Wikitravel:Travellers' pub

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The Travellers' pub is the place to ask questions when you're confused, lost, afraid, tired, annoyed, thoughtful, or helpful. Please check the FAQ and Help page before asking a question, though, since that may save your time and others'. Also, if you have a question or suggestion about a particular article, try using talk pages to keep the discussion specific to that article.

If you are having a problem that you think has to do with the Mediawiki software, please post that on the Technical requests page on Wikitravel Shared instead.

Please add new questions at the bottom of the page and sign your post by appending four tildes (~~~~) to it, but otherwise plunge forward!

[edit] Archives

Keeping the Pub clean is a group effort. If we have too many conversations on this page, it gets too noisy and hard to read. If you see a conversation that could or should be moved to a talk page, please do so, and note the move here.

If a conversation does not fit into any specific talk page, it should be archived to Wikitravel:Travellers' pub/Archives and removed from here 3 months after the last comment in that discussion.

Stuff that's been moved to specific talk pages:

Also, see the Travellers' pub archives for older archived discussions.

[edit] Please sweep the pub

So, the TP has been getting kinda crowded and messy. I'd really appreciate if we could all make an effort to clean up a bit by moving discussions to places more appropriate or deleting discussions that have reached their conclusions. It's a tedious job, but like most, it's easier if we do it together. --Evan 16:44, 20 Apr 2004 (EDT)

Should we sweep this out? -- Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 03:20, 16 August 2006 (EDT)
Ugh, this place is getting messy and this is the one page I hate to attempt to organize. Anyone want to take a stab at cleaning it up? -- Sapphire • (Talk) • 18:29, 11 April 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Attribution and article translations

DavidSaldanaSage just brought up a good point: according to our copyleft, shouldn't we have to credit original contributors when translating articles between language versions? What is our policy for dealing with this? Do we just indicate somewhere on the article or the talk page that it is a translation and the original version is at X? --Peter Talk 10:23, 29 August 2007 (EDT)

Yes, my solution on de: has been to use de:Vorlage:Attributieren. The only potential problems is someone can remove an author's name or delete the template. -- 10:35, 29 August 2007 (EDT)
Ah, cool. How does that template work exactly? Do you need to enter the original authors one by one each time you use it? Or does it automatically import them? And if so, is it set up to import only from :en? --Peter Talk 10:45, 29 August 2007 (EDT)
Well, there is another way: We could establish a policy that when preparing to translate an article that the article be exported and the imported as a first step. -- Mark 10:42, 29 August 2007 (EDT)
Yes, that probably would be a good way of doing things for complete translations, but I think a lot of partial translation also gets done, that is, added material translated from another language version to an existing article. --Peter Talk 10:48, 29 August 2007 (EDT)
I used to do that until I was told it was bad and could harm the website/server. Plus, you can't import pages with more than a certain number of "versions" (history). If you export the "last version" it doesn't attribute all of the authors, just the last person to have edited the page. IB, I would appreciate it if you could stabilize the server to allow me to import articles. Also, fix the issues with the attribution of the export/import feature. -- Sapphire • (Talk) • 10:57, 29 August 2007 (EDT)
I guess you're replying to Andrew? I'm not sure how the template works, but it occurs to me that the exporter idea will have problems because of the fact that usernames are not necessarily the same across language versions. -- Mark 10:53, 29 August 2007 (EDT)
Unfortunately, each author has to be entered individually. Ie. {{Attribution|[[:ru:User:X|Real name]], and |[[:de:Benutzer:Sapphire|Sapphire]].}} Currently, I have 30 value fields that will allow you to enter 30 names. If you need to attribute more than 30 people you can also use the 30th field to write something like this {{Attribution|.....|[[:en:User:X|real name]], [[:en:User:Q|real name]], [[:en:User:T|real name]], and anonymous users of Wikitravel.}}. -- Sapphire • (Talk) • 10:57, 29 August 2007 (EDT)
Whew, that could take a lot of time in some cases. Could perhaps a simpler, quicker template do the job by saying "This article is based on a translation of article X", with a link to that article, where the original authors are cited? Or would that not be enough to satisfy the terms of CC-by-SA 1.0? Such a template could link to the version in the history from which it was translated.
Perhaps this sort of quick template could suffice in the meantime, but I feel a feature request for IB brewing here. --Peter Talk 11:24, 29 August 2007 (EDT)
I might have a solution, but I'm not sure if it'd be legally kosher. Check User:Sapphire/Template:AttributionAlt in a few minutes. -- Sapphire • (Talk) • 11:30, 29 August 2007 (EDT)
Done. The new template says 'We took content from this article, which is based on work by this list of authors.' I'm not sure if pointing to a list of authors is sufficient enough, or not. -- Sapphire • (Talk) • 11:42, 29 August 2007 (EDT)
Nice job! That looks like good enough for the time being. I'll make translations of that into Russian and Spanish. But for a more permanent solution, perhaps we should ask IB on shared for a way to automatically get the names from the original language version into the translated page credit box. --Peter Talk 11:44, 29 August 2007 (EDT)
Sweet. I'd love to see more translating between language versions - I've always meant to raid the Japanese Wikitravel for eat/drink/buy entries for Japan articles. Gorilla Jones
Forgive my legal retardation, but if it's in another language, are we positive that it has to be attributed at all? If I can take a paragraph from a copyrighted website, paraphrase it and jumble it up a little and then use it here without attribution, what's the difference if it's being translated into another language entirely? – cacahuate talk 03:28, 1 September 2007 (EDT)
Yep. The Creative Commons website actually lists translations as one of their two examples of derivative works requiring attribution. The big difference is that the structure and idea behind the structure of the work is the same. For example, Wikitravel:Копилефт is certainly not a word-for-word translation of Wikitravel:Copyleft, but the structure of the article clearly comes from the original (there are also some sections pretty close to the original text). And jumbling up a paraphrasing of an incompatible source actually is copyright infringement. You need to totally rewrite, using your own words and organization, but using the source as just a reminder of the facts. --Peter Talk 03:44, 1 September 2007 (EDT)
Where on the page have you been putting the attribution template? At the very bottom? On the talk page? Somewhere else? Gorilla Jones 10:00, 1 September 2007 (EDT)
I put it at the bottom of the page so it can be next to the attribution in the footer. -- Sapphire • (Talk) • 11:16, 1 September 2007 (EDT)

Is there a template now at en: that can be used for manually listing other authors, from outside Wikitravel? Is creating a Template:Attribution a best way to go with this? Background for my question comes from shared:Talk:Copyleft#asking permission to use forum reply at Wikitravel where we created a template and guidelines for using content from external forums, by explicit permission of original author. --DenisYurkin 13:14, 10 February 2008 (EST)

I don't believe there is such a template, but it sounds like a good idea to me to create one—I can't think of any better way to provide attribution. --Peter Talk 02:02, 11 February 2008 (EST)
I've created a draft template: Template:Attribution, you can see it in action in Rome, Rome/Campo de' Fiori. Any comments/criticism is appreciated. --DenisYurkin 15:08, 11 February 2008 (EST)

[edit] template for inviting to discussion

I frequently leave a question on article's Talk page challenging/asking questions on a recent edit of other user. In many cases I also leave a question on the user's talk page inviting him to discussion on the article's Talk.

I'd like to create a template for such invitations to discuss. What name would be best for such template? Maybe someone have a good text in hand for such a template. And--maybe any objections? --DenisYurkin 13:12, 19 December 2007 (EST)

I plunged forward: now you can use Template:QuestionOnYourEdit: {{subst:QuestionOnYourEdit|articlename}}. Any comments would be appreciated. --DenisYurkin 06:23, 23 December 2007 (EST)
Yeah, I object on the grounds that any questions should be more personalized and we shouldn't use templates to interact with other users with the exception of a welcome message, which should be standard. -- Sapphire • (Talk) • 13:04, 3 January 2008 (EST)
Me too – cacahuate talk 18:52, 3 January 2008 (EST)
I always place every bit of specifics of my question in article's talk page, and appeal to user's talk page only to make sure he won't miss the comment and to invite to discuss right there in the article's talk page. Am I only one practicing this pattern? --DenisYurkin 14:46, 6 January 2008 (EST)
I think you are. For the most part, it's much easier to solicit a response from the user directly. If, however, it's an issue that requires greater community participation, then I'd mention it on the talk page, appropriate policy page, or travellers' pub. We also have to assume all users are new to wikis, so questioning an edit or explaining policy on their talk page is much more preferential than a new user receiving a message with the perceived message of: 'Hey, go to this page, because I don't like your edit and want to ask a question.' -- Sapphire • (Talk) • 16:03, 6 January 2008 (EST)

Well, I have my reasons for preferring to discuss in the article's talk page:

  1. I can't be 100% sure I'm right in the comments I leave. When I leave a comment only on user's talk page, there's much less chances anyone else will verify whether I'm following the community policy and consensus.
  2. It is quite typical that I challenge edit of an experienced wikitraveller (or he challenges mine), in some cases on the edge of WT policies. Placing discussion on article's talk page, I also ask for opinions from other wikitravellers.

Yes, there are simple cases when a newby posts an extlink or an apartment listing which doesn't meet our policy--in that cases I feel confident enough that any other pair of experienced WT eyes will say just the same as I did. I don't aim the above template for these cases--only for the former kind above. --DenisYurkin 11:49, 11 January 2008 (EST)

DenisYurkin, the template as it is written now doesn't really do anything for your second point, you need something like a 'request for participation in a discussion' for that. Your first point makes sense to me - if an edit is obviously gratuitous, one can revert it but marginal cases are probably better discussed on the article talk page because the user's talk page is useful only in the here and now. I don't see why a template, similar to the {{Template:Districts discussion}} can't be used here. I would rewrite it a bit "Hi Axolotl. I have a question about something you contributed to potrezbie and started a discusion in Talk:potrezbie. If you can, please take a look at the Talk:potrezbie page and leave you comments. Thanks!" But, I'm easy with the idea whatever the final text is. --Wandering 15:13, 19 January 2008 (EST)
Thanks for the suggestion on improving, I edited text in the template.
PS. I'm not sure I understood what exactly you called my first point, and what my second point. --DenisYurkin 19:19, 19 January 2008 (EST)
First point: I can't be 100% sure I'm right in the comments I leave. (I agree that almost everything is better discussed on the article talk page rather than on a user page.) Second Point: Placing discussion on article's talk page, I also ask for opinions from other wikitravellers.
(which, on reflection, I think I misunderstood and confused with your invitations to discuss the redistricting of Barcelona. Sorry!) --Wandering 22:10, 20 January 2008 (EST)
OK, I mentioned these two points as a response to proposal from Sapphire and cacahuate to comment on user talk pages most of the time. For the second point, the template also helps when someone edits an article and I am not entirely agree that the edit makes the article better. In such cases I normally leave a question on article's talk page before trying to change back anything in the article. So why do you think that it doesn't really do anything for second point? --DenisYurkin 06:46, 21 January 2008 (EST)
So why do you think that it doesn't really do anything for second point? It does. Like I said: I think I misunderstood and confused with your invitations to discuss the redistricting of Barcelona. Sorry--Wandering 13:00, 21 January 2008 (EST)

[edit] Talk:Main_Page "type the code shown" bot-trap

Couldn't Talk:Main Page be protected with one of those "type the code shown" (code is displayed in a small image, which you have to read and type into a text box) bot-traps? ~ 203.144.143.4 15:12, 19 December 2007 (EST)

This is what I was trying to describe: WikiPedia:CAPTCHA ~ 203.144.143.4 13:40, 13 January 2008 (EST)

[edit] Can someone upload photos on my behalf?

Hello from a new Wikitravel contributor. I have a rather large collection of travel photos I would be happy to see used here, all online, but I have no time to upload them myself as we are travelling long-term and have limited net time. Can I somehow give people general permission to upload my shots with credit to me or our blog? Friedel

[edit] Newbie linkage question

Excuse the ignorance! What is the view on Special:Contributions/213.229.45.94 this sort of contribs? Is it ok because it is on the talk page or is that just a way of getting around placing actual content. Cheers --Herby talk thyme 11:55, 7 January 2008 (EST)

[edit] Recent changes by characters-per-edit

Just an idea for an option I think would be handy on the Recent Changes page. I've gradually become suspicious of single edits of over about 1000 characters because I often find them to be copyright violations. The higher the edit character count, the more likely this becomes; single edits of +10,000 are highly suspicious and should be checked thoroughly. Conversely, if someone removes several thousand characters from a page, I find that to be suspect as well-- it could be just vandalism or it could be a business owner stripping competition from an article, etc. I'd like to see an additional filter on the Recent Changes page that would make these easier to spot by allowing you to hide edits under certain increments, maybe 1000, 2000, 5000, 10000, or something similar. I think it would be especially helpful on some other language editions where there aren't such a large number of admins. I don't have the know-how to implement such a thing, but I'm sure someone around here does. Please comment! Texugo 00:59, 11 January 2008 (EST)

[edit] some articles appear in print-preview version

Some articles appear in print-preview version which doesn't allow to edit or proceed to Talk page; specifically, it's Morocco right now and Montserrat yesterday (works OK now). Can anyone fix it? What happened? --DenisYurkin 11:26, 11 January 2008 (EST)

→ shared:Tech:Some pages don't display any tool bars --Peter Talk 14:12, 11 January 2008 (EST)

[edit] List of dangling references

Just wondering if there is some way of generating a list of all dangling references (broken links) in Wikitravel? You know, stuff like North Cork or Mallow?--Wandering 19:31, 17 January 2008 (EST)

Try Special:Wantedpages. ~ 58.8.12.150 00:12, 19 January 2008 (EST)

[edit] CAPTCHA

If this was used to test every first-ever anonymous edit from any given IP, seems to me it would block virtually all spambots.

WikiPedia already uses it, so I presume it could be used here without too much difficulty, though I suspect support would have to be very strong to actually make that happen.

Anyone think it would be worth pursuing? ~ 203.144.143.4 02:31, 21 January 2008 (EST)

If used only to test first-ever IP edits, I would definitely support that. A Shared tech request + a lot of pestering IB from us would be necessary, but lets first see how much support this has. --Peter Talk 02:51, 21 January 2008 (EST)

[edit] cc by sa 1.0 disclaimer on Edit page

Shouldn't that read "If you do not want your work to be re-used, for commercial or other purposes, on other web sites, print or other media or modified by other users please do not submit!" In re the discussion on Wikitravel Talk:Wikitravel Press the current warning seems inadequate.--Wandering 18:13, 21 January 2008 (EST)

Also:
"All contributions must be your own original work or work that is explicitly licensed under a CC-BY-SA compatible license."
Should read:
"All contributions must be your own original work or work that is explicitly licensed as CC-BY-SA-1.0"
The "compatible license" part should be removed as there are none (alternatively it could be left in and made to link to shared:Copyleft#Compatible licenses, but I'm sure it's best to keep it clear and simple and just take it out altogether). ~ 58.8.8.167 00:08, 22 January 2008 (EST)
I agree that the edit window message is misleading—by specifically mentioning "other web sites," it makes it seem as though it can be re-used only by other web sites. I'd prefer an accurate, clear, and to the point message like:
If you do not want your work to be available for anyone to use within the terms of our Copyleft, or allow it to be modified by other users, please do not submit!
But for the second point, I'd prefer to not alter that until we, IB, and Creative Commons have decided definitively what we are going to do here.
On another note, it seemed that my simple addition of the zh: link to the MediaWiki Recentchangestext the other night crashed our servers for a full hour. That's really not acceptable. I'm worried that this change will cause a similar crash. --Peter Talk 03:42, 22 January 2008 (EST)
I agree with Peter on the shorter message with a link to Copyleft for the details.
However, I'd say do it now. Pashley 04:35, 22 January 2008 (EST)

[edit] A random ponderation

Does anyone ever have an urge to somehow link two completely unrelated guides together? An example could be connect Y with Minsk or with Zimbabwe. I think some people do, because I recently came across a guide in which someone linked two guides together for one of the most ridiculous reasons and I had a good laugh. I don't remember which guide that was, but I remember wondering how many people connect random places together for whatever reason, though the reason is incredibly superficial. -- Sapphire • (Talk) • 18:04, 24 January 2008 (EST)

I do that sometimes. Mostly in trivia infoboxes, though I don't always wikilink the articles. It gives a traveller something to talk about, serves as an icebreaker when approaching a local. See World Cup 2010, Ladysmith, Krugersdorp.
If you want a real trivial reason for a link, see Nambour to Bathurst (Eastern Cape). Can't let the Australians get away with having a bigger pineapple than my home country, now can I? ;) --Nick 18:30, 24 January 2008 (EST)
My big accomplishment in this area was to find a -- legitimate -- way to connect Albuquerque and Uzbekistan. A little humor here is not a bad thing, as long as it's good for the traveler... -- Bill-on-the-Hill 18:42, 24 January 2008 (EST)
Yeah, I agree with both of you about the breaking the ice and humor. Too bad I don't remember what exactly it was, but it really made me laugh and I enjoyed the article a little more. -- 62.121.119.141 19:12, 24 January 2008 (EST)
A wonderful idea. Perhaps a little "Did you know" box or section. I tried linking St Helens (Tasmania), Mumbai, and Hollywood and will keep the last remaining corner of my brain working on looking for other oddities! --Wandering 13:01, 25 January 2008 (EST)

[edit] Copyvios & "permission notes"

Two questions.

1) The {{copyvio}} tag says: "If you are the author of the content in question, please let us know that it's OK for us to use your work by leaving a note on the talk page". Do we have any guidelines on what kind of "note" is acceptable? For example, are these "notes" considered acceptable/credible:

2) Do we have any guidelines as to what should happen subsequent to a {{copyvio}} tag being added?

Thanks. ~ 203.144.143.4 03:33, 25 January 2008 (EST)

I'd accept Laurentides because he/she explains it, and gives an email address at the source site. I would not accept BD who just says "on behalf of" without specifically claiming affiliation or permission. Pashley 05:05, 25 January 2008 (EST)
This is a tough one. Anyone can claim anything and we obviously can't do a follow up check. Like Pashley, I'd be inclined to accept Talk:Laurentides because of the email address (is it possible to forward a copy of the license to that address so that they know they're relinquishing their copyright to the material) and reject User:Borndistinction because there is no reasonable way of confirming the release. In both cases, the contributed does not claim authorship but says that the original author (or rather copyright owner) has agreed to the material being used whereas the copyvio tag seems to want only the original author to post material. Perhaps the tag can be modified along the following lines: "If you are the author of the content in question, or if the original author or copyright owner has given you permission to use this material, please let us know that it's OK for us to use this work by leaving a note on the talk page, along with the email address of the author or copyright owner so that we can, if necessary, send a copy of our cc-by-sa-1.0 license." --Wandering 12:05, 25 January 2008 (EST)

I think a Wikitravel:How to deal with copyvios page is needed. The existing Wikitravel:How to handle unwanted edits#Copyright violations guidelines are out of date and incomplete, and I think that section should be moved to a dedicated page, updated, and expanded. ~ 203.144.143.4 11:40, 26 January 2008 (EST)

[edit] Google custom search for Wikitravel researchers

For research for necessary details on attractions, restaurants and hotels I've created a custom search at Google: [1].

It only excludes known Wikitravel mirrors (so a researcher don't have to go through copies of the same content copied from Wikitravel he is already aiming to improve). Otherwise it should work just identical to Google search (at least until we find a way to improve it further).

Can it be helpful for someone? If so, where can I stick it? Wikitravel:Listings? Other ideas? --DenisYurkin 16:47, 27 January 2008 (EST)

I've just fixed it so it actually exclude the mirrors--before, it didn't for some reason. And I allowed volunteers to participate in improving it after approval--please tell who you are if you are willing to participate. --DenisYurkin 07:32, 2 February 2008 (EST)

[edit] request for help

Yesterday I put up an ad for Eds New York Pizza In th "eat" section of Galway City, Ireland. Today I went back to see if anyone had responded and The whole entire Eat section is gone. Please help.Rcevoli 10:30, 1 February 2008 (EST)rcevoli 1 Feb, 2008

[edit] Quick language question

In South Africa we use the name geyser for a house's hot water heater. I suspect this is a South African oddity like calling traffic lights robots. What name does the home water heating system go by in other countries? --Nick 14:41, 1 February 2008 (EST)

Either water heater or boiler in the US. But, water heaters are called geysers in India as well. Though I've never heard the term used in England, it might be a British English thing. --Wandering 15:09, 1 February 2008 (EST)
Thanks, I think I'll keep to using water heater then. --Nick 15:47, 1 February 2008 (EST)

[edit] research checklists

When traveling offline, I make lots of notes about the places I visit, but when I come home I still find that many aspects of restaurants/hotels/attractions/airports etc are not covered.

This led me to idea to create researcher checklists for the objects we most frequently describe. Here's a first draft: User:DenisYurkin/Wikitravel:Research Checklists. Right now it contains a random (and small) subset of what we write in respective listings or sections--but I think it illustrates the idea.

Anyone willing to join in improving checklists like those? Can it be helpful for many contributors? Can I move it from User: to Wikitravel: namespace in its current immaturity? --DenisYurkin 17:51, 1 February 2008 (EST)

[edit] redundant page

I noticed the Frankfurt Airport page is empty and only has three references. The links from the refering pages can be removed without loosing any information. Should the page be removed? The relevant information is already in the Get In section of the appropriate pages as done for the Haneda Airport redirect. -- hscholz 22:57, 1 February 2008 (BRST)

Airports exist in a bit of gray zone: we've got individual articles for a few biggies (Heathrow Airport, Kansai International Airport), but most don't. Frankfurt is certainly big enough to qualify in theory, but if there's no content, I say just redirect it back to Frankfurt for time being. Jpatokal 02:44, 3 February 2008 (EST)

[edit] A question to verify something

Hello i would just like to know where i could find info for a town or city on the web? I'am not clear on the copyright regulations so if someone could help me out that would be great. I really love travel guides and this is a free one so i would be more than glad to work on some towns/cities. One more thing i have no books at my apartment where i can find information like sleep, eat, buy? I only have the internet and i would like to know where i can find some free information on another website because i can't tell you like if boston was blank and i started it i would only know sleep the ritz carlton and eat would be like chinatown but if i wanted to start a new town or city i would have to find information from the web due to no experience with traveling to other places unfortunatly i havent been to many places. If anyone could steer me in the direction that would help a bunch otherwise if i can not contribute to wikitravel i guess i will only be able to read but i hope i can create. Thank You --Thehighlands 23:44, 11 February 2008 (EST)

Thehighlands, welcome to Wikitravel. I think I just saw some of your contributions at Leavenworth — thanks! To answer your question, I'd suggest that rather than looking for information about remote places on the Web, you shut down your computer, go outside, and take a walk in the real world. What restaurants, hotels, attractions, can you document? What good pictures can you take? Build up the listings for the places you physically visit. Also, if you haven't read Wikitravel:Welcome, newcomers, you might find it useful to. Cheers! JimDeLaHunt 18:45, 12 February 2008 (EST)

[edit] Taxis

Is it wise to list a number of taxi companies in city guides? If so, how many? Nine? -- Sapphire • (Talk) • 21:57, 19 February 2008 (EST)

I suggest three. Really, you just need the name of one taxi company, but three would give the opportunity for one to go out of business since the last edit, and for the traveler to have a bad experience with another and decide to use the third. That's just off the top of my head, but I can't imagine wanting to see nine. --Jonboy 23:27, 19 February 2008 (EST)
Ha - nine. That was a ridiculous suggestion based on the idea of nine cities. Three sounds good to me. -- Sapphire • (Talk) • 00:25, 20 February 2008 (EST)
I've found that taxi information is entirely missing or woefully inadequate for even some big-city articles. I've updated some, such as Philadelphia, that I know about. But it when writing a city article it would be helpful to include: 1) Typical taxifare from the airport to downtown. 2) If taxis are metered or not, and if so, current rates, and if credit cards are accepted 3) If street hales or possible, or street taxi stands, or can a taxi only be summoned by calling ahead. 4) A link, where appropriate, to the local taxi regulating agency for those who need further information.SONORAMA 08:10, 30 April 2008 (EDT)
Sonorama, all your suggestions sounds reasonable to me. --DenisYurkin 15:18, 30 April 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Archiving this page en masse

Is it sensible to just archive this page en masse? There's a lot of crap that I've been trying to move around, but it's difficult and it might be why this page loads slow on my browser. By the way, I like the new "+" feature for Project pages that are not a part of talk pages. -- Sapphire • (Talk) • 01:29, 20 February 2008 (EST)

Simply archive by year as we do with most other pages that grow large? Many of the entries in here are onceoff questions that don't really need to be copied into a specific location. --Nick 02:55, 20 February 2008 (EST)
Agreed. --Jonboy 19:37, 25 February 2008 (EST)

[edit] OpenID/Username Woes

I have previously logged in to WikiTravel using my OpenID "rageear.myopenid.com" which associated me with the username "RageEar". This weekend I set up my own web site to act as a delegate for my OpenID. The way I understood it, I should be able to use my website (www.rageear.com) to login to WikiTravel and get the same username as if I used "rageear.myopenid.com". However, when I tried to use "www.rageear.com" as my login, it told me that "RageEar" was already taken and told me to choose a new username. Additionally, when I went back to login with "rageear.myopenid.com", I was told to choose a new username again!

Any idea how I got into this mess or how to consolidate my usernames back down to a single user? RageEar 16:30, 25 February 2008 (EST)

[edit] Content from 'experts'

Hey, I had a question and was wondering what you all thought I should do. I am working for a rather famous travel expert and we have a large volume of content that I think should be somewhere in wikitravel as it pertains to the destinations, what to do at those destinations, improving the process of travel, and addressing current issues in the travel industry. The content is high-quality as the expert would not be in his position if his information was not valuable. However, it would violate the guidelines, and also is a conflict of interest if I were to begin posting links. I really do think this content would be valuable and raise the overall quality of the wikitravel guidelines, but there is also the issue of copyrights and give due credit to the author. So, what do you think? What should I do with the content?

I wanted to ask this before I started doing anything to find out what the community thought about 'expert' content. I refrained from using his name for now, as I don't want this to appear to be an effort to drive traffic to his website, and I posted it here because I think other 'experts' might want to contribute and are unsure how they can without violating the guidelines. Any and all suggestions are welcome. Thanks for your time.

Mpalmer22 11:03, 29 February 2008 (EST)

I'm not sure how it would violate the guidelines. If the expert is willing to release material under the appropriate license, feel free to start adding it. Copyright and due credit to the author would be handled as it is now for everybody else. Take a look at shared:Copyleft#Frequently_asked_questions to see how it's done. --Jonboy 13:56, 29 February 2008 (EST)

[edit] Trouble printing

I'm having trouble printing pages from Wikitravel and only this website. Is there a problem with the server? —The preceding comment was added by 69.116.57.3 (talk • contribs) 13:42, 2008 March 5.

The place to report bugs is shared:Category:Tech requests (see the note at the top of this page). I'm passing this bug report on to there. For future reference, this isn't much information; it might be hard for the engineers to make something of it. It would have been helpful to know: what pages did you have trouble with? What browser and what OS did you use? What kind of printer were you using? How did the problem manifest itself? JimDeLaHunt 17:25, 5 March 2008 (EST)
Thanks, Jim! Yes, more information will definitely be necessary to tackle this one. I'll be watching the Bug Reports for it. Thanks. JuCo 21:34, 18 March 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Templates for large and notable special events

A while ago I have created a FIFA2010Host template and added this to all cities that will host World Cup 2010 matches in South Africa. The template siply lists the stadiums and links back to the World Cup 2010 article as well as the official FIFA 2010 homepage. Examples are Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban ...

I'd like to do the same for Euro 2008. Are there any objections if we do this for any major events? Is there any potential drawbacks or issues with something like this that I might be missing? --Nick 04:59, 11 March 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Maryland Expedition

I realize retrospectively that I skipped a step with the creation of this expedition in that I was supposed to solicit comments in the pub. It's the first "regional expedition" on Wikitravel, although Wikipedia has an endless quantity of these, and I think they can be very useful in getting the message out to potential editors about what needs to be done.

One difficulty, though, is helping potential contributors to find the Expedition page. I'm a little tempted to make a small banner, perhaps a smaller version of the box currently at the top of Talk:Maryland, and integrate it into the title icons framework. That way I could easily stick it on top of the main Maryland articles that are linked from the Expedition page. Does this seem reasonable to others? Or should I not dare violate the header? I do think it would be useful, and especially so if we decide that regional Expeditions are a good idea more generally. --Peter Talk 19:29, 11 March 2008 (EDT)

It's genius. Personally and I suspect Evan would too, I'd like to see this become an entirely geographic hierarchy. I.e. Wikitravel:Europe Expedition: Wikitravel:Poland Expedition: Wikitravel:Warsaw Expedition (if it's even necessary to go as far as city-level, which, I suspect it won't be). I imagine great things could arise from this. Amazing idea, Peter. -- Sapphire • (Talk) • 19:33, 11 March 2008 (EDT)
This is a fantastic idea, sort of a one page to-do list for a state / country / large region... it's nice to have something like this to show what needs to be done and to inspire people to pitch in. Nice job Peter – cacahuate talk 00:21, 12 March 2008 (EDT)
Since there are no responses yet regarding the title icon idea, I sort of plunged ahead with it and put one on the Maryland article. If no one objects within, say, 2 weeks, I'll also add it to all the pages that fall within the range of the Expedition (i.e., the ones linked from the Expedition article). The icon is not necessarily ideal, and if we think that both the Expeditions and the icon-links to the expeditions are a good idea, we should work on creating a more standard Expedition icon. --Peter Talk 18:03, 13 March 2008 (EDT)
I'm going to object to that icon -- we already have enough clutter on our pages. The standard on Wikipedia is to put expedition (project) notifications on the Talk page, and I don't see why we shouldn't do that here. Jpatokal 02:49, 17 March 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Mailing List - How do I get off it?

When I created a Wikitravel account I must have asked to be sent updates by email. I now get messages from admin@wikitravel.org that I would like to stop. Efforts so far have not succeeded. The link at the bottom of each message takes me to a Word 66 Extra page with an access denied message. Hunting around the Wikitravel site, I have not been able to find shut this off. Can someone point me to a way to stop these messages? Thanks --KenWalker 14:32, 16 March 2008 (EDT)

Could you forward one to me at cjensen@acm.org so that I can figure out what you're trying to say? -- Colin 18:18, 16 March 2008 (EDT)
For those playing along at home, Ken was receiving notifications from Wikitravel Extra. There was an unsubscribe link at the bottom of his email which pointed to a nonexistent page at World66. -- Colin 18:46, 16 March 2008 (EDT)
Hmm, is this similar to this a while back? How did he start receiving them in first place, I didn't know we even had mailing lists like that. Sounds kinda icky – cacahuate talk 00:29, 17 March 2008 (EDT)
Were these the notifications modifiable via "Extra -> My account -> My notification settings?" --Peter Talk 14:39, 17 March 2008 (EDT)
We're looking into this. Redondo 18:34, 24 March 2008 (EDT)
Can somebody send me a copy of the email in question (ksours at internetbrands com) KevinSours 19:22, 24 March 2008 (EDT)
Done. -- Colin 00:04, 25 March 2008 (EDT)
Dude your email filters out attachments. Do you have a real email address? -- Colin 00:19, 25 March 2008 (EDT)
Right. Its doesn't block attachments in general but it does block anything with a .elm extension (or whatever the standard Microsoft email as an attachment extension is). I'm not entirely clear on why. Can you try zipping it or changing the extension name? I not, I'll ask around and find an alternative. KevinSours 13:03, 25 March 2008 (EDT)
Just get a GMail account. -- Colin 13:36, 25 March 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Test Page

Is there a Wikitravel test page? Sometimes it would be useful to able to fool around to see how Wiki markup works, and this shouldn't be done on any "real" pages. Thanks, Sailsetter 10:46, 20 March 2008 (EDT)

Yes indeed → Wikitravel:Graffiti wall --Peter Talk 13:43, 20 March 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Virus

Not sure where this belongs so please move if necessary. I removed two links from the Athens /Piraeus page because when I followed them my (very reliable) virus software found a virus in both places. Is there a policy about this? Sailsetter 11:24, 21 March 2008 (EDT)

No policy, but removing the links sounds like a good idea to me. --Peter Talk 14:02, 21 March 2008 (EDT)
However, both links belong to olp.gr which looks completely like (and is?) an official site of Piraeus Port Authority. --DenisYurkin 14:33, 21 March 2008 (EDT)
In general, the content of external links is not our responsibility. I can see us making common sense exceptions if (say) a hotel website is permanently hijacked by a porn site, but government-run official sites are usually pretty stable and will get fixed sooner or later. Jpatokal 07:36, 22 March 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Nifty new feature

This allows you to see what work has been done on all linked pages from one page: → Special:Recentchangeslinked/Maryland --Peter Talk 14:02, 21 March 2008 (EDT)

[edit] April Fool's 2008

After checking with a few admins, I've plunged forward and created You as our April Fool article for 2008. Please chip in! Jpatokal 16:40, 21 March 2008 (EDT)

Well, this seems to have been a remarkably unpopular idea? Looks like we aren't going to have anything this year unless people get to work and/or come up with something better in the next two days... Jpatokal 01:55, 30 March 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Discover alert

Warning warning Will Robinson! Wikitravel:Discover's queue is down to three articles at the moment, please help fill it up. Jpatokal 07:40, 22 March 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Google-analytics

What's the deal with google-analytics? I assume this is something that's connected with the Wikitravel site rather than just my browser, right? It seems like with a page of any length, it usually hangs while trying forever to finish loading something from there. The page appears complete, except sometimes some of the images don't load, and you can't (at least in Firefox) use the Print Preview function. Sailsetter 10:57, 22 March 2008 (EDT)

I believe it's something that IB installed to track page hits, etc... and I think it also may have contributed greatly to the site slowdown. Things are getting back up to speed, and I believe they're planning some new magic in the near future as well that'll fix even more issues... but you may care to comment on that link on shared – cacahuate talk 22:50, 22 March 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Roadmap nominations

Hmm.. I tried a rfc, keeping the page at the top of shared recentchanges for a while—time to start a ruckus in the pub.

Please come by shared:Roadmap#nominations to vote for feature request priorities!!!!

If the voting format isn't clear, just let me know, shoot me an email with your preferences, whatever, just vote. --Peter Talk 23:44, 25 March 2008 (EDT)

[edit] George Furimidad

Can someone please help me revert George Furimidad's page moves? Renaming Fucking was one thing, but a slew of serious articles were moved à la Willy on Wheels. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 19:05, 1 April 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Advertising?!

I very disappointed by Wikitravel... Whose decision is to add a Google advertising? -- Sergey kudryavtsev 03:31, 2 April 2008 (EDT)

It has been in the works for a loooong time... see Shared:Advertising policy – cacahuate talk 03:39, 2 April 2008 (EDT)
Why do some entries have ads and others don't? I echo my disappointment, and expect I'll be less willing to contribute with that Adsense bar staring me down. Padraic 10:51, 2 April 2008 (EDT)
Please take a look through the talk page for the ads policy, there's a lot of discussion behind this, and this is not, I expect, the end point. We're likely going to have an option for logged-in users to disable the ads. By the way, could you give some examples of which entries have ads and which don't? --Peter Talk 11:27, 2 April 2008 (EDT)
Rail travel in North America does; Rail travel in Canada does not. Padraic 15:54, 2 April 2008 (EDT)
As Peter and Cacahuate indicated, Shared::Advertising policy is the place to discuss advertising, and Internet Brands did a good job of listening to feedback before incorporating ads. It's obvious that everyone prefers an ad-free site, and that some contributors might disappear with the appearance of Google ads; such is life. Reality is that revenue is needed to buy more servers, support, and bandwidth. When choosing how to generate that revenue, if the choice is between constant pleas for donations, some form of advertising, or shutting down the site I think that Google ads are a reasonable thing choice. -- Ryan • (talk) • 11:34, 2 April 2008 (EDT)
I'm fairly certain I'm having problems related to the ads, although, such problems don't interfere too much with the pleasure of operating on Wikitravel. I'd like to confirm this, so I politely request anyone to look at my user page and tell me if they see ads or are having problems finding the edit boxes or the log in form. Maybe it's just this computer. Thanks. -- Sapphire • (Talk) • 17:28, 2 April 2008 (EDT)
Sapphire, FYI, your user page renders nicely on my mac (Safari), and your talk page is ad-free.--Wandering 17:53, 2 April 2008 (EDT)
Same result here, with Firefox on XP. User page has ads, talk does not. But there's only one edit box, none for sections. Pashley 19:45, 2 April 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Get-together

Was anyone interested in having a get-together this year? I'm likely to be unable to attend, unless one is held in after October (when I finish Basic Training), but I think it would be a nice way to grow and strengthen the community. -- Sapphire • (Talk) • 11:50, 5 April 2008 (EDT)

Yes, I'd definitely be interested -- if nothing else, I'll be doing mini-get-togethers at State of the Map (Limerick, Ireland) and Wikimania (Alexandria, Egypt) in July. A Burning Wikitraveler might also be interested, although I'm not sure I can make it this year... Jpatokal 13:51, 7 April 2008 (EDT)
Ok, I'll try to plunge something forward in the coming weeks. Off to France for a week, so I'm likely to be offline, yet again. -- Sapphire • (Talk) • 18:37, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Status

As a contributor, can I change the status of an article on my own judgement, or is there supposed to be some discussion? Sailsetter 10:22, 7 April 2008 (EDT)

Are you talking about stub/outline/guide/star etc? Read over the qualifications and decide on your own. If you think it meets them, change it. If someone else thinks something else, they'll either change it or discuss it. Jordanmills 12:19, 7 April 2008 (EDT)
Yes, that's what I mean, thanks. —The preceding comment was added by Sailsetter (talk • contribs) .
Qualifications are detailed here: Wikitravel:Article status, also see Wikitravel:Usable_articles#What_to_do_with_them --Nick 13:31, 13 April 2008 (EDT)
Only an upgrade to Star status requires discussion/approval - see Wikitravel:Star nominations. Gorilla Jones 20:58, 13 April 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Texas edit war, wheee

So Texugo seems to have come up with his own personal region system for Texas, doesn't seem interested in discussing it, and has started reverting all my edits changing things back to the "official" system (or at least system used by all the state agencies). See User_talk:Texugo for my ignored attempts to open a discussion. Anyone feel like helping out? Jordanmills 12:17, 7 April 2008 (EDT)

The main discussion for this topic is here, and to make it clear, the subdividing that I have done has not affected the official 7 regions of Texas at all. The problem is that each of those sections is about the size of Pennsylvania and needs to be broken down further, something I've been working on for about a month, whereas this gentleman has come in and eliminated all my work in one evening without contributing any discussion whatsoever. Texugo 12:39, 7 April 2008 (EDT)
You pasted that two days ago, in a completely different context from our discussion at the time. Even if they are "sub-regions" (though your article edits call them regions), they're still confusing, unknown, often take the name of local regions used elsewhere. It's a nice idea, but it's just not practical. Jordanmills 12:51, 7 April 2008 (EDT)
Again, PLEASE contribute any comments on the Talk:Texas page. Texugo 12:56, 7 April 2008 (EDT)
It's right here, and I'm soliciting comments on your excessive reverts from wikitravel as a whole. Jordanmills 12:58, 7 April 2008 (EDT)
Don't be silly. It is you who tried to revert my long hours of work over the last month without comment. Where were you during the whole process? This is not about me anyhow. Please refer to Talk:Texas and stop wasting my time. Texugo 13:09, 7 April 2008 (EDT)
I've made some comments at Talk:Texas. See Talk:Washington (state)#Proposal to eliminate counties from hierarchy for a comparable project I led. I'm grateful to both Texugo and Jordanmills for their willingness to pay attention to the regional structure of Wikitravel. It's big, difficult work, but very important. JimDeLaHunt 13:05, 7 April 2008 (EDT)

Take it easy, both of you, and remember:

  • Big changes need big discussions.
  • If your comments have more to say about the other parties involved than the issue itself, you're doing it wrong. Jpatokal 13:55, 7 April 2008 (EDT)
Amen.--Wandering 20:40, 7 April 2008 (EDT)
First point, very true. Second, I (at least hope I) restricted my comments to the subject matter in question, that being classification system and discussion thereof. I hope I'm not out of line, but that's exactly the issue. Jordanmills 22:15, 7 April 2008 (EDT)

An overview of the standing effort to break down Texas into second level subregions has been laid out at Talk:Texas. I'd like to hear a lot of opinions on this. Texugo 22:25, 7 April 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Congratulations!

I just wanted to send out a big thank you and congratulations to the Wikitravel community. As you may have seen, Wikitravel has been nominated for a 2008 Webby Award! The site is up for a Webby in the Travel category as well as the "People's Voice" category. This is a testament to all the hard work you do and the strong spirit of collaboration you foster here on Wikitravel. So, congratulations! And don't forget to vote! JuCo 21:03, 14 April 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Listings' telephone icon

Huh? It's gone? Instead of the familiar old telephone icon, today I only see a question mark. But I'm using the same browser (Firefox 2), same computer, same glasses, etc. It's not happening in Internet Explorer, though. Anyone else experiencing this? --Peter Talk 17:14, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

Yep, but in my case it was after I migrated to Mac (Using Firefox, which worked when I was on a Win/XP OS). Safari still has it, though. -- Sapphire • (Talk) • 18:35, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Editing disruption 4/17/08

The site will be undergoing a little work at 7AM PST on 4/17/08. Cached pages won't be affected, but editing will be. It's anticipated that the work wil last one hour. Thank you for your patience! JuCo 21:28, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Call for discussion page

Isn't there a wikitravel Call for discussion page? I thought I came across one once but now I can't find it, either with a search or by looking at my contributions. Could someone put a link to it on the general Help page? Thanks. Sailsetter 10:47, 20 April 2008 (EDT)

Wikitravel:Requests for comment Pashley 11:12, 20 April 2008 (EDT)
Thanks, I'd forgotten what it was called. I think it would be a good idea to put a link to it on the general Help:Contents page. Sailsetter 11:16, 20 April 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Airlines & airports

Hi there

I'm new, so I'm not very familiar with the way things are done here. Having recently travelled on Singapore Airlines, I started a stub on it based on the structure of American Airlines and United Airlines. I couldn't find any help at Wikitravel:Article_templates, so I create my own template: Template:airline. I haven't added it to Wikitravel:Article templates because I'm not sure of how things are yet.

Question: Are articles on airlines within the scope of wikitravel? If so, maybe someone can take a look at the template and improve and list it in Wikitravel:Article_templates. As a related topic, how about articles on airports?

Thanks for your comments. --Rifleman 82 07:00, 29 April 2008 (EDT)

Mostly airlines and airports are handled in travel topics, see Travel_topic#By_plane. For most countries a single travel topic can cover all the airlines and airports, see Air_travel_in_South_Africa as an example. There are however exceptions:
--Nick 07:40, 29 April 2008 (EDT)
Thanks for your answer. I've read the articles you've pointed out, and I have a feeling nobody really has strong feelings whether or not airlines and perhaps airports meet wikitravel's scope. I read Wikitravel:Goals and non-goals as well, and I personally don't see how articles on airports and airlines will meet the non-goals. The Silverjet article seems pretty much a glossy brochure. Definitely not like any other wikitravel article I've seen.
Do you or anyone else have any specific comments or advise with regard to this article? Seeing the discussions Nick listed, I don't suppose there's any impetus for having a policy on airports and airlines? --Rifleman 82 09:32, 29 April 2008 (EDT)
Don't think there is a strong feelings against having airline articles, provided that they don't look like the Silverjet one. As you said, Silverjet looks like a glossy brochure rather than a wikitravel article.
I for one would support the template because, we already have a number of longstanding airline articles and it does not seem that we are about to delete any; it would thus be best to have a formal template for them. Having a template will insure that we can clean up and avoid further advertising articles like Silverjet
I'd suggest the following:
--Nick 05:33, 30 April 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Wikitravel:Discover

The upcoming queue on Wikitravel:Discover is getting very short. Know any interesting facts about a specific destination? Please add it there to be displayed on the main page --Nick 07:58, 29 April 2008 (EDT)

[edit] I need a techical help

I plan to create template for signs of the roads in Israel. The templete should used as inline html tag. I test realization at local html file. But same html code is not work in Wikitravel. There are two possible ways:

1) the span with background-image css-attribute:

Highway 20 from Gan Sorek to Herzliya
In server response there are no css-attribute at all. This is a side effect of "background-image" css-attribute presence. I have no idea why...

2) the spans with positioning css-attributes

Highway Highway 2020 from Gan Sorek to Herzliya
This way working almost properly, but a following text come across span. In local html file this working properly. I use IE 6.0

What is wrong? -- Sergey kudryavtsev 04:07, 30 April 2008 (EDT)

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