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Wikivoyage:How to handle unwanted edits

This page deals with how we, as Wikivoyagers, deal with unwanted edits.

What is an unwanted edit?
Unwanted edits are changes made to Wikivoyage that don't jibe with our policies and guidelines and manual of style. Such edits don't help us get towards our goal of making a free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide. Some examples of unwanted edits are listed below, along with our strategy with dealing with them.

One may ask why unwanted edits are, in fact, unwanted. Sure, they may not get us towards our goals, but why not just leave them on Wikivoyage anyway? The answer is that unwanted contributions clutter the guides, making it harder for travellers to find the information they're looking for. In addition, they make it harder for contributors to find where to share their knowledge, or may give them the wrong idea about our project and what kind of knowledge we want.

One thing to note is that we talk about unwanted edits, and not unwanted editors. Wikivoyage is open to anyone who has knowledge to share, wants to help us reach our goals, and is willing to work with other contributors to get there (see the Wikimedia Foundation Terms of Use for more information). The lifeblood of any Wiki Web site is the ability of any reader to add, edit, and delete information on the Web site. For Wikivoyage in particular, we absolutely depend on a large pool of casual readers to share their knowledge about places around the world.

Executive summary
For the impatient, here's the basic idea: the basis of Wikivoyage's editorial integrity is that a large community of editors with their head on straight can revert and correct unwanted edits made through ignorance or malice by individuals. In other words, if someone makes an unwanted edit, someone else reverts it. It's also usually good practice for the one who reverts the edit to inform the first editor what was wrong, and maybe try to help them do it better next time.

It's a community solution to the problem of unwanted edits. It's based on the idea that there are more people interested in fixing and correcting unwanted edits than there are people making them. So far, it's worked. It works for a lot of wikis. It's a pretty darn good system.

Simple cases
Here are some simple cases of unwanted edits:

Graffiti
Graffiti is the insertion of off-topic messages into Wikivoyage pages. Examples: "BOB IS AN IDIOT", "asdfasdfasdfasdf", "Does this really work?" Most graffiti is simply a test that the Wiki principles we espouse are actually in use. The editor is in effect asking, "Can anyone write anything on any page?" The answer, of course, is yes, indeed, they can. Another common bit of graffiti is selecting the entire contents of a page, deleting it, and saving the now blank page.

Graffiti can be a first step to becoming a real contributor. For this reason, it's best to treat graffiti as experimentation, and simply revert the edited page to its previous version without graffiti. A message to the person who made the graffiti edit, letting them know that it was noticed, and that they're welcome to make more valuable contributions to the guide would also be a good idea. It can also help to point them to the Graffiti wall, where they can practice their Wiki markup skills without scribbling on regular pages.

Vandalism
Vandalism is the deliberate replacement or deletion of page content in a way that obviously damages or destroys an article. Vandalism should be reverted immediately, and users engaging in a pattern of vandalism should be subjected to either a short or long-to-indefinite block, depending on how serious and extensive the vandalism is. If no admin has blocked the vandal or if multiple sockpuppets are vandalizing, post to Project:Vandalism in progress so everyone can help repair the damage.

What you should not do: It is best to never acknowledge an act of vandalism - neither by posting a message on the vandal's user page nor by commenting about the act in the edit summary. Vandals (trolls) love to be acknowledged and any comment ("nice try," "why are you doing this," "you can't win," etc.) will only encourage the vandal. It can be boring to repeatedly make edits without a reaction and the focus should be on making it as boring as possible for vandals.

Spambots
Spambots are automated scripts posing as a user that post irrelevant links on pages in any namespace (most frequently mainspace or userspace). Their reason for doing this is to improve a website's page ranking in a Google search. They may not even care if their edits are reverted or the pages are deleted, as once their links are posted they sit in the page history, where the Googlebot and other search engines can find them. Disallowing search engines from history pages defeats the spambots' intentions. Wikivoyage's spam filter may also be a useful tool for blocking automated spambots.

Spambots should be blocked with no talk page access to prevent spamming on the user's talk page. Following this, if the spambot has made edits on multiple wikis, it should be reported to global steward requests so that a Wikimedia steward can lock the account, preventing login on all wikis. Even if an account has already been locked, it can be advantageous to locally block an account, as locking an account does not trigger an autoblock of the underlying IP address. Stewards can also use the CheckUser tool on the English Wikivoyage to find the relevant IP address or range of addresses and globally block the address or range for an extended period of time.

Mistakes
Everyone makes mistakes — spelling errors, typos, punctuation gaffes, factual errors, bad article names or page formatting that doesn't conform to the manual of style. The easiest way to deal with mistakes is to correct them. If a contributor continues to make mistakes, it can be helpful to send them a message letting them know what they're doing wrong, and perhaps pointing them to the page on the manual of style that describes the correct way to do what they're doing.

It's important to be friendly when telling people about mistakes. Almost all mistakes happen due to ignorance and not stupidity or malice. Let them know that their input is valuable, but that it makes it easier for other editors if they do it right the first time.

Defiance of policy
Sometimes contributors who make mistakes just won't agree that what they're doing is wrong, no matter what the policy says. Such a refusal is a defiance of policy. Stubbornly plowing ahead in defiance of established policy is not an effective or polite way to challenge a policy. If you think our community should review the policy in question, start a discussion on the policy's talk page. Wikivoyage policies are not sacrosanct, and are revised and updated regularly. Is it stated well, or does the explanation need to be clarified to make the policy more explicit? Do we explain why the policy is the way it is — even if it's just an arbitrary decision one way or another? All of this is subject to discussion, but policies are not to be flouted instead of or in addition to the discussion on the relevant talk page.

Challenges to policy can help improve our community. They give us incentive to make our policies clearer, fairer, and more effective towards reaching our goals. In addition, having policies based on input from lots of people makes our policies fairer and lets all contributors feel "ownership" towards the project.

If you tell a contributor about a mistake, and they challenge the policy that defines that mistake, point out the page that explains that policy, and suggest that they explain on the talk page why they disagree with the policy. If the policy hasn't been fully stated or elaborated, feel free to update the policy page to state it more clearly, or give the reasons why it's policy. If there's no page for the policy at all, but just "general ideas", suggest that the contributor bring up the issue on the travellers' pub.

If the only way to make the case for a change in policy is by letting the contributor continue his or her edits and see how the article develops, then you may agree with the contributor to defer discussion of the issue till it is clear how the article will turn out. But make it clear to the contributor that if the challenge fails to gain consensus, the edits will have to be reverted.

One thing to avoid is to tell people, "That's just the way it is." Contributors need to feel that they're part of the community and have a say in the decision-making process. It's up to the contributor to decide whether they can live with the policy or not; they're always welcome to work on another project. It is fair, however, to insist that they challenge the policy on the appropriate policy talk page, rather than simply continue making edits in defiance of the existing policy.

Touts
While business owners are welcome to contribute to Wikivoyage and lively edits are encouraged from all users, edits that are clearly advertising for a business or service are not appropriate. Don't tout provides details for identifying touting as well as guidelines related to promotional editing. When an edit is identified as touting it should either be edited to remove promotional phrasing or simply reverted. In either case, a message should then be placed on the user's talk page letting them know why their edit was inappropriate. Template:Tout is a useful template that can be placed on user talk pages to notify touts about problem edits.

Copyright violations
Copyright violations are contributions of text or images that the contributor didn't create themselves, and didn't get the original author's permission to license under our copyleft policy. This kind of contribution is occasionally made by overzealous editors who think it's more important to have lots of information in Wikivoyage, forgetting our goal that the information has to be free, too.

If a text edit is a copyright violation, simply revert the edit, and add a note on the Talk: page explaining where the text came from and why it was removed. It can sometimes be helpful to send a message to the user who posted the text, pointing out our copyleft. As usual, a gentle approach, without recrimination, is the best way to make sure that a contributor continues to help with our guide.

If an image is a copyright violation, it should be nominated for deletion. A Google image search for the file name or the name of the subject is often a quick way to find that an image is used also on another web site, which then probably is the source. Check the file description page for whether the claimed author and the uploader agree, and whether there is a source link and a licence statement at the linked page (or some obvious page linked from there, or some other hint on the status). Again, a polite note to the uploader explaining the copyright issue can be helpful. If in doubt about an image's copyright status (e.g. it's on another web site, but maybe it's the uploader's site) tag it with on the file talk page and ask the uploader to clarify.

Most images used on Wikivoyage are actually stored on Wikimedia Commons, so their procedures need to be followed: go to the file description page at Commons, click the "nominate for deletion" link in the left margin and write an explanation, linking the page making you suspect a copyvio. The discussion may take months, without many comments; obvious cases can be tagged instead. If there is a problem in raising the issue there, instead call out the issue at the article's talk page, in the Pub or at some other suitable place. If the image is indeed locally uploaded, list the image on our votes for deletion page. If the photo is free, but the subject is not, such as in Freedom of Panorama cases, the photo can sometimes be hosted here, based on fair use: see Non-free content.

Harder cases
These are some harder cases to deal with.

Excess baggage
One specific type of mistake, probably worth pointing out here, is when contributors bring excess baggage to Wikivoyage. Everyone in the world has opinions, ideas, beliefs and causes, and it'd be kind of weird if anyone contributing to Wikivoyage held our goals and not their own. But when a contributor doesn't respect our goals at all, and merely wants to use our Website as a soapbox to broadcast their opinion, well... we have a problem.

Our official content policy is to use the traveler's point of view for articles. This means that we don't espouse any particular ideas about culture, religion, nations, politics, or other non-travel topics. We also don't espouse any particular philosophies of travel, but try instead to provide information for as wide a range of travelers as possible. In addition, we don't endorse or advertise any particular travel-related businesses, services, or venues, but try to give them fair and honest reviews.

The easiest way to deal with edits that espouse a particular point of view is to correct the edit. Remove advocacy, and if the issue could have any importance to travelers in particular, explain the issue in an objective way. Generalize advertisements for businesses or services into suggestions for the activity or destination, and perhaps a review of the business or service. If necessary, add a note to the Talk: page for the article explaining why you changed the content, and if you want, send a message to the person who made the edit.

Trolling
The basis for a lot of humor in the English-speaking world is tweaking the tail of authority figures, zealots, and the self-righteous. The Internet example of this is trolling — a practice of disrupting an on-line community for amusement. People who troll — themselves often called "trolls" — enjoy seeing someone get all red in the face over an issue they themselves don't actually care about in the least. The more people that get in the argument, the more successful the troll.

(Note that sometimes the term "troll" is generalized to mean what this document calls "excess baggage", and even to mean what this document calls "challenges to policy". Because the word is emotionally charged, it's probably not a good idea to mix those concepts with deliberate disruption.)

There are any number of trolling techniques, but most involve starting an argument through feigned ignorance or advocacy, then fanning the flames with outrageous assertions or personal attacks. In general, a troll works to instigate conflicts by focusing attention away from the project's goals and instead towards individuals or policies. Note that in the case of trolls it is always best to err on the side of being overly tolerant as it is far worse to alienate a new (but possibly confused) contributor by treating that user as unwanted.

The best way to protect yourself and Wikivoyage against trolling is to keep an open mind and not take yourself or the site too seriously. Keep a level head during editorial conflicts and edit wars, remember to be fair and objective as often as possible, and try to keep focused on issues rather than on personalities. Most of all, avoid being pompous, authoritative, or pushy. One of the best ways to let yourself be trolled is to accuse someone of being a troll.

Repeat offenses
It can happen that, even after having been notified with polite but firm requests, a contributor continues to make deliberate unwanted edits. The appropriate response is to revert them. If they continue to ignore the policy, escalating blocks may be appropriate.

Our community and professional attitude are stronger than any particular person's commitment to mess up the guide. It may seem kind of annoying and distracting, but it actually strengthens the project when we deal with problems like this. It only takes a very little time to correct unwanted edits, fix mistakes, and keep the guide in good shape.

If you get tired of following around a particular person making unwanted edits, let it slide. Someone else will jump in. If you have to, ask for help from other Wikivoyagers. Continue to try to make contact, look for ways to come to a solution that pleases all sides. Always concentrate on the edits themselves, and not getting drawn into personal issues.

Last resorts
These are some last resort options for dealing with really, really problematic situations.

Escalating user blocks
This procedure is an alternative to going straight to a user ban using the User ban nominations process (for which, see the following "User ban" section). It may be used, for example, in the case of editors who, on the one hand, make positive contributions, and on the other hand, repeatedly make problematic contributions or behave in a disruptive way. It consists of a series of steps: educating and counseling the user; documenting unwanted edits and giving a formal warning; blocking the user for increasingly longer periods; finally, applying a user ban (indefinite block).

The first step in dealing with editors who make a mix of positive and negative contributions is to give them positive feedback on their constructive edits, to educate them about the community's policies and norms, and try to persuade them to edit constructively and cooperatively within those norms. If they continue to make problematic edits, the second step is to point out the specific edits (with links to the edits if they are not obvious), and to describe why they are problematic.

Types of unwanted edits include:
 * Repeated breaches of written policies.
 * Repeatedly making edits that the user has been told go against community consensus.
 * Repeated spamming, touting, or inserting false information.
 * Repeated edit warring.
 * Repeated attacks on or harassment of other editors.

If the editor continues with unwanted edits, the third step is to give a warning on their user talk page. It is recommended to use Template:Unwanted edits for the warning.

If the editor continues with unwanted edits after the warning was given, an administrator can block their account or IP address from editing, initially for up to three days. If the unwanted editing resumes after the block ends, a second administrator may apply a longer block. This process can continue with increasingly long blocks as follows. Blocks should not be placed by an admin who is in a content dispute with the editor.

 * 1) Three-day block. The aim is to turn a problem editor into a non-problem editor. For a very active problem editor, a three day block might be all it takes for them to realise the community is serious and to change their ways.
 * 2) Two-week block. We are still hoping the editor will reform.
 * 3) Three-month block. Redemption is not looking likely, and we need a real break from the disruption and distraction. But redemption is not impossible. For IP addresses (rather than user accounts), user blocks of longer duration than this should be avoided, as addresses may be re-assigned or have different users.
 * 4) Indefinite block for user accounts. IP addresses should almost never be blocked indefinitely.

In general, a user should not be blocked from editing their own user talk page. They should only be blocked from editing it if they use it for unwanted edits of an egregious nature. At the discretion of an administrator, the talk pages of spambots, long-term vandals and abusers may be protected from all edits by users without admin rights.

IP addresses should be blocked only for as long as they are likely to remain assigned to the same person. We don't want to block other people trying to use the address. Block periods should be shorter than above if there is a real risk that other people will be blocked. It is better to block an IP address for a shorter period and then reimpose another shorter block without notice if problem editing resumes after the earlier block expires. Avoid disabling talk page and email access unless absolutely necessary, as this makes it difficult for other users accidentally caught up in the block to draw attention to their predicament. Difficulties around blocking IP addresses are generic to wikis and Wikipedia has useful information on its Blocking IP addresses page.

User ban
A user block is a suspension of an editor's ability to edit the site for a period of time. A user ban is an indefinite suspension of a user's editing privileges on Wikivoyage. User bans are a last resort that should be used in only the most extreme cases. Before even considering a user ban, exercise patience and professionalism to try to work with the user who is making unwanted edits; doing otherwise might make an enemy out of a potential friend. A user ban should only be considered when a contributor has made it clear that they're not interested in the site's goals, and/or not interested in compromising or working with other Wikivoyagers to achieve those goals.

If there is a need for a user ban or block, someone needs to nominate the user or IP address for banning on the Project:user ban nominations page and also place a notice on the nominated user's talk page. If the proposed suspension of the user's editing privileges is supported by two administrators, and there is a broad consensus for the suspension, after 3 days the suspension will go into effect.

Blocks and bans made without a nomination and without an understanding of the gravity of this action (and not covered by one of the exceptions listed below) are considered abuse by the administrator. In other words, suspending a user's editing privileges is a really, really big deal.

The following list contains exceptions for which no ban nomination is required; if there is any doubt as to whether one of the following criteria apply admins should err on the side of caution and add a nomination to the Project:user ban nominations page:

 * Blocks of one day or less when used as a discretionary tool for administrators. These blocks are sometimes used in slowing high-volume unwanted edits or in getting the attention of a user who is editing in unwanted ways.  In general such blocks should be applied for very short periods (two hours or less) and only increased in length if the unwanted edits persist.
 * Blocks of obvious vandals. An obvious vandal is someone who is not here to create travel guides but is instead here to edit maliciously.  These users often add racial slurs or obscenities to multiple articles, or have clearly malicious user names such as "User:I AM GOING TO VANDALIZE!!!!!" or "User X is a NAZI!!!!!!".  Registered accounts of malicious editors may be blocked indefinitely, while IP addresses should be blocked for shorter periods, which can be successively increased if the malicious editing re-occurs.
 * Blocks of users or IP addresses that are blocked for vandalism or other malicious editing on other Wikimedia projects. If a user or IP address has been blocked on another Wikimedia project and makes a similar malicious edit on Wikivoyage, the same block settings that have been used on the other project may be applied here.
 * Blocks of automated spambot scripts. Some of the more advanced spambots are actually capable of creating user accounts, and these accounts should be permanently blocked as soon as they are identified as spambot accounts.  IP addresses used by automated spambot scripts are typically blocked for a period of three months.  Note that if the IP address being used for spam has also been used to make legitimate edits then a shorter block should be applied since some IP addresses are shared by large pools of users.
 * Blocks of Doppelgangers, which are user accounts meant to mimic another account for the purposes of causing confusion. For example, "Joel" and "JoeI" look the same, but the second version uses a capital "i" instead of a lowercase "L".  Doppleganger accounts may be permanently blocked without any need for a ban nomination.
 * Blocks that follow the escalating user blocks process described above.

Sockpuppets of vandals with a history of targeting multiple wikis should be reported to stewards on SRG for a global block if they're using an IP or a global lock if they're using a username.

Scripts
A slightly less dramatic reason to employ a user ban is for unauthorized or erroneous scripts. As mentioned above, our editorial integrity depends on the community of editors checking and correcting each other's mistakes. But it can be hard, if not impossible, to correct the mistakes of a buggy or malicious automated editing script.

We have a script policy that outlines how to write scripts that edit Wikivoyage pages in a safe and sane way. There are a couple of ways of stopping a well-behaved script without employing a user ban; see the script policy page for details.

However, if a script is badly-behaved — due to programming error or malicious intent — an administrator can and should put a user ban on the IP address and/or user account the script is using. Again, the administrator should note the ban on the user ban nominations page, and the same procedure applies as for other bans.

Range blocks
Range blocks are generally used only to stop users from evading blocks by rapidly changing the IP address from which they edit. The only other plausible case for using a range block is to block a formally registered organization from editing from their own range of IP addresses.

Range blocks are an exceedingly powerful and potentially dangerous tool, because they can accidentally block users other than the target. Details of their usage can be found at MediaWiki: Help:Range blocks. While this is a tool that hopefully will not need to be used much, the following guidelines are in place should such a block be required:

 * 1) Unless you are well-versed in the proper usage of these blocks, do not use them.
 * 2) A range block is a last resort.  Do not implement a range block unless blocking individual IP addresses becomes impractical.
 * 3) A range block should be implemented for the shortest time period possible to stop any vandalism. In general, the larger the range of addresses being blocked, the shorter the block should be. Like most short-term blocks, a block of 1–2 hours is generally a good start, with increasing time periods allowable for repeat offenders.
 * 4) Any block of more than one day requires a ban nomination.
 * 5) Range blocks should always be made for the smallest possible range of IP addresses.

Project fork
It may occur that some editor or group of editors challenges one or another policy for Wikivoyage, and we can't come to terms with a compromise that works for everyone. If that person or persons just can't live with the policy, but wants to try something else, it's possible that we have a project fork.

A project fork means that the editors take the content of Wikivoyage and create a new wiki — or conceivably, another kind of collaborative Web site — and continue developing the content there. This is, of course, entirely compatible with our copyleft.

If possible, it would be nice to make forks "friendly" — understanding that people may see things in different ways, or may want to get to our goals by different paths. It's better for our project to have Fellow Travellers than rivals.

User pages
While Wikivoyage provides users considerable freedom to post what they want on their user pages, if you find something that violates User page help, you can ask the user to remove it by posting a message on their talk page, or let the administrators know by posting a notice at WV:Requests for comment with a link to the user page, indicating what part of it is offensive. Where any unacceptable material has been posted on a user page by someone whose activity on Wikivoyage has been limited to posting such material, an administrator may delete the unacceptable material from the user page.
 * If it is something is clearly unacceptable, then an administrator will delete it immediately from the user page. If you're a non-admin, then tag the page with the tag. An admin will later delete it.
 * If it is something where there is doubt about it being unacceptable, the administrator should exercise their discretion. They may ask the user to remove it from their user page and explain why. If the user is unwilling, then the administrator should post a note at WV:Requests for comment to solicit the views of other editors. If other editors agree that it is offensive and the user still refuses to remove it, then any administrator could do so.

Removing content from a user page is a serious matter that could drive contributors away from Wikivoyage. Administrators should exercise caution, and seek to resolve problems through discussion with the user if possible.

Users who believe that the content was removed inappropriately, may appeal to other editors for reconsideration by posting a note at WV:Requests for comment.

title: Wikivoyage:How to handle unwanted edits


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Wikivoyage:How to merge two pages

It is sometimes necessary to merge one page into another. Sometimes there are two articles written for one destination under slightly different names. Occasionally it will make sense to cover more than one small destination under the name of a larger area. Other times an article has been written that does not meet our article criteria, and that content needs to be moved (e.g., an article about the Louvre would need to be merged into Paris/1st arrondissement). Whatever the cause, doing a merge is relatively straightforward:

Discuss
Unless the need for a merge is really obvious, it may be worthwhile to start a discussion before doing a merge. To do so, simply add the merge template to the bottom of the article you are intending to do away with, and explain on that article's talk page why it should be merged into the other.

Merge
Simply cut and paste the relevant content from the merge candidate to the merge target. Try to integrate the content well, so the merge target does not read awkwardly post-merge.

When merging content, attribution must be retained to comply with the CC-BY-SA licence. If merging X into Y, this can be done by leaving an edit summary of "content merged into Y" on the source article and "CC-BY-SA content merged from X" at the destination article. Yet better is to use X instead of X, where xxx is the oldid= number from the permanent link you find in the toolbox in the margin of X or from the page history.

Redirect
The last step is to turn the now empty article into a redirect to the merge target. Yes, empty article; it's better to blank the old article once you've finished moving the content to save a reader who may hit return from seeing what looks like a normal article, only hidden.

Do not list the redirect for deletion; if any of the content is re-used, the edit history (or at least the list of contributors) must be retained for attribution. Under the CC-BY-SA free licence, there is no "merge and delete" as this would break attribution of edits to the original author(s).

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Wikivoyage:How to merge two pages


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Wikivoyage:How to redirect a page

Redirection pages are pages that automatically link to another page. You may want to have a redirection page for any of the following reasons. Searches are not case sensitive. There is no need for redirects for a different use of capitals if the text is otherwise identical.
 * There are different ways of writing the article title, but only one article,
 * The article is in a different namespace (nowadays discouraged).
 * Two articles have been merged into one,
 * The page might become a disambiguation page in the future, but there is currently only one article,
 * The page has been moved using the move page feature.

Please note that a redirection should not be used to move/rename a page, as doing so can lose page history. Please see Project:How to rename a page for instructions on how to move/rename a page.

Format
The following text should appear in the edit window:
 * #REDIRECT Target article title

Current versions of MediaWiki allow a redirect to point to a section of a larger article:
 * #REDIRECT Target article title

where the desired section is already marked in the target page with ==Section of article== or (vary rarely) . If the target is a listing in the article (also rare), then the Wikidata id (Qxxxx) from that listing can be used instead of a section heading.

It is possible to just add the redirect line to the beginning of a page and otherwise leave the content alone. This may help a less experienced editor to restart the article based on previous content (which is also available through the history). This may be useful when articles are merged, but a later split is anticipated as the merged article grows.

Effect
When a link is followed to the redirection page, the user is delivered the page contained in the REDIRECT link instead.

Redirects are often made for places which are covered in other articles, such a small village covered by the neighboring town. In cases like this, bold the redirected name in the target article, so users can see why they were sent there: "Seminyak is a town in Bali, which has grown to cover the nearby village of Kerobokan as well."

Double redirects
Redirection pages cannot be concatenated. If there are 2 #REDIRECT links in a row, only the first will actually be followed. The second redirect page will be delivered to the user instead of the desired target page. The solution is to point each #REDIRECT directly to the ultimate targeted article, not to another redirect.

For instance, if "Petrograd" becomes "Leningrad" which then becomes "Saint Petersburg" (again), don't use:
 * Petrograd #REDIRECT Leningrad
 * Leningrad #REDIRECT Saint Petersburg

but instead:
 * Petrograd #REDIRECT Saint Petersburg
 * Leningrad #REDIRECT Saint Petersburg

If St. Petersburg (an abbreviation of the name) is itself a #REDIRECT Saint Petersburg, don't use St. Petersburg as a target for other redirects. It won't work.

A list of these errors is available at Special:DoubleRedirects. Most often, these are redirects to a page which was moved.

Broken redirects
The Special:BrokenRedirects page lists broken redirection links. These are redirects where the target page does not exist.

In some cases, these are simple typos which can be fixed by pointing the redirect to a page which does exist.

Soft redirect
A soft redirect or interwiki redirect is a replacement of usual or "hard" redirects when the destination is another site. Unlike normal redirects, there is nothing special for soft redirects as wiki pages. It's only that soft redirects are very short pages of which all information is the notification to readers, showing the destination in another site to obtain the information they were seeking.

The technique is particularly likely to be used when redirecting users across different Wikimedia projects. Normal redirects would be undesirable in these circumstances, and hard interwiki redirects are disabled. (Reasons: they could not be easily edited without hand-crafting the correct URL; clicking on a link to the redirect page would take you straight to the redirect's target and there would be no "Redirected from ..." message to click, so it would be impossible to return to the redirect page itself; there would also be infinite loop security considerations.)

Soft redirects between different languages should be avoided because they will generally be unhelpful to readers unfamiliar with the destination language.

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Wikivoyage:How to rename a page

Sometimes it's necessary to rename a page in Wikivoyage. Maybe the page title has a spelling error; maybe it doesn't conform to the article naming conventions; maybe it was accidentally created in the wrong namespace. In any case, this is how you rename (or "move") a page. In most cases, you should first ask about the renaming on the article's talk page.

Note that only registered accounts that have been active for 30 days or longer have permission to rename pages – if you have not registered an account or your account is less than 30 days old, please ask someone to rename the page. Likewise, in some cases only administrators can do the renaming. In that case, ask an administrator on their talk page (see a list of administrators). Alternatively, you can notify the community in the Travellers' pub.

 * 1) Go to the page as it exists right now.
 * 2) Use the article's talk page to discuss why the page should be renamed. A lot of talk pages are not well trafficked: If no one responds (or only a few people do), you may want to invite editors to contribute to the discussion at Requests for comment.
 * 3) If there is no objection to the move, click the Move this page link (this link will not appear if you are an unregistered user or have been registered for less than 30 days).
 * 4) In the form provided, give the title of the new page, without the square brackets ("").
 * 5) Unless there's a real good reason, leave the Move "talk" page checkbox checked.
 * 6) Hit the Move page button.

The old name of the page will be kept as a "redirect" page. Any links to the old name will automatically be "redirected" to the new name. However, it's best to go update existing pages that link to the old name, and replace the links with the new name.

 * Go to the new page, and click the What links here button. This will show you all the other articles in Wikivoyage that link to this page. The old name of the page will be shown as a "redirect page", and links to the old name of the page will be shown underneath it.
 * Go to all the pages that link to the old name, and update the links so they point to the new name. Some of them might be redirects to the old name, for those, check also links to them.

Admin assistance
If the target page already exists and is not a history-less redirect to the current page, then an administrator is needed to delete the target page. The administrator should check that there is nothing in the history worth to be kept.

In particular, sometimes a page has been moved from the target name to the current name by cutting and pasting the content and then making the old page a redirect. In such cases the old history should be resurrected after the move.

Other cases may be more complicated. If the article existed simultaneously under both names, just joining the page histories can result in a confusing history, from which it is very hard to see what was written by whom. In some cases, the old history should be moved away to a new name to allow for the intended move without the history being deleted. There is no established practice for that on Wikivoyage, as of 2023.

title: Wikivoyage:How to rename a page


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Wikivoyage:How to re-use Wikivoyage guides

You can reuse Wikivoyage travel guides! Perhaps you're hosting a conference and would like to have a travel guide for your venue? Perhaps you have an idea for a mobile or desktop application that would be better with a travel guide? Perhaps you'd just like to have a travel guide on your blog? Our crowdsourced travel guides are free for you to redistribute and modify if you just follow a few simple steps.

When you redistribute Wikivoyage content, you just have to do the following:
 * Attribute the authors of the content. This can be done by simply providing a link back to the Wikivoyage page or, if you are making a printed guide, by providing a link in the hard copy. Alternatively, you can directly credit each of the authors listed in the history of the article.
 * Include the licence. For the text, this is always CC-by-SA 3.0. For images, it can vary a little. Just reproduce the licence that is on the image page at Wikimedia Commons. All the image licences are free and open.

There are no other requirements.

If you modify Wikivoyage content, you must do the above, and additionally:
 * Release your modifications under a similar free license. It doesn't have to be the exact same license, but it does need to be compatible.

How to copy our data
The best way to get a full copy of our data is from the database dumps. These contain complete copies of all travel guides, and there are many MediaWiki tools out there to help you work with them.

If you only want a few pages from the site, you can use the MediaWiki API for programmatic access to the site. This is available at http ://code.wikivoyage.org/w/api.php, where code is one of the language versions of Wikivoyage, e.g., "en" for English. When using the API, be careful you don't overload the site. A good guide is no more than one page every 30 seconds, however, you can find the complete conditions in our terms of use.

Of course, if you just want to print out the page and give it away, you can just use the print function provided on the left, that includes the appropriate attribution links and licences notices.

About our licence
We've chosen the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 for the text on our site, because it allows our guides to be freely used and modified. Whether for the traditional travel guide style, or for new and creative applications.

The licence says:

 * 1) You give attribution to the authors of the article.
 * 2) You make any derivative works available under the same licence. This also applies to subsequent derivative works.
 * 3) You notify readers and other users of the licence.

See also: Copyleft.

Sample attribution
You can give attribution to the authors by pointing readers back to the original article, ideally mentioning that the authors' names can be found in the history page for that article.

Text
As an example, to attribute and point back to the edit history of our Singapore article, you could use:

A list of contributors is available at the original Singapore article at Wikivoyage.

This also has the advantage that if people notice errors or improvements that can be made, they can fix the original article and keep the guide up-to-date for all!

Images
For images, the attribution can be found on the corresponding Image: page. Most of the images that we use come from Wikimedia Commons, which has a very useful guide to reusing their images.

Text
You must provide a link to the Attribution-ShareAlike licence to notify readers and users of their rights to the article text or image. The link to the licence should be sufficient. For example:

Content on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 licence.

Images
Again, consult the guide on Wikimedia Commons for licence information for images that may vary by image. However, a very significant majority of images that are used on Wikivoyage are available under the same licence as the text. You can simplify your attribution by only reusing those images made available under that licence. Then you just need to one licence attribution, and you probably will only miss a handful of images used under different licences.

Disclaimer
The above information is our interpretation of the licences by our community. The ultimate conditions for reuse are the ones contained in the full text of the licence.


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Wikivoyage:How to revert a page

Please read Project:How to handle unwanted edits for more detailed information.

Sometimes an edit for an article should be reverted; that is, the article would be better if the edit had never happened. Examples include:

 * graffiti (";aldkfja;dkjafa;lkajdf;kajdfdadf BOB IS GAY")
 * wikispam - Lots of links just with key words, often in a foreign language
 * vandalism - inappropriate (and major) changes or destruction of articles.
 * additions that are unfair
 * copyright violations

First look at the page history and identify the edit(s) you wish to revert. When you have identified them, click on undo in the history display to undo that edit. Click on Show changes before you save your changes, to make sure you are not changing anything in the article unintentionally. With this method you need to undo every offending edit separately, and if subsequent edits overlap, the undoing may fail.

Some established users can edit several of the last edits in one click ("rollback"). The equivalent can be done by reverting to the version before those edits. If you want to restore a previous version of the article:

 * 1) Use the page history for the article to find a previous version that's better. Usually, the immediately previous version to the edits you want to revert is the best one to pick.
 * 2) Open up this version by clicking on the timestamp.
 * 3) Use the Edit link to edit the old version. You should get a warning saying that you're editing an out-of-date revision of this page.
 * 4) Avoid the temptation to change the page content; it's easiest if reverts are kept separate from "real" edits.
 * 5) Specify in the edit summary what you're reverting and why.
 * 6) If going back to the previous revision and the offending edit was vandalism, spam or graffiti, tick the This is a minor edit box. Otherwise, use your judgement. Good-faith edits should generally not be reverted as a "minor" edit.
 * 7) Save the page with the Publish changes button.

The article should now be reverted. Read over it to make sure everything is OK.

Sometimes there is both good and bad information added to the article, or valid edits have been made after ones that need to be reverted. This can result in an edit conflict error when you try to undo the edit, or mean that you would lose information if you went back to a previous version. There is no easy solution to this problem; opening multiple windows and tabs so you can select the best version of a section and paste it back into the current article can make this task easier.

title: Wikivoyage:How to revert a page


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Wikivoyage:How to start a new page

Sometimes you need to start a new article for Wikivoyage -- for example, a new destination, or a new itinerary. This help page tells you how to do it.

Do I need to create a new page?
Check that the page you want does not already exist, or that the information doesn't already exist on another page. Do a search for the name of your proposed new page, and see what is returned.

We do not include pages for individual hotels, restaurants or attractions - see What is an article? for guidelines about what topics get their own articles, and Where you can stick it for a discussion of where to place information that should not be in its own article.

How to start a new page
The frustrating thing for most people is that our software does not have a "Start new page" command anywhere on the screen. This is actually by design, not a mistake. The theory is that new pages should be linked from older pages, and be part of the cohesive whole of the Wikivoyage site, not isolated and on their own.

The best way to start a new page, then, is to create a link to that page from an existing page, and then follow that link to edit the page. We prefer that you start at the Main Page and browse around, or use the search functionality, to find a related topic. For example, if you're going to write about a city, you might search for the guide for the country or province where that city is, and make your link there.

If there's really just nothing related to link from, just enter the page name into the search box, you will get an option to create the page.

To create a new link using Wiki markup, type the title of the new page -- preferably conforming to our article naming conventions -- somewhere on the screen, placing it between double brackets, Like this. This will create a link to a new blank page with the title you specified between the brackets.

Something is better than nothing
Don't feel like you have to cover your entire subject in one go. It's OK to just get started even with just a small amount of information. To add an outline template to your new article automatically, just click on the "City", "Region" etc links at the top of the page.

If you make a stub to start the article, other people will follow your lead and add more information. Something is better than nothing, so plunge forward and start that page!

Wikimedia Commons
Commons is a handy source for maps and pictures which may be used in Wikivoyage guides; follow the instructions in How to add an image. In many cases, Wikipedia already has an encyclopaedia article not only about any notable city but also pages about individual landmarks; these usually already use Commons as a source for images. Those images are available for re-use here.

title: Wikivoyage:How to start a new page


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Wikivoyage:Huge city article template

''If a city is so big that we really can't keep all its information in one page, we break it up into districts, each of which has its own article -- see the district article template for starting those. In general, we keep summary info on the page about the city, with links to the pages about each district, and highlights from those pages.''

''To quickly insert a complete blank city template, copy the quick version into the edit box on the page you are editing. You can also just add to the page, and a blank template will be included when you save.''

''Stuff in italics below is editorial comment, with suggestions for what should go in each section, and not part of the eventual article. If you copy the text below, you should plan on ripping out everything in italics when you start your city article.]''

--used to point out that listings are on separate district pages (which should also be printed)

''The first section of the city article does not have a heading. This is a where you give a quick descriptive overview of the city. Be sure to include some context so readers know where and what they are reading about. Links to the region and country that the city is in can be useful here, too.''

Also include any background information particular to the city (i.e. Geneva is a French-speaking city, New Delhi can be more dangerous than other parts of India, etc), but try not to duplicate too much information that already exists in the country or region page.

Districts
''Most of the meat of the information about a huge city is divided up into the individual district articles. You should list the districts here, as well as a short blurb about the district that lets readers know what is most relevant about the district for travel, which neighborhoods constitute the district, etc. Every district listed should have clearly defined borders to make it easy for other Wikivoyagers to know where to stick new listings. See the District article template for the structure of district articles.''

Before you plunge forward creating districts, read recommendations on when (not) to districtify--following them will help the community with maintenance of the articles for city and its districts in the future.

 * District 1 - overview of District 1
 * District 2 - overview of District 2
 * District 3 - overview of District 3
 * District 4 - overview of District 4
 * District 5 - overview of District 5
 * District 6 - overview of District 6

Understand
''Give a deeper understanding of the city, such as its history, its culture, its mores, its politics, its relationship to other cities and the country it's in. Jokes and stereotypes about locals, etc.''

Get in
''Arrival details. Try and include as many options as you can think of -- land, air, sea. Also include getting from transportation centers (such as airports) to central areas or hotel/hostel districts.''

''Below are some sections for common ways to get to a city. Try to order the sections from the most common and convenient to the rarest and most inconvenient. If for some reason there's a common way to approach the city not listed below -- by llama, by snowmobile, by bush helicopter -- just add another section. And leave out sections that don't apply. ''

By plane
''Name the airport or airports that serve this city. Name the air carriers that serve the city, and rough schedules ("once a week, once a day") for getting to this city by air from other major nearby cities. Note transportation options for getting from the airport to the city center. If it's common to hire private planes to arrive in the city -- say, if it's in the bush in Alaska -- note the names of plane charter companies, and give contact info. If there's just no plane service to this city, leave this section out.''

By train
''Give names of other nearby cities and rough schedules ("once a day, on the hour") for getting to this city by train. Note the location of the train station or stations and give directions for getting to central areas or hotel/hostel districts. If there is no rail service to the city, just leave this section out.''

By car
''Driving details and directions for getting to this destination. Try to include the names of major highways, as well as directions from other nearby cities. If for some reason it would be exceptional to come to this city by car -- say, if it's on an island not served by bridges or ferries, or if it's in a country where personal travel by automobile is extremely rare -- just leave this section out.''

By bus
''Give names of other nearby cities and rough schedules ("once a day, on the hour") for getting to this city by bus. Contact info for bus companies is nice, too. Note the location of the bus terminal or terminals and give directions for getting to central areas or hotel/hostel districts. If there is no bus service to the city, leave this section out.''

By boat
''Name any ferries, passenger boats, or other floating vessels for getting to this destination. Give contact information for carriers, and the location of arrival points with relation to the city center, as well as transport options from the dock or terminal. If it's a common way to arrive, note the marinas where you can show up with a private vessel. If the city is landlocked or just not served by passenger boat traffic, just leave this section out.''

Get around
How to get around once you are there: bus, train, rickshaw, ferry, gondola, etc. How much does local transport cost, where/how to buy tickets, and good discounts (week or weekend passes, 1/2 price seniors or students, etc).

See
''This is for a summary of attractions in the huge city. Don't give full details about each attraction; you should have that in the article for the district. But if there are some attractions that people are going to be expecting to find out about in this city, like the Eiffel Tower in Paris, or just attractions that people really shouldn't miss, provide a brief description of the most notable landmarks here. It's best to use general descriptions formatted as paragraphs and avoid making point-form lists as individual listings belong in district pages, not here.''

''These paragraphs will group multiple, similar attractions; for each landmark, it will give the name, the district in which the landmark is listed and a brief mention of why the landmark is notable. Details such as street addresses, contact info and pricing is omitted and left for the district-level listings.''

 * Manhattan is famous for skyscrapers such as the Empire State Building, once again the tallest completed building in New York, and the Chrysler Building, constructed as the headquarters of the famous automaker.

''These sections may be divided into subsections as needed, perhaps grouping all of the best-known museums, ethnic neighbourhoods, galleries, live performance venues or historic sites with a subsection each. If there are articles for any itineraries which pass through the city, link to them here.''

Do
'' This is for a summary of activities in the huge city, that is, things that travellers will do themselves. More active participation is needed for Do things than for See things. For example, going to see a river goes under See; kayak trips down the river go under Do. Don't give full details about each activity; you should have that in the article for the district. But if there are some activities that people are going to be expecting to find out about in this city, or just activities that people really shouldn't miss, have them listed here. Not every activity in the city needs to be mentioned -- just ones that are so important people expect them to be on the main page for the city.''

As with the attractions to "see" above, this is not a comprehensive or detailed listing, just an overview with a few paragraphs describing the most common activities and identifying the district or area to visit for each.

Learn
Optionally: If there are opportunities for travellers to study in this city -- from language to cooking classes up to full university courses -- add that here.

Work
''Optionally: What possibilities are there for travellers to earn money in this city? Note that this is kind of long-range and probably won't be appropriate for most destinations.''

Buy
''The travellers' dirty secret: we like souvenirs. What would be good to buy in this city? Local crafts? How about general shopping -- clothes, travel equipment, other? Give general tips about what to buy and where to shop in the city, preferably pointing to district pages for the full scoop.''

Eat
''For general points of where to eat out in the city. Mention any local specialties or oddities here. Avoid specific restaurant info; leave that for each individual district page. Instead, try to name districts where restaurants are plentiful or of a particular quality -- say, if there's a Little Italy or a Chinatown or such.''

''It's perfectly OK not to have any individual restaurants listed, but if there are particular restaurants that are landmarks for the city, you can mention in which district they are located and give a reason why they're called out specifically. Do not create long lists of individual eateries; these belong in the individual districts.''

 * The beaches of District 3 offer oceanfront seafood patio dining, as well as a diverse collection of takeout stands on the pier.

Drink
''For general points about bars, clubs, and other nightlife in the city. Yes, many people go out to clubs and don't drink; the name of the section is still Drink. Mention any local specialties or oddities, and give a general idea of good areas of the city to try. Avoid specific bar listings; instead, put these on the district pages. Instead, give pointers to bar areas, nightclub districts, great streets to try.''

''Unlike an attraction for See or an activity for Do, it is rare that a single bar in a city big enough to use this template is a significant landmark. If you insist on a mention that "Cheers" in Boston was on the telly a few years back, follow the same pattern as for the other sections - name it, indicate what district it's in and explain why exactly it's notable but leave it at that. The other details go on the district page.''

Sleep
''This is for helping the traveller find a place to lay his/her weary head. Give a general idea of good areas of the destination to try to find lodging. Avoid listing specific hotels in the page for the city; instead, give those listings in the individual district pages. The point here is to tick off good places to look for hotels, motels, and campgrounds, not to give contact details. If for some reason there's a landmark hotel, or just one people shouldn't miss, in the city -- and what are the chances? -- list its name and a link to the district it's in.''

 * Backpacker hostels abound near N street, in District Z.

 * The most luxurious (but most expensive) hotels are on the downtown waterfront in District Y.

 * The tallest and most visible building in the walled historic portion of Quebec City is the Château Frontenac in the Haute-Ville or "Upper Town" district. Less famous but more reasonably-priced alternatives include the string of hotels and motels on the main roads into the city through District X to the west, as well as various charming bed and breakfast houses throughout the region.

 * Various national chains operate hotels near the freeway in District W which, while not notable individually, do meet a consistent and predictable national standard.

Connect
''Information on communications -- phone, Internet, other. Give information on cellular phone coverage in the city. If there are free or paid wireless Internet hotspots in the city, name them here. If there are a few convenient Internet cafés or other computer rental stores, name them here, but leave the detailed listings to the district pages.''

Stay safe
''This is a section for general safety tips. If there are health hazards or crime problems in the city, list them here.''

Cope
''This section is for all those little items that people need to know when they're in a city. What media provide local news and information? Where can you get a babysitter? Attend religious services? Anything that has to do with the practicalities of daily life should go here. ''

''Also include embassy listings here if applicable, but only fill out the name, address, phone, and url fields (to conserve space in long lists). This section contains individual listings for embassies, high commissions and consulates as these are not split into city districts. Embassies in all but name (such as Taiwan or mainland China representative offices) are also included.''

''Don't put something here when it could fit in one of the other sections. Don't list every minute thing a traveller might need or want, if they could easily find multiple options with a quick Internet search. If there's nothing to put in this section, leave it out.''

Embassies

 * Newfoundland

''In major capital cities the list of embassies (and High Commissions, if the city is in the Commonwealth) is a long one; this is also true of New York City as one of the two primary United Nations cities. In large cities outside the capital, this section will normally be titled ===Consulates===; in Commonwealth capitals like London, Ottawa or Canberra this will be titled ===Embassies and High Commissions===.''

Go next
''Information about nearby destinations that would serve as a good "next stop." Provide a brief description of other nearby destination suggestions, adjacent cities and towns or day-trip ideas. Don't duplicate the information in "Get in."''

title: Wikivoyage:Huge city article template


text: Wikivoyage:Hungarian Wikivoyage Expedition


text:
Wikivoyage:Illegal activities policy

In many destinations, travellers might encounter or become involved with illegal activities, either by chance or by choice. In order to be useful, Wikivoyage cannot pretend that such activities do not happen. Wikivoyage articles should mention activities that are illegal at the destination if such information is likely to be useful to travellers.

This policy is intended to be applied against the laws local to a destination, as well as ordinances and house rules at specific venues. From this follows that articles should not give advice for:
 * evasion of taxes, tariffs, transit fares, cover charges or other fees supported by law or consensual agreement
 * obtaining, transporting, providing or using alcohol, narcotics, medication, weapons, endangered species, or other substances or objects in violation of local law
 * obtaining or providing goods, currency or services on the black market
 * deception or evasion of police, immigration officers, or other officials
 * immigration, border crossing or trespassing against local laws

Illegal activities that travellers might encounter
If travellers are likely to encounter illegal activity by others, and knowing about this would be useful to them, information should be provided in the Understand or Stay safe section of the destination guide or in the section where it is appropriate (taxi scams might belong in "Get around", endangered animals illegally being sold for food in "Eat" and so on). Examples include: Essentially, information and warnings about illegal activity by others should be treated the same way as other destination information: supply it if it is likely to be useful to a traveller.
 * warnings about common scams which play on a traveller's ignorance of the local laws, and advice on how to avoid and confront them
 * warnings about areas where travellers are exposed to elevated risk of crime, such as pickpocketing, physical violence or reckless driving
 * warnings about areas where travellers might encounter the illegal drug trade, and other illicit business

Illegal activities in which travellers might participate
"I fought the law... and the law won."

- The Clash

Travellers may participate in illegal activities for several reasons: they may seek them out; or they may not be informed about local laws and practices. Wikivoyage articles should not ignore the possibility that travellers may want to do something illegal but on the other hand articles should not downplay the danger travellers are putting themselves in by participating in illegal activities. Examples of situations where a Wikivoyage article should discuss illegal activities include:

In this last case, Wikivoyage needs to tread a fine line about giving information. The test is that information should be provided for a traveller's safety, rather than solely to promote illegal activities. When writing about safety issues with illegal activities, Wikivoyage articles must always emphasize that that activity is a crime when mentioning safety issues. For example: "X activity, in addition to being illegal, is dangerous because of Y."
 * Where the destination imposes penalties that are unusually severe compared to those in many other countries. Examples: countries that impose long prison sentences or the death penalty for drug possession offenses; countries that use corporal punishment for minor offences.
 * Where the destination criminalizes behavior that is acceptable or legal in some other societies. Examples: the consumption of alcohol, carrying of knives or other objects, sex outside marriage, homosexuality, prostitution, free speech or media, or not adhering to local dress standards. For instance, the article on coca describes a substance prohibited in many countries.
 * Where the destination places any special restrictions on the activities of foreigners or on people who are members of certain groups (for example, women, racial minorities, or homosexuals), especially in the case where these differ radically from those in many other countries.
 * Where the destination restricts the visitor's interaction with the local economy. Examples: obligatory purchase of "foreign exchange certificates" and penalties for the use of foreign or regular currency; penalties for exchanging money in the black market
 * Where police or public corruption mean that the written law of the land differs substantially from the practice of law enforcement. For example, it might be useful to point out any particular phrases or signs that a traveller can use to figure out whether an official is asking for a bribe, together with information about whether the bribe is necessary or a scam.
 * Where the traveller's country of origin restricts its own citizens' freedom of movement for political reasons. For example, certain destinations might be illegal to visit for citizens of certain countries because of trade embargoes or military conflicts. It might be useful to point out what third-party countries can be used as routes to those banned destinations, how to obtain travel documents abroad, and how to escape detection at home.
 * Where the destination country may refuse entry, or punish a traveller, based on countries that they have previously visited, for political reasons. (See also: visa trouble)
 * When travellers might be tempted or deceived to commit location-specific crimes, such as the traditional vandalizing of the Gävle goat, climbing the pyramids of Giza, or sign theft at places with unusual names.
 * Where an illegal activity is an important or integral part of the reason people visit the destination, such as destinations famed for their drug supply. (For the specific case of sex tourism, see Sex tourism policy.)

Examples of emphasizing safety include:
 * Explaining the risks involved in exchanging money on the black market, but also explaining how to minimize the risk of being ripped off or arrested
 * Identifying areas where drugs are openly sold and, in areas where travellers frequently take illegal drugs, identifying safety issues with the drug supply. See Netherlands for an example.

Wikivoyage articles should avoid giving information about illegal activities that is useful only to those seeking it and which is not motivated by safety concerns, for example, giving information about the standard price and quality of illegal drugs or about the identities of specific dealers. For example: "heroin in this area, in addition to being illegal, is frequently cut with dangerous additives such as..." would be acceptable in a destination where travellers are likely to encounter the heroin trade, because it is focused on the safety of the supply. "Heroin in X destination is better than in Y destination" would not be acceptable, because it is not motivated by safety concerns.

title: Wikivoyage:Illegal activities policy


text:
Wikivoyage:Image resources

This page lists some Internet resources where travel-related images compatible with our copyleft can be found.

 * Wikimedia Commons of course.

 * Mav's images. (WT-en) Maveric149 says, "I have a couple hundred images of various national parks and other things in the western part of the United States. Anybody can use them under terms of either the GNU FDL or CC-Att/SA." (see dual licensing for more info on dual-licensed works)

 * PD Photo. Several thousand images, all in the public domain. Very nice quality, too.

 * OpenPhoto.net. A repository of more than 22,000 photographs available under the Creative Commons Attribution license. (This is compatible with our copyleft, as long as we copy over the attribution, too.)

 * Gimp-savvy.com. Public domain photographs from the US Government, arranged and catalogued by volunteers.

 * Buzznet has loads of stuff released under its default licence, which is the same as ours.

 * BurningWell - a repository for public domain images.

 * A minority of Flickr images are under a compatible licence; seek "Creative Commons-licensed content for commercial use, adaptation, modification or building upon" by selecting every one of the "Creative Commons" options on an advanced search. Bots to import these images to Commons include User:Flickr upload bot and User:File Upload Bot. Images with "non-commercial" or "no derivatives" conditions are not usable.

 * Free Image Search Tool

 * Geograph Great Britain and Ireland. Based on the Ordnance Survey National Grid, all photos are geotagged, so you can search for a specific location. All photos are licensed as CC-BY-SA. They can be uploaded using Geograph-to-Commons.

 * Geograph Germany

title: Wikivoyage:Image resources


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Wikivoyage:Information boxes

Often a Wikivoyage article will need to explain something about an attraction that doesn't quite fit into the usual one-paragraph-per-attraction format: typical examples include the history of a local attraction, a brief biography of a prominent local person, an overview of architectural history, and so on. For information like this, use an information box that will align itself to the right side of the page. They'll take up 50% of the page width and text should flow around them automatically.

Using infoboxes
Information boxes are created with the Infobox template. To use the template, just enter this:

Here title is the bolded headline and content is the actual content of the box. The content can include multiple paragraphs and any Wiki markup, just be sure to mark where it ends with }}.

Note that the template should be placed at the front of the article section, so the actual article content can flow around the box.

To change the alignment, just enter this:

Add the alignment after the  parameter, but by default, it will align to the right.

How not to use infoboxes
Try not to go overboard with infoboxes: we are not trying to replace Wikipedia here. As always, the infobox should aim to educate travellers with what they need to know, which probably does not include the primary school grades of Person X or the name of the associate vice president of marketing for Festival Y.

title: Wikivoyage:Information boxes


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Wikivoyage:Information for LGBT travel

 * This is a policy page. For actual travel information, see LGBT travel.

Some information about cities, countries, and regions will be specifically of interest to LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and other) people. This page describes where to put that information.

The term "LGBT" is by far the most commonly used term, more than similar or rearranged acronyms like "GLBT" or "LGBTQ", and has become the de facto standard in English media. Wikivoyage follows this common usage of "LGBT" for consistency, which has added benefits like improving searchability. Although "gay" can refer strictly to homosexual men, it's also sometimes used as an umbrella term (as in "gay pride parades") to include all members of the LGBT community.

Nothing in this policy precludes the creation of travel topics such as LGBT Stockholm or LGBT Toronto.

Why there's no "LGBT" section
The Wikivoyage article skeleton templates don't have a "Gay" or "LGBT" section for travel articles. This is by design. There are any number of different kinds of travelers who may have special needs – senior travelers, travelers with children, disabled travelers, etc. Having different sections for each would make the destination pages unnecessarily cluttered, and would probably cause some duplication of information.

Venue listings
In general, classifications for venue listings match those for any other mainstream business fulfilling the same roles – restaurants in "eat", bars in "drink", lodging in "sleep". The restrictions on what not to list are also the same for LGBT and non-LGBT venues.

LGBT bars and clubs
LGBT bars and dance clubs should be listed under the "Drink" section of a city page, just like any other bar. In the bar's description, specify whether it's a gay, lesbian, or other type of bar. (In common usage, a place described as a "gay bar" usually welcomes all LGBT people; if it's only for men, specify that it's "all male" or "exclusively for men".) If there are general notes about LGBT-oriented bars in the city, they should be included in a paragraph at the start of the "Drink" section.

A few LGBT-owned restaurants market their fare to the gay and lesbian community or attract a mixed clientèle; list these in "Eat" with the other restaurants.

LGBT-friendly hotels and lodging
Some hotels are LGBT-friendly and actively seek LGBT clientèle. Various independent bed and breakfast establishments locate in LGBT-friendly neighbourhoods, are operated by longterm same-sex couples or pride themselves on welcoming LGBT travellers. This lodging should be listed with the others in the "Sleep" section, noting in the description that the hotel is LGBT-friendly.

LGBT events
List LGBT events, like pride parades, along with other events in the "Do" section of a city page.

LGBT neighborhoods
If there are neighborhoods in a city with a significant LGBT population or culture, these should be noted in the "Understand" section of the city page. If the city is a huge city, and the neighborhood is one of the districts in that city, put information about LGBT culture in the "Understand" section for that district.

LGBT media
Most large Western cities have an alternative weekly or monthly publication which accepts advertising from LGBT venues and provides news of interest to the LGBT community. As with other newspapers and media, these are listed in "Cope".

Safety
It's a sad fact that LGBT people are sometimes specifically targeted for violence or other crimes. If there are specific safety issues for LGBT people, add a paragraph about them in the "Stay safe" section for the city.

If there's a culture-wide discrimination against LGBT people (de facto or de jure), it would probably make sense to include that information in the "Stay safe" section of the corresponding country and/or region page.

Cultural differences
Include information about tolerance or intolerance of LGBT people in the "Understand" section of the country or region page.

Some information on specific dress or behavior may have a place in the "Respect" section, but it's a fine line. Adding LGBT info in the "Respect" section has the subtle connotation of: "Respect your hosts; don't be LGBT!" So, use "Respect" to note behaviors rather than who the traveler is.

title: Wikivoyage:Information for LGBT travel


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Wikivoyage:Inter-language links

The MediaWiki software we use for Wikivoyage has features for making links between articles in the different language versions of Wikivoyage. These are called inter-language links.

Making inter-language links
Wikivoyage now uses Wikidata to make links between articles that cover the same subject in different languages. For more information, see w:en:Wikipedia:Wikidata.

It is possible to create a sidebar link to another Wikivoyage language by using the two-letter language prefix, ie: Hauptseite. This is deprecated, but may be useful for pages which don't have a Wikidata record (such as user: pages) or which don't have a 1:1 correspondence with Wikivoyage articles. Only one such link per language may be placed on a page; the use of the link from Wikivoyage is no longer supported.

Inline links
You can link to a page on a different subject using this syntax:

 * language code:article title

Note the colon (":") at the beginning of the link. This makes the link appear in-line in the article text.

Inline links to other Wikivoyage language versions are rarely helpful to travellers, and should be avoided for destination guides and other articles in the main namespace. However, they can be useful for talk pages or other places we discuss how to make the guide. Translation efforts (and associated templates like translate translated AttributionAlt) do need to link to the original-language Wikivoyage edition from which text is to be translated.

title: Wikivoyage:Inter-language links


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Wikivoyage:Internal links

One of the most important features of a wiki is the network of links connecting every page on the site. Links to other Wikivoyage pages are called "internal links" (as opposed to external links that send the reader away from our site). A robust network of internal links is critical to our readers' navigation of the site, not to mention the boost it gives to our pages' rankings in search engines. Use a link anytime you think the linked article would be relevant and useful for readers.

Don't overlink
It's important that we don't overlink. Avoid adding unnecessary links to potential articles that don't fit with our goals and that won't have travel content. Wikivoyage has specific goals, and content that doesn't have much to do with travel is probably never going to have an article in Wikivoyage. Even if there is an article on a common term, such as taxicabs, think carefully about why a reader would use the link before adding the square brackets.

You also don't need to link an article every time it's mentioned in the text. For most travel topics, linking just once per article is sufficient, unless the references are widely separated in the text. For placenames (that is, places that have or could have Wikivoyage articles), you should always link them the first time they appear in the article, and link again if it's been a while since the last link (usually no more than once per major section, max). An exception applies for lists of places (including navigational elements like Template:Routebox and Template:Regionlist), where you should be consistent; do re-link a place if its neighbors are all linked too, to avoid a patchy visual effect.

How to create an internal link
A link is added by putting double brackets around the linked item examplepage. It's often desirable to link to a more specific section rather than a whole article. For example, "... unlike the situation for Russian visas, where citizens of some countries are exempt from the normal requirements". Note here that a pipe has been used to work the item into the sentence more smoothly: Russian visas was typed in to display Russian visas, but clicking on the link will still take the reader to the Visa section in the article on Russia.

You can also link to specific sections within the current article, but do this only sparingly. Example: "Check out Hooters in the section".

For related pages that don't really work into the text, use a "See also" at the bottom of the appropriate section of the page:

See also: Disabled travellers, Yosemite National Park

If the page isn't broken into sections, simply put the "See also:" at the bottom of the page itself. "See also:" should be the last thing on the page, but before the routebox template, if any.

You can also add the related template to the bottom of the page which will show the link in a "related pages" block in the navigation bar on the left.

Links to listings
You can link to listings either by their name (as given in the name parameter) or by their Wikidata code (the "Q" and number given in the listing's wikidata parameter). For example, both of these link to the Eiffel Tower listing:

 *  Eiffel Tower  → Eiffel Tower.
 *  Eiffel Tower  → Eiffel Tower.

The advantage of the former is that the intended link target is obvious, and that you don't need to look up the code, the advantage of the latter that a change to the listing name won't break the link (somebody might change "La Tour Eiffel" into "Eiffel Tower".

Shortcuts
Shortcuts have been created to commonly used policy pages to make easier to cite policies in discussions and comment lines, for example, you can type wv:bold or wv:italic instead of Creating emphasis. (A partial list is found at Shortcuts.) To make it easier for new readers to understand the discussions, shortcuts should use words instead of acronyms, e.g., for Avoid long lists, wv:lists is more understandable than "WV:ALL".

To avoid creating deadlinks in old discussions, acronym-based shortcuts created before 2023 haven't been deleted, but:
 * 1) new acronym-based shortcuts should not be created,
 * 2) users are encouraged to stop using the acronym shortcuts, and
 * 3) acronym-based shortcuts should be removed from policy pages to discourage their further use, and replaced by word-based shortcuts if needed.

Other namespaces
Do not link to articles in other namespaces (Wikivoyage:, User:, Talk:) from the main namespace. It's totally OK to link from those namespaces to each other or to the main namespace, but not vice versa. An exception is for editorial or procedural text like Article status messages ("Stub", "Outline", etc.) In these cases, the links should be hidden inside templates.

title: Wikivoyage:Internal links


text: Wikivoyage:IP address

title: Wikivoyage:IP address


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Wikivoyage:IRC channel

Wikivoyagers can sometimes be found conducting real-time conversation on the various semi-public off-wiki Internet Relay Chat (or IRC) channels hosted by the Libera Foundation. The conversations are conducted through real-time feeds, like MSN's Instant Messenger, Skype, or Facebook chat, and they're quite lively and informal. They're also often the fastest way to contact other contributors. However, most IRC conversations are not logged or archived as public conversation, so if you want to make formal announcements or proposals to the community, or have anything written publicly recorded, consider doing so on the wiki instead so that others can more easily follow the discussion.

Connect to irc://irc.libera.chat via your IRC client and /join one or more of the channels listed below. Wikipedia has a large comparison of IRC clients assembled into a list. For example, Firefox web browser users can install the ChatZilla client as an add-on. Opera web browser users can simply click on the IRC client already integrated into their browser. For those of you who do not have an IRC client installed or preconfigured, or who want to remain behind a proxy or for any other reason at all, you can use this free webchat client page, which is accessible from any browser. If you don't already have one, consider registering a Libera nickname. It's quick and easy, and it simply reserves your chosen nickname so that others are prevented from using it.

For more information on IRC, see Wikipedia's article on IRC, and IRC for information on IRC channels affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation. There is also a list of IRC commands on Wikipedia and IRC instructions on Meta that may be helpful for new IRC users.

Guidelines
Just some guidelines to help you out:
 * On IRC, you must allow people a degree of anonymity online.
 * These channels are for discussion related to constructive work on the Wikivoyage website.
 * There may be social chit-chat, but it is social chit-chat amongst people who are known on the site.
 * If you abuse the channels in any way you may be kicked or banned by one of the channel operators.

Channels
The main general-purpose channels relevant and related to English Wikivoyage are:
 * Main, interlingual general Wikivoyage related chat channel.
 * Main, interlingual general Wikivoyage related chat channel.

 * Other Wikimedians in the overarching Wikimedia movement.
 * Other Wikimedians in the overarching Wikimedia movement.

 * and
 * Technical discussion about the MediaWiki software, the underlying software that runs Wikivoyage. See MediaWiki.org for more details.

title: Wikivoyage:IRC channel


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Wikivoyage:Italian Wikivoyage Expedition

The Italian Wikivoyage Expedition is an expedition to create an Italian-language version of Wikivoyage, per the Project:Language version policy.

Rationale
Italian is spoken by more than 70 million people worldwide -- mostly in Italy and Switzerland.

An Italian-language Wikivoyage would serve Italian-speakers by providing travel guides in their native language. In addition, native Italian speakers could provide travel information about destinations in Italy and elsewhere that could be translated to other languages.

Goals
This Expedition has the following goals:

 * To collect a good base of Italian-speaking users willing to take this project further.
 * To choose a go-between who can keep users on the English-language site up-to-date on developments on Italian Wikivoyage, and vice-versa
 * To translate the interface files for Wikivoyage into Italian
 * To launch the new Italian-language Wikivoyage.
 * To translate help, policy, and navigation pages and create the infrastructure necessary to make Italian Wikivoyage useful and friendly for new Italian-speaking contributors.
 * To make Italian Wikivoyage an integrated part of the Wikivoyage family.

Steps
The Language version policy lists the steps necessary to get a Italian-language Wikivoyage in place.

Gathering a team of users
To get this project started, we need at least 5 Italian-speaking users willing to help start the Italian Wikivoyage. This means helping to translate the interface files, create content on the new Wikivoyage, and to create the necessary infrastructure to make Wikivoyage welcoming and useful for the next wave of contributors.

If you're interested, please create a user account on this (English) Wikivoyage, and sign the list below. To sign, edit this page and just type ~ 4 times, like "~".

More than 5 users are welcome to sign up, but we need at least 5 to get started.
 * Sabine Cretella (s.cretella@wordsandmore.it)
 * Benedetto Colicci (WT-en) Logan 19:55, 18 Nov 2004 (EST)
 * Agostino64 (WT-en) Agostino
 * (WT-en) Thom 08:58, 6 Jun 2005 (EDT)
 * (WT-en) Guaka 15:58, 21 Jun 2005 (EDT)
 * Maed (WT-en) Maed
 * (WT-en) Pz-engl I would like to write articles in italian. (WT-en) Pz-engl 11:03, 20 Oct 2005 (EDT)
 * Mimmo46 (WT-en) mimmo46
 * (WT-en) Dennis 13:51, 20 Jan 2006 (EST)
 * (WT-en) Simone 03:32, 24 Jan 2006 (EST)
 * (WT-en) enzomartinelli 80.1.224.13 18:21, 22 April 2006 (EDT)
 * (WT-en) Broc 12:58, 9 May 2006 (EDT)
 * (WT-en) Stefano 17:31, 13 May 2006 (EDT) I am in that too/Contate anche me
 * (WT-en) Ub - contact me here --83.31.104.38 13:32, 30 May 2006 (EDT)

Go-between
Part of the process of having a language version is having a single person responsible for reporting on issues in the larger Wikivoyage community to the Italian language version, and reporting on issues in the Italian language version to the larger community.

The go-between should be conversant in English and Italian, experienced with Wikivoyage in other languages, and willing to make monthly reports and be an active participant in the Italian Wikivoyage community.

Previous language versions have picked a go-between by voting. See Project:Romanian Wikivoyage Expedition and Project:French Wikivoyage Expedition for details.

Choosing a go-between
In order to make a successful, integrated Italian Wikivoyage, we need to choose one of the five users who put their names down, and make them a go-between. The role of the go-between will be to act as a liaison between English and Italian Wikipedia, and therefore, he must be able to:

 * Write English and Italian well
 * Understand Wikivoyage ideals, guidelines, goals and policies
 * Make monthly reports about Italian Wikivoyage to English Wikivoyage
 * Make monthly reports about English Wikivoyage to Italian Wikivoyage
 * Contribute actively in Italian Wikivoyage

The go-between will be chosen by voting

The five candidates for go-between are the users listed below. If you would like to vote one of these people, please put your username next to their name, in the Votes for section. If you would like to make a vote against someone, please write your username next to their name in the Votes against line and then a reason for this. To win, a go-between must have two votes for them, and no votes against them. Only people who nominated themselves under the "Gathering a team" section can vote. And remember, you cannot vote for yourself.

Pick a user who you would like to see as go-between:

 * Vote for User:(WT-en) SabineCretella
 * Votes for: (WT-en) Broc, (WT-en) DaniloP (WT-en) Ub
 * Votes against:

 * Vote for User:(WT-en) Logan
 * Votes for:
 * Votes against:

 * Vote for User:(WT-en) Broc
 * Votes for:
 * Votes against:

 * Vote for User:(WT-en) DaniloP
 * Votes for: (WT-en) gil_elendil (if you look in history I voted when not logged in, but it is a genuine vote...)
 * Votes against:

 * Vote for User:(WT-en) Mimmo46
 * Votes for:
 * Votes against:

 * Vote for User:(WT-en) Simone
 * Votes for:
 * Votes against: (WT-en) Simone 17:27, 17 May 2006 (EDT) not enough time to spend on the project

 * Vote for User:(WT-en) Maed
 * Votes for:
 * Votes against:

 * Vote for User:(WT-en) Pz-engl
 * Votes for:
 * Votes against:

 * Vote for User:(WT-en) Guaka
 * Votes for:
 * Votes against:

 * Vote for User:(WT-en) Thom
 * Votes for:
 * Votes against:

 * Vote for User:(WT-en) Enzomartinelli
 * Votes for:
 * Votes against: (WT-en) Broc

 * Vote for User:(WT-en) Agostino64
 * Votes for:
 * Votes against:

Language interface file
MediaWiki, the software that runs Wikivoyage, uses a language interface file to make the links and names and prompts and stuff readable in other languages. We need to customize a new version to work for Italian Wikivoyage.

We can collaboratively do this at Project:LanguageIt.php. It's started off with the Wikipedia language file, and we can use the English Project:Language.php file as a reference for things that need to be changed. It's mostly just changing the name of the site (Wikipedia -> Wikivoyage), the name of the license, and the names of some important pages.


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Wikivoyage:Itineraries

An itinerary is a guide for traveling along a specific route through several destinations or attractions, giving suggestions of where to stop, what to see, how to prepare, etc. If you think of our destination guides as dots on a map, an itinerary describes a line that connects those dots.

Valid itinerary article subjects
An itinerary article should be a guide for travel along a specific route and not merely a suggested sightseeing schedule. Examples of good itinerary subjects are Hajj (a traditional pilgrimage route), London South Bank Walk (a city walk), Ad's Path (a hiking trail), or The Wire Tour (a guide for visiting filming locations for a television show). Invalid itinerary topics would include "One week in Sydney" or "Best of Bhutan"; information that would be included in such itineraries should instead be added to the appropriate city or region articles.

Two questions that can help determine whether or not a subject is a good candidate for an itinerary article are the following:

 * 1) Is the itinerary article about a specific route?  Voyagers can agree on what content would be included in an article such as Appalachian Trail, but it is completely subjective what should be included in vague conceptions such as "Ten days in Slovakia" or "Cultural tour of West Africa".
 * 2) Should the content in the itinerary article be covered elsewhere on Wikivoyage?  An article such as "Visiting Cairo's museums" would probably just duplicate content that should instead be placed in the main Cairo articles.

In general, if there is any question whether a subject is a good itinerary topic or not, start out by first including the information in the appropriate city or region article(s), and ask in the Pub whether a separate itinerary article makes sense.

For any type of itinerary, a map is very, very useful for planning and visualizing. A dynamic map may be generated from a list of GeoJSON co-ordinates, as was done with Trans-Siberian Railway, Bertha Benz Memorial Route and the Oregon Trail. Another option is to draw a static map, which is time-consuming but provides finer control.

Itinerary article titles
The following are some guidelines for naming itinerary articles:

 * Use the traditional or legal name for a route if one exists. For example, the Annapurna Circuit, Route 66, Trans-Canada Highway.
 * Articles on historical routes can use titles like On the trail of Marco Polo, but where the route has a name, such as Lewis and Clark Trail, use that instead.
 * Where a route goes from a well-known destination to a less-known one, put the well-known one first, for example Hong Kong to Kunming overland.

The closer article titles come to these guidelines, the more likely readers and contributors will recognize them as itineraries.

"Personal" itineraries
In the past Wikivoyage permitted the creation of itinerary articles that were not about a specific route such as "Two months in Europe by rail" or "One day in Tokyo", but this practice is now deprecated for several reasons:

 * "Personal" itineraries encourage creation of arbitrary articles that aren't collaborative. While everyone can agree on what should go in an itinerary article like Alaska Highway, a "One day in Tokyo" article is personalized to the taste of the author (not our diverse readership), thus defeating a primary advantage of Wiki.
 * "Personal" itineraries often just duplicate content that should be in the main destination article. There is nothing that would be placed in the "A Long Weekend in Bangkok" article that should not be in the existing Bangkok articles.
 * There are an infinite combination of "personal" itinerary articles, making it difficult for readers to know where to find information. "A Weekend in Sydney" might be a good article, but the same could be said about "An afternoon in Sydney, "Two weeks in Sydney", "A month in Sydney", or even "Another Weekend in Sydney!"

In order to keep itineraries actually useful to travellers, "personal" itineraries are now usually tagged for merging to the appropriate city or region destination article. We do keep itineraries without a recognised route in some cases, but they have to reach a level of completeness and quality to avoid being deleted or redirected. Mostly such itineraries instead have a specific theme, such as Historic Churches of Buffalo's East Side.

"One year" deletion rule
Since just about any topic can be an itinerary, itineraries must either be actively worked on or achieve some level of completion to be kept; sufficiently famous, marked routes such as Alaska Highway or Annapurna Circuit are exempt from this rule. As such, itineraries that have been at outline status or less for one year without being substantially edited are subject to deletion via the votes for deletion process.

Creating an itinerary
To create an itinerary, use the search box or create a redlink to it, and follow the redlink. Choose "Itinerary" among the black links above the edit window, to pre-fill the page with the standard section headers. Open Itinerary article template in another window to see what should go into the sections (you could also use that page to paste the outline into your edit window, with or without the instructions).

The route description is the main part of the itinerary. What it looks like varies considerably. It must be complete enough for readers to follow it, but how much to write on the environment and sights on the way depends on the nature of the itinerary. Things told in the destination articles of places the itinerary goes through mostly do not have to be repeated: when you suggest overnighting in a certain city, you don't need to list hotels – if a specific hotel suits your theme, by all means mention it, but contact details can still be left to the city article.

If you would like to get a map line on the itinerary, use the tutorial on WV:Lines.

Links
Itineraries are usually listed in a separate Itineraries sub-section of See in the relevant region or destination article and, for long itineraries like Trans-Canada Highway, as a Go next item for articles about cities (or parks) that are stops on the way.

Additionally itineraries are listed on the Itineraries page (or on a relevant subpage).

title: Wikivoyage:Itineraries