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Wikivoyage:Ways to help Wikivoyage

There are as many ways to help Wikivoyage as there are Wikivoyagers. This article is for those who like the idea of Wikivoyage, but are having a hard time getting started with contributing.

 * Update the article for the town/region you live in.
 * Navigate to the article for your home town, either by going through the directory on the Main Page or using the search functionality.
 * Take a good look to see that it's correct, if the article is there.
 * Make sure that major attractions are listed.
 * Would you recommend a restaurant or a pub that is currently missing?
 * See if you can fill in any details (hours, prices, phone numbers) for any of the entries there.
 * Ensure that descriptions of individual venues are fair (and not promotional). Remove duplicate listings.
 * Are any of the listed venues closed, or the information wrong? Are the web links broken? Update or remove the outdated information.
 * If there's not an article on your home town, start one!
 * Please, repeat this exercise for your home state or province, region, country, or places you've visited. As with your home town, check them for accuracy, add information, or start them new.
 * Find articles to help with. There are many ways to do this.
 * Special:Newpages gives you all the pages that have been created recently. Check that new pages are suitable for articles.
 * Special:Recentchanges gives you the pages that have been edited recently. Watch recent changes for vandalism and inappropriate editing.
 * Category:Outline articles will find many articles which have been started but are not complete enough to be usable by the traveller. Plunge forward and fill in the missing information.
 * Orphaned pages gives you articles that do not have links pointing to them. Unless you do something about them, they are most likely to be forgotten about, because contributors will ordinarily never come across them or improve them.
 * Dead-end pages are those which do not link to any other. Sometimes this is okay, but often this indicates that the page has been created by a new user who is not yet familiar with inserting wikilinks.
 * Special:Randompage, as the name suggests, will throw up a random page. Usually, you can find something to improve in any page.
 * Update or remove dead external links. A broken URL could mean that the attraction has closed, but it could also mean that they have re-arranged their website or changed their domain name.
 * Improve your chosen articles.
 * Proofread. This is one of the easiest ways to get started with helping with Wikivoyage. While you're reading an article, watch for spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, or other writing gaffes. If you see one, edit the page and correct it. Wikivoyage is now that much better -- thanks to you!
 * Expand listings. It can help a lot to take short listings and fill them out. Contributors will often leave out crucial information about an attraction, such as its address, phone number, hours, or price. Often, this information can be found on the World Wide Web.
 * Don't limit yourself to things you already know. You don't have to have firsthand knowledge of a destination or topic to contribute to the article! Find articles that need work and do some research -- on Wikipedia, on the Web, or with other reference media -- to get started on working on that article.
 * Reformat articles. Wikivoyage has a manual of style for giving a consistent look-and-feel to our content and making it easier for travellers to find and use information. Just as with proofreading, you can do a lot of good just by reformatting or restructuring articles to match the Manual. Articles that need reformatting are typically stub articles, which usually lack standard headings and outlines. See also any articles in Category:Articles needing attention.  The dead end pages, which list articles without any links on them, are also worth a look, as are the various Project:Syntax checks.
 * Add geographic co-ordinates. Geocoding, the inclusion of (latitude, longitude) information for cities and individual points of interest, assists our ongoing efforts to add dynamic maps to articles.
 * Organize the Geographical hierarchy. Work to help organise regions and to make make it easier to navigate the site.
 * Create new articles.
 * Follow red links. While you're reading articles, if you see a link for an article that's not there yet, follow the link and add in some information. We're nowhere near close to covering all the info we need to have -- when you start a new page, we're that much closer.
 * Make outlines. Don't be daunted by the task of writing all of the article about Russia -- just get it started with an outline. People are much more likely to change or add to articles than to start them from scratch. We have a bunch of handy skeletons for destination guides, which you can use. If you only know a teensy bit about a subject, go ahead and add it in. We currently have a huge backlog of stub articles that shouldn't really be there. It is easy to create an outline for most articles and move them to the next level. You can help there.
 * Watch for wanted articles. The Special:Wantedpages feature of our software lets you see which articles have been linked to but not yet written. There's also a list of suggestions for destinations and topics at Requested articles. These are excellent places to get started -- you're filling in what is an obvious need for the travel guide.
 * Take Wikivoyage with you. Before you go on a trip, try to find articles in Wikivoyage about the destinations you're visiting. Print them out -- or download them to your PDA, or whatever -- and take them with you on your trip. Keep notes on what's right, what's wrong, and what's missing. If the destination you're going to isn't in Wikivoyage yet, take notes for a new article to start when you get back.
 * Promote Wikivoyage. The more people who read and contribute to Wikivoyage, the better it becomes, and the closer we get to our goal of making a free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide. There are a number of ways to promote Wikivoyage; check to see if you can do one or more of them.
 * Work together.
 * Join an Expedition. There are several tasks for making a real travel guide that require special skills and talents. We've created special subprojects called Expeditions to organize the efforts of people who have these talents. Do you know a foreign (non-English) language? Help out with the Phrasebook Expedition. Can you draw? Try your hand at the Mapmaking Expedition.
 * Rate articles. Wikivoyage has a system to indicate the maturity status of articles. This helps keep track of what stage an article is in and how many articles are at what level of maturity.
 * Help new contributors. New users contributing to Wikivoyage can have a lot of questions and problems. Your experience with Wikivoyage can make their learning curve a lot easier. Watch for questions in the travellers' pub or on talk pages and respond helpfully. If you see the same question over and over, add it to the FAQ. You can even add to the Help index for more complicated questions or issues. If there are help topics already in place that people seem not to see or understand, maybe you can help get that information out by reorganizing the help area.
 * Cheerlead. Nothing makes people feel better than knowing their work is appreciated. When you see a good piece of writing, or a great picture, or whatever, let the Wikivoyager who made it know that you liked it. Just a bit of encouragement on the article's talk page, or on the user's user talk page, can make a world of difference.
 * Shape the community. Our project is still young, and much of the way we've decided to work together is still untested. If you have ideas for how to work together better, please suggest them as new policies and guidelines. It doesn't matter how long you've been a Wikivoyager: you just might have an idea that will make things work smoother. At worst, you'll make explicit some policy that's currently implicit; that's a good thing. If there are policies already in place that people aren't following, maybe you can help get that information out by reorganizing the policies area.
 * Welcome new users. When new users come onto Wikivoyage, it's nice to leave them a brief welcome message pointing them to important parts of the site. We normally wait until folks have created a user account and possibly set up their own user page. Welcome messages let new contributors know that they're part of a community, and also make sure they have pointers to important tools for contributing.
 * Clean up the travellers' pub. The travellers' pub, as the default place to put discussions about Wikivoyage, tends to get a little crowded at times. For this reason people take turns moving discussions out of the pub and into the archives or to more specific talk pages. It only takes a few minutes, it helps make discussions more clear, and it's easy to do.
 * Make or edit policy and style guidelines. The policies and manual of style define how we work together to make a great travel guide. If you're working on Wikivoyage and think there's ways we can make a better guide, or we can work together better to achieve our goals, by all means start a new policy or guideline page! We try to make decisions by consensus, so there's no guarantee that your idea will be accepted, but it definitely won't be if you don't suggest it in the first place!
 * Work on MediaWiki. The software we use for Wikivoyage is called MediaWiki. If you know the PHP programming language, contributing to MediaWiki or its extensions really helps Wikivoyage. Fixing bugs or adding features makes it easier for other Wikivoyagers to add great content.

title: Wikivoyage:Ways to help Wikivoyage


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Wikivoyage:Ways to promote Wikivoyage

The more people who read and contribute to Wikivoyage, the better it becomes, and the more we further our goal of making a free, complete, up-to-date and reliable worldwide travel guide. Some ways you can help promote Wikivoyage are:

 * Word of mouth. Tell friends and colleagues about Wikivoyage – especially those who are interested in travel. Make sure to give them the correct URL – http://en.wikivoyage.org/ – and let them know that their contributions are welcome.

 * Recruit for specific jobs. It is often easier for people to get into Wikivoyage if they think in terms of specific work on specific articles. Do you know someone who speaks one of the languages that we need a phrasebook for? Or someone who's been to a place that doesn't have a star article at Wikivoyage yet?

 * Link to Wikivoyage. If you have a blog, personal travel Web site, or what have you, mention Wikivoyage and link to the Main Page. See Badges for some nice images to use on your site.

 * Link from Wikipedia. Places in Wikipedia should also be linked in to their Wikivoyage guides. See links from Wikipedia. Just add the macro and make sure the links works.

 * Make good content. The better our travel guide is, the more people will come back to it, and talk about it, and recommend it to their friends. Any time you spend making Wikivoyage a better site will help generate more traffic – and thus make it an even better site.

 * Make popular content. Watch for topics and destinations that people want to know about – lists of top destinations in newspapers and magazines, places in the news, etc. Make sure we have articles about those places or topics.

 * Suggest the URL to blogs and other Web sites. If you regularly read a Web site that's concerned with travel, travel writing, or open content, send an email (or use whatever feedback mechanism is available) to suggest the Wikivoyage URL.

 * Write articles about Wikivoyage. If you write for a magazine, a newsletter, or a Web site, try submitting an article about Wikivoyage to that publication. Try to make the article interesting and cogent to the publication in question. You might want to discuss Wikivoyage as an open content effort, for example, or maybe you'd rather take the angle of peer support for travelers. In any event, try to sound less like a zealot and more like an interested party with something valuable to say.

 * Add Wikivoyage articles to bookmark-sharing Web sites. If you use Jots, reddit, del.icio.us, Shadows, simpy, StumbleUpon, or another bookmark-sharing Web site, add your favorite Wikivoyage guides.

 * Review Wikivoyage for Web review sites. A review on Alexa or other review sites can give others a good idea of your enthusiasm for Wikivoyage.

 * "Like" Wikivoyage on Facebook. Go to the Wikivoyage page on Facebook and click "Like" to receive updates about Wikivoyage and to spread the word about Wikivoyage on social media.

 * "Follow" Wikivoyage on Twitter. Visit Wikivoyage's Twitter feed and follow us for the latest updates, featured articles and to tell the world about our work.

de:Project:Wie du Werbung für Wikivoyage machen kannst

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

title: Wikivoyage:Ways to promote Wikivoyage


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Wikivoyage:Welcome, business owners

Welcome, business owners. The owners and employees of hotels, restaurants, bars, attractions, and other businesses catering to travellers are welcome to share information that helps others in their travels. Everyone is invited to participate in the guide's development and decision-making. Everyone is also invited to share the information in Wikivoyage with whomever they want. However, we do have some guidelines, policies, and a few legal requirements that need to be observed.

Contribute
If you have information that is of interest to travellers, even if it is about a business that you own or work for, plunge forward and add the information to Wikivoyage. Find the article for the city or district it is located in and add it to the appropriate section (See, Do, Buy, Eat, Drink, Sleep). Note, however, that Wikivoyage has some policies on what is acceptable content:

 * Don't tout. Wikivoyage is a site for travelers, not for marketing, and promotional listings will be removed.  This guideline identifies ways for businesses to contribute constructively.  In particular, please do not ever add more than one listing for a business – for example, if a hotel has a restaurant and bar, list the hotel under "Sleep" and mention that there is a restaurant and bar. Marketers and chain employees may not add listings to the guides, but may correct phone numbers and similar, and may suggest adding a listing or changing the description in one by posting on the talk page of the relevant article.
 * External links. Wikivoyage has strict policies on including external links in articles, as identified in this guideline.  Note in particular that links to third-party booking services, review sites and other travel guides are not permitted.
 * Tour listings. Many tour listings and most travel agency listings are inappropriate for inclusion on Wikivoyage, as described in this guideline.
 * Rental listings. Rental listings are only appropriate for inclusion on Wikivoyage in very specific instances as outlined by this guideline. However, serviced apartments that are charged by the day are fine to list.
 * Image policy. Photos of businesses generally should not be included in articles.

Business listings
When adding information about a business on Wikivoyage, please use a listing template and make your descriptions as straightforward as possible. Use a Wikivoyage standard listing format, inserting information as relevant in each field of the listing template. If a listing field is not relevant, leave it blank but do not delete the field. For example, "alt" is relevant only if a business previously had a significantly different name, or to insert the name in the local language. Never copy your name or put a merely shortened name there. Look around to see how other good listings are done, and copy their example. The key guideline is: "Don't tout." Save the sales pitch and just tell it like it is. You don't have to stick to a dry recitation of facts, but keep in mind that Wikivoyagers aren't fools. They'll see through flowery descriptions and effusive praise, and they won't trust it. Any of it. They'll distrust your information, and they'll also start to distrust Wikivoyage in general, which isn't good for you or for the rest of us. Using advertisements you have placed elsewhere, or using the word our, or using any of the words to avoid are indicators that you are heading the wrong way. A concise statement of facts, including prices for your service, is a good start along the right way.

If you add a link to your business name it should also be mentioned in the text, and the travellers should get what they are expecting if they click through any link you add.

You are welcome to mention your business name on your user page, but we don't allow user pages to be used for advertising.

Cooperate
Other wikivoyagers are also working on the article trying to make the best travel guide possible. Your entry is likely to be changed, moved, updated, or entirely removed, all in the interest of giving the traveler the best and most relevant information. We are a collaborative site, so it is likely for somebody to comment on the edits you or they did in an edit summary, which can be seen in the "history" tab of the page, on the article's talk page (the "discussion" tab) or on your talk page, especially if you logged in.

Do check if somebody has been trying to communicate with you. If your edits are largely or fully removed, the most likely reason is that you did not understand the house rules, and by getting a better understanding you can join in making the guide better. We want travellers to find your business when they want to, just as you do.

If you think any changes are unfair, please discuss them on the Talk page of the article and try to reach consensus. At Wikivoyage, the traveller comes first, so that is what matters in any argument.

Contributing quality and useful travel information and working cooperatively reflects positively on your business, although there is never a guarantee of a listing or positive review.

On the other hand, touting, engaging in edit wars, or changing competitor information will reflect negatively on your business. The community has decided that we are looking for good businesses to appear in our guides, and may decide that your business is not appropriate to list.

Never remove info on competitors
One thing we ask you never to do is to remove information about your competitors. Even if they break every rule in the book, don't remove it or edit it yourself. Instead point out the problems with their listing by posting on the Talk page of the Wikivoyage article. If a consensus to remove the listing is reached after a discussion there, it can then (and only then) be removed from the article.

Convention and visitors bureaux
All of the same considerations which apply to individual businesses apply equally to the creation of listings for multiple local attractions by tourism offices.

Most often, visitors bureaux already have a comprehensive list of attractions, activities or good places to eat or sleep locally which can be used to spot key venues we may have missed. These can be a good source of additional information to build a factual listing for each venue, but the tone used to describe businesses, attractions and the city itself needs to be very different in a Wikivoyage guide than in a promotional brochure. Individual listings need to be concise (a sentence to a paragraph of description at most) and factual, avoiding promotional wording or superfluous hype which merely expresses a vendor's opinion of their own product while including basic information such as names, addresses, contact info, price range, type of restaurant or accommodation offered, hours of operation and a link to the venue's own website if one exists.

As a visitors bureau, you are in a unique position to provide useful, factual information to help travellers find exciting things to see and do in your city; conversely, a city guide which has been edited by a local tourism bureau in a highly promotional tone can be very problematic, as every listing for an entire area is adversely affected. See Welcome, tourism professionals for more remarks on how you can make a helpful contribution as an editor on this site.

If your edits are reverted
If your edits are reverted, please feel free to discuss the reasons on the article Talk page. This is usually a better place to discuss than directly with the user who did the reversion, because reversions are usually for reasons of policy or site style that can't be resolved on an individual basis but may be subject to interpretation or discussion in relation to the article in question.

There are a number of reasons that your edit could be reverted including:

 * The text may have been copied from another web page. Rewrite it in your own words.
 * The tone may sound more like an advertising brochure than a travel guide. Don't tout.
 * The entry may have been added to multiple articles or multiple sections. Just add it once to the most appropriate article and section.
 * The entry may have had erratic formatting, including excessive use of UPPERCASE. Carefully review syntax in Listings and Capitalization.
 * The entry may be of little relevance to the traveler. Rewrite to make it as helpful for travelers as possible.
 * There may just be too many entries of a particular type, and Wikivoyage is a guide, not an exhaustive directory. Entries that comply with our manual of style, that don't tout and that have verifiable contact information are less likely to be removed when a list grows too long.
 * If you are adding a tour agency, it may violate our policy on tours.
 * If you are adding an apartment rental agency, it may violate our policy on apartment rental agencies.

Check the edit summary that was left with the reversion edit (click the "history" tab of the page), as it may explain why the edit was reverted. If you have created an account some wikivoyagers may give some reasoning on your talk page as well; otherwise, look at the user talk page for the IP address you used.

Stay
You could just add a listing for your business and leave it at that. But we'd love to see you sign up and stick around.

But don't do it just for us. If you own a travel-related business, you probably want to see local tourism and business travel to your area thrive, and helping to make the Wikivoyage guide to your destination better is one way to promote that. We've found that the better an article is, the more traffic it gets. Twice a month we feature another well-developed article on the Main Page as either "Destination of the Month" or "Off the Beaten Path". And for the crème de la crème pages, we flag them and feature them as "Star" articles.

So make sure all the key attractions and activities in your locale are listed... as well as your business. No one's asking you to add listings for your competitors (though to be honest, we'd love it if you did). But if you own a nightclub, surely you must know some good restaurants in the area. If you own a hotel, you probably know something about what your guests see and do while they're in town. We'd love it if you uploaded images of attractions in your city to Wikimedia Commons; just be sure you understand they'll be published under a free content license (a requirement from us and them, by default a "copyleft" one – make sure you have the rights to license the image). You may even consider becoming a docent for your city, someone who offers to answer questions that travellers might have about things that aren't covered in the article. If a traveller sees that you're genuinely interested in helping, that certainly can't hurt the chances that they'll patronize your business when they get to town. And it's quite alright to put information about yourself and your business on your user page (if you don't turn it into a marketing brochure).

And on the off chance that once in a while you manage to get away from the job and get out of town, please contribute the information you learn as a traveller yourself, to other guide pages.

User page
Especially if you plan to make more than a few edits, it is useful to create a user page, where you tell readers who you are and perhaps what you are going to do, have already done or might be willing to do on Wikivoyage. Using the user page to advertise your business is not allowed, but you may mention it and link to its site, and that way your contributions can create good will for your business. The user page is also useful for those trying to communicate with you on your user talk page: it is nicer to talk to somebody who is not totally anonymous, and advice can be more easily tailored to your needs.

Share
You can share Wikivoyage information with others. You can print copies of Wikivoyage articles and provide them as city guides to your guests.

The only restrictions on you are the same ones that apply to Wikivoyage itself: you have to give credit to the contributors, and anyone you give this information to has the same right to redistribute it. See How to re-use Wikivoyage guides for more details.

This guide is published under a "copyleft" license that allows its content to be used by anyone, free of charge. It's called the "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike" license. The "Attribution" part says we have to give credit to the people who contributed the information. The "ShareAlike" part says that everything contributed to Wikivoyage has to be made available to anyone else on the same terms. We specifically didn't include the "NonCommercial" limitation in Wikivoyage's licence, so that business owners like you can use the travel guides.

title: Wikivoyage:Welcome, business owners


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Wikivoyage:Welcome, newcomers

Welcome to Wikivoyage—the travel guide anyone can edit! We, the Wikivoyagers who've made it, hope that you enjoy what you see and that you join us in making a free, up-to-date, complete and reliable worldwide travel guide.

Finding travel information
Articles on Wikivoyage are mostly based on geographical locations. You generally won't find a whole article on one attraction, hotel or restaurant, but you hopefully will find all that information and more in our destination articles for countries, cities, and towns.

You can try searching for the destination you are interested in. You may be taken immediately to a guide for that destination, or if there isn't a guide on that destination, you will see a list of articles that mention it. You can also try searching for the name of an attraction you are looking for, and the search will return a list of relevant articles.

Alternatively, you can browse through our geographical hierarchy. You can start at the continents and regions listed on our Main Page, and work your way down through the region, city and district links to the area you are interested in.

After you have found the guide for the area you are interested in, there may still be more information waiting for you to read. We don't cover information on how to get into a country in every destination guide. You won't find visa information for Australia in the Sydney article. So, if you are coming from further afield, you may want to refer to the breadcrumb links at the top of the page, and read the country or region guide, to make sure you have the full picture.

We don't list general travel information in every guide. We have helpful articles on things like money, visas, how to stay safe and how to deal with language barriers in our list of travel topics.

Remember that Wikivoyage is an open guide that anyone can edit. Often that means you can get up-to-the-minute information and inside information on attractions and the latest buzz, but sometimes it means that some information can be unverified and unreliable. As with any other guide, you should double check and confirm any information that is critical to the success of your travels.

If you have particular travel questions that aren't covered in a guide, you can ask a docent. A docent is a volunteer guide, and if there is one for your area there will be a link in the sidebar on the left containing their contact information.

For general questions, post a message in our Travellers' pub.

You're free to use the articles in Wikivoyage in almost any way, thanks to our copyleft license.

Share your knowledge
This is a reader-created website; all the information you see in Wikivoyage was contributed by Internet users just like you. We're trying to create, illustrate, and edit a travel guide for the entire world, and we need your help. It's a humongous job. As they say, though, "Many hands make light work;" anything you can do to contribute is appreciated. You don't have to be an "expert" in travel; you just have to be interested enough to get started.

You're always welcome to plunge forward and make changes to any page on the site, including this one. Just click the Edit this page link, and you'll get a Web form that lets you change the contents of the page. Hit Save page, and your version is what's shown on the site. If you're nervous, feel free to practice on the graffiti wall.

If you find yourself getting more involved, you may want to read our tips for new contributors. Our list of goals and non-goals give a good idea of what we're trying to do with Wikivoyage. If you've got some specific info you want to share, we have some guidelines on where you can stick it (pun intended). You can also read our manual of style for more clues as to how to edit and layout guides, but don't worry too much about that stuff if you don't want. Don't forget to describe yourself on your user page to help other contributors to communicate with you (and even to ask for your help sometimes).

There are other ways to help Wikivoyage, too. We have a lot of stuff that needs to be done. And if you have special skills or interests, consider joining a related Expedition.

More information
We have quite a bit of help documentation to make reading and editing Wikivoyage as easy as we can.

If you have any questions about Wikivoyage, please read our FAQ first to see if it's already answered. If not, feel free to ask your question in the travellers' pub, where friendly Wikivoyagers will help guide your way.

We can't say how important it is to us that you are reading and contributing on Wikivoyage. If you need anything, just ask us (however you can). We want you to enjoy Wikivoyage, to find the info you need, and (we hope) to be inspired to share your knowledge with others.

title: Wikivoyage:Welcome, newcomers


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Wikivoyage:Welcome, tourism professionals

To help further the goals laid out in the Tourist Bureau Expedition this page will help direct tourism professionals to related Wikivoyage policies and explain any questions.

How can my bureau help?
Any help on Wikivoyage is greatly appreciated and a good place to start about what kind of help we’re looking for is Ways to help Wikivoyage. Additionally, we’re always looking for help with adding tourist maps and images to Wikivoyage; however, we need all materials uploaded or shared with Wikivoyage to be compliant with our copyright policy and image policy.

Incentives
Every month we feature some of our best guides on the front page of Wikivoyage, viewed by hundreds of thousands of visitors every month. That could be your destination! However, this requires you taking the time to carefully construct a complete guide in line with our policies and our tone, but considering the costs of reaching a global audience the size of Wikivoyage's through advertisement, it could easily prove more economical, more effective and more fun!

Furthermore, as destinations guides grow into well developed articles, they tend to begin attracting a larger number of contributors who update, upgrade and improve the content constantly. As Wikivoyage's content is provided under a free license, you can take the new information, reviews, etc. back into your internal information ecology, provided that you release it under a similar license (no copyright).

Working with the community
Wikivoyage welcomes the input of professionals on all subjects — history, geography, language, culture, economics and any others. Travel and tourist information professionals — such as guides, travel writers, and travel agents — are welcome for the detailed and in depth knowledge of destinations and subjects that they can bring.

However, we also believe that travel is an individual experience, and that everyone has valuable information to contribute to the project. This travel guide is built by and for travellers, and we think that is the best way to get to our goals.

We ask academics and professionals to follow a few guidelines.

 * Please identify yourself by creating a user account and giving a little description on your user page.
 * Please remember that Wikivoyage is built in collaboration with tens of thousands of contributors from around the world. There is a great benefit to drawing on the collective experience of those travellers — they do legwork and provide feedback that one person cannot do alone.
 * If you have to make changes to an article, please be ready to defend your position on the talk pages. The appeal to authority is a logical fallacy and a bad way to work together.
 * Please don't tout for products, services, or destinations. Overexcited or exclamatory statements put off other editors and readers. Straightforward, objective descriptions of a destination that are fair are more likely to survive future edits, and are also more likely to stimulate the interest of Wikivoyage readers.

How do we edit Wikivoyage?
The first thing option is to plunge forward and do your best to follow our manual of style. Don’t worry about the little mistakes, because we’ll help you out and fix any mistakes. To make your Wikivoyage editing experience more enjoyable with fewer hassles, please read over several of the policies listed below. We know, from personal experience, that using wiki markup is confusing, but reading our wiki markup article will help you.

Creating a new guide

 * Article naming convention
 * Article skeleton templates
 * Region article template
 * Small city article template
 * Big city article template
 * Huge city article template
 * District article template
 * Park article template (Including national parks and state parks)
 * Itinerary article template
 * Phrasebook template

Guidelines for listings
Wikivoyage uses listings in a predefined template format listing for individual venues and points of interest. There's space for contact info, hours, prices, a brief description and (lat, long) co-ordinates to place a marker on a locator map. It’s recommended that staff members of CVBs use these listings for ease of use. Most individual venue should be placed in one individual city district article (for large cities) or in the city article (for small towns) as the region articles are primarily a general description or overview.

Also, please read over the following policies:

 * Be fair
 * Don't tout
 * External links
 * Phone numbers
 * Section headers

What to put in, what to leave out
A Wikivoyage destination-level page is normally a description of one city (or one borough or district of a large metropolis). It should have information on how to get to the area and a reasonably complete list of things to see and do while there. It should also explain what makes this destination unique; a brief description of the history, cultural identity and geography of the area and maybe a photo or two (if available under a free licence) may serve as a good introduction. It should link to other Wikivoyage articles for nearby towns which may be suitable day trips and provide a few viable options for places to eat or sleep.

For some destinations, Wikivoyage already has at least a usable guide to the area; for others, a mere outline. In some cases, information will be missing, incomplete or outdated. Because of your knowledge of an individual destination, you can help Wikivoyage better inform travellers by checking articles for destinations in your region and filling in key gaps:

 * Are there things to see and do which have been missed? A live theatre, a historic site, a museum, an amusement park, a local farmers' market, a key landmark which visitors come from far and wide to see? If a key listing is missing, plunge forward and add it.
 * Are there listings which are incomplete, missing factual information or padded with promotional language? Remove the fluff, add the facts: names, address/location, contact information, phone numbers in international format, pricing, hours of operation. For a restaurant, what type of cuisine? For a hotel, what facilities (pool, restaurant, Internet, conference or banquet rooms, breakfast or room service) are offered? A listing with just a name and a link to the venue's website is utterly useless to a traveller who uses Wikivoyage offline (mobile phone roaming might be very expensive or unavailable).
 * Are there listings which are outdated? Businesses which have closed their doors? Popular venues under new names and new ownership? Flag the outdated info, indicate why it is incorrect and remove it.
 * Are there a few good options for food and lodging in each category or price range? If not, fill in the gaps.
 * Are there nearby towns which are popular as day trips among visitors to your city? If these places have a Wikivoyage article, mention them and link to that article in "Go next".

At the same time, please avoid adding:

 * Copypasta. Text copied from your existing promotional materials and pasted to Wikivoyage is problematic for a number of reasons. One is copyright; we need to be able to freely modify and redistribute text (with attribution) at will and therefore require content be under a free license. One cannot easily verify that text or images copied from outside sources is indeed free. Another issue is that the tone of an advertisement is utterly wrong in a guide which needs to be fair and informative, not promotional in content or wording.
 * The local CVB's (or local hôtelier's) opinion of the venue or destination. Utterly useless; every destination claims to be "a vacation paradise" and the staff of every hotel claims "our friendly staff will make your relaxing stay an enjoyable one" but these self-serving assessments provide no information of value to the traveller and will be removed. Don't tout.
 * Long lists of every business in the area, or listings which are not specifically of use to travellers. Wikivoyage is not a yellow page directory. We don't need the name of every school, every church and every lumberyard in town.
 * Indiscriminate collections of external links. One link to the city hall or official tourist information site for a town in the article's lead, and one link to the official site for a venue from that venue's listing is reasonable – if these aren't used as a substitute for putting the information into the Wikivoyage guide. Links to resellers, booking agents and other travel guides are to be avoided.
 * Excessive detail for a single venue. Wikivoyage is a travel guide, not an encyclopaedia. A sentence to a paragraph is reasonable to describe one activity or attraction. If you need an entire page to explain why one building is listed on a national historic register, complete with a bibliography of reliable secondary sources, that level of detail may better suit Wikipedia. An article here covers a small city, a large rural area or a district of a large metropolis. See What is an article?
 * Misplaced content. The "Connect" section is for helping travellers remain in contact while on the road – post offices, libraries with copy/fax or Internet access, Wi-Fi hotspots, SIM cards and mobile phones belong here. It is not somewhere to list "contact X Hôtel at +1-123-123-4567" or "contact the local CVB". Likewise, lists of local landmarks and attractions belong in "See", not in individual hotel descriptions. "Go next" is for linking to other Wikivoyage articles for nearby destinations, not for listing in-town venues which belong in "see" or "do" locally.

Remember, in all cases the traveller comes first. Add only the information which is useful to the traveller.


text:
Wikivoyage:Welcome, Wikipedians

Welcome to Wikivoyage! This article is specifically for people familiar with Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Wikivoyage's format was inspired by Wikipedia, and we also use the MediaWiki software to run our site. If you're used to Wikipedia, you should feel right at home—although you should still probably check out the Welcome, newcomers page.

There are some important differences between our sites.

Goals
Wikivoyage goals differ from Wikipedia in some important aspects. A couple of things stand out in particular:

 * Wikivoyage is traveller-focused. We don't want immense, detailed articles about anything and everything. We don't create articles for every attraction or cross-roads on the globe.  Articles in Wikivoyage are comprehensive references for travellers; subjects not directly or indirectly related to travel should be avoided.
 * Wikivoyage is targeted towards print and off-line versions too. We want travellers on the road to be able to access our articles. They should be able to access our articles without an Internet connection, or even keep a dog-eared printout in their back pocket. The print version matters!

Style differences
Our Manual of Style covers more specifics, but here are some things you should look out for stylistically:

 * We really prefer an informal tone, not an encyclopedic one. Lively writing is welcome... and encouraged!
 * Unlike Wikipedia, we encourage original research. We want you to contribute both first-hand factual information as well as your subjective opinions, but first-person writing should be avoided.
 * Wikivoyage does not follow a strict encyclopedic "neutral point of view". Instead, our guiding mantra is "be fair".  Fairness means that descriptions provide a balanced summary of the experiences of Wikivoyagers. For Wikivoyage, the traveller comes first; the needs and priorities of others—such as local residents, travel agents, or the local propaganda ministry—are given less weight.
 * Wikivoyage does not share Wikipedia's preference for secondary sources. External links normally point to primary sources like the official page for a landmark or attraction, not to someone else's description (however neutral or objective) of a place. The way links are handled at Wikivoyage also differs from Wikipedia (see below)
 * It's a common thing on Wikipedia to wikilink many nouns you write. Wikivoyage, however, is aimed at providing a practical travel guide rather than a massive collection of general knowledge—most terms will never become articles here, so there will be fewer wikilinks. Unless it's the name of a destination, an itinerary, or a travel topic, it shouldn't be wikilinked.
 * Our regional hierarchy doesn't always follow the "official" breakdown. As a result, we often use a much flatter regional hierarchy than in Wikipedia — we add a level of regions only when there are too many cities or when there is too much content in the existing breakdown.
 * Although there are rare exceptions, Wikivoyage normally does not have separate articles about individual landmarks, attractions, highways and the like. Information on everything in a city is placed in a city-level article, which is then broken into districts only if this becomes unworkable. A building on the national historic register is "notable" for a Wikipedia article, but simply gets a mention in its home city's article in Wikivoyage.
 * Wikivoyage articles have no "External links" sections.  Instead, we incorporate certain kinds of links into the article itself (see External links for the specifics), and that's it.  In part this is to discourage well-meaning contributors from just linking to information instead of actually including it in Wikivoyage articles.  It's also so that spammers don't have a handy place to dump links to their sites.
 * Wikivoyage articles use no references. It's fine to point to authoritative primary source external sites for additional information (eg. visa sections are usually linked into the country's immigration website), but individual claims are not referenced.  If a claim is dubious or in dispute, it's best to hammer out a reworded consensus on the Talk page, not try to "prove" that it's true. You can also provide a source for a contentious claim in the edit summary box before hitting 'Publish changes'.
 * Wikivoyage uses breadcrumbs (for instance, Ottawa-Rideau ) in contexts where Wikipedia would use categories. This allows a trail Canada → Ontario → eastern Ontario → Ottawa-Rideau → Ottawa to be constructed automatically. There is one disadvantage: the breadcrumbs do not handle cases where something belongs in more than one category. Ottawa-Hull is in two provinces, Kansas City is in two states, Niagara Falls and the Thousand Islands are divided by the international boundary while Yekaterinburg and Istanbul are on two different continents. Often, these places are split into two articles (like Ottawa and Gatineau) if their size justifies this.

What is an article?
If you read What is an article?, you'll see that individual articles in Wikivoyage tend to be bigger and more comprehensive than articles in Wikipedia. Because one of our goals is to have printable guides that someone can take with them to use at a destination, we tend to try to write articles about a particular city, region or country all in one place. We try to balance this with the need to not duplicate a ton of information all over the place.

Article templates
The great majority of Wikivoyage articles tend to be about cities, countries, and regions. (That's not all, of course—see other ways of seeing travel for some more ideas.) We think having these articles organized somewhat the same makes it easier for readers to use the guides, so Wikivoyage articles usually have standard headings; they are not as free-form as Wikipedia articles are. If a reader wants to find restaurants, they look in the Eat section of the article, whether it's about New York City or Mumbai. The hotels and hostels go in Sleep, the museums and monuments go under See.

In our Manual of Style we have a set of article skeleton templates that show the preferred format for each kind of article. These are guidelines, of course – people can add information to an article however they want. That's the wiki way. But editors come through later and try to shape the articles to look more and more like the templates.

Information and formatting using MediaWiki templates

 * See also Using MediaWiki templates

Wikipedia uses a large number of MediaWiki templates to generate links, boxes and other formatting within a page. Wikipedia has infoboxes at the top of many articles, for example the on articles for individual towns.

'''Wikivoyage tends to use MediaWiki templates more sparingly and is more restrictive on the creation of new templates. '''

We use quickbar (which resembles a Wikipedia infobox) on country-level articles, but no equivalent at city or destination-level. As Wikivoyage (unlike Wikipedia) does not have articles about most individual highways, routebox is used in the "Go next" section to list the next town with an article on major road or rail lines through a city.

The template to place co-ordinates for a town at the top of a page is geo.

Links to and from Wikipedia
We use interwiki links to link to Wikipedia. You can see how to make these work on our "links to Wikipedia" page, which also explains why in-line links to Wikipedia are not used.

Links between a Wikivoyage destination page and Wikipedia's corresponding page on the same subject are mostly provided using Wikidata (see Cooperating with Wikidata). In cases where there isn't a 1:1 correspondence, the RelatedWikipedia template may be used to generate a sidebar link from Wikivoyage to the corresponding Wikipedia article. Conversely, within Wikipedia, templates such as may be used to generate an interwiki link back here (see Links from Wikipedia).

Links to Wikipedia (or Wikidata) entries for the individual venues in our listings are made using the wikipedia= and wikidata= fields in the listing template. Bare inline links to Wikipedia pages from Wikivoyage destinations are generally avoided as they would otherwise be mistaken for internal links to other Wikivoyage destination pages. In some cases, this may mean taking two clicks to get from a Wikivoyage city page to some related articles on Wikipedia.

Behavioral norms
Perhaps because of our relatively small size, Wikivoyage does not have the same problems with vandalism, edit wars, and other unwanted edits that the English Wikipedia does. For this reason, we tend to use soft security as a tool to handle unwanted edits much, much, much more often than technological means.

We have very few protected pages (mainly for license text that must remain verbatim), a handful of page deletions, and almost zero user bans. We'd like to keep it this way.

What you won't find here:
 * hundreds of policies and guidelines that spell out exactly what you're supposed to do, down to the placement of commas;
 * bots and scripts such as Twinkle for delivering impersonal messages;
 * thousands of boilerplate messages to post on other users' talk pages (just these );
 * a huge number of maintenance templates (just these, which we don't even use much);
 * millions of categories; or
 * a Byzantine level of bureaucracy.

We want you to spend most of your time focused on creating and improving actual content, and as little as possible on organizing, classifying, spamming contributors, or otherwise engaged in non-content work.

Consensus
We determine virtually everything by consensus. Few decisions are made on this site by majority-rule voting. So far, we've been lucky to avoid much conflict that couldn't be resolved through discussion.

For this reason, we don't have a lot of intercommunication overhead like committees, votes, arbitration, or mediation. We try to keep our processes for making decisions very informal and casual.

New comments are usually placed at the bottom of the discussion, indented one level further than the previous comment. This keeps discussions linear and makes it easier to see at a glance if there are any new comments.

Non-free content
We really want to keep Wikivoyage free for everybody. But we also want to create a great travel guide. Accomplishing the latter sometimes means we want to show readers pictures of important artworks and buildings that may still be covered by copyright. Just like the English Wikipedia we created a non-free content policy to allow them to be uploaded locally, here.

The only non-free content allowed on Wikivoyage are photos of important copyrighted artwork and architecture, and the remainder of the photo has to be licensed freely just like any other photo. We do allow such photographs as banners for pages or sections that are not primarily about the non-free work.

Terminology
Some terms you may be used to in Wikipedia have analogs in Wikivoyage. Some things you might be looking for:

 * "Be bold" → plunge forward
 * "Featured article" → star article or destination of the month
 * "NPOV" → be fair (not quite the same thing!)
 * "Sandbox" → graffiti wall
 * "Quality assessment" → article status
 * "Village pump" or Simple English's "Simple talk" → travellers' pub
 * "WikiProjects" → expeditions (but meant to be temporary)

For more examples of the project's terminology, see Jargon.

Content sharing
While Wikivoyage and Wikipedia have different goals, we do have overlap in some of the content we produce, and ideally, we will be able to take advantage of our Creative Commons licensing to share that content.

Firstly, Wikipedia is not a travel guide. If you see content that is travel or tourism related on Wikipedia, it may be better suited to Wikivoyage. You can migrate the content, while ensuring that it is properly attributed. Otherwise, if you are planning to copy large amounts of text content from Wikipedia to Wikivoyage, please ensure it is suitable for Wikivoyage. Remember, we prefer to have lively, non-encyclopedic and original writing with the traveler in mind. Wikivoyage also does not have guides to most individual attractions; these articles should be fixed on Wikipedia, not migrated to Wikivoyage.

Images are shared between the projects using Wikimedia Commons, with rare exceptions due to copyright and fair use considerations.

Remember that most Wikivoyage articles have a single link to a corresponding Wikipedia article. This is a convenience for those wishing to learn more facts about their destination, but it is not a substitute for including all the information a traveller may need in the Wikivoyage guide.

title: Wikivoyage:Welcome, Wikipedians


text:
Wikivoyage:Welcome message

When new Wikivoyagers set up a user account and make a new user page, it can be nice to welcome them to the site with a brief welcome message. This has the benefits of letting them know that we want their help and shared knowledge, as well as giving some good starting points for learning how to be the best darn contributor ever.

We want every contributor's first contact with Wikivoyage to be a positive experience, regardless of whether their first contribution sticks or not. A friendly welcome and an explanation of any reversion can save a contributor who may otherwise just turn away from the site.

Anyone can welcome new users to the site, and they can use whatever text they want. It is recommended that new user is welcomed if they:
 * edit live article pages, especially if the edit(s) resulted in a comment from someone else (so you can critique their work and point to particular articles that might help them - or just thank them for the contribution), or
 * create a new page, (other than their user page), or
 * create their user page and make an edit to live pages, or
 * make comments on talk pages or other discussion pages.

The following Wiki markup has most of the important starter links in it, however, and makes a good standard welcome message.

 * Hello! Welcome to Wikivoyage.
 * To help get you started contributing, we've created a tips for new contributors page, full of helpful links about policies and guidelines and style as well as some important information on copyleft and basic stuff like how to edit a page.
 * If you need help, check out Help, or post a message in the travellers' pub.

-- ~

You should be able to copy and paste that into someone's user talk page. Or you can type to insert the same text from Template:welcome.

It's nice to personalize the message, though! You can add comments after the template, before you sign the message.

Wikipedians
For likely Wikipedians, consider the following message:

 * Hello! Welcome to Wikivoyage.

 * To help get you started contributing, we've created a tips for new contributors page, full of helpful links about policies and guidelines and style, as well as some important information on copyleft and basic stuff like how to edit a page.

 * If you need help, check out Help, or post a message in the travellers' pub.

 * If you are a Wikipedian, or have previously used Wikipedia, then you may notice some differences in the style of our articles. These include:

 * * "Village pump" → travellers' pub

 * * "be bold" → plunge forward

 * * "sandbox" → graffiti wall

 * * "stub notes" → Article status notes

 * * "External links" → We do not use a separate external links section, but incorporate primary links only into the text itself.

 * Thanks for contributing! -- ~

You should be able to copy and paste that into someone's user talk page. Or you can type to insert the same text from Template:wikipedian.

Anonymous users
Anonymous contributors should be welcomed in cases of:
 * repeated vandalism, (or any vandalism?)
 * repeated edits over a period of time with an assessment about their quality, (good, bad, indifferent or variable)
 * contributing to discussions, especially if it is important that replies be seen by contributor
 * copyright or other policy guideline issues.

Some guidelines we try to follow here:
 * Find something nice to say. Even if someone is an obvious troll/vandal, be the bigger person and Assume Good Faith. Also keep in mind that 1 IP is not always 1 User and that other users may be on the other end of your message. First impressions and all that...
 * Invite the user to create an account. But make it clear that it's in no way required. Pointing out the Docent Wikivoyage may also encourage folks to get involved, especially if they have been focusing on one or two destinations that they obviously know well.
 * Point out appropriate policy/guideline links. Probably not the whole welcome graph, but a subset that seems useful given their contributions.

Just as an example:

By the way, great work on ... destinations-- have you considered creating a user account so you get credit for your contributions and many other advantages

Also, if you're new to the whole wiki software look at the wiki markup to get an idea of how to use the wiki markup (we dont use html tages for formatting). If you need help, check out Help, and if you need some info not on there, post a message in the travellers' pub.

I look forward to more contributions! ~

There is also a shorter standard welcome message for anonymous users in which you can optionally incorporate a custom message; see Template:Welcomeplusanon for more information.

Benefits for creating an account
See Why register.

Business owners and Tourism professionals
See Welcome, business owners and Welcome, tourism professionals.

Business owners
For business owner who started with some edits, start with something like this:
 * Welcome to Wikivoyage. We have an introductory page for business owners--please take a minute to read it before going on with your edits.

 * Following your recent edits [diff URL] in the ArticleName article:
 * For now, I reverted your additions to the above article.
 * For now, I reverted your additions to the above article.

When the user removed information about competitor:
 * One of the most important rules is "never remove info on competitors". Never, without exception. Failure to comply to this rule normally leads to blacklisting the business being promoted and/or blocking the offending user.

When the user contributes too flowery description of his properties, something this can help:
 * What's most important when adding your properties to the listings are: be fair and don't tout.

...or, if you need a more wordy message:
 * Welcome to Wikivoyage! Thanks for your recent addition of (venue name) to the (article name) article.

 * It looks very much like an advertisement. Wikivoyage strives to avoid being an "advertising brochure" for any business, city, or service--so {please edit|I have edited} your text to describe the establishment rather than trying to sell it to a reader. I would recommend to read Don't tout article before your future edits--and we would happy to see you back editing here but also respecting our guidelines ;-)
 * BTW, we would recommend you registering a login name at Wikivoyage, see the list of benefits having an account may bring to you.

When a flowery list of nearby attractions is added to accommodation property:
 * Please avoid lengthy descriptions of nearby sights and attractions in accommodation listings like the one you recently added to the (article name) article. Instead, please give a concrete idea of the location: near the railway station, 5 min on foot to the National Museum, 10 min by car to the Grand Canyon--it will be much more helpful for a traveler choosing a place to stay.

When apartment rental is [repeatedly] added, and it doesn't meet our criteria:
 * I removed your apartment listing as it doesn't meet our criteria for apartment rentals. Please review those criteria before adding back your apartments.

When apartments section is [repeatedly] added in an article where no consensus reached yet on listing apartments:

 * As for your recent (re-)addition of apartments section to ..., I reverted it as our apartments policy has recently changed. First, consensus must be achieved on the article's talk page that apartment listings should be allowed.

When the business places an advertisement on their user page:
 * You are welcome to use your user page to identify yourself as associated with your business. This can help people collaborating with you on a guide. However, we avoid having advertisements on user pages.

Guiding new users
When a new user has made an edit that doesn't comply with one of our policies, or that had to be reverted, it is useful to include some extra text in your welcome to guide them to the appropriate policy.

When districts are not considered and the item is [repeatedly] added to the main article:
 * As long as ... is a huge city, we always list its places to eat and sleep in a specific district article, not in the main city article. I had to revert it in the main article, but please feel free to add individual listings to one of its districts: ...

When a link to a secondary source or agency is [repeatedly] added:
 * I removed the link you added because it doesn't meet our criteria for external links. Please review those criteria to see what links can be added to articles.

title: Wikivoyage:Welcome message


text:
Wikivoyage:What is a dive guide?

This article is intended to provide guidance to persons wishing to create or edit a Dive guide on Wikivoyage. The procedure listed will result in a substantially complete and useful guide, but plunge forward and input whatever useful information you have available. It can be completed later.

What a dive guide should be
This does not usually happen all at once. Any information that adds value as described above is welcome, and will eventually be edited into something that complies with the aims of Wikivoyage. If you have something that you think will be useful, put it in. If you can edit it into shape, go ahead, If not, someone else will do it later.
 * 1) Useful to the travelling diver
 * 2) Useful to the local diver who doesn't know all the sites
 * 3) Useful to the local dive operators who may also not know all the sites, or may be new to the area
 * 4) Useful to the travel agent planning dive trips for customers
 * 5) Provide factual details about the dive sites
 * 6) Reflect experience at the sites by recreational divers, and impressions of travelling divers
 * 7) If something is good, say what makes it good.
 * 8) Include as much of the information indicated by the template as possible
 * 9) Interesting and easy to read, well formatted and unambiguous.
 * 10) When in doubt, refer to Rule 1

What a dive guide should NOT be

 * A list of dive operators from outside the area
 * A list of travel agents or booking agents which book dive trips to the area
 * A list of dive sites with no useful content, and lots of hyperbole and unsubstantiated superlatives. If you claim something is the best, it will be challenged, and if you can't prove it, it WILL be removed, probably with most of the other information as well, as most editors can recognise spam, but can't sift out the good information. It you want your edit to last, put in useful facts.
 * An attempt by dive operators to persuade potential clients that their turf is better than everyone else's by inaccurate representation.
 * Anything that is claimed to be "arguably the best" or similar will be deleted without further comment.
 * Unsubstantiated claims that a site or region is better than others. We don't care that some hack said it was the best, we insist on knowing why it is the best.

How to create the new dive guide article
Choose a suitable name for the proposed dive guide. Diving in Region name is the suggested style. (examples: Diving in South Africa. Diving the Cape Peninsula and False Bay, Diving in Durban)

Add an internal link to the proposed new dive guide at an appropriate place in a higher level guide (Scuba diving or the destination section of a national dive guide for the appropriate country). Save the page to create a red link.

Click on this red link, to take you to the new article page, which will have your chosen name.

The substitution template: should be used to prepare the outline. Type this in and save the page. This will create the outline of section headings.

Add content
Content should be added as follows: Click the "Edit" tab of the newly created article, and scroll down to the edit window to add your text. The explanation below will help you to add the desired content to each section. Enter as much as you can, and leave the unused headings for others to complete. If you need help while editing, click the "Editing help" link a few paragraphs below the editing window. This will open a help file in a new window. Your original window will remain unchanged and you can switch between windows without affecting edits.

Leader paragraph
 * The leader paragraph should explain what the article is about and who it is for.
 * The basic geographic extent of the region which is covered by the guide is stated.

Understand

General topography
 * Some information is provided on the physical geography of the region.
 * Extent of the region is clearly defined. (a map or other illustration may be sufficient)
 * Major landforms defining the region are mentioned and named and if necessary, explained.
 * The general topography of both underwater and land is described. Some form of relief map drawing or illustration should be present.

Climate, weather and sea conditions
 * If applicable, a description of the regional climate, weather systems, oceanography in terms of tides, currents, seasonal water condition variations, max and min values for water temperature, air temperature etc.

Marine ecology
 * If applicable, a description of the region's marine/aquatic ecology.

Equipment
 * Special equipment and training required or recommended for diving in the region, both general and sub-region specific.

Respect
 * Any vulnerable ecological or archaeological material, its particular vulnerabilities, and its distribution in the region
 * Special procedures or precautions to avoud ecological or archaeological damage.
 * Any local legislation affecting diving in the region is explained sufficiently to allow a reasonably prudent diver to confidently avoid contravention.

Get help
 * Provide a list of emergency contact phone numbers for the region, or where there is no appropriate emergency service within the region, contact details for the most appropriate services outside the region.
 * These numbers should include where possible: Recompression chamber facilities, Hospital, Clinic or doctor, Diving medical practitioner (specialist), DAN local contact number, Police, Ambulance, Fire department, any specialist rescue organisations that may be of use, Sea rescue/Coastguard.

Get service Learn Buy Rent Do Fix
 * A listing of dive schools, dive shops, cylinder filling facilities, Scuba and cylinder service facilities, dive charter boats, liveaboards, etc. in the region should be provided. Any known idiosyncracies or specialist abilities (such as affiliated training agency, or foreign languages spoken) should be mentioned.
 * Only if there is no representative of any specific class of service business in the region, the nearest convenient agency outside the region should be listed, with approximate distance and any other critical information.
 * It is not necessary to list every dive school, shop, charter business, air filling station, or equipment service agent in the region, but at least one reputable representative of each of these classes should be listed with adequate contact information. If dry suits are recommended in the region, a dry-suit repair agent should be listed. If there is no dry suit repair facility in the region, list the one generally used by residents of the region.
 * List names of dive schools in the region
 * List names of dive shops in the region
 * List names of places that rent dive gear
 * List names of operators, charter boats, liveaboards operating in or from the area.
 * List organisations which service and repair Scuba regulators, BCDs, cylinders, drysuits. Specify the range of services for each

Details
 * List contact details of places listed in "Learn", "Buy", "Rent", "Do" and "Fix". Include a list of the services provided for each. Use "Other listings" insertion template.

Get around
 * Explain how to get around the region as a diver, particularly a diver with dive gear. Options of private and public transport as available should be discussed.

Stay safe
 * Should be appropriate to most of the sites in the region.
 * A description of regional hazards, the risks connected to them, and appropriate mitigation where applicable.

See (Listing of dive sites)

 * listings of dive sites should normally provide a short paragraph describing each site in general terms. No great detail is required.
 * Site name
 * Location
 * Reasons why one might choose to dive there (optional)

 * The number of dive sites listed in a guide should be appropriate to region size. In general a region should not contain less than one city or other significant destination unit.
 * Sites which would ordinarily be reached on a day excursion from a destination such as a city would be in one dive guide, even if there are a large number of them. If there are major differences betreen two regions accessible from the same city as day excursions, and there are enough sites to justify a split, this may be appropriate.
 * Unless there is a good reason, such as the conditions are very different from the nearest other sites, it would not be appropriate to have a regional guide for a smaller number of sites than about 5, even if the sites are on different islands or near different cities.
 * A guide region should not cross national borders except in special circumstances.

Add images (Maps and photos)
Images should be uploaded to Commons by using the Upload page. See How to add an image.

Create the new dive site sub-articles
Articles for dive sites within the region covered by a dive guide should be created as sub-articles to the dive guide when there is enough information about the specific site. This avoids problems of ambiguous site names by referencing the sites to the region. Groups of drop spots clustered closely where most of the background information is common to all, can be put in a "Do" section of the same dive site article

Each dive site should have a link from the regional guide. Create this link at the appropriate place in the site listing under secion heading See in either alphabetic or geographical order, by typing in a link starting with the main article name, followed by a slash and the sub article name, which should be the most commonly used name for the dive site by English speaking divers. Follow this by a pipe "|" and the site name again.

For example: Castle Rocks will display as Castle Rocks.

When first entered this should be a red link. If it is a blue link the sub-article already exists. Click on the red link to create the sub article. If there is a blue link, check that the site is the one you intended, by clicking on it and reading the content. If it is the same site, edit it with your additional information, and make whatever changes you can to improve it. If it is a different site with the same name, find out why before making changes.

The substitution template: should be used to prepare the outline. Type this in and save the page. This will create the outline of section headings.

Dive site page naming conventions
Ambiguity can be a problem if just the site name is used as a display title, such as "Diving at Coral Gardens". Use of the full sub-page title Diving the Cape Peninsula and False Bay/Coral Gardens will avoid confusion if all other sites called Coral Gardens are sub-pages of different regional articles, but Cape Town has two sites called Coral Gardens, one at Oudekreaal and one at Rooi-els, but both are sub-pages of Diving the Cape Peninsula and False Bay. A disambiguation page could help for searches based on the alias (page name without disambiguator).

An exception to excluding hierarchy from article names is districts in a city, and this has been extended to dive sites for a number of years, but times and consensus may change. A better convention for dive sites may be possible. It is also acceptable to use a display page title that differs from the actual page title for districts (see the arondissements of Paris), so this should be acceptable to apply to dive sites to produce more compact titles. Titles such as "Diving (at) (the) " are suggested so that it remains clear that the topic is a dive site, not a regional topic, such as "Diving in " or a regular destination.

Add content
Content should be added in the same way as for the regional dive guide. The explanation below will help you to add the desired content to each section. Enter as much as you can, and leave the unused headings for others to complete. If you need help while editing, click the "Editing help" link a few paragraphs below the editing window. This will open a help file in a new window. Your original window will remain unchanged and you can switch between windows without affecting edits.

Leader paragraph
 * The site is named, with alternative names where applicable
 * Type of site specified
 * Water temperature class (Tropical, temperate or polar.)
 * Proximity to coast. (Inland, shoreline, inshore or offshore.)
 * Bottom type (Sand, shingle, rocky or coral reef)
 * Wreck age class if applicable (recent or historical wreck.)
 * Other classification. (Deep, cavern or cave, fresh water, lake, river, high altitude etc. if applicable)
 * Geographical location given in general terms
 * Nearest major landmark,
 * near Nearest City (internal link)
 * in Region (internal link)
 * in Country. (internal link)

Understand
 * A map showing the position and layout of the site in some detail, preferably to scale.
 * Reason/s why one would choose to dive the site.

Position
 * GPS position for the site. Should put a diver at least somewhere on the site, specify where if possible
 * Alternative range and bearing or cross bearings to well defined and reasonably close landmarks. Photos of landmarks desirable.
 * distance from launch site or harbour for boat access (km or N.miles)

Name
 * Optional image of whatever the site is named after
 * Explanation of origin of the site name, translation if applicable.

Depth
 * Maximum depth to be expected on the site
 * If applicable, shallowest point of the site

Visibility
 * Range of visibility to be expected when conditions are generally considered suitable for diving.

Topography
 * Description of the layout of the site
 * General idea of slope, profile and rugosity
 * Description of major feateres and landmarks
 * Condition of wreckage if applicable

Geology
 * Only for rocky reefs
 * Type of rock, (geological age, name of formation optional)
 * Strike and dip optional if applicable

Conditions
 * What weather conditions will result in good diving conditions.
 * Any specific weather conditions which will result in unpleasant or hazardous diving conditions.
 * Any special oceanographic or weather conditions the site is known for. (sudden offshore winds, upwellings, currents, plankton blooms, thermoclines etc.)if applicable
 * Information sufficient to allow a reasonably competent diver with a moderate understanding of the local weather and climate to forecast conditions during a planned dive over a short period (3 to 4 hours) when on site.

Facilities
 * Generally only for shore access dives
 * Facilities must be in close walking range of parking area or entry points
 * Facilities appropriate to divers and accompanying family only.(parking, ablution, fast food, dive services, picnic areas, security, beach, shade, etc.)

Get in

 * Adequate directions to reach the site
 * A map or aerial photo indicating the position of entry/exit areas (only for shore entry ) if the main site map is not sufficient.
 * Sufficient text for a person who has no local knowledge at all to find the site and identify any access areas with confidence.
 * Photos of the standard entry and exit points if applicable.

'Do'

Listing of drop points at the dive site for boat dives, and points of interest that might reasonably be the focus of a dive for shore dives. Combinations may also work. Routes may be described, general topography and features at each point of interest may be described.

Suggested Routes
 * Any suggested or recommended routes, not directly associated with one of the drop points listed above (such as a route linking several points of interest), with an indication of what the diver may expect to see. This may be a drift dive if applicable.

See

Marine life and/or Features
 * Photos of organisms or features one may reasonably expect to see at the site
 * Description of what a diver may see during a dive

Photography
 * Advice on photographic equipment (macro/wide angle, need for external lighting) if appropriate.
 * Photographic opportunities that may be expected or hoped for if applicable.

Stay safe

Hazards Advice on mitigation is optional.
 * Site specific hazards of any kind, including access hazards if applicable. "No site specific hazards known" is null default.
 * security problems and land based hazards may also be mentioned if applicable. (theft/mugging risk, animals stealing food etc.)

Skills
 * Skills or competence required for diving at the site, if any.
 * Skills recommended for diving at the site, if any.
 * "No special skills required/recommended" is null default.

Equipment
 * Any equipment beyond the standard equipment listed for the region in the regional guide, either reqired or recommended for the site for safety of convenience. Reason should be specified if not obvious.
 * "No special equipment required/recommended" is null default

Breadcrumb navigation
Needs clarification: Under Maintenance panel the mouseover for Destinations states that "Destinations are considered to be all district, city, airport, park, dive guide, region, country and continent articles". This could imply that the containing article for a dive guide would be the destination in which the dive guide topic is situated. (link to the decision to be inserted here) Breadcrumb navigation for the dive guide should therefore link to that destination. Sub-pages for specific dive sites are automatically in the main article for the destination or region. Some dive sites are not specifically associated with a destination at city level, and may belong to a wider geographical region, like "inland", "south coast" or "offshore", a marine protected area ("park"?) or an uninhabited island. Most dive guides are relatively undeveloped, and cover a whole country with little detail. There is no difficulty with Diving in New Zealand being considered part of New Zealand, or Diving in South Africa being considered part of South Africa. Some cases are more complex. Diving regions are not necessarily associated with political regions within a country - they are more likely to be associated with geographical regions based on hydrographic, oceanographic or geological distinctions which may be distributed over parts of, or groups of political/administrative regions.
 * Examples:

A reasonable compromise might be to make the "Diving in Country" article part of the "Country article", with lower level dive guides within the country in the breadcrumb trail, but there may be exceptions.
 * Diving the Cape Peninsula and False Bay is mostly around Cape Town. It could also be considered to be in the Western Cape, but the Western Cape covers a much larger region, including several other diving destinations. It is also part of Diving the west coast of South Africa, (which intersects with the Western Cape, but is not a subset of it), which is part of Diving in South Africa

Also needing clarification: Which breadcrumb templates to use. IsPartOf is intended for destinations, and PartOfTopic for travel topics. If dive guides are to be treated as destinations, IsPartOf seems most appropriate.

title: Wikivoyage:What is a dive guide?


text:
Wikivoyage:What is a docent?

Greetings, traveller! If you're reading this, you've probably clicked on a link on one of our travel guides, wondering "What is a docent?", "How can I contact a docent?", or "What can a docent do for me?" Here are your answers.

What is a docent?
The dictionary says a docent (say DOUGH-sent) is "a trained volunteer museum guide. A docent is at once a volunteer, a teacher, and a guide." Well, we're not a museum, but that's still a pretty good description of what docents do here on Wikivoyage. Docents are volunteers—fellow users of this site—who know a lot about a particular destination. They've volunteered their time and knowledge to help travellers like you who have questions.

How can I contact a docent?
If a destination has a docent who has volunteered to help, you will see their username on the left side of your screen, under the "Destination Docents" heading. If you don't see the heading, then that destination has no docent. If you do see a docent listed, you can click on their username and you'll be taken to the docent's User Page. There, the docent should have a clearly-labeled section that lists the destinations he or she is familiar with and explains their preferred contact method.

Usually, you can contact a docent by leaving a message on their User Talk Page, but some docents may prefer e-mail, or another contact method. You should also be aware that some docents have become inactive and don't check their talk pages as often, or at all. If you don't get a response, don't take it personally; sometimes people move on to other things.

However you contact your docent, remember to always be courteous and patient. Docents are volunteers and can be very busy in what we call "real life"—working, taking care of children, travelling etc. Plan ahead so that the docent has plenty of time to get back to you before your trip.

What can a docent do for me?
We're trying to write travel guides that cover just about any question you might have, but it's a long, slow process. If you have a question—any question at all—about a destination, you can ask a docent. They can tell you the best way to get to an attraction, the best place to get local cuisine, or which areas of a city you should avoid.

Docents are not for hire. They may not even live anywhere near your destination. They won't meet you in person and take you on tours. They're only here to provide you with information and guidance. Keep your expectations in line.

Which locations have docents?
We have an alphabetical list of destinations with docents, though there's no guarantee that a particular docent is still active.

What can I do if my destination has no docent?
You can try asking a question on the article's Talk Page (click on the "discussion" tab at the top of the page); people who have edited the article might see your question and be able to answer it, or at least tell you where to find an answer. If that doesn't bear fruit, try asking at the Wikivoyage tourist office.

If you can't get your question answered, take heart. Go ahead and plunge forward and travel to your destination. Find out the answer to your question there. When your trip is over, you can bring that answer back and write it into the destination's article. It's as easy as clicking the "edit" button at the top of the page, and then you'll be a Wikivoyager too!

title: Wikivoyage:What is a docent?


text:
Wikivoyage:What is an article?

In order to keep Wikivoyage organized and consistent, there are guidelines about when a subject gets its own article. In this area there are two competing principles:

 * 1) Articles should be relatively self-sufficient so that travellers can print them out, put them in their back pocket, and use them for travelling around.
 * 2) At the same time, articles should not be so long that they're impossible to read, print, or use.

So, here are some rough guidelines for what topics should have their own articles, and what shouldn't. Nothing here is set in stone, but exceptions to these guidelines should have good justifications.

The test for destination-style articles
The most common and quickest assessment of whether a type of place merits an article is "Can You Sleep There?" That is, is there any type of accommodation open to the public: hotels, hostels, campgrounds, cabins, wigwams, yurts, space station bunks, etc. If a place, such as a national park, has no facilities, but has rules for pitching a tent in the wilderness, that can work too. On the other hand, while there are numerous hotels and other lodging options in a city like London, you can't sleep in a museum or park within that city; such parks and museums should thus be listed as attractions within an article about the city.

Sleeping isn't all that travellers do, though, and there should be some content to fill out our other standard article sections. If there really is no place to find food, nothing to do, and nothing to see at a location, it's likely that the article won't meet the criteria established in this policy. Nonetheless, Wikivoyagers exercise wide discretion to group handfuls of smaller villages into one larger article or split huge cities into individual districts of manageable size, wherever this best suits the destination.

Asking "can you sleep there?" is a guideline. A particular division of territory into pages of reasonable size might make sense for the destination, but leave one article without a hotel. That's fine. Where no lodging in one district is safe or clean, simply note this and move on.

What does get its own article?
Geographical units in the geographical hierarchy should have their own articles. There should be articles about:

 * Continents like Africa (formatted using the Continent article template).
 * Continental sections like Southeast Asia (formatted using the Region article template).
 * Countries like Brazil (formatted using the Country article template).
 * Regions like Normandy (formatted using the Region article template).
 * National parks like Yosemite National Park (formatted using the Park article template).
 * Rural areas like Turku countryside, as opposed to cities (formatted using the Rural area article template).
 * Cities like Tokyo (formatted using the Huge city article template).
 * Districts of a city like Greenwich Village (formatted using the District article template).

Some small villages and hamlets may be best handled by merging and redirecting, consolidating listings to the article for a nearby town or combining several villages.

When dividing geographical units, keep in mind that boundaries of a "city" or "region" in Wikivoyage do not necessarily match legal divisions—nations, provinces, and cities—as the latter are created by governments for administrative purposes. If it makes sense to list a suburb (and its airport) as part of the city which it serves, do so. Treat vast, sparsely-populated areas like Anticosti Island as a single destination if that best fits the number of attractions. Divide huge cities like Montréal into manageably sized districts as needed. Geographical units should be large enough in scope to have at least 4 or 5 good quality destinations or attractions, while dividing overly-long lists into subgroups and avoiding gaps or overlap.

What does not get its own article?
Individual attractions should not have their own articles (in general). Their information should be listed in the guide to the destination in which they are located (or nearest destination for attractions located in the middle of nowhere). Again, the can-you-sleep-there test is a good quick tool for assessing whether something merits an article. With a few very rare exceptions (see below) there should not be articles about individual:

 * Tiny or sparsely populated villages and hamlets that have no cultural or natural attractions, or hospitality venues. Their names can be redirected to a nearby or surrounding community, or a group of such communities can be covered in a single article (like Rural Montgomery County or Surinamese Rainforest).
 * Companies, even those holding a de facto monopoly or those owned by the state (hotels, restaurants, bars, stores, nightclubs, tour operators, airlines, rail or bus operators, etc.) Monopolies that are likely to be used as frequent search terms may be created as redirects to the relevant article, such as Amtrak, which redirects to rail travel in the United States. Trademarks can redirect to a corresponding generic term; i.e. Uber redirects to ride hailing services. See also Trademarks.
 * Museums, statues or other works or institutions of art. World famous institutions like the British Museum, the Louvre or the Smithsonian can have redirects, but most museums should not.
 * City parks, town squares or streets. Districts named after streets like San Francisco/Castro Street and Singapore/Orchard are OK, as are itineraries which describe a significant trail, road or highway (such as the Alaska Highway or Oxfordshire Way).
 * Small festivals or events which can be listed in the relevant city article. See Event articles for more about upcoming large-scale international events such as the Formula One or the Olympic Games.
 * Public transit stations or routine schedules, except those that qualify as an itinerary, such as Hurtigruten or Inlandsbanan.
 * People, animals, objects, or non-travel-related concepts normally do not merit a Wikivoyage article. Some notable individuals or fictional characters can be the subject of itineraries or travel topics: e.g., On the trail of Marco Polo, Astrid Lindgren tourism, Robin Hood tourism; in that case, the article should clarify their relevance to a traveller. Articles on individual living people are strongly discouraged, as these are difficult to keep fair and updated.
 * Bodies of water (actually, this one's a bit more complicated – see Bodies of water). Cities or land regions named after bodies of water (like Lake Placid or Lac-Saint-Jean) are OK, as are dive guides, travel topics and itineraries which navigate significant waterways (such as the Mississippi River and the Rideau or Erie Canal).
 * Uninhabited islands, unless they can have a meaningful park article, such as the Crozet Islands or the Ashmore and Cartier Islands (note the city park vs national park distinction; islands comparable to the former don't get articles, but can be covered in See or Do in another article).
 * Highly restricted government/military installations, or other places that are (for all practical purposes) impossible to visit. Note that just because a place is difficult to visit does not preclude it from having its own article – see next-to-impossible destinations for examples of places that most travellers will never visit, but still warrant an article.

We prefer that attractions, sites, and events be included in the article for the place where they're located; see where you can stick it for details. For example, a lake might be listed under the "See" section of the closest town, and a bar would be listed under the "Drink" section of the town in which it is located.

If an attraction or an event is really famous, and travellers may not know the city or region it is in, then create an article with the attraction name as title, but make it a redirect to the appropriate destination article, and put the actual description of the attraction in the destination article. For example, Taj Mahal redirects to Agra and Burning Man redirects to Black Rock City.

Exceptions
There are exceptions to every rule, and Wikivoyage is no different. Be aware, however, that if you think something deserves an exception you should be ready to defend your opinion. Cases for which exceptions are made include attractions, sites, or events that are far away (too far for a day trip) from any city and would require an overnight stay, or so large and complex that the information about them would overload the city article. A good rule of thumb is that information about attractions, sites, events, and transportation should always be initially placed into an existing article, and only when that information becomes too large and complex (more than 3-4 paragraphs) should a new article be considered. For example, if you think a theme park deserves its own article, first add content for the theme park as a sub-section of the "See" or "Do" section in the article for the region or city that the park is located in. After that content has developed sufficiently, the length of the sub-section will help to demonstrate why a separate article is (or is not) warranted.

As with most decisions on Wikivoyage, consensus drives the process, but we try to err on the side of consistency and not make these exceptions unless they are clearly warranted. Before starting an article based on one of the above exceptions, start a discussion to explore whether it would be appropriate. In general, "exception" articles that contain only minimal content will be merged and redirected into an existing city or region article.

Some examples of possible exceptions include:

 * Complex and remote state/provincial parks or monuments such as Mount Robson Provincial Park (formatted using the Park article template)
 * ...but not small, typical city or local parks for day use. New York City's famous Central Park is one exception as its size, complexity and number of attractions are comparable to a large-city district.

 * Large archaeological sites such as Ephesus
 * ...but not individual ruins in or near modern cities.

 * Entire abandoned cities or ghost towns in isolated locations, such as Choquequirao or Pompeii
 * ...but not individual abandoned buildings or structures.

 * Big free-standing theme parks like Disneyland or Cedar Point
 * ...but not amusement parks in or next to a city, such as Coney Island or Tivoli.

 * Famous tourist trains that travellers ride for their own sakes, such as the Trans-Siberian Railway (as an itinerary)
 * ...but not trains only for transportation without extensive exposure to scenic beauty or on board entertainment.

 * Ski resorts like Aspen and Whistler that function as towns, with all the services that a town would provide (more than one lodging option, restaurants, bars, shops, etc.)
 * ...but not ski resorts that are part of or by a town, like Taos Ski Valley in Taos, which is part of the community of Taos that has a lot of "destination-like" features beyond the ski area.

 * Upcoming huge international events like the Olympic Games or the FIFA World Cup (as travel topics)
 * ...but not purely-regional events such as the Windsor–Detroit International Freedom Festival, which are listed at city level. (After an exceptional event is finished, the article should be moved to Past events/Name of event, with a redirect left from the original location.)

 * Singularly huge and complex airports the size of small cities such as Kansai International Airport or Heathrow Airport (formatted using the Airport article template)
 * ...but not typical metropolitan or regional airports. Some specific guidelines as to when an airport merits its own article:
 * It should serve as a hub with a large number of connecting flights. Travellers are unlikely to spend a lot of time at airports that are merely origin or destination points.
 * It must have several food and shopping options available; if the airport does not have enough amenities to fill out "Buy" and "Eat and Drink" sections, it does not merit its own article.
 * See also: Airport Expedition

Non destination-style articles
In addition, the following categories of articles are given their own articles:
 * Itineraries should have their own articles (formatted using the Itinerary article template).
 * Phrasebooks should have their own articles (formatted using the Phrasebook template).
 * Travel topics should have their own articles.

We also have some extra article types for dealing with cases that do not fit elsewhere.
 * Disambiguation pages for when the same name is used in multiple places. For example, Perth (disambiguation) links to Perth, Perth (Scotland) and Perth (Ontario).
 * Redirects for when one place has multiple names. For example, the historic names Byzantium and Constantinople both redirect to Istanbul.
 * Redirects are also used for extremely well-known attractions; for example The Alhambra redirects to Granada.
 * Extra-hierarchical region pages for regions that make sense but do not fit into the hierarchy of articles we use. For example, we naturally divide North America by country but the Great Lakes span the US-Canada boundary.

When in doubt
When in doubt, leave a message in the travellers' pub, the relevant article's talk page or simply plunge forward and create the article. Someone else will always be around to answer your question or to edit any mistakes.

title: Wikivoyage:What is an article?