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I think this is largely not that relevant to a travel guide, but it is actually common to have "Maps of the Stars" or tours of celebrity homes in the Los Angeles region, which to me is completely crazy and behavior that should not be encouraged. Considering Whatamidoing's point about the WMF encouraging this kind of documentation, I think having a guideline/policy is wise. Good thinking. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯21:00, 9 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yeah, I would absolutely oppose any article for a tour that takes people to the homes of celebrities who would rather be private in their own homes. If this kind of tour existed in New York, New Yorkers would be up in arms about it and pressing the City Council to pass a law about it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:35, 9 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
The page and section about photos say very little, mostly discouraging photos of yourself, which isn't what this is about. says a lot more and should probably be followed also regarding locally uploaded pictures. None of those three says anything about text about people (other than that captions shouldn't be defamatory).
I think we probably shouldn't write a policy unless there are real issues. We have no reason to write about most people, and it seems common sense, like what Yvwv showed above, works reasonably well. Writing a policy opens up for loopholes and wikilawyering.
I wonder if our "BLP policy" could be a section in our existing Wikivoyage:Be fair policy. Basically, a few principles about avoiding mentioning individuals, and especially avoiding saying anything contentious or unfairly invading their privacy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:40, 10 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
That sounds reasonable. In the past I have opposed a suggestion to create an itinerary based on the travels of a living individual.
A more common situation is where a listing mentions something about the people that work in the hotel or restaurant. "Friendly owners" or "poor service from the waiters" is ok, but referring to staff by name needs more care. AlasdairW (talk) 23:04, 10 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
It's surely OK when the name of the Chef de Cuisine or Pastry Chef are printed on menus or are well-known chefs the restaurant promotes. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:40, 10 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
Can an artist's personal life be separated from their work? At least, death is useful to conclude a life story. As Georg Riedel past away one year ago, he deserves to be described in the Jewish Stockholm tour. Aleksander Wolodarski is another person appropriate to mention, but as he is well and alive (and to some degree a divisive character in Swedish architecture) the description of him in the same article is very brief. The Harry Potter tourism barely mentions the author, and that might be good as it is. /Yvwv (talk) 10:16, 11 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think it would be fine to note the name of a celebrity chef ("Thomas Keller's restaurant, The French Laundry"), or even a relatively public non-celebrity ("The restaurant owner, Mary Smith, is also the long-time mayor of this small town" or "Olly Owner is happy to pack a picnic upon request").
I think we should avoid "Wendy Waitress is unfriendly", but "Some staff are unfriendly" is ok. It is important to report negative aspects of a place if either it is balanced by "excellent cooking and wonderful bread" or it is the only place in town. It becomes more difficult with one person businesses. AlasdairW (talk) 20:24, 11 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
Wikivoyage should not be interested in people: that is the province of Wikipedia. Wikivoyage is however interested in places associated with people and to this end should be cautious about their privacy. If however the individual concerned invites members of the public to their homes or businesses (for example Donald Trump has a website for Mar-a-Lago) then it is no longer Wikivoyage's role to protect his privacy: if he publicises his home, then it is incumbent on him to look after his own privacy. In contrast, Joe Biden does not appear to advertise his home, so neither should Wikivoyage (even if a search on the internet will reveal Joe Biden's properties).Martinvl (talk) 15:18, 12 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
Does something like this feel about right?
----
As a general rule, Wikivoyage is interested in places, not people. Occasionally, providing a fair description will involve mentioning a specific person. In such cases, these principles apply to protect living people:
Avoid contentious matter about living people to the maximum extent possible, to show respect for human dignity and personal privacy. Publishing personal information that is tangential to the needs of the article, trivial, ephemeral, or constitutes a negative review is unfair. For example, if a restaurant owner promotes dubious beliefs to customers, then omit the listing completely rather than writing about the owner's beliefs.
Avoid whole articles focused on living people, such as an itinerary to see the private homes of celebrities. It is fair to have an itinerary focused on Taylor Swift's concert tours; it is not fair to have an article focused on her homes.
Individual listings that name a living public figure are acceptable so long as the content is not contentious. However, you should avoid naming living people when a general description is adequate. For example, write "The owner is happy to talk about local history" instead of "Harry Historian, the owner, is happy to talk about local history", even though you would name the celebrity chef Thomas Keller as the owner of the restaurant The French Laundry.
Thanks for offering a rough draft! The one part that sticks out to me as problematic is the part about "dubious beliefs," which gives an opening to intolerant atheists to complain about a bismillah or cross in a restaurant. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:12, 12 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
I was thinking about political beliefs, and specifically about an anti-masking restaurant I read about during the pandemic, but you're right: That needs to be re-worded. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:30, 12 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
I don't think that businesses should be removed because of beliefs of the owner or personnel; that the owner touts antivacc or flat-earth theories might be entertaining rather than a reason to avoid them. One might tell that they might raise controversial topics. For dangerous practices, such as not using masks when needed, that would be treated like them using contaminated water or whatever. Yes, sometimes that warrants removing the listing in line with no bad reviews, but that has little to do with privacy.
For a Finnish business, it was suggested that the listings be removed because of bigotry, in effect a boycott by Wikivoyage. I am not sure about to what extent to do that, but I assume we might tell something about the owner in that case, if we leave the choice whether to use their services to our readers. I would oppose individual editors removing listings because of views that don't conform with their own, but they may of course choose not to add them.
I think there might be a spectrum of issues, but some types of (e.g.,) bigotry are not compatible with Wikivoyage:The traveller comes first. Inclusion constitutes a recommendation, at least when there are other alternatives. If we list a restaurant, it should be because travellers are welcome. If the restaurant's listing would need to have a disclaimer along the lines of "BTW, only white people are allowed to eat here" or "People whom the owner thinks look Jewish/Muslim/Black/gay/trans will be refused service", then that restaurant shouldn't be included in Wikivoyage at all. Listed restaurants should normally be open to all of the general public.
On the other end of the spectrum, if the owner cheerfully accepts all customers, but he privately belongs to a racist organization, then that's not really relevant to the travellers' experience, so we needn't mention that. Travellers who want to patronize only businesses owned by people who share the same politics/religion/race/sexual orientation should look elsewhere for that information.
Somewhere in the middle is factual information that travellers may interpret in opposite ways. For example, if a given deli in New York City is kosher, it'd be worth noting that in the description. Most travellers won't care. Some travellers will prefer it (either for religious reasons or because kosher meat is considered more ethical than conventional meat). Some travellers will reject it. But knowing that it might appeal (or not) to different travellers is not the same as different travellers not being allowed to eat at the deli. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:02, 13 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
I see no problem in describing a restaurant in terms of the religious beliefs that it portrays provided that it is done in a neutral manner - for example , "The XYZ resaurant is a kosher/halal/vegetarian establishment". The reader can then make up their ow mind about patronising the establishment - after all Wikivoyage has many articles about various places of worship. Martinvl (talk) 21:05, 13 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think the general point is that we want "XYZ is a kosher/halal/vegetarian restaurant" but not "The owner of XYZ is a Jew/Muslim/vegetarian person". WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:10, 14 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
Suggested rewrite of the first point (Changes in bold):
"Avoid contentious matter about living people to the maximum extent possible, to show respect for human dignity and personal privacy. Publishing personal information that is tangential to the needs of the article, trivial, ephemeral, or constitutes a negative review is unfair. For example, if a restaurant owner promotes particular beliefs to customers, then omit the listing completely rather than writing about the owner's beliefs. If however the establishment itself caters for certain beliefs and/or ethics, it is reasonable, or maybe even desireable, to add those beliefs/ethics to the description in a neutral manner - such as including the words "kosher/halal/vegetarian" to the establishment's description." Martinvl (talk) 21:14, 13 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
I suggest that the second point be extended as follows (additions in bold):
Avoid whole articles focused on living people, such as an itinerary to see the private homes of celebrities. It is fair to have an itinerary focused on Taylor Swift's concert tours; it is not fair to have an article focused on her homes. However, if the celebrity concerend advertises their home to the general public (for example Mar-a-Lago, home of Donald Trump or Blenheim Palace, home of the Duke of Marlborough) , then it is perfectly in order to mention the home in an article and ideally to include a web address the description or article.
I think all this discussion of beliefs and politics is bad and not something about which we want policies. Also, bad reviews are by no means inherently unfair, and I'm mystified by how anyone could think that's the case; it's just that Wikivoyage chooses with some exceptions to simply refrain from listing businesses, rather than stating that they are bad. I also don't see why we would need to add a policy that establishments that discriminate against people based for example on their ethnicity, appearance or national origin, such as a historic restaurant in Düsseldorf that refused admission to East Asians early in the pandemic, be delisted, because we already do that based on preexisting policies. Right now, I think that based on the drafts circulated in this thread, we risk approving a new policy that is worse than none. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:40, 13 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
It might be best to try the smallest possible addition. After all, it's usually easier to get a policy expanded later if we really need it, than to get it shortened later. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:08, 14 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
Here's a shorter version:
----
As a general rule, Wikivoyage is interested in places, not people. Occasionally, providing a fair description will involve mentioning a specific person. In such cases, these principles apply to protect living people:
Avoid contentious matter about living people to the maximum extent possible, to show respect for human dignity and personal privacy. Individual listings that name a living public figure are acceptable so long as the content is not contentious.
Avoid whole articles focused on living people, such as an itinerary to see the private homes of celebrities.
----
We could also soften "the maximum extent possible". It's always "possible" to avoid mentioning anyone's name, but it's not always "reasonable" to do so. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:14, 14 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
What about the article on U.S. presidents? We don't avoid contentious facts about living current and former presidents; we just agree on what should be in the blurbs about them based on the existing Wikivoyage:Be fair guidelines. I still fail to see how adding at least your first proposed guideline will improve anything. Also, are we creating a solution for a nonexistent problem? Can you cite a previous example of an article that had unnecessarily contentious facts about living people that we were not able to deal with by using existing guidelines? Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:33, 17 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
Presidents of the United States is not a "whole article focused on living people"; it is a whole article focused on mostly long-dead people with just five living US Presidents being mentioned (and mostly in a "public museum" way, not a "current private home" way). This would therefore be acceptable as a case of "Individual listings that name a living public figure" that "show respect for human dignity and personal privacy".
The existing problem to be solved is: The Board of Directors for the WIkimedia Foundation said that every project needs to have an official, written BLP policy. They said this about 16 years ago, so we're running a bit behind schedule, but we should have something. Their resolution encourages "special attention to the principles of neutrality", so I think putting a few sentences inside our version of the "NPOV" policy would be appropriate. We could even create a WV:BLP shortcut to it, so the Wikipedia folks can find it easier. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:16, 17 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
My problem is not with your second proposed provision, which is fine, but your first, and that's what my last reply addressed. If it stated that when living people have to be mentioned, we must be fair and come to a consensus about anything contentious, I'd be happy. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:33, 17 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
Can you think of any contentious or derogatory information a travel guide – especially one that does not cite external sources – needs to include? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:37, 18 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
I already gave you an example! And what about when we fairly describe countries as dictatorships? We've sometimes had users object and try to whitewash articles, and in such cases, we are armed with Wikivoyage:Be fair, not some ridiculous claim that anything "contentious" is bad and must be avoided, which would have played into their hands. Wikivoyage is a travel guide, not a site that tries to be neutral. We expressly don't have an NPOV policy, but instead a policy that requires fairness. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:10, 18 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
I agree that we can fairly describe a country as being a dictatorship. Do we need to describe an individual living person as a dictator, when doing so would be contentious (e.g., produce disputes and disagreements on wiki)? I just checked every article containing the words "a dictator" and "the dictator"; none of them refer to living people.
If your prior example was "What about the article on U.S. presidents?", I've already answered that question. I don't see anything privacy-invading in Presidents of the United States, and I don't see anything contentious about any living person in there, either. The contents are not universally approved by the campaign team, but nobody actually disputes or "contends" over the facts (e.g., that Clinton was involved in a sex scandal, or that Trump is technically a convicted felon). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:07, 20 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
If you haven't had the misfortune of speaking with a Trumper lately, consider yourself lucky. There are tens of millions of hard-core Trumpers in the U.S. who don't accept basic scientific facts and advance all kinds of conspiracy nonsense as truth. I dealt with a cabbie in New Rochelle yesterday who gratuitously started talking about politics. He claimed Biden already had cancer 4 years ago, and "they" covered it up, that claims of fossil fuels causing global warming are "bullshit" and that if the Democrats had been elected last year, we'd all be driving electric cars already, among other things. So I very much contest your confident assertion that statements of fact about Trump, Biden, Obama, etc. are not "contentious". We need to remove that word from consideration as something Wikivoyage cannot be. Do you remember years ago when there was someone who spent a couple of weeks or more trying to whitewash descriptions of Cuba by claiming that it was really a democracy, their elections are really free and fair, and the Communists have never been dictators or oppressed anyone there? Or the ones that claimed that China is a democracy and it was the U.S. (pre-Trump) that was really oppressive (the latter of which of course has never been completely false, but that was entirely beside the point in a travel guide as well as being pure whataboutism that disproves nothing). We've had all kinds of politically motivated contentions against facts. That's why our standard is Wikivoyage:Be fair, not "Wikivoyage/Avoid saying anything anyone could argue with", which is what "contentious" means or would mean in the hands of anyone who wants to use a travel guide to grind an axe, rather than to improve a resource for travelers. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:14, 20 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
I agree with Ikan. I was brought up in South Africa during the Apartheid era. Had Wikivoyage been around at that time, would we have deleted everything about South Africa on grounds that almost every establishment was required by law to practice racial discrimination? I do not think that would not have been appropriate. However I think that it would have been appropriate to include a section on how to navigate the country's racial policies. Martinvl (talk) 22:22, 5 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
As for the overarching issue at hand, I would suggest focusing on places, not people, and more specifically focus on officially listed or designated places. Homes are designated on registers of historic places either after people have died, or with their consent if alive. Official libraries and museums are one of those two ways as well. And there's a reasonable argument for just leaving Trump and his four living predecessors, with the possible exceptions of the Clinton, Bush and Obama Libraries. Purplebackpack8916:01, 8 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 29 days ago16 comments7 people in discussion
How do you use the Nearby feature (mainly the one in the Wikipedia app)?
It still shows all kinds of articles such as cemeteries, schools, train stations, etc that aren't relevant to a traveler so I wonder why nobody seems to have any issues with it and why there seems to be little involvement of wikivoyage users with that map despite that it could be so useful for vacations / exploring places / wikivoyage-things. Maybe people here use something else or have some tricks to make the Nearby map useful in realworld scenarios or there is some related discussion. Prototyperspective (talk) 21:10, 27 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think it's just something that a lot of us have forgotten since it's a feature not talked about often. //shb (t | c | m)00:14, 28 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
I just tried it and it worked without issues, but I'd be open to changes if it has flaws. It's one of those features that perhaps readers of the site use more than editors. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 01:07, 28 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Have you tried it in a real-world scenario or just for testing at home?
I'm asking because there is no engagement with phab:T360197 and this feature seems like it has a huge potential – in particular for wikivoyage-related things like vacations – where some changes seem needed in most cases to make it truly useful for real-world applications.
Lastly, I don't know why this is a widely forgotten feature on wikivoyage – it seems like THE wikivoyage feature, e.g. the feature in the Wikipedia app by which most people would learn about and use wikivoyage for the first time. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:19, 28 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
I'd say it's because you can't really use it on desktop, where most editing occurs. Wikivoyage on mobile, where this feature most comes in handy, is shit to deal with, so a lot of us simply forgot it existed. //shb (t | c | m)23:37, 28 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
It's available in the mobile app. Since the map there is much more advanced and useful than the desktop version where one doesn't even have a map or input box for entering a location, I was referring to the Nearby feature in the mobile app. (By the way I think I read somewhere a proposal for a Wikivoyage mobile app.) Prototyperspective (talk) 23:41, 28 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yes, that's what I was referring to at I read somewhere a proposal for a Wikivoyage mobile app. With It's available in the mobile app I was referring to the Wikipedia app which I named in my prior comment. Prototyperspective (talk) 11:25, 30 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
I strongly disagree that "train stations...aren't relevant to a traveler", and I happen to have a fondness for visiting old cemeteries. Perhaps we need filters, but it may be difficult to figure out what to include or exclude. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:08, 28 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Nice feature, but is there a way to integrate it into WV, or one has to use the WP app? I was actually thinking to invent something similar - basically grab the nearaby articles, get all listings from them, and show that on a map, ideally sorted by WP views. I think WV cannot just show WP articles, otherwise there'd be no point in maintaining the listings... -- andree11:53, 30 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
but is there a way to integrate it into WV this is also what this thread is about: there is Special:Nearby but it's not as advanced as the map in the mobile app by far and importantly one can't even enter a location (see Wish:Enable entering a specific location on Wikipedia's & Wikivoyage's Nearby page). It doesn't show a map but just a list of articles which isn't really very useful. Moreover, the version in Wikivoyage only shows pages in WV and the version in Wikipedia only shows articles in WP but I think it should show both (and if they are about the same place then the dot when tapping on it could give you the choice which to open). ideally sorted by WP views I'll edit phab:T360197 to add pageviews as another thing to use at For being able to exclude low-importance articles, the article importance ratings of relevant WikiProjects would be used and one idea I got from this is to not just filter them this way but display them differently based on rating and/or pageviews where for example those with relatively many pageviews being larger or separately colored dots on the map. Prototyperspective (talk) 14:32, 30 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think just considering articles isn't enough for WV, and neither is just adding WP stuff (many of the articles often are either just in the local language version and not covered on en:, or to significant degree matches Wikivoyage:Listings#Boring_places, war events places, etc.); also esp. the remote places sometimes have 10 listings, and e.g. just one is on WP... Thus some kind of hybrid operation would be needed IMO, to be able to find the "best listings nearby".
It depends on the region. In many cases such as big cities there are articles for most of the most notable sightseeing spots and things like parks for example. The map wouldn't be there to show completely all places the user may possibly be interested in and that's not something to expect from it. (Wikivoyage could move the map closer toward that however.) It's not necessarily about 'finding the best listings nearby' but also e.g. 'learning more from Wikipedia about that interesting place you're currently at' and 'finding some neat place that happens to be near where you're at' and 'finding some interesting places nearby to consider visiting'.
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I'm not entirely sure what you mean – I suggested that both Wikipedia articles of the user's language is combined with Wikivoyage listings. Yes, ideally it would be possible to in addition also add articles of the region's native language. A special feature that could be made available in the app is machine translation via MinT so it's not gibberish but somewhat understandable to an app user not speaking the language of the region visiting.
The map is not showing Wikivoyage + Wikipedia items. First of all it only works when visiting the WV page of a place and then opening its map. This for example doesn't work when you're visiting a region for which there is no WV page. When clicking "Show nearby articles", it shows just very articles, not all articles in Wikipedia and I don't know why that is. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:19, 30 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 16 days ago14 comments5 people in discussion
I made a proposal here to introduce a template for sections of longer routes, in order to better organise these sections, collect (and use) structured data, as well as introduce new functionality, such as a direct link to a text section from dynamic maps, or the other way around.
I'm in the same boat as WhatamIdoing. This adds some slight ease of information, but other than that I don't see a lot of benefit to introducing this. Especially not considering how space-inefficient this template is as it sits. Were it significantly smaller, I would be more likely to be in favour. Also: Does all this need to be done through Wikidata and OSM when most websites and promotional material for hiking routes provide this same information already? Can't it just be copied over from that and thereby simplify this template significantly?
I do generally welcome efforts to make information more easy to find at a glimpse, and this template could potentially help, were it smaller. Based on LF Zuiderzeeroute (admittedly a cycling route), I've made a little mock-up of how I think a template with this information should be: As little text as possible, conveyed as intuitively and as non-invasive as possible. Something this size could be aligned above or below a dynamic map (which I understand from the discussion you linked, it should interact with to some extent?), whilst not taking the attention away from the article itself. ― Wauteurz (talk)20:26, 16 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I like Wauteurz's suggestion – it's not very intrusive and presents important information needed without taking up excessive space. //shb (t | c | m)22:52, 16 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Hey! Thanks so much to both of you for the feedback.
You're absolutely right, the current version is far too bulky. And thank you for creating that mock-up!
> Also: Does all this need to be done through Wikidata and OSM when most websites and promotional material for hiking routes provide this same information already?
My thought process was this:
I first noticed that hiking itineraries were formatted inconsistently. A template seemed like a good way to standardise part of the itineraries themselves, as well as the section stats. While working on that, I learned that to display hiking trails on dynamic maps using the mapshapes template, the trail sections (from OpenStreetMap) need to be linked to Wikidata items.
That got me thinking. Could we get some additional benefits from structuring the information? Creating these sections in Wikidata provides a way to link geodata with section stats. We could compute section stats from the geodata, or use the linking to create clickable trail sections.
The alternative, as you mentioned, would be to copy the information from official websites. I could create GPX files, manually split them into sections, and write out the stats, but this wouldn't give me a direct way of linking a section on a map to a section in text. The geodata and section stats would be separate. This runs somewhat counter to the Wikimedia model of using centralised, structured data. Bluecoordinationfine (talk) 23:12, 16 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Right, I get the reasoning. My main worry is that we're a quite small lot of editors on this project, and only few have the capability to maintain a template that calls and calculates data from elsewhere, let alone do the configuration to make this template work for the trail (section) they want to write about. The last thing I would want is that a template gets abandoned because no-one can maintain it. If there isn't one yet, a manual overwrite might be a useful addition, so that the template can also be used by manually inserting the data it displays. ― Wauteurz (talk)10:52, 17 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
That’s a very valid point about maintainability. I should have mentioned this earlier, but the template already supports manual data entry to address that exact issue.
Very nice! One last little gripe: I see you can switch between whether metric or imperial units are used. Would it be possible to add a conversion between the two so that you can see distances and such in both notations? No metric trail is safe from people used to thinking in imperial measurements and vice versa, after all. Either via mouseover text or in parentheses like {{convert}} should work fine for that. ― Wauteurz (talk)14:19, 17 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Instead of a |convert=yes switch (I decide for all readers whether they see both), you might consider a [convert] button (each reader decides whether to click the button and see the other option). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:42, 17 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for the suggestion! My main concern is that a clickable button would be problematic for people using screen readers, as it hides information by default.
We can't do that here, sorry. You'll need to develop the project in the Incubator first and if LangCom think it's developed to a satisfactory standard, they will approve the project. //shb (t | c | m)08:22, 8 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
@HtialilwW, there is a minimum number of long-term contributors to start a new project. I don't remember how many it is (maybe just five?) but your first task will be finding people who would love to contribute in these languages (for years, not just as a one-time project). WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:36, 8 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 26 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion
The last thread on that page is about a single car rental agency listing, which I consider touting because it's but one of various car rental agencies, none of which probably need to be listed, but I'd prefer not to make a unilateral decision. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:22, 9 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 10 days ago13 comments5 people in discussion
Hello, everyone. Temporary accounts are going to be implemented to all wikis by next month, so I am suggesting some changes to this project's abuse filters (as done with enwiki and enwiktionary):
Filters that use ip_in_ranges should use user_unnamed_ip instead of user_name.
user_age == 0 (and currently user_type == "ip") should be replaced with user_type != "named" to only target unregistered users, not just anonymous users.
Yes, pretty much; these have already been implemented on several wikis so far – that means that any filter that relies on user IPs will stop working after temporary accounts are enabled. I'll take a look at some of our filters to see which ones need updates. //shb (t | c | m)22:12, 14 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
From the POV of the ordinary editor, the difference is that, when you look at Special:RecentChanges, it currently says something like:
(diff | hist) London 11:36 +392 192.0.2.13 talk (→Eat: Updated listing for The Restaurant)
(diff | hist) London 11:36 +392 2001:DB8:2499:4093:010A:4042:0421:0024 talk (→Eat: Updated listing for The Restaurant)
(the two styles of IP address, IPv4 and IPv6, are in bold) and in the future it will say something like:
(diff | hist) London 11:36 +392 ~2025-12345-6 talk (→Eat: Updated listing for The Restaurant)
The purpose of the tilde at the start is to avoid conflicts with other/existing accounts. (Very few registered accounts start with ~20, and I believe we got a global username block on creating any new ones about two years ago.) The purpose of putting the year at the start is that the temporary accounts reset after (currently) 90 days, so a couple of years from now, the temp account will be long dead and there will be no point in trying to leave a note on the temp account's talk page. It's not relevant at this stage, but in the future, including the year means you should be able to tell, at a glance, which temp accounts are worth trying to communicate with. I believe that the rest of the number is random (rather than consecutive), separated as needed in groups of five digits because four digits looks like the formatting for a credit card number, and my middle-aged eyes struggle with those six-digit security codes (why are they always in such tiny type?), which leaves groups of five digits in the middle. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:50, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I want to add: This transition is going to take a little work. We'll probably discover some tools that need fixing, and we'll probably need to think about changing a few things. But the privacy considerations are IMO worth it (seriously, why should an IP address used 20 years ago still be public in the history pages?), and I think that this wiki will be okay. I expect the English Wikipedia to struggle, especially if the team goes through with their plan for a sudden 100% transition, but I think that we're going to be fine. We get about 30 IP/temp account edits per day, and most of them are good/unreverted contributions. We can handle this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:55, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I've noticed that Brendan has reused IP addresses every so often over a period of years, and it's surely useful to see that an IP address has previously been blocked for block evasion. It's not helpful if we can't see that anymore, though the duck test still usually works. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:15, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Correct me if I'm wrong, but from my experience on jawikibooks and srwiki (both of which have temp accounts enabled), I've still been able to see the IP address, just that it requires extra steps (though I do block the temporary account and not the IP). //shb (t | c | m)21:22, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yes, my understanding from the page linked earlier in the thread is that we will still be able to see the IP addresses, they just won't be visible to the general public. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 02:32, 16 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
The IP addresses for temporary accounts will be stored for the usual 90-day checkuser-style limit. If there is a rational, common sense reason to retain that information longer, then it can be recorded in a secure non-public place (e.g., the CheckUsers' secure wiki), just like it can be done now.
Please keep in mind that they log every time you access an IP address for a temp account. This will allow them to identify any abuse (e.g., an editor who needlessly checks every single IP address, or to figure out who posted other editors' IP addresses on other websites). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:32, 16 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 14 days ago15 comments7 people in discussion
I have finished the draft (still doing minor c/e fixes and like). I'd appreciate your thoughts: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mOR7w19Dd8CrElZcoeFkDxGCCOi12kff6qe1WQa8JCM/edit?tab=t.0 In few days or so I intend to submit it to an academic journal (there are several straddling the fields of education + tourism and hospitality) for peer review. Thank you for all the help over the years with my students (also, note: new semester starts soon, expect new crop of students editing about Korea and China from late September onward; I'll provide a list of their chosen articles to watchlist in a month or two, as usual). Piotrus (talk) 11:19, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Just finished reading it – I don't have much else to say other than that it's very well-researched and is a great read. Nice work, Piotrus. //shb (t | c | m)11:46, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I have given the article a quick read-through. May I suggest one minor addition - the article Requested_articles is an additional source of suggested topics - the student might find one there that they had never thought of. As an example, I saw a request for the Taizé Community there. This is a monastic establishment in the middle of rural France that attracts many young people and is named after the village where it is located. The first section of the talk page is interesting as it shows a debate about the scope of the article (should it include the village or just the community?".Martinvl (talk) 14:18, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Piotrus, thanks for sending us this link! I'm enjoying reading the paper so far. I'm wondering if you'd like any proofreading suggestions such as eliminating the semicolon in the following sentence: "The next section will review the academic consensus on pedagogical benefits of writing for Wikipedia, an assignment that was developed over a decade ago and has since been used by thousands of educators (Vetter, McDowell & Stewart, 2019; Konieczny 2021; Evenstein Sigalov & Konieczny, 2025); as a building block for the discussion on how such an activity can be adopted to the tourism and hospitality context, both on Wikipedia as well as on Wikivoyage website." Maybe I should stop reading until you let me know, because I saw a couple of other places where I'd suggest small edits, and I'll forget about all such instances if I read through the article, and won't want to read it again just to proofread. I'll add that so far, it looks quite well-written, with nothing major I'd suggest changing, but I'm only in the 2nd section. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:25, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Well, I'd say the above date is correct. I'm pretty sure the German and Italian wikis forked in 2006, so arguably that's when Wikivoyage was first forked by volunteers. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 00:06, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Pashley @SHB2000 Hmmm, my summary is a simplification, since the detailed history of Wikitravel/Wikivoyage is effectively trivia and not really relevant for us. Wikipedia article about Wikivoyage says "The project began when editors at the German and then Italian versions of decided in September 2006 to move their editing activities and then current content to a new site..." and then English version followed suit c. 2012/2013. Infobox states: "First version (German language) December 10, 2006. English-language version January 15, 2013". So I am not sure what is wrong here? But I am happy to consider suggestions for rewording. Piotrus (talk) 09:19, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 2 days ago8 comments6 people in discussion
I’m pleased to report that Lithuania now has all pages at high-grade usable or better. I wonder if this can be pushed to their tourist agencies, in a way that promotes readership and local contributions, without a tidal wave of touting? There isn’t an obvious event or anniversary to hook it on.
To the best of my knowledge this is only the second substantial country to reach this level. Ireland (north and south) did so in the Covid years and is therefore now on a refresher cycle. Several others (beyond small islands and micronations) from a brief look seem well-developed but with gaps and out-of-date info. Is anywhere else getting close, just needs a final push? Grahamsands (talk) 20:06, 17 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Wow indeed, nice. I'd love to read an article how that happened, maybe it could be published on WMF blog and/or The Signpost in English Wikipedia? Piotrus (talk) 12:12, 31 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
If someone is willing to write a Signpost article on it, that would really be awesome. Would give this site a bit more publicity, too. //shb (t | c | m)12:41, 31 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Sinpost would take it if you could figure out a Wikipedia angle... or maybe even without it. They publish stuff related to WMF/community that's only so-so Wikiepdia related. Piotrus (talk) 03:28, 1 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 3 days ago68 comments12 people in discussion
It is my understanding that Wikivoyage does not decorate articles with flags. User:Martinvl has begun adding flags to English county articles, for example here. Before they continue this work, I would like to ask the community whether we want to do this in Wikivoyage. Ground Zero (talk) 22:09, 17 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I can see a point in adding flags to destinations where travellers are likely to see them often. However I think that you will only see most English County flags if you look at the council offices. You are unlikely to see them on road signs directing you to the county. We may want a discussion about including them in country articles, and maybe other cases where it may be helpful for a traveller to recognise them. AlasdairW (talk) 22:22, 17 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
In the last few years, I have seen an increase in the number of people who put their county flag on their car’s rear windscreen. I agree that there is a great variation in how much different county flags are displayed. The Cornish flag is used quite widely - go into any supermarket and look at the packaging Ginsters Cornish pasties. You will see the flag there. Another flag that is very common is the Welsh flag. May I suggest as acimpromise that if it is worth describing the flag and its origins in the “Understand” section, then it can depicted, otherwise not. Martinvl (talk) 22:55, 17 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I cannot imagine circumstances in which a traveller really needs to know what a subnational flag looks like, or a national flag either. I think they violate the principle of Minimal use of images:
Don't get overexcited adding images to articles. Travellers may be using Wikivoyage from networks with low bandwidth, or with a cost for every MB used. Several travellers may be sharing the one poor mobile data connection. A traveller using the Wi-Fi on a bus or train may only have a few MB of free data allowance for a long journey. Minimal use of images ... means enough images to illustrate the text and show some of the highlights but not so many as to overwhelm the text and turn the article into a photo gallery.
Those with an interest in flags can easily find then on the Wikipedia article linked on every page. Similarly, travellers are unlikely to need to know a jurisdictions coat of arms, or motto, or the name of the sitting mayor, or which party controls the council. Ground Zero (talk) 00:46, 18 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I agree there – there may be a point for including it in country articles and (debatably) 1st-level subdivisions (probs wouldn't add any myself, though), but English counties are 2nd-level subdivisions where flags are seldom used. //shb (t | c | m)01:10, 18 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
We used to have flags in the country articles, in the banners next to the name, and if I remember correctly, in the infoboxes before we had banners. I thought we should had kept them - having one flag is a different thing than turning the article into a photo gallery. Not sure if we need flags and blazons for cities and regions, although French Wikivoyage has them in such articles too (e.g. fr:New York) . --Ypsilon (talk) 05:10, 18 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Flag images might possibly have some travel value at the country level (because a traveler will likely see them often), but below the country level, flag images are just noise. I would also dislike seeing the "Related Pages" thumbnails picking up flag images when some genuinely interesting photos would better represent a destination. Mrkstvns (talk) 14:21, 18 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I really don't think they're useful on country pages. In countries where the flag is flown often, all travelers will see it and understand whose flag it is very quickly, whereas in countries where the flag is rarely flown, they certainly won't need to know what it looks like. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:29, 18 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yeah if we absolutely had to pick between either flags or locator maps, I would pick locator maps which actually does have its benefits. //shb (t | c | m)shb (t | c | m)05:57, 18 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Further to my earlier suggestion, I have given the matter some thought and it may be useful to include a flag or other emblem in the "Culture" sub-section is that flag or emblem is described in that sub-section. Martinvl (talk) 17:24, 18 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I have made a few minor changes to the page on Wales. Are these changes appropriate? Meanwhile, I will delete the flags from those pages where I cannot find a cultural use such as I found for Wales. Martinvl (talk) 19:58, 18 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Images and flags and discussions about flags are more appropriate to Wikipedia than Wikivoyage. I suggest they be removed from all topics (not just those where Martinvl has added them). Mrkstvns (talk) 20:36, 18 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Flags are mostly decorative but can occasionally be useful, particularly in places where you don't know the language. National (i.e. sovereign state) flags should definitely be included in entries and subnational ones (Irish counties, U. S. states, cities, etc.) are sometimes helpful and sometimes a thing you would just never see. Flags of people groups or political movements could be very useful for understanding things like "I am in a territory run by Hizbollah/Zapatistas/Naxalites" or "I am in a place that has a lot of Sikh nationalism". I would like to think that anyone visiting the sort of place where these markers are important would have the sense to already know this or just not visit at all, but that's not always true, so letting someone know with a simple visual "this means you're in Somaliland and this means you're in Puntland" could genuinely help someone. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯21:33, 18 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
There is always room for exceptions. If the presence of particular flags indicates a threat to anyone in particular and is not simply a normal flag in a particular area, it might make sense to show an image of it in the "Stay safe" section. But that's the only exception I can think of off-hand. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:39, 18 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Flags in places where you don't speak the language can maybe tell you where you are going. It's a bit unlikely that you will be on the border of X and Y and not know it but also know what the flags of X and Y look like, but I could imagine the scenario where being in a transit hub and just knowing "I need to go to that flag" or communicating via it could be useful. Otherwise, they are decoration. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯21:50, 18 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I don't think knowing what countries' flags look like is the best way to avoid accidentally straying across borders. I also feel like you're straying toward Captain Obvious territory. We don't need to spoon-feed everything to our readers, do we? Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:12, 18 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
It's more that no-one has really been able to identify the usefulness of images of national flags to travellers beyond general knowledge. Adding another image to country articles, which are usually fairly long, doesn't seem warranted. Ground Zero (talk) 22:39, 18 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Ground Zero: I noticed that you removed the image of the Flag of Cornwall and the image of St Piran from the article Cornwall. I checked the history of the article and I noticed that in January of last year you split the article into three - West Cornwall, North Cornwall and South Cornwall and that the images you removed today were in the article at that time.
I have lived in the UK for over 40 years and from my observations, the three areas where flags are very much in evidence as part of the local culture are Cornwall, Wales and to a lesser extent, Scotland. While I have no problem with most of the images of flags being removed, I think that there is a very strong case for at least those of Cornwall and Wales being retained.
I suggest that you read the comments above. A straw poll of Wikimedia Commons images matters less than the consensus of the Wikivoyage community. There just isn't support for maintaining flags in general. I removed three images from the Cornwall article: the flag, a painting of St Piran, and the Cornwall tartan. This was an example of Wikivoyage trying to be a poor imitation of Wikipedia. Wikivoyage could try to provide a comprehensive introduction to the history and culture and politics of places, or it could try to be an effective travel guide. St Piran and the Cornwall tartan are not relevant to travellers. Travellers will see the flag of Cornwall frequently in Cornwall, unless things have changed since I was there a few years ago. Wikivoyage does not need to explain things that are obvious.Ground Zero (talk) 17:08, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think Cornwall is a unique Celtic region compared to the rest of England, which is Germanic. So, at list the flag can be kept to represent the unique region. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 18:21, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think a good photo of the flag flying can be added to country and region articles Understand section where the flag is commonly used. Most counties in England don't have photos on Commons that meet this criteria - Cornwall is one of the few exceptions. Simple flags can be effectively described in text, but it is harder to describe non-geometric ones like the one for Wales. AlasdairW (talk) 22:45, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I'm still trying to figure out how this is travel-related, and warrants an exception to the Minimal use of images policy. It really is just general knowledge, which is something that Wikipedia is more suited to, isn't it? Ground Zero (talk) 22:57, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Cornwall, Wales and Scotland are often referred to as the “Celtic Fringe” and the increased display of flags is part of those areas asserting their identity and culture (which is part of the reason that they attract visitors). One of the reasons for minimal image use is the constraint on bandwidth. Wiki travel pages transmit images in PNG format which is highly compressible when there are large areas of mono-colours (as is the case with flags). Martinvl (talk) 07:05, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
You are probably right that in this case the SVG is smaller than the corresponding PNG. It is my understanding, though I am open to correction, that when a Wikimedia page is being sent to a user, Wikimedia converts all image files to PNG format. If the user clicks on that image, it is retransmitted in its original format. In either case, the data that is sent to the user to reconstruct a flag image is small compared to the amount that is sent to reconstruct a JPG image. Martinvl (talk) 17:22, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
If a family is going to visit Cornwall by car, a good game to keep the children quiet is to ask who will be first to spot a Cornish flag. This article will brief the parent in advance that this is something worth doing. Martinvl (talk) 19:47, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Agreed, there are dozens of books on flags, but why would a parent travelling to Port Isaac invite their children to look out for the Cornish flag while those travelling to Bognor would not invite their children to look out for the West Sussex flag? It is far more likely that the parent would have picked up this gem of information from a travel guide rather than from a book on flags. Martinvl (talk) 16:27, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
You could add links to a flag page for kids to Travelling with children, instead of decorating articles widely for the sake of a child's car trip game? There are many car trip games for children, but they do not belong in region or country articles. It is too specific. Ground Zero (talk) 17:09, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ It would be make more sense to have images of famous sights which have a flag hoisted on it. For example, the Sydney Harbour Bridge usually has the Australian flag, NSW state flag and Aboriginal flag raised. That is how travellers will most likely experience seeing flags on their trips. Adding an image of a generic flag without any context is meaningless, with the exception of possibly the national flag on the country page, because it is good to get familiar with the flag of the country you're travelling to if you see it in airports, etc. Gizza (roam)01:22, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
If you see it in the airport, you'll get familiar with it right away, so why do we need to give you a preview? No problem with pictures of famous sights that include flags, of course. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:25, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
The Australian national flag and Aboriginal flag on Sydney Harbour Bridge A good idea to illustrate two concepts in one image, but one should make sure that both are well illustrated. The image on the right does not really illustrate the Aboriginal fag very well (unless you double click on it!). Martinvl (talk) 16:42, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think that we need to get back to basics: the main reason given for not displaying flags is that we want to limit the amount of data that is delivered to the user who might have a low bandwidth connection. In my opinion, this is not a reason not to display flags but it is a good reason to limit the total number of images displayed. I therefore suggest that no special rules apply to flags, but rather that we limit the number of images in the "Understand" section to one and if an image of a flag gives a better understanding of the topic image than any other image, so be it. Martinvl (talk) 11:18, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Replace a photo of a place that helps me decide whether I want to go there with a flag I can see on Wikipedia and a hundred other websites? No, thanks.
An important reason for not displaying flags is that it is general knowledge, and not directly travel related. The only connection to practical travel information that's been offered has been "a parent travelling to Port Isaac inviting their children to look out for the Cornish flag". Put it in Travelling with children, not here.
On the contrary. May I suggest the caption for the Cornish flag as follows: "The frequency with which the Cornish flag is displayed is an indication of their unique cultural heritage". Martinvl (talk) 12:31, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I prefer to stick with travel information. It's what Wikivoyage does best. Leave flags to Wikipedia, Flagpedia.net, Flags of the world, etc. And many cultural groups display flags. That is not unique to the Cornish. Ground Zero (talk) 13:43, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I agree that it's not unique to the Cornish, but when it is unusual for an area, I think it's appropriate for us to include a flag. That can be done subtly, with a photo of a place that "just happens" to display the flag, or it can be done in the ==Understand== section, with a paragraph that says you'll see this flag around a lot, or we could take a tip from LGBT travel and put the flag in the banner, but I don't see any logic in saying that only country articles can ever have images of flags. Wikivoyage:The traveller comes first says that "Regions, price classifications, etc., are based on the convenience and expectations of travellers, not bureaucratic fiat (administrative districts, formal star ratings and so on)", and I think that the same principle applies here. Exactly like we don't always follow the exact legal border of 'a city' in deciding what belongs in (or out) of a given article, we should also not always follow the exact legal definition of 'a country' in deciding which articles should show or say something about a flag. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:27, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
A flag can indeed add a splash of colour to a picture of a building or a landscape. But a picture of a flag as a flag is just background information. Country flags are particularly obvious, and therefore unnecessary. Any flag that is commonly flown, like that of Cornwall, is obvious. Any traveller will see it. A flag that isn't commonly flown in a place is a curiosity or trivia question, not essential information for a travller. Ground Zero (talk) 16:52, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
There's rarely any important reason to show a thumbnail of a country's flag, so I'm not seeing that as a strong argument for showing regional flags. As always, I agree with Ground Zero on this topic, and I'm surprised by how much support there is for using a picture of a flag as one of the few thumbnails allowed as illustrative and informative images per this site's Wikivoyage:Image policy#Minimal use of images guidelines, which exist not only for technical reasons but as part of Wikivoyage's house style. We've had previous discussions about different guides' styles in regard to whether or how many photos to use and came up with our current policy, which is designed to help people determine where they want to travel and what they want to see while they're there, without making our articles image galleries. I wouldn't exclude that some highly eccentric person might choose where to travel based on a flag, but that would be very weird behavior, indeed. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:11, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Bavarian flag pattern, with a pretzel
Bavarian flag pattern on a train
If "Any traveller will see it", then I think that argues in favor of mentioning it. We'd hardly say "Oh, right, any traveller to Anaheim will see Disney stuff, so no need to include any of that. That's Captain Obvious territory!"
I'm not sure that a flat photo/drawing of a flag is usually the right approach, but I wouldn't want to exclude it absolutely. I'd rather see things like images that "just happen" to include it. For example Bavaria#Regions says that blue and white are the national colors. The "Bavarian heaven" diamond pattern is very common in the region. I see no reason not to choose a photo that includes that, and to call out the flag's existence. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:50, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Coming back to the start of this discussion, it is about one user posting flags (flat photos/drawings) on a bunch of articles all at once: Berkshire, Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Wilshire, Somerset, Warwickshire, Wales, Kent, Essex, Leicestershire, and Dorset. I am not arguing that flags should be banned. I am arguing that they should not be included unless there is a valid travel reason to do so. Including them as a matter of course is cluttering up articles with non-travel-related images to please flag fans. Ground Zero (talk) 17:01, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Call me eccentric, but when I travel I do take note of heraldic sysmbols, though I do not base my travelling around such symbols. I do however photograph interesting ones when I come across them. Here is a selection that I have loaded onto Commons. most of which are Valued Images:
Drinking fountain in Florence showing the Florentine coat of arms
National Trust plaque at the ntrance to the park
Market place, Chichester showing Henry VII's arms
Lyme Regis coat of arms on teh Guildhall
Coat of arms of teh Dutch city of Nijmegen
Entrance to Marseillan in Frnech and in Occitan
AUstralian Naval Ensign at half-mast
Dutch provincial shields above the entrance to Cape Town Castle.
The only one of these images that might be useful in Wikivoyage is the one showing the entrance to the French town of Marseillan which, under French Law doubles up at a 50 km/h speed limit (this is already covered in the article Driving in Europe. It might be a useful addition to the article Occitanie as it shows the Occitan colours of maroon and gold. That article is however already overloaded with images, so I will let someone else put it in.
On a more serious note however, a traveller to Northern Ireland should be aware of the symbols used by the different communities, if only so that they spot trouble arising and steer clear of such trouble. Martinvl (talk) 21:53, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Nice photos! I don't think it's eccentric to photograph flags. I agree on Northern Ireland, and those kinds of situations are exceptions in which flags may belong in the "Stay safe" section. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:42, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Going back to the start of this discussion, "is there a travel reason for displaying the Cornwall flag in the Cornwall article?" The points in favour are that the "Understand" section of the article has a paragraph devoted to the flag and the "Festivals" section mentions the flag in the paragraph about the observance of St Piran's Day. Furthermore, the English Wikipedia has an article about St Piran's Day. A search of "St Piran" on the internet will give a wealth of information. In view of this The points against are image clutter, which is not a problem in this case and bandwidth which, given the small byte-count of a .png image is a minor point. I would therefore like to reinstate the image of St Piran's flag in the article of Cornwall. Martinvl (talk) 22:06, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Martinvl, you are consistently misrepresenting my argument against general use of flags in articles. It is not simply about image clutter. I will repeat my main points for you: "I cannot imagine circumstances in which a traveller really needs to know what a subnational flag looks like, or a national flag either." "... no-one has really been able to identify the usefulness of images of national flags to travellers beyond general knowledge." "Any flag that is commonly flown... is obvious.... A flag that isn't commonly flown in a place is a curiosity or trivia question, not essential information for a traveller." "I am arguing that they should not be included unless there is a valid travel reason to do so." Ground Zero (talk) 01:07, 27 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
In the case of national flags, I think it can be useful to know what the flag looks like before arriving. In the past week, I have noticed that shops selling travel accessories sometimes use flags to show the destinations that they are suitable for. This is common with plug adapters, and flags are often shown on the exchange rate signs in exchange bureau. AlasdairW (talk) 21:39, 27 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I have added an image to the Understand section as per the suggestion by AlasdairW, but I have chose a different one. I trust that the image I chose is acceptable to the community. Martinvl (talk) 21:21, 27 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I have found an image which uses the flag of St Piran to illustrate that Cornwall is a nation alongside England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. How do readers feel about having both images, or if only one image, which one? Martinvl (talk) 16:05, 31 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Whether Cornwall should be considered a nation of the UK is a political question indeed, which is not going to be resolved in a travel guide. We know for a fact that it is not considered a nation within the UK. Ground Zero (talk) 17:31, 31 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I removed the added image. Wikivoyage should not become a gallery for flags. There are other websites for that. For hat it is worth, Mebyon Kernow won 4% at the last local elections in Cornwall -- 1,660 votes. Please don't use Wikivoyage to push fringe political agendas. Ground Zero (talk) 17:42, 31 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I am surprised that you identified the image of the barge as promoting a fringe political agenda. The Cornish identity has been recognised by the UK Government as having "National Minority Status" as per European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (See this site). The site goes on to say that the Cornish identity has the same status as the Scots, Welsh and Irish. I suggest therefore that the image be restored, but that the caption be modified to use the words "National Minority Status" in the caption. Finally, may I point out that the image displayed the Royal barge which was the lead vessel in the flotilla that in 2012 celebrated the 60th anniversary of the accession of Queen Elizabeth II to the throne and was also used later that year to carry the Olympic Flame up the Thames for the opening of the 2012 Olympic Games. The use of the Cornish flag almost certainly had the approval of the Queen-in-Council and such approval is never given to the promotion of fringe political agendas. Martinvl (talk) 13:49, 1 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
The picture does not show the flags well, and is just clutter. The discussion should use words, not pictures. And there is a limit to which we should be spending our time on political issues. Let's focus on travel. Ground Zero (talk) 14:21, 1 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I added some bits, but the one about feet-related taboos in the Middle East is not something I have experienced, so if anyone else wants to correct me, that would be great. Thanks for starting the article. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯21:59, 18 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 8 days ago13 comments6 people in discussion
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20250808-why-the-best-time-to-visit-no-longer-applies
"I spent April and May this year travelling across Nepal – prime trekking season and often billed as the "best time to visit". Almost every online guide promised clear skies and comfortable temperatures. Instead, I found hazy polluted air and low visibility, especially at lower elevations. Early monsoons swept across the country, briefly clearing the smoke but replacing it with downpours I hadn't prepared for. The gap between expectation and reality was jarring.
This isn't just a Nepal problem; travel is facing climate-driven disruptions everywhere.[...]" Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:55, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
This will continue to be a problem. I'm not sure if this is a travel topic itself or just something so endemic to what "travel" is that it's something that is cross-guide. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯01:41, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
In terms of a travel topic, I wonder how many (how few?) travelers plan their travel around this idea of 'best time to visit'. AFAICT the timing of most travel usually depends on factors like:
when the national/religious holiday is
when the travel-worthy event (e.g., business meeting, wedding) is
when the kids are in/out of school (families travel during school breaks, and solo/couple adults the opposite)
when the price is lower
and not so much on trying to hit an ideal weather pattern. But I could see an argument in reverse: people do seem to avoid unwanted weather, both in terms of avoiding snowy areas unless your goal is snow skiing and in terms of leaving weather they dislike. If you live in central Canada, the best time to visit Cancún is February, not because that's a great month in Cancún, but because it's a lousy month in central Canada. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:22, 27 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
You also want to avoid torrential rain. We've increasingly gotten that in New York, and it's unpredictable. Not to mention haze from wildfires in Canada. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:27, 27 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Very insightful article and one that will definitely hold true for many years to come. Normally where I am it's supposed to be fairly dry during July and August but the last few weeks have been absolutely pouring. //shb (t | c | m)06:44, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Temporary accounts are successfully live on 30 wikis, including many large ones like German, Japanese, and French. The change they bring is especially relevant to logged-out editors, who this feature is designed to protect. But it is also relevant to community members like mentors, patrollers, and admins – anyone who reverts edits, blocks users, or otherwise interacts with logged-out editors as part of keeping the wikis safe and accurate.
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My experience with dealing with temp accounts on other smaller wikis like srwiki is they prevent vandals from IP hopping since this is supposedly tied to the device and not the IP – but it makes dealing with such abuse much harder, especially when it comes to things like range blocks or for those who don't meet the criteria for viewing temporary accounts (6 months and 500 edits; though supposedly I think I can bypass this restriction now since I was given global temporary account IP viewer?). //shb (t | c | m)23:24, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
That's what I was worried about, too. But I see advantages for the wiki communities:
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I am trying to design a new activity focused on maps for my students (current draft activities are here). Right now what we do in practice is to just add GPS to listings and enable the dynamic map. Simple. But I think there's potential for some cooler stuff, except - I find our (WV's) guides to map making rather arcane and half-obsolete. Any suggestions what (and how) we could do that seems feasible?
Stuff I like but I am not sure how to do:
dynamic maps with city borders like in Ansan (dark shading stuff outside city proper)
A couple years ago I began rewriting WV:How to draw static maps, as well as the equivalent for dynamic maps, but I've lost interest in developing that further. The main problem I found is that it's plain difficult to rewrite because of how obsolete some tools are. I'm currently experimenting behind the scenes with a way to standardise static maps through QGIS. This would have the added benefit of being able to export the map as a GeoJSON, which could be used for dynamic maps as well. That won't be done for a long while though, so for now I'll see about restarting my effort to make a more comprehensive guide in my userspace. ― Wauteurz (talk)11:52, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Quite a few maps now seem to have shading by default. Might be related to template:Mapshape or template:Mapshapes. It worked in articles like Sanmenxia, color coding districts (and I think in articles like Seoul/Yongsan). Now it's all grayed out. Seems like something, somewhere, probably off Wikivoyage, broke this functionality for us. Not sure when this happened - I don't see anyone discussing it here?
Btw, all dynamic maps display this weird code now in the bottom right corner (I don't recall seeing this before):
I don't see what the issue is with Sanmenxia and Seoul/Yongsan? Sanmenxia, like any region article displays the regions with their defined colours for me. Yongsan, like any bottom-level article, fades out the area not part of that destination. The mapshapes are somewhat unreliable though. They do tend to break and disappear when things change over on Wikidata, where their data is often fetched from.
As for the UNIQ--maplink stuff, it's been appearing for a while. I don't think I could make a dirty fix using CSS, but it should be possible to filter it out using JS if anyone can be bothered. I suspect that line originates from the Kartographer extension itself. It's most likely not an error code of any kind - just an identifier that for some reason gets printed. ― Wauteurz (talk)13:09, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
The dumping of the UNIQ--maplink string was reported almost two months ago on Template talk:Mapframe. It being encased in a div with the modify-class means that I actually can exclude the problematic code using CSS as a dirty fix. That code's been in the template for almost a decade though, so I can only assume that changes to Parsoid made it appear. ― Wauteurz (talk)23:39, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Received an update to the report. The UNIQ--maplink issue is known, and is being worked on. It's also been added to the known issue list of Parsoid, which has been confirmed to be the cause of the issue. Hopefully its addition to that list will mean a fix will come sometime soon. ― Wauteurz (talk)10:22, 29 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I'm also seeing a lot of broken mapshapes in articles that I've worked on in the past several days (subregions of Washington State) - mapshapes are either completely masked or not applied. This bug started in the last 48 hours, and is visible on both Chrome and Firefox, both desktop and Android. Gerode (talk) 15:59, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
It's been appearing for longer than just 48 hours. I definitely remember seeing this at least a year ago on my end, and it might've been happening since Parsoid's roll-out here. I've made a report with Parsoid's development team, mostly to rule out the possibility that Parsoid creates the issue. Again, I'm more certain that Kartographer is the origin of the problem. ― Wauteurz (talk)16:11, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I'm not referring to the UNIQ clutter that you reported, which has been going on for months. I'm referring to the core functionality of mapshape, which was working when I added some mapshapes 2-3 days ago. For example, the mapframe here had a correctly/white shaded mapshape two days ago, but now appears completely shaded/grayed out. It's happening across many/all? of the pages I watch, and they haven't had recent changes in Wikidata. Gerode (talk) 17:06, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Mapshapes are working for me again. Thank you for looking into thisǃ I'd like to dig further into the mapframe code one of these days. Gerode (talk) 21:00, 29 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Not a problem. The {{Mapframe}} code is beyond me, honestly. It'd be nice to have more active users be familiar with it though, and I suspect the issue making the mapshades temporarily unavailable can be found there as well.
For now, I'm rewriting the dynamic map tutorial from scratch and nudging the reader towards using GeoJSON over Wikidata in some cases. Fetching from Wikidata is convenient, but the connection has proven to be fragile over the past few years, so I am not comfortable with having too much of a reliance on it. ― Wauteurz (talk)21:39, 29 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
AFAIR, wikidata is okay, but the kartographer converter from OSM relations to wikidata shapes has/had some bugs when slightly strange relation (not completely circular path or something like that) would not get rendered etc. -- andree12:47, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
iirc the issue that you're describing seems to have persisted on and off for years – I've had this issue since at least 2022. //shb (t | c | m)01:29, 29 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 15 hours ago19 comments6 people in discussion
This is my first visit to Wikivoyage and the first thing that struck me is that the main page banner includes a truncated map of the world, specifically parts of Russia, a number of pacific nations and most of New Zealand have been chopped off the righthand side. This appears to be due to the choice of the original image used, I see there is a 'corrected', full version at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Bluemarble_banner_RTL.jpg. Sorry if this has been discussed before, but it does seem to be an issue that would be straight forward to correct. --Tony Wills (talk) 10:26, 31 August 2025 (UTC) (I'm generally only active on Wikimedia commons)Reply
That's not really relevant, seen as how the image used in {{Mapbanner}}, File:Bluemarble banner WV.jpg, is cut off like that - it has been since it was added. It would probably be the best procedure to replace it with another version of Blue Marble (for example File:Blue Marble 2002.png), but this involves creating a new imagemap for that specific image. I'd have to look into how that's done before I can replace it. File:Bluemarble banner RTL.jpg isn't a suitable alternative since it's right-to-left aligned for Wikivoyage projects where the banner is mirrored to accommodate for that project's language's script direction. ― Wauteurz (talk)19:44, 31 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Thanks, the RTL version has the end of the map going down through Bering Strait, so doesn't leave a bit of Russia (Chukotka Peninsula) stuck on the other end of the map. If I was going to do it, I would just edit a copy of the RTL one to put the blue banner space on the left. That would also have the advantage that the different Wikivoyage language versions using basically the same image still. --Tony Wills (talk) 20:58, 31 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
It's not even necessary to have the massive lot of blue on the left. {{Mapbanner}} has been changed since the original banner was created, to where it now aligns that image to the far-right. The old one had the added blue space just so that it would force the globe to be on the right side of the template. I'll see if I can implement a fix. ― Wauteurz (talk)17:03, 1 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Et voilà: a fixed version. Since it's a main page template, I'd like some consensus before I overwrite {{Mapbanner}} with this version. The top and bottom of the globe aren't cut off on this version either. I could crop it if that's problematic. Let me know :) ― Wauteurz (talk)17:27, 1 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Fantastic, a great improvement, but it would be even better if we moved the end of the Russian Chukotka Peninsula from the left of the maps to the right end where it belongs (ie the right end of the map passes through the Berring Strait rather than the end of Russia) --Tony Wills (talk) 10:49, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
You may consider that Done. I extended the image canvas a bit to the right, and cut and pasted the peninsula there, filling the remaining voids with the blue background. I've also re-cropped the image a bit to show less of Antarctica and the north pole, to better match {{Mapbanner}}'s current version. ― Wauteurz (talk)11:29, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I can do that myself, thank you very much. I just tend to wait a couple of days with rolling out things that need some consensus, just so that everyone that wants can get an opportunity to comment. We don't all live in the same timezone, after all. Aside from the support above, I've also been thanked for related edits by some, so I'll push the update to {{Mapbanner}} before I go to bed tonight :) ― Wauteurz (talk)12:32, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Another problem is that the link to Tourist office lies on top of the links to Destinations, Phrasebooks etc. so that the links into main features of WV can't be used. Mrkstvns (talk) 12:53, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
So, I previously messed with {{Mapbanner}} to make it play nice with its scaling properties, and I have fixed all the overlap issues I could emulate on my devices. @Mrkstvns, do you mind providing me with a screenshot of the Main Page you see? If you use Vector 2022 as your skin, please also let me know which appearance settings you are using. ― Wauteurz (talk)14:09, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 2 hours ago8 comments4 people in discussion
I made a bit of a mockup in my userspace, but would there be any interest in creating Wikivoyage:Food and Drink Expedition? The main goal would be to improve articles under food and drink and have a central page to track all that. A bit of an unofficial expedition already existed at Talk:Food and drink#"Cuisine" articles, but I think a page where we can easily track progress would be nice. Other thoughts?
In the meantime, I've mapped all countries that have their own cuisine article on the English Wikivoyage (pictured right; North Africa deliberately excluded).
I think any such expedition should also focus on the "Eat" sections of multi-country region and country articles, because first of all, we want to make sure there are good summaries in articles of countries or regions with dedicated cuisine articles and even more so for countries or regions without dedicated cuisine articles, and secondly, we want to make sure cuisine articles are actually better and have a greater amount and/or depth of specific travel information in them and are actually more useful to travelers than equivalent Wikipedia articles. I retain some skepticism that more than a few of the cuisine articles on Wikivoyage are actually better or even as good as their Wikipedia equivalents, or that they have an appropriate travel focus that justifies their being here when a Wikipedia article is better. Travel focus means that places (cities, rural areas, regions) that specialize or excel in particular foods or drinks need to be highlighted, and the prospective traveler is given a clear idea of what the eating experience is like in different kinds of eateries and people's homes and what is expected from them in regard to local etiquette. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:14, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I would also support creating a checklist for eat sections of such country/multi-country regions (and I do agree with the notion that a cuisine article isn't always appropriate – North African cuisine is a prime example of it being both worse for travellers than the respective Wikipedia article and a travel topic that could entirely be covered in North Africa). //shb (t | c | m)12:53, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
On behalf of Wikivoyage, I feel a bit embarrassed that the map reflects a cultural bias against African cuisines. Surely people there must cook and eat something. Mrkstvns (talk) 13:05, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
We did have North African cuisine until this week, but I merged that back in because North Africa#Eat had almost nothing beforehand. For Africa (and Oceania), it is probably a better use of community resources trying to improve the Eat sections of country articles before creating a separate topic article. //shb (t | c | m)00:43, 5 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I would support an expedition. Not only the cuisine articles and "Eat" sections of destinations but there are many specific food articles and topics related to food which need to be improved or created. And I agree that the lack of African cuisine articles is somewhat embarrassing. I'm surprised that Ethiopian cuisine hasn't been created yet, considering the large number of Ethiopian restaurants in the DMV (Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia) area as well as South African, considering the large native and non-native English-speaking population and otherwise fairly good coverage of the country on WV. The lack of articles on Peruvian and Caribbean cuisines are other big gaps. Gizza (roam)01:27, 5 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Ethiopian cuisine is great! But Wikivoyage cuisine articles are far from the be-all and end-all of food coverage on an online travel guide. I haven't closely reviewed all of them this year, but my impression is that they tend to lack much real travel content and be pale imitations of Wikipedia articles without references and that only the best of them deviate from this. I'd be much more embarrassed by there being a bunch of terrible Wikivoyage cuisine articles about African cuisines than none at all. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:24, 5 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Agreed with the stubby cuisine articles – using the NA example once again, North Africa now feels a lot more "complete", if I may say, than compared to a few days ago where both eat and drink were near-empty. Would be nice if we could see similar content for Sahel, East Africa (which feels absurdly short for how much good food comes from that region) and Central Africa. It might not be the same as separate cuisine articles, but baby steps, after all. //shb (t | c | m)03:27, 5 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 1 day ago47 comments6 people in discussion
Foreword: I get it, every traveller has different priorities. That aside, surely most cities have the major attractions, and then 'side-quests', for common travellers.
For example, take Esztergom. If you are there for a week, you can probably inspect it all. But for 1-2 days, most people will only consider e.g. the Basilica, 1-2 museums, castle and aquapark. Could we add some field 'top-pick' for listings, and have e.g. limit 10 per article and type (see/do)? Perhaps such listings could have just more vivid markers or whatever.
I'm asking for the same reason as usual. Another vacation/roadtrip came by, and I tried reeeeeeally hard to use WV to plan it, but it just can't be done. I had to use google maps to search sights, read reviews, put together road-plan somewhere else (my usual go-to page), and then consult WV to maybe some final hints. I am thinking about putting together some JS tool for WV, that could gather listings for such trips - but unless one can at least roughly evaluate where the main sights of given area are, it's useless to even start.
OTOH, if I could e.g. open page of Hungary, and get on a map combined top-10 sights of all articles, that could at least give me a rough idea, what are the most interesting regions...
In cases in which there's a strong consensus about what the top sights are, we can organize "See" something like Siena#See. Otherwise a summary at the beginning of the see section would do it. No need for any fancy changes in the colors or format of the listings templates. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:50, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Good, let's say we're visiting Tuscany for a week or two. How would you put together the travel plan using WV? Summary text is nice, but it helps only if you get dropped off in a particular city and need some introduction (like via some organized tour) - it doesn't help at all for major/self-organized planning. E.g. Montepulciano looks quite trivial regarding sights, and would hardly be worth visiting during a roadtrip (no major sights). Of course if you are in the area for a few days, it's a different story. But with the current structure of WV, how do you figure this out? By reading all articles? I can open tripadvisor/google/wanderlog/... and be 100x more effective. -- andree18:55, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
There are so many great ways to spend a week or two in Tuscany that there's no reasonable way to give our readers a one-size-fits all "One week in Tuscany" guide, and all we can reasonably do is mention some highlights in the Tuscany#See and Tuscany#Do sections and leave them to their own devices in choosing what to prioritize on a first visit (and then a second, third, fourth if they can take one...). Of course, they can instead choose to take a precooked guided tour, but we aren't here to guide them on that. All that said, if you think any of the sections of the Tuscany article are missing important information that should be summarized, there, go ahead and add it! And if you think any of it might be controversial, make a proposal at Talk:Tuscany. Also, I don't have time to look at the Tripadvisor link right now, but what makes it superior to Wikivoyage, and how might we best address that? Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:40, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Hence the very first sentence... :) Also, Tuscany was an example. I could be an American soldier with 5 days to spend around Rammstein, salesman on a trip from NYC to Jacksonville, someone who wants to spend a month in central America, whatever... You say you don't want to do 'one-size-fits-all' things (and I agree), but then you suggest to do it in overviews of regions. These can always only cover a particular area, and likely won't inform about top-notch stuff right behind the border.
In the past 10-15 years I did various few weeks/3000km roadtrips, and WV didn't help me create even a rough plan most of the time. The city guides themselves are usually nice (even if missing bits here and there, but that's fine with me, I'm always trying to fill the gaps after trips), but I'd expect a digital travel guide would also help with the bigger picture...
"Go next" (or sometimes, "Nearby") is for places outside the area covered by a guide, and there will always be something not covered by any guide. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:13, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I wouldn't be opposed to creating some kind of icon to signify what are the "must-sees" for a first time visitor and what are some additional places you can go and visit if you have extra time – it's a subtle change but with lots of potential. While I know summary text can work well, from my experience only having that doesn't quite compare to other travel guides that I use (mostly expedia or Google). //shb (t | c | m)06:00, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
The summary text is nice, once you are in the respective city. My problem is that it's impossible to read 200 such articles, even if they all had to-notch overviews... I'd much rather use google maps on an area, search for 'attractions' and pick the ones with a 100+ reviews, for example. But IMO WV could do that easily, if we had at such 'must-see' tags. -- andree06:10, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
In principle yes, but for my usecase it would only be useful if the listing template would have such parameter (e.g. { {see|mustsee|name=xyz}}). That would allow creating a dynamic map that could show the listings from an arbitrary area with such stuff.
OTOH, adding this is quite a bit of effort, and perhaps source of community friction...
We could do a similar thing, if we misuse wikipedia search, and e.g. order the listings according to number of wikipedia search results (poor man's google pigeon rank alternative; because I'd get banned by google quickly, if I wanted to use their numbers - also it's probably in violation with their T&C :) ). E.g. for Esztergom, it "Esztergom Basilica" gives 51 results, "Christian Museum" -> 13, "Bottyan Bridge" -> 2, "Jesuits parish-church" -> 1...... I guess this could work, and we wouldn't need any external stuff, not even wikidata (but we need markers :) ). -- andree06:35, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Hmm, from what I can concur, we're all on the same page about such a pin working for small cities, parks, smaller rural areas – or really, anything that is not a huge city, where the best things to see/do is more subjective. shb (t | c | m)06:49, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yes, generally, it's a lot easier when there are a few obviously great sights in a relatively small city that does not have a tremendous number of activities to offer to visitors who might be uninterested in them. But why doesn't the Siena#See model work for them? Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:56, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Hmm, that's also one way to do it, but many of our See sections are already categorised by other means. Maybe this is the way to do it for larger cities. //shb (t | c | m)07:00, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Sure does, once you already decide to go to Siena, I'd say it's a perfect guide (on the first look), I'd perhaps just use google to search for food and perhaps missing new venues. But it's not the point of this topic....... -- andree07:05, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I agree that at least in the U.S., Google Maps is usually most useful in finding places to eat. I miss the days when I could get more reliable information by checking food forum sites like Chowhound. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:17, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yes, but that wasn't about Esztergom itself. But if you go on a trip Esztergom -> Nagykanizsa, knowing not much about the country, IMO it would be nice if you would gather the respective articles we have, take the listings and show top-10% of them, according to this (or other) ranking. Then you'll know it makes sense to have a stop in Székesfehérvár, but probably not necessarily to Várpalota... -- andree06:56, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
(ec) I thought of having a special category that would list them on a dynamic map, but I know that's going to receive a lot of community opposition – hence why I proposed a small pinpoint which is both easy to implement for most cities and far more uncontroversial while getting most of the similar benefits. //shb (t | c | m)06:45, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Attractions should be bolded as appropriate in summaries. Look at Chicago#See for an example. I oppose using a special template for supposed "must-sees". That ignores the step of agreeing on what they are, and I don't know if we really want to spend time about arguing about that on the talk pages of every article, but neither is it reasonable for people to just unilaterally decide they will dictate the answers. We've had many discussions about this topic before, and while there's a clear consensus in certain places, there is none in many others. To take one example, if you consider New York City, many people who haven't visited think Times Square is a must-see, and New Yorkers would grudgingly admit that it makes sense to see it once, but does that make it a top-5 attraction? The Metropolitan Museum is a "must-go-to" if visiting art museums (though it also has great musical instruments and fashion wings) is a priority and not if it isn't. The Brooklyn Bridge might be one most people would agree with, but even in that case, some people would object to the number of pedestrians on the bridge or simply lack the fitness to walk 1.1 miles. Most New Yorkers and many visitors would say taking the Staten Island Ferry is a must-do, but a tour guide who has a YouTube channel claimed it was a bad deal even though it's free, and you could do better by paying a lot of money to drink champagne while taking a tour in a smaller boat and seeing more of the Statue of Liberty (I think she's dead wrong, but those expensive tours do have customers), but more seriously, some people prefer not to spend the time to do a round trip across New York Bay and would rather walk a lot, go to clubs and bars or what have you. Etc., etc. Paris is a similar case: The Eiffel Tower is iconic, but it doesn't have to be visited to be seen; the Louvre is incredible but could pall on someone who doesn't really care about art; but there's so much to see and do in Paris that it's a great place for most people to visit. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:25, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I mean, these are all issues that Google, Tripadvisor, Expedia, Lonely Planet and all the other major travel guides, all have to deal with as well, but they do so just fine. I recognize the main difference here is those sites don't operate as wikis, but they do somehow manage to do with it fine, and there's no reason why we can't either (might require some discussion for major cities, but that's it, really). Having a pinpoint or some special listing doesn't necessarily mean that readers lack critical thinking – they could, of course, just decide for themselves if that's not their thing. It should be treated more as a new feature that readers can use at their own will, but it doesn't replace everything else.
Maybe it's just me, but I'm somewhat worried Wikivoyage will lose relevance if we don't have some kind of distinguishing feature and stick to only using article summaries because, nobody my age is willing to read through long swathes of text and fluff (it might also explain why I couldn't really care less about lively travel writing as much as most people do on this site), and something visual is what is needed if we want to actively maintain relevance. //shb (t | c | m)06:42, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
If you want to try to have arguments about the top 5 or 10 attractions in every city, region, state/province, etc., even district, you'd better get started, because it will take a long time. Those other sites are commercial and want to feature whatever helps them sell most. The history of this wiki is that it does not focus on the most typical travelers who would be satisfied with precooked tours that tell them where to go. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:47, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
They might be commercial, but if even if someone like me, who defends this site as being a viable travel site in many ways, ends up often resorting to Google/Lonely Planet because they highlight key points of interests way better than we do, that is something they do better than us and something we should strive towards fixing. I don't deny that the implementation of this for large cities will be an issue, but I want this site to actually be read by people, and there is no reason we shouldn't for smaller cities and parks. //shb (t | c | m)06:55, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
btw most of my comments here are anecdotal, both from my own experience and many others IRL (many of whom are roughly my age) who travel frequently. Take that as you will. //shb (t | c | m)06:56, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I look at Tripadvisor and Wikivoyage when looking for things to see and do in a city. My biggest complaint about Tripadvisor is that they show things to see and do far outside a given city that are not reasonable to actually see or do unless you have a car, and you have to spend time looking at their results to see that there is actually nothing they think you can see or do in a city itself. The biggest problem I have with Wikivoyage is that many places lack any coverage or the coverage is insufficient, but that depends on the place in question. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:00, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I do think the rankings on Tripadvisor can be helpful, although I don't always agree with them, but I see those as complementary to Wikivoyage and don't have a problem with Wikivoyage being different. I will concede that if it helps more readers if we can try to do more top-10ish lists, we could do them, but for a city like New York, it would amount to top art museums, top viewpoints, top scenic walks (which would often be neighborhoods, rather than exact itineraries), top parks (we could do more with that one), etc. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:03, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yeah I don't love Tripadvisor for that reason – I do have a car and can drive, but I do travel to regional areas for site visits quite a fair bit on public transit to save up on money and sometimes check out the city. Normally I don't mind walking 12–15 km solo (and sometimes even next to 110 km/h highways with no protection), but Tripadvisor takes that to a whole different level. //shb (t | c | m)07:05, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
+1 ... I just want to make the effort we (the whole community) put into this guide to show, and get used by people. As shb wrote above, mostly noone likes to read walls of text, before they even decide they want to go there. -- andree07:02, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
You think bolding is of no help? Could you do a mockup of what you want to see? If you want something that's even clearer than bolding, wouldn't it be a list? Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:05, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I agree with you on all points, but my problem is elsewhere. I went Budapest->Croatia, and wanted to spend a few days learning about history, natural sights if there are some etc., on the path. I could do 50km detour if needed, within schengen, so even to a different country.
Globetrotter19 (talk · contribs), City-busz (talk · contribs) and other guys really are doing great job describing everything in Hungary. But you know, I don't want to see every (+- the same) Baroque church in every 5000-people town...... :) I'd like to visit e.g. some summer palace of the Habsburgs, unique architecture I can't find elsewhere, some natural sights, perhaps some playgrounds for kids. That kind of itinerary.... Ultimately I succeeded, but not thanks to WV, which is IMO a shame, because most of the pieces (sans some kind of "priorities" and a map) are there... -- andree06:48, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I don't think any itinerary based on "must-sees" is going to recommend playgrounds, though some are pretty interesting (for example, I thought one in Vondelpark in Amsterdam was, and I thought I added a description of it in the Vondelpark listing in Amsterdam/Zuid, but I don't see it, so maybe I didn't). Unique architecture and amazing natural sights should be highlighted in any good guidebook, though, and that obviously should include Wikivoyage. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:54, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I'm thinking more about this: What you're really asking for is the kinds of maps Michelin used to have in their paper Green Guides and allow access to online for free, which showed which cities were 3 stars (worth a trip), 2 stars (worth a detour) and 1 star (interesting), or non-starred, and likewise with attractions within and sometimes outside of cities. That was very useful, partly because although Michelin has certain biases in what they find interesting, I find their judgments pretty reliable in that what they think is worthwhile usually is. So yes, I very much see the use in that kind of map. It would be a hell of a lot of work for us to create our own, though, and would require a lot of debate (relying on some calculation based on searches for Wikipedia articles or anything else is not something we are going to want to substitute for our own judgments, or what is the point in a crowd-based guide?). Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:14, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
That kind of rank sounds quite useful, it would help to somehow categorize/sort our articles... Wikipedia-search-based-ranking is just a possibility that's better than keeping doing nothing (I'd say) :) -- andree07:28, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
One thing we would have to decide is whether to have some attempt at an absolute global measure of star rankings like the one Michelin had (and presumably still has in its paper green guides) or to do rankings per area, and also whether we will make decisions about which cities (etc.) deserve 3 stars, 2 stars, 1 star or no stars, or what other distinctions we would want to use. Something to consider is that as I recall from the 1990s, when I still used paper guides, Michelin had a number of 3-star and 2-star attractions in Rome, but there were dozens of 1-starred churches, because for example even fairly minor churches in Rome may have good art by known artists and be pretty buildings, such that they would easily be top attractions in much smaller Italian cities. I would seriously doubt the neo-Gothic St. Mary's Church in Hudson, New York would get any stars from Michelin, because while it's a very pretty building to run into while visiting that picturesque little city and has good stained glass windows, it just doesn't compare to a Roman church like Sant'Andrea della Valle, a parish church I enjoyed visiting when I was staying in a hotel on via Arenula nearby. However, I think it's an important sight in Hudson, even though it surprisingly gets no mention in any guide I've seen other than Wikivoyage - because I listed it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:56, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Well that's the whole point. If I'm in NYC, I will probably not travel 2x2h to see that one church - but maybe if I travelled NYC-Albany and could have a short stop there, it would make sense. OTOH, the question is now, if the proposed ranking would help here. I suppose the whole road would be littered with 1-star cities, so you'd resort back to clicking on each of them and reading through... -- andree09:39, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think if we are to replicate the global measure of star rankings, it should ideally be relative to the area. A church in a metro area of 5 million might not be that interesting to most travellers (and could get zero stars), but a church in a town of 500 might be the most prominent thing to see in that town (and might get two stars). Now I'm not familiar with the one Michelin had so do take my star ratings as an example, but my main point is to avoid a one-size-fits-all criteria. //shb (t | c | m)09:52, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
If we followed in Michelin's footsteps, there would be only a few one-star cities at most. Most would be unstarred. I wish I could find information about them online to link for everyone, other than a brief paragraph in w:Michelin Guide#Green Guides, but in some online searching for "list of Michelin starred attractions" and so forth, nothing else useful was found. It's worth looking at that paragraph, though:
The Michelin Green Guides review and rate attractions other than restaurants. There is a Green Guide for France as a whole, and a more detailed one for each of ten regions within France. Other Green Guides cover many countries, regions, and cities outside France. Many Green Guides are published in several languages. They include background information and an alphabetical section describing points of interest. Like the Red Guides, they use a three-star system for recommending sites, ranging from "worth a trip" to "worth a detour", and "interesting".
I believe I got rid of my old Green Guides from the 90s a long time ago, but Michelin's high standards are shown by the fact that most villages in Tuscany got no stars even though someplace in them (probably the Duomo or some church if nothing else) got a star on its own and the great majority of them are really beautiful. I believe I remember that being the case for Asciano. Of course Florence and Siena got 3 stars, but I believe Arezzo got no more than 2 and Cortona got one because although there are a couple of great attractions there (especially its little Duomo, which got at least 2 stars as an attraction), that's all there is other than a great view, and there are great views from a lot of hill villages (and I think that's a fair rating on that basis). I'm pretty sure San Gimignano got 3 stars, because it has incredible attractions for such a small town in addition to its great location.
It would be great if anyone had Green Guides for areas of the U.S., but by that standard, if I think about places I've visited in the Hudson Valley north of Poughkeepsie, Kingston would get a star or maybe two, ditto for Hudson (probably 1 star, though Olana would get at least 2 stars as an attraction) and Troy, Saratoga would probably get 2, Cohoes would probably get 1, Albany would get 1 because it's the capital of the state and has one interesting area and probably some decent museums I didn't go to, and I think that's it. No chance for a star for Rhinebeck, though there are some churches and accompanying graveyards with interesting histories that I was never motivated enough to write up, and no stars for all the more or less pleasant and picturesque villages. New Paltz would get one star, but it's further south. Some of the suburbs along the Hudson in Westchester would probably get a single star, but not unless there is more there than just a view, so Yonkers for the Hudson River Museum and the garden there whose name I forget, and maybe Sleepy Hollow for the legend (Michelin folks love stuff like that). Not sure what else. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:19, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I wonder how much of this is about highlighting the best attractions within a large destination vs saying which cities to stop in when you're already driving between X and Y. I think that an itinerary might be a better model: Go here to see this, then go there to see that, stop off here if you're interested in this... WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:50, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I used a Michelin Green Guide during a roadtrips in France in 2002 to help make spontaneous decisions about side trips off the autoroute. My brother drove and I sat next to him, looking at the Michelin maps and reading to him from guides to places not too far from exits. As a result, we visited Semur, Saumur and Le Mans in addition to the other places we had planned to visit before the trip. The Michelin stars for cities and attractions helped, but so did their descriptions.
I definitely think it would be possible to use Wikivoyage the same way (I haven't tried so far - no more family roadtrips since my father got too sick and my parents subsequently died), but the inconsistency of this site in its coverage, due to which places members of this crowd chose to write about, creates a lack of standardization that is unavoidable. Considering the built-in drawbacks of wikis, it's amazing how good they are! Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:03, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
When you have metro area article with cities under it or a huge city with districts, the top-level article can mention the most important sites leaving details & lesser sites to other articles. e.g. Shanghai#See & Metro_Cebu#See This also works for things other than tourist sights, e.g. see Shanghai#Clothing. Pashley (talk) 20:34, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I find that usually region articles are much less complete than the articles for cities within them. In part this is a result of the nature of volunteer supplied content. It is much easier to add content to the city article for somewhere that has just been visited. To write about the region, ideally you would have some knowledge of most of the region which requires a much longer visit exploring the whole area, rather than a weekend in a single city - it is much harder to collate multiple editors contributions on the cities to make the region guide.
The commercial guides have an advantage here - a traditional guidebook company will pay for the author to spend a couple of weeks touring the region. The review sites have loads of data to crunch - TripAdvisor can filter based on the number of 4 star reviews it has, Google may know how many Android phones visited a location (user settings permitting etc).AlasdairW (talk) 21:06, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 17 hours ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I see that in this project, at the bottom of an article, there's a suggested pages section (more details here). How does this can be achieved? Probably via an extension? I also want this in viwikivoyage. Nvdtn19 (talk) 07:45, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I believe before this was implemented you could manually add all related pages using {{Related}}, which you can still do, but I'm not sure what we did in the lead up to automatically adding related pages (might have been a phab task, but I cannot exactly remember). //shb (t | c | m)11:53, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 1 hour ago24 comments7 people in discussion
Some of you might remember the discussion we had about the site here – it seems they've drafted up the report at m:Proposal for Closing Wikinews which I think is worth a read. For one, I think it's a shame that the final outcome was to lock all Wikinews projects without really consulting the Wikinews community at all (with SPTF even claiming that's an apparent conflict of interest) and dismissing genuine suggestions that were brought up which gives the impression that they were more interested in an authoritarian approach because of how much backlash that proposal initially garnered (and I also get the impressions they had the result predetermined).
I don't think we on Wikivoyage have much to be concerned about, mainly for two reasons – a) information on Wikivoyage is still relevant for the most part, even in 20 or 25 years (unlike Wikinews where content becomes irrelevant after 2–3 weeks); b) Wikivoyage is still a viable travel site for large parts of the world, even though it has many gaps. That said, I don't think now's a bad time to start discussion on how we can genuinely compete with major travel sites like Google, LonelyPlanet or Expedia, even if it doesn't result in change, both so we stay relevant in the grand scheme of things, and so our content is read by travellers. Either way, RIP Wikinews and it's sad that a flawed consultation process was how it had to go. //shb (t | c | m)11:51, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
A couple thoughts. First, and admittedly I don't know all the context here, that seems to be only a proposal. Presumably that proposal could be rejected?
One resource that would be valuable would be data on number of edits, page views, etc. by project, and while graphs from that tool are shown in the proposal, I can't find the actual web page mentioned anywhere there. In my opinion we would be wise to look at which articles are receiving the highest readership by humans and learn lessons from those articles. From what I've seen in page information tabs, travel topics perform far better than we might think, and they require less maintenance than destination articles. Perhaps we should increase our offering of travel topics and itineraries, which certainly would increase the distinction between our site and alternatives like LonelyPlanet. I also believe we should come to a consensus regarding station articles and, if we want to make that a new type of article permanently, expand our offering in that area.
Strange as it sounds, we may suffer from having too many destination (and particuarly city) articles. Sparsely populated regions such as North Dakota have articles for even the smallest towns, and there aren't enough editors in these places to keep listings up to date. I'm not sure what is the best way to resolve that problem, but I think there was a wave of creation followed by deletion of empty skeleton articles in the past.
If Wikinews is indeed taken offline, the timing seems inappropriate. A time when news organizations (PBS, NPR) are being defunded is not the best time to close down the project, surely. I do think the proposal makes a convincing argument that the current state of Wikinews is insufficient, but I think that would call for changes rather than closure entirely. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 12:45, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Based on the way SPTF acted on the consultation page, we can be very sure they had the result predetermined (especially because they did not consult Wikinews beforehand either) and due to the lack of any positives about Wikinews mentioned in the report. It's one of the most egregious box-ticking consultations I've ever seen from a WMF charter. //shb (t | c | m)12:59, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I realize this is totally a side point, but any figuring of how many human edits articles get has to make exceptions for repeated attempts by Brendan to edit articles like the one for Equatorial Guinea or vandalism of the Nigeria article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:30, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
To my knowledge, I don't think any human edits were excluded in the calculations for WN – I might be wrong, though. //shb (t | c | m)14:35, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
SPTF has done a great job of wilful ignorance; you can in theory, but they've demonstrated ample times that they aren't interested in hearing opposition. //shb (t | c | m)22:18, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
In terms of my speculation/conjecture/take, I'd say that the various WMF projects are in tiers something like:
Safe/successful:
Wikipedia
Wiktionary
Wikidata
Commons
Wikispecies
MediaWiki
Safe/qualified successes:
Wikisource
Wikiquote
Wikivoyage
Less safe/qualified failures:
Wikibooks
Wikiversity
Other:
Wikinews (possible closure, major restructuring)
Wikifunctions (too new to assess, very small and narrow scope)
I don't think that anyone has the English Wikivoyage in the cross hairs as such, otherwise, it would have been brought up at the time. I've been pretty vocal in the consultation process about Wikinews generally and while I think the proposal to possibly shut down is the wrong one, I have also been disappointed by some of the vituperation aimed at those who were just doing their jobs. The fact is, Wikinews has struggled and failed. I don't think it's an inherent failure and I personally continue to contribute at the English Wikinews: I believe in it. But some users took the criticism and proposal as a kind of attack and attacked back in a way that I think was not warranted. If for no other reason than no one wants to put up with the drama, I find it unlikely that there will be any serious proposals to close any other projects and even if there were, Wikiversity and probably Wikibooks would come before Wikivoyage.
Thanks for the post, but since I don't recognize all the abbreviations you used for wikis, I'm dead sure other readers didn't. So if you choose to explain what they all stand for, you'd be doing a good service. I'll get the process started by saying that wp=Wikipedia, wikt=Wiktionary, d is presumably Wikidata, c would be Commons, species is clear, voy=Wikivoyage, and wn=Wikinews. I don't recognize the others. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:10, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Koavf: What would you say distinguishes the three qualified successes from the successful projects, and in turn what distinguishes us from Wikibooks and Wikiversity (the qualified failures)? --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 00:25, 5 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I would say that the "successful" projects are all very active and generally pretty successful at what a person wants to get out of them. E.g. if you want to know what a word means (particularly in English) and you look it up on Wiktionary, you will probably find the answer. With those qualified successes, you may get what you want and there's a decent amount of content, but there are also some big gaps. With the semi-failure ones, there is a lot of work that needs to be done to make it useful. That's just generally how I think about it. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯00:38, 5 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
As a Wikibooks admin myself, it's probably the sheer volume of incomplete or abandoned books, coupled with low participation. Unlike, say, Wikipedia, Wikivoyage or Wikisource, you need to know the topic reasonably well before writing a book on Wikibooks (and thus there isn't a whole heap of collaboration on the same article). There's a long process to clean up many of the old/abandoned books but it's been a work in progress for at least 2 years. //shb (t | c | m)00:39, 5 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Agreed. And the nice thing about a textbook is that you can come back to it and complete it. That's not true of news: if news isn't completed or written, it ceases to be news at all. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯00:40, 5 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yeah that's why I think the entire premise of Wikinews was always a bit problematic from the get-go (and why I was in support of closing many of the smaller Wikinews projects even before the SPTF consultation came to fruition). //shb (t | c | m)00:50, 5 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Sorry, but I disagree that the response to the criticism was unwarranted. The most appropriate course of action for a committee when reviewing the project is to actually address the project directly and work with them on how to improve the project going forward. SPTF, however, didn't do that – they notified Wikinews at the same time when all other projects were notified (see my message earlier for the link). You could argue that this might have been a genuine error, but when this was brought up multiple times, SPTF was either virtually unresponsive to all criticism on the lack of communication or Victoria doubled down by saying that being involved in a consultation that involving your home project is a supposed conflict of interest. When you consult a community so poorly without even trying to hide that, it is a perfectly normal human reaction to react in such a way. //shb (t | c | m)00:33, 5 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Over the past decade, the English Wikivoyage has received about 2.5 times the number of pageviews as English Wikinews. Of course there are other languages but English is usually the biggest wiki for all Wikimedian wikis so it's easiest to compare. Also if you look carefully at the stats, the gap between Wikivoyage and Wikinews has grown in recent years. So I think we are pretty safe in the short term. As far how we can grow, there is so much to unpack but I still believe that in addition to the legacy W-travel content which has remained unchanged, many editors are not sufficiently paraphrasing content brought in from Wikipedia. There are sentences added verbatim which 1. isn't appropriate when the tone of our articles are meant to much more casual and fun than bland and technical Wikipedia and 2. The duplicated content continues to penalise us in the SEO rankings. There are e.g. plenty of articles which go into Köppen climate classifications. The climate and weather sections of a city should be written as if you're talking to a friend who wants to travel to a place where you've recently been. Most of our article should be written like that. I'm mindful that internet users aren't clicking on search links as much as they used as they often just read the AI summaries up the top (funnily enough AI often uses wikis as a major source for their summaries) but serious travellers planning a trip will still want detail and click further.
Another big hole is the absence of an online app. Wikivoyage readers will continue to be skewed to desktop and laptop users instead of tablets and phones (where younger generations spend more of their time on) if we continue to only rely on a website URL. Addressing this is unfortunately out of our hands though as developing an app for Wikivoyage is not high priority for the WMF. Gizza (roam)01:10, 5 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oh absolutely – this will be the downfall of basically every Wikimedia project that is not Wikipedia (atp Commons only has an Android app). //shb (t | c | m)01:35, 5 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Even the web wrappers of mobile-optimized websites are better than nothing IMO, and I often like to download various mobile-optimized websites as progressive web apps as a young adult user, especially when there are no native versions of them in Play Store (or App Store if you're in iOS). Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 02:24, 5 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Perhaps tangentially, I nominated Nairobi for DotM a while before Wikimania took place there, expecting that some of the participants would read and use the article, notice the nomination banner, and edit/update the article or just even add something little. Aside of two Brendan edits, the article history shows zero edits from that time. Unfortunately Wikivoyage does not seem interesting or attractive to editors of other wikis even during and after their travels :( . --Ypsilon (talk) 04:37, 5 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
This website uses the Wikivoyage API to get and display all the information you see. This is the MediaWiki API, which is a general API for accessing data from Wikimedia projects. You can find information about it here: MediaWiki API.