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Wikivoyage talk:Language version policy

This policy is still a work in progress. Fixes, clarifications, or modifications are especially welcome. --(WT-en) Evan 13:05, 19 Dec 2003 (PST)

What's special about English? I think the rule about go-betweens should be: For every two languages, there should be a go-between between them, or a third language which has a go-between to each of them.

 * Well, the main reason English is special is that there's already an English Wikivoyage.

 * Once there's a French Wikivoyage, and an Arabic Wikivoyage, what if some Wikivoyagers want to start a Berber Wikivoyage? They might find a go-between to French and Arabic, but none to English. -(WT-en) phma

 * OK, so, that makes some sense. I think the main point here is that we'd like to make sure someone who groks our goals, policy and style is carrying that over to the language version, and vice versa. When French or Arabic Wikivoyage is well-established, it'd make sense to allow go-betweens to go-between to those communities, too. Probably in the future when we have a formal organization, the real reporting will be to the non-profit that's running Wikivoyage. --(WT-en) Evan 14:47, 21 Dec 2003 (PST)

We'll need phrasebooks for the other languages. Inverting a phrasebook is trivial, except for the pronunciation. Writing English pronunciation in French is as difficult as the reverse. Here's a 3-D minimal set: sin, thin, tin, seen, teen, sing, thing. Can you write their sounds in French, or any language other than English, so that they are all distinct?

 * No. I can't! I can't I can't I can't! I am completely helpless in the face of this daunting task. Don't even ask me how to do pseudo-phonetic pronunciation guides for Cantonese, because I will be at a 100% loss.

 * I can'tonese either :) Try Bopomofo. I could do one in Greek, but it wouldn't be as elegant as the Greek pronunciation guide in English will be once UTF-8 is up. -(WT-en) phma 17:55, 19 Dec 2003 (PST)

Also someone will have to translate additions to one language into others. That way, if a Pelonian visits Bertcad and writes about the zoo, the Almonians will know about the zoo, too. -(WT-en) phma 16:08, 19 Dec 2003 (PST)

 * Yes. I think that'd be more of a decentralized task, though. --(WT-en) Evan 16:50, 19 Dec 2003 (PST)

Romanian Wikivoyage Expedition
As Romanian is the most advanced in progress of becoming a foreign-language Wikipedia, there is already a Project:Romanian Wikivoyage Expedition. Hope to see more languages soon! (WT-en) Ronline 04:18, 20 Dec 2003 (PST)

Language
Moved from travellers' pub by (WT-en) Evan

Perchè falar immer american ????

 * As far as I can tell, this is written in 3-4 languages (Italian, Portuguese, German and English?) and kinda means "Why speak in American?"

 * There's two answers to that: one is that we started as an English-language travel guide, and we're targeted to English-speaking travellers. We've talked about setting up different international guides -- the Romanian Wikivoyage has gone the farthest, but still isn't operating -- and I think it's a good solution.

 * Second, for why we specifically use American English, see Spelling. --(WT-en) Evan 14:23, 12 Dec 2003 (PST)

 * So, I've started a page on how we can have multiple language versions of Wikivoyage. It's at Language version policy. It'd help if people take a look, make sure that it's fair, and change anything that should be changed. --(WT-en) Evan 12:44, 19 Dec 2003 (PST)

 * Frankly, I am not comfortable with this privilege given to English... Quite unreasonable if you want to make it international project (of course, quite reasonable if you mean to creat a English-mainly project with other langauges as subordinate). I am willing to see a wikivoyage in Chinese anyway. I am not against English being the privilege version, I myself work on English wikipedia too, but I think we should at least give the equal status to all of the languages (at least on the surface), the wording in this policy sounds quite overbearing. (Just like, it's okay if you are black, but you have to first do some makeup to make yourself whiter :P) BTW, is this the sister project of Wikipedia? ;)  --(WT-en) yacht(Talk)China 18:09, 31 Dec 2003 (PST)

 * No, we're not a part of Wikimedia, but we're friendly with Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.

 * I don't think there's any hostility to anyone starting a travel Wiki in another language; personally, I think it's a great idea, and I think there's opportunities for partnership.

 * But if someone wants to use the Wikivoyage name, Wikivoyage servers, and Wikivoyage sysadmin labor, I think it's pretty fair to expect that they share most or all of our principles, goals and values.

 * The real requirements here are: we don't want dead Wikivoyages, and we want to be at least somewhat interconnected. Is that really so overbearing? --(WT-en) Evan 18:29, 31 Dec 2003 (PST)

 * Sorry, I don't want to be offensive, I apology for it if there is any. I am not a native English speaker (maybe "overbearing" is inappropriate). It just reminds me again that English is a privilege language in the world, just like what I have to do now. I never said there's any hostility to anyone starting a travel Wiki in another language, I just said I am not comfortable with .... We have no choice but to use English to discuss the whole policy of Wikivoyage, which makes non-English speakers a little sensitive over this language issue. I am just oversensitive. :( I totally agree with what you said.

 * About this "What if there are copyright violations or other illegal content? What if the guide's goals evolve to something much different than ours? How will we know?", I don't think that's a big problem, 'cause we can just do what wikipedia is doing now to make sure there is no copy violation. Sysops of native language speakers will help to watch the articles in that language. Wikipedia hasn't experienced serious copyright problem, has it? --(WT-en) yacht(Talk)China 20:04, 31 Dec 2003 (PST)

Possibility for content from other languages
I do a pretty fair job of reading and translating from the following languages to English (though not the other way around); is there some way I can make myself available to people who could contribute far more easily in one of these languages than in English, and I could translate to English?

 * Spanish - close to fluent
 * Romanian - read well, but not a fluent writer
 * French - read decently, although with some limitations
 * Catalan - read decently, although with some limitations
 * Italian - read decently, although with some limitations
 * German - read decently with the aid of a dictionary

I suspect I'm not the only one who could do this. Even if we are still using only English and Romanian as full-fledged projects, why not line up a few other translators and accept content in other languages for the specific purpose of translation into English (and Romanian)?

206.124.153.89 01:01, 3 Jan 2004 (EST)

Content for the first month
So, I'm concerned that the requirements for the first month are kind of demanding. I'd like to hear what people working on the Romanian Wikivoyage think about them. Would 2 months be more reasonable? I still think that getting a Wikivoyage ready for contributions is the most important first task. Is that fair? --(WT-en) Evan 15:48, 9 Jan 2004 (EST)

 * Looking at Romanian Wikivoyage's progress until now, I think the one-month deadline is pretty fair and generous - I mean, surely if a team of contributors is committed then they will be able to translate all of the Wikivoyage namespace articles (help, etc) and the front page, and write at least about 100 articles, as well as make go-between contributions and whatever else is in the Language version policy. However, I think making this a rigid part of the policy is not all that good, as it does discourage people from forming multilingual versions of Wikivoyage. I think that the requirements are not too demanding (at Romanian Wikivoyage we will meet them probably ahead of time), but they shouldn't be something that every Wikivoyage must abide by.

 * I see that there's been a proposal for German and French Wikivoyages, and they would be great, but the progress is somewhat stagnant - and I think the problem mainly lies in the five contributors rule. At Romanian Wikivoyage, we've had 5 contributors sign-up, of which two seemed to drop-out when the project started. After that, we had one more user come from Wikipedia to do some light editing. It's really only been me and User:(WT-en) Danutz as well as User:(WT-en) Jmabel who've done the bulk of the articles, yet there's still been some good progress (we have two phrasebooks, nearly 70 articles, etc). So, I think as long as we have 2-3 or even 1 committed contributor to a language version, the version should be launched - it's more important, for example, to have 1 user who is very committed and who contributes heaps to the Wikivoyage in English (and, judging by this, could basically conduct a multilingual version of Wikivoyage by himself in its formative stages) than have 5 users which are just light editors.

 * In final, Romanian Wikivoyage, just like Romanian Wikipedia, has had great success, so the rules aren't too tough to meet, but maybe they just are a little too rigid (again, they haven't been a problem for us, but they could potentially be a problem for other Wikivoyagers seeking to form language versions). Cheers, (WT-en) Ronline 03:04, 10 Jan 2004 (EST)

 * Well, I've been looking over the Romanian version, and I have to say I'm worried about the help, style, and about pages. There are some done, but most don't yet exist. And we hit the one month date in a couple of days. --(WT-en) Evan 18:10, 25 Jan 2004 (EST)

 * Yes, I understand your point. I've realised too that the main Wikivoyage: namespace articles are not there yet. The very important ones are done (like creating a user account, making a new page, etc), but the rest aren't. On the other hand, the Romanian Wikivoyage does have some valuable articles. So, I'll try as hard as possible to translate these help articles - it's just that they're hard to do because they have to be translated very precisely or otherwise the meaning will differ (whereas with travel articles, you can be a bit more liberal on structure and meaning). (WT-en) Ronline 19:58, 25 Jan 2004 (EST)

 * Don't kill yourself overdoing it. The main thing is that the help, about, & style pages are the main ways to make sure that readers can become constructive contributors. I'm glad you're working on them, though. --(WT-en) Evan 22:13, 25 Jan 2004 (EST)

Different names for different language versions
So, there's a discussion going on on the nascent Wikivoyage francophone about using a different name for that language version. The idea generally being that "Wikivoyage" would be more understandable and recognizable for French speakers than "Wikivoyage".

This is a pretty powerful argument, and it makes a lot of sense to me. However, before going forward, I wanted to make some devil's advocate arguments against it.

 * One of the key benefits of having language versions of Wikivoyage is that we get strong "brand recognition" from people in other language communities. If all the language versions are called "Wikivoyage", we get a lot more recognition than if they're called different things. "Wikivoyage? Yeah, I've heard of that. Oh, there's a Japanese version? Neat!" The more established language versions lend some of their reputation to ones people haven't heard of.
 * Most of our language version policy is about pulling the different language versions together as close as possible -- hopefully closer than the different language versions of Wikipedia.
 * Web site names don't really have to make sense. Like, I'm sure "Yahoo!" and "Google" don't mean anything in French or Chinese, but people understand what they represent.
 * The domain name is "wikivoyage.org", so it kind of makes some sense to call the sites hosted there "Wikivoyage".
 * When and if we decide to do trademark registration, it'll be easier (and cheaper!) to get an international trademark on one word rather than 100.

That said, I kind of support the idea of "Wikivoyage". However, I wonder if there'd be a way to get the best of both worlds by including Wikivoyage in the subtitle. Like, maybe, "Wikivoyage, le Wikivoyage francophone". --(WT-en) Evan 14:12, 12 Feb 2004 (EST)

 * Personally, Wikivoyage suits me, but as I am fluent in English, I am biaised. (WT-en) Yann 15:06, 12 Feb 2004 (EST)

 * It would be a big mistake calling the French Wikivoyage "Wikivoyage". The domain name is www.wikivoyage.org, that's how people know it, and Wikivoyage in French is simply a French language version of the Wikivoyage - it is not a separate travel guide. By making it Wikivoyage, it would seem like a separate travel guide and would need a separate domain name. It would be very confusing, since Wikivoyage also means something in English. Really, I'm taking this seriously because it would be bad for it to go on - even Wikivoyage, le Wikivoyage francophone would not be too good. Why can't we stick with "Wikivoyage en français" - then we would have "Wikivoyage în română", "Wikivoyage Eesti", "Wikivoyage Latviesu", etc. Anyway, if you guys want to change it to Wikivoyage it's fine, but it is a very big move and we need to consider the consequences. (WT-en) Ronline 00:43, 13 Feb 2004 (EST)

"Wiki(something)" in another language
So, it came up before, but I'd like to discuss again the possibility of using another name for Wikivoyage language versions. For example, the idea of using "Wikivoyage" for fr: was floated.

The upside is that the idea (wiki + travel) gets across quickly to native speakers. The downside is that there's less cohesion between language versions.

I'm leaning towards something like "Wikivoyage -- le Wikivoyage francophone" or something along those lines. I think that it'd be appropriate for ro:, too, but I don't know the word for "travel" in Romanian.

We can start out with just changing the names at first, and look into registering the domains afterwards.

Any big feelings on this? --(WT-en) Evan 02:53, 21 May 2004 (EDT)

 * In the case of Romanian, I think we should stick with Wikivoyage. Romania is an increasingly English-knowing country and one where English is common... in music, in products, in neologisms, etc. Therefore, I think people would understand Wikivoyage and it isn't really worth changing to a Romanian name due to domain-name and all the other issues. Just by the way, the name would be Wikicălătorie in Romanian or perhaps Wikiturism. "Travel" is "călătorie" or "călătorii" in the plural. I think that "Wikiturism" (Wikitourism) is more understandable in the Romanian context, as Wikicălătorie sounds strange and would probably be more ambiguous in Romanian rather than less! I used to be quite against such changes (even in French, for example), but, thinking more about it, it could potentially be a beneficial change. I mean, yes, it would mean extra problems with registering and domain names, but it could form a better, more localized image for Wikivoyage. "Wikiturism" would actually be quite nice in Romanian, and it's understandable in English too, so it wouldn't be too "painful" a change. What do others think? (WT-en) Ronline 10:21, 21 May 2004 (EDT)

 * In some languages it makes a lot of sense to use another word. Especially if English is not so widespread in these language communities. If people don't understand the name it will be hard for them to find it. In some languages the word "travel" might also contain unfamiliar sounds (like r or v), which makes it a word that doesn't spread very fast! So, let it depend on the community, and of course, on the site itself it should be clear that Wiki-whatever-word-is-chosen-instead-of-travel is part of the bigger Wikivoyage project. :) (WT-en) Guaka 15:39, 15 Dec 2005 (EST)

Administrator privileges
So, up until now, it's kind of been an unstated rule that the go-between for a new language version would become an administrator on that wiki. In addition, on fr:, there was a nomination and election and one of the group was chosen to do administrative stuff. I've been the only person making admins so far, since up until version 1.3.x of Mediawiki, you needed direct access to the database to do it.

On starting the sv: Wikivoyage, I made the new User:(WT-en) Alers an admin just to get things started. Strangely, after that, I got requests from another user for me to make him an admin, and a request from User:(WT-en) Alers to give him bureaucrat status -- the ability to make new admins. This struck me as strange, since none of the other Wikivoyage language versions have someone who can make new admins. I have no problem making new admins, and hopefully I've been responsive in doing it. And, y'know, being an admin just isn't that big a deal on Wikivoyage. We have so few, and those people who are admins just don't do that much (except delete stuff that's on v.f.d.).

Here's my feeling on the matter: the Wikimedia culture really leans on admins much more than we do. Consequently, there's a lot of features in our software that only admins can use (blocking users, protecting pages, deleting pages). I would like admins to know how seldom we use those features before they become admins. Otherwise, they're just going to see the buttons that say "delete", "block", "protect", and figure it's OK to use them.

For this reason, I'd like to hold onto the "bureaucrat" bit until a Wikivoyage language version is relatively mature. What's the general opinion on this? Am I being too paranoid? --(WT-en) Evan 21:16, 9 Oct 2004 (EDT)

 * I think having a couple of admins six hours apart (so that when one is at work or asleep the other is available) is good. There is no need to have instant admin creation; the only time admin creation would be delayed too long is when you are on a trip and can't get to a computer for a few days. -(WT-en) phma 23:42, 9 Oct 2004 (EDT)

Inactive version policy
While French and German are steaming along nicely, the Romanian Wikivoyage hasn't had a new article in half a year and the Swedish one is pretty much stillborn. According to the policy, an "inactive" version is supposed to be shut down, but "inactive" isn't defined... and neither is the rationale. Is there one? Sure, a 40-page wiki isn't terribly useful, but it doesn't do much harm either and is much easier to get going again than an archive mothballed on Evan's server somewhere. (WT-en) Jpatokal 08:45, 22 Mar 2005 (EST)

 * Bump — Evan, not sure you saw this earlier... (WT-en) Jpatokal 21:41, 29 Mar 2005 (EST)

 * I didn't. The section "Problems with multiple languages" describes some of the problems with unmaintained, non-English sites. The inactive version policy is there because security of a wiki Web site depends on having an active community. If there's no active community, we have a big security hole. Not only that, but we've got our "brand" over a dead, ugly, static site. It's better to have it gone than to have it suck.

 * We have yet to inactivate a site, but it's going to happen soon. I've notified the go-betweens for ro: and sv:. It's time to get these moving or get them taken off. --(WT-en) Evan 10:40, 30 Mar 2005 (EST)

 * Security hole...? I can understand taking away unused admin rights, but I still don't understand why we need to shut down (as in take offline) a version just because it's not growing at the moment.  If a wiki is dormant, all it takes is for somebody to stumble on it and take an interest, and boom, it can take off again.  If you're worried about vandalism or whatever it's easy enough to take a peek at the Recent changes every week or so.  (WT-en) Jpatokal 11:39, 30 Mar 2005 (EST)

 * Perhaps you haven't read anything about SoftSecurity. You should. Security == community in the wiki world.

 * You seem to be under the mistaken belief that each language version is a Web site. It's not; it's a project to create a world-wide travel guide in that language. As such, it requires an active community. The wiki is a means to that end. If the community is dissipated, there's no point in keeping the tools of the project around.

 * People don't stumble into dormant wikis and start them up again. Dormant wikis stay dormant; nobody participates in a community that doesn't exist. I think there's ample evidence of this in Wikimedia sites and elsewhere.

 * And, yes, there are security considerations: if there are any bugs in the software, they can be abused before anyone with an interest in the site sees them. Also vandalism, copyright vios, etc. Once a week isn't enough.

 * What's the benefit to the rest of the Wikivoyage community in keeping around a dead wiki? Why should we continue to lend our name to a site that doesn't have interest or support?

 * Most of all, they look terrible, and they cost maintenance effort that could go into other things. The inactivity policy has been part of the deal since day zero. I think everyone who signed up to work on the Swedish Wikivoyage, say, knew the score before they started working on it. --(WT-en) Evan 07:37, 31 Mar 2005 (EST)

 * Evan, I may disagree with you on occasion, but I don't treat you as an idiot. I'd appreciate you extending the same consideration to me.

 * So. The first principle of SoftSecurity is AssumeGoodFaith, so we should assume that people stumbling into dormant wikis are people who want to do good, not vandals, hackers and terrorists.  Also remember that the first principle of Wikivoyage is the traveller comes first: we're not trying to "benefit... the rest of the Wikivoyage community", we're looking to help travelers, and if a dormant Wiki's page answers somebody's question or otherwise helps them on their way then it's still doing good.

 * Issues of philosophy aside, I think that the practical step to do now would be to contact the other admins (you have their e-mail addresses, yes?) and ask them what's up. Did the go-betweens ever reply?

I've just posted notices on the Swedish and Romanian Wikipedias warning that "their" Wikivoyage language versions are in danger of being shut down. Hopefully we'll get a new community to work on the articles and can pick some new admins from there. (WT-en) Jpatokal 10:41, 14 May 2005 (EDT)

 * Sorry to restart this, but I noticed that you said, "inactive" isn't defined.... My read of this page says that there are at least three ways a version can be "inactive":

 * The pages necessary for new users to get acclimatized (help, goals, policies, style guidelines, etc.) aren't started and aren't being worked on after 1 month
 * There's no go-between
 * "activity [...] drops to practically none"

 * I agree that the last one is vague. I think I was thinking in terms of number of edits and rate of edits when I wrote this, though. --(WT-en) Evan 23:47, 21 Jun 2005 (EDT)

Community vote
I think this dormant Wikivoyage policy isn't very appropriate. Neither is the rule to have at least 5 persons. Wikipedia wouldn't have nearly 200 languages, of which a great deal is quite active, if there were a stupid rules like these. I think there should be a properly announced multilingual community vote before a Wikivoyage is being shut down. (WT-en) Guaka 15:31, 21 Jun 2005 (EDT)

 * The entire policy was written by one person. And while I'm at it, I'm reading "Database dumps and other data needed to get the language version started on another server will be made available." I've asked this several times before, but, why aren't there database dumps available for active Wikivoyages? I would really like to have a DICT version for my laptop and soon for my mobile... (WT-en) Guaka 15:34, 21 Jun 2005 (EDT)

 * Too many separate issues here... I think the 5-person rule is necessary to avoid versions that die after launch (like this one), and I'd like to strengthen it so that people who sign up must give their e-mail so they can be contacted.  On the other hand I'd like to make the path from "having 5 people" to "launching a version" clearer, by spelling out the critical interface & policy files that must be translated first. (WT-en) Jpatokal 21:50, 21 Jun 2005 (EDT)

 * I don't think it's fair to pick on sv:; it was our fastest-launched language version and we had a lot of great people working on it. I can't say what happened to deaden it so fast, but I do know that the technical problems we had last November happened right on the tail of their launch. There were problems with sv: even in early Dec, and I don't think the community ever really recovered. I'm quite unhappy about it-- it was a great effort with a lot of interested people. --(WT-en) Evan 23:07, 21 Jun 2005 (EDT)

 * But there were 5 persons? And what is so dead about it? People are still working on it according to its recent changes. Just let it go on... (WT-en) Guaka 11:08, 22 Jun 2005 (EDT)

 * Yes, there were 5 people. You can see here: Project:Swedish Wikivoyage Expedition. As for the deadness: no go-between, and no go-between reports. The help, policies, and style guideline pages necessary to get new contributors productive are non-existent. I just don't see it as an active community. --(WT-en) Evan 13:02, 22 Jun 2005 (EDT)

 * I'd like to propose another idea (actually, it's just a rephrasing of Jani's previously stated idea, a little more formalized).

 * I suggest that for an otherwise "inactive" wiki, we can have stewards who don't necessarily speak the language in question, or aren't able to support and promote a community, but can "keep an eye" on inactive wikis and help those who have renewed interest to "re-connect" with the rest of the wikivoyage community.

 * The "steward" would take over for the inactive "go-between" until there's a language speaker ready to take that job.

 * In other words, a "steward" can guide guide anonymous or new users of a Wikivoyage language version to become go-betweens, to keep us updated, etc. They can also prevent the most obvious vandalism and abuse with regular visits to the otherwise inactive wiki.

 * As for database dumps, here's my concern: we don't currently distribute a full-site dump because I'd like to do it in a way that conforms to our copyleft and our privacy policy at the same time. If we dump the entire database we expose, among other things, the passwords and email addresses of contributors. If we don't dump the entire database (like Wikipedia does), history information, real names, and other important stuff, from the point of view of the license, isn't included.

 * Rather than giving out huge SQL dumps, I'd rather provide a tarball of simplified HTML and images that mirror operators (and others) can use. There's work going on for this in MediaWiki 1.5, and I'd like to make it available once that version is installed.

 * I know I should probably put more time and energy into regular full-site dumps, but I have to admit that I spend a lot of time working on keeping the site running. I'm sorry I haven't been able to meet your requirements for a DICT version of Wikivoyage(s), but I'll try to get it going soon. --(WT-en) Evan 23:00, 21 Jun 2005 (EDT)

 * I'm getting the feeling you care more about the license text than the lawyers at CC... (WT-en) Guaka 11:08, 22 Jun 2005 (EDT)

 * Another note: we do seem to lose some momentum with the 5-person rule. I think it's been unusual when we've had the full complement of 5 people actually log in and start working on the new language version. And I think that waiting the N months necessary to get 5 signups has been a part of that drop-off.

 * At the same time, having lots of colleagues makes working on a new wiki fun. It keeps people going, and as they say, many hands make light work.

 * I wonder-- are there any suggestions to change this rule so that we can get to the goal of the rule (an active community working together and supporting each other)? The best I can think of right now is five active members after 1-2 months or something along those lines. Other suggestions? --(WT-en) Evan 23:59, 21 Jun 2005 (EDT)

 * In less than 6 months I've created a new Wikipedia with currently over 800 articles, with only 2 other active contributors... The second person knew about the project, but the third only came by when we got started. Oh, I figured I could contribute on an Italian and Portuguese Wikivoyage, so now there are 5 people to work on those... (WT-en) Guaka 11:08, 22 Jun 2005 (EDT)

 * Excellent! I'll post up the language files for translation, and we can get started working on selecting a go-between. Also, what do you think about the idea of having non-speakers act as go-between until the community gets back on its feet? --(WT-en) Evan 12:50, 22 Jun 2005 (EDT)

Rolled back editorial in project page
I rolled back some editorial that was added to the page. I always find that style schizophrenic. If you want to change the policy, just change the policy (and hope it sticks!). If you want to comment, comment on the talk page. --(WT-en) Evan 23:35, 21 Jun 2005 (EDT)

 * Well, yeah. I found the original style a bit odd as well. I changed the way it was put down. (WT-en) Guaka 11:08, 22 Jun 2005 (EDT)

 * Great. I don't think there's a big problem with a three- rather than five-person rule. --(WT-en) Evan 12:55, 22 Jun 2005 (EDT)

Thoughts on our language version policy
I'd like to see what we can do to get our language expeditions up and going. I want to get more language versions up in 2006, and I want to brainstorm about how to do it.

Let me first say that I'm still unexcited about the idea of just starting wikis and hoping someone starts contributing. I'd like to still get to the conditions that would make a wiki successful and integrated with the rest of Wikivoyage, but I think there may be some other ways of getting there. The conditions I'd like to see are:

 * Translated interface
 * Translated help/about/guidelines/policy files
 * Regular(ish) reports on what's going on on the site

Here's what I'd like to suggest as to how to get there.

 * 1) Stop requiring a go-between. This seems to be the number one impediment to getting a site started. Getting 3-5 people to sign up for a new expedition is pretty easy, but it's really hard to get someone to step forward to be the super-responsible point of contact.
 * Also, becoming a go-between is like the kiss of death for Wikivoyagers. It seems like the biggest way to drive away people who are very committed to the site.
 * Instead of requiring a go-between, I'd like to instead suggest that we require a go-between report. No one person has to do the report: it can be done collectively, or by one or another admin, or pretty much any particular way. I'd also like to start having a monthly English go-between report, which might be nice to read for people who normally use the other language versions.
 * 1) Use DB messages for customizing the interface. Translating the language interface file has turned out to be a roadblock for launching new wikis. But Mediawiki has a feature that lets administrators edit interface elements (like the prompts for "about", "discussion", etc.) through the Web site itself. If we enable this feature, I can edit the language interface file as a first pass (by replacing "Wikipedia" with "Wikivoyage" and "GFDL" with "cc-by-sa 1.0"), and administrators can further modify the interface through the database.
 * This feature is turned off on wikivoyage.org right now for performance reasons, but I think for low-traffic new wikis, it would be OK. I can probably do something to copy the database messages to the language interface file on a weekly basis or something, and when the site stabilizes (and gets more busy), we can turn database messages back off again.
 * The main problem with this idea is that, if we don't require a go-between, there's no natural choice for an administrator. So it might take a while before someone's in place to do the job of fixing the interface.
 * 1) Use the new language for the Expedition page. We should try to write the Expedition pages in Spanish, Chinese, etc. so that monolingual (or rather non-English-speaking) readers following links from other Web sites can understand the project and get involved. I'm not sure how we could do this so that English readers could understand, too, but I think it's worth a try, since the main audience is speakers of the new language.

I'd love to hear people's ideas about these changes. If we make these changes, it would mean launching a few of our stagnant Expeditions in the next few weeks. --(WT-en) Evan 18:59, 16 Jan 2006 (EST)

 * I think the problem is one of unseriousness on the part of people who sign up. That getting a go-between is hard is a symptom, I think, of the fact that some of the signers no longer have an interest in Wikivoyage, but rather were merely voting for their favorite language.  Alternatively, they just got bored of waiting for the 3rd person and ran away.  In case it's the latter, I think a mechanism for contacting the signers is needed in order to prod them into action once the right number of volunteers is reached.

 * In any case, I think there needs to be some demonstration that there are 3-5 people currently available people ready to work. If there is only one or two people, they are destined to burn out unless they are truly determined.  -- (WT-en) Colin 02:32, 17 Jan 2006 (EST)

 * I agree with Colin. Launching a successful new version needs a dedicated core of people, and the people who sign up should provide their e-mails and somehow commit to actually doing something. I found the Dutch Wikivoyage to be a bit rushed and the current state of things a few weeks after launching doesn't look very promising (not a single edit in the last 4 days). (WT-en) Jpatokal 03:49, 17 Jan 2006 (EST)

Automatic translation
So, another thing I've been thinking about lately is automatic translation between language versions.

Automatic translation is notoriously bad at capturing subtleties of language -- auto-translated works typically have lots of spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, or give literal translations where more idiomatic terms might be used. Wiki, however, is particularly good at letting lots of users fix grammatical and spelling mistakes as well as awkward or incomplete phrasing of ideas. So I think auto-translation and wiki editing might be a match made in heaven.

In particular, a lot of the information we need to share between language versions is going to be pretty easy for translation software -- things like phone numbers, addresses, prices, etc.

Here's the idea: next to each link for other language versions of Wikivoyage would be a link to an automated translating tool like Google Language Tools. So on Dubai, next to the link to Japanese Wikivoyage, would be a link to an automated translation. The reader could use that information to update the English Dubai article. it might also be possible to translate only the wiki markup, but I haven't got that to work yet.

The other place this could be useful would be for starting up new Wikivoyage language versions. If we fill in articles with auto-translated text, we have a leg up getting started. We could theoretically mark auto-translated pages as, say, until they've been checked by a human.

Ideas? Is this nuts? --(WT-en) Evan 19:39, 16 Jan 2006 (EST)

 * I am a bit sceptical, but it could be worth a try to see how it goes. In my experience with these translators, it very much depends on the language (French to English, quite understandable; Korean to English, sounds like some weird modern-style poetry with no relation to (what I imagine) the original says. I think it also depends on how well written the original is. Humans can cope quite well with slang, bad grammar and computer shorthand, but these really confuse the computer translator.

 * I can understand enough German to be able to translate German-->English. Is there an easy way to tell/mark foreign-language pages that have considerably more detail than the English version. Maybe they could be marked with a call for translators?(WT-en) Brendio 20:19, 16 Jan 2006 (EST)

 * I think the translation of proper nouns - names of places, businesses and so forth, would also pose a major problem. It's ok if the automatic translation gets small bits from the article text wrong (even though, as Brendio said above, they're not likely to be that small if the languages are too different). Imagine, however, what would happen when translating street and hotel names in all listings, for instance. Some "West Side Hotel at Baker Street" could become something like "Hôtel Coté Ouest à Rue Boulanger" in French - maybe so misleading that it might be easier to "manually" translate the listings than fixing the awkward version. Unless there is a way to avoid this kind of thing, I'd say there's still a long way to make automatic translation usable in those cases. The whole idea is really exciting, though. (WT-en) Rmx 23:07, 28 Jan 2006 (EST)

 * Yeah, reminds me of when I first knew that I was moving to Germany and knew absolutely no German at the time. I tried out one of the automatic web-page translators. I very confused by the constant appearance of the word attaining in many different, and seemingly odd, places until I worked out that the English verb "to attain" translates as Erlangen in German. (WT-en) Brendio 19:00, 29 Jan 2006 (EST).

 * I totally agree with all the above re: issues with automatic translation *but* I really think that wikis + auto translation is a great combo for getting a lot of text from one happy-human readable form to another. Think about it: wiki + at lets machines do what machines are good at (ie the grunt work) and humans do what humans are good at (the contextual details). I don't think any one is arguing that we run wikivoyage en through bablefish and be done with it, but it makes good sense to me in two cases in particular:
 * jump starting new language versions. Something is better than nothing, and it's a great way to 'ask for edits'.
 * creating a new source for data-mining current articles. This happens informaly on talk pages a lot when non-english content is added to a guide. It would just stream-line the process. (WT-en) Majnoona 20:08, 10 Feb 2006 (EST)

 * An example:
 * Cologne (english) German translated
 * Nantes French translated

 * I take it that a disclaimer will be added, similiar to that for the CIA factbook imports, and that it will not be removed until the page has been completely revised, and also checked against the original by someone bilingual (in the two languages concerned naturally). Do you plan to make this completely automated, or will it be an option that someone can manually choose for a page. How will you decide which language to translate from and to? Simply the version with the most info? From the language of the destination? Or a mixture of many different language versions. Anyway, worth a trial on a few pages to see how it works.

 * Just to clarify -- in the first situation mentioned above, the translation would probably be from English and there would be disclaimers all over the place. In the second situation, it would be up to a contributor to go an look at the other language versions available and decide what to move over. The links would just make this easier/more obvious.
 * I agree with the idea of a trial-- I'm going to go ahead and add some example links to a couple of pages-- feel free to add a few too. Maybe we can just link to those examples from the discussion here? (WT-en) Majnoona 13:23, 12 Feb 2006 (EST)

 * Hey, just had a different thought along these lines. Would it be possible, through some sort of tagging alluded to in another discussion somewhere (too tired to remember at the moment), to maintain certain language-non-specific facts centrally for automatic use in other language versions? For example, info such as photos, general hotel info (address, phones numbers, price—anything that does not depend on language) is kept on the common site, and then the language-specific details (photo captions, directions and description of hotels etc.) is added as a separate tag for each language. Do you get my idea? I may have to reread this in the morning to see if it makes sense.—(WT-en) Brendio 19:48, 11 Feb 2006 (EST)

 * I think I get what you're saying and I think it has super cool potential! I'm not sure if it would be done by tags though... (WT-en) Majnoona 13:23, 12 Feb 2006 (EST)

Hey... I just noticed this. I think making it easier to get to automatic translations is an absolutely fantastic idea! I really don't see any downside to it at all. -- (WT-en) Mark 23:18, 17 Feb 2006 (EST)

 * Great! Here are some more examples: Talk:Gelnhausen Talk:Lyon Talk:Dubai Talk:Cologne. I think I'm starting to like Systranbox better than the babelfish...
 * I think if folks are going to take advantage of this, that we'll need a way to highlight these links beyond sticking them on the talk pages... (WT-en) Majnoona 11:55, 18 Feb 2006 (EST)

Copyright between versions
Sorry if someone has raised this before, but I have to ask. As we start new language versions, the users of the new language normally go back to the older versions and simply translate some pages (Welcome, Help, Community Policies etc.) from one ore more "older" languages, and this might happen with "content" articles too. It just seems the natural thing to do. As to copyright, however, translations are normally seen as derivative works, and although the traslated articles are still within wikivoyage.org, the history of edits and authors is normally lost. IMHO, that seems to be against the attribution requirement of cc-sa-1.0, but it looks like it has happened in all language versions and was not seen as a violation of the license. Also, I can't really think of a practical way of inserting the attribution on the (past) translated articles. I'd very much like to hear your views on this topic. (WT-en) Rmx 07:42, 30 Jan 2006 (EST)

 * I'd like to figure out a way to make this work automatically. I agree, it's an issue. Until we've got some sort of automated system, perhaps translators could note on the Talk: page which article they translated from, and about what date? --(WT-en) Evan 09:54, 30 Jan 2006 (EST)

 * We really have to figure out a way to "upgrade" the license as soon as we possibly can. The longer we wait the more painful it's going to be AFAICT. -- (WT-en) Mark 13:07, 30 Jan 2006 (EST)

Changing policy, moving global policy to shared:
So, based on some ideas from User:(WT-en) Hansm and others, I'd like to make some changes to this policy to put the different language versions of Wikivoyage on a more even footing.

 * I'm going to change the archaic language on this page about why we make language versions of Wikivoyage. I don't think it's cogent any longer, and I don't think it's very inviting for non-English-speaking Wikivoyagers.
 * I'd like to reformat it in terms of what a language community's responsibilities are to the rest of Wikivoyage, and what support they can expect from the rest of the Wikivoyage community. The technical points on starting a new language version will go later.

This will principally be a change in format, not in policy. I'll look forward to corrections and discussions here.

Additionally, I'd like to discuss some changes in how the language versions interact. On policy changes, I think the keys one are:

 * Let's move multilingual coordination pages (like new language expeditions, lists of language versions, go-between reports) to a language-neutral site like Wikivoyage Shared.
 * It would be nice to make some go-betweens "bureaucrats", so that they can make admins in their language versions directly.

Comments welcome and encouraged, especially from the members of the community from non-English Wikivoyage versions. --(WT-en) Evan 12:39, 2 July 2006 (EDT)

 * I second this idea. Let Shared be the common base for multilingual coordination pages. I suggest that the affected pages on en: (such as go-between reports) are moved to Shared so we can start working on them ASAP. As for the bureaucrat issue - another good idea. (WT-en) Riggwelter 17:30, 9 July 2006 (EDT)

 * Agreed. I suppose the conclusions of the related discussions on Project:Technical infrastructure policy also apply here and we should go on with the moving. -- (WT-en) Ricardo (Rmx) 13:17, 1 August 2006 (EDT)

"Go-between" name change
So, "go-between" is an awful name for what this job is. It's hardly ever used in English, and I doubt that it's a very accessible term for non-English speakers. It's also clumsy and abstract.

Is there another good word for what this job is? I'm not crazy about "ambassador", since that's got the implication of separation. What about liaison? It's hard to spell, but it gets across the idea of linking communities. --(WT-en) Evan 11:04, 6 July 2006 (EDT)

 * Yeah, I've always sort of stumbled over the "go-between" name... Liaison isn't any harder to spell than, say, "geographical hierarchy" ;-) and it's a...uh, succinct (had to look up the spelling on that one!) term for the job. (WT-en) Majnoona 11:54, 6 July 2006 (EDT)

 * Liaison sounds fine. But can you be a liaison? "Hello, I am NN, I am a liaison"? (WT-en) Riggwelter 17:31, 9 July 2006 (EDT)

Go-betw...Ahem, liaison reports
...must make a monthly report'...add to logbooks. Perhaps time to update this part too? I suggest the monthly report is reduced to...say...a quarterly report? Plus - why the log books? If we move it to Shared, I think it would be perfectly OK to have the reports under its own article name in the Shared: namespace and bin the log book entry requirement. (WT-en) Riggwelter 17:37, 9 July 2006 (EDT)

 * Well, a monthly report seems OK to me (perhaps 1 in 2 months would be better), but why aren't there any volunteers for the English WT? And I have two other suggestions at well-

 * For any lanuage version of WT, at least one admin should be a native speaker of the language
 * At least one B'crat (I keep forgetting the sp!) should be able to speak the language (even babel-1 level is OK, I suppose)

(WT-en) Upamanyuwikivoyage • ( Talk ) • ( (WT-en) Travel ) • 05:25, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

Turkish Wikivoyage
We will finished and archived Wikivoyage Tr project.How open Turkish Wikivoyage internet page?

(WT-en) Hasan travel 11:44, 4 August 2009 (EDT)

 * It would be fantastic to get the Turkish Wikivoyage started—thank you for putting in the work to translate the php document. You will need to contact an employee of Internet Brands. I recommend emailing Brent Conver (brent.conver@internetbrands.com). --(WT-en) Peter Talk 14:12, 4 August 2009 (EDT)

Creating a New Language !
How to create a new language? i am good in Tamil and english and im backpacking in india n europe. how to create a page?

 * Assuming that you mean creating a language guide, check out Phrasebooks first to ensure that your new language doesn't already exist. If it is new to Wikivoyage then you can use Phrasebook_article_template to create it. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 12:21, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

 * There is a Tamil phrasebook; at a quick glance it looks incomplete, so improving it would be a useful contribution.
 * If what you want is to create a Tamil version of WV, look at Language version policy and Language Expeditions for some information. That would be a large project and would require considerable familiarity with WV policies, templates, conventions, etc. I would strongly suggest you put off considering it seriously until you have at least several months experience with the English version.
 * There does seem to be a Tamil Wikipedia. If you aren't already, you should probably consider contributing there. This would be useful experience and might put you in touch with people who could help with a Tamil WV. Pashley (talk) 20:22, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

 * I answered at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikivoyage/Lounge#How_to_create_a_page_for_contributions_in_Tamil_.3F

title: Wikivoyage talk:Language version policy


text:
Wikivoyage talk:Language versions

Inactive language versions
Swept in from the Pub:

Yes I am still here, and I just copied some modernized Greek phrases. Sorry I haven't been as diligent; I didn't notice the notices on my talk page because the "You have new messages" isn't working.

On ro:, there were only 27 edits in the last month, and a minor vandalism to the Portal went unreverted for over a week.

sv: has only 50 articles, and only 27 edits in the last month, most of these by the new user Steffen M.

Can we get these restarted, or should they be declared inactive? -(WT-en) phma 23:43, 4 Nov 2005 (EST)

Swedish WikiTravel inactive?
Swept in from the Pub:

I've been adding lots of facts on the Swedish version of WikiTravel the past 24 hours. Though, now I saw that the "travelers' pub" hasn't been updated for a year. I propose you appoint new leaders for the Swedish WikiTravel project, and I propose myself. :) -- (WT-en) Adestro 16:25, 15 Dec 2005 (CET)

 * Hooray! That'd be fine. Can you do me the favor of reviewing the Project:Language version policy and making sure you understand it? sv: has been teetering on the brink of deletion for a while, and having a go-between working on it would be fantastic. Oh, also: you'll need an account on en:. --(WT-en) Evan 10:29, 15 Dec 2005 (EST)

 * I'll read through it. I just got an account on en: as well. Do I get sys-op rights on the sv: site? I find the sheets that's used rather ugly... and much of the main information isn't even done(help pages, search pages etc.). You can reach me on e-mail or MSN with andreas.bergstrom@gmail.com. -- (WT-en) Adestro 16:49, 15 Dec 2005 (CET)

 * Yes, the go-between becomes a sysop on the language version site. However, we have a tradition of very limited administrators activity on Wikivoyage. As for the "sheets", I'm not sure what you mean. Finally, yes, the help, search, etc. pages need to be translated, as well as a lot of the interface information. --(WT-en) Evan 11:30, 15 Dec 2005 (EST)

 * Sounds excelent. With "sheets" I mean the sheets that are used to describe how general facts are presented, the information table to the right. The tables on the English pages are a lot nicer that the Swedish counterparts. Anyway, I've read on the guidelines, goals and such. How do we proceed? I've got a laptop and wireless connection pretty much everywhere I go so I'm available anytime I'm awake. -- (WT-en) Adestro 18:20, 15 Dec 2005 (CET)

 * Opps, a translation failure there. Replace "sheets" with "templates" and I'll know what I mean. Anyway, I'm mailing you now. --(WT-en) Adestro 18:50, 15 Dec 2005 (CET)

 * Well, I just noticed I'm sysop in sv: now. Thanks for the confidence and will to continue hosting sv:. I've started working on improving the templates as well as gathering more people to the site. --(WV-en) Adestro 21:14, 15 Dec 2005 (CET)

Dutch Log in
Sweep in discussion from the Pub:

I've registred myself here on the English language version, but I also speak Dutch and what I write here I can translate for the Dutch site. However when trying to log in there as myself I get an errormessage saying my profile doesn' exist.... If it is the case that for a different language I need to create a new profile, then my question is why? --(WT-en) PeterW

 * Because that's the way the software works(tm). Every language version is, in practice, a completely independent little web site. It's not that big a deal, most people only edit on one or two language versions, and you can use the same username/password.  (WT-en) Jpatokal 09:48, 26 Jan 2006 (EST)

 * Uh OK, I guess I'll do that, thanks for the reply. --(WT-en) PeterW

 * You know, though... it's technically possible for us to have a single sign-on across all the Wikivoyage langauge versions. Is that desirable? I think it'd be pretty neat, myself. --(WT-en) Evan 17:34, 28 Jan 2006 (EST)

 * Well... I think it would be nice to have just one personal page, and be able to see all my contributions so far in one list. It just saves some time for me, and seeing a slightly longer list is more satisfying ;) But no biggie, if it requires major overhaul then I'm ok with the status quo. (WT-en) PeterW 06:28, 14 Feb 2006 (EST)

Consistency between language versions
As a contributor who spends lots of time translating things between language versions, I would like to know where the community stands. What are our standards with regard to consistency between language versions, particularly with regard to the manual of style? I am all for keeping the formatting as similar as possible, for the same reasons we try to adhere to a standard within this local wiki. I am recently having an argument however, on the Portuguese version. There are a very small number of articles on that version which make use of graphics such as ratings symbols for hotels (the star system) and restaurants (little dinner plates), as well as colorful symbols for the hotel listings (TV, AC, Pool, etc.). To me, they look tacky when used in an article, and as only a small fraction of the Portuguese articles use them, I've been removing them when I come across them. This is not the point however. I want to know if cohesion between language versions is among our goals, or if each version should be allowed to develop their own manual of style as each community sees fit. )(WT-en) Texugo 22:55, 21 August 2006 (EDT)

 * Every Wikivoyage version does its own thing, as long as it sticks to the basic goals and can agree on internal consistency (so this symbol thing is something that should be sorted out there first). For example, you'll see that listings in the Japanese version look radically different from any other Wikivoyage version, because a comma-delimited string is just not appropriate for a language typeset in blocks. (WT-en) Jpatokal 23:27, 21 August 2006 (EDT)

 * Agreed, but I'd add that unnecessary variations are a bad idea. If a principle for readability is good for pt:, say, it should be good for nl: or sv: or whatever. Variations that depend on culture or orthography are a good exception, but exceptions should be the exceptions to the rule, not the rule. That all said, there's been discussion here before about using more graphics in listings, but I'd like to do this in a unified way (using Project:Listings). --(WT-en) Evan 06:35, 22 August 2006 (EDT)

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

title: Wikivoyage talk:Language versions


text:
Wikivoyage talk:Large city article template

So, I think it's going to be important for most large cities to split up into multiple articles.

The question becomes: how do we do that? I'd think that there are two possibilities:

 * 1) Break up the city into districts (see the geographical hierarchy) and do mini-articles on each of those. Those might be sub-articles (such as New York/Greenwich Village) or just articles on their own (e.g. Greenwich Village).
 * 2) Break up the article into thematic groups. That is, instead of having a "See" section in New York (addressed by New York (city), btw), we'd have a subarticle New York/See, or something like See in New York.

In either case, we should probably pick out the sections that would go into the "main" article (like New York) and which ones would go into the subarticles. It's a tricky business, though. -- (WT-en) Evan 14:54, 9 Oct 2003 (PDT)

 * Gar, I just wrote a big long thing here and then lost the page... anyway, my point was that we should pick one and then have cross indexing via the other. My vote is for breaking thinsg up by district so all the New York (city)/Greenwich Village) stuff is on the same page, but then also have links to New York (city)/Greenwich Village) from under the Eat section (for example) since it's a good place to think about eatting if you're looking at options in all of NYC.

 * This makes a lot of sense for the Sleep section as well. A planner can look at the New York page and get a sense of where a good places to stay and then go to those pages to read about what else is in the area. Alternately, someone on the road is already in New York (city)/Greenwich Village) they can find everything they need. I'm sure there are some people who want to find a place to eat somewhere in all of New York with no preference for where it is, but I think that's less likely than the other to cases. Now I'm going to hit save.(WT-en) Majnoona

And what about a section like "Festivals" for things like the Carneval in Rio or the Oktoberfest in Munich? -- (WT-en) Hansm 08:56, 2003 Nov 2 (PST)

 * I was thinking about that. Wouldn't it fit well under "Do"? -- (WT-en) Evan 09:34, 2 Nov 2003 (PST)

 * Hm, maybe, but I feel that the "DO" section rather contains activities you can do mostly all the time, while festivals, fairs, etc. are more a kind of special events.


text:
Wikivoyage talk:License upgrade

See also Wikivoyage talk:License upgrade (wts-old)

Discussion on Shared
For users just tuning in, plenty of discussion about this process can be found at wts:Talk:License upgrade, so take a look there first. (WT-en) Jpatokal 10:00, 1 November 2009 (EST)

Namespaces
Down with main namespace pollution. This should be at Project:Licence upgrade, since it is nothing to do with travel. --(WT-en) inas 21:28, 1 November 2009 (EST)

 * Done. (WT-en) Jpatokal 00:22, 2 November 2009 (EST)

Protection
Would it be worthwhile to protect this page from anon edits, as we did for shared? This would discourage users from signing without logging in (which is not really helpful). --(WT-en) Peter Talk 03:16, 2 November 2009 (EST)

 * Doesn't autoconfirmed block users that has been registered for less than 30 days? --(WT-en) Stefan (sertmann) talk 03:31, 2 November 2009 (EST)

 * Bah, good point. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 03:33, 2 November 2009 (EST)

no 3rd section
Attempting to edit a section "Consent", I receive the following messsage under :
 * No such section
 * You tried to edit a section that doesn't exist. Since there is no section 3, there's no place to save your edit.
 * Return to License upgrade.

--(WT-en) DenisYurkin 13:20, 2 November 2009 (EST)
 * Probably a cache issue. Purge the cache and try it again.  (WT-en) LtPowers 14:06, 2 November 2009 (EST)

why separate pages on EN vs SHARED?
I wonder why a list at EN: is a different page than at SHARED:. Why not redirect from one to another, and merge content together? --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 11:04, 3 November 2009 (EST)

 * Good question, especially since both state that signing one released edits on all versions. I think Shared should be merged here. (WT-en) Jpatokal 11:42, 3 November 2009 (EST)

 * Not everyone has an account on both; I think it's best to maintain the two versions and let people sign wherever they have an account. (WT-en) LtPowers 11:59, 3 November 2009 (EST)

 * I would presume that everybody using Shared will also have an account on some other language version. (WT-en) Jpatokal 21:26, 3 November 2009 (EST)

 * OK, but I guess I don't see the harm. Shared is where most of the discussion took place, though.  (WT-en) LtPowers 22:17, 3 November 2009 (EST)

Creative Commons mention
The Creative Commons blog mentions our potential upgrade in their blog: AntWeb, Fedora Project, Wikivoyage → CC BY-SA 3.0 - Mike Linksvayer, November 9th, 2009. --(WT-en) Stefan (sertmann) talk 03:54, 10 November 2009 (EST)

XML dump
After the upgrade will we start releasing xml dumps. That is whaat I really care about. (WT-en) JDW 21:38, 20 December 2009 (EST)

 * Unfortunately that is not something we, the Wikivoyage community, has control over. As the server host, that is IB's responsibility, which they are irresponsibly not fulfilling. Licensing, on the other hand, is something we have control over. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 23:24, 20 December 2009 (EST)

Attribution of sources
Do we have a general policy for properly attributing external sources with compatible licenses? If we do switch to cc-by-sa-3.0, this will become immediately important for Wikipedia imports. I bolted together a simple way of linking to a given WP article (Template:Wikipedia), but I wonder if it's acceptable to cite the article as a whole (including a reference to its history) rather than its individual authors? - (WT-en) D. Guillaime 16:32, 24 December 2009 (EST)
 * I believe that's the standard method. Your template looks good, although I'd add a link to the Wikipedia article's history.  (WT-en) LtPowers 18:57, 24 December 2009 (EST):
 * Can do. - (WT-en) D. Guillaime 02:29, 25 December 2009 (EST)

 * Good work on that template. This has made me think though that we need some guidelines on what should and should not be copied from Wikipedia. The last thing WT needs is a flood of dry, encyclopedic content and yet more work for patrollers sifting through it. --(WT-en) Burmesedays 10:00, 1 January 2010 (EST)

Now what?
The article says "if there is a broad consensus in favor, the license upgrade will take place on January 1, 2010."

We appear to have a consensus and in my time zone, it is almost January 2nd. What happens now and who should do it? (WT-en) Pashley 09:51, 1 January 2010 (EST)
 * I would guess the first and most important step would be to edit LocalSettings.php, which is where the license information for the wiki is found. I don't know who can do that.  (WT-en) LtPowers 10:22, 1 January 2010 (EST)
 * Actually, on second thought, the first step is removing User:(WT-en) Stephen sommerhalter's contribs. I'll get started on that shortly.  (WT-en) LtPowers 10:25, 1 January 2010 (EST)

 * We can change the site licensing display by copying the following to MediaWiki:Copyright (after fixing the html tags with ">s"—I had to use "{s" to get around the spam filter):

 * Text is available under {a href="http://shared.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Copyleft"}Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 1.0{/a}, images are available under {a href="http://shared.wikivoyage.org/wiki/How_to_re-use_Wikivoyage_guides"}various licenses{/a}, see each image for details.

 * MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning will require a similar change (since we can't change $2 ourselves...).

 * This page should be a pretty clear indication of user consent—167 consents & 2 refusals. Of the two refusals, one was somewhat incoherent, as it explicitly gave consent under the terms at the top of the page, and the other a misguided attempt to abuse the process to achieve another aim. On the other language versions, we have a total of 53 consents and 1 confused refusal by someone who has not made any edits other than the refusal... On Shared, 27 consents and 1 refusal by the user also abusing the process here. (EST)

 * Also, lets please move any further discussion to wts:Talk:License upgrade, as this is a sitewide change, and Shared is where we collaborate on sitewide issues. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 11:05, 1 January 2010 (EST)

 * User:(WT-en) Stephen sommerhalter's contributions on the English Wikivoyage have been removed and/or redacted. (WT-en) LtPowers 11:45, 1 January 2010 (EST)

title: Wikivoyage talk:License upgrade


text:
Wikivoyage talk:Linking to WikiOutdoors

And if more than one link is needed?
So in the case of Blueskin Bay, someone has added links to two of the treks you can do there, and put them in the "do" section. I checked to see if there was a Blueskin Bay article we could link to over there, to reduce it to just one link in the "other sites" box, but none exists. What should be done in cases like this? For now I left the links in the "do" section and also added both to the os box (WT-en) - Cacahuate 20:40, 1 March 2007 (EST)
 * The way that I have handled this with areas that have lots of different hikes is by linking to a category page on WikiOutdoors. Here's an example from Wikivoyage's San Francisco article to outdoors info on the San Francisco Bay Area. (WT-en) Kirasw 23:11, 1 March 2007 (EST)
 * I definitely think we only want one link to WikiOutdoors in the left nav on Wikivoyage. I just created a new category for Blueskin Bay in WikiOutdoors. I will update the link on the Blueskin Bay article here in Wikivoyage and make a note in the talk page. Thanks for bringing this up. (WT-en) Kirasw 23:11, 1 March 2007 (EST)
 * Thanks Kira! (WT-en) - Cacahuate 02:45, 7 March 2007 (EST)

title: Wikivoyage talk:Linking to WikiOutdoors


text:
Wikivoyage talk:Links from Wikipedia

Usable
I've added a note that links should only be made on Wikipedia if the Wikivoyage article is "usable" or higher. This has been a community rule-of-thumb for a long time, but it wasn't explicit here. --(WT-en) Evan 15:50, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

Problem with Wikipedia link
Moved from the Pub:

How do we handle adding a Wikipedia link to Wikivoyage when the city names are entered diffently. For instance, how would the Wikivoyage link for Coral Gables be added to the Wikipedia page Coral Gables, Florida? I added the link, but the abscence of the state on the Wikivoyage page makes the link go to the wrong page. (WT-en) MiamiDolphins3 14:46, 28 December 2008 (EST)
 * It works now. Just type the name of the city on Wikipedia. Even though the city is called "Coral Gables" here, put a WIkipedia link: Coral Gables, Florida.

 * MiamiDolphins is referring to links from Wikipedia to Wikivoyage, not from here to there. And I'm not sure how that wp template works. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 16:11, 28 December 2008 (EST)

 * Exactly. The link on Wikivoyage to Wikipedia worked fine from the beginning.  The link from Wikipedia to Wikivoyage has not worked because the Wikivoyage article is named Coral Gables, not Coral Gables, Florida.  This is a pretty big issue that needs resolution.(WT-en) MiamiDolphins3 18:53, 28 December 2008 (EST)

 * The simple solution is to create a redirect on WT for Coral Gables, Florida, pointing to our Coral Gables article; the WP article can then link to the redirect. That is about all you can do on this end, short of proposing a radical change to our whole naming scheme that probably would not fly.

 * There is likely more you can do on the WP end. Isn't there a way to link to a WT article with a different title? If not, could you propose one? Or just use whatever generic mechanism they have for linking to external sites? (WT-en) Pashley 21:04, 28 December 2008 (EST)

 * Of course there is, see Wikipedia:Template talk:Wikivoyage. The syntax is obvious:, so in this case you'd just add  . (WT-en) Jpatokal 00:46, 29 December 2008 (EST)

Not linking to WV articles that are Outlines
I disagree with this. I link to WP articles all the time, even when they're stubs. But certainly, Outline articles can have a substantial amount of information in them, especially when they're regional or country-level articles that haven't been advanced to Usable status just because some of the articles linked to them (such as in the "Cities" or "Other destinations" lists) are not Usable. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:27, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
 * There are plenty of empty or almost-empty outlines which are not useful to the traveller in their current state; a link to them in WP adds nothing of value from Wikipedia's perspective. The concern, which goes back to WT days, is that if we abuse the /* External links */ section in WP, they will start removing us as spam or advertising. WT templates have been nominated for deletion in the past; while WP is likely to cut a bit more slack for a sibling project than a for-profit external commercial site, we shouldn't abuse the privilege... especially given our current deadlocked position on linking WP from individual listings. K7L (talk) 16:11, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Many outlines, especially regions, have substantial information in them that justify linking from WP. Powers (talk) 16:19, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Exactly, especially - as I pointed out - in the case of almost every country and most region (state, etc.) articles, due to the rules we have adopted about status for regional/country articles. And how many instances are there of inline linkage to Wikivoyage in Wikipedia articles? Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:47, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree with Ikan and Powers and have changed the wording. Nurg (talk) 02:10, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The new wording looks good to me - the point about only linking to Wikivoyage articles with useful content is sensible. -- Ryan • (talk) • 02:25, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Links from Commons
What do you think about "Links from Commons"? I have started wondering whether a multilingual template like c:Template:On Wikipedia or c:Template:See also w would be helpful on categories or gallery pages about major tourist areas. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:57, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I think links from Commons would benefit both projects (we already link to Commons), and something like c:Template:Wikispecies might be a useful model for implementing links from Commons, although I have no idea of what the process for getting a template like that approved for usage at Commons would be. Note that c:Template:Wikivoyage already exists, although it is a template that was used during the setup of Wikivoyage to note the source of files created during the initial content import. -- Ryan • (talk) • 21:25, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Digging a bit further, it looks like c:Template:Sisterwikivoyage already exists, although it isn't heavily used. There should be some value in making sure that template is more widely implemented. -- Ryan • (talk) • 21:32, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
 * It looks like that links to categories on other projects. Here's an example of it being added.  The documentation is almost non-existent.  I was thinking about something that linked pages rather than cats, but that might be a place to start.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:52, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I've tried to add a few to c:Category:Netherlands. It looks correct, and presumably if I did it correctly, the change won't be reverted.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:06, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * A couple of articles have been linked, eg, Indianapolis, Indiana. Nurg (talk) 21:36, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Help wanted: make sure your favorite article is linked FROM Wikipedia
Shockingly, the Wikipedia Chicago article did not have a link to Wikivoyage, so I've just added one. One of the easiest and most impactful ways we have to improve Wikivoyage's ranking in search engines is to be sure that the corresponding Wikipedia article has a link to Wikivoyage. While many such links already exist, I've added dozens that were missing in recent days. If there is an article you are particularly proud of on Wikivoyage, please be sure to look at the corresponding Wikipedia article, look at the last section of that article, and if it does not have a link to Wikivoyage add one using the following syntax (using the actual Wikivoyage article name, obviously): See also WV:Links from Wikipedia. For additional tips on improving Wikivoyage's search engine ranking see WV:SEO. -- Ryan • (talk) • 07:20, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

 * Sometimes the Wikipedia and Wikipedia articles have different Wikidata items. They need to be merged over at Wikidata so that the Wikivoyage article will be linked and showing in the sidebar. Gizza ( roam ) 08:37, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

 * [Edit conflict]. Is there a tool, bot or something (or could one be created) to run through all our destination articles, follow the link to Wikipedia (where there is one), and generate a list of the WP articles that do not have a link to Wikivoyage? Even if, for starters anyway, it did only the WV articles that are at guide level. Something like the lists that has generated at User:Syced/Syntax checks, or the lists at Category:Articles needing attention. Alternatively, could something be run on WP to generate a list of cities over a certain size that do not have a link to WV; I don't know how the population could be checked - Wikidata perhaps. Nurg (talk) 08:42, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think it would be terribly difficult to put something together that goes through all Wikivoyage mainspace articles, grabs the Wikipedia link, and then verifies that the corresponding Wikipedia article contains a link back to Wikivoyage. It probably also wouldn't be difficult to include the Wikivoyage article status in whatever report is generated. Note that this proposal wouldn't be a particularly efficient approach, and it isn't something I would personally be able to do in the immediate future, so perhaps someone else will have a better idea and/or more time available to implement it. -- Ryan • (talk) • 16:41, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * A bot generated list would be good. Started doing some checking, France did not have a link! --Traveler100 (talk) 17:30, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * There are a lot of very surprising omissions in Wikipedia - in addition to updating Chicago I also added Wikivoyage links for North America and South America last night (the other continents were covered) - so while waiting on a bot-generated list it would be great if people could at least check a few Wikipedia articles for destinations that they know are well covered on Wikivoyage as I'm sure lots of others will need to be added. If we end up adding hundreds or even thousands of missing links it could potentially have a noticeable impact on our search ranking as incoming links from Wikipedia are heavily weighted by Google. -- Ryan • (talk) • 17:48, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

I would probably be able to generate a list of all the English Wikivoyage articles that don't yet have incoming links from the English Wikipedia. I will try to do that later today. After the list would be generated, I suggest we tackle this goal as a community, and each of us would make sure that a certain large portion of articles have incoming links. ויקיג'אנקי (talk) 20:49, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

 * Sounds good, everyone! Also worth noting that sometimes multiple articles on Wikipedia could link to one Wikivoyage guide, in the case of merged towns or regions. Example, both Echuca and Moama linking to Echuca-Moama. James A ▪ talk 03:28, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

 * Okay... it's not perfect but here is the full list I made (contains 23,120 items).
 * A little bit of explanation ... in order to create the list I used MS Excel to do a quick automatic comparison between (1) a list of all the Engvoy mainspace articles (26,991 articles as of 12/14/2015) and (2) a list of all the Wikipedia articles that have a link to Engvoy articles (7,936 articles as of 12/14/2015). Doing this automatic comparison enabled me to quickly remove the titles which are identical in both lists (AKA articles in Wikipedia that already link to corresponding articles on Engvoy). In addition, I also removed all the disambiguation articles from the final list. By doing those things I managed to remove 3,871 items in total, and ended up with this list which includes 23,120 items. (unfortunately for us, this trick isn't perfect because the article names of Engvoy articles apparently are identical to the article names of the English Wikipedia only 50% of the times, but still, I am very happy with the end result because Excel actually managed to remove almost half of the articles linked from Wikipedia from the final list).
 * The question now is.... how many users are willing to work together in a collaborative effort aimed at adding links to all the corresponding articles on Wikipedia of these 23,120 articles? If there are enough volunteers, we could split the work between us. ויקיג'אנקי (talk) 04:39, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks! My browser froze trying to edit a list of nearly 25,000 items, so I've split it up into five smaller lists...
 * Search Expedition/Missing links from Wikipedia/1-4,999 (100 Mile House - Darling)
 * Search Expedition/Missing links from Wikipedia/5,000-9,999 (Darling Downs - Kerrville)
 * Search Expedition/Missing links from Wikipedia/10,000-14,999 (Kersa - Oqaatsut)
 * Search Expedition/Missing links from Wikipedia/15,000-19,999 (Oracle - Sydney/Macarthur)
 * Search Expedition/Missing links from Wikipedia/20,000-23,120 (Sydney/Macquarie Park - Żywiec)
 * ... copied it to Search Expedition/Missing links from Wikipedia. There are some false positives, but overall it seems very helpful.  I've updated a few Wikipedia articles and removed the corresponding entry from the list, and also noted a few places where the Wikipedia article had a link already. -- Ryan • (talk) • 05:26, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Ryan, it would be impossible for you to go over all those items by yourself. Please help me cordinate a group effort to tackle this task collaboratively - for example, if we'll end up having 7 volunteers, we could split the work between us so that each one of us would go over ~3,300 items (and thus we would make this important task much more easy to accomplish!). ויקיג'אנקי (talk) 05:50, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I will guarantee you that I'm not going to update 3300 links, but I'll definitely go through and make sure some of the areas that I am most familiar with have been updated. I think this is a task that will be best handled in small chunks, so as people update Wikipedia articles they can then remove items from the lists and we can slowly whittle it down. -- Ryan • (talk) • 06:02, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I doubt we'll find any Engvoy user willing to help work on thousand of articles. And unfortunately for us, no gnomes would do the work for us if we won't do it. We'll, at the very least, I am hoping the list I generated would help users like yourself to make links back to WV from the Wikipedia articles that are about the most prominent tourist destinations which don't yet have a link to WV (like the Chicago article mentioned above). ויקיג'אנקי (talk) 06:07, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * How about adding the list of articles to a new (temporary) clean-up category? Has a couple of advantages: once someone has added the link at Wikipedia can edit the Wikivoyage article to remove the category template; can use the CatScan utility to filter the list against other categories such as only usable in a particular country or region. --Traveler100 (talk) 06:54, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * My concerns with using categories is that there are currently a lot of false positives in the list, and I'm not sure it would be well-received if we added 23,000 category tags to Wikipedia articles (although I'm not very familiar with the community there). -- Ryan • (talk) • 07:08, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * How about adding it as a hidden category to the Wikivoyage articles? Disadvantage is that would mean two edits but advantage is extra sort and filter possibilities. --Traveler100 (talk) 08:10, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * What method was used to create this this? Seeing too many false positives. Suggest generating list of articles that accounts for redirects (e.g. Zürich). Or a better logic (although have to admit not sure how to do this) use the Wikipedia tag on the Wikivoyage page then check if those pages on wikipedia have the vikivoyage template. --Traveler100 (talk) 08:21, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

 * Is there any way to generate a list that includes ONLY all of the Engvoy redirect pages? if there is, I could probably use that data in MS Excel to quickly remove any redirect articles from the 23,120 items list I made. Or maybe I misunderstood the problem Traveler100 explained above? ויקיג'אנקי (talk) 16:05, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

 * Is there a way to generate a list (or create a category) of Wikipedia pages linked from Wikivoyage using the pagename option? If I had such a list then I could create a bot on Wikipedia to check pages for links back to Wikivoyage and mark those not currently doing so. --Traveler100 (talk) 19:58, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

 * Wonder if by doing all of this if it would be appropriate to check out Wikidata at the same time. Probably another can of worms? - Matroc (talk) 01:39, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Chicago
Making a subsection to keep discussion separate.

The link to Chicago from w:Chicago was [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chicago&diff=next&oldid=689182687 removed] without explanation by a Japanese IP on November 5 of this year. The same user also removed the link from w:Madrid, which I've just reinstated. Unfortunately, without diligent watchlisting, it's almost impossible to catch this sort of thing. An edit filter on Wikipedia is unlikely to be approved, given the low volume.

-- Powers (talk) 19:45, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Updated list
I've generated my own script and updated the list to remove Wikivoyage disambiguation pages and hopefully eliminate a number of false positives. I haven't checked it closely so will revisit tonight after work to see if things can be further narrowed down, but this new list is 19,339 items long (compared to 23,120 for the original) and can be regenerated in 1-2 minutes when needed. -- Ryan • (talk) • 14:59, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
 * One additional note - I'll update the script tonight to organize these lists based on Wikivoyage article status so that we can focus on non-outlines, which are more likely to merit a link from Wikipedia. -- Ryan • (talk) • 15:15, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
 * That would be very helpful indeed. I agree we should mostly refrain from adding links to outline articles in bulk, as it may cost us good will over at WP. JuliasTravels (talk) 18:03, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Search Expedition/Missing links from Wikipedia now has lists split up by article status, with an additional list for Wikipedia articles that have broken links to Wikivoyage. Please let me know if anything seems amiss, and ping me if sufficient updates have been made that the lists need to be regenerated and updated - it only takes a couple of minutes to do so. -- Ryan • (talk) • 04:46, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Copenhagen is a false positive. Is it because of the way the link is done in the subject bar at Wikipedia:Copenhagen? If so, will all articles that have that type of subj bar be false positives? PS, overall though, these lists are so useful. Nurg (talk) 09:34, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the feedback. I looked at Copenhagen yesterday and wasn't quite sure what to do with it - Copenhagen currently links to Special:Search/Copenhagen, so I could modify the script to consider "Special:Search/Article name" as equivalent to "Article name" - does that seem like the right solution? If I made that change, is there any concern about not having a direct link to some articles? -- Ryan • (talk) • 14:32, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I've implemented the above change to strip the "Special:Search/" from "Special:Search/Copenhagen" and re-run the scripts. -- Ryan • (talk) • 20:36, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

In a very short time there has been a massive amount of progress: Thanks to everyone who has helped out so far - it should be interesting to see the effect this effort has on Wikivoyage search engine ranking in the coming weeks, and it should also prompt a few more visitors (and hopefully editors) from Wikipedia. -- Ryan • (talk) • 21:07, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Before I start to create multiple redirects of boroughs and neighborhoods on Wikivoayge to District article then linking from Wikipdia to them, would like to have some comments and possible other suggestions about Handling city districts. --Traveler100 (talk) 10:20, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I'll help with this, too. Ryan, if it's easy to do, then you might stop including the "outlines" in the list.  They're unlikely to be acceptable at en.wp.  Some of the links might survive through benign neglect, but they don't meet the formal standard in w:en:WP:SISTER (namely that links be "useful to our readers").  WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:07, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
 * What about outlineregions and outline countries though? Hobbitschuster (talk) 23:13, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) I've already found many articles in the outline list that were more than qualified for inclusion in Wikipedia - many articles currently classified as outline should probably be upgraded to usable, and in the case of some region articles the article is well-developed but is kept at outline by the lack of development in the child city articles. Obviously anything that is little more than a skeleton should not be linked from Wikipedia, but that seems to be a minority of the articles in the list. -- Ryan • (talk) • 23:17, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Redirect from Wikipedia
In the Wikipedia Yonge Street article, there is the tag:. The WikiVoyage article Toronto/Yonge Street contains #REDIRECT Toronto. The WikiVoyage article Toronto contains the section heading ==Yonge Street==. When I click on the WikiVoyage icon in the Wikipedia article, I get directed to the top of the Toronto article but not to its Yonge Street section.

Could anyone offer a solution? As a last resort, I could delete the WikiVoyage icon from the Wikipedia article.

The reasons I am replacing the WikiVoyage article Toronto/Yonge Street by a redirect are here: Talk:Toronto/Yonge Street.

Thanks TheTrolleyPole (talk) 00:25, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

 * I've noticed the same problem recently, and not just with Toronto - whenever I enter a term into the searchbox that includes a fragment identifier (#), or type a URL that includes one that's intended for a wikivoyage.org address, I'm directed to the top of the page and have to click Refresh to arrive at the appropriate section. It's probably a bug with the MediaWiki software. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 00:46, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

 * Thanks for the response. I resolved the problem by replacing by  in the Wikipedia article. Even within WikiVoyage the redirect works in some places but fails in others when using Yonge Street .   TheTrolleyPole (talk) 20:36, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

 * TheTrolleyPole, what your web browser? This is a common problem in Safari.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:50, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
 * (Reply to WhatamIdoing): I get the problem in both IE and Chrome when I use Toronto/Yonge Street, and avoid the problem if I use Toronto#Yonge Street as a link. TheTrolleyPole (talk) 20:59, 7 January 2016 (UTC) Both seem to work in IE. TheTrolleyPole (talk) 21:35, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Chrome and Safari are both WebKit browsers, so they have some bugs in common. Assuming that this is one of those bugs, then the solution has to be supplied by fixing the web browser.  In the meantime, Toronto is the most we can do.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:18, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Link templates to Wikivoyage from Wikipedia
Many geographic articles on Wikipedia have the link template to point to the corresponding article here on Wikivoyage. These links increase traffic to Wikivoyage, and give us a competitive edge above "The other site". Should Wikipedia have a bot to automatize creation of these templates on Wikipedia? /Yvwv (talk) 19:43, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

 * I don't believe that the English Wikipedia would accept such a bot. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:56, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

title: Wikivoyage talk:Links from Wikipedia


text:
Wikivoyage talk:Links to and from Wikipedia

I hate being difficult, but... links from Wikipedia don't really have a lot to do with our manual of style. Is anyone going to be terribly bummed if I split this up into Project:Links to Wikipedia and Project:Links from Wikipedia? --(WT-en) Evan 10:24, 29 Jun 2005 (EDT)

 * On a narrow level, no, but on a general level, I think the manual of style is terribly unwieldy right now, as it's split into bazillions of overlapping articles.  Eg. right now we already have Welcome Wikipedians, Cooperating with Wikipedia, Links to Wikipedia and now you want a fourth article...

 * Of the three you mention, only one is in the Project:Manual of style. And I don't think the fourth one belongs there, either, since it's about how to edit Wikipedia, and not about guidelines for Wikivoyage text. I believe all three of the articles you mentioned link to each other. Each has a different purpose and the only way they overlap is in that they all have "Wikipedia" in the title. --(WT-en) Evan 12:02, 29 Jun 2005 (EDT)

 * At the very least we should put up Wikipedia-style navigation templates so you have a fair stab at finding what you need even if you end up on the wrong page. (WT-en) Jpatokal 10:47, 29 Jun 2005 (EDT)

 * What do you mean by "Wikipedia-style navigation templates"? I think our Project:Help (for technical info), Project:Policies and guidelines (for policies), and Project:Manual of style (for style guidelines) provide very convenient starting points in list format. Project:utilities catches most of the outliers.

 * I'd like to suggest this: maybe you should take a look at Project:utilities and think about how you would organize our available pages. Maybe even make some indices in different ways: alphabetical, by purpose, by topic (your grouping of Wikipedia), etc. That's one of the advantages of having many articles: you can cut and slice them different ways. --(WT-en) Evan 12:02, 29 Jun 2005 (EDT)

 * By the way: I added a snarky change summary for my previous comments. It was meant in a friendly way for a fellow admin whose opinion I respect and whose attention to this wiki -- big and small picture -- is admirable. No offense intended, but on re-reading I realized it wasn't immediately obvious. (Gotta remember to use the ☺ key more often.) --(WT-en) Evan 12:26, 29 Jun 2005 (EDT)

This discussion is the wrong place, and we've had it once before, but here we go again...

So if you take a peek at  you'll notice that there's an index box on the right, created with a handy template, that provides a 'table of contents' for the MoS. You'll also notice that the main Wikipedia MoS is one page with 15 subheadings, and only obscure stuff of limited scope gets shunted out into subpages.

The reason I want this is that I've been Wikivoyageling for quite some time now and I still find it exceedingly difficult to locate policy/guideline/manualofstyle/miscellaneous administrative pages here. (You may recall my earlier bitching about the arbitrariness of the division between these four and your refusal to consider linking to the same article from multiple pages.) If it's difficult for me, how does the just-signed-up newbie find the interface?

And oh, consumption of chill pills is punishable by hanging in the jurisdiction I'm typing this in. (WT-en) Jpatokal 13:05, 29 Jun 2005 (EDT)


text:
Wikivoyage talk:Links to disambiguating pages

Disambiguation maintenance function broken
Heads up: the disambiguation maintenance function link is broken. -- 202.47.247.130 20:12, 1 December 2005

Purpose
What is the purpose of this page and the Project:Disambiguation page index page? If it's just to know what pages are disambiguation pages, would looking at what links to Template:disamb do the same thing? It seems odd to use (error-prone) manual effort to keep this page updated when there is an automated way to do it... -- (WT-en) Ryan 17:40, 16 March 2006 (EST)
 * So that each disambiguation page has at least one link to it. Any page which doesn't have a link to it shows up on Orphan pages, and any page on that list is considered to be in trouble. Disambiguation pages aren't in trouble if no pages link to them; in fact, that's the desired state. (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 00:48, 7 June 2008 (EDT)

Alphabetic result from links to template?
Also: Is there any way to get an alphabetic result from http://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Disamb - ? -- 219.95.149.74 17:55, 16 March 2006 (EST)
 * (Refactored this question to its own section.) (WT-en) JimDeLaHunt 00:48, 7 June 2008 (EDT)