text:
Wikivoyage:Star potential

A star potential is a guide article very close to fulfilling the criteria for becoming a star article. Not only would you not need to consult another guide, you'd really have no reason to want to: it's all here. Yet some small issues hold it back from being absolutely perfect. For example, a city guide might not have a map, or some listings might miss a phone number or opening hours. This prevents them from being considered "star" articles, which are the ones we hold up as examples of just how great a Wikivoyage article can become.

Keep in mind that a star potential is not a status rating. It's a practical list so our users can find the articles that only need a small amount of work in order to be perfect.

See also: Stub articles, Outline articles, Usable articles, Star articles.

Identification
What makes a "star potential" varies depending on what the subject is. For example, an article about a city must have multiple hotel and restaurant listings, but that doesn't make sense for an article about an entire region, which should instead have a listing of the cities in that region. Obviously the criteria for a travel topic or phrasebook would be different. See Project:Article status for links to the specific criteria for each kind of article.

A complete list of all current "star potentials" can be found in Category:Star potential.

Tag them
If you find an article that meets the criteria for "star potential" but hasn't been tagged as such, or if you improve an article to the point that it qualifies, please tag it.

There's special markup in our software to mark something as an outline.

There is special markup in our software to mark something as a star potential. It looks like this:   which makes this appear on the page:

You can add one of these messages at the top of the Talk page. This encourages readers to put a little effort in to turn the article into a star.

Improve them
If you find a "star potential" and you can see what's holding it back from becoming a "star"... plunge forward! If you know your way around Illustrator or Inkscape, make a map for it. If you have a good eye for detail, comb through the listings and fix any formatting mistakes. If you have a flair for the English language, give the text a full-body massage with a happy ending, and make it sing. Give the article that final nudge from "great" to "perfect".

The specific criteria varies depending on the kind of article (i.e. city, country, etc.) but a star article is as good as it gets. At that point it's a guide to be proud of, and should be nominated to be a "star".

When an article is just starting out, we often need all the information we can get to get the article started, and style and detail comes second. Even some touting is occasionally tolerated just to get information in the guide. Additions to star potentials should notably improve the quality of an already great article, and fully comply with the style guidelines. However, this doesn't mean that you shouldn't always plunge forward to add your latest discovery at a destination.

title: Wikivoyage:Star potential


text:
Wikivoyage:Start a new guide

City
To create a guide for a village, town, or small city (population 100,000 people or fewer) put the name of the city in the box below and click the "Create City Guide" button. Then, edit the contents of the new guide, and click "Save Page".

Major City
To create a guide for a major city (100,000 people and up), put the name of the city in the box below and click the "Create Major City Guide" button. Then, edit the contents of the new guide, and click "Save Page".

Region
To create a guide for a region (an area smaller than a country but bigger than a city, like a county, state, canton or province), put the name of the region in the box below and click the "Create Region Guide" button. Then, edit the contents of the new guide, and click "Save Page".

National Park
To create a guide for a national park (or state park, or national forest, or other wilderness preserve where people can stay overnight), put the name of the park in the box below and click the "Create National Park Guide" button. Then, edit the contents of the new guide, and click "Save Page".

Phrasebook
To create a guide for a phrasebook for a language (or notable dialect), put the name of the language followed by "phrasebook" in the box below and click the "Create Phrasebook" button. Then, edit the contents of the new phrasebook, and click "Save Page".

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

title: Wikivoyage:Start a new guide


text:
Wikivoyage:Stub articles

A stub article is any article in Wikivoyage that doesn't have a proper template or outline with standard Wikivoyage section headers (e.g. Get in, Eat, Drink, Sleep). Without even places to put this information, it probably doesn't have very much of it, and is of no use to a traveller at its current status. Stubs are usually created by people who are new to Wikivoyage and don't know about templates or how to add them; they just add some information to a blank page, which is certainly a good first step.

If an article is worth writing about on Wikivoyage, it will usually fit one of the skeleton templates. If a template is inserted and one or two of its sections are filled out – even just the opening paragraph explaining what and where this destination is (e.g. "Hobbiton is a village in the Shire."), then it is time to move it to outline status.

See also: Outline articles, Usable articles, Guide articles, Star articles.

Pros and cons of stubs
Stubs have their bad sides. Readers can get confused by a too-short article: Is that all there is to say about the article? Is that the expected length of articles for Wikivoyage? Where's all the info? Stubs can give a bad first impression if people haven't seen other Wikivoyage articles. (But see below for a way to make stubs less confusing.)

Mostly, though, stubs are a good thing. A stub is the seedling from which the full plant of an article emerges. One Wikivoyager can add a stub, and other Wikivoyagers will come along and add more information to it. Someone else comes in and reformats the article according to the Manual of style, and someone else adds photos. Eventually, the tiny one-sentence stub becomes a healthy, useful article.

Identification
If you set the Threshold for stub display value to something other than 0 in your preferences, links to stub articles will be shown in a different color from links to complete articles or to non-existent articles. The threshold value is a number of characters in the article; somewhere around 500 characters should give you a good idea of whether an article is long enough or not.

Note that this only shows short articles, and so it's a very rough approximation of stubbiness. Some articles may need additional information, even if they stretch for hundreds of thousands of characters. We don't have the software yet to decide if an article covers its subject well.

What to do with them
If you make a stub article, or see one that someone else has made, you can tag it, upgrade it, or (if necessary) delete it.

Tag
If the article isn't going to be improved right away, it's good to add a little disclaimer that admits that the article is barely begun. This gives a bit of extra impetus to readers to add what they know to an article. There's special tag in our software to mark something as a stub. It looks like this:   which makes this appear on the page:

You can add the stub message at the bottom of the page. This reassures readers that we know the article is not complete, and that it's not indicative of the overall quality expected out of Wikivoyage articles. Also, it invites them to add whatever they can to make the article better.

Upgrade
But there's really no need for the tag to get used at all. Instead, copy the appropriate article skeleton to the stub article, and incorporate the existing nuggets of information into the appropriate section(s). For example, if the stub is for a region of a country, copy over the region article template. The quickest way to do this is to type into the article, save the page, then continue editing to fix the intro paragraph and place the existing information in the right section(s). Other common templates you can include using are: smallcity skeleton (for anything from a village with a couple motels to a typical city), bigcity skeleton (for major travel destinations), district skeleton (for sections of a bigcity), or park skeleton (for national and other major parks).

People are more comfortable if they can add just a little information at a time, rather than writing the whole article from scratch, and a template like this makes it much easier to do that. And once you've properly added a template, the article is no longer a stub. The disclaimer can be changed to an   or (if it contains enough information) something even higher.

Delete
Alternatively, if a stub is about a topic that is never going to turn into a worthwhile Wikivoyage article then it should be proposed for deletion if it doesn't align with our goals or else redirected to an appropriate article that the topic can be incorporated into. Redirection or deletion is often a pragmatic decision. There is little point in writing lots of tiny stub articles about small but nearby places (each with only one or two attractions) when a single article about the area all those places are in can cover all the attractions in one hit, and it will not be a stub, because the template can be filled out too.

title: Wikivoyage:Stub articles


text:
Wikivoyage:Swedish Wikivoyage Expedition

Swedish Wikivoyage Expedition is an expedition to create a Swedish version of Wikivoyage. The primary goal is to provide travel guides in the Swedish language, since many swedes think it's more comfortable that way. Promoting a Swedish Wikivoyage-version has alredy begun on the Swedish Wikipedia!

Goals
This Expedition has the following goals:

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

The Team
If you speak Swedish and feel like a Swedish Wikivoyage is something you will contribute to, please sign here. We need at least five contributors to set up a site.
 * 1) (WT-en) Väsk 00:22, 9 Aug 2004 (EDT)
 * 2) (WT-en) Alers 02:28, 9 Aug 2004 (EDT)
 * 3) (WT-en) Softssa 04:05, 9 Aug 2004 (EDT)
 * 4) (WT-en) Lamré 06:21, 9 Aug 2004 (EDT)
 * 5) (WT-en) Elinnea 11:20, 11 Aug 2004 (EDT)
 * 6) (WT-en) PerSvensson 06:02, 22 Aug 2004 (EDT)
 * 7) (WT-en) Sander 14:10, 1 Sep 2004 (EDT)
 * 8) (WT-en) Salsero 08:35, 1 Oct 2004 (EDT)

Go-between
User:(WT-en) Alers has volunteered to act as a go-between for Swedish Wikivoyage and the rest of the community.

Interface files
The language interface file for Swedish is at Project:LanguageSv.php. It's started with the Wikipedia Swedish language file; it needs to be customized to work for Wikivoyage. Compare Project:Language.php for the changes needed for English Wikivoyage.

The main changes needed are the name of the site (Wikipedia -> Wikivoyage), the name and link to the license, and the names of some important pages.


text:
Wikivoyage:Go-between reports/Swedish/Swedish Wikivoyage Report for 18 December 2005

What's been done(all by myself in 4 days!)

 * All information and help pages done or close to done.

 * The Traveller's Pub has been cleaned up and relevant discussions put in seperate pages in the Wikivoyagediskussion namespace.

 * All countries have a template-skeleton, as for now they may be empty but it will be easier for visitors to add information until we got to them.

 * A "Questionable information"-tag as been made as a template, to be put on pages where people find information they are skeptical too. The tag will automaticly create a link to a discussion page in the Wikivoyagediskussion namespace, as well as encourage anyone with knowledge to edit the questioned information.

 * Main page Wikivoyage Guide re-done. Put all European regions under Europe, as well as adding information on all world regions. I also put the welcome text in a box as on en:. QUESTION! Look on the Swedish Main Page, scroll down to "Wikivoyageprojektet". Why isn't the text centered?

 * Everything on the Main Page had been put in separate templates. This made editing a misery. I put back all text on the Main Page. Later I propose we put everything in the templates again as some parts rarely will be edited.

To do

 * Get the "Destination of the month"-nomination going.

 * Contactpage/list of all members. With location information, the purpose is that if you need pictures or are having difficulties finding information you should be able to contact a Wikivoyager living in or close to that location.

 * Upcoming journey announcement. Whenever a member has plans to go somewhere, they should announce it here, making it possible for other member to request pictures from that location.

 * Synchronize en: and sv:. Encourage people to sync en: and sv: articles. This goes for plain information only. I.e. a user finds something on sv: that isn't on the english counterpart, he/she then adds the information to the english article.

 * Travelnews. Getting the travelnews section on the first page up and running.

Thoughts

 * In the guidelines it says that articles on Wikivoyage should only be general and not consists of list of i.e. restaurants, hotels, etc. I'm a bit skeptical to this rule, I'd love to have a list of all available restaurants at the destination I'm at. With at short description and perhaps some contact information(adress, phone, homepage(if existing)). The problem would be keeping the informaiton up to date, but if we manage to get many users I think this would be possible.

 * Removing inactive sysops. What's the point of having sysops that's not active? The user (WT-sv) Alers isn't even active on Wikipedia, he has stopped using his account and is instead editing anonymiously.

Conclusion
I think we(I...) have done quite a bit in a couple of days. I'll try to contact the other sysops on Wikipedia once again.

Comments
Please put your comments below. --(WT-en) Adestro 16:01, 18 Dec 2005 (EST)

I just got the "Destination of the month"-feature up and running. --(WT-en) Adestro 17:08, 18 Dec 2005 (EST)

Good start and it's great to see someone working actively! A few comments and thoughts:
 * We don't list all restaurants, hotels etc because not all are good. We'd like to have detailed listings of good places to see, eat, sleep etc though.
 * Yes, inactive sysops can and should be removed — ask Evan to do this.
 * I would suggest removing the travel news for now, even en: has problems keeping it up to date despite its much larger user base.

Just my 2 öre (join the euro already!).

The next big but necessary step would be automated uploading of templates for countries and perhaps regions of Sweden. I have some code that you can use for this, but it's quite an ugly mess and will require some knowledge of Python. (WT-en) Jpatokal 21:45, 18 Dec 2005 (EST)

 * Thanks for the answers, makes sense. The travel news sections isn't up yet, but I would like to see it in the future.

 * Automated uplodad of templates with Python? I've put the country template on all countries by hand. Might be usefull for regions though.

 * You did that by hand!? That's impressive — but you're missing even the links to the country flags and maps, which will now have to be added in by hand. (WT-en) Jpatokal 05:55, 19 Dec 2005 (EST)

 * After I posted this log I lost all interest in updating the sv:. :( If someone doesn't join me, I will stick to en:. And since most Swedes below the age of ~50 can speak English somewhat fluent, I don't think sv: is necessary. I will do some updates on sv: but will probably work more on en: until someone shows up. /(WT-en) Adestro 04:28, 19 Dec 2005 (EST)

 * By the way, in the discussion for Stockholm, I saw you said that Stockholm was boring. When was you there? Compared to larger cities it's probably boring though. :p

 * Wha? You're done already? But you've done such a great job! Please, don't give up now. Things don't get moving in one day. People like seeing an active site -- if you keep working, more people will get involved. As far as I can tell, there's a lot of activity on sv:! --(WT-en) Evan 20:04, 2 Jan 2006 (EST)


text:
Wikivoyage:Go-between reports/Swedish/Swedish Wikivoyage Report for 19 April 2006

Progress in general
During the last month, the work to add isIn and basic information on all articles have continued. Things are still a bit slow and only a few contributors are active. On the negative side - there are still quite a fair amount of sabotage of articles. We have been forced to do a few bans and have handed out many warnings.

New contributors
About 3-4 that have created an account and about five anonymous serious users. Several users of Wikivoyage in other languages have registred here too. The most noted is (WT-en) Episteme who have been doing a lot of interwiking during the past two weeks. We're still in a need for more users though.

Focus since last report

 * Continued effort to add basic information on all pages.
 * Adding a link to Swedish Wikivoyage on related Swedish Wikipedia articles.
 * Adding isIn to all pages.

Focus during the next month
Hopefully, we will be able to focus on a few articles in order to produce a "Destination of the month" each mointh during the summer. We will most likely focus on swedish destinations.

Special issues
We think that the appointment of a swedish-speaking bureaucrat would come in handy.

Conclusion
Better then last month, we are seeing that at laest a few users are showing up. Hopefully the trend will continue and we'll get a decent amount of active contributors.


text:
Wikivoyage:Go-between reports/Swedish/Swedish Wikivoyage Report for 22 January 2006

Progress in general
This report accounts for the progress made by swedish Wikivoyage since Dec 18, 2005. Posted by (WT-en) Riggwelter upon approval of the swedish go-between (WT-en) Adestro.

New contributors

 * 1 administrator (sysop)
 * Approx. 5 new logged in contributors
 * Approx. 5 anonymous contributors

Focus since last report

 * New templates, for example templates for country and city articles
 * New Wikivoyage-templates, such as templates for the welcoming of new users, and spam or sabotage/vandalism warnings
 * New translation and adaption of 36 meta articles, including an index over meta articles (copied from en:).
 * Development of a series of templates, fr example welcome templates, spam warning templates, etc.

Focus during the next month

 * Further translation and adaption of meta pages
 * Careful marketing of the site - at the moment, we feel that we are not quite ready to accept an abundance of users, we want to produce more basic information, such as meta, first.

Special issues

 * Special pages, which our admins cannot edit, must undergo an audit in order to make sure that they are correctly and fully translated. Today, this is not the case. Is it possible for us to undertake such edit work ourselves, or do we have to send the proposed changes to you?
 * The new message indication feature must be put into service. The more users we have, the more important it will be to reach people and be sure that they get a message.
 * The e-mail feature seems to be broken and must be fixed.

Conclusion
During christmas and new year's, we all felt a bit overwhelmed with what we had taken on! However, thanks to the increased interest, and regular contact between the major contributors, we all felt that things were starting to develop. We plan to continue as mentioned above, but we prefer to move slowly and carefully rather than charge forward, all blind-folded only to find that we have to do some major revamps to bad work. We have formed an informal task force consisting of users Adestro, Akteacher and Riggwelter. Our goal is to get the site so complete that new users want to start to edit and can find all the information needed to do so.

Comments (from en:)
A couple of responses. First, I'm excited to see that sv: is so re-invigorated. Thanks to everyone for their great work.

Also, this is a fantastic go-between report.

Some details: new message notification on Wikivoyage has been off for about 15 months. All the other Wikivoyage language versions manage. I can push it up to a higher priority on my todo list, but I don't think it's a must-have.

Also, the best way to fix interface messages is to send them to me. I'm also experimenting with making it possible to edit the interface stuff through Special:Allmessages, as on Wikimedia sites; I think it's probably a good idea for newly-started language versions. Hopefully I'll have this going soon, and admins on sv: can edit the messages.

Anyways, keep up the good work. --(WT-en) Evan 17:34, 22 Jan 2006 (EST)

 * Evan, it would be very nice if the new message notification (eh, I think I better start to refer to it as NMN...) could get going again. As we said before: we see NMN as an important tool in the process of reaching out to new users, anonymous or not, and at the moment, we are really keen to get new people on board. One can always argue that checking the talk page for new messages is like checking ones e-mail, but...no, it is not really the best way to do it. In other words - we'd love it if the issue could get a higher priority. As for interface messages: thee first proposed changes are on their way to you via e-mail. I just need to hear (WT-en) Adestro's opinion first. (WT-en) Riggwelter 02:05, 25 Jan 2006 (EST)


text:
Wikivoyage:Go-between reports/Swedish/Swedish Wikivoyage Report for 23 February 2006

Progress in general
The number of articles are now 309. The increase of articles has decreased, since we believe we have a need to fill the ones we have first...! Work in general has been focused on filling up current articles and on the meta side of the page, i e guidelines, database messages, etc.

New contributors
The inflow of new contributors has decreased. A couple of anonymous editors have contributed, but they have not signed up as users.

Focus since last report

 * Revision and translation of database messages (Special:Allmessages). This work will continue, but with lower intensity than before, since the most common messages are now done.
 * Further translation and creation of pages in the Wikivoyage: namespace (Namespace index).
 * We will try to create a new "Travel destination of the month" each month, and to do it as a joint effort.

Focus during the next month

 * Further work on the Wikivoyage: namespace pages - without them, we have no guidelines. Also, new contributors like to come to a site where they can plunge forward and edit, but find useful information when they need to. The WIkitravel: pages are meant to do that.
 * Further work on articles that may become "travel destination of the month".
 * Perhaps someone can undertake articles about transport systems or other travel-related issues? We hope for a keen project manager to show up.
 * Further work on the RDFication of sv:

Special issues

 * The number of saboteurs have increased. This is probably due to the extremely high internet penetration in Sweden, which gives young people access to the internet in school, through their mobile phones and at home. We have checked a number of IP addresses and the source of the sabotage is almost always various school networks. We have created a policy sv:Project:Abuse which guides the administrators through the process of contacting the network administrators of a sabotage source network.
 * Should there not be at least one swedish-speaking bureaucrat, i e an administrator with the possibility of upgrading swedish users to admins?
 * The message waiting notification, MWN, is still a crucial point (yes, I know, we nag!). We do have some anonymous contributors, but it is hard for us to advise them how to do things, and above all, it is hard to make them register since they do not see our welcome...they simply do not read their talk pages because they do not know they have a talk page, nor that they have a message. The issue with MWN is important also for reaching and warning saboteurs. However, rumour has that it's on its way - and we are really happy and excited about it!!
 * RDF cannot handle the swedish letters Å, Ä and Ö. This needs to be fixed so we can continue to RDFicate the site. It is not a big problem yet though.

Conclusion
At the moment, it is rather difficult. We have few contributors and the inflow of new ones has not been what we had hoped for. The amount of work that needs to be put in by the few active editors sometimes feels much too substantial. We know that if we continue to build the site, new contributors will come. However, we have a strong competitor in swedish Wikipedia (even if it technically isn't a competitor) which attracts the few wiki-crazy people we have in Sweden.

Comments
Your (en:) comments here, please!

The easy way to get Wikipedians to join in is to add Wikivoyage links to all destinations on sv.wikipedia. Also consider publicizing the site on newsgroups, any appropriate forums, etc. (WT-en) Jpatokal 07:08, 23 February 2006 (EST)


text:
Wikivoyage:Syntax checks

Here are lists of syntax errors.

When you fix an article, please remove the entry so that it does not appear in the list anymore.

Thanks a lot, let's make Wikivoyage an even better travel guide! :-)

 * User:(WT-en) Nicolas1981/Syntax checks/no-ispartof-nor-isin
 * User:(WT-en) Nicolas1981/Syntax checks/url-with-no-http
 * User:(WT-en) Nicolas1981/Syntax checks/malformed-url
 * User:(WT-en) Nicolas1981/Syntax checks/no-name-in-listing
 * User:(WT-en) Nicolas1981/Syntax checks/linked-spot-name (low priority)
 * User:(WT-en) Nicolas1981/Syntax checks/begins-with-external-link (low priority)

title: Wikivoyage:Syntax checks


text:
Wikivoyage:Table of contents location

On 6 June 2006, (WT-en) Evan announced a modification on Wikivoyage's user interface (UI). The Table of Contents (TOC) that used to appear on the body of most articles has been moved from the "content area" to the left navigation bar.

This has raised a series of concerns by Wikivoyagers and is being discussed on this article's talk page.

title: Wikivoyage:Table of contents location


text:
Wikivoyage:Tags

Tags are short, simple descriptions used to organize information about places, pages, and people. The idea comes from sites like http://del.icio.us/ and http://flickr.com/ which use tags to organize links and photos. Users add a word or two ("vacation", "2005", "amita", "santa-barbara", "beach") to categorize items. Users can then search and sort items by tag ("Show me stuff tagged 'vacation' and also 'santa-barbara', so I can see pictures from my trip to Santa Barbara"), and also look at other users' images or links or whatever with the same tag.

This article describes how tags work on Wikivoyage.

Adding tags
To add a tag to a page, use Template:Tag. Only one tag per template inclusion.

Tag limitations
Currently, only whole pages can be tagged. Tags are only output to the "keywords" section of a page. You can't search for tags on the site.

Future
In the future,

 * ... individual attractions, restaurants, bars, and hotels will be taggable.
 * ... you'll be able to search for tags.
 * ... tags will appear on the page next to the item tagged.

it:Project:Tags

title: Wikivoyage:Tags


text:
Wikivoyage:Technical details

All Wikimedia wikis use the same software as Wikivoyage. The software is called MediaWiki, and it's Free Software under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It's written in PHP, and uses the MySQL database engine to store page and user information. It was originally created by Wikipedia developers, but it's now used for a number of other projects (see sites using MediaWiki for a list).

Helping out with the MediaWiki software means that Wikivoyage works better. It also shows that we're grateful for this great software, and that we want to give something back to the people who worked so hard to make it. It builds up goodwill, since anything we do for MediaWiki will help users for all the sites using MediaWiki.

Some things to do to help with MediaWiki:

 * Report bugs. MediaWiki has a bug tracker; you can use that tool to submit new bugs. Make sure that it's a problem with the software and not with Wikivoyage first, of course, and check to make sure that the bug you've identified isn't already in the tracker. But identifying bugs helps developers improve the quality of the software.

 * Suggest enhancements. If you have a good idea for how to enhance the MediaWiki software, submit a Request For Enhancement ("RFE") on the SourceForge site. Again, try to make sure that the request hasn't already been made in the tracker. Identifying new features for MediaWiki can make it easier for users of all MediaWiki sites to make great content.

 * Submit patches. If you know PHP, you can review the features and bugs that have been submitted, and try to create patches for them. Patches for MediaWiki should be submitted to the Wikimedia developers mailing list.

 * Write documentation. There's a Wiki-based, user-edited user's guide for MediaWiki on the Wikipedia meta-site. You can contribute to the user's guide, which will help all users of the software.

 * Join the MediaWiki project. If you know PHP, you can join the MediaWiki SourceForge project and help with the maintenance of the MediaWiki codebase and its further development.

title: Wikivoyage:Technical details


text:
Wikivoyage:Technical infrastructure policy

There is no separate technical infrastructure policy for this individual project. The primary Web and database servers that run Wikivoyage.org are now operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. With rare exceptions (such as Wikivoyage-eV specific servers), any issues should be reported to WMF through or on.


text:
Wikivoyage:Template index

The MediaWiki software used to run Wikivoyage offers the capability to automatically generate sophisticated HTML using templates. Templates are faster than typing manually, and keep common messages uniform across the site. New templates should be discussed before being created or modified.

The list below shows most of the templates that are currently available, alongside brief explanations of how and where to use them, or you can see a complete list of all pages in the Template namespace.

Article notices
These notices are used to indicate that an article needs attention due to some problem:

Warning notices
Informational notices provide warnings and disclaimers about hazards or other vital pieces of information that travelers should be alerted to.

Collaboration of the month
These notices are used to promote articles that are collaborations of the month:

Large events
These are temporary templates for use on articles where large and significant events will be hosted. These templates should be deleted and removed from here once the event has passed.

Content insertion
These templates are used to standardize the look of specific Wikivoyage article content.

Maps, listings and geocoding
These templates are used to generate points of interest for dynamic maps, geographic co-ordinates and individual listings.

Image copyright
All images, files, etc. on Wikivoyage must be published according to our copyleft. When uploading a file it is imperative that you select a compatible license:

Inserting boilerplate text
Wikivoyage has a number of article skeletons that can be used to format articles. The following substitution texts can be used to quickly insert the article skeleton template into newly created articles. When the article is saved the shortcut is replaced with the text. This is a one-off substitution and can only be undone by deleting the inserted text - use with care.

 * Country - Type into the edit box. - Expands into the Country article template text when saved.
 * Region - Type into the edit box. - Expands into the Region article template text when saved.
 * Small city - Type into the edit box. - Expands into the Small city article template text when saved.
 * Big city - Type into the edit box. - Expands into the Big city article template text when saved.
 * Huge city - Type into the edit box. - Expands into the Huge city article template text when saved.
 * District - Type into the edit box. - Expands into the District article template text when saved.
 * Park - Type into the edit box. - Expands into the Park article template text when saved.
 * Phrasebook - Type into the edit box. - Expands into the Phrasebook article template text when saved.

Nomination templates
These templates are used on Wikivoyage-namespace pages to help unify the presentation of nominations and other internal site processes.

Print formatting
The following special templates were used by Wikitravel Press to control the appearance of printed text. They have no impact on the appearance of articles and can be safely ignored. They are retained for possible future use in other printed travel guides.

 * : Add an entry to the index for this point
 * : Force a page break here

Breadcrumb generation

 *   Generation of breadcrumbs for destination article.
 *   Generation of breadcrumbs for travel topic article.
 *   Generation of breadcrumbs for itinerary article (single continent level).

Graffiti wall
Similar to Project:Graffiti wall, you can use Template:Graffiti wall to play with a major edit to existing template before making it live for an existing (and widely used) template.

Other
cbignore – A no-op template marking an URL to be ignored by bots that would otherwise mark it as dead. This can be relevant for sites that misbehave when accessed by bots. When seen on editing, you might want to check manually that the link works.

title: Wikivoyage:Template index


text:
Wikivoyage:Templates

Did you mean:
 * Article skeleton templates — how our standard article types are formatted.
 * Template index - list of templates used in pages
 * Using MediaWiki templates — rules governing the use of MediaWiki templates

title: Wikivoyage:Templates


text: Wikivoyage:Terms of use

title: Wikivoyage:Terms of use


text:
Wikivoyage:The traveller comes first

"The traveller comes first" is an underlying principle that Wikivoyagers use when making decisions about Wikivoyage. All our work aims foremost to serve the travellers who are our readers.

Some things that evolve out of the idea of the traveller coming first:

 * When we review hotels, restaurants, sights, etc., we try to be honest and fair, and not let personal issues or promotional interests color our reviews.
 * We make our navigation as intuitive as possible, to help readers find what they're looking for.
 * We try not to bore or alienate readers with our personal opinions, beliefs, etc.; instead, we try to help the reader form and explore their own beliefs and ideas about travel.
 * We share our excitement about the destinations we cover.
 * Regions, price classifications, etc., are based on the convenience and expectations of travellers, not bureaucratic fiat (administrative districts, formal star ratings and so on).

title: Wikivoyage:The traveller comes first


text:
Wikivoyage:Time and date formats

When giving times and dates, such as for opening and closing times of attractions, restaurants and bars, use the following formats.

Ranges

 * Consider using an en dash rather than a hyphen: 2–5PM, rather than 2-5PM; 09:00–13:00, rather than 09:00-13:00 (en dashes can be found below the edit box in the "Wiki markup" section, typed in keyboard-setting-specific ways such as AltGr-hyphen or compose --., or written as . In the running text, "from X to Y" is sometimes better, such as in the rare cases where the time specifications themselves are complicated.
 * Omit spaces before and after the dash or hyphen: 10:30AM–5PM, not 10:30AM – 5PM; 10AM–noon, not 10AM – noon; M–F, not M – F.

Times

 * Use one of these formats: 09:30–17:00 or 9:30AM–5PM. Do not use both 24- and 12-hour formats within one article. Choose between formats by following predominant local usage. Ask yourself which format visitors will see in timetables, on shop doors and in newspapers.
 * It can be assumed that time is in the local time zone.
 * For establishments that don't close, use: 24 hours daily

24-hour format

 * Always use two digits for the hours and two digits for the minutes (hh:mm). Include a leading zero for numbers below ten: 09:00, not 9:00, 09:0 or 9:0.
 * Use a colon as the separator: 17:30, not 17.30, 17-30, 1730 or 1730h.
 * Use 00:00 for midnight and 12:00 for noon.

12-hour format

 * Use upper case "AM" and "PM".
 * Minutes are not shown for full hours: 5PM, not 5:00PM.
 * Where minutes are shown, use a colon as the separator: 5:26PM, not 5.26PM or 5-26PM.
 * Omit periods (full stops) in "AM" and "PM": 10:30AM–5PM, not 10:30A.M.–5P.M.
 * Use noon and midnight, not 12PM and 12AM.
 * Don't use a space between the number and the AM/PM sign: 2PM, not 2 PM.
 * Use "AM" and "PM" only once for a range when the start and end times are both AM or both PM: 8–11AM, not 8AM–11AM.

Days of the week

 * Abbreviate to the minimum number of letters – M Tu W Th F Sa Su – in lists and where space is short.
 * Spell out when it is part of a named day, as, for example, Good Friday or Fat Tuesday.
 * If it looks odd or ambiguous in a particular context, spell it out.
 * Separate two consecutive days with a space only, as, for example: Su M, not Su–M or Su, M.
 * Separate days that are not in a range (for example, when a shop is open M, W and F, and closed on Tu and Th) with spaces only. In this example: M W F 08:30–17:30 or M W F 8:30AM–5:30PM.
 * When combining days with time, put the days first: M–F 10AM–2PM, not 10AM–2PM M–F.
 * For establishments open all seven days of the week, use: daily, not "every day" or "Su–Sa".
 * For establishments open six days a week, it is often clearer to state the day they are closed: 10AM–6PM (closed Tu), not W–M 10AM–6PM.

Dates

 * Use the date format of dd Mmm yyyy, e.g., 10 Jan 2003.
 * Abbreviate months to three letters—Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec—in lists, listings and where space is at a premium, such as in a table.
 * Avoid using dates such as 10/1/03, 10-1-03 or 10/1/2003, as these can mean 10 Jan 2003 or 1 Oct 2003 to different people.
 * Some of our Mediawiki templates, such as listing and warningbox, expect a lastedit date in a specific format (usually YYYY-MM-DD numerically). See the individual template's documentation for details.

Decades and centuries

 * Decades should be shown in digits, i.e., the 1920s, and not "the twenties" or "the 1920's".
 * Centuries should be shown in digits, i.e., the 19th century, and not "the XIX century", "the nineteenth century", or the "19th Century".
 * Also consider whether to use, for example, "the 1800s" instead of "the 19th century".

Duration
(decimal values can easily be confused with minutes, and durations should not be written as points of time)
 * Year or years: yr
 * Week or weeks: wk
 * Hour or hours: hr
 * Minutes: min
 * Hours and minutes: either 5 hr 15 min or 5¼ hr

title: Wikivoyage:Time and date formats


text:
Wikivoyage:Tips for new contributors

Absolutely anyone should feel free to plunge forward and share some knowledge on Wikivoyage. If you're starting to find yourself getting more involved, the following tips and tricks might help you get up to speed working on Wikivoyage articles and participating in the Wikivoyage community.

 * 1) You are the most important resource Wikivoyage has. Please join discussions, make comments, or ask questions. Your knowledge makes Wikivoyage a better guide; your comments on our processes makes Wikivoyage a better project.
 * 2) We have a help section with lots of info on how to work with our software, a manual of style with ideas on how articles are formatted and policies and guidelines describe how we work together.  Our guide to writing tone describes how we hope to create a lively guide, and to shun dry, encyclopaedic writing.
 * 3) If you have a question about how to contribute to Wikivoyage, you can post it in the Arrivals lounge, where it will be answered by one or more of the old hands here.
 * 4) If you have some particular info you want to share, see the guidelines about where you can stick it.  Have a look at article skeletons to see what the headings all mean.  If you're still not sure, ask, or put it where you think it fits best and someone else will move it to the right place.
 * 5) Please consider creating a user account.  Other Wikivoyagers will get to know and trust your work.  You can still be anonymous, and you don't even need to give your name.  Once you have an account and have made some edits, other Wikivoyagers can spend less time checking and more time improving the guide!  You can also create a user page if you want, where you can talk about yourself, places you've been, ideas you have.  Or you can just leave it blank.  Your choice.
 * 6) Not creating a user account could lead to contradiction of edits and messages that admins give and warn, and sometimes, when your IP is blocked you need to log in to edit.
 * 7) When you edit an article, you can make a short comment describing your change.  If you remove information (say a restaurant has closed), make a note of it there.
 * 8) If you wish, you can add yourself to the List of Wikivoyagers by location.  Other Wikivoyagers may collaborate when describing the region you live in.
 * 9) Articles you work on can and probably will be changed by other people.  Making changes will often inspire others to make additions to your work.
 * 10) Every article has an associated Talk page where we discuss how best to work on that article. If you're wondering what's up with some article, why it's this way instead of that, check the talk page by clicking the discussion link.
 * 11) Once you have a user account, other Wikivoyagers can send you messages through your user talk page. Immediately to the right of your user name on the top of the page there are two icons, the alert icon and the message icon. When there are new messages on your talk page, the talk icon turns light blue and next to it the text "You have new messages" will appear (with yellow background). You should check to see what someone has to say. When someone has mentioned you (your user name, to be precise), have thanked you for an edit or reverted one of your edits, the alert icon turns red. Click the icon to open a menu, to see what it is; if you've been mentioned somewhere, there is probably a discussion going on that you will find interesting.
 * 12) Wikivoyage is a travel guide, not a travel journal. Try to share what you learned, not what you did. Avoid using first person pronouns like "I" or "we".  There is no need to sign or date your contribution.
 * 13) Our goals and non-goals explain what we're trying to do, and what we're not trying to do.
 * 14) There are lots of articles on Wikivoyage that "aren't quite there yet". Don't assume that just because something's left out, misspelled, or weirdly formatted that we want it that way.
 * 15) Other people working on Wikivoyage are here to share their knowledge and make a great website. In dealing with other contributors, assume that people are trying to do what's best for travellers and for the project.
 * 16) Feel free to express yourself in a lively tone.
 * 17) We want to make guides that can be used offline, either as printed pages or with a local copy on a mobile device. Wikivoyage is not just an online guide Web site.
 * 18) Your contributions should be original work, created by you. Please don't copy text or images from other Web sites to Wikivoyage.
 * 19) Wikivoyagers sometimes use Jargon in edit summaries or discussion pages.
 * 20) Wikivoyage has a large and active community of people who want to make this project a success. You may not see us at first, but we're here!

title: Wikivoyage:Tips for new contributors


text:
Wikivoyage:Tone

"Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme."

- Ray Bradbury

Be conversational and informal when writing articles. It should lie in a happy medium between all-out slang informality ("Yosemite National Park is DA BOMB!!!!") and constipated academic stuffiness ("Proceeding peripatetically on a compass bearing of north by northeast, the traveller shall arrive within 20 imperial minutes at the mixological establishment yclept 'Hooters'.") In general, leisure-themed topics and itineraries (such as musical theatre and Breaking Bad tour) can be more casual than geographic articles (cities, countries etc) and practical information (at the airport, common scams, etc).

Lively writing is welcome. The requirement of being fair should not be taken to mean that all writing must be bland and encyclopedic. Wikivoyage should celebrate travel, and you should feel free to share the adventure and excitement of the journey and the destination through your writing. For example, North Korea's human rights situation can and should be summed up as an "Orwellian nightmare", as opposed to noting that "some organizations have expressed concern about less than full compliance to international human rights standards, a charge vigorously denied by the Foreign Ministry."

Address the reader. It's OK to say "you", and much better than awkward constructions involving "one". But never use "I", "we", "my", "our" and so on, since you will not be the article's sole author.

Be concise. Detailed descriptions of sights are welcome, but when offering advice, you do not need to give detailed background information, explain detailed rationales or consider every exception. As far as the traveller is concerned, the gist of the following paragraph:

 * One should also be aware of Muslim cultural taboos when interacting with Malays. While most Singaporean Muslims are more liberal than those in the Middle East and northern Africa or even those in the United States, one should note that most do not consume alcohol, although many Malay youths also consume alcohol despite it being haram or not permissible to Muslims. However, to avoid unnecessary offense in case you meet with someone more conservative, one should still avoid offering alcohol to a Malay.

Can be reduced to:

 * Most Singaporean Muslims abstain from alcohol.

Careful generalizations are okay, but don't cross the line into exaggeration. It's fair comment to say that "Switzerland will bust the average backpacker budget", but a little too much to say "Forget about visiting Switzerland unless you're willing to sell your kidneys".

Humor and irreverence are welcome as basic components of lively travel writing. However, you will have to make an extra effort for it to work in an international collaborative article. Avoid sarcasm as it often doesn't work well in written form or across cultural boundaries. Avoid making fun of a person or group, as someone will miss the point and take offense. Avoid inside jokes, and humor that requires local knowledge — remember the reader is a traveller. Try to be careful with overly language-dependent jokes or jokes that may be misconstrued when read by non-native speakers — many of our readers and quite a few of our contributors don't speak English as a native language.

Don't assume the reader is an idiot. Advice about safety and respect that's not just common sense is welcome, but most Wikivoyagers are perfectly capable of brushing their teeth and not walking down dodgy alleyways without friendly reminders from Captain Obvious.

Avoid clichés. Being lively doesn't mean being vague, flowery, and effusive. If you find yourself starting to write like an attraction advertisement, it's time to take a break for a while. Just because travellers are used to reading about spacious guest rooms, short stroll to attractions, and by far the best margaritas in town doesn't mean we should start writing that way too. Don't lose the descriptions, or the excitement, but give your fellow travellers the low down your way.

Think twice before making a list. Although bullet points can convey a list of facts accurately, clear prose can be more inviting to the reader while being just as concise.

If you find writing that seems informal or sarcastic to an unacceptable degree, do not simply "dull down" the prose. Instead, replace it with travel writing that is both more acceptable and just as lively.

title: Wikivoyage:Tone


text:
Wikivoyage:Top destinations lists

One way to promote Wikivoyage is to make sure that we have coverage for popular destinations. There are a number of companies who make lists of the "best" or "most popular" destinations. Some of their results are listed here.

 * Travel + Leisure's World's Best Cities 2012
 * Travel + Leisure's World's Best Islands 2012

Please don't copy the lists onto Wikivoyage -- we're not sure as to the copyright ramifications.

title: Wikivoyage:Top destinations lists


text:
Wikivoyage:TourBusStop

This was the former Wikitravel TourBus stop.

Wikivoyage is a project to create a free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide. So far we have destination guides and other articles written and edited by Wikivoyagers from around the globe.

Wikivoyage uses the MediaWiki software to run our wiki. We keep our content free using the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license.

Bus connections:

 * Bus Nr. 05 - Tourism & Travel Community Tour - next stop: GeeksTourOfSiliconValley:TourBusStop
 * Bus Nr. 06 - Eclectic Wiki Tour - next stop: MemoryAlphaWiki:TourBusStop
 * Bus Nr. 108 - MediaWiki Tour - next stop: AK VORRAT Wiki:TourBusStop

Famous sights to visit here at Wikivoyage:

 * Goals and non-goals
 * An overview of what we're trying to do with Wikivoyage.

 * United States of America
 * An example of a country guide, describing the USA.

 * Geneva
 * An example of a city guide.

 * Dutch phrasebook
 * A traveller's phrasebook for the Dutch language. Wikivoyage aims to provide phrasebooks for most languages.

 * Arriving in a new city
 * Along with guides, Wikivoyage also has articles on travel topics. This one gives tips about arriving in a new city.

 * For other topics,
 * Check out the Main Page or use the Find box on any page on the site.

 * Welcome, newcomers
 * Is the starting point for those who want to help.

 * Note: Bus Management on MeatballWiki co-ordinates the tour bus.

de:Project:TourBusStop

title: Wikivoyage:TourBusStop


text:
Wikivoyage:Tourism Bureau Expedition

The Tourism Bureau Expedition is a Wikivoyage Expedition to explore how Wikivoyage can cooperate with visitor bureaus.

Rationale
A collaborative agreement to cooperate by improving Wikivoyage guides and highlighting the unique attractions in a destination between Wikivoyage and tourism bureaus could prove to mutually benefical by inviting tourism bureaus to participate in the Wikivoyage community by helping develop Wikivoyage guides for the respective region the bureau belongs to. In turn Wikivoyage provides a zero-cost distribution system for tourism bureaus to provide correct and up-to-date information to the entire world.

The Tourism Bureau Expedition will help to create well-informed tourist information professionals who are respectful of our goals and culture and can become productive members of our community.

Goals

 * To identify and list information and materials needed in Wikivoyage guides.
 * To determine for each project what we can offer and what we can use.
 * To approach tourism bureaus and communicate with them.
 * To execute cooperation plans.

Current collaborations
Wikivoyage users are currently in collaboration discussions with the tourism bureaus of the following destinations:

Nominate another location for our pilot scheme.

To discuss collaboration initiatives with the above destinations and for status updates, see /collaboration.

Practices for tourism bureaus
These are some proposed ideas for tourism professionals; maybe they can be incorporated into a Project:Welcome, tourism professionals.

 * Plan ahead
 * Introduce the site at a staff meeting
 * Have all staff members sign in as users, so you can track their contributions and encourage participation
 * Have staff members organized in a group in some way (How can we do this? A Group: namespace?)
 * Concentrate on stuff we need for Wikivoyage (see Project:Help wanted)
 * Factor communication, collaboration and community into your plans and ask for help with training staff to use and edit Wikivoyage
 * Read our policies and guidelines

Practices for Wikivoyage users
Some things we may want to do to help out students:

 * Treat staff members of tourism bureaus with the same respect we'd give to any new contributors
 * Encourage tourism professionals to use best practices; point them to the appropriate pages
 * Create spaces for tourism professional/Wikivoyage community interaction (How? Where?)

You can find a very basic email template here.

title: Wikivoyage:Tourism Bureau Expedition


text:
Wikivoyage:Trademarks

A trademarks is a legal instrument that companies and individuals can use to preserve their own or their products' reputations. This guideline discusses the use of trademarks in Wikivoyage.

It's perfectly OK to use a trademark to refer to the object or company. That is, if you're talking about Disneyland, call it Disneyland.

Trademark symbols
Firms and individuals often use the ® (registered trademark), ™ (trademark), or ℠ (service mark) symbols when referring to their own products, names, or services. This notifies the public that the word or image used is a trademark.

However, no one else is required to use the ™ or other symbols. Since typically only trademark owners use these symbols, they usually end up on promotional literature, ads, boxes, etc. Using these symbols on Wikivoyage makes it look like promotional literature, or that we're pandering to the trademark holders. They also clutter up our guides with extra "noise" characters that don't serve any purpose. For these reasons, avoid using the ™, ®, or ℠ symbols.

Trademark disclaimers
Promotional literature also often has trademark notices at the end: Foo and the Foo logo are trademarks of The Foo Company. Again, we are under no obligation to make these statements, so we can safely avoid trademark disclaimers.

Trademark redirects
Where one company has a monopoly or near-monopoly, in rare instances we redirect the trademarked name to the generic article; for instance, Amtrak → Rail travel in the United States.

Trademarks used as generic nouns
Some trademarks are used as generic nouns in daily speech. When describing a generic product (at least when competitors are available), a non-proprietary noun should be preferred; see Words to avoid.

A brief list of such trademarks frequently used by travellers:

See Wikipedia's list of those. See also English language varieties as many are distinctly regional in use.

title: Wikivoyage:Trademarks