From Wikitravel

[edit] Am I being obtuse?

I'm having trouble understanding what an editor wants at Talk:Central_Europe#The_Central.2FEastern_Europe_debate. Comments welcome, maybe someone else can have better time of it. LtPowers 21:21, 3 January 2011 (EST)

[edit] Road types..

I'm doing a bit of work around lesser traveled roads, and I'm essentially using the three categories..

• Sealed road - meaning surface is paved, asphalt, concrete, etc.
• Gravel road - graded and loose rock surface added and compacted
• Formed road - just graded, road surface varies depending on terrain.

Are these meanings clear enough to everyone, or are they a local dialect? --inas 23:03, 6 January 2011 (EST)

I don't think it's a local dialect problem, but they are a bit technical—I didn't know formed road off the bat. I would suggest paved road, gravel road, and dirt road, but that may perhaps be my own local dialect ;) --Peter ^Talk 23:13, 6 January 2011 (EST)

I agree with Peter on dirt road vs formed road, as I would understand your 3rd meaning as dirt road, but formed road would be meaningless to me. I would guess that this would be shared by most English speaking South Africans, Can't comment on other parts of the English speaking world. I am easy on paved road vs sealed, with a slight bias to paved. For some parts of the world, you may need a fourth category for a road which is not even graded, or which may be graded on such an irregular basis that you should assume that it has not been graded. In parts of Africa these may be quite important routes. I suggest "Bush road" as a possible term. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 01:50, 7 January 2011 (EST)

It is also called a trek, track or 4x4 track if that is what you mean. Swissbelg 06:32, 7 January 2011 (EST)

In the U.S. we call those "unimproved dirt roads." Not sure if this is in common usage elsewhere. --Peter ^Talk 22:03, 7 January 2011 (EST)

"Unimproved dirt roads" conveys the meaning pretty well to me, or maybe even just "unimproved road". "Graded road" or "Graded dirt road" is then another possible option for "Formed road" • • • Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 02:06, 8 January 2011 (EST)

"Sealed Road" sounds too technical/stuffy to me. I think it'd be better just to say "road" or in the case of differentiating it from a dirt road, just calling it a "paved road". I have never heard "unimproved dirt road" although I'm American, but it definitely gives a clear impression of the type

of road. ChubbyWimbus 02:01, 9 January 2011 (EST)

"Paved" has the added advantage of including cobbled and other surfaces where bricks, stones or other form of laid slab surfacing is used, which technically may not be "sealed", as the joints are not watertight. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 02:43, 9 January 2011 (EST)

I would support the following designations: "Paved," "Gravel," "Packed dirt," "Unimproved dirt," "Track," "Unmarked." A track is not even a real road, and would require a Land Rover, Jeep or the like (a 4-wheel drive vehicle), whereas an unimproved dirt road would be likely to be passable with care by ordinary passenger vehicles in decent weather (and overly muddy and rutted in the rain). Packed dirt roads would be passable even in rainy conditions, absent flooding or perhaps really big thunderstorms. "Unmarked" would refer to desert, where if someone didn't know where the road was, they would never find it. As an American, I don't know what a "graded" road is. I'm guessing "formed" means packed dirt rather than unimproved dirt, but I'm not sure. Ikan Kekek 16:40, 3 May 2011 (EDT)

Yeah, I wouldn't consider using sealed unless it was to somehow distinguish it. Like, there are two paved routes that cross Australia east to west. I'm happy with paved, gravel, and unimproved dirt. It would appear their meaning is at least apparent to all. Thanks all for suggestions. --inas 02:59, 9 January 2011 (EST)

I thought the two main categories were metalled and unmetalled roads? Metalled being tarmac or concrete roads. --SaxonWarrior 16:24, 3 May 2011 (EDT)

Roads that are dirt, but graded once in a while, we call "minimum maintinance roads"

[edit] Map Import/export

I'm currently travelling a lot and I find wikitravel useful. 2 things, I find missing

-for each location, you really need to give the different name: local name with local language, local one in local language written with extended us alphabet (for example, to give an arabish name to a local without being able to read arabic or same in chinese), same in international english

- for each location map, a kml/gpx file would be really useful. so anyone could use these informations in an interoperable way.

Thanks for your work-- Jul —The preceding comment was added by 196.204.160.79 (talk • contribs)

I agree those things would be nice, but where do we get the information? Are you referring to all the attractions, all the names of shops, reataurants, hotels etc, or just the name of the place the article is about?

For the kml/gpx file, what would you expect to find in it? • • • Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 15:57, 21 January 2011 (EST)

As someone travels, if possible, he tries to export his POI or take some of OpenStreetmap (compatible licence ?). I don't know if there is other free sources which reference travel Point Of Interest.

With a quick search, I find this The Best Free POI Downloads for Your GPS Unit

I refer to all places (first transport facilities, next viewpoints and museums, after shops/hotels). The gpx/kml file would contain place name (both in local spelling, local name with english/roman spelling for pronunciation, and english/international name), some category/tags informations and gps coordinates -- Jul

[edit] Analytics

This may have previously been asked, so my apologies if it has been. Is there any analytics data available on Wikitravel? Yorke417 21:43, 27 January 2011 (EST)

It exists, but unfortunately the owners of the domain, won't share it with us. Google trends for websites is the closest you are going to get, we hover somewhere between 70.000 and 100.000 unique daily visitors if that's the number you are looking for --Stefan (sertmann) ^talk 22:23, 27 January 2011 (EST)

Wow. I'm surprised to see that there are more visitors from Japan than anywhere else. Interesting! Texugo 22:36, 27 January 2011 (EST)

[edit] Anyone have this Inkscape problem?

Putting this here to attract more attention. I use Inkscape to operate on maps, as most of us do, but I have an issue that I haven't been able to find a fix for elsewhere online. When I use the fill function, it's very slow and after filling 2 or 3 areas, it crashes entirely. I'm using Windows 7, and I updated to the most current version of Inkscape but the problem persists. Does anyone know of a fix for this? Or does anyone have a suggestion for another free, open-source vector graphics program? I'm trying to go on a map-making spree for Brazilian regions, and this is frustrating me greatly. Texugo 10:48, 3 February 2011 (EST)

I know I am. Either it's my computer, the new version of Inkscape, or the map files we're using these days are just too much for my computer. I just can't make maps at the pace I used to. PerryPlanet ^Talk 14:02, 4 February 2011 (EST)

I am using Inkscape 0.47 on XT and dont seem to have anything like your problem. Maybe I misunderstand, so could you explain in more detail what is happening with an example I can download and do comparative test. I have tested a map of about 3.8MB with about 50 layers at a guess. Selected all objects in a layer with 10 objects, blanked the fill and replaced it with something different. process time order of a second - you could see it happening, but only just. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 06:50, 6 February 2011 (EST)

The best answer is of course to use a fully developed vector drawing program like Illustrator :). More seriously, the object fill function has had problems in every version of Inkscape I have used. Some of the map files I have drawn are relatively huge (especially so when using imported PDF plot points), and the fill function routinely hangs after changing the opacity slider (for example). I understand your frustration Texugo. --Burmesedays 22:30, 24 May 2011 (EDT)

After making about 6 Brazil state maps, I put the project on hold out of frustration with Inkscape. I may look in to getting Illustrator or something, because there are still dozens of maps I'd like to make...texugo 22:43, 24 May 2011 (EDT)

I've never had a problem. What version of Inkscape are you using? LtPowers 13:36, 25 May 2011 (EDT)

Long-standing problems with the Inkscape fill function were also discussed here.--Burmesedays 20:19, 25 May 2011 (EDT)

[edit] Wikitravel + OpenStreetMaps > iTravelFree

The latest Android version of my iTravelFree app (Android Market link) allows users to download an OpenStreetMap map for later offline use (with mapped Wikitravel listings optionally superimposed on them.) I'll soon be adding this capability to the iPhone version as well. Right now only a small number of maps are available - in particular, London and Paris - but that list will grow. This feature is very much in beta test; I'd appreciate it if people would a) try it and provide feedback b) suggest other maps that should be made available. As the name suggests, the app is completely free, though a paid version with some additional features does exist. Thanks! Rezendi 21:30, 19 February 2011 (EST)

Great news! What do you mean--"suggest other maps that should be made available", for testing purposes (as for normal use as wide coverage as possible is required)?

BTW, with [1] there's no more plans on Google Maps offline--what happened? --DenisYurkin 02:37, 20 February 2011 (EST)

So far I've only made a small number of prebuilt map packs available. (Users can roll their own, too, but it's a complicated procedure.) As for Google Maps caching, unfortunately that would be a violation of their terms of service. Rezendi

[edit] Combining Wikitravel and OpenStreetMaps

I've added OpenStreetMaps support to the latest version of iTravelFree. (Well, to the Android version; the new iPhone release is still awaiting App Store approval. Offline OSM maps are next on the list.) This made me think: they're both open attribution-ShareAlike licensed data, so they ought to play nicely together, and OSM has lots of Point Of Interest (POI) data as well as the maps themselves. Are there any tools or protocols to add OSM POIs to Wikitravel, or to mark Wikitravel listings as OSM POIs? .. Rezendi 22:15, 5 January 2011 (EST)

There are some tools to create wikitravel style maps from OSM data. The process usually goes to add the Wikitravel POIs to OSM first, and then extract to WT. We are limited again, by an inability to do tech work in any integration effort, but I'd certainly be interested in discussing adding a reference to an OSM POI to WT listings, or v.v. --inas 22:46, 5 January 2011 (EST)

I can't find any geodata at all in here. Am I missing something ?, where's the co-ordinates link at the top right that I get on Wikipedia ?. Almost everything in here is at a fixed point, and hence should have a map ref, and ultimately a link to OSM. If there's any POI's that aren't in the map then they should be, and as part of the maintenance of the entry in here it should be added to the map. --mark_c_lester 10:50 3 July 2011 (BST)

Not everyone has the tools or experience necessary to edit maps. We don't want to discourage contributions by prohibiting them from being added unless they also add them to the map. LtPowers 09:49, 3 July 2011 (EDT)

[edit] OSM export woes [venting]

Error

The load average on the server is too high at the moment. Please wait a few minutes before trying again.

I'm trying to re-use your map tiles in a really productive way! Let me download your tiles! Graaaahh! --Peter ^Talk 17:00, 23 February 2011 (EST)

[edit] In need of a substitution script for listing tags on pt:

I posted this on Shared a few days ago, but the pub here is busier, so I thought I'd post here too:

Listing tags were partially implemented on pt: a while back with a translation of the wizard interface but without translating the actual tag names or attributes. Now I know how to translate those and I think it would be best to do so, but the problem is now that lots of those tags have been inserted in articles-- if I make the translations on the MediaWiki attribute pages, all the existing listings will immediate stop working, and there is no way to search and change the tags manually because the search engine (apparently) ignores things within brackets <>, not to mention the fact that there are a lot of them and changing them manually would be extremely tedious. If we had a substitution script to go through all the articles and change some strings like "<eat" to "<coma", "name=" to "nome=", "address=" to "endereço=", etc. it would solve this problem and I could go ahead and complete the tag translations so that everything works in Portuguese so that users would be more likely to use tags in the future. However, I know absolutely nothing about writing and running scripts. Would anyone like to work with me to create a script for us? Or, can anyone think of a different solution to this problem (i.e. a way to make the system accept tags and their attributes in both English and Portuguese)? Any help would be greatly appreciated!! Texugo 10:58, 21 February 2011 (EST)

Yet another reason I'm baffled as to the implementation of our listings tags. If they'd been done with MediaWiki templates, it'd be a simple matter to wrap the English template in a Portuguese wrapper. LtPowers 22:08, 26 February 2011 (EST)

But they do seem to be done with MediaWiki templates-- those listed at the bottom of Wikitravel:Listings. The problem is that the English template was already implemented in lots of listings there on pt:. If I translate the template now, all those existing English ones will stop working, and finding and replacing them manually would be an inordinate pain in the arse without a script.texugo 02:44, 27 February 2011 (EST)

No, by "MediaWiki templates", I mean the ones in the Template: namespace. Pages in the MediaWiki: namespace are interface messages. LtPowers 20:17, 27 February 2011 (EST)

Ah, gotcha, but you understand my problem, right? Know how to make a substitution script? texugo 21:28, 27 February 2011 (EST)

No, I'm afraid not. I could probably write one, but I wouldn't know how to tell you to execute it. =) LtPowers 16:18, 1 March 2011 (EST)

[edit] Wikitravel in the news

Australian news sites have Wiki threat to guidebooks running in the travel section at the moment - Cardboardbird 23:05, 12 March 2011 (EST)

[edit] Tourist office information

Should not there be a standard section with information about Tourist offices (e.g. web addresses, physical addresses, opening times, phone numbers) ?

Indeed, I had the same question. Sometime it is at the end of the "Understand" section. Should this become a standard? It could be put in "Cope" too but this section is optional and rather at the end of the page; and Tourist office info is something people probably want to know pretty early. Joelf 16:04, 13 March 2011 (EDT)

I've always seen (and placed) this at the end of "Understand" under the heading "Tourist Information". ChubbyWimbus 17:18, 13 March 2011 (EDT)

Huh; I could have sworn we had a standard written down somewhere for that. Anyway, I've added "Visitor information" to Wikitravel:Article templates/Sections#Understand. LtPowers 21:22, 13 March 2011 (EDT)

We do-- Where you can stick it indicates the Understand section.texugo 23:56, 13 March 2011 (EDT)

[edit] Shortcut links on edit pages

On WT-French version, when editing a page, I don't have the table listing all the template shortcuts (attractions, restaurants, hotels...) contrary to the English one. How can I set this up? Is it a mediawiki config?

Additionally, I'd like to have the "add listing" link next to each section as well. Any thought? Thanks! Joelf 15:55, 13 March 2011 (EDT)

To add editing tools is easy-- you can just change Mediawiki:Edittools.

Adding the listing editor function is more difficult. First you need to translation a number of tag files-- see the list at Wikitravel:Listings#Translations to make listing templates in Fr:. Make sure you edit the Fr: version, not the En: ones. Then you'll have to petition IB to turn the functionality on. texugo 20:37, 13 March 2011 (EDT)

Ok, Edittools works fine. I'll probably keep it simple stupid and not translate the tags since French accents are a pain and there are already many English tags in the French version. For the "add listing", I can survive without them for now. Thanks a lot texugo for your quick answer! Joelf 04:01, 14 March 2011 (EDT)

[edit] April Fool's day article 2011

After little more than two weeks it is April 1st again. Any suggestions for this year's joke article? How about Atlantis? Ypsilon 05:18, 16 March 2011 (EDT)

I'd love to do a pair of articles on Tlön and Uqbar, but unless other current users are familiar with the story to help on it, I could easily support Atlantis.texugo 06:32, 16 March 2011 (EDT)

I nominate Mesoamerican Barrier Reef -- felix 11:14, 20 March 2011 (EDT)

How about a region from Pokémon? (ie. Kanto) Or just the Pokémon World in general? –sumone10154 18:59, 22 March 2011 (EDT)

Just three comments and April fools day is after four days? I've read the short story by Borges a couple of years ago so I guess I could come up with something on that. Mesoamerican Barrier Reef... well, I don't really get it. The Pokemon idea seems ok too, if the article won't be filled with just tsunami, Fukushima [2] and earthquake jokes. Ypsilon 08:35, 28 March 2011 (EDT)

I think anything Japan-related would be disrespectful at this point. Besides, we have an article for the real Kanto region on which the Pokemon map is based. texugo 09:46, 28 March 2011 (EDT)

Sorry, I wasn't thinking about Japan when I nominated the Pokémon idea. I've never read the story about Tlön and Uqbar and I don't get the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef idea either so I'll just support Atlantis. –sumone10154 10:54, 28 March 2011 (EDT)

I was not actually serious about Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, it was just that texugo posted both the Mesoamerican and the April fools comments at around the same time and could not resist it. On a more serious note, if Mesoamerican Barrier Reef is not an April Fools joke then it should probably be deleted as an article as it does not seem to be good for anything much else. -- felix 13:32, 28 March 2011 (EDT)

• Neverland may also be a good one. Whatever it is should be chosen soon. There are only a few days left to make it suitable. ChubbyWimbus 18:40, 28 March 2011 (EDT)
  • That's a good one; it has several well-defined locations and it's old enough that there may be public-domain media that can be used. LtPowers 11:15, 29 March 2011 (EDT)

So it's April Fool's day already and the article isn't created yet! I'm assuming the article will be Atlantis right? –sumone10154 12:17, 1 April 2011 (EDT)

Not too many comments in this section, seemingly. IMHO there's nothing wrong with Neverland, but Atlantis has got three supporters, in a few hours it's already April 2 here in Europe so I'll create Atlantis right now. Otherwise we must wait a whole year until the next April Fool's day :(. Ypsilon 14:36, 1 April 2011 (EDT)

[edit] Mesoamerican Barrier Reef

This article was vfd'd before (see the discussion on its talk page), but that was 4 years ago, and the article remains completely blank. It is a nebulous cross between a body of water and a cross-regional dive site region article, neither of which we really do, and contains no destinations because the few islands here belong in their respective country hierarchy. Can we revisit this? texugo 22:28, 19 March 2011 (EDT)

[edit] Universities and colleges

I have an idea: individual articles for universities and colleges. In the U.S., high school students visit their prospective universities to take tours and meet faculty so they can decide where to apply and learn what the campus is like. Also, faculty travel around giving talks at various universities or attending conferences.

It seems like it would be helpful to have pages for each university/college summarizing how to get there, how to get around campus, what's in the area, and maybe have some useful links like a campus map.

Any thoughts? --BigPeteB 18:44, 3 April 2011 (EDT)

Don't the university web sites already cover that? Pashley 18:57, 3 April 2011 (EDT)

I don't know if Wikitravel really has much more to offer than the university websites. I think universities should be on our maps, because they are good landmarks, but if the school's website is not enough, then they should probably schedule a campus visit. Campuses with legitimate attractions are listed under those attractions in articles, but what sort of help could we offer prospective students beyond university websites? ChubbyWimbus 19:36, 3 April 2011 (EDT)

Yeah, I agree with Pashley and ChubbyWimbus. Plus, we really don't even list universities and colleges in our articles unless they are of historical value in their own right or offer short term classes that a tourist might take, and it is well established that we are not here to help students choose a potential school. Why would we then turn around and make thousands of articles for them? texugo 21:03, 3 April 2011 (EDT)

In total support of not having Universities listed. One of my pet peeves is long lists of schools in articles. Utterly useless to almost all travellers. - Cardboardbird 22:19, 8 April 2011 (EDT)

A Studying abroad article has been suggested before Talk:Pakistani_students_coming_to_Finland. Certainly many students travel to study, either within their country or internationally. The international exchange is by no means all in one direction,"Third World" students going to Western countries, either. I'm at a Chinese university that has dozens of Africans, a fair number of French students and at least some Iranians, Americans and I'm not sure who else. Others have hordes of Indonesians, East Europeans, Americans, ...

I do think we need something on travel for study, but it is not clear what. Pashley 01:22, 9 April 2011 (EDT)

The Indian articles in particular seem to act as a magnet for academic institution listings and are often problematic. They sometimes start getting promotional then requiring management. Frankly unless they are of historical or similar interest such as possessing stand out museums, libraries of national or international significance, have significant architectural characteristics or are a significant in some in some other iconic way then they I think they should just be removed. I suggest that Cambridge University probably rates a mention, however the Wagga Wagga TAFE probably does not. I suggest that as we do not necessarily know of the individual 'iconic' status of any particular listing that all listings should be moved across to the articles discussion page and only come back into the article if the reason for listing is abundantly clear. In the case of lesser know institutions the re-listing should then be achieved by a consensus. Bangalore is a good example. That city is clearly notable as a research and learning centre, I do however question the value of listing out the individual but never-the-less notable individual institutions (as per WT is not a phone book or the yellow pages). Unless a visitor is actually going to visit them then the matter should be dealt with in article prose. I would value the opinion of others on this matter. -- felix 07:24, 9 May 2011 (EDT)

[edit] Watch and unwatch pages

Is there any way we can toggle the tab between "watch" and "unwatch" to show clearly whether or not a page is on our watchlist? And does the action really need a confirmation? It would speed things up if it didn't. --SaxonWarrior 16:01, 6 May 2011 (EDT)

Technical changes such as that would require intervention from the corporate overlords, who tend to not be very responsive. In this particular case Wikitravel's caching architecture would make implementing the more standard Mediawiki behavior problematic since the tabs are initialized by Javascript in order to lessen server load. -- Ryan • (talk) • 16:13, 6 May 2011 (EDT)

Hmm, shame. Also when you "ok" watching a page it says "If you want to remove the page from your watchlist later, click "Unwatch" in the sidebar." But there is no unwatch tab anywhere let alone in the sidebar... Slightly confusing. --SaxonWarrior 16:41, 7 May 2011 (EDT)

That, at least, we should be able to change, if we can find the right page in the MediaWiki: namespace. LtPowers 21:44, 7 May 2011 (EDT)

Sounds a bit technical but.... cool! --SaxonWarrior 06:30, 8 May 2011 (EDT)

[edit] Atlanta Regions - request for feedback

User:BigPeteB has proposed some changes to the regional structure for Atlanta at Talk:Metro Atlanta that would benefit from additional comment from those who either know the area or have some time to examine his proposal. -- Ryan • (talk) • 13:51, 8 May 2011 (EDT)

[edit] Counter

Does anyone know of a template where at the article anyone can see how many people have viewed that article??? I remember seeing it somewhere but I cant find the template, this helps out I think as I see more people visiting the page, that more work needs to be done :) —The preceding comment was added by Ralphzztop (talk • contribs)

I'm not aware of any way to obtain pageview statistics. LtPowers 22:14, 8 May 2011 (EDT)

Ok maybe someone here might know or we can make a template for that, ive seen it though before I swear, I think it would be a intresting thing to see how many people see the articles we all work so hard on :)

If such a template either exists or can be created, I would agree that this would be good information to have. --Burmesedays 22:38, 8 May 2011 (EDT)

The {{NUMBEROFVIEWS}} magic word will provide this information, but on wikis that use caching (such as Wikitravel) the data is meaningless since statistics aren't generated for pages served from cache. Additionally, on the version of Mediawiki currently in use (Special:Version) this function seems to not yet have been implemented. -- Ryan • (talk) • 23:36, 8 May 2011 (EDT)

Ralphzztop (talk) you might be thinking of something you have seen on Wikipedia. per http://stats.grok.se/en/latest/insertnameofarticle or by licking on the page link described as Page view statistics in the list of External tools appearing at the top of an article History page.

* External tools: Revision history statistics · Contributors · Revision history search · Number of watchers · Page view statistics

I note at the bottom of the stats display "This is very much a beta service and may disappear or change at any time." -- felix 12:52, 9 May 2011 (EDT)

[edit] Volunteer travel — is it an activity or is it a tours/travel agency listing

Recently while reviewing edits to Nepal and New Zealand I have paused to consider the listing of volunteering activities which appear to be travel service promotions with a feel good skin. Some of these listings are looking a bit borderline in terms of our activity listing policies in regard to listing by tour guides and travel agencies. Frankly in my opinion much of the international volunteering tourism activity is just feel good commercial travel and tour business activity marketed using emotionally driven messages and packaging. Certainly some of the volunteering activities are entirely legitimate, however a few of them seem to be using volunteering as a means to market and promote tours and maybe they should not be listing here on WT when other quite legitimate tour, tour guide and travel agency enterprises are not permitted to do so.

• http://www.volunteersnepal.com/ , http://www.globalvolunteernetwork.org and http://www.isvonline.com/ have stood out to me but I have not gone looking for them. I assume there are a few more scattered around in WT articles.

International Student Volunteers Inc http://www.isvonline.com/: "ISV allows you to combine meaningful volunteer projects with action-packed adventure travel into the ultimate life-changing experience. Impact your World by contributing to the 250,000+ volunteer hours provided each year by thousands of ISV participants to hundreds of projects around the world that focus on conservation and community development." International Student Volunteers Inc, is the highest rated Volunteer & Adventure Travel Program in the world and has been selected as one of the Top 10 Volunteer Programs by the U.S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy. International Student Volunteers Inc, (ISV) has 12 offices around the world with international headquarters in the USA. For the past 28 years ISV has conducted international travel programs for tens of thousands of students on six continents.

Volunteers Nepal http://www.volunteersnepal.com/: "The Chhahari Group Nepal (CGN) is a non-profitable and non-government organization based in Nepal and conducting volunteering and internship opportunities in south Asia on nominal and affordable cost. Our aim is to encourage the international students to visit cultural heritage of Nepal and gain the life time experience on affordable cost". See http://www.volunteersnepal.com/program_fees.php for a cost breakdown.
Their website describes:

• Homestay Tours; Sirubari Village, Bandipur Village, Balthali Village, Chepang Village, Briddim Village, Kopan Village, Godavari Village
• Travel Services; Sightseeing Tours, Adventure Trekking, Jungle Safari, White Water Rafting, Mountain Flight, Hotel Reservation, Tibet Tours, Bhutan Tours.

This edit to the Nepal article and several following brought my attention to Volunteers Nepal.

Global Volunteer Network's YOUNG AT HEART TOUR (50+) This tour has been designed for mature volunteers who are young at heart and ready for their next adventure! Starting May 9 2011 described at http://www.globalvolunteernetwork.org/young-at-heart-tour/ looks to me to be in conflict with tour listing. Sure they seem to be doing something worthwhile whilst travelling but it is still tourism and it is a group of people on a tour. It appears to have an "application fee" of US$350 + a "Program Fee" of US$1247 10 days. I understanding from reading their promotional material that US$200 of this goes toward a 'project'.

I am curious what other editors think about this. -- felix 09:13, 9 May 2011 (EDT)

I'd be in favor of a policy that stated that the Volunteer article was the only appropriate place for listing individual volunteer organizations, and that country/region/city articles should then link to that article (ex. [[Volunteer#Nepa]]) for locations where volunteering is a common activity. I agree strongly that many of these "volunteer" listings have become questionable over time, and I've seen a number of cases where an organization plastered numerous links across many articles in a way that seemed very spammy. -- Ryan • (talk) • 14:23, 10 May 2011 (EDT)

Agreed. Also, the volunteer article should be edited to point out how to detect the scams. Pashley 03:05, 10 June 2011 (EDT)

[edit] Any sailors about?

I've been working on Retiring abroad, and of course that could use more contributors. However, this post is not about that.

One way to retire is to get a nice boat and sail about. Seems to me that might suit some better than buying a house abroad, so I'd like to link to sailboat or some such article, but as far as I can see there isn't one. I cannot write one; I do not know nearly enough about the topic. It cannot be just a section in the Retiring abroad article because there are lots of non-retired travellers who sail.

Any volunteers? Pashley 11:05, 28 May 2011 (EDT)

Big topic. Name should be Cruising rather than "sailboat", as that is how it is generally referred to by those who do it. I haven't done any for years (decades actually) and am certainly not an expert. These days power and sail cruising are both popular, and a lot of the cruisers will rent boats for a short cruise, while the dedicated will buy and live aboard on extended travels over decades and oceans. I will have a go at setting up a base article, but don't expect too much ;-) Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 05:47, 30 May 2011 (EDT)

To the casual traveler, "cruising" involves Cruise ships. LtPowers 10:38, 30 May 2011 (EDT)

OK, do you have an alternative suggestion? To the cruising yachtsman(person) the term was always cruising when I was involved. I suppose cruising has other connotations in other contexts too, and we wouldnt want them to be confused. So a disambiguation page looks like the first step... • • • Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 04:00, 31 May 2011 (EDT)

There are several topics here, I think.

Like diving (a fine example; well done Peter at al.!), sailing can be a recreation where travellers plan trips to good areas, get training (are there certifications?), rent equipment, and so on. I'd like to see an overview — I guess at Cruising with a link to Cruise ships — maybe eventually a structure like our group of scuba articles, with overviews for the main areas. It seems to me it would not need as much detail as some of the articles on specific dive sites, but that can be left to sailors to decide.

Unlike diving, it may need some specific additional articles on other aspects. Chartering a yacht to cruise about, living on one, retiring on one, making a living by chartering it out, travelling by working as crew, ...? We quite rightly do not cover the profession of diving; it is too specialised and not entirely travel-related. On the other hand, arguably we should cover living on a boat, since that is a way to travel. Pashley 05:21, 31 May 2011 (EDT)

Agreed. I think we will have to wing it a bit, but that looks like a good way to start. I am away for the day, but will take a look at getting it going tomorrow unless someone else feels like starting earlier. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 03:35, 1 June 2011 (EDT)

We have Crewing as a redirect to Freighter travel. I thought there was something about working on yachts, but now cannot find it.

Cruising is currently a redirect to Cruise ships. I changed the few non-talk-page links that pointed to it so they now go direct to the ships. Pashley 09:32, 1 June 2011 (EDT)

Discussion copied to Talk:Cruising on small craft Please continue discussion there. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 03:41, 2 June 2011 (EDT)

[edit] How to handle information about trains

Hello

I have noticed that the Get in-sections of many cities mostly focuses on air travel and information about rail travel is scarce, I hav been trying to fill in some gaps mostly in Eastern European and Russian cities. I have been trying a few diffrent approches, in some cases adding train numbers and departure times for the most important routes. At other I have only added which cities have direct connections and added travel time in brackets. I think we should try and develop this section a bit more and find some standardised method. See for example Bratislava#By_train or Samarkand#By_train. --Jonas Ryberg 11:15, 29 May 2011 (EDT)

Does Wikitravel:Routebox_navigation help? Pashley 19:46, 29 May 2011 (EDT)

Your contributions to both articles look good and useful. All the better if you can add price information and a little more details on trains (for example, do they have sleeper and restaurant cars?). I think instead of forcing standardised sections throughout the entire site, it would be better to run the information given in a section against a subjective usefulness test on a case-by-case basis. And that's easy—think of yourself as a traveller in some distant, foreign land with no information source but article print-outs from Wikitravel. Would you be satisfied with the information given? – Vidimian 17:20, 3 June 2011 (EDT)

[edit] Problem with uploading new version of file on Shared

I want to upload a new version of a file on shared, but the option is not provided on the file description page for that specific file. Others are no problem, and I have uploaded several new versions of maps over the last few days. Has anyone seen this happen before? Know what is happening? File is shown as thumbnail here. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 05:56, 30 May 2011 (EDT)

The option shows just fine for me. Are you sure you didn't just forget to click over to the Shared description page instead of the local one? texugo 06:47, 30 May 2011 (EDT)

Quite sure, and have just tried it again. Still no option to upload new version. The option to edit using an external application is there, and always was. The page background is pink and has the 'shared' logo at the top. Pretty sure I am at the right place, as I got there by clicking on the 'file description page' link, which is how I usually go about uploading a new version of a map. Most odd that it works for you but not for me. I will check on the laptop and see if it makes any difference. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 08:24, 30 May 2011 (EDT)

Same problem from the laptop, so I assume it is not my OS or browser, as they are both diffent on the laptop. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 02:35, 31 May 2011 (EDT)

Weird. What if you try a direct link? : [3]

texugo 08:50, 30 May 2011 (EDT)

Direct link worked fine. Anyone care to speculate on whats happening here? Beats me! Thanks, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 02:30, 31 May 2011 (EDT)

I have seen this happen before, though without any particular rhyme or reason. You can still upload a new version of the file via the regular Upload File link -- just make sure you set the filename to be the same as the file you want to overwrite. LtPowers 10:37, 30 May 2011 (EDT)

Thanks for that too. Problem bypassed, though I can't claim resolved... Should we put a description of the workaround up somewhere? FAQ? Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 02:30, 31 May 2011 (EDT)

[edit] Using Google Analytics

It is very surprising and shocking that Google Analytics (A 3rd party free and closed source tool) is being used to track user visits on wikitravel. As a regular user of wikitravel, I personally would not like to be tracked by Google (or any other company), or let my ipaddress be stored on some remote server which is controlled by Google. Although I understand that Google Analytics is a great tool to visualize user-traffic, it is possible that a significant portion of the visitors are unaware of the fact that wikitravel uses Google to track their visits. Besides, this raises several other questions such as who is given access to these data ? How can I trust that wikitravel would protect my privacy/anonymity ? I do not trust Google and certainly wikitravel should not endorse Google. Wikipedia does not track users through Google Analytics. I suggest that Google Analytics be removed.

131.107.0.71 06:21, 4 June 2011 (EDT)

As I have no knowledge whatsoever about Google Analytics, I must ask questions before I can have any useful opinion.

1. How do you know Google Analytics is being used?
2. Is this something that the Wikitravel community have any control of?

Cheers • • • Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 07:18, 4 June 2011 (EDT)

Google Analytics is being used at WT as it is on a huge majority of websites around the world. You can see the Google analytics tracking code by viewing the page source code of the Wikitravel homepage. We have no control over this - the code is placed on the site by our hosts. It is a very useful tool for any website owner to use to track visitor stats (country, web browser used, how many pages are viewed per visit etc etc etc - it is almost endless). The Google conspiracy theorists out there will not like the presence of this code, but any site that relies on Google generated ad revenue (like WT) would be kind of nuts not to use Google Analytics. --Burmesedays 07:28, 4 June 2011 (EDT)