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Wikivoyage talk:Expeditions

Completing an expedition
So, we haven't actually finished any Expeditions yet (although I think Phrasebook Expedition is pretty close). Most of them aren't really finite in duration. But Romanian Wikivoyage Expedition seems to be on its way. What should we do when an Expedition is complete? I think we should archive in a special section of this page, or somewhere else. --(WT-en) Evan 09:51, 20 Dec 2003 (PST)

the progress is too slow...
after TWO years, only 3000 what registered users. is this really going to work? (WT-en) Liujg 11:30, 3 Nov 2005 (EST)

 * Don't forget that users don't have to register in order to contribute. I was doing some statistical stuff the other day, and Wikivoyage has had somewhere around 30-40 thousand unique contributors (based on IP address -- there's a lot of variance in there, of course).

 * That said, I think that more contributors means better content means more contributors. Any good ideas on ways to promote Wikivoyage would be really welcome; see the talk page there if you have some good plans. --(WT-en) Evan 13:34, 3 Nov 2005 (EST)

 * And if you think Wikivoyage's growth is slow, take a look at this! We're on track for 1000% traffic growth for the year, and I find the pace downright scary. (WT-en) Jpatokal 22:03, 6 Nov 2005 (EST)

Proposed Writers' Expedition
Swept in from the Pub:

I'd like to propose a new expedition that focuses on how aspiring and current writers can best use and contribute to Wikivoyage. Thoughts include: how to include Wikivoyage contributions in your portfolio and/or resume, how to contribute sections of previously published material (and specific copyright issues).

Wikivoyage uses a pretty dramaticly different publishing model than the rest of the travel writing world, so I think it's worth having an area that speaks directly to those from this background, similar to Project:Welcome, Wikipedians and the new Project:Education Expedition. Comments? (WT-en) Majnoona 12:34, 22 Nov 2005 (EST)

 * I think that sounds great! --(WT-en) Evan 09:11, 23 Nov 2005 (EST)

New Expedition Idea
Copied from the Pub:

This idea was sparked by seeing the confusion over licensing of images from a Korean tourist information centre a couple of days ago, and has now had time to develop. My idea is to develop collaborations with tourist boards around the world. This could be especially helpful for smaller, more out-of-the-way places that do not currently have many wikivoyagers. These tourist boards already have a lot of helpful information about their region/city/town and promoting tourism is one of their goals. In order to tap into this source of information better, it would be good to contact these people in a friendly way and explain the concept and goals of Wikivoyage and copyleft, and kindly ask them if they have any information or images that they would be willing to release under cc-by-sa that we could use on Wikivoyage, or better still, invite them to contribute directly. I was thinking that this could in particular be a good source of maps if they were willing to release them. Okay, so anyone can already contact their local tourist board, so why do we need a new Expedition? Well, it would be very helpful if we had some form of template letter/email for introducing Wikivoyage and clearly explaining the licensing in particular in simple non-legal jargon. This would make it easier for people to get started. What do people think? Is it just a crazy idea? -- (WT-en) Brendio 17:07, 23 Jan 2006 (EST)

 * Agree. I got e.g. Image:Map_trains_cph.png by writing such letter. A template is good because it ensures that we give out a clear reference to the CC license. The recipients should be told that their material could end up being used commercially. And they should make sure that they can release it under CC. Many tourist maps are licensed from a 3. party that prevent releasing it as CC.
 * The letters should be personalized and written in the local language.
 * Tourist informations and museums often have their own journals and magazines. If we could get Wikivoyage mentioned in some of those, we could get valuable maps and other contributions. --(WT-en) elgaard 19:29, 23 Jan 2006 (EST)

Project:Patrol Expedition
Swept in from the Pub:

Another expedition idea—one that's been on my mind for a while: an expedition to promote recent changes patrolling. We get a lot of small time vandalism & touting edits that are really easy to clean up if done right away, but much harder to sort out in the long term. Just covering a small section of the day allows you to catch these small time vandals/touts/spammers and reduce the harm they do to our guides in a significant way.

But we've got a big collective action problem in that no one wants to work on this if they're the only one doing so—that's demoralizing. The solution? Get people to volunteer to regularly patrol very small sections of the day. I've been patrolling 02:00–04:00 GMT (8PM-10PM U.S. central time), and it takes me a mere 5 minutes each day to do so. I say we start an expedition where members can volunteer to patrol edits in 2 hour chunks. It still remains purely voluntary, but working together should make it more appealing than trying to face the mountains of edits we get each day in isolation.

Thoughts? --(WT-en) Peter Talk 17:55, 4 September 2008 (EDT)

 * No thoughts? Really? Just say the word and I'll set this up. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 23:29, 5 September 2008 (EDT)

 * If we could find 50-100 people willing to make such a commitment then this could be a great idea, but otherwise I don't know how well it would work out. Personally, while I do my fair share of patrolling, my schedule is messed up enough that I couldn't commit to anything regular.  I suspect that a much more effective step would be to convince IB to implement wts:WtTech:ClueBot anti-vandalism bot for Wikivoyage which would catch a significant amount of the vandalism on the site, although that tech request has gone six months without action.  Alternatively, perhaps just making more people aware of what patrolling is would help increase the number of patrolled edits. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 00:58, 6 September 2008 (EDT)

 * By my count, it would be 12 people. And since I do my 2 hours in 5 minutes each day, that would be a total time commitment of one hour/day, across all Wikivoyageers. Seems doable to me. Even with just a very partial coverage, that would catch medium-volume vandals and touts that we miss, who spread their edits out throughout the day, or a couple of days. Using the expedition to raise the profile of patrolled edits also sounds like a great idea to me — I get the impression that most new regular contributors have no idea what those flags are for. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 01:15, 6 September 2008 (EDT)

 * Sorry, should have been clearer - twelve would be a minimum in order to get full coverage, but I think to be successful and self-sustaining you would need 4-8x that number, otherwise you're reliant on having every single person patrolling every single day, without fail. It probably wouldn't hurt to start this up and give it a try on a one month trial, and that would also help to improve the visibility of the task of recent changes patrolling. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 02:09, 6 September 2008 (EDT)

 * Not sure about an expedition, but clearly having a coordination point where a patroller can ask for help with non-trivial cases would be really useful. For now, we have only Project:Welcome message. Personally, I need a place to seek advice: like "In Goreme, two users are adding-removing two competing balloons providers--how to deal with them?". Or just drop a link to an edit, and expecting some advice on how to deal with it. And several clarifications on our policy in slippery slopes(?), like apartment agency criterias or nightlife aggregators. And yes, personally I need more and more templates for typical situations--I am not ready to invest time in writing a warning to a user by hand every time.
 * This will help me with patrolling within my watchlist; I am not ready to go beyond it patrolling all recent changes, however. As for "patrolled" flag, I don't believe it works at all now--at least before Project:Recent changes patrol is fixed (to start with). --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 03:57, 6 September 2008 (EDT)

 * A good idea for sure. It does not particularly suit me to commit particular time slots as my business schedules are all over the place and I patrol when I can.  I do see how this would work well for others though, and anything that gets more patrol work done or even raises the profile of the task, has to be good news.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 11:06, 30 December 2009 (EST)

Pathfinder Expedition
Swept from pub:

I was presented with the opportunity to edit the article about Te Kuiti last night. (Coincidentally, I had planned a journey for some of my family members that went through there just the other week.) When I read the article I realised that there was so much more near Te Kuiti that the traveller should know about, but wouldn't, unless some links to other places, that were just up the road, were added to the article. It occurred to me that by concentrating on placing destination articles into a geographic location we may be missing out on the fun part of travel, which is getting there in the first place!

In writing destination articles about what is there, the traveller also need to be informed about what is nearby - this is something that we are not doing well. Perhaps that is because the people doing the writing know where the place they are writing about is because they have been there, or live there. But the traveller is not there, but somewhere else, so needs to know how to get there too - but nobody is explaining how to go there or leave there for somewhere else, a lot of the time.

It is like we have a huge, but rather bare, Christmas tree. It has lots of branches and leaves and some decorations hanging off the ends, but there are no tinsel streamers or strings of fairy lights to light up those destinations and join them together, so that the fairies and christmas elves can climb from branch to branch without needing to go back to the trunk each time.

I am proposing a Project:Pathfinder Expedition. The purpose of the Pathfinder Expedition is to create paths (wikilinks) between destination articles that mirror the real world. Pathfinders would populate the Get In and Get Out sections of articles with wikilinks to near-by destinations. In essence, paths are laid from one article to the next, as links between destinations, just as the tinsel and fairy lights wiring joins the ends of the Christmas tree branches, or roads join towns together.

In the case of Te Kuiti, which is on Highway 3 between Hamilton and New Plymouth, it is probably important to know that a very popular tourist attraction, the Waitomo glowworm caves are just up the road. This could justify taking a break and staying there, rather than somewere else. - (WT-en) Huttite 05:11, 21 January 2009 (EST)

 * I proposed a similar idea early last month, and we have already worked this out in your absence. Please have a look at Project:Routebox navigation. It has thusfar only been implemented for a few areas, such as Northern Texas, Alberta, Japan, and parts of Norway. It would be great to have another contributor to help flesh it out in other areas. (WT-en) Texugo 10:03, 21 January 2009 (EST)

 * Routebox navigation is definitely part of Pathfinding, but nowhere near all of it. I see Pathfinding as being more general than Routebox navigation, though they are similar and closely related.
 * While Routeboxes will work in countries that have numbered highways systems that those destinations are on (or have exits to), it doesn't quite work when your destination is off the highway, or there is no highway, or road - which is more the case with Waitomo and a number of other popular New Zealand destinations. Mind you, Routeboxes seem to be a very good idea, though I haven't delved into much of the fine detail, yet.
 * One potential pothole I can see in the Routeboxes idea is that routes should intersect at, or close to, destination (route nodes). I just wonder how Routeboxes would cope with route intersections or junctions that are between destinations, but not close enough to be in a destination article. For example, some parts of the NZ highway system intersect at road junctions between towns but there is nothing at the junction to justify a destination article - its just a place where two roads meet, nothing else, not even a lay-by with a picnic table.
 * Pathfinding is about wikilinking Wikivoyage articles in a way that reflects the real world. It is about finding paths in Wikivoyage that allow the reader to wikivoyage (i.e. web-surf) from from one article to the next, in a way that reflects how they might travel in the real world. It may document the real world in some way, as Routebox navigation does. However, it is primarily about how Wikivoyage articles are linked together, in (reasonably) logical ways, that is different to the tree-like geographic hierarchy. Perhaps I should (now) mention that my ulterior motives for suggesting pathfinding is to eliminate orphaned and dead-end pages, as well as trying to break down the wiki-walls and untie the wiki-knots that the tree-like geographic hierarchy tends to promote. Pathfinding is about connecting the destination leaf nodes on different branches of the the geographic hierachical tree with wiki-links. Wikipedia call it building the web.
 * Note: It has been proposeded that there are just 6 degrees of separation between any two people/places. - that suggests it should be possible to get between any two Wikivoyage articles by following no more than 6 wikilinks. The goal of the Pathfinder Expedition is to make that a reality. -- (WT-en) Huttite 02:50, 22 January 2009 (EST)
 * Could you be a little more specific? It sounds like you are proposing that we concentrate on something that we already try to do-- are you just talking about inserting links in the text part? (WT-en) Texugo 07:01, 22 January 2009 (EST)

 * I too would like to see an example, maybe you can work something up in your userspace? I'm hesitant to support to much of a move towards more boxes etc, I think it tends to be more useful to keep our structure and hierarchy as simple and straight forward as possible, which would be to flesh out some more "get out" sections as good examples of what they should be. But I also don't want to shoot down your idea before you've had a chance to flesh it out and show us what's on your mind :) – (WT-en) cacahuate  talk 13:18, 22 January 2009 (EST)
 * To quote Huttite: "Pathfinders would populate the Get In and Get Out sections of articles with wikilinks to near-by destinations." I don't think he/she is proposing anything radical here.  Just an Expedition to help make sure articles are well-connected.  (WT-en) LtPowers 20:31, 22 January 2009 (EST)
 * I can read what Huttite wrote of course, but it is ambiguous-- by "pathfinder" he could be meaning "users who contribute to this expedition" or he could mean a box of some kind or a listing in a particular format. That's why I asked. (WT-en) Texugo 23:52, 22 January 2009 (EST)
 * Or it could mean, I'm travelling from here to there, what do I need to see on the way. Don't just tell me the way - find me a path.. --(WT-en) Inas 00:08, 23 January 2009 (EST)

Yes I am proposing an Expedition to make sure articles are well connected. Yes, we already do most of this, implicitly. We, are all already users who contribute to this expedition, even though it doesn't exist in any concrete form, yet. What I am trying to do is explicitly articulate the things that we all have learned to do, and not do, distill that knowledge, generate some documentation about it, and that then provides all Wikivoyageers with a ready made guidelines about being a (better) Pathfinder. I do not see that we need to change anything that is currently done to link articles. There is no need for special route boxes; I'll leave that to the Route Expedition participants, who are Pathfinders with a special mission. There might be a few new templates to identify articles that need linking, but don't have a good home at the moment. I will take on board the suggestion to work up a draft Expedition brief on my user page over the next week or so. Hopefully this will explain things better. Thanks for your feedback, as it has helped to focus my thinking too. - (WT-en) Huttite 08:06, 31 January 2009 (EST)
 * OK - Proposal is at User:(WT-en) Huttite/Pathfinder Expedition - Discuss on the talk page. - (WT-en) Huttite 08:34, 2 February 2009 (EST)

New Year Travel expedition
I wonder if anyone can be interested in an expedition aimed at developing content on New Year (and Christmas?) travel.

I've created an early draft in User:(WT-en) DenisYurkin/New Year Travel to give an idea of what content I seek to develop, and what the potential goals can be. I would very welcome comments on it.

Before formally creating an expedition, I think I need at least one person interested beyond myself. And yes, proposal to create a travel topic on subject didn't find any supporters so far. And neither did a recent proposal to add Events section into templates where such info could grow even without any expedition. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 17:59, 3 April 2010 (EDT)

capitalization
Isn't there a contradiction between Project:Naming conventions
 * For articles that aren't place names, capitalize the first word, and then don't capitalize things that don't need to be capitalized. For example, Discount airlines in Europe rather than "Discount Airlines In Europe", and Manual of style rather than "Manual of Style".

and Project:Expeditions:
 * Create a page ... called "Name of expedition Expedition" (note capitalization)

? --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 18:05, 23 March 2011 (EDT)

 * Essentially, yes; go ahead and fix it if you can make it not confusing. =)  (WT-en) LtPowers 20:49, 24 March 2011 (EDT)

 * So no objections that Naming Conventions should take precedence here? If so, I will try to fix it. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 19:01, 25 March 2011 (EDT)

Improving the site as a whole (Top destination collaboration)
swept in from the pub:

Maybe this belongs in the "Expeditions" discussion area (or maybe this topic has already been discussed previously). I've been thinking lately... should not one of our main, immediate goals, as a group of dedicated contributors, be to bring the most popular/well-known tourist destination pages to "Star" quality (or as near to it as possible), as soon as possible? Let's be frank, even if Wikivoyage had way more public exposure than it currently has, most travelers aren't going to be interested if we're not completely covering the destinations they are interested in. I know this site will never reach a Wikipedia-level of users, but we could have a LOT more; we should be able to compete with print travel guides.

I don't mean covering just major cities such as Paris, London, NYC, Rome, Venice, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires, Sydney, etc. (which are reasonably good articles, but compared to our Chicago article, which I've always seen as the ideal, they leave much to be desired)... but also larger geographical areas such as, say, Tuscany, the Niagara Falls area, or Southwest Ireland (regions are something that Wikivoyage has trouble with handling well, imo, but that's another discussion... also, I'm not saying my list is definitive). I know it's a huge task; I helped write the star article for Big Bend National Park - a relatively easy accomplishment compared to the places I listed above - and even that took way more time and resources than I could have ever anticipated. I also know that doing this would be much easier if we had more contributors, which makes it kind of a Catch-22 situation.

Because really my point is that nailing the popular/well-known destination articles will not only attract more readers, but it will also in turn attract more contributors... and that's a big thing. More contributors will mean more articles AND more accurate articles, as well as more people to help with administrative tasks (such as de-tout-ifying). In short, we need more contributors. To get more contributors, we need to take care of the basics first. I see great work has been done recently for Washington DC and Orlando, and I think those are great steps. (WT-en) Army of me 01:41, 11 November 2011 (EST)

 * Your logic can't really be faulted. However, on the other side of the coin, you really can already get all the information you need to see a city like Chicago, London or Sydney just with google and a couple of quick searches.  I sometimes wonder of the value in updating the public transport and price information for some cities, yet again, when there are online tripfinders, price guides etc that give you all the options.  However, there is so much of the world and more remote parts of even populated countries where even these basics can be hard to ascertain, and where often WT already has surprisingly good coverage.  We have travel guides for some country towns, and small remote parts of the world for which no other guide exists. I guess I'm just sayin' that we may have other strengths we can play to   --(WT-en) Inas 03:49, 11 November 2011 (EST)

 * Everyone can add his/her knowledge to the wiki where he/she desires, and it is hard to make them contribute information only to particular places. Wikivoyage aims to be a world-wide guide, for destinations all over the globe. However, I do agree that some destinations are more important than others. Work has been done on many of them, including Bali, Bangkok, Walt Disney World, and the others you mentioned. Somehow some popular travel areas in Europe, like travel regions in France and Italy, have received poor coverage on Wikivoyage. I don't know exactly why, but maybe because the locals there participate on the wiki of their own language area.

 * Wikipedia has a "1,000 core topics" list, the 1,000 articles that should become featured articles as fast as possible. Maybe we could set up something similar for Wikivoyage? (but then in the range of 250 articles, as 1,000 would be a bit much I think). --(WT-en) Globe-trotter 11:18, 12 November 2011 (EST)

 * I think even 250 would be too many, as that's about 1% of our guides. 100 would be a better start. (WT-en) LtPowers 11:26, 12 November 2011 (EST)
 * Hey, you know what I just thought of? If we take the nine cities and nine other destinations from the six populated continents, that's 108 right there.  Now we just need someone to go through them and list what status each one is currently at.  (WT-en) LtPowers 11:29, 12 November 2011 (EST)

 * That's definitely a good idea. Why I said 250 is because Wikivoyage has a heavy focus on "world cities". They are obviously important, but many travellers go to other places like beach resorts (e.g. Benidorm, Chersonissos), ski resorts (Zermatt, Aspen), national parks, theme parks (Walt Disney World), smaller towns (like Hangzhou, Ubud, etc), regions (Tuscany, Loire Valley), villages (Mont Saint Michel), and other places. I also think these could be given more weight. Also we could try to find some statistics about which places are most attended by travellers. It's amazing how badly covered some of these popular destinations are. If these articles would improve, then maybe we could attract more contributors from these places. --(WT-en) Globe-trotter 11:39, 12 November 2011 (EST)

 * 100% support from me on LtPowers' idea. I assume (as (WT-en) Army of me originally noted) that this would be done as part of an expedition of some sort? -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 11:52, 12 November 2011 (EST)

 * I made a start with Europe and Asia (WT-en) here. --(WT-en) Globe-trotter 19:38, 12 November 2011 (EST)

 * Cool! Please explain your color coding. Does it have anything to do with the status (outline, usable, guide, etc.) of the articles in question? (WT-en) Ikan Kekek 04:11, 14 November 2011 (EST)

 * I just answered my own question: Medium green is a star article, light green is a guide, slightly orange yellow is usable, red is an outline, gray is a redirect. (WT-en) Ikan Kekek 04:18, 14 November 2011 (EST)

 * Wow, I'm glad others agree (I was afraid my comments might accidentally offend someone)! I do realize there are a variety of factors that have likely kept certain destination guides from being their best, but I think at least identifying and officially acknowledging what destinations should be priorities and which need more work is a big step. Before posting my first comment, I tried searching online for statistics on "most visited tourist destinations" and the like, but I've had a hard time so far. I'll keep looking. (WT-en) Army of me 18:57, 13 November 2011 (EST)

 * Very cool idea (and good to see you back, Army of me)! I'm a little surprised to see that Europe has the poorest developed 7±2 lists. I agree that this would be a worthwhile expedition. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 11:11, 14 November 2011 (EST)

 * Thanks, good to be back! I was surprised too, but I bet a lot of it can be chalked up to us writing about what we know (or users creating entries, but not in English, as suggested previously). Speaking of which, I'll probably be sprucing up the article for my hometown, Houston, soon... (WT-en) Army of me 22:53, 27 November 2011 (EST)

 * The basic idea is very good. Details, we can probably work out.
 * I had to chuckle at the reference above to "smaller towns (like Hangzhou, ...". The current population is around six million, I think. If Hangzhou is a small town, then neither Canada nor Australia have anything that qualifies as a city. Capital of China at one point, and Marco Polo who visited it a few decades after its fall wrote of Hangzhou "beyond dispute the finest and the noblest in the world ... everything appertaining to this city is on so vast a scale, and the Great Kaan's yearly revenues therefrom are so immense, that it is not easy even to put it in writing, and it seems past belief...". (WT-en) Pashley 21:30, 14 November 2011 (EST)

 * Hehe, I meant it in comparison to the top 9 cities of Asia. We have a heavy focus on "world cities", such as Beijing, but travellers go to "smaller" places which I think should not be overlooked :) --(WT-en) Globe-trotter 12:51, 15 November 2011 (EST)

 * Not sure how helpful this is, but I found the top 50 most-visited tourist destinations for 2007 (as reported by Forbes Traveler magazine, which I don't think exists anymore). Apparently the census data was supplied by the attractions themselves, or other media reports. It doesn't have regions and there could be other biases I'm not aware of. Anyways, (WT-en) here it is! We may need to just brainstorm and come up with an agreement on what we feel are the most "important" world destinations that need to be covered. (WT-en) Army of me 22:53, 27 November 2011 (EST)

I am willing to join a collaboration on some of the top destinations listed above. Please feel free to drop me a personal message / email when the project takes off, as I'm not very frequent on the site in the recent weeks. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 15:05, 26 December 2011 (EST)

WikiProject analog?

 * Swept in from the pub

What is Wikivoyage's answer to Wikipedia's WikiProjects? I'm interested in starting a team of editors (specifically working on LGBT travel topics) and would like to know how to go about this. Thanks! Athelwulf (talk) 21:57, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

 * We use Expeditions. And please do make a proposal! --Peter Talk 21:59, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Notice template for expeditions
Our expeditions pages in general have pretty low visibility. Would it be alright to make a small template to put at the top of related pages to raise awareness? For example, putting the notice to the right at the top of the Poland page, or this? Texugo (talk) 17:25, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd support this. Often readers don't even realise that they can jump right in and edit this Wiki constructively. (This always seems obvious to us that we can edit here, but I'd bet that most of our casual readers don't ever appreciate that they are very welcome to update our articles while they are at the destination and after they return.) -- A l i c e ✉ 23:00, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree with Alice I think this would be a welcome addition to many pages on here. --Nick (talk) 23:03, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
 * It should be kept small and inconspicuous (like the Wikipedia templates for "X Portal" - just two words and a keyhole icon on articles about X) or placed on talk pages (as the WP Wikiprojects do). A huge template with "fix this" or "maintain that" on the article itself is a distraction from the content. K7L (talk) 03:30, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * So you think the exemplar above and to the right of the original comment in this section does its job too well? It's too noticeable? -- A l i c e ✉ 07:23, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

 * Well, I wouldn't exactly call it huge. What if we just shrink the font size and lose the box? I'm afraid the meaning of expedition here is not quite as obvious as the meaning of portal on wp, and I definitely don't think putting it on the talk page would increase visibility more than about 0.0001%. Texugo (talk) 10:46, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't think we should introduce more any more links from the main article namespace into the project namespace than we absolutely have to. It is inelegant.  I've no problem with putting the box on the talk page.  We want people to be able to download and take our guides anywhere, we don't want the guide on someone's mobile phone or printout having links like this. --Inas (talk) 22:39, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * As you know, I agree with that principle, Inas. However, I really do think that, with some entire countries, there is indeed a case where we absolutely have to in oder to help get all those many countries where our coverage is woefully inadequate up to par. Those people reading our good articles would see no change, and for those parts of the world where the articles are woeful it would not really impact that much on what is already embarrassingly obvious. -- A l i c <font color="#00EEFF">e <font color="#FF3333">✉ 00:34, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I'm not sure that having a link to a expedition page is necessarily going to achieve that.  I don't think any of our expedition pages are a call to action.  In other words, I see the downside, but not a lot of upside as a trade off.  If we want people to jump in and help, I think we need to promote that outside of the travel content of the article.  --Inas (talk) 00:41, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

 * I'm fairly sure that there are MediaWiki pages we can edit that prevent certain templates from appearing when printing and creating a Wikivoyage book. So that's no longer an issue. Expeditions may not have been very useful in the past simply due to a lack of users. I'm sure if we added this sort of template in a few places, then involvement would grow. Putting it on the talk page would solve absolutely nothing imo. I never look at talk pages, except if it pops up in the Recent Changes. <font color="#4682b4">JamesA  <font color="#191970">>talk 07:59, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: If you add class="noprint" as an attribute to the outermost element of a template's markup (a wrapper div tag can be used as this outermost element if the template lacks an outermost element), then that template will not appear in printed pages. I just now added class="noprint" to the table tag at top of this discussion by way of example. You can use your browser's Print Preview to see how class="noprint" hides the element. --Rogerhc (talk) 18:57, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Close old expeditions?
I thought I would post this in the pub first. I noticed that the expedition page is quite long and has a few expeditions that have not been updated for a while (both article and discussion pages), and even some not touched since before the WT fork in 2012.

Examples of 'stale' expeditions include (but certainly not limited to are) Florida Expedition, Maryland Expedition, Education Expedition and Fellow traveller Expedition.

In order to give more prominence to those currently active expeditions, can we archive those that have not been touched for over a year into the archive section and mark them archived with the template? --Andrewssi2 (talk) 03:05, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

 * Please do, that would be more informative. If there is a group of users willing to restart a "historical" Expedition, they can always do so. PrinceGloria (talk) 05:38, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

 * Thanks. Yes, it would be good fto indicate 'Historical' expeditions that could one day be restarted. I will try this out with Florida (a WT era expedition) and see if anyone has feedback before doing this wholesale. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 22:33, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

 * I think this is a logical step. It's neater if only the active (or at least relatively recently active) expeditions are listed as such; otherwise, we risk diffusing people's attention. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:28, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

 * Indeed. I was hoping to draw new people into the active areas such as Search Expedition and India Expedition that have a good level of activity --Andrewssi2 (talk) 01:12, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

 * I'm proposing to close LGBT Expedition because the Expedition has no concrete goals. The corresponding Wikivoyage:Information for LGBT travelers is more appropriate for further discussions. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 00:13, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

 * We do need to distinguish between expeditions whose purpose is not supported by consensus or no longer makes sense vs. expeditions which would be valid were there interest and activity. WV:Routes Expedition is absent a consensus that WV really *needs* an article about Interstate 4; the same is true of RDF tags or any other expedition whose task is already completed or obsolete. These are  as the task is no longer desired. By contrast, Wikipedia uses  or  for valid topics (like WP:TRAVEL) which are dead only for want of users, and could be useful contributions if interested users in the future were motivated to revive them. They're abandoned, but without prejudice to their resuscitation should new users create a task list and set to work sometime in the distant future. WV:LGBT Expedition (and others that are inactive) still have valid objectives, but should be marked  so anyone stumbling across them will know they're currently dead or dormant. K7L (talk) 04:03, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

 * I agree with you, K7L. This is an important point. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:44, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Why keep articles for long dead expeditions around?
If anything they discourage people starting said expedition anew. Hobbitschuster (talk) 20:57, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

 * I'd agree that the moribund expeditions do not have a good look for the momentum of WV, but does it really so much that it discourages people?
 * I did create a section for Expeditions along with assigning the template for those expeditions that really looked completely abandoned, since that strategy at least gave the option for someone to pick up an old exhibition in the future. Andrewssi2 (talk) 22:01, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

 * I think it more likely that a new expedition be created from scratch (as has happened e.g. for Wales or Scotland) than one of the archived ones be revived. Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:13, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

 * So what are you proposing? --Andrewssi2 (talk) 22:22, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

 * Deleting at the very least some of them. Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:23, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

 * I'd suggest archiving somehow. You surely know the general sentiment towards deleting articles here :) Andrewssi2 (talk) 23:04, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

 * I fear that archiving reduces the already slim chance of someone getting the initiative towards a new expedition even further. Hobbitschuster (talk) 23:11, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

 * You really think the existence of an expedition in some corner of the site inhibits anything? Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:11, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

 * From my side, the single greatest inhibitor is the likely lack of collaborators. The existence of an abandoned expedition doesn't actually discourage me in any way. Andrewssi2 (talk) 01:22, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

 * If anything, I'd think that someone proposing to launch (or re-launch) an expedition should have every right to know the project history and have access to the previous data as a starting point. Some of these are on valid topics (much like Wikipedia's moribund w:WP:TRAVEL and w:WP:HOTEL are potentially-valid topics), were there interested editors to pick these up and run with them. In some cases, something might be dead for valid technical reasons (such as RDF, if we ultimately went with hCard or some other format) or refer to a task already completed (like adding "See" sections to countries or replacing all the WT templates on Wikipedia articles with WV templates or Wikidata links). In others, the idea is valid but we don't have the people (an LGBT expedition would be one example, valid topic but only one or two articles focus on LGBT topics and we don't have the users to justify an expedition, so it rests inactive without prejudice to being reopened if interested users join in future). K7L (talk) 02:52, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

 * True, why would we want to lose forever the thinking and discussions that went into (for example) LGBT, just because it is not being actively worked on today? Andrewssi2 (talk) 03:04, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I for one sometimes revive long-dead expeditions. Since I few days I am working hard (in the main namespace) on an Wikidata expedition that was written by a single person ages ago and never edited by anyone else. Syced (talk) 11:47, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

ProjectPage:2018 Miniature Revitilization Project
I am here asking about a new project that User:Andrewssi2 said was an expedititon. I believe that motivation is THE KEY to spark a good change. That is what my page is about.

In 2018, I would like to launch the project with the following goals:
 * Allow people to feel good about joining something.
 * Give small stubs and outlines an actual chance, so that a travel is not missing out on info about that place.
 * Provide an anti-persecution zone to improve pages.
 * Turn this into a successful annual project.

I plan to do this by making it a free project, and then provide templates to get going.

WikiVoyage is the worlds largest non-profit travel guide in the world, and has the best info. However, everything that exists in the world can be improved even more than their best state, and so should wikivoyage. Would you view my page, and accept? 174.45.128.124 03:11, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Update on map internationalization
A quick note to let you know that Collaboration Team is planning to release map internationalization next week for testing on testwiki (T112948). When it’s ready, we’ll post a note to confirm. But meanwhile, you might like to check out the detailed post I added last night to the Map Improvements 2018 project board: Special Update on Map Internationalization. It includes a lot of information on the feature’s status, how the it will work, how we imagine it might be useful, what the known limitations are, etc. I’m looking forward to getting your input on this challenging but important feature; the best place to leave your ideas and questions is on the project talk page. —JMatazzoni (WMF) (talk) 22:53, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

 * This is going to be put up on testwiki this week. Please have a look.  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:07, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Maps in the language of your choice—you can try it now on testwiki =
You can now display maps in languages of your choice on testwiki. I made two pages to demonstrate the new features, on testwiki and testwiki2 (embedded maps on test2 are dynamic; those on test are static until you click to pop up an enlargement).

By default, internationalized maps display in the language of the wiki (which is English for the testwikis). So to experiment with these features, you’ll want to use the two new mapframe parameters we’ve added. Just insert them into your mapframe code.

 * lang=”xx” Shows map labels in the language you specify using the short language codes associated with each wiki.
 * lang=“local” Shows map labels in the languages of the territory mapped (essentially opting out of internationalization).

Right now, internationalization works only with mapframe, not maplink (which should be working some time next week). You can read more about this new feature and how to use it on the Map Improvements 2018 project page, under Updates. Our plan is to wait a week or two and assess user comments about the feature. At that point, we’ll decide whether to move forward with a general release or keep making fixes.

So please try the new features out and leave feedback on the Map Improvements 2018 talk page. We’re listening! –JMatazzoni (WMF) (talk) 23:24, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

 * I have just had a very quick play with the Zurich maps on testwiki2. When I zoomed into street level it did not change the street names when I looked at the map in Japanese. Have I misunderstood what the translation was meant to do? However this is a good idea in principle.AlasdairW (talk) 22:26, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

 * It's not a translation. It's just displaying OSM data in different languages.  Have a look at this relation.  You'll see it has the name:ja and name:en tag, and the map will display appropriate to the language.  If there are no tags, it won't attempt a dynamic "translation".  But you can add the tags on osm, and it will all work just fine.  --Inas (talk) 02:56, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

 * Thanks for the explanation. It looks like it would be more useful for region maps rather than street level ones - it is much more likely that alternate language tags will be added on OSM for city names than for the name of a hotel or museum. It would be good to have a way of displaying both the English and the local name, maybe by a mouseover or a language button - a traveller needs to know what the sign on the ground will be saying. AlasdairW (talk) 14:19, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

 * This seems like a great feature and I'm glad it's been developed. I hope it gets implemented on this wiki soon. I also support AlasdairW's suggestion. —Granger (talk · contribs) 15:17, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

 * Yes, all of this looks very promising and useful. Thanks very much! Openstreetmap has a "Transport Map" layer which shows both the English name and the name in the local language (see for example in Shanghai, which seems very useful. As a further improvement one could give the reader the choice to change languages on demand via different map layers. Xsobev (talk) 10:25, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
 * AlasdairW, I created a task (T193406) to make note of the idea of an interface for language selection. I don't think the current team will have time to address it given the scope and timeline, but I wanted to make sure we wrote down the idea for potential future work. CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 15:47, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
 * CKoerner (WMF), Thanks. I realise that there are higher priorities for the team to work on at the moment. AlasdairW (talk) 20:24, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

If you want to try this out, then here's how to do it:

 * 1) Go to https://test2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map_internationalization_examples
 * 2) Edit any section (wikitext)
 * 3) Change the   parameter to say something else (any ISO language code, such as   for English or   for Russia, or   for whatever the local language is).
 * 4) Preview your changes and see what happens.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:26, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Expedition statistics
I contacted the creators of Wikipedia's WP 1.0 bot to see if the would be interested in helping us automate the updating of expedition statistics tables. Nelson Ricardo (talk) 07:26, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Completed
Ireland and Northern Ireland pages are now all high-grade usable so those expedition camps have folded and redirected back to parent page. There never truly were expeditions for either, but I used those pages as a status bar of work in progress. SHB2000, it doesn't seem right to lump them into the slush pile of abandoned or obsolete expeditions. For others, it's important to retain the exp-page so that future contributors know where to restart or why not to bother. But work complete should be so proclaimed, to set an example. We've only about another 300 nations in need of major overhaul, let's get to it. Grahamsands (talk) 13:22, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Educational assignments on Wikivoyage
As you know, I am occasionally running them (see discussion(s) above for my most recent, 4th, I think, program). I do wonder if some other instructors have done so as well? Do we have a page with best practices and such for educational assignments on Wikivoyage? I wrote elements of the old wikipedia:WP:SUP and I could draft something for the Wikivoyage community, based on my experiences. To do this well I'd welcome any information about past assignments, and the community good and bad experiences with them in the past. Piotrus (talk) 13:21, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

 * I don't ever remember seeing so many discussions among students. I think it's wonderful that they're looking at each other's work and commenting on it! The bad experiences have been more with editathons that gave points for starting articles, regardless of whether they were completely copied and pasted or had inaccurate information in them or not than with school assignments, though I remember one high school assignment in France that resulted in some articles that were deleted for lack of interest for travelers. I think all of the assignments to students in Korea have been very constructive. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:22, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think instructors are using Wikivoyage for educational purpose. Wikipedia itself is already a big unknown for many educators and they are just starting to learn how to utilize it. It is extremely rare for instructors to use other WMF projects as teaching tools. As for the Korean students, it was mostly positive. The only thing that caught my eyes was a few students uploading copyrighted images onto Commons. <b style="color: #0000FF;">OhanaUnited</b><b style="color: green;">Talk page</b> 20:00, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

title: Wikivoyage talk:Expeditions


text:
Wikivoyage talk:Experts

I was inspired by recent contributions by tourism office reps and the media buzz around the launch of Digital Universe to put out this draft article about the role of experts in Wikivoyage. I hope to express that we welcome the input of experts in many fields, that they can expect a modicum of respectful treatment (which I think should be the norm for all Wikivoyagers), and that we hope they contribute what they know. On the flipside, I asked that they remember that this is a collaborative site, that they should be prepared to explain themselves and not appeal to authority, and that there is no quid pro quo for contribution. I also wanted to make it clear that this is primarily a "non-expert" wiki, and that's probably as it should be.

Please feel free to edit and modify; if there's more discussion that needs to go on here, let's have it. --(WT-en) Evan 13:40, 22 Dec 2005 (EST)

vfd discussion

 * Delete . Evan created this as a "draft policy" in 2005, and I don't think it's been reference since. Presumably the thought was mostly with regards to tourism professionals, but we deal with that at Welcome, tourism professionals. The article as it stands correctly points out that appeal to authority is a logical fallacy and a bad way to work together! --Peter Talk 02:46, 29 September 2012 (CEST)
 * Merge. Can be merged into Welcome, tourism professionals. --Saqib (talk) 03:47, 29 September 2012 (CEST)
 * I've now incorporated the material to a new section heading "Experts" in this article so the current page content can now be deleted and changed to a redirect to that section. --W. Franke-mailtalk 12:10, 29 September 2012 (CEST)

 * Merge and redirect as above. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 12:25, 29 September 2012 (CEST)

Speedily merged & redirected. --Peter Talk 19:28, 29 September 2012 (CEST)

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

title: Wikivoyage talk:Experts


text:
Wikivoyage talk:External links

Some things that have moved:

 * Audio guides → Wikivoyage talk:External links/Audio guides
 * Hidden links → Wikivoyage talk:External links/Hidden links
 * Links in listings → Wikivoyage talk:External links/Links in listings
 * What to link to → Wikivoyage talk:External links/What to link to

Hitchwiki
Hitchwiki is linked in the Krk guide. Here's their main page. It looks like a useful wiki, but it appears to be independent of Wikimedia. Should we link it? Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:57, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
 * That looks like a really small wiki, with only 3,538 articles in any language. Furthermore, the amount of hitchhiking information on their Krk page is not so much that it couldn't be replicated here; if we were feeling lazy, we could even copy it word-for-word, as their content is CC-licensed. So no, I don't think we should be linking to this wiki in this instance, but I do feel like their content could be used to complement our own.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:51, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your opinion. I think that if we use information from another wiki, we are obligated under WV:Copyleft to credit our source, such as in an edit summary. Any other views? I suppose this link could be removed within 24 hours if no-one objects. Ikan Kekek (talk) 13:31, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Here's the relevant language:

 * Wikimedia projects like Wikipedia have a compatible license, so we can copy relevant text as long as proper attribution is provided in accordance with the CC-SA license. When copying text from another site with a compatible license, you must cite the article from which you are copying in the edit summary and include a link to the license terms.

 * The way I interpret that is that we should be including a URL in the edit summary. Ikan Kekek (talk) 13:33, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

 * Yes. It would also be a good idea to write a note crediting Hitchwiki on Talk:Krk.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 14:30, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

 * I will take care of this. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:42, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Real estate agents/agencies
Any objection to explicitly spelling out in the "What not to link to" section that these are not to be linked because Wikivoyage is not a relocation service and therefore focuses on temporary accommodations? Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:54, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

 * I would object if you didn't do it. Seems like common sense for a travel wiki. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 20:13, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

 * Mostly deafening silence in reply to my question. I doubt it would be controversial with anyone but real estate agency touters, though, so unless there is an objection, I'll put in a bullet point on this soon. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:02, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

 * Go ahead. You could add this to the existing "Vacation rental agencies that do not meet Wikivoyage's rental listing criteria". AlasdairW (talk) 22:32, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

 * Done. Right under "Vacation rental agencies". Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:56, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Linking to official website in the lead
We usually link to a place's tourism or civic website in the article's lead. Can anyone point me to the part of the style manual that tells us to do that, or was this edit removing the link okay? Thanks. Ground Zero (talk) 12:15, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I would revert it if the link is working correctly. If not, then it was a good edit to remove the link. It may not be in policy, but it is still helpful to include that link at the beginning of the article. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 12:43, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
 * External links says "If an official website exists for the destination, it should be linked to only once, from the name of the destination in the first sentence of the article." —Granger (talk · contribs) 13:17, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
 * thanks! Ground Zero (talk) 17:49, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Next ques6: the link works, but only to a Japanese site that has no "click here for English". This is probably more of an irritant to our readers than getting rid of it. People who read Japanese probably won't come here for info on travelling in Japan. Ground Zero (talk) 17:53, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
 * It should be removed, then, IMHO. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 21:10, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I've looked at many articles where these kinds of links are in foreign languages. I'm not sure they're as much of an irritant as you think, since you can translate the pages with Google Translate — and moreover, just because I can read Italian and would look at an Italian tourism page without hesitation, for example, doesn't mean that I don't find it sufficiently easier to read in English that I wouldn't start my research about a place in Italy by reading English-language websites. But though I thought there was some guideline somewhere, stating that a link to an official tourism site or some such should be at the top of the page, if there is one (External links?), I think that if we are going to ban links of these types of sites at the top of the page when they're only in foreign languages, we need to discuss that and post a guideline somewhere. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:49, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm going to revert it then. I dont thinking it's a useful link for the overwhelming majority of readers, buf I'm not particularly motivated to get into a policy discussion on this. I'm okay reading a couple or a few languages, but Japanese is out of the question for me. Ground Zero (talk) 22:08, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm most certainly more competent in English than Japanese, but if the only official information about a place is in Japanese, that's what I'm going to read. Even if there is an English version available, I look at the Japanese version as well because sometimes, they don't translate all the information into English. So while I may be a minority here, I'd say leave the link in. You never know who might find it useful. The dog2 (talk) 02:30, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I find that the online translation using the Chrome browser is easy and is 90% accurate. In the case of Ishigaki, I quickly a page on accessing the airport, which had similar bus details to the article. Online translation is not perfect so I would try to avois using it for bookings etc. AlasdairW (talk) 10:36, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
 * And in general, if you travel to Japan, your probability to know some Japanese, have a friend that does or have some translation aid is bigger than for the general public. The same applies to small places with obscure languages. Going to such a place you should not be too irritated when finding text in the local language (and I'd say: if the tourist bureau does't have English pages, the place qualifies). --LPfi (talk) 18:40, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree with you. But I think "Japanese only" should be added to the link, which means not linking it directly to the island name but using an m-dash to "tourism site: [name of site (Japanese only)]". Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:52, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
 * That works for me. The dog2 (talk) 05:15, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
 * If this were a separate ==External link== list, I'd agree. But having the first sentence read "City (Japanese only) is a small city in the prefecture of Somewhere, Japan" isn't great.  (Also, maybe just "(Japanese)", to avoid maintenance hassles if they update their website later?)  WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:38, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I feel like seeing only the word "Japanese" in parentheses with no visible context given would look strange. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:10, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I think what was meant was something like "City (石垣, tourism site, Japanese) is a small city in ..." (IK's suggestion was not quite like that, but close enough). --LPfi (talk) 20:04, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I like your solution. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:58, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I think it should say "official tourism site", though, so as not to give spammers any more ideas than they already have. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:59, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I think our leads sometimes look drier and more Wikipedia-ish than would be ideal, and a parenthetical like "tourism site, Japanese" in the first sentence might make that worse. I think a reader reading about an off-the-beaten-path destination shouldn't be too surprised to end up at a page written in the local language. Some of the official sites we link to for individual POIs don't have English versions either. —Granger (talk · contribs) 06:09, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I understand that as the status quo ante, and I wouldn't fight it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:21, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

 * I suspect that readers, not knowing our conventions, might miss the link in the current format. I'm inclined to think we should have one or more separate labelled links for "local tourist bureau", "city government", perhaps others? Where might those go? End of lead section? Pashley (talk) 06:29, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I have always found the placement of these links odd. This discussion provides yet another reason why they would be better placed somewhere else. I think they should go in the 'Understand' section. That is where visitor information centres go. Quite often the official tourism website is associated with the visitor information centre, but even when not, the two pieces of information are of a similar ilk. It is not only readers unfamiliar with our conventions who might miss the link currently – I usually overlook it too. Nurg (talk) 08:04, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Or maybe in ==Cope==? The times I can imagine wanting the city government's main website (as opposed to, e.g., the public transit system website) are usually when something's gone wrong.
 * I would generally support moving these links, if we had a decent place to put them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:57, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Pashley, thanks for refocusing on the forest while we were looking at an individual tree. I would totally support moving these links to "Understand". Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:46, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I can live with moving the links to the "Understand" section. In that way, we can list both the official tourism web-site and the city government web-site, if they are maintained separately. They usually provide different information, and you never know who might find either of them useful. The dog2 (talk) 06:29, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
 * If both links are relevant, both would be in "Understand" with nothing linked to the first instance of the article name. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:41, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I'd support that change. Ground Zero (talk) 15:32, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Proposal to change policy regarding official tourism website links
Per the discussion above, I propose this change:

Current policy:
 * "If an official website exists for the destination, it should be linked to only once, from the name of the destination in the first sentence of the article."

Proposed policy:
 * "If an official website exists for the destination, it should be linked to only once, in the Understand section. If a destination maintains separate websites for tourism and for civic administration purposes,  both may be linked in the Understand section and should be identified clearly. (This policy changed in 2020. Websites should no longer be linked in the lead paragraph.)"

I realise that the parenthetical comment is redundant, but this policy change will put most of our articles offside the policy, so it warrants clarification. Comments? Ground Zero (talk) 15:36, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

 * No problems with the wording or the parenthetical. My only thought is that I'd like to see an example or two of how to present and link these in the Understand section. When it was in the lede, it was obvious: just put the link on the boldfaced name of the destination. When it's in the Understand section, how would it look? Is it better to link it inline from prose (and if so, how would we draw attention to the link?), or to just have it as one or more bulleted items? --Bigpeteb (talk) 17:40, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

 * I'm of pretty much the same position as Pete.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 17:51, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

An example for discussion:

Visitor Information
This has the following:
 * Marketing Edinburgh Official Guide
 * City of Edinburgh Council
 * Visit Scotland Edinburgh page
 * Official tourist site- this is the page we current link from Edinburgh
 * Local government
 * National tourist agency page on city
 * Listing for physical office

This is an example for a larger destination with multiple links. I choose Visitor rather than Tourist information because it should also be useful for business travellers. I think that linked pages must be (in part) funded my local or national government to be considered "official". AlasdairW (talk) 22:55, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

 * I support the new wording and the example. I would say that if and only if there is no governmental tourism/visitors site in a given destination (probably because it's tiny), it could be OK to link non-governmental organizations such as Chambers of Commerce that promote a destination and local business generally without directly profiting as an organization, but I'd respect a consensus against this. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:16, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Okay, looks good. My only remaining question is: where within Understand is the best place to put this subsection? Would it be better at the top, bottom, or somewhere in the middle (for example, immediately after History)? My first thought would be at the top, but then again typically the subsection listing tourist info booths seems to usually go near the bottom (I guess maybe because it's the catch-all for "Here's where you might be able to find any info that isn't already covered in this section").
 * I'd also suggest rewording or expanding the parenthetical remark slightly, like "(This policy was changed in 2020. Websites should no longer be linked in the lead paragraph, but since this affects almost every article it will take some time to implement this change.)" --Bigpeteb (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

 * I'm OK with that rewording. We changed the placement of the "Talk" section in Country article template (and optionally in other templates such as Region article template) in March, 2015, and as recently as yesterday, I have still moved some Talk sections accordingly. In terms of where to put the "Visitor information" subsection, I'd suggest just before "Climate" if there is such a section, or if not, at the end of "Understand". I definitely wouldn't put it at the beginning of that section, before prose that's hopefully engaging and brings the reader in. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:58, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

As we seem to be in agreement, I've plunged forward and implemented this changes, with the suggested modifications. We can continue to tweak this if there are other ideas. Ground Zero (talk) 17:47, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Thank you for plunging forward! How does everyone feel about the idea of putting this subsection before a "Climate" subsection, if there is any? Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:59, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

 * I think that "towards the end of the Understand section" is sufficent. I don't see a need to go into detail giving the order of the subsections. AlasdairW (talk) 22:11, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Can we just change the Article skeleton templates to reflect this? Ground Zero (talk) 23:31, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree with it going at the end of the Understand section and suggest saying "at the end" rather than "towards the end". I also suggest that the visitor centre go first, as it's a place the traveller can physically go to, its listing may have additional content (per Edinburgh) and it deserves more prominence than a plain old external link. Also, I question the inclusion of a civic website in addition to visitor info links - is this a new addition or something that was already covered by policy elsewhere? Nurg (talk) 01:56, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
 * No objection from me for this policy change. It will allow us to list all the web-sites that travellers could potentially find relevant. The dog2 (talk) 04:09, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Why do you guys feel like it looks better to have this subsection after "Climate" than before "Climate"? Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:27, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't have an opinion one way or the other. I used "towards the end" as a way of dodging the question for now. I'd support listing the subsections in your desired order in the article skeletons as a way of demonstrating the preferred ordering. Ground Zero (talk) 07:21, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Cool. Nurg, your feelings on this? I keep in mind that "Climate" often includes a chart, so for that reason, it's good to put it last in "Understand". Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:29, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, actually, it helps to keep the climate chart from running into the 'Get in' section, as in our pilot case of Edinburgh, and I think that's a good thing, though not a big deal. Also, I favour giving readers more of our content before we offer them an exit to another site. The WP model of having external links right at the bottom of the page perhaps doesn't suit us, but I like the principle. And, just as a side comment, I scooted around a few articles and found that the Climate subsection is not always near the bottom of the Understand section - sometimes it's at the top or in the middle. Nurg (talk) 07:57, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
 * OK, if it works better to put "Visitor information", or whatever we'll calling it, at the very end of "Understand", let's do that. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:02, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
 * At the very end is fine. However I prefer the physical office to come after the links. Any link in the office listing should just be about the office, the listing could be much longer than the example as opening times often vary over the year and in small places the listing may just be for the noticeboard in the town square with a map and posters for events. Whether "Climate" should come before "History" depends on the destination, for somewhere like Edinburgh most readers will look at Climate to decide what to wear, but for a beach resort, Climate may be a major factor in choosing whether to visit. AlasdairW (talk) 12:32, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
 * It's normal for links to be in listings. If a town's Tourism Bureau has a URL, it would be normal to put that in the "url" tab of the listing, regardless of whether it contains lots of online information that readers could use without physically visiting the bureau's office. I can't see a good reason to give the same URL twice. Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:55, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I didn't mean give the exact same url twice, but two different ones. If they are the same then only give it in the list of links. The reader doesn't know whether the page is purely about the office, or general information about the city. In the example Visit Scotland Edinburgh page (www.visitscotland.com/destinations-maps/edinburgh/) comes before the link in the listing (www.visitscotland.com/info/services/edinburgh-icentre-p234441), and given the layout of Visitscotland's site it is hard to find one page from the other. AlasdairW (talk) 13:30, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Gotcha, but if the link is for the same organiation as the one with the visitors' bureau, the link should be given once in the listing, because if not, a bot will eventually "correct" that. Ikan Kekek (talk) 13:56, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Paradoxical violation of don't tout?
Look here. This is an example of a businessman removing a listing out of a belief that it's bad for his business for him to list it. I'm not sure it's important for this place to be listed, so I have no motivation to revert his edit, but it's pretty strange, isn't it? Some relevant history at User talk:Sven H Hangson. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:40, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

 * Interesting.. Why would a firm not want to be listed?  ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 10:00, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
 * The objection isn't clear to me. My best guess is that whenever the article is changed or updated, the business's website gets a notification even though no-one had actually visited the site from Wikivoyage. This is the first time I've sent this complaint. I have restored the listing without the website because I think it's worth keeping ad a vegan- and vegetarian-friendly place. Ground Zero (talk) 10:21, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
 * He seems concerned about search engine optimization. I've followed w:en:WP:External links for years and years, and I've never heard this.  I've asked at w:en:WP:VPT.
 * On the general question, there are a lot of vegetarian and vegan people in Sweden. Vegan-friendly restaurants are not uncommon.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:50, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
 * The question of what we include or don't include is governed solely by what serves the traveller best, and I think it goes without saying that the traveller is better served by listing the restaurant, including a link to its website, than by not listing or linking. As others have said, I'm unconvinced the link has any effect on traffic to his business website, but even if it did, that's not our problem. I've reinstated the URL on that basis. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 16:51, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

New external link and email icons
I recently noticed that the external link and email icons changed. I wasn't expecting this change, and I just shrugged it off, but I now see that listings have two email icons, one before and one after. Nelson Ricardo (talk) 21:04, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

[mailto:example@example.com Non-listing email]

Non-listing website

 * We could set the style to "plainlinks", so that there would be only one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:29, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

External links for in depth information from official sources?
Example :- https://visitlondon.com/traveller-information/getting-around-london/walking

I was wanting to include this alongside the TFL link in London on Foot. I am not sure if the current policy would support this. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 10:14, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

 * Official sites can be linked; it's all the secondary sources that are not official (YouTube, etc., etc.) that cannot be. Please read External links, particularly External links and External links. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:16, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

 * I've sometimes included links to official sites with more detail. Examples are at Taxila and Shanghai:
 * For a more detailed history, see the Guide to Historic Taxila online at the Pakistani government's national heritage site. The story given there is considerably more complex than just the three main excavated areas mentioned above.
 * There is an Encyclopedia of Shanghai, in English, that is available both as a book in local bookstores and online at the municipal government site. Much of it is rather boring — statistics, photos of the officials in charge of each development project, and project descriptions that give much financial and engineering detail — but there is also some quite useful material. For example, it has detailed descriptions of every museum and park in the city.
 * I think policy allows this and it is sometimes quite useful. Pashley (talk) 11:35, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Change proposal: Official destination links
Following discussion in Travellers' pub, I propose changing the relevant section to below (Edinburgh example need no changes):

Official destination links: If one or more official/semi-official websites exist for the destination, they should be linked at the end of the lead section with appropriate explanations: name of the site, languages used, well-maintained or not etc. (This policy was changed in 2024. It will take some time to implement this change.) Hnishy63 (talk) 01:30, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

 * To make things simple, they should be linked in the Understand section, or in the absence of one, at the end of the lede, as you suggest. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:46, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I understand the goal of this proposal. It includes a few changes, but the main one seems to be putting the links at the end of the lead instead of the "Understand" section. I'm not a big fan of that idea, at least not as described here. In my opinion the lead is intended to draw the reader in, introduce the destination, and give a sense of what's interesting and distinctive about it. It's a place for descriptive prose that's fun to read. Practical details about a website ("name of the site, languages used, well-maintained or not etc.") shouldn't go in the lead, and I wouldn't want the Edinburgh example (multiple links and a listing with a street address) to go in the lead. —Granger (talk · contribs) 02:46, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree with Ikan Kekek (i.e. the status quo). It makes things far better when there are multiple sites to link (e.g. Mount Aspiring National Park). -- SHB2000  (talk | contribs | meta) 09:14, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
 * But some articles, such as Kagoshima (prefecture), have long Destinations and Understand sections - a link at the end of Understand section will be missed easily. Many of our pages, especially those for non-Anglophone country destinations, are out-of-date or simply insufficient - professionally maintained site(s) are more useful for the reader in such cases. Could you give the editor more discretion? I don't stick to my proposal of "at the end of the lead section". Anywhere early in the article is okay.--Hnishy63 (talk) 11:12, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
 * It's unnecessary to emphasize the link so much, in my opinion. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:21, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Particularly because we're also a travel guide. -- SHB2000  (talk | contribs | meta) 11:29, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Yeah, looking at Aomori (prefecture), having the outside link being given top billing in the article is really off-putting. While I prefer linking it in the name without direct mention, I think the suggestion to put it under "Tourist Information" in Understand is tolerable. Having it in the lede and this whole push to encourage readers to use other websites just makes it seem like we're embarrassed of our own guides. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 13:21, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I am concerned about the statement that " a link at the end of Understand section will be missed easily". If everything that is considered to be important is going into the lead paragraph, then we could end up moving "Stay safe" to the front, along with emergency numbers, consulate information, lists of ATMs, etc. "Understand" is the second section of the article. That's still pretty high profile. Ground Zero (talk) 17:13, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I'd like to point out another factor: languages. Even when our article is good enough, official sites may have other language versions. For example, Kagoshima prefecture's official site has two additional languages (Korean and Vietnamese) than us. A Korean tourist with en-1 or 2 may find our page and click the link - he can read about Kagoshima in his native language. The link should be more visible in such cases. Hnishy63 (talk) 23:12, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I think that people who are reading English Wikivoyage do so because they are comfortable reading English. If they are looking fir information in Korean, they are going to be reading Korean Wikivoyage, or using a search engine. Wikivoyage is not a link farm. Ground Zero (talk) 00:12, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Their article is available in 6 languages, our Kagoshima (prefecture) is available in 8 languages - if your preferred language is German, Italian or Spanish, you may prefer to stay with WV. AlasdairW (talk) 00:14, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Agree with Ikan. Having it end of Understanding is useful, but it would be overly distracting at the end of the lede and reduce its impact as an invitation to delve in further. Mrkstvns (talk) 19:38, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I think it should be at the end of Understand for City articles and others which have Understand as the second section. For Countries and Regions where Understand is further down (and sometimes quite long) having a single link (tourist board) at the end of the lead is good, but additional links or physical offices should be in Understand. AlasdairW (talk) 18:37, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree with AlasdairW, the main problem is with Regions (as for Japan, Prefectures). Anyway, it's clear there is no community-wide consensus :). So this part of the policy has a weaker basis than others. I will use my discretion to put these links at where I think best. "Traveler first" policy has a much stronger basis, I believe.--Hnishy63 (talk) 23:09, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
 * The status-quo bias on this site means that in the absence of a new consensus, the links to official tourism sites stay in "Understand." I don't see why it would be important to put them anywhere else, nor why it would be a problem that that section can be somewhat down the page in some articles. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:05, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
 * In Januari 2006 Wikitravel, now Wikivoyage, started having links to an official website of a destination in the first words of the lead section. So long time users are up to 18 years used to have such a link at that place. Such reading users (not editing) have not seen the changes in this page because they don't know it, and are not informed about it. (There should have been warning messages about changes to come when using those links.) So, when reading an article of a for them new destination that has the link moved to the Understand section, they think there is not such a website for this destination. Changing  [|First words of the article]  to  First words of the article  could be a good alternative, specially for the mobile view. --FredTC (talk) 09:07, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't agree with FredTC's proposal. I just don't see why linking to another travel information site would be the first thing a reader sees in a Wikivoyage article, whether directly or indirectly. Wikivoyage has come a very long way in providing information to readers since that style became commonplace. We should continue to include the link to official tourist websites as an exception to our general rule of not linking to other travel guides, but not putting it at the very start of the article. Ground Zero (talk) 08:16, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

 * I too disagree with Fred's proposal. It seems very deceptive and appears as if it links to another article. -- SHB2000  (talk | contribs | meta) 10:08, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) Agreed. If the consensus is to put it in the Tourist Information section under "Understand" then we should put it there. We don't need any further links to it. The official website should not be considered an essential part of the guide. It shouldn't even matter if it's not there at all. Adding information to Wikivoyage is infinitely more important than adding official website links to articles. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 10:16, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

I think it might help if we said that the links should be in a "Visitor information" sub-section of Understand. This is what the example shows, but it isn't spelt out in detail. If the links are in a sub-section then it can be found from the Table of contents links on the banner, which I think might address some of the concerns about them being hard to find. AlasdairW (talk) 21:49, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

 * My main concern is the user. A change that affects thousands of users is discussed by only 7 users is now being performed. The place where this is mentioned is only this discussion page and after consensus there was a change in External links. So this change is "law" now, but who knows this? It is very unlikely that read-only users will ever see this. But even most editing users will not notice. If they know the page "Wikivoyage:External links", they might have seen it only once, years ago; it is not the kind of page you reread often. And now changes are done without a (visible) implementation plan. Article skeleton templates would need some changes, but until now they remain unchanged. And yes AlasdairW, the ToC in the banner is helpfull ... if you know about the change ... and you are not a mobile user. "Traveler first" is not what I recognise in how thing are done now. Another thing is the used terminology "official tourism website links", the links in Delft, Rijswijk, Schiedam and more, are official websites of the local governement, telling you things like which counter in City Hall to use when. I want to say "I agree with moving those links" because it is possible to have more such links in one article, but I also find it very important that more attention is given to the fact that "links in the first words of the lead section" is something existing 18 years and that themobile user is not forgotten. --FredTC (talk) 02:00, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * But adding sublinks to the lede is also a change that affects thousands of users. Most policies work like this, and requires user participation. and I fail to see how this is different. Change is inevitable and is something that needs to be embraced – a policy existing for 18 years does not make things any different. -- SHB2000  (talk | contribs | meta) 08:07, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Indeed, over the last 18 years, Wikivoyage has evolved from being a concept if a travel guide to being an actual travel guide. A link to am official tourist info site is not an essential piece of information that has to go at the very top of an article. Policies will always  be set by the few who choose to participate. That fact cannot be a barrier to changing policy  . Ground Zero (talk) 08:40, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

(indent) While I disagree with the notion that change "needs to be embraced" since I believe good and bad changes are both possible, an alternative solution is to not require official links at all. If they have value, such as having special tour reservations, they would be linked where the tours are mentioned but otherwise we could just treat official websites as travel websites (which they are) and just not link to them. Then we don't need to worry about any of this anymore. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 12:01, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

 * I would prefer to keep the links somewhere, especially for park articles, as the official website is the only source that gives up-to-date and emergency information. The key word here is somewhere; that somewhere isn't the lede. -- SHB2000  (talk | contribs | meta) 20:25, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree. Also for cities & al, the tourist web site or tourist bureau (or those missing, the municipal site/office) can be very useful when our information is lacking or outdated, and when the traveller wants services we don't list (such as tours). I think it is an "official site" as good as any that we accept in our articles. The Understand seems the logical place; when the Understand is short I don't think we need a subsection, the listing suffices. –LPfi (talk) 07:54, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Hear, hear! -- SHB2000  (talk | contribs | meta) 12:18, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Reconsidering links to municipal websites
I think we should reconsider our policy on external links to government websites. Right now we say,
 * "If a destination maintains separate websites for tourism and for civic administration purposes, both may be linked in the Understand section and should be identified clearly."

An enthusiastic new contributor has been adding municipal government websites for small towns on Colorado. Here are a few examples: These sites address waste colection, paying utility bills, and notices of council meetings. Sonetimes they have business development infirmation, parks and recreation info, and library hours. Some of this may be of tangential interest to a few readers, but it is for the most part out of Wikivoyage's scope.
 * Arvada, Longmont, Westminster (Colorado), Pueblo, Grand Junction

If we are providing a link to our readers, that link should provide information relevant for travellers. Do travellers really come to Wikivoyage looking for information about local oarks and libraries? If we think they do, we should gave that information in the article, and not send them to a website dedigned to provide information to local residents.

I don't have wording to propose at this point, but I want to get feedback on whether there is interest in clarifying that municipal websites should be included only if they have a section for information for "visitors" or "tourists". Ground Zero (talk) 17:14, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

 * I think the problem is the great variability in the information provided on government websites. Some village (community or parish) councils have useful websites. There may not be a visitors section, but there may be a page on the village history and a page of local businesses by type where hotels and B&Bs are easy to find. Of the Colorado examples you gave, the one for Pueblo has useful information, but the Visit Pueblo page linked from it is more useful. Another thing to consider is how often the website is updated - will it tell me if Main Street is shut today due to a burst water pipe? AlasdairW (talk) 20:35, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I think having a link to the local government website is useful, even when there is no tourist information. Places that don't have a tourism website (or section) are mostly small enough that the culture secretary answering the phone might be happy to tell you that Johnny Doe has an extra room he sometimes rents to travellers, and that there will be a nice concert in the church (and warn you about the road breakage). They can tell you how to find a taxi, whether the bus really doesn't stop at the village you want to visit and whether the shop there still is in business. And when the tourism website appears, it will probably be linked from these pages. –LPfi (talk) 07:57, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I think I agree with that. Just as we have links to sister site articles, we should have links to municipal sites as references, if nothing else. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:11, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I think they're fine to include for the reasons AlasdairW mentioned. They're not hugely useful for travel information, but they're great (and have helped me a few times in Tasmania before) for local updates. -- SHB2000  (talk | contribs | meta) 08:27, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

What is the best way of linking to tourist information sites?
On many pages, the placename as the first word of the text has a link to tourist information site embedded. This way of linking is not satisfactory, I think, for the reasons below:

 * 1) The reader can't know what kind of website is linked before clicking. Some explanations on the site are needed: official or unofficial, what languages are used, well-maintained or not, etc. (In fact, some placename links lead to the local government's site, not a tourist information site.)
 * 2) Some regions have more than one good guide site, say one by the local government and another by a civilian commercial organization.
 * 3) Broken links can't be fixed easily without the site's name at least.

Isn't it better to put the link and explanations as the last sentence of the lead section? Hnishy63 (talk) 22:41, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

 * Not a bad proposal. I will say that re: issue 1, it's just our policy that the link is to a tourism site versus say a general government portal or a Wikipedia article or a Web directory, etc. so users should be familiar with what that first link will be based on it being consistent across the travel guide. That said, your point about link rot is valid and there could be templates and bots that can track this. Since our articles typically don't have sources or any other links minus those in listings (and those are at least tracked by the dates in the listing template), this could have some legs. As far as issue 2, do you have a proposal on how to fix the issue of there being multiple valid tourist info sites? —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:45, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't think that the first word of a Wikivoyage article should be a link to an external site. Let's try to get the reader to read a bit if Wikivoyage first. I agree with Hnishy that the reader shouldn't be expected to know what purpose policy us on links.
 * A better way that is used in some articles is to put a listing template for the tourism bureau in the Understand section so that it is clear what is being linked (e.g., Bobcaygeon). And there could be more than one listing template if they "have more than one good guide site", each template identifying which organizations is behind the link.
 * If the link is just to the local government because there is no tourism bureau, that should be noted. Ground Zero (talk) 23:34, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Putting links in Understand also allows linking to multiple sites if it's necessary which would otherwise seem awkward if it's in the lede (e.g. Mount Aspiring National Park). SHB2000  (talk | contribs | meta) 00:22, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

 * I agree with all Hnishy's points & support the proposal. It seems to me unreasonable to rely on what "users should be familiar with"; we want the site to work for everyone & given that new editors (even some with much experience on other wikis) often need some advice on local conventions it seems foolish to expect that new readers will know anything that is not utterly obvious.

 * Having multiple links should not be a problem if there are several good possibilities; just label them as "tourist bureau", "municipal government" or whatever. For that matter, I'd include a WP link since the one in the sidebar may not be obvious to all users, and consider adding other links like a local expat forum. Pashley (talk) 23:43, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

 * Hasn't this been discussed before? External links says "If an official website exists for the destination, it should be linked to only once, towards the end of the Understand section. If a destination maintains separate websites for tourism and for civic administration purposes, both may be linked in the Understand section and should be identified clearly. (This policy was changed in 2020. Websites should no longer be linked in the lead paragraph, but since this affects almost every article it will take some time to implement this change.)" —Granger (talk · contribs) 02:07, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Oh...a week ago, my addition of the official tourist information site of Kagoshima (prefecture) was confidently replaced with a first-word link by a more experienced user....Was I right? Hnishy63 (talk) 06:22, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
 * The discussion and the change of policy probably went unnoticed by some – not everybody engages in all discussions, and there are no wide announcements on such changes (perhaps there should be). If the tourist bureau maintains a tourist web site, I don't see why the bureau listing shouldn't be listed to that site. As I don't read Japanese, I cannot see whether the Yakushima Tourism Association (linked to as the English version of the first-word-linked site) runs the Yakushima Tourism Center, which has an unlinked listing in Understand (Yakushima was given as example in the revert summary). Perhaps ChubbyWimbus just hasn't noted the policy change?
 * (I confess that I often link the place name as before in cases where I don't take the time to figure out details about a possible tourist bureau.)
 * –LPfi (talk) 08:23, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
 * In other words, above, I described the official policy, without realizing it was the official policy. We have a lot of policies, and often even experienced users aren't aware of all if them. Ground Zero (talk) 08:49, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

 * Yes, I was not aware of this change, so I apologize.
 * To clarify a few things:
 * Are we no longer linking from the lede at all or is this just adding a link to the physical listing of the tourism bureau?
 * Would we list just a website if there is no physical place to go under "Tourist Information" or leave it off altogether?
 * The point about listing "multiple good sites" doesn't make sense to me. If a private organization or a personal travel website is better than the official tourism website, I don't think we should care. I think we should still just list the official one. It seems antithetical to our goals for us to scout the internet for better travel websites to send our users to. I also don't like the proposal of adding more Wikipedia links. I'd prefer less annoying Wikipedia links. I also don't like the idea of listing forums. We should be trying to get people to read OUR guides and to use OUR guides. If our own contributors don't think WV is worth using, we should discuss that rather than using WV to promote all of the guides we like better. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 14:47, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
 * The Visitor information section in Understand should include websites and physical tourist offices. The multiple websites listed should all be official (primary) sources. In many cases there will only be one, but there may be the local tourist office, the city government, the national park authority for the area (if the city is in or next a national park) and a national tourist office page on that city. They should not be other travel websites. AlasdairW (talk) 21:08, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

I've started to move tourism website links from the first line to the last line of the intro paragraph, identifying them as tourist office sites. I'm working on country articles and articles for capitals as a way of modelling the intended approach with high-profile articles. If anyone would like to join me in this, this would help change the norm Wikivoyage. Ground Zero (talk) 21:42, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

 * Thanks for doing this. However, according to External_links they should go at the end of Understand in Visitor information. I think that this policy only considered cities etc where Understand is the first section, and not countries and regions where it is much further down the article, and the end of intro may be a good place in that case. AlasdairW (talk) 21:59, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

I added a change proposal on the External_links policy Talk page.--Hnishy63 (talk) 01:42, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

title: Wikivoyage talk:External links