long lists? -- Ryan • (talk) • 21:23, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Another way of dealing with a long list is to limit the list to nine or fewer of the more prominent places of worship. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:46, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

For the record - I find the lists of places of worship in Buffalo articles obviously too long, and the long description of each and every one suprefluous. This is not "know you parish wiki", this is a travel wiki. Why don't we list all dry cleanings, pharmacies and, for that matter, grocery stores for every location we write about and give them a background description? Seriously, I believe we should treat places of worship like we do embassies - give them a one-liner each. And while an embassy needs no further explanation, the "place of worship" entry could contain a very brief description of services (rite, times, language, peculiarities if important to potential attendee). I believe there is no point in listing catholic churches offering services in Polish when describing a location in Poland - this will be something somebody will easily find without the help of a tour guide, and I believe we're not here to recommend one parish over another. What will be of interest and great assistance is the one active synagogue or mosque in town, especially if it is not a landmark, or the one catholic church that offers this one mass in English at 5 PM every Sunday. Yup, uncommon over common, but then, travel guides are to point out the uncommon, unusual, interesting, outstanding and hard-to-find. This is the difference between travel guides and yellow pages. PrinceGloria (talk) 06:14, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I just reread the "Cope" section of Buffalo, and I would respectfully disagree with your reaction to it. It strikes me as a relatively brief roundup of highlights of houses of worship in and near the city, with addresses but without full entries, and it folds in some other aspects of tourist interest (architectural beauty, landmark status, historical importance) into the descriptions. I think that kind of roundup would probably be fine in any detailed article in which the major houses of worship weren't either blindingly obvious to any visitor or/and already covered elsewhere in the article. For a counterexample, in Florence, the most important Catholic churches are major tourist attractions, so it wouldn't make sense to cover them in "Cope," and since a link to their websites is given, anyone interested in going there for Mass can check without trouble. However, information about services in the synagogue and Islamic centre would be welcome, if someone wants to add them. So that's pretty similar to the remarks you're making about Polish cities. But chances are, there will be some church that's noteworthy as a tourist attraction in most Polish towns and cities, anyway, wouldn't there? And in that case, we'd providing a link to their website (if any) in their "See" entry.

I guess part of my thinking is that it isn't essential for every place to be treated the same way, or for every article to have exactly the same structure. Sure, there are required sections, but there are also optional sections which can be used or not used, depending on how useful someone thinks they are. We do have laundromats sometimes listed in "Cope," when they're not so easy to find, but in a neighborhood like Manhattan/East Village, listing laundromats would be ridiculous, as you can find one every 2-3 blocks. I think Brooklyn would be roughly analogous in terms of churches and synagogues: No need to list them except if one is a tourist attraction, as there are hundreds of them. Buffalo may be different, though, and the section is in any case well written and provides information that can be useful, so I wouldn't want for it to be deleted. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:46, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree about the Buffalo district articles, PrinceGloria - and in a broader sense, I find Wikivoyage's emphasis on brevity, e.g. the criticisms on this thread of long lists and lengthy descriptions as well as in countless other discussions I've seen here over time, to be something else that conflicts with our stance that really good articles should be the definitive travel guide a reader would need for the destination in question. Either we want to be the one and only source of information and include lots of information, or we want to include only the most important stuff and be satisfied with users supplementing us with other guides - we can't have it both ways. This is why Texugo's dismissal that "it's easy enough to pick up a phone book" to find out about religious services is so nonsensical to me.

Also, your description of my approach as "know your parish wiki, [not] a travel wiki" is erroneous. If you actually read the descriptions, you'll see that they deal in the history and identity of the destination as filtered through the story of the congregation itself. Speaking for myself, when I read a travel guide I want much more than a list of tourist attractions, restaurants, bars and hotels. I want to know the destination's story - when and why it was founded, what it's all about today and what things shaped its identity along the way. What kind of people I'll meet, what kinds of impressions I'll get. My lengthy background blurbs are bits and pieces of that information that, I hope, add up to a nice, vibrant picture of what Buffalo is and why. I don't think it's at all controversial to take that approach in one's writing on this site. On the contrary, Wikivoyage:Tone says that rather than featuring "bland and encyclopedic" writing, "Wikivoyage should celebrate travel, and [writers] should feel free to share the adventure and excitement of the journey and the destination through [their] writing", and I think it would be nearly impossible to accomplish that with dry listings of "a one-liner each", as you stated.

Additionally, Bigpeteb commented above that despite the presence of 18 places of worship in the North Buffalo article complete with lengthy descriptors, there are 30 entries in the "Drink" section with none at all. The plain fact of the matter is that I drink very rarely and have no interest in the bar scene, and I would be extremely hard-pressed to distinguish one bar from another in any but the most painfully obvious ways. I would like nothing more than for some future contibutor to add nice long descriptions of each of those places. But, until then, I'm the only one who's added any information of substance to those articles, and I did the best I could do.

-- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 06:54, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

@Ikan - to address the very beginning of your reply to PrinceGloria, the "Cope" sections at issue were those of the district articles, not the parent Buffalo article. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 07:06, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I see. Well, I'm OK with the worship listings in the first three districts on the list in the Buffalo guide. The list is more extensive in the North Buffalo guide, and I could see why someone would feel it might be too long and perhaps should be pruned, but unless we're worried about time for the page to load, I think it's OK to have that section, and for people who aren't interested to skip it. But what bugs me in that guide is the 8 "Laundry and dry cleaning" listings. Why are those needed? Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:14, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

(reindent) In your own words: "We do have laundromats sometimes listed in 'Cope,' when they're not so easy to find." I wouldn't describe laundromats and dry cleaners to be especially easy to find in North Buffalo (and keep in mind that North Buffalo is geographically much larger than the other three Buffalo districts whose articles are completed as of now). At any rate, it's certainly nothing like you describe Manhattan/East Village to be. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 07:47, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I have to confess, it's easy to see a lot of what's in the Buffalo guides as unnecessary or overly long, but I have a bias toward keeping it (or almost all of it; I'm still not sure about the radio stations and such) because it's good writing. If someone had put in a bunch of worship listings of the exact same houses of worship, but they seemed preachy or overly detailed as listings, I might be tempted to just delete them all, or most of them. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:56, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Andre, I do hope you are not attacking one of our fundamental non-goals, the point of which is that we want a focused list of recommendable restaurants, hotels, bars, etc. rather than a complete list like a yellow pages. It means that if we list everything, then we essentially revert the responsibility of finding the best ones back onto the reader and become a directory rather than a guide. Surely you agree that losing that guideline would be lunacy. The sense in which I referred to a phone book was actually another, which I think Bigpeteb was also pointing out: Listing places of worship is not actually comparable to listing restaurants, for example, where every traveller will likely need several. It is, in one sense, more comparable to listing different, exclusive things from a broad category - one ear-nose-throat specialist, one reconstructive dentist, one dermatologist, one podologist, one oncologist, one psychologist, one family doctor, one pediatrician, one veterinarian, and one geriatric doctor: yes, some travellers might need one specific type; most will not need any. The difference is that there are so many types of churches that, even strictly in regard to the minority of travellers who do insist on going to church during their travels, we could never have any hope of ever meeting the needs of every reader: Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian, Church of Christ, Jehovah's Witness, Unitarian, Universalist, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Mormon, Christian Scientist, Methodist, many varieties of Evangelical, many smaller Christian denominations, multiple denominations of Judaism, Islam, Hindu, Shinto, and Buddhism, and that is only a partial list. And these are generally exclusive, i.e. a traveller who cares enough to insist on church when travelling is also likely to care which type of church they go to. A Mormon is not likely to spend Sunday morning at a Baptist church, and a Jewish traveller is not going to Catholic mass to worship, therefore any list we could possibly make would essentially serve just a few random subpopulations and exclude many more, meaning that the entire section is completely irrelevant for the vast majority, and all but a line or two is irrelevant for the rest. All this despite the fact that even little towns of 1000 usually have more churches than gas stations. Guidance in finding a like-minded group of people for religious worship is not something the average reader should reasonably expect to find in a travel guide, it bloats the article with info that is extraneous to most and, most importantly, we can never hope to do it well in a thorough way that doesn't discriminate. Texugo (talk) 11:59, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Texugo in that people often have very specific requirements as to the denomination of the church they visit. Catholics will generally only visit Catholic churches, although it isn't that straight forward since many Protestant leaning Christians (for example) are often more flexible with visiting churches of other Protestant branches. I would also suggest that the high plurality of places of worship in small towns is something that affects United States articles much more than other places in the world. Honestly, I don't have a strong opinion on this either way, although it would be great to decide on a community position before it becomes an issue. Andrewssi2 (talk) 13:47, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I would urge anyone joining the conversation to go back and read through the arguments made in the previous discussion. The last time we discussed this, it seemed that more people were against worship listings than for, although no action was taken. Most of the participants of that discussion are still around. Texugo (talk) 15:23, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

This is becoming really ridiculous.

Texugo: I am indeed addressing the particular non-goal you have in mind, more with the intention of questioning the way in which we've been implementing it than throwing out the baby with the bathwater. As I mentioned previously, a travel guide is more than just a list of attractions, restaurants, and bars. It's also background information, as I said, but thirdly, it's a resource for practical information for travellers. That's as true for religious services as it is for sections like "Get in" and "Get around"; no one going to Chicago would consider O'Hare International Airport or the Interstate highways that pass through there worthy tourist sites per se, but information about those things are nonetheless essential for a significant number of people who visit there.

In my writing, that last piece is a key determiner of what I include and what I don't: what is essential information for a significant number of travellers? I would argue that a significant number of travellers would consider to be essential attending religious services even though out of town - maybe a minority, but certainly not a tiny one. There's a very select range of hypothetical categories of listings that would pass that test - religious institutions, hospitals, laundry facilities (arguably) - and that is why Wikivoyage is not a phone book. The majority of what's contained in the Yellow Pages would never be of use to travellers, but in declaring things like religious services to be out of scope we're going way too far in the other direction.

The example you gave of listing every ear-nose-throat specialist, reconstructive dentist, dermatologist etc. in a particular destination doesn't qualify either - there may very well be a rare instance where a traveller would absolutely need those type of services, but the frequency would not rise to the level of a "significant number". As for Purplebackpack's question of where to draw the line, I trust that Wikivoyagers are able to apply common sense to the issue. Certainly there are going to be gray areas - you brought up the question of grocery stores upthread, Texugo, and I personally would be far more open to eliminating those listings from the Buffalo articles than the religious services - and in those cases, I think our current policy of allowing editors to do mostly as they wish, and resolving by consensus individual cases in which other editors object to including certain information, has worked perfectly well thus far. Allowing authors broad latitude to experiment for themselves (within reason) to find what works and what doesn't for their particular style and their particular destination is part of being flexible, and ultimately part of keeping Wikivoyage fun.

To address the other points you brought up, I suppose that there are fewer challenges in this domain regarding Buffalo than there might be for other cities. I've been able to skirt the issue of including every minor religious denomination for fear of discriminating against anyone by the fact that Buffalo is not a terribly populous city and simply doesn't have a congregation for every tiny sect (or even for many major world religions such as Hinduism and Shinto; Erie County's one Hindu temple is in Amherst and I don't know of any Shinto shrines). Furthermore, if you look at the mock-up outline for the East Side district article in my userspace, you'll see that I've already decided that including every little African-American storefront congregation in that district would easily overwhelm the article. I'm also in agreement with Purplebackpack that such an approach would never work for articles on places like Brooklyn. What I'm getting at is, I'm fully conscious that the same approach won't necessarily work for every article, so maybe it's best not to try to standardize the approach for every destination. Ikan said upthread that he feels that the religious services information adds a lot to the Buffalo districts; why take that away from those articles just so we can enforce some arbitrary norm that works for some destinations but not others?

Finally, the fact that we had another discussion about this same issue way back in 2011 is fine and dandy, but without poring through that thread with a fine-toothed comb, I'd posit that maybe the reason it didn't come to any solid conclusion was because it's in direct conflict with another part of our policy. I repeat my earlier question: do we want to include all the practical information readers require and thus be the only guide they'll need for their destination, or do we want to only summarize some parts briefly and accept that they'll need to supplement Wikivoyage with other sources? I'd frankly accept either answer if a clear consensus forms behind it, but I don't think arguments like the one you're making here can hold water absent a change in, or at the very least a significant reinterpretation of, that part of our philosophy.

-- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 17:59, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I am sorry we disagree, and I certainly don't want this to get heated. I just think there are some things that we should not include because they are too common and easy to find and because including them waters down the guides with information that is not relevant to most. Despite the fact that they can be more "essential" for travel than churches, we avoid listing large sections of gas stations and post offices and couriers and tour agents and banks and grocery stores unless they are hard to find or have something special about them, because they are generally easy enough to find. I believe religious services should be treated similarly if not outright left out, because they are typically even more ubiquitously easy to find, are at least one step less essential than most of those things, and the likelihood of a listing for a given denomination X being used by a traveller is much lower than for other types of listings. Moreover, there is no fair way for us to collaboratively decide which niches to cater to and which to leave out, making any culling of an overgrown list completely unfair to adherents of the culled denominations. My questions to you are how could we ever do this fairly? how many should we allow? how do we decide which ones to allow? why would we consider churches to be more essential than the other things we typically don't list due to them being easy enough to find? Texugo (talk) 18:40, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I have a few thoughts. First, I don't think we should make the perfect the enemy of the good, assuming that a "Yellow Pages" of houses of worship would be the "perfect." Second, I really do think we should give people latitude if they're doing a good job. Thirdly, even though there may be a bunch of Wikivoyage editors who are not religious and wouldn't be interested in praying while traveling, we do need to keep in mind the readers who are religious and would consider a religious service essential. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:37, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

As I've often seen here, Ikan Kekek's summation seems to have the balance about right.

There are indeed a significant number of travellers who are religious and who will want to attend religious services while away from home. This will be an even more important job of a really good travel guide to direct them when they may be Christians travelling in a predominantly Muslim land or Buddhists in Nepal, for example.

I also think this is the perfect example why Wikivoyage needs to move away from fanatical extremism and rabidly emphasizing that we're "not the Yellow Pages". Texugo has been one of the most active in wanting to keep an almost absolutist prohibition on in-line xl's to other WMF projects like Wikipedia on the supposed grounds that all the information travellers need should be self-contained here on Wikivoyage. He really shouldn't try and swing both ways at once.

However, I really do think that many of our policies should be less rigid and we should trust our editors more to exercise a more nuanced personal judgement based on their local expertise and knowledge. If we have a good table of contents for each article (right now we don't - things took a huge leap backwards both in SEO terms and reader friendliness when we introduced the current castrated horizontal ToC) and hard-working and enthusiastic editors like AndreCarrotflower are selective in what they list, then our current general policies on listings don't really need to change. --118.93nzp (talk) 22:12, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Once again, using terms like "fanatical extremism", "rabidly emphasizing", "absolutist prohibition" are very loaded words. Since you have only recently joined policy discussions, you may not realise that they is totally inappropriate in expressing an opposing viewpoint to those you disagree with.

On the issue at hand, we have to draw the line somewhere between being a listing and/or link farm, and being a guide. We could fill entire articles with lists churches and parishes. If you're not going to draw a line, and you want to become a directory, we quite obviously need a different layout (not to mention, a fundamental change in the way we address every single guide). --Inas (talk) 22:31, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Point taken about my bad language, Inas. Sorry for any unintended offence!

No, self-appointed "guardians of the Wiki" don't need to parachute in to articles where local editors are already doing a great job and perform a police action. A gentle reminder on the article's discussion page should be sufficient if locally interested editors mean the article is in danger of becoming an undiscriminating link farm or directory. In any case, we have the procrustian 7+2 rule to keep things within limits don't we? However, I must confess that this is a rather rare problem. Most of the random articles I bring up are embarrassingly short of listings. --118.93nzp (talk) 23:26, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

As I occasionally go to services when travelling, I like the idea of listing some churches in cope. For non-tourist churches, we should focus on those of most help to a traveller - churches with foreign language services, those that are open all week, those near the main toursit areas, any that offer particular help to visitors to the area. Historic churches that are open for signtseeing should go in See. Historic churches that are only open for sevices should probably go in Do, like other timed events.

In my experience, people welcoming visitors to (christian) churches open for sightseeing are usually happy to talk about other churches in the area. I have been directed to services in other churches that were at more convenient times. This is unlike dealing with businesses - you would be unlikely to walk into a restauant of one hamburger chain and ask where the competitors are. So in most cases it is reasonable to only list a small selection of the available churches. AlasdairW (talk) 00:09, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

With apologies; as you can imagine, it took me a while to type this up.

I'd like to start by repeating that I feel we should take a reactive, rather than proactive, response to this issue. Rather than coming up with a set of parameters right from the getgo and then expecting editors to abide by them, why not allow authors to feel free to develop the articles as they see fit, recognizing that a one-size-fits-all approach doesn't work for such a diverse range of destinations as we have on this site (not to mention such a diverse range of writing styles), and only meddle with others' work in cases where our common sense tells us that the balance of that particular article, and taking into account the author's particular approach, is off kilter? I think we do the site a disservice by taking an assembly-line approach to issues like this. There's no one right answer to this question, and we should not be in the practice of "standardizing" all the individuality and personality out of our articles.

Notwithstanding that, there are a few things that, in general, should serve as red flags that indicate an article may be overemphasizing less important information. Upthread, Texugo asked me a series of questions that I think can serve as the starting point for a breakthrough on this impasse, so I will do my best to answer them.

• How could we ever do this fairly? - I assume that with this question, Texugo is referring to his earlier concern that "we could never have any hope of ever meeting the needs of every reader" if we were to list every place of worship of every religion. Once again, I'll use Buffalo as an example, being an American city that ranks near the middle of the pack both in size and in religious diversity. Apart from the usual mix of Catholic and Protestant churches, the city proper contains perhaps three or four each of synagogues, mosques, Buddhist temples, Jehovah's Witness halls, and Eastern Orthodox churches, plus one Mormon church and one Scientology church. Certainly not anything that would overwhelm an article. In fact, the "Places of worship" subsection of the Buffalo parent article is not fundamentally different than it was before talk of districting it began; so perhaps have a look at that to see the non-overwhelmingness for yourself.

Parenthetically, I'm using the parent article as an example rather than the districts mostly because, based on its size and its level of interest to visitors, Buffalo probably shouldn't be districted; the fact that it has been is due solely to my own thoroughness (and not just in my coverage of religious congregations). As for places that are larger and would likely have many more different religions represented among its houses of worship, e.g. New York City, if those articles are anywhere near complete they're likely already treated as Huge Cities with listings devolved to much smaller district articles, so a balance is maintained.

To sum up, I think that even if we're to assume as true the notion that omitting the fringe religions would constitute unfairness (and I'm not at all sold on that notion), the fact remains that this will likely be a problem far less often than Texugo fears.

• How many should we allow? - While, again, giving a wide berth to authors to decide for themselves what's appropriate, I think some general rules of thumb can be sussed out. Some authors are wordier than others, so I think it's better to frame this in terms of how long is the "Places of worship" section in comprison to the article as a whole, rather than citing some hard-and-fast magic number. Ikan said upthread that he was fine with the number of listings for Buffalo/Downtown, Buffalo/Allentown and the Delaware District, and Buffalo/Elmwood Village, but Buffalo/North Buffalo had more than he was comfortable with, strictly speaking. However, Buffalo/North Buffalo as a whole is quite a bit longer than the other three districts, so proportionally, the length of its "Places of worship" section is not totally out of line with the other districts:

• Buffalo/Downtown - "Places of worship" section is 5,349 bytes out of 153,132 bytes total - 3.49%
• Buffalo/Allentown and the Delaware District - "Places of worship" section is 8,301 bytes out of 150,241 bytes total - 5.53%
• Buffalo/Elmwood Village - "Places of worship" section is 8,262 bytes out of 170,248 bytes total - 4.85%
• Buffalo/North Buffalo - "Places of worship" section is 16,730 bytes out of 238,418 bytes total - 7.02%

To sum up, I think that we should start worrying when the "Places of Worship" section takes up too much of any given article, proportionally speaking, rather than when some arbitrarily selected number of listings is exceeded. Where the bar should be set is up to consensus, but I don't think the figures I cited above are unreasonable. If all places of worship can be included without overwhelming the article, great; if not, only the most important ones should probably be included. Moreover, in cases where the "Places of worship" section is longer than these guidelines say it should be, authors should be allowed to argue in favor of the status quo if they so choose, rather than their work being subject to reversion based on rigid adherence to policy.

• How do we decide which ones to allow? - If it were me, and I were faced with the necessity of not including every single congregation, I would probably skim some of the smaller, harder-to-get-to, or less interesting ones from a denomination that's overrepresented (q.v. the aforementioned outline for Buffalo/East Side contained in my namepsace), and I also like PrinceGloria's idea about a higher priority being given to anomalies that may be of use to the traveller, such as a place where services may be held in a foreign language, or the presence of a place of worship for a minority religion. In the final analysis, though, this is a question that in most cases should be left up to the author, who likely knows the destination better than most Wikivoyagers and whose judgment should generally be trusted.

• Why would we consider churches to be more essential than the other things we typically don't list due to them being easy enough to find? - I don't necessarily take as true the assumption that places of worship are "easy enough to find". It's certainly not (usually) a difficult task to identify a church, but who's to say what denomination that church is just by looking at it (and no, oftentimes it's not made clear on exterior signage)? What about an LGBT traveller that's looking for a congregation that's inclusive (there are stark differences among parishes in Buffalo in this wise, and likely elsewhere, even among the same denomination)? What about someone who's just checked into their hotel for the night, and just wants to figure out where the closest church is, and is tired and doesn't feel like driving around? (By the way, I've spent the past three years working the front desk at various hotels in Buffalo, and that scenario is not as uncommon as some might think.) A phone book would work, sure, but our goal is for readers not to need another source for that information. Also, an address and phone number won't go far in helping the reader figure out what type of church they're dealing with, which is where the background information that I included in my blurbs comes in.

-- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 00:27, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I find Andre's remarks persuasive, especially in the "leave well enough alone" sense that we should be giving good writers pretty wide latitude in cases that don't obviously and pointedly conflict with the mission of the site - namely, and we should always keep this in mind, to serve the traveler. Any of the other policies or guidelines we use should be subject to a degree of bending when there's a good argument to be made that the traveler's interest is best served by doing so, and other core policies (like avoiding touting and so forth) are not being unreasonably compromised. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:04, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for you thoughtful response, Andre. I don't really know what else to say. I think we both have to recognize that we cannot provide every possible thing a traveller might need without watering down/overburdening our articles; we just draw the line in different places. To me, making sure people are informed about the local Lutheran church or the neighborhood mosque is in the same realm of importance as making sure people know where they can find an office supply store, a tailor, an eye doctor, a barber, a locksmith, a chiropractor, a flower shop, a manicurist, a shoe repair shop, and a million other possible establishments. Yes, travellers might need those things too, but surely you would admit that we don't actually want to clutter up our article providing every possible thing someone could need from a phone book. Those are things we just don't usually list unless there is something quite unusual about the establishment or the situation, and to me, churches should simply be in the same category, where they should not be bothered with unless there is something unusual about them. Nobody is starting up a Church Expedition just yet, so I'm not going to absolutely freak out if we don't immediately firm up our position on church listings or whatever, but I am not really too happy with an amorphous approach based on what so-called "good editors" or "editors who know the city better than we" do, since a large portion of our edits are anonymous or one-off contributions. What do we do when someone starts going through the Southern Baptist Convention directory and adding a church to every little town in the Southern US? Is that OK? What if it's a smaller denomination, or one you've never heard of, or the one that started the previous round of discussion? How would you deal with that user who just wants to add his own church even though you are unfamiliar with it? Can I step in and add scientology offices or atheist gatherings in a series of articles? Will we treat it like hotel chain touting and undo serial additions of a given denomination, even though it's a faulty comparison and even if they provide a factual blurb with no touty language? If not, are you ok with a hundred articles with a Mormon church listing and nothing else? What will you do if an anonymous IP adds three more nicely described listings to the already long North Buffalo article? Texugo (talk) 16:00, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Rare services; list at City or District level?

Thank you for all of your thoughtful insights! I'm glad that my question initiated a productive discussion. The Buffalo guide is a good model for worship listings, but my recent work on Beijing has presented different challenges. Beijing has only a handful of Christian churches, and very few offer services in English. Thus, I added two listings in Beijing/Xuanwu#Cope and Beijing/Haidian#Cope to aid travelers that might be looking for English-language Christian services. However, would it be appropriate to provide worship listings at the city level, instead of the district level? There are only a few places of worship in Beijing that cater their services to foreigners, and Beijing's subway system makes it easy to travel between districts, so providing one city-wide list might be more meaningful to the reader. At the same time, there are several Buddhist temples, so dividing the list by district seems to be more practical for Buddhists. Any thoughts on how to handle this? Edge3 (talk) 06:15, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

For foreign travellers, I think they would prefer these type of services to listed at the city-wide level as you suggest. --118.93nzp (talk) 09:40, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I would list them in districts so that they could be more easily shown on readable dynamic maps, but mention them in the main article with links to "Cope" sections in such districts. PrinceGloria (talk) 09:45, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Rail trails: where do you stick 'em?

Swept in from the pub

I'm trying to figure out the best place to stick a rail trail, a non-motorized bike and pedestrian trail converted from an old railway.

Specifically, I'm considering the OC&E Woods Line State Trail in Oregon. I'm thinking it belongs somewhere on the Klamath Falls article. Maybe under "get around" because it's a great way for pedestrians and cyclists to get from one end of town to the other. But maybe "get in" works better because the trail extends well beyond town and meanders quite a ways northeast, passing through a handful of small towns. But then does it go under "by bike" or "by foot"? Or maybe it goes under "do" instead?

Ideas? Athelwulf (talk) 06:42, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

If it is a good size trail and you can write a reasonable article about the route and places along the way then I would suggest creating an itinerary. Something like the Rheinburgenweg listing places of interest along the way as well as an overview of the trail. Then place in the town articles that the trail passes through a link to the page in the do section, like in Koblenz#Do. --Traveler100 (talk) 07:54, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Athelwulf: I had a similar situation on my hands when I wrote Clarence (though it sounds like the Woods Line State Trail is a good deal longer than the Clarence Pathways). What I ended up doing, and what you might want to use as a sort of template, was giving the trail its own entry under "Do", and also mentioning it in the "By bike" subsection of "Get around". -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 13:51, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Official App

Swept in from the pub

In which section should I add a link to the official app of a town? I am referring to this app. --Lkcl it _(Talk) 19:40, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately I don't think that this app is the "official app". It is not linked from the tourist office in the Iseo article. It also does not appear to be developed by (or for) an official body like the city council. We should only link to apps that would be a primary source (city council, railway, bus company etc). If an app is suitable for linking then we should link to the developer's webpage, not a store for a particular platform. AlasdairW (talk) 20:32, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Also Iseo municipality has collaborate to develop this app. I can't find any article in English to confirm that, but I have found this one in Italian where it is written: "Il Comune di Iseo e la società Itown Lab hanno creato “Iseo”, un’applicazione gratuita scaricabile da Itunes e Android, che promuove il turismo e permetterà di trovare tutte le informazioni necessarie per i turisti e non solo." "Iseo Municipality and the society Itown Lab have created "Iseo", a free app available on Itunes and Google Play, that will improve the tourism and that will allow to find all the information tourists need." --Lkcl it _(Talk) 20:41, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I tend to see Apps mentioned in the 'Get Around' section.

I sometimes download apps to a new city that I am visiting, but generally speaking they are student projects and not great in terms of quality. It is also hard for the WV community to review the quality of an app as well (since they have to go to the trouble of downloading, installing and running).

Finally it is very difficult to establish what is the 'official' app for a given city. The problem is more to do with the fact that App Stores have no quality control. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 23:36, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Seasonal recommendations

Swept in from the pub

Under which headline should you write recommendations for which season to visit a city or a region? For example, let's say I want to write that Stockholm has most comfortable weather during May to September, but the snowy weather in February could be nice, too, or that you should watch for the Culture Night each April. /Yvwv (talk) 16:56, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

"Understand", subsection "Climate" is what I usually go with. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 17:05, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree. For one complex case, I created a "When to visit" subsection (under "Understand"), but that should be rare. (Such as when the weather isn't the primary motivation.) Powers ^(talk) 19:13, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Information about events

Swept in from the pub

Would it be a good idea to add information about annual events to Wikivoyage articles? There's three events that immediately come to mind: The Helsinki Samba Carnaval here in Helsinki, Finland, the World Bodypainting Festival in Pörtschach am Wörthersee, Austria and BoundCon in Munich, Germany. I visit them all regularly (although BoundCon not so often as the other two). Which of these would be worth mentioning? How does one add information about annual events anyway? JIP (talk) 20:47, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

The Do section of city articles is where we put events. Feel free to add any event you wish. ϒpsilon (talk) 20:58, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

If I might take a minute or two to shamelessly promote my own work, you might want to have a look at the "Festivals and events" subsection of the Buffalo district article (especially Buffalo/Downtown#Festivals and events) as a model. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 22:22, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

If these are events that attract a lot of international visitors, then they could also be listed in the relevant monthly or topic page at Calendar of events and festivals. AlasdairW (talk) 23:38, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

The World Bodypainting Festival in particular attracts people from all over Europe, sometiems even from outside Europe. BoundCon mostly attracts people from Germany and the neighbouring countries. The Helsinki Samba Carnaval usually only attracts Finns. Any passing foreign tourists attend the event, but I'm quite sure no non-Finns visit Finland just to see the carnival. JIP (talk) 22:16, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

It's totally a good thing to list a festival a visitor might enjoy if they were there, but wouldn't travel overseas just to go to. One of the most enjoyable things I did with my brother on a trip to Italy was to happen upon a Festa dell'Unita' in Rome. We probably wouldn't have gone there on purpose, but that's just because we didn't know how much fun it would be. A listing for Feste dell'Unita' would be a great idea. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:34, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

In a similar vein I'd suggest that if there are notable sports teams (soccer) being in most cases the most obvious, but other sports shouldn't be overlooked if they have a local following to not only mention their "rowdy fans" in the stay safe section, but also when their home games are held (day, months and frequency) and if they have any special events. like this: "The Schwäbisch Hall Unicorns play American football on roughly every second saturday afternoon in a season running roughly May to September with October playoffs. Admission is circa 10€ and the atmosphere is usually very friendly with even fans of the rival team welcomed" Hobbitschuster (talk) 13:48, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Tattoo parlors?

What category would be good for a tattoo parlor? /Yvwv (talk) 14:48, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

I suppose one could "buy" a tattoo, but are they particularly travel-related as a category? K7L (talk) 15:24, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Do or Buy, I'd say. ϒpsilon (talk) 15:31, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

We are not a yellow pages. That better be one heck of a tattoo parlor. Powers ^(talk) 17:37, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

The idea is to mention extraordinarily famous and well-reputed tattoo parlors; Salong Betong has reached stardom in Scandinavia, and just opened the world's first airport tattoo parlor at Arlanda. Miami Ink and LA Ink would be other candidates. /Yvwv (talk) 22:09, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Okay, but to what end? Do we expect travelers to go there to look, or to actually get inked? Powers ^(talk) 01:04, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Many people get tattooed abroad; as a permanent souvenir/commemoration, or to get better quality for their money in a low-income country. /Yvwv (talk) 01:25, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, dangerously close to yellow pages here, but if a parlour merits listing then shouldn't 'do' be more accurate? --Andrewssi2 (talk) 01:40, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

If it's a souvenir, or if they're doing it to save money, Buy would be best. But I could see Cope, since it's a service. Powers ^(talk) 21:06, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

"Cope" is a last-resort catchall for things which really don't belong anywhere else. If anything, we should be moving anything already there out if it fits elsewhere (clinic, dentist, hospital and pharmacy should go to "stay healthy", for instance). K7L (talk) 22:28, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Cope doesn't make any sense to me. A person would get a tattoo to cope with what exactly? A personal epiphany/new phase/identity crisis? I'd vote for "Do" because no one speaks of "buying" a tattoo. Texugo (talk) 22:33, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

You guys are taking the section headings too literally. One doesn't usually speak of buying a tattoo, true, but one does acquire a tattoo. And "cope" is for services that travellers need while travelling. Powers ^(talk) 15:30, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

"Cope" is for services that travellers need while travelling which don't fit anywhere else. I don't see how tattoos are travel-related and I don't see why shopping for ink is any different from shopping for anything else at destination. K7L (talk) 15:54, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

I completely agree with your second sentence. I think I mostly agree with the first, but I don't like characterizing "Cope" as a catch-all. It's true that we have more appropriate sections for some traveler services, but "Cope"'s scope is still limited, to an extent, by its own nature rather than simply by excluding items that belong elsewhere. Powers ^(talk) 00:39, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Any objection to moving clinic, dentist, hospital and pharmacy out of "cope" into "stay healthy"? It would seem the best fit. K7L (talk) 03:27, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Seems like a good plan to me. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:49, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

It's "Stay safe" for most articles, actually. It's primarily country articles that separate "Stay healthy" out from "Stay safe". Powers ^(talk) 18:13, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

"Stay healthy" is an optional section for lower-level articles in the hierarchy, but I think it's certainly OK to use if appropriate. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:47, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

If we've used Stay Healthy on city or region articles, it's been very rare. The templates don't include it. See, for example, Wikivoyage:Big city article template, which says (for Stay Safe): "This is a section for general safety tips. If there are health hazards or crime problems in the city, list them here." Powers ^(talk) 19:01, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

It's indeed rare, but for example, it seems like an excellent place to put information about dentists, doctors and hospitals, which is sometimes included in city articles. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:59, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I understand the theory, but in practice we have used Stay Safe for such things. Perhaps it was felt that it was better to have a longer Stay Safe section than two short sections. Powers ^(talk) 18:14, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

I understand that point. "Cope" has often been used, though, showing that it's not self-evident which section should be used for such listings. "Stay healthy" would be the intuitive section for them. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:50, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

I never claimed it was self-evident. I completely agree that Stay Healthy is a more intuitive place for them. It's just that most of our articles don't have a Stay Healthy section. Powers ^(talk) 22:02, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

I didn't mean to suggest that you had claimed it was self-evident. That wasn't a thought that occurred to me at all. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:09, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

shower/bath

I notice someone had added "shower, bath" to Cope alongside "toilet, restroom" but this was removed by a subsequent edit. Are these worth listing, or are there too few of them that are (freestanding) and not part of a truck stop, marina, campground or lodging establishment?

For that matter, is a "truck stop" transportation infrastructure ('get in', 'get around') or a food vendor ('eat')? (We usually don't list commodity petrol/gasoline fuels unless they're somewhere like Trans-Labrador Highway where the next station is 400km away.)

I think I've got the two lists (alphabetical, by category section) to match now. There were a couple of items which looked odd; "ice cream parlour" is usually eat (not drink) and "ski rental" should be with the rest of the sport equipment rental (presumably, "do" - with the associated activity listed - and not "buy"). I've changed these. K7L (talk) 03:04, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the housekeeping.

I think shower and bath got caught up in a different reversion. They seem unnecessary, though, as toilet and restroom should cover them. And they do tend to be part and parcel of other listings; I'm having trouble thinking of a situation in which we'd list them separately.

Truck stops are tricky. Eat is probably best, but only if the food is noteworthy, or if it's the only restaurant for miles. We certainly don't list refueling stations as a matter of course. And for truckers who need a shower, chances are they aren't using Wikivoyage to find a stop.

-- Powers ^(talk) 00:01, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Our policy regarding "escape games"

Swept in from the pub

"Escape games" have been recently added to the article on Prague. I wanted to revert said edit until I found another such thing already listed. What does policy currently say? Hobbitschuster (talk) 01:16, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

I believe that these were added before, but had no travel relevance and were therefore removed. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 02:58, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

So we should remove them on sight? Hobbitschuster (talk) 13:02, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

It's been (re-?)added to the Prague guide. Why does it have no travel relevance? I guess because you could in theory play it anywhere? But in practice, is that true? Ikan Kekek (talk) 13:09, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

I really don't see how an escape room is different from a tennis court, amusement park, petting zoo, cinema, casino or art gallery. All of those are Do-listings you could do virtually everywhere, but can be found in WV:Wycsi. They're there because travellers may want not want to fill their days with sightseeing alone, especially on extended stays. It's just a fun thing to do and this particular one allows couples too (so not only groups). Of course, most of those listings in Prague (including the escape game) should be in the relevant district articles though. JuliasTravels (talk) 14:08, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Yes, and it should also be detouted. But I agree with you. I don't see why this can't be listed. Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:10, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

If we are going to list them (& I see no reason why not if they're an activity some travellers will be interested in), then a brief explanation is needed. I for one have no idea what they are. Pashley (talk) 16:56, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I think we should keep them. I've heard about this activity or something similar, it's like a real-life video game where you need to go through a labyrinth and at waypoints find hidden keys, hidden codes and such to get forward. ϒpsilon (talk) 17:27, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

See Real-life room escape. I'm surprised that it's not as well-known as I thought. Here, those things are popping up in every major city, and are rapidly gaining popularity. Actually, it's usually just a room (no labyrinths or such), and participants need to use their critical thinking skills to solve a variety of puzzles and use hints and artefacts in the room to get to the key. I find them quite entertaining, especially with a small group. But a bit of an explanation in the listings might be good then. JuliasTravels (talk) 20:55, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I didn't remove the earlier listing. Just from memory I observed someone else doing the same.

I would just point to policy Wikivoyage:Listings#Relevance_to_travel and say that this one is pretty borderline for me Andrewssi2 (talk) 03:47, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

We would not list a tennis court, except for a countryside resort village where there are absolutely no activities besides walking around and playing tennis. For any big city, I am quite sure there are many activities that should have priority over escape games, treasure hunts and pub crawl meetups. Syced (talk) 07:01, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

So as - as far as I understand - those escape games take place mostly in bigger cities (where they should be listed in districts anyhow) and they (as is true for tennis courts) should only be listed in places where there is little to do as they are already marginal to our guides, doesn't that in essence result in a near-total ban with very few exceptions? Hobbitschuster (talk) 12:54, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

No, and I really don't understand why you would even think of a ban :-) Firstly, although big cities obviously hold most of these things there are also many of them in smaller towns and the number is rapidly increasing. Of course we don't want to list every escape room in every city, like we don't list every casino or every art gallery or every hotel. Every article we make should offer a varied range of things to do, and that means some executive choices for the involved editors. While city centres and tourist districts of huge destinations are often fairly packed, outer districts of towns are often considerably less filled with attractions. The super extensive Buffalo districts that AndreCarrotflower has put so much effort into spring to my mind. It seems that if we can list dozens of places to worship and multiple bowling allies in a district, it makes perfect sense to also list an escape room if and when it comes available. In any case, I think we should treat this activity simply the same as all the others, and decide per article what's relevant enough to list and what's not. JuliasTravels (talk) 14:22, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Also, if this is (still) a rather "exotic" activity (is it?), something you cannot do everywhere, it certainly should be among the activities listed in Do. ϒpsilon (talk) 14:29, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Be that as it may, it should not be listed in the main article for Prague but rather in one of the districts. If we agree to list it at all. Hobbitschuster (talk) 15:20, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I think we agreed on that already. At first glance however, I was not finding it very easy to determine for sure which Wikivoyage district they're in. The first address is Korenskeho 3, Praha 5; that would be Prague/West_bank_of_Vltava, right? The second is Blanická 9, Praha 2. Is that Prague/New_Town_and_Vysehrad? JuliasTravels (talk) 20:46, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Escape games sound like a great addition when they are unique and famous beyond the city/district and it is something visitors would enjoy participating in. It can't be any worse than the hundreds of burger/curry/pizza shops or any other local restaurant that serves the same food as anywhere in a globalized world or the hundreds of pubs/bars that serve the same beer and smell the same as every other bar in the world yet we still list. Gizza ^(t)(c) 12:14, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Where you can stick it: Subway stations, bus terminals

Swept in from the pub

In reference to Talk:Ansan#Metro_listing, pinging User:Andrewssi2 and copying the discussion here, as I believe this is a topic of interest to the entire community:

---

I saw that User:Pkh409 has started to add metro stations as listings. Can anyone verify this is not how we use listings on Wikivoyage?

I do sometimes add one or two listings for an important train station for entering a new area, but every metro station (10+?) would be very excessive in my opinion. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 02:31, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, that's an interesting point. What is best practice here? Personally, I think important transport hubs should have GPS entries on the map. While listing individual bus stations may be too much, I'd support listing all train and subway stations, as well as bus terminals. Through to avoid the map clutter, is there a way to trigger layers? Could some entries be coded as transport and be switchable on and off? PS. I looked at Wikivoyage:Where you can stick it, and noticed that it seems to suggest train stations and ferry terminals are valid POIs. It's unclear on subways, and doesn't say anything about buses or bus terminals (perhaps this question should be copied to the traveller's pub?). --Hanyangprofessor2 (talk) 02:45, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

I believe there are people working on a new map control with transport POI's layer. It is very hard to read, but you will find some details in Wikivoyage:Travellers'_pub#Announcing_the_launch_of_Maps --Andrewssi2 (talk) 03:28, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

---

So, what do people think about inclusion of major public transportation POIs? Do it, not to do it? And if do, how? --Piotrus (talk) 01:34, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm having trouble imagining it for cities with hundreds of stations like New York City, London or Paris. However, I haven't made my mind up on what my opinion is, so I'll leave others to comment for now. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:55, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

It really depends from case to case. I'd say in most situations, metro stations should never be listed as POIs. A major regional train station, or the airport, or the only ferry terminal to get to an island, etc? List them. Ideally, they'd be listed using a "Go" template but the discussion seemed to have died off. James A ▪ talk 08:59, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Major stations that can be reached from outside the region should be put in the Get In section, but for inside the city a link to the local transport companies' website in the Get Around section with possibility a link to the page that shows a stations and lines map. Best to look at the topic the other way around. In the listings for major attractions state in the directions field the name of the closest local rail/tram station. --Traveler100 (talk) 14:41, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Major places for getting into destinations themselves (airports, harbors, large bus terminals and railway stations) are absolutely OK to mark on a map. Usually there are one or a few really important ones of each kind. But a city can have hundreds of much less important stops which would probably just clutter up the map and should therefore not be marked.

For this purpose, I personally use markers — these are a smaller and more versatile version of listings. In a marker you can give the type parameter the value "go" to have it marked as a suitcase on the map. Example (the map is further down on that page).ϒpsilon (talk) 15:19, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

I wasn't thinking in terms of hundreds of POI places (since we are editing a mid-size city with ~10 transport POIs, all well spaced), but I see your point. That said, I fondly remember the old Wikipediua layer in Google maps, which did have worse (one color, see [5]) POI system on their map - and it was still very useful. As a tourist myself I used it for both sightseeing and finding the near transport POIs, and deeply regret its deactivation by Google. The best solution would be to figure out how to toggle layers on and off (who's working on that, btw? Any links or pings?) For now, I think it's a question of zooming, and the maps I see seem to be doing ok with that (with the orange plus sign), not to mention that many of those "hundreds of stations" are outside the primary zoom (downtown, historical areas), so I don't think we are going to see even maps for NY or such overwhelmed by that. An alternate solution I could think of would be to have a special public transport subpage/map, ex. Stockholm/Public transport map, which would copy the Get in/Get around sections, and have additional GPS coordinates for the locations. But frankly, I'd first like to see whether a map would really be overwhelmed by the subway stations first, before making a call (for Ansan, I feel it would be just fine). Maybe we should do it on case by case basis? (Oh, and I would probably draw a line at bus stations, those are way too numerous usually... but again, case by case, country/city situations do vary). But do keep in mind that for tourist and travelers, information on public transport is really, really useful. At least, for me, it's one of the key things, and I'd really like to be able to use a Wikivoyage map not just to figure out sightseeing POI, but also how to use public transport to get to them (otherwise, we force the tourist to rely on external maps, and isn't the goal of Wikivoyage to be limit the need to rely on those other sites?). --Piotrus (talk) 01:50, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Weekly entertainment listing?

The free alternative papers that most large urban areas have (e.g., Metro Silicon Valley, in the San Jose area) can be a great resourse for visitors, with weekly arts and entertainment events (in addition to local political muckraking, which may or may not be of interest). Is it appropriate to put a Do listing somewhere, e.g., "Look for the Local Rag, published every Wednesday and free in news stands through the city, for a listing of events and exhibitions..."? Peter Chastain (talk) 14:04, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me. Would recommend extracting a few annual events to add to the article though too. --Traveler100 (talk) 14:29, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Actual listings for media like newspapers go in Cope. You could mention it in Do, I suppose, but I would consider only putting a link in Cope (or have "Local Rag" link to #Cope within the article). Powers ^(talk) 21:21, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Should exaggerated crime rumors be addressed?

Swept in from the pub

International mass media have given the refugee situation in Sweden and Stockholm some attention. Right-wing media tend to write about criminal immigrants, while left-wing media warn about racist mobs. These reports have made travellers concerned about visiting Sweden at all (see the Tripadvisor forum: https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowForum-g189806-i232-Sweden.html). Though a few incidents have become world news (while they would barely make the news at all in a city with a higher crime rate), Stockholm remains among the world's safest cities of its size. (Looking at Talk:Stockholm, some locals have been trying to push a crime- and drug-related political agenda in the article in the pre-Wikivoyage era.) Should the article address rumors such as these? An extreme case would be to scare out the elephant in the room, by addressing a destination's bad rep before anything else; see Colombia. What about destinations infamous for single incidents recently, such as Cologne? /Yvwv (talk) 15:04, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

The same question could be asked about any common misconceptions about any destinations, or anything that could be addressed through prases such as in contrast to common belief... But how common should a prejudice be? Some people might be surprised that skinny-dipping in public beaches is taboo in Sweden today; hardly anyone seems to seriously believe there are polar bears in the street... /Yvwv (talk) 15:33, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Crime is naturally a dice subject and the very fact that serious crime is so rare in most of Europe can distort perceptions when something serious does happen. Just take the example of the US: how many people could correctly guess the overall trend of violent crime in the last two decades or so? And of course Sweden is probably safer in terms of crime than almost any other place in the world... Still, I fully admit to my biases, I don't think we should feature Dresden (which would otherwise make for a great dotm) until and unless Pegida dies down. They are not generally violent, but violence does occur. And the disruption of traffic and daily live on Monday evenings is more than a nuisance... Hobbitschuster (talk) 15:44, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

To answer the original core question, no, we shouldn't go out of our way to address exaggerated crime rumors. Main reason being that we try and be neutral, but there isn't a neutral and simple answer to perceptions of crime. We should rely on evidence of crime rates rather than something purely subjective than give credence to people such as Pegida.

A recent example is Talk:Croatia#Immigrant_crisis where a contributor was concerned that tourists were canceling their holidays because they didn't want to be exposed to refugees, and wanted to assure potential visitors that they wouldn't even catch sight of such people. I'm rather disappointed that we would agree to validate such an unsavory view. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 20:31, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps a page with links to various governmental agencies such as the US State Department or UK Government travel advisory - link to that page in the sidebar so that the traveller can go to and read... just a thought -- Matroc (talk) 21:20, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Keep in mind that we don't try to be neutral. We try to be fair. Powers ^(talk) 21:39, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

I think it's perfectly fair and desirable to address exaggerated crime figures and other common misunderstandings about a destination, but briefly. What's "common" enough will always have to be decided on a case to case basis. The media attention for the refugee crisis in Europe does have a large (and often misguided) effect on people's impression of the safety situation there, especially in cities and countries that have repeatedly been featured on the news. I don't necessarily think it's "unsavoury" to rationalize the situation in e.g. Croatia, Greece or Germany and provide a somewhat more balanced view from a traveller's perspective. I don't think the editor on Talk:Croatia wants to assure visitors they will not even get a glimpse of the refugees. His point is that the perception of Croatia is shifting in an unfair way and it will likely discourage people from visiting. He's right. The same for German destinations. Yes, one should avoid Pegida demonstrations, sure, but on the grand scale of things, the whole of western Europe (including Dresden and Cologne) is still very safe. We're currently featuring Antigua Guatemala, one of the safest destinations in Guatemala. The stay safe section advises to keep a separate wallet with a few dollars, to give to armed robbers. Kidnappings occur on popular hiking routes. The suggestion that we shouldn't feature Dresden because there are Pegida-demonstrations on Monday evenings seems exaggerated, in comparison. JuliasTravels (talk) 11:08, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

I feel that addressing myths and stereotypes goes a long way to perpetuating the stigmatization of those people if not done carefully. Anyway we do list things that are dangerous in certain countries, not make long lists of things that are not dangerous. Andrewssi2 (talk) 20:57, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

That's possible. One way to reduce that risk is to frame factually inaccurate beliefs as minority opinions, e.g., something like "A few people have gotten the mis-impression that..." rather than "Most people believe..." Most people will believe whatever you tell them most other people believe. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:43, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

(indent) I guess it just depends on how bad the incidents are and/or how bad the reputation of the destination really is. Lots of unpleasant things happen all the time that put various cities in the spotlight for a short period of time that are not worth mentioning in the articles, but if the reputation does happen to stick in people's minds and concerns for the long-term, it may be worth addressing. I think the difference between talks regarding features between Western Europe and other places, such as Guatemala, is that Western Europe is portrayed and portrays itself as "safe" and free of any kind of danger or unrest while Guatemala is often prefaced with cautions, so heightened awareness make travelers more aware, better prepared, and less surprised by incidents in Guatemala while they're more likely to get lulled into carelessness in Western Europe. They are "surprised" when they are mugged, even though it's a rather common experience. In a more extreme example, we would probably not hesitate to feature destinations in Israel where conflicts occur however, if the same level of conflict occurred in Spain, I imagine there would be strong opposition to featuring cities in that area. We have different expectations about Spain and Israel in which we accept that Israel has conflict and travelers to Israel should be aware while we would be surprised if the Spanish and Basque were behaving as Israel and Palestine and probably not feature anything there until it became more familiar as well. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 14:31, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Go next vs see

Swept in from the pub

I'm still a newbie to this project but I'm keen to give back to it this year so am doing more editing and I'm thinking about ways we could improve the project technically (maybe as part of google summer of code). Disclaimer: I'm building an offline wikivoyage app for my next backpacking trip but more about that later.

One thing that is confusing me is I continually see things in the go next section that I don't feel belong there and are better suited in the see section. One great example is the York article. Castle Howard is a day trip not a destination in itself. As a long time paper guidebook user this distinctions is important to me. Go next sections are used to work out places to go and visit and stay, not simply go to see for a day. As a rule of thumb if a go next destination doesn't have a wikivoyage page I would not expect it to be here. What do others feel about this? Has this been discussed before? Is there some way we could give better guidelines to users when editing on what to put here? Jdlrobson (talk) 20:33, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

[w:Castle_Howard] is 15 miles from York, but probably not a destination article in itself. Therefore probably best leave as a 'see' listing.

It isn't that unusual to create 'see' listings outside of the immediate destination if they do not constitute an article by themselves or belong to another destination. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 23:45, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

In general, "go next" is a list of articles for adjacent or nearby destinations - most often the next town and next major city on each highway or rail line. Actual listings for attractions and activities belong in "see" and "do" respectively. Wikivoyage:What is an article? indicates a destination meets the "can you sleep there?" test, where to be a possible candidate as a usable destination (and not merely a listing) a place should have some way to get in, something to see or do, somewhere to eat and somewhere to sleep. Merrickville is an easy day trip from Ottawa, but it gets an article as it has enough to stand alone. An individual castle? Probably not, it gets a listing.

The one possible exception to forcing listings into see/do/eat/drink/sleep would be a small city or town separated by miles of pasture land from one (or a handful) of tiny villages with a listing or two each. We list contiguous suburbs as part of the city. A group of rural villages? A rare few small-town destinations have the town itself with see/do/sleep... followed by "Nearby" (with the subsections being the names of individual villages, with a brief description and a listing or two in each) followed by "Go next" with the next destinations to actually have an article. For instance, Miami (Oklahoma)#Nearby devotes a subsection to a lead-contaminated ghost town, Picher OK, that's not going to get its own article.

That's rare. In general, "go next" lists destinations with actual articles and roads to those destinations. K7L (talk) 00:34, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

I made this edit based on the above. I've seen many other articles which have the same problem so please shout now if there's any issue with this edit :) Jdlrobson (talk) 05:22, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

I think it's fine. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:35, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Whether something is a daytrip depends whether you are driving, going by bus, walking, etc. Also how much there is to do. For exmaple in the Rotterdam article, Amsterdam is in a daytrip list under the Go Next section. I think that most travellers would want to stay in Amsterdam, so it should be just a Go Next. Go Next destinations should not necessarily have their own article with sleep options. They could just be great destinations in an area that have its own article. For example in Izmir Selçuk is a Go Next that mention Ephesus. I think it might be better to just make Ephesus a Go Next even if you cannot sleep there Elgaard (talk) 22:06, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

What's the difference between 'See' and 'Do' on the wikivoyage page?

Swept in from the pub

Actually, I don't know well about the difference between 'See' and 'Do'. sometimes there are some informations of parks or famous mountain on 'See' section. As well there are some information about ocean in 'Do' section. what is the exact difference? and if there are informations about the temple, whick section would be suitable? See or Do?--Jisoo-U (talk) 07:33, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

You're talking about a temple that's an attraction as a sight to see, right? That would belong in "See". I know that which section has which listing isn't always consistent in practice, but there's a handy page that helps answer questions about what belongs in which section: Wikivoyage:Where you can stick it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:14, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi Jisoo-U. Look at Wikivoyage:Big city article template#See and the 'Do' section that follows it. 'See' is for attractions that don't move much, and there is a list of examples there. 'Do' is for activities and performances, rather than static attractions. Some of the things that go in 'Do' are a bit surprising. For example, movie theatres go in 'Do', because the actors are performing, even though the visitor just sits and watches. Check that page and the one that Ikan gave, and if you are still not sure, just put things where you think is best. Someone else might move it to another section, but at least you will have written the information, which is the most important thing. Nurg (talk) 10:40, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Hot springs

Missing from this page, where should they go? --166.104.240.102 06:35, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Follow the same guidelines as beaches, I would say: See if they're just nice to look at; Do if people usually bathe in them.  Powers ^(talk) 15:04, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

dress (everyday wear)

I see "dress (everyday wear)" has been added to ==Cope==. I'm unsure about this one; isn't Cope just a list of miscellaneous services that don't fit anywhere else, from coin laundrettes to consulates to car repair? Purchasing clothing is "Buy", advice to 'dress warmly' for some bitterly-cold Arctic destination is likely "Prepare" where applicable (itinerary, maybe parks) and climate in general is "Understand". K7L (talk) 15:30, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Proper attire is usually covered under Respect. I agree that Cope is not the right place for it. Powers ^(talk) 17:19, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree with you guys. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:54, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

See the earlier discussion #More information on how to dress. Also look at the contents in USA#Dress, Japan#Dress, and Hawaii#Dress. This is not about "how do I avoid offending people", this is about "how should I dress for sightseeing, or going to the beach, or going to a nice restaurant". I don't see how that kind of information would fit under "Respect". Where else would you prefer to put it? --Bigpeteb (talk) 17:07, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

No, I disagree. Fundamentally, clothing is about personal comfort, but if respect for others wasn't a concern, you could wear whatever you wanted to the beach or sightseeing and we wouldn't need a section about it at all. To the extent we talk about appropriate attire, it's largely about what will keep you from being seen as offending local custom. Powers ^(talk) 20:01, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

I agree with you again, Powers. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:00, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

So are you saying the sections I pointed out on those articles are unnecessary, or that they should be moved to those countries' Respect sections? --Bigpeteb (talk) 19:10, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, they should probably all be moved to "Respect". Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:47, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

I agree. Powers ^(talk) 20:55, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Cyclones

Should cyclone/hurricane/typhoon season be mentioned in Climate or in Stay safe? I feel like it can fit in both sections. Gizza ^(roam) 02:41, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

I agree. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:51, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

The fact that there is a hurricane season should be mentioned in Climate. What to do in the event of a hurricane should be in Stay safe. Powers ^(talk) 19:36, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Wasn't there a travle topin on Severe Weather, also Tornado Safety got it's own redirect I think. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 17:33, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Severe weather is a standalone travel topic, as is Tornado safety; see Wikivoyage:Joke articles/Interdimensional travel/Land of Oz. K7L (talk) 02:11, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

Merging "stay safe" and "stay healthy"?

Swept in from the pub

Given this, which is apparently correct based on the big city article template (but still weird, given that other articles put information about hospitals under "stay healthy"), should we find some new category in which to put both with a name indicative of both being present? After all, stay safe and stay healthy sections tend to accumulate WV:Obvious material and be rather short besides. Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:55, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

We may put hospitals in "Cope" (a catch-all section for everything from laundrettes to diplomatic high commissions) if the article lacks a "Stay healthy" section. Wikivoyage:Where you can stick it should mention this expressly. K7L (talk) 17:07, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Stay safe and Stay healthy usually overlap a lot, and a merger would make sense. The standard format has far too many headlines, compared to the 7±2 format. As a bonus effect, the merger would increase divergence from The Other Site; improving SEO as well as impression of originality. /Yvwv (talk) 02:23, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Which new heading should we chose? I don't really like "cope" tbh. Hobbitschuster (talk) 15:51, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Put me down in support of maintaining a separation between "Stay safe" and "Stay healthy" when that's logical. Concerns about crime are quite different from information about clinics or locally endemic diseases.

As for "Cope", is it better than "Miscellaneous"? Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:12, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Well in the linked example, a hospital is listed under "stay safe", so the current layout already partially goes against your concerns, Ikan. Or am I mistaken? Hobbitschuster (talk) 20:31, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

You are not mistaken in your observation. I am in favor of using "Stay healthy" whenever it's relevant, regardless of what level of hierarchy the article is at, whereas current guidelines are to conflate "Stay healthy" with "Stay safe" at lower levels of the hierarchy. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:08, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

"Stay safe" would be a good name for a health & safety category. The travel topic Stay healthy could be a sub-topic to stay safe. /Yvwv (talk) 20:00, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

I don't think health is a sub-aspect of safety. I think both are sub-aspects of "stay in one piece". But I have yet to find an elegant verbal phrase for that... Hobbitschuster (talk) 20:52, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

A bit late to the party I'll try to breathe some life into this discussion as I think this is a rather good proposal. As I think about the "Cope" section it should contain information which is not part of the reason why the destination is interesting, but which is nevertheless relevant to any traveler going there. You don't visit a destination because they have a nice public wifi, embassy or laundromat. (If the laundromat is spectacular enough to attract visitors in should be listed under "See" or "Do" rather than "Cope".) Nevertheless you might want information about such things when travelling. "Cope" could just as well have been labeled "Get by", but is not a "Miscellaneous" section. Understood this way it seems rather natural to include "Stay safe" and "Stay healthy" (and "Talk"?) as subsections of "Cope"/"Get by". MartinJacobson (talk) 11:57, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm also late to this discussion, but I think 'Cope' should remain as a heading. Other less-obvious things that can be included here are semi- or non-functional postal systems, banking issues, etc. –StellarD (talk) 14:59, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Wouldn't our non-functional third world postal system be listed in 'Connect', much like banking and our toy currency are described in 'Buy'? The 'Cope' section is for miscellanea which fit nowhere else. K7L (talk) 16:01, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Costume stores

Swept in from the pub

I was wondering where to mention costume stores?

Somewhere like Angels is widely known in London, but I am not going to add these to article without a second opinion given the strcit views Wikivoyage has about 'advertising' specifc entities. Is there a "iconic" status criterion I could apply? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 17:06, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

I do not see an issue here if this is a specialist notable establishment that people specifically travel to visit, then it can be a Buy listing. --Traveler100 (talk) 17:41, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

Buy, in the district article where the shop is located. ϒpsilon (talk) 17:58, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

It's not one that people would say consider travelling from abroad to the UK for, but certainly people will travel from outside London (within the UK) to consult. There are some other less well known stores in London I wanted to add as well ( at District level), but their ranges (at least in the UK) are broadly generic.

My wording on what I might have added as a Buy section in the Halloween article ( seems best fitted there) was along these lines.

"Costume stores in the UK range from a couple of high end hire firms (such as Angels in London's Theatreland), to more generic party suppliers in most major cities. Costume designs available tend to shift each year, with Rubies and Smiffy's brand being highly regarded."

I will definitely consider adding Angels to Buy in the relevant District, but would like to add some others I am aware of in London that are less well known outside of their local market area.

These were some of the criterion I had in mind (guideline)

• Does the outlet stock something that would not be an everyday purchase?
• Would travellers be looking for an outlet like this specifically?
• Does the outlet have an 'iconic' status, or has it become part of the heratige of the relevant city/district etc.
• Has this outlet been mentioned or recomended in other guides?

etc.

ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 08:08, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

It is doubtful that many people will travel any great distance (at least from abroad) purely to visit a costume shop, but on the other hand some people visiting a location will want to know about the presence of such shops, especially this time of year. Ergo, this information is clearly useful to travellers so it's best included than not. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 09:18, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

There are other specialist shops in various places that are described on WV. One example is Fry's Electronics. We also sometimes describe specialised items for sale in normal shops, e.g. Go bowls under Mount_Wuyi#Buy. This is good & more should be encouraged.

I recall finding an interesting kite store in London a few decades back & if it still exists, I'd say it is definitely worth listing. Pashley (talk) 12:48, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

You mean the one on Neal Street ?( http://www.coventgardenlondon.co.uk/features/the_kite_shop.html ) ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 07:30, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Listing type "guide" (esp. See vs Do)

Swept in from the pub

Guys, I'm quite sure I saw the hints page somewhere - either here, or at WT. Basically, I'd like to get consistent on what goes into "do" and "see" sections. What I especially struggle with are natural sights (if I have to hike 4 hours to it, is it still "see"?) and stuff like museums/zoos. If there's no such thing, perhaps we could add some list of common suspects e.g. here? Andree.sk (talk) 18:32, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

I think there is some "Where you can stick it" page somewhere in our policies under that or a similar name. It might need updating, though. Hobbitschuster (talk) 19:09, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Wycsi. Apparently, if the thing involves people (yourself or somebody else) doing something it should probably be a Do. If you are watching animals or inanimate objects it is a See. ϒpsilon (talk) 19:22, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

I added a link to Wycsi to Wikivoyage:Listings. It should have been there somewhere all along. Powers ^(talk) 20:41, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Overall our policy on listings seem to have been edited only very little in the last few years (cf: the "Project" links). Maybe we should have a debate which aspects we'd want to change. I for one advocate for fleshing out WV:Boring a bit more; namely that interesting instances of otherwise boring listings should get listed. For example the very first MC Donald's should probably get a listing... Hobbitschuster (talk) 21:43, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

I think we already do this. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:56, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

I don't think "our policy hasn't changed in a while" is in itself a rationale for a change in policy. Perhaps the reason why it hasn't changed is because it works well. Let's focus on improving our content rather than searching for policy problems to solve. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 22:46, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Ah but there is a fine difference, you see. It's not that the policy hasn't changed. It's that the article hasn't changed. A lot of stuff we've come to do around here and even to enforce to a degree are not actually policy. And on the other hand some policies are dead letter now. If that isn't the case, great, we can still fix formatting or wording and replace the "Project" words... Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:51, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Hobbitschuster - On that note, you're absolutely right. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 01:50, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Architecturally notable embassies

Swept in from the pub

How should we deal with embassies whose architecture is either particularly pretty or which are immediately apparent to the eye. We list them in cities (even districted cities) under "cope", but should we mention their architectural features and/or make them see listings in the districts or something else? And yes, this is somewhat related to the rail station quandary that I also raised over at Talk:Biel. Hobbitschuster (talk) 18:05, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

I guess this is difficult, as one of the nice diplomatic things countries often do is turn architecturally pleasing buildings over to ambassadorial use. Cities like London, Paris, and no doubt Washington, are awash with distinctive embassy buildings. So we could list these places under 'see', but it might be at the price of adding dozens of duplicate listings (albeit focusing on different elements of the same address). --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 20:26, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

If an embassy is really particularly interesting or pretty, so much so that it's worth highlighting for sightseers that don't have embassy-related business, then I think it's appropriate to give it a "See" listing. (This is the same way I feel about train stations, as I tried to express in a discussion above.) To be clear, I definitely don't think we should add every interesting-looking embassy in London to the "See" sections—only any that are especially appealing to sightseers. Also, if there's a neighborhood or street that's particularly full of architecturally interesting embassies, that could be added as a "See" listing rather than adding individual embassies to the section. —Granger (talk · contribs) 23:20, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

If it helps at all, the embassies in London are mainly clustered around Westminster (obviously), Mayfair and Kensington, but that still makes more than a hundred in an area dominated by fabulous-looking properties. It seems to me a fine line between an "interesting-looking" embassy and a "particularly interesting embassy", and that is inherently subjective. I'm not arguing against you really, just pointing out there aren't any easy answers. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 23:47, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Yes, it is the same fine line we have to deal with for all "See" listings. I don't see why embassies are any different. —Granger (talk · contribs) 23:50, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Can't we just add a line to some embassy listings saying "a beautiful (architectural style) building dating to (era)"? Just like we surely can for the "get in" section listings of very close to all train stations where such might seem appropriate. Hobbitschuster (talk) 00:34, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Hobbitschuster has the right idea I think, at least for embassies. The difference from normal see listings, is normally there's just one listing, so we don't have to be picky. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 00:39, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

(unindent) This boils down to a case of a place that's necessary to list in "Cope" but also worthwhile to list in "See". Why can't we have both? The weak link in this scenario is the policy that says we can't have duplicate listings. This, to me, is pretty clearly the exception that proves the rule. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 03:04, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

The problem, it would appear to me, is that we don't want every embassy to get double listed (and at any rate, the "see" listing would have to be in the district article anyway) and it is not entirely clear which objective or subjective criteria there are to be used to decide which embassy, does, as it were, get double listing. Hobbitschuster (talk) 03:11, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

If there's an embassy that's notable enough to be listed in any category other than "Cope", IMO no one should worry about double-listing it. If you feel like it's more of a gray area and you're not sure whether or not an embassy is notable enough to be double-listed - and this is the part I want to emphasize, because this advice is applicable to a lot of these questions that come up sometimes - then instead of waiting for the community to come to some hard-and-fast rule, you should simply proceed according to your best judgment, and if someone else has a problem with that, let them take it up on the talk page of the article or on your user talk page. As long as you have a reasonable explanation for why you did what you did, no one is going to fault you for plunging forward, and if your edit gets reverted, so be it. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 03:39, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

A pictogram like or could be included in the description of the embassy (or school, restaurant, hotel, theatre, ...). The pictogram should have a mouse over text with explanation. And if it is used in an article, the see section could refer to them like "Note, the ... sections have also buildings that are interesting/great to see". --FredTC (talk) 05:26, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

You could propose the addition of pictograms in Wikivoyage talk:Listings, but let's not use them unless a consensus supports them. So far, we haven't used them and have indeed deleted the freelance use of them. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:00, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

If something already has a listing in another section of the same article, another full listing, pictograms or much of anything else other than one brief line of plain text like "Embassy Row is known for the historic architecture of the X, Y and Z missions" is probably overkill. We don't want to repeat ourselves unnecessarily. K7L (talk)

I agree with this. I think the best solution would be a full listing in "See" and then a listing in "Get in" that mentions only practical matters, except for a sentence stating something like "This station is also a notable sight: See the listing in the "See" section". Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:14, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

I agree with AndreCarrotflower and Ikan Kekek. —Granger (talk · contribs) 10:02, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

For embassies, there are exceptions. The French Embassy in Rome would be listed in the section with embassies but also must be listed as a "See" listing because it's the Palazzo Farnese. See Rome/Old Rome#Historical buildings. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:32, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

I see no reason why we can't list an embassy in both Cope and See. Each listing serves a totally different purpose. Powers ^(talk) 02:17, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Trains that are tourist attractions in themselves

Where should kid trains like Thomas the Train in Tallin go?

What about Roaring Camp & Big Trees Narrow-Gauge Railroad? --DenisYurkin (talk) 17:56, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

They would go in the Do section. I think they would be regarded as activities. --Traveler100 (talk) 19:43, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Is it worth mentioning in wycsi list? --DenisYurkin (talk) 20:51, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I think it can be mentioned. ϒpsilon (talk) 22:38, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Sorry for the 'bump', but there are relevant sections in Tourist Trains and in Miniatures, dioramas and scale models, that things like this coul be placed.. Generally the former is for larger (narrow guage and up) full-scale operations (say wider than 15 in track guage), whereas the second is for the small track guages ( >15 in) ones that are ride on models instead.

Correct placement of "Visitor Information Centre" [and parks]

{swept} Could you tell me where would be the right location of a "Visitor Information Centre" listing? I expected it to be most helpful in the "Understand" section.

Where would you place it?

Cheers, Ceever (talk) 16:07, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Understand, as suggested here. Very useful page to remember :-) --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 16:17, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Ceever (talk) 01:44, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

What about parks?

Wikivoyage:Where_you_can_stick_it#P currently has:

park (city) the See section of the City page

park (state or national) the Other destinations section of a Region or Country page

Is this consistent with our actual usage? I've been listing small parks as "do" (activity) rather than "see"; if they're outside the city in some rural location that doesn't merit its own article, that may end up in a village-level "nearby" section of the closest place with an article. Provincial parks aren't necessarily "other destinations" unless they're large enough to justify creating an article specifically for the park, Jellystone-style. Anticosti is treated as a rural bottom-level destination, Adirondacks is a region with villages under it, Algonquin Provincial Park is an actual park article - but there are countless small provincial (or even federal) parks which merit little more than a listing in the closest town with an article... as "do". K7L (talk) 04:26, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Well now we get into the fine distinctions between individual parks. The Adirondacks are referred to as a "park" in official terminology, but functionally it's more akin to an undeveloped wilderness preserve, albeit with a few populated areas contained therein (IIRC towns, villages and built-up areas that predate the establishment of the preserve are grandfathered in and not subject to the same land-use regulations as elsewhere inside the Green Line). For Anticosti a convincing argument could be made either way, as it functions as both a municipality and a provincial park. Small state parks contained wholly within one municipality, such as Buffalo Harbor State Park, should be listings (always "See", though individual amenities within the park, such as BHSP's Safe Harbor Boat Rentals, can be filed under "Do"). -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 05:05, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

I'd suppose there is a distinction between a city park where you would stroll with your picnic basket, and the out-of-town protected area ("park"), where you would have hiking boots and a backpack. The former seems to belong in See, while I'd certainly place the latter in Do, even if it is comparably small. "State park" is not usable vocabulary for the distinction, as it requires knowledge of the system in specific countries – and that "one municipality" is not usable criteria across Buffalo and Enontekiö. --LPfi (talk) 10:49, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

I'd expect that we'd want to keep the park and any sub-listings for individual amenities in the park together as one group, much as we do for a university campus which contains a museum (see), an opera house (do) and a conference centre.

As for the confusing "parc national" labels? Perhaps the distinction is between a small park which serves a single village vs. a small village (or handful of villages) which serve a large park. Rouge National Park on the Scarborough-Pickering boundary is listed to Toronto/Scarborough#Do even though it's federal and not municipal. Is Trawna just a small village which primarily serves the park, or is this (conversely) a small park which primarily serves the city? Torngat Mountains National Park is another matter entirely - a huge park, way off the beaten path (and watch for hungry white bears!).

I'd expect that getting your pick-a-nick basket nicked by cartoon bears would be an activity ("do") - although there may be an edge case where a tiny village which "has no restaurant, but one may buy deli sandwiches from the grocer and eat them at the picnic tables in the park" could include a picnic area in "eat". A picnic is an activity, so doesn't really best fit with the museum and architecture listings in "see". K7L (talk) 14:18, 1 February 2018 (UTC)::

I'd put "Take the kids to the playground" under ==Do==. I'd put "stroll around the manicured gardens" under ==See==.

I don't think that you can have a hard-and-fast rule that can be applied thoughtlessly, because "park" is an expansive subject. There are locations that are half public art installation ("See") and half children's playground ("Do"), or half flower garden ("See") and half restaurant ("Eat"), etc. In those cases, I don't think we should spend too much time worrying about the ideal section. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:17, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Proposal to expand "Read"

Swept in from the pub

Currently in the "Read" subsection of "Understand", we list books that inspire or give the traveller insight into their destination. In this day and age, I believe we should go beyond and allow the listing of travel documentaries. Travel literature is more than the written word these days. Personally when I think about the books that have inspired me to travel, I can think of a few but I reflect on the documentaries that have made want to wander like a nomad I can think of many more. I am sure I am not the only one! I propose expanding "Read" to "Read and watch" in the appropriate circumstances. Like "Read", "Watch" will be an optional section and will only be added when it is useful and beneficial to the traveller. I imagine most article's won't have it but some will. What does everyone think? Gizza ^(roam) 02:09, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

I think this is a good idea, especially since a documentary can really pack thousands of words into a few moving images. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:15, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

I'd support this, providing that we maintain a prohibition on promotional or online travel guide video links. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:43, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Expand away - I see no issue with putting links one or two in depth explorations of culture, society or geography. But no links to video travel guides on youtube. --Inas (talk) 06:34, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes links should be prohibited. Gizza ^(roam) 07:40, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

I just noticed that "film suggestions" was already in Wikivoyage:Where you can stick it and I've added documentaries too. Films were meant to be placed in a "Film" subsection of "Understand" but I plunged forward and changed that to "Watch" too so it can be broadened to other visual material like documentaries and possibly TV shows, and also to make the heading a verb instead of a noun, which aligns it with other Wikivoyage headings. If anybody disagrees, please discuss it here. Thanks Gizza ^(roam) 23:12, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

A new worship section

Swept in from the pub

Okay, here's a serious proposal. One we can all agree on. It adds a new section to our article format: a Worship section, for churches, mosques, etc. Churches aren't always sights in and of themselves, but they're still worth mentioning because some people feel the need to worship while on vacations. Most of the churches in my town aren't exactly sights, but I'm sure that more religious people would like to give some time to God while they're here visiting their families. Libertarianmoderate (talk) 01:23, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Currently we include these in the "Cope" section, which seems like the right choice to me. My feeling is that for most of our readers, religious services aren't such an important aspect of travel as to merit a dedicated standard section. But by all means add them to the "Cope" section. In articles for non-English-speaking destinations, I think it's especially helpful to mention places that offer English-language services. —Granger (talk · contribs) 02:13, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

I concur. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:53, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a few webpages about the difficulty of "Traveling While Orthodox" (Jewish). Mostly it didn't seem too complex, unless you were traveling on the Sabbath or during Passover. From there, the advice seemed to be: Just stay home, if possible. If you can't stay home, then travel to (a) the Catskills, (b) on a kosher cruise ship, or (c) to Israel. If you can't go to one of those three places, then call an orthodox school near where you're going, and ask if the headmaster's family will let you stay with them. (Apparently this is a thing.) And if that's not possible, then call te hotel in advance and try to arrange a long list of accommodations, like not using elevators and having a staff member turn on the lights in your room, and figuring out how to reheat kosher food in the in-room coffee pot (which is acceptable; a microwave is not, unless you double-wrap and double-seal the food first). It's not exactly ===Worship=== information, but it was interesting to read about. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:08, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

It's very useful for a travel topic about "Travelling as an observant Jew". That advice about where to travel is really unnecessarily restrictive, though. My godmother is an Orthodox, shomer Shabbos (Sabbath-observant) Jew and has traveled to Ethiopia, Kenya, Myanmar and quite a few other countries. There are a lot of countries you can visit on kosher tours, for example, and in other places, you can seek out the local Chabad members. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:34, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

I added a hotel to Montevideo#Sleep that's good for Orthodox Jewish travellers (including a Sabbath elevator, etc.), and I'm sure there are other cities with similar hotels that would be worth listing. A travel topic article seems like a good idea if someone has enough knowledge to write it. We already have some information about the subject in the Judaism and Kashrut articles. —Granger (talk · contribs) 03:52, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

I think that User:Mx. Granger has struck the right note here - places of worship are welcome in the Cope section. If there are enough of them, they would warrant a subsection withing the Cope section, which I think captures the spirit of User:Libertarianmoderate's proposal. I also think that "Travelling as an observant Jew" and "... Muslim" would be great articles, as would articles about Christian pilgrimage tourism, but I'm not qualified to write them. Ground Zero (talk) 15:18, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

I can only speak of Christian or formerly Christian countries, particularly Germany where my approach is "likely at least one church is a sight in itself, so list it as that. If there is a synagogue, it will almost certainly be the only one, so it is ipso facto of enough note to be listed as a sight." Mosques are a bit more complicated as the vast majority of mosques in Europe (bar of course Turkey, Albania, Bosnia and a few isolated cases) are not exactly sights; people in Germany like to talk of "Hinterhof-Moschee" (roughly: back-alley mosque). However, I think we have to keep in mind that it is rather uncommon for travelers who care enough about their religious observance to feel the need to head to a mosque, church, synagogue, temple, shrine to Elon Musk, supply side economics monument or whatnot on vacation to then not care about the denomination. I think quite a few Lutherans would not be called dead worshiping in a Catholic church and vice versa. Muslims are - to my knowledge - often even more keen to not go to the "wrong denomination" and said keenness increases with the devoutness of their faith. Remember that we aren't catering to long time residents here (and I think if you are truly religious, it can be expected that you do the legwork after a few weeks to find out where skydaddy lives in town). And I also don't think we benefit from a long list of boring nondescript suburban "pray-factories" just to cater to the minority of travelers who absolutely have to go pray to that thing up above (or down below, hey, I'm not judging) in regular intervals even while traveling but absolutely cannot do it outside a special building or in a building of vaguely the wrong kind. Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:03, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Another thing I just thought of is that listing primarily religious venues even if too nondescript to count as "sights" even with a generous definition of the term might be okay if they hold a nontrivial number of "secular" (and the term "secular" here is to be interpreted very broadly) events that might interest the general public. For example if the local mosque hosts a debate night every Thursday, it might be worth mentioning even if the mosque looks like a residential building from the outside. Or if the church does concerts every month or so... But I think the line should be "Would a nonbeliever feel uncomfortable in going to such an event? If yes, it probably doesn't fit even a broad definition of 'secular'" Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:06, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't agree with such a clear bias toward the secular. If a mosque has a notable Qur'an-chanting contest once a month, that should be listed even if some atheists might not feel comfortable attending it. Other examples are church, mosque or temple festivals involving food. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:01, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

We list any and every embassy in many articles, even though the chances of a traveller in Athens needing the Maltese, Saudi Arabian or Indonesian embassy is pretty slim. I see no harm in listing places of worship for the benefit of travellers who would want them (I'm not one of them), along with any denominational information we might have. If the list gets long, maybe we could collapse as I think is done for some long embassy lists. Ground Zero (talk) 20:17, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Embassies are common only in capital cities and even some of the capitals don't have all that many embassies. Churches or other houses of worship are insanely common and there is not really a good criteria to exclude any one of them if we remove the "should oder something - anything - to people who don't believe in that particular faith." And that "something" should not be a gag reflex, mind you...

To give just one example, if we were to list all churches in San Carlos (Nicaragua), that list alone would easily be several times, perhaps an order of magnitude longer than the current article. And don't think a "one per denomination" rule would work either. Firstly plenty of perfectly fine churches of the more common denominations (Catholic and Lutheran, mostly) which actually have architectural or artistic value would not be listed and secondly many many denominations consist entirely of a single or a handful of churches "no, you see, I am a southern Baptist born again gospel of 1912, you on the other hand are a southern Baptist born again gospel of 1923, or in other words a filthy filthy heretic who'll burn in hell"... Hobbitschuster (talk) 20:39, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

For big towns and cities (even if districtified), a line has to be drawn for many types of listings: places of worship, restaurants, parks, bars, accommodation, shops/malls, hospitals, libraries, etc. I think places of worship can be approached in a similar way to the others. If there are too many to list, limit them on a case-by-case basis, and remove the less famous or interesting ones for the voyager. Gizza ^(roam) 00:27, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

What percentage of churches in San Carlos are Catholic? 80%? 90%? The problem with reductio ad absurdam arguments is that it so easy to dismiss them on the basis of experience. We don't have that much problem with editors who want to add every restaurant or every hotel in a large city. And when we do see that, they tend to get bored quickly and move on, then we can go and clean up the article. Workng with other editors, I handled a well-intentioned anon contributor who was focused on adding endless listings of gorcery and convenience stores. Wikivoyage managed to withstand that. The reality is that few cities have every variety of Christianity out there, so it's not really going to be a problem. The denominations that consist of a single or a few congregations would not likely be listed anyway. I don't think that we will see a committed long-term editor who is determined to list every Southern Baptist church, either. The people who are most committed to Wikivoyage recognize that that level of detail is not useful. Wikivoyage:Where you can stick it tells us to put churches (for religious services, as opposed to sight-seeing) in Cope. I would be opposed to removing that and prohibiting adding churches (etc.,) Ground Zero (talk) 01:56, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Restaurants and accommodation are a special case as "food, fuel, lodging" are core necessities of travel. We´ll usually also list at least one local library if they have public-access computers or other "connect" ability and are open reasonable hours. We look for two things: how relevant is the listing to travel and how common is one particular amenity? Want your fuel station listed on Wikivoyage? Build it in Relais-Gabriel or at some point on the Trans-Labrador where it's 410 km (250 mi) to the next station. Anywhere else, it's typically a commodity and safely ignored.

By contrast, a small city article might list just the one main cathedral for a village (even if there are other options) as the small churches in each neighbourhood primarily serve local residents. Likewise, we ignore the nondescript, interchangeable elementary schools in each neighbourhood but an institute with some other claim to fame (such as a museum on-site) might be duly noted. The Sorbonne gets a listing. K7L (talk) 01:59, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Interesting, since I think this highlights a slight but still notable gap in the travel guide's coverage. I think the real solution to the problem, however, is to add church information to either "see", "cope", or "connect" depending on the church and place involved. I think information about churches is useful and is something other travel guides don't cover. Of course, the importance of this depends on the religious population of tourists to a place. Selfie City (talk) 03:32, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

It's one of like adding a vegetarian restaurant to the Eat listings. It won't be for everyone, but it will be very welcomed by the vegetarians. Finding a suitable place to worship would feed the soul of the religious person. Ground Zero (talk) 03:45, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Yep. And my comment about San Carlos is that since so many of the churches there are Catholic, it's easy to find those, and none need to be listed unless they're otherwise interesting. However, if there's one mosque, one synagogue and one Mormon temple there, those can be listed in "Cope" if they're not otherwise interesting. It's precisely the places of worship that are in a scarce category for a given place that are most useful to list for the believers in those religions who travel there. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:28, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ to my knowledge, the number of Catholic churches in San Carlos is one. There are to my knowledge zero houses of worship of religions without reference to Jesus. But there are tons of houses of worship with reference to Jesus that aren't Catholic. There are a bunch of various denominations that I don't even want to know about... And they make up their perhaps slightly smaller numbers (nationally a plurality is still nominally Catholic) by increased attendance and making more noise... Catholics tend to not even attend every week. Non-Catholics tend to attend several times weekly... Hobbitschuster (talk) 08:22, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

I see. Well, you are not the person to add those listings, then, but someone else might list something. I know there's a very loud Ukrainian Evangelical church a block and a half from me, and it's loud even when you pass it on the street - definitely not my style of worship, but someone might find it stimulating. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:34, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

If the place of worship is worth seeing for its architecture, artifacts, tombs of famous people burried there etc. then list it under See. If there are activities going on that might be of interest to the traveler (talks, seminars, workshops, ...) or if it has been converted into community centers, indoor playgrounds etc. then list it under Do. If it doesn't fit under under See or Do but somehow still important then list it under Cope. But avoid overloading and cluttering articles with too many religious points of interest. Cities like Brussels, Paris or London are dotted with churches (and all of them will have sculptures, statues etc.) but there is little value in listing them all I think. ArticCynda (talk) 14:33, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

That's the thing. I think those Houses of Worship that are properly listed under see or do are usually more than is needed. If something is to be listed under "cope" it might be the airport chapel (usually non-denominational for obvious reasons) but it should be limited to one or two (how to chose if there's more?). I think the rub lies in whether churches are by their mere existence worthy of listing even if boring and uninteresting to us who will burn in hell with C. Darwin, C. Hitchens, T. Pratchett and others... Hobbitschuster (talk) 14:49, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

If I do not misremember, I even added a "don't list churches just 'cause they're there" caveat into a policy list somewhere, but I am not sure where. Back then it had no opposition that I recall... Hobbitschuster (talk) 14:50, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

The problem is that almost every church/mosque has something that makes it "unique", like an unusual sculpture or statue, stained glass windows by a famous glass artist, an architectural style uncommon in the region, and so on. In the Brussels Pentagon district alone we have already 8 churches listed, and from the descriptions it looks like each and every one of them would be worth a visit for different reasons. It's not always straight-forward to draw the line. ArticCynda (talk) 15:39, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

That's the same issue as listing shops in New York City. Yes, it's hard to draw a line. I think in Rome, it would be an even bigger problem because there are literally hundreds of churches that are well worth visiting. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:22, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, we find ways of managing too many listings for everything else, there is no reason the would be a problem for churches-for-praying as opposed to churches-for-taking-selfies-in. Wikivoyage:Where you can stick it says:

"church (religious services) | the Cope section of the City page

church (sightseeing) | the See section of the City page"

The argument that we can't put any churches in because then we'd have to put them all in is addressing a non-real problem. Let's deal with real problems. If we can find space for LGBT bars and vegetarian restaurants for people like me, we can find space for places of worship and kiddie parks for people who aren't like me. And "places of worship" can be interpreted broadly to include humanist meeting halls and atheist temples if there are those around. Ground Zero (talk) 23:40, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

And what would those criteria then be? Surely it cannot be their architectural beauty or their non-religious offerings, because those are the criteria for listing them in see or do. I think there are quite a few religious figures who'd argue any given House of Worship (of the right denomination) is just as good for prayer as any other. Jesus might even have said that a less impressive church is better, for all I know. And in places where there are countless denominations, who are we to say whether Baptists get a listing and Methodists not? What about Quakers? Are Anabaptists different from Baptists? What about a town which has Mosques on every corner? Hobbitschuster (talk) 00:51, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

The amount of debate over this points to the fact that it will become impossible to decide which churches should be included and which shouldn't, so my point of view is changing a little: we should either include the worship section or keep things as they are. Selfie City (talk) 01:01, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm not ready to concede the point, in that if there's only one church of a given denomination having mass/services in English in a given town, it's helpful to include it, and likewise, if there's only one Orthodox synagogue, one Sunni mosque, one Hindu temple, etc. In cases in which there are numerous houses of worship of a particular type, there's no need to list any that don't have something of additional interest about them (e.g., notable architecture, a concert series, a notable or particularly good church dinner open to the public, Gospel services). Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:10, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Hobbitschuster, we can apply the same rigorous criteria we use for determination which of a city's hundreds of restaurants are listed in the Eat section. Oh wait, we don't have rigorous criteria, we just let editors add restaurants they think are good, and of the list gets too long, someone comes along and culls it. But having too many churches in an article is not a real problem. It has not happened. And cheer up, it may never happen. Don't we have better things to worry about than problems that aren't real? Ground Zero (talk) 01:13, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

To be fair, it probably happened in articles for some cities in former East Bloc countries when one editor added voluminous information about dozens of churches in some articles, but in that case, none of the listings were about worship. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:26, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Count this as a !vote for keeping a couple of non-sightseeing-worthy religious organizations in the ==Cope== section of smaller towns. In one small town that I lived in during the previous century, the local churches were also the primary source of non-spiritual assistance for travelers in need. If your car broke down on the highway and you couldn't afford to get it fixed, they'd let you make a long-distance phone call, or pay for a hotel room for one night, or buy a bus ticket so you could get to the next city. They had some kind of inter-denominational club or committee that they all chipped into to pay for these (rare) events, and I think that you could have walked into any church in town and ended up with the same assistance in the end. Even in places with no funding or organization, the local clergy can be expected to know where the hotels are and who can fix your car, and likely feels more of a professional obligation to be hospitable to strangers than the average person. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:42, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, this is an important point. I haven't used churches for car repair, but when we ones happened to pop into a small church for sightseeing at time of the mass and stayed, we were asked to stay for coffee too, and could have made any number of friends. This kind of community spirit is hardly universal, but probably not too uncommon either. --LPfi (talk) 09:17, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

I occasionally go to church when I am travelling. Often, one of the attractions is the after service coffee, which can be a good opportunity to talk to locals. I am not bothered about the exact denomination of the church which I visit. Unlike commercial facilities it is perfectly acceptable to ask in one church what are others are in the area - the Anglicans will happily tell you where the Methodists are - I have had such information volunteered without asking when I said where I am from. AlasdairW (talk) 12:01, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Then again, where do you draw the line? The only major difference between a cult and a religion is the number of followers... So are we okay with listing meeting places for Scientology, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the likes? Many cults have the potential to be very harmful and even destroy lives, so perhaps we'd even need warning boxes for some! I have faint memories of how such a discussion is going to be like... ArticCynda (talk) 19:09, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

I think you will find that scholars disagree with your definition of cult, but since this isn't Wikipedia, we can skip that point and get down to what matters: In a big (or even medium-sized) city, I expect that most religious groups would end up in ==See== or perhaps ==Do== (if there's a big annual festival), and so might not list any. If you did list one or two, then it might be a locally prominent religion that didn't happen to get mentioned previously, for balance. If there were a place that catered to travelers (e.g., a church that serves a church-sponsored campsite), then that would be another good choice for the ==Cope== section. But mostly, I expect this to matter for towns and rural areas, in which case you probably want to list the biggest (because it is the one most likely to have someone in the office during the week) or the one closest to the highway (shortest distance if you have to walk in to town) or the one closest to other things a traveler might need (whatever's across the street from your favorite hotel). WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:29, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Believe it or not, there are small communities all around the globe where the highway isn't the only or the most likely way in. Islands for one. Mountain towns for another. But I digress. I think we are at this point mostly discussing a hypothetical handful of churches that are a) not architecturally relevant enough for a "see" listing b) not doing enough "stuff" for a "do" listing c) offer some sort of resources d) in an article that overall lacks listings and maybe resources for travelers in need of them which e) the church / mosque / temple / shrine to Elon Musk / whatever in question provide. I think we are down to a set of circumstances enough sui generis as to be comparable to those places in the high arctic where our listings boil down to "This place may have burned down last year and it had a shoddy reputation before that, but it is the only commercially available option in town"... Hobbitschuster (talk) 15:42, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Not so hypothetical, actually.

I grant that it might be hard to get the best information for unfamiliar places. For example, in another small town that I'm familiar with, I'd recommend the lone gas station as a far more useful place for whatever that you need. However, I still think that this is a reasonable model, and not as rare as it might seem. And, yes, "highways", because I'm thinking about this from the POV of the "smaller town" in what are sometimes called "flyover states", where there is an unfortunate shortage of passenger rail service and no islands worth mentioning. If you find it useful to adapt this approach to islands or mountain towns with no highway service, then that's naturally fine with me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:12, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Always keep in mind: if the locals manage to get in/out, then also travelers can get in/out. Ruling out bikes for intercity travel, that means there must be (light) rail, bus/tram or coach services available, unless the article is about a ghost town without a living population. It's just a matter of finding out the transport options the locals use! ArticCynda (talk) 20:19, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Your assumption that there will always be a mass transit option is just not true. For example, the US state of Montana has ~130 towns; about 20 of them have intercity bus service. You get in and out of the other 100 in a private vehicle – or you don't get in and out. This can be a serious problem for local residents, whose own town may not have a grocery store, much less a hospital, and are unable to drive to the next town (or the one after that) for things they need. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:34, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

I agree with User:Mx. Granger & Ground Zero; quoteing the latter "places of worship are welcome in the Cope section. If there are enough of them, they would warrant a subsection withing the Cope section".

As for the travel problems of observant Jews, we have a Judaism article; why not mention them there? They aren't the only ones who might have problems; what does an observant Muslim do if Ramadan comes when he's in an area with the Midnight Sun? A Sikh has five things to carry or wear: turban, bracelet, some I forget & a knife; can he wear that knife on an airplane? Pashley (talk) 22:19, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

There is a Canadian solution to observing Ramadan in the Arctic: Muslim Canadians living in the far north follow the timetable of another Muslim community, typically Edmonton or Ottawa. A kirpan under 6 cm is permitted in Canada. (It would be awkward if our Minister of Defence were not allowed to fly.) Ground Zero (talk) 22:39, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

But at the same time I still think places of worship haven't been included within articles enough, so we should create an expedition for "places of worship". Just my opinion, I think any of us could start it. Selfie City (talk) 23:00, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

It wouldn't be practical to include all places of worship in a city or country article, as there would be just too many to list, so I'd say we only mention such places if they're particularly notable. For the most part, we do mention notable places under the "See" or "Do" sections, so if you are a religious person, I'd suggest that you look in those sections. Let's keep in mind that we're a secular travel guide, so while we can provide information that is helpful for religious people, I think that creating a "Worship" section specifically for religious people is overkill. Therefore, I'd vote for keeping the status quo where we list religious sites under "See" and "Do", and not start a new "Worship" section. What I'd think we can do though, is to create a "Places of Worship" or "Religious Sites" sub section under one of those sections, so religious people know exactly where to look if they want information about their places of worship, and this would also cater to non-religious people who are just interested in visiting such religious sites. The dog2 (talk) 03:42, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

I think you haven't been following the discussion very closely: no-one is suggesting including all places of worship, so there is no point in bring up that red herring. Including some restaurants, bars and hotels does not oblige us to include all restaurants, bars and hotels in a city or country article, so allowing churches, etc., to be included does not in any way at all mean that we would have to include all of them. The status quo allows us to include religious buildings for the purposes of worship under Cope -- see Wikivoyage:Where you can stick it. If anyone wants to prohibit including places of worship under "Cope", then they'd better propose a policy change to make that change, because otherwise, it's allowed. Ground Zero (talk) 03:51, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

OK, I checked that page. Either way, I'm happy with the status quo. Having a "Worship" section is a bit overkill IMO, but having a listing of some important places of worship under "Cope" is fine by me. This is no different from how we provide information for Muslims and Jews about halal and kosher food. The dog2 (talk) 04:41, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

As per wycsi, places of worship that aren't notable as sights (i.e. listed in See) can be listed in Cope. ϒpsilon (talk) 05:07, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

The existing policy

I think before we change around policy, we all should be on the same page as to what the policy currently is. This is it. Hobbitschuster (talk) 11:43, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

The current policy is good for me. We're happy to provide information to religious people to fulfill their religious obligations, but ultimately this is still a secular travel guide, and we do not promote one religion over another, and neither do we promote religiosity over atheism/agnosticism (or vice-versa). Having a separate "Worship" section might be misconstrued as promoting religiosity over atheism/agnosticism. On the other hand, listing it under "Cope" is sufficient for providing information for religious travellers, though I would strongly suggest using "Places of Worship" instead of just "Worship" so the tone comes across as more neutral. The dog2 (talk) 15:56, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Wikivoyage uses verbs for section headings, and worship is a verb. (Also, the overall goal is to "be fair" rather than to "be neutral".)

I'm not entirely sure that I would agree that this is "a secular travel guide". It is not "a religious travel guide", but I thought it was just "a travel guide" – neither specifically secular nor religious. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:16, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

I agree that this is not a pointedly secular guide, just a travel guide. However, "Worship" could be interpreted as an imperative, thereby implying that we are suggesting for people to worship, rather than just providing them with information. Subsections don't have to be in verb form, anyway: They can be terms like "Budget", and from what I've seen, subsections of "Do" are more apt to be "Scuba diving" than "Scuba dive", "Meditation" rather than "Meditate", etc. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:49, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

The existing policy is fine as it is. If a subsection of "Cope" is needed to group listings, "Places of worship" would be an appropriate heading. Ground Zero (talk) 03:34, 10 August 2018 (UTC)