From Wikitravel

Thanks! these needed to all be brought into line with the others....

[edit] Region Maps

A lot of the exist country pages under the Region sections do not have any region maps. Instead they seem to have basic country maps and there is no room to place an region map. But most of these region sections contain a list of the particular country regions but there is no easy way to see them. A good example is the Spain page. Ideally we want to include this outline map somewhere within the Spain pages. http://wikitravel.org/shared/Image:Spain_regions.png And do the same for other places

[edit] See and Do

So, I added two new sections: "See" and "Do". For regions, these would just be attractions that people shouldn't miss, or are more associated with the region than with the particular city they're in.

For example, Lake Tahoe#Do should include some information about skiing, and link out to the cities and ski resorts where you can actually ski. Similarly, Northumberland#See has Hadrian's Wall, and a link to the city where the main visitors' center is.

I don't think we need full attraction listings in the region pages -- just pointers to where to find the full listing.

I'm wondering whether it makes sense to have this at the country level, too.

Comments and criticisms very welcome. --Evan 17:13, 14 Apr 2004 (EDT)

Is there any real benefit of having "See" and "Do" separately ? Isn't it just confusing for the readers ? Wojsyl 14:18, 1 Jan 2005 (EST)

[edit][add listing] Buy

I'm adding a "buy" to the template. -- Nils 10:38, 22 May 2004 (EDT)

First, why? I'm not sure I understand why it's needed. Second, could you please add it to the full template with explanation, and not just the short part?

I'm going to remove it for now, until you have time to do the full job. --Evan 12:45, 22 May 2004 (EDT)

[edit][add listing] Sleep

I think sleep has a place in the region template. Just like in country and large city templates, it's an overview of the type of accomidations travellers can expect to find. It's a good place to mention if there is camping, hostels, or something unique-- with links to the specific articles with listings. I'd like it put back in, it can always be deleted if it's not needed. Majnoona 21:46, 5 Aug 2004 (EDT)

[edit] Cities

Where do "villages" fit ? Under "Cities" or "Other destinations" ? Not all the travellers like to visit cities. I for one usually prefer travelling to villages or other smaller settlements if I have choice. Wojsyl 14:18, 1 Jan 2005 (EST)

I'm usually a stickler for strict templating, but for this I agree that "Cities" is just not a sensible moniker for very, very sparsely populated places like Svalbard, Falkland Islands or South Coast (New South Wales). Is there any problem with allowing any one (1) of "Cities", "Towns" and "Villages", depending on the population? Jpatokal 06:13, 27 Sep 2005 (EDT)

I think that sounds fine. Just like we use the formal name of sub-regions if they exist ("counties", "states", "cantons", etc.) it should be OK to use Towns or Villages or whatever. However, I think it should be an exception, not a rule. --Evan 12:42, 27 Sep 2005 (EDT)

Villages should go in the same section as "cities". By "cities", we just mean "communities" or "settlements", not necessarily big metropolises. --Evan 12:42, 27 Sep 2005 (EDT)

Then why not say "communities" or "settlements"? Andy Mabbett 09:56, 15 December 2006 (EST)

Because we've said "Cities" for more than 3 years; because we've got 12,000 articles that follow that standard; because multi-syllabic words sound stuffy and overblown; because "community" also refers to the people in the area; because "settlement" sounds more like a colonial outpost. --Evan 11:52, 15 December 2006 (EST)

If a region officially has no cities, then for that region it makes sense (less confusing, more helpful, less misleading, more accurate, etc) to use ==Towns== instead of ==Cities== - yes? ~ 203.144.143.5 23:29, 17 December 2006 (EST)

[edit] Towns or Cities

Swept in from the Wikitravel:Travelers' pub:

I changed a lot of Town, Towns/Cities, Small Town etc sections to Cities according to our templates. Seems not everyone is happy about that. I just think we should stick to the templates or change the templates. I realized this sloppynes when I tried to parse som Italian region with my wtbook script. --elgaard 19:49, 15 Jul 2005 (EDT)

Yeah, it's a continuing sticking point, but I was glad to see that you'd done it. It's never a mistake to edit articles towards the MOS. --Evan 20:04, 15 Jul 2005 (EDT)

[edit] Towns or Cities, again

Swept in from the Wikitravel:Travelers' pub:

We are having a little discussion on South Coast (New South Wales), Talk:South Coast (New South Wales) about Towns vs Cities. Could we settle it here? --elgaard 20:26, 26 Sep 2005 (EDT)

The right place for this discussion is Wikitravel talk:Region article template#Cities. Jpatokal 06:09, 27 Sep 2005 (EDT)

[edit] Itineraries

The Itineraries addition to this template is not all that recent any more, yet I haven't seen a good example of one -- the "submersible yak-drawn cart" is an amusing mental image, but doesn't really help much in devising a realistic itinerary. Can someone recommend a good example from a real page? Or is this concept not taking off? -- Bill-on-the-Hill 18:20, 26 Dec 2005 (EST)

I'm not a big fan. I think the link between guides and itineraries are loose and I'd rather use RDF to associate itinerary articles with "guide" articles, and list them in the left navigation area. But that's just me. Three days in Singapore is probably a good example of what people want to see here. --Evan 23:15, 26 Dec 2005 (EST)

I'd like to remove this section of the article template and instead use Wikitravel:related articles to associate an itinerary with a city, region, country, or whatever. Objections, comments, criticisms, support? --Evan 13:08, 3 November 2006 (EST)

The related tag should serve the same purpose, and removing the Itineraries sub-heading gets rid of a somewhat confusing part of this template. Support. -- Ryan 19:23, 14 November 2006 (EST)

Objection. The itineraries should be clearly visible in the article, and the main issue is just that there aren't all that many itineraries yet. The related articles box is hidden in the navbar and is practically invisible; just look at how many people we get adding the Wikipedia link to the main body because "it doesn't work". Jpatokal 23:27, 14 November 2006 (EST)

I'm not opposed to including itineraries in an article if it works (Singapore#Itineraries works nicely), but I'm not sure it should by default be a part of the template - maybe just adding a note on Wikitravel:Where you can stick it would suffice? As it is we have hundreds of region article templates, most of which have either an empty "Itineraries" heading or else have had that heading deleted. -- Ryan 23:33, 14 November 2006 (EST)

I don't have much of an opinion either way on keeping or not keeping the default heading, although I'd lean towards keeping it: just like with other headings, it means that even if there isn't anything here, there should be. But I would object loudly to removing the existing sections and shunting their contents into the Related box. Jpatokal 23:37, 14 November 2006 (EST)

[edit] Order of cities

Is there a guideline for in what order cities should be listed (alphabetical, size, geographical)? -- Brendio 10:30, 22 Jan 2006 (EST)

Capital city first - then, following a one line gap, other cities in alphabetical order. At least that's the way I have always done it, and as nobody has ever changed the order or commented on it, I guess it's an acceptable formula. WindHorse 22 Jan 06

Sounds good to me. The only thing I'd add is a remineder that this does not need to be an exhaustive list of cities in a region... some of this lists are a little overwhelming. Majnoona 11:12, 22 Jan 2006 (EST)

I don't think alphabetical listings should be a standard, what we do every time. I see them as the default, what we fall back to if there's nothing better. If there is a natural order, such as I've used in Fujian, or the obvious West-to-East listing for cities in Mediterranean Europe, we should use that. Making sense to the reader is far more important than consistency. Pashley 01:14, 24 July 2007 (EDT)

My concern with deviating from an alphabetical standard is that most contributors here learn from example (chances are they will never find this discussion) and a lack of standard ordering in lists could encourage ordering schemes that I think we should avoid. For example: ordering cities by "importance" or "quality." Although as I write this, I realize that Marc and I did just that with the Chicago#Districts. Perhaps I should think about this more carefully. In any rate, there are other ways to convey geographical orderings. Maps are an obvious one; another that I liked was the "next destination" template idea for "get out" sections. --Peter ^Talk 01:32, 24 July 2007 (EDT)

Personally, I see the region and cities' lists as an index, and so feel that the present way of listing places alphabetically is fine. Furthermore, I think it would be difficult to list destinations using other categorizations and, to be honest, I can't say I'm convinced of the benefit of doing so. For example, we could use importance. That would be obvious for perhaps the first two or three places on the list, but generally not so for the remaining 6 or 7 and, anyway, under the present system the capital city has the premier spot. Geographically is a possibility, but how do we know where travelers will arrive and in which direction they will travel. If there is only one valley, then it might be appropriate to list the places in the order that a traveler will come upon them. This we already do on itineraries. However, most countries or regions are more complex than a single valley, and so listing them from north to south, for example, will not be helpful for someone who is traveling east to west. Using the alphabetical way to list destinations is not perfect, but I still contend that it is the most user-friendly system - both for contributors and readers. However, places listed under 'Get out', and perhaps 'Districts', have a different criteria. For one thing, they are often not well known (unlike the major cities on the main list), and so travelers are more likely to search for them based on their location, not name. Therefore, listing these destinations geographically is reasonable...Anyway, just my opinion.... WindHorse 09:34, 24 July 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Order of sections

I also wonder if if would be better to move the regions, cities and other destinations to the bottom of the page, as these are just lists and it means that you have to sometimes scroll three pages to get to the Understand page to start actually reading about a region. I think it would be better to see the list of cities etc. after you have read about the area, getting in etc. See the Bavaria page for an example of this. -- Brendio 11:57, 22 Jan 2006 (EST)

I'd like to eventually move them to the left navigation menu, along with the table of contents. --Evan 12:22, 22 Jan 2006 (EST)

I agree. I think that the 'understand' section looks better at the top, then possibly 'get in' as the second section. WindHorse 23 Jan 06

I would prefer to keep the Region, Cities and Other Destinations at the top of the page at present. These are rather like tables of contents for all the related articles. There is already an untitled Introduction/Understand section at the top of the page that can be used. At present it is only being used for a sentence or two but I see no reason why couple of paragraphs couldn't be here. You would then only need to have an Understand section on small article if you wanted to get really detailed. Bavaria is a good example of what can be done and is a very reasonable, though modest introduction. I am thinking of something more like the size of New Zealand's introduction for most articles. -- Huttite 16:29, 22 Jan 2006 (EST)

I am always unsure of what info should go in the intro and what should be in Understand. Perhaps that is part of the problem. -- Brendio 17:07, 22 Jan 2006 (EST)

What Huttite said is also true. The lists of cities and other destinations are like a table of contents in a book, and so obviously should be on the top. To continue the book allegory, I guess the the indroduction is like the blurb on the back cover: it offers a short and consise appraisal of the contents, whereas the understand section is more akin with a book's introduction, offering more depth and detail. In short, I would say the indroduction should state where the region is located, followed by one or two lines about its most notable features. The introduction can add further details about these, as well as an outline of the region's history and present status. Personally, I like to have some background knowledge of a place I'm visiting, not just information on tourist sites and restaurants. Anyway, these are just personal ideas... WindHorse 23 Jan 06

[edit] How small should one make (sub)regions

If a region can be broken into a subregion on local political grounds, should it necessarily be the case? If a region will have say 7 towns in it, is it worth breaking it down further into three subregions of around two towns each? I think not. Is there a minimum number of towns/cities that a region should have before it is considered. By the way, I mean towns and cities that are of interest to tourists. My example is the current subdivision of Franconia into Upper, Middle and Lower. I think the region page for Franconia is enough. -- Brendio 17:00, 30 Jan 2006 (EST)

We try to keep things in the 7±2 range, per the Wikitravel:geographical hierarchy page. --Evan 17:04, 30 Jan 2006 (EST)

[edit] How many is nine.

So the "Cities" section of United Kingdom says

Many cities and towns in the United Kingdom are of interest to travellers outside the capital city of London. Following is an alphabetical selection of nine - others are listed under their specific countries and regions:

And then it lists nine cities other than London.

Call me a crazy Yank, but that's ten to me. Or to put it in Wikitravel:Slippery slope terms,

Many cities and towns in the United States are of interest to travellers outside of the world-famous cities of New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Chicago, New Orleans, Honolulu, and Miami. Following is a selection of nine of these other cities:

What do others think? -- Colin 13:50, 15 December 2006 (EST)

The capital is a bit of a special case, especially in countries like the UK where it's so dominant in size and tourism compared to the competition. If it's in the bullet points, then it's just one of nine, but if it's in the text body like that, IMHO it doesn't count. Jpatokal 13:58, 15 December 2006 (EST)

In this case, though, it's in the text like that precisely because someone wanted to get around the nine cities limit. I think we should stick with the bright line limit. -- Jonboy 14:01, 15 December 2006 (EST)

Note that this tactic has already been spread to the England article too by the "Leeds should be in the list" anonymous user who has used it as a means of finally getting Leeds in there. It's not his Leeds boosterism that concerns me; rather it's the precedent of boosting an item into the text for the specific purpose of injecting Just One More City into the list that concerns me.

Also in this instance London would clearly be in the list if it wasn't already in the text. - Colin 14:03, 15 December 2006 (EST)

So, I'm going to dissent on this. The "Nine rule" comes from the Geographical hierarchy, where we suggest using the 7±2 heuristic as a branching factor for our hierarchy. That is, each level in the hierarchy has a maximum of about 5-9 sub-levels. That way, when someone's looking at the page for the United States, they aren't confronted with 50+ sub-elements for all the states and territories, but instead with a more manageable set. People's brains are hard-wired (supposedly) to handle groups of 7±2 things pretty well; they feel natural, while bigger groups feel overwhelming.

But, it's not like that's the most important rule that trumps everything else. For example, I think that if there's a very small region with 10-12 villages in it, we're not going to split it up into two separate arbitrary regions with 5-7 villages apiece just to satisfy this rule. 7±2 is a rule of thumb that should be balanced against other criteria, not an iron edict to be obeyed above all others.

Now, that all said, the "Cities" list at the country or major region level is kind of special. It's not really part of the hierarchy. It's a way of making shortcuts, so that people who don't know much about Azerbaijan, for example, can find Baku without knowing that it's in the Apsheron Peninsula region. These are utility shortcuts so that people who don't know a lot about their destination can find that destination easily. One rule of thumb might be asking, Would it be ridiculous to have a guide about X without mentioning Y? If you can have a guide about Japan that doesn't mention Tsuruta, well, let's move that link further down the hierarchy. If you can't have an article about France that doesn't mention Paris, we should have a place on the page for that city.

Anyways, down to numbers: the 7±2 list is about as applicable for city lists as for hierarchy lists, but I think it's a soft limit. If there are 10-12 cities that people are going to feel are really missing from Germany or Australia, well, let's bend the rules a bit.

Finally, on the specific topic: Leeds is not one of those cities for either the UK or for England. And routing around these limits in order to shoehorn it into the list is a real waste of time, energy, and goodwill. --Evan 15:18, 15 December 2006 (EST)

I think that sets a bad precedent. It's already tough enough to stick to nine-cities-period, convincing people that their cities are not worthy of an exception will be even harder. Jpatokal 23:10, 15 December 2006 (EST)

I'm not sure I like the "is it ridiculous not to mention" guideline as it's too arbitrary - many people might think it's ridiculous not to mention any number of cities on the United States article, for example. My take on things is that the 7 +/- 2 guideline is something that generally doesn't need to be considered, but is useful for those cases where there's a question about what cities/regions/whatever are appropriate for a list. If a county has fifteen towns, it's clear that the list should point to all fifteen or (if appropriate) that the county should be sub-divided. However, if a state has 200 cities it's not clear what cities should be listed for the state article, and in that case a guideline is useful in helping people decide what should be included.

Regarding Colin's original point, I don't feel too strongly about it but if pressed would say that London should be included as a bullet in the list. -- Ryan 23:16, 15 December 2006 (EST)

Well, it is the point of the "Cities" section at country and region level. We "promote" cities higher up the hierarchy as a navigation aid only; it helps people get to the most common cities they're looking for faster. It's not a popularity contest or a judgment on the quality of the cities; it's just a way for people to get to the links they need faster. --Evan 23:27, 15 December 2006 (EST)

Agreed, but I think the discussion is where we draw the line in terms of which cities get "promoted". As it stands currently the guideline is that 7 +/- 2 get promoted. If I understand your earlier point you're suggesting we change that guideline to "is it ridiculous not to mention", and I think that opens the door to everyone's own interpretation. Also, since the 7 +/- 2 rule is a guideline we could always make an exception if there was a region that contained more than nine cities that absolutely had to be listed; however, that would probably be the rare exception. -- Ryan 23:44, 15 December 2006 (EST)

I'd like to suggest the creation of a template called Template:Ninecities that would look something like this: <!--We try to keep city listings to between 5 and 9 almost all the time. If you want to debate *which* nine cities should be here, or explain why this is one of the rare exceptions to this rule, please use the talk page.--> Then I could just do {{subst:ninecities}} when I edit a city list down to nine. (Which is fairly frequently.) This might prevent people from (understandably) thinking, "Oh, I just created an article for my favorite little place. I'll make it the 10th city on this list." (And then the next person makes it 11, etc...)

[edit] Telephone number subsection

I've proposed a Telephone number template for use in articles. Would it, perhaps, be sensible to have a "telephones" sub-section to the "understand" section, or elsewhere, in each article? Andy Mabbett 10:37, 29 December 2006 (EST)

[edit] Get out

This came up in Western India. For really large regions such as Western India or Midwest (United States of America), it makes no sense to have a Get out section. What can one write there? Suggesting daytrips will sound silly. So I want to amend the explanation here to allow the section to be left out for really large regions. — Ravikiran 05:12, 22 February 2007 (EST)

I agree with Ravi, some regions are way too large to have a Get Out section. We have to bend the rule for such places. After all, Western India and Midwest (United States of America) are bigger than many countries in size. Upamanyuwikitravel 08:24, 22 February 2007 (EST)

I modified it. Please comment or change if needed. — Ravikiran 06:27, 23 February 2007 (EST)

[edit] See, Do, Eat instructions

Could the region template have a (commented out) instruction installed with the template indicating that these sections are not to be filled with listings, but rather an overview? OldPine 12:21, 4 July 2007 (EDT)

Actually, this is still a little fuzzy, as there are occasionally some places that just don't fit sensibly in a "destination", eg. the Miho Museum in Shiga (deep in the mountains near no town of any size, yet with no places to stay). Islands like Penang are also tricky, because there's one identifiable town (George Town) and then a scattershot of other attractions elsewhere. Jpatokal 13:09, 4 July 2007 (EDT)

Good point. The instruction language could indicate an exception for this situation. I dunno. Nevermind. OldPine 23:20, 4 July 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Get in

This section says it's OK to "just leave it out" if there is no clear entry point. Wanting to know whether that meant leave the section empty or remove it, I went to the example given: Midwest (United States of America) but there the Get in section is filled in. Some other sections have this language, too. Does "just leave it out" mean remove it or leave it empty? OldPine 07:04, 5 July 2007 (EDT)

I think it should mean remove it. Empty sections look ugly and I'd never support an article with an empty section as a guide or a star. Plus, they are a magnet for pointless information. That is the approach I took with "Get out" for region articles (see above.) That said, I am hard put to think of a situation where region articles will not have a get in section. — Ravikiran 07:14, 5 July 2007 (EDT)