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[edit] My Recent Changes

Working on updating Victor Harbor and Kangaroo Island, and I possibly might get enough motivation to give a little bit of help to Adelaide.

Updates on returning from Rarotonga and Aitutaki, and a bit of Auckland again, including making the districts there a bit clearer. Rarotonga looks to be approaching guide soon, and hopefully that dull green photo of Avarua Harbour will be replaced by a much nicer one when I get around to sorting through photos.

Back to Queensland again, this time to update Rockhampton, Gladstone, Hervey Bay, 1770, and my current pet project of Lady Elliot Island. I'm looking for a little icon for the map that would indicate snorkelling, if anyone knows of one in the public domain. If I don't find one soon, I may need to draw one, which could have unforeseen consequences. I'm using icons instead of a sidebar on the Lady Elliot Map because there are so few features.

I've recently returned from a trip around south western Queensland. Still filling out some of the articles. Finished Hungerford for now, and Eulo, and will finished Thargomindah, Yowah before too long, and a few others. I'm sure anybody who has visited this area will agree that it is a little visited, but still a fantastic destination. When looking for information before I went it was hard to find, so hopefully Wikitravel can lead the way and fill a void.

A couple of months ago I updated the Southern Highlands (New South Wales), and done a bit of a reorg of the regions and towns. Each town in the southern highlands is distinct, but there are some with not very much there. Thinking of promoting some to usable or even guide with the information they have, if I think it is complete.

Updated Yellowstone National Park and Salt Lake City articles were useful during my visit there. Made a few tweaks to improve them from the perspective of a traveller.

I tend to keep a few places in South East Asia, particularly Vietnam on my watchlist. Changes there often inspire me to add bits and pieces. I do much the same for parts of the south pacific, including Vanuatu and Fiji. Occasionally have even been known to venture over the United States of America and to the United Kingdom, but I generally feel I can add the most value around the Australian states.

I think the Canberra article is now one of the best I have seen in Australia. Thanks to everyone who has contributed.

Used the wikitravel guides for Macau and Hong Kong using the wikitravel guides. Some corrections, but mostly helpful.

[edit] Copyedit

I'm running a script against some articles that contain suspect language or formatting. The script is a form of prototype toutbot. I'm checking the output and applying the changes, and nothing is running automatically.

The copyedit process is currently:

• Postlinking, and tidying up the results.
• Removing wikipedia inline links (except the ones to article names).
• Identifying URL's in the text, and adding the required linking
• Adding any missing leading http to links - a very common mistake in urls.
• Sorting sections into the correct section order
• Common spelling mistakes
• Truncating links which attempt to count clicks from Wikitravel.
• Checking second level headings, and fixing case
• Checking Eat and Sleep listings for first party pronouns, trying some standard adaptations, and removing them if that fails.
• Removing some common flowery language from Eat and Sleep listings.
• Removing URL's that are known to link to guides, or consolidators.
• Unlinking images of hotels.
• Removing the expression located in/located on
• Formatting Australian and U.S. phone numbers into the standard format
• Sorting any adjacent XML sleep entries into alphabetical order.
• If it encounters a sleep entry in a standard format, name in bold, url, address, tel, fax, email, text all on one line, it converts to an xml sleep listing.
• Abbreviating currency symbols, and removing expressions like AUD, CDN, USD, from articles where that is the national currency.
• Changing AM/PM, temps, distances, etc to standard abbreviations where they exist.
• Change wireless internet to Wi-Fi in sleep and eat listings.
• It removes cents from Euro, and $ values where the cents value is zero.
• Consolidating multiple blank lines into single blank lines.
• Removing blank listings, and all of the example text, example images, and signatures in articles.
• Removing the town name from sleep addresses if it is the same as the article name
• Adding an isPartOf template, if it is missing one. Tries to parse the opening line to make a guess if the standard opening line is used.
• It changes phrases like "travellers are advised to", to more succinct equivalents.
• It tries to recognise SHOUTING, and change it to lower case where possible.

The process is at the point now where it is extremely rare to make an invalid change to a valid article. Sometimes tidying up after encountering a new form of expression goes a little awry, but it rarely leaves such an article in a worse state that it found it. My current intention is that ultimately it will scan recent changes, highlighting those quickly that have introduced errors, either in terms of policy or formatting. I'm happy to accept any feedback anyone has to offer, either in terms of additional checks it could make, or checks that it is making which aren't in line with policy, or comments of a more general nature.

[edit] Sydney Districts

A background task for the past few years on Wikitravel has been to get Wikitravel:Consensus for a districts map for Sydney that is inclusive of the metro area, and makes sense to travellers. We seem to have completed central Sydney and the inner suburbs, and there is a map for this now on the Sydney page.

I'm happy to take it really slowly, and wait for sound consensus, and solicit as many opinions as possible. Some of the WT contributors for Sydney seem to only drop in every month or so.

However, I'm confident now that we won't be doing down the highly undesirable path of creating a travel guide for all 300 suburbs in Sydney that we seemed in danger of going down previously.

Again, please comment at Talk:Sydney as there are still many issues that are unresolved.

[edit] Respect

The Respect section is one of the highlights of Wikitravel. It is usually an informative, well considered introduction to the customs of a country. Most areas already have most of the useful information included, but unfortunately this important information is still missing from a few articles.

Some of the most insightful pieces of advice are:

• If there has been an attack on the country that has killed thousands of people, then it is probably best to avoid making jokes about it. Heed this advice from the USA article when preparing your joke list for traveling anywhere.
• Avoid stripping naked until well outside the arrivals terminal. Great advice from the USA article for those nudist travelers.
• Remember to brush your teeth - more great dental health advice from the USA article.
• Don't call Irish English, Canadians American or New Zealanders Australian. Timely advice in these articles especially for travelers who have difficulty remembering the country they are visiting.
• Just in case you were considering pushing (cutting) in line while traveling, there is valuable advice not to push in front of people of lower socio-economic status than you from in the USA, and don't push in front of anybody at all in Canada

[edit] Getting off the beaten path

One of the most common complaints of travelers is that nowhere is new anymore, everything has been done. You can cross the world, and still be surrounded by tourists, just doing the same thing as you. Well the beaten path is well beaten, but to get off it can require less effort than you think.

The secret is - just walk for 30 minutes. Along a river, a lake, a track, a path, or especially up a hill.

Try it sometime, its not a day trek, you don't have to find some small African province unmentioned in any guide. You don't have to chance a war zone to escape the tourist hoards..

• 30 minutes walk from Victoria Peak - noone but local joggers, and a much better view.
• 30 minutes walk from Old Faithful, and up the hill - you can still see the geyser, but the crowds are way in the distance, and there are no bear jams.
• 30 minutes walk along the Thames - will give you some of the better sights of London, with not even a commuter to get in your way.
• 30 minutes walk along Sydney Herbour - the views over the harbour through gum trees are spectacular as you walk, and most days you will have the path yo yourself.
• 30 minutes walk up from Niagara Falls - no crowds, no cost, just you and the river..
• 30 minutes walk from the carpark at Angkor Wat - even the touts don't go this far (but don't try it anywhere with elephants).
• 30 minutes walk from Milford Sound - beautiful & desolate.
• 30 minutes walk from Uluru - the tour coaches serving champagne on the table by the side of the bus at sunset will just seem like a bad dream.
• 30 minutes along the Saigon river. Could easily be the furthest anyone has ever walked in that city..

I'll see you 30 minutes down the track...

[edit] A short stroll

How many times a day do you take a short stroll? It is all very reminiscent of a a bygone era, where ladies gather their parasol, gentlemen their hat, before embarking on a short stroll through the gardens of a late afternoon, in order to properly digest their cucumber sandwiches. However, the glory days remain with us, with so many accommodation providers offering the opportunities for short strolls. Their accommodation is surprisingly only a a short stroll to the beach, a short stroll to the city centre, and a short stroll to the art gallery. The opportunities for those wishing to stroll are seemingly endless.

[edit] Oceania

Australasia has, by consensus, disappeared from the Main Page in favour of Oceania. I've proposed in Talk:Oceania that is is not a useful part of the geographical hierarchy, for reasons I point out there.

Since my ideas there seemd to gain consensus, its now bye-bye-nesia..

[edit] Wikitravel administration

Along with several other regulars here, I generally patrol changes for edits that are not in line with Wikitravel policy. Vandalism, irrelevant information, or comments are just reverted, but for other changes I include a comment or a pointer to the Wikitravel policy in question. If you disagree, and think that the edit is in line with policy, the best place to discuss this is on the talk page of the article. If you think the policy is wrong, then you need to discuss this on the talk page for the policy itself. What information is included in wikitravel, is ultimately an issue of community consensus.

[edit] Licence

Wikitravel operates under a CC-BY-SA 1.0 licence, however all my contributions to Wikitravel are also released into the public domain. This means if you find an article, text, photo or map that was exclusively written or created by me, you can use it in any way you like, without any acknowledgement for any purpose. It follows that should the Wikitravel licence change at any time, you do not need to obtain my permission to relicence any of my work under any new licence.