text:
Wikivoyage talk:Archive of Wikitravel talk:Logo voting page

<!--

I've moved the previous comments to where they would be more appropriate: Project:Logo voting page/Round 1. --(WT-en) Comrade009 00:20, 9 Aug 2005 (EDT)

Include Another?
I submitted a logo on the original entries page (admittedly very late). I'd like people to be able to see it and vote on it. Thanks! (WT-en) Jsmorse47 22:48, 8 Aug 2005 (EDT)

 * Sorry mate, you're way too late. The voting's in the second round now.  (WT-en) Jpatokal 23:01, 8 Aug 2005 (EDT)

Nothing wrong with more competition, though, right? :-D66.91.248.226

Owl's logo
I believe that Owl's logo should be in this final round of voting. It was only 1 vote behind third place, and I don't think we ever explicitly stated only 3 logos would make it to the final round. --(WT-en) Comrade009 00:25, 9 Aug 2005 (EDT)

 * Um, it's in the second sentence at the top of the page — The three designs with the most votes will go on into the second round. — as well as in the initial voting process that was agreed to.

 * And yeah, it's an arbitrary cutoff, but you gotta put the cutoff somewhere or this will never end. And on the bright side, the Coolvetica font he found seems virtually certain to make it into the final logo... (WT-en) Jpatokal 00:32, 9 Aug 2005 (EDT)

 * I do feel rather hard done by to have missed out on round 2 by one vote. In the end, someone has to decide the rules, but I think there was enough interest in a revised version of my logo that we shouldn't exclude it completely. Perhaps cutoff should be something like "8 votes or more" rather than a number of logos. In which case, you should probably include (WT-en) Neil C's compass-star logo too. Not that I'm bitter, I did only enter this for a laugh - I just feel it's a bit of a shame that a number of people were interested (and I can tell you only one person who voted for mine was someone I know) in my work and now it's been dropped at the first hurdle. -- (WT-en) Owl 16:27, 9 Aug 2005 (EDT)

 * OK, I concede. It's just a shame that someone couldn't have stood up and told me straight that I was not allowed into the second round. Oh, and I didn't find Coolvetica, that was Comrade009 if I'm not mistaken. :) -- (WT-en) Owl 14:49, 11 Aug 2005 (EDT)

After a logo is selected
Can we wait at least a week before it is posted? I propose having an official logo discussion page. Things need to be fine tuned, such as kerning, colors, alignment, favicons, placement, vectorization, rotation, readability, etc. I think a week should be enough time to have everything in order. Plus, we could even start discussing merchandise (I explicitly remembered this being mentioned in the contest page. And dammimt, I want a wikivoyage tshirt :) --(WT-en) Comrade009 00:25, 9 Aug 2005 (EDT)

 * I think it's fine to announce the winner, but sure, we should wait until the finetuning is complete before we plaster the logo over the site itself.

 * And oh yes, while I'm at it, Monobook's gotta go. The basic layout I'm fine with but we need a new background image. (WT-en) Jpatokal 00:36, 9 Aug 2005 (EDT)

 * Eh, I think the main content area needs to have the same line length as a book (about 80ex), rather than stretching out to infinity on the right. It's uncomfortable. I'm going to have more time to dedicate to Wikivoyage in the next couple of months, and re-doing the skin is one of the main projects I have.

 * As for merch: it's on the todo list. --(WT-en) Evan 09:25, 9 Aug 2005 (EDT)

 * Dig this: http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/sell/ -- (WT-en) Mark 12:02, 9 Aug 2005 (EDT)

Vote validation
Since this vote is shaping up to be a cliffhanger, I think it's best that we apply a fascist but fair policy to vote validation: if the user isn't logged in, the vote doesn't count, period. Based on this, I have removed the following votes:

 * (WT-en) arnaudsugiez
 * (WT-en) Aidan
 * (WT-en) Traslaen
 * (WT-en) luvdapug

If I missed any, please list them here, and if you were affected, please cast your vote again as a logged-in user. (WT-en) Jpatokal 21:34, 11 Aug 2005 (EDT)

 * First, please realize that there is a bug in this version of mediawiki that makes it appear that you are logged in when you are really not. I've had to resign MANY posts because of this. Secondly, to make the policy slightly less fascist, you can inform the user that their vote has been discounted. --(WT-en) Comrade009 22:54, 11 Aug 2005 (EDT)

 * Yeah, I hate that bug too... but if you actually follow instructions and sign with , it will be obvious that you weren't logged in as soon as you save the page and it turns into 1.2.3.4.  And thanks for notifying the users in question. (WT-en) Jpatokal 23:37, 11 Aug 2005 (EDT)

 * There were instructions? -- (WT-en) Colin 00:01, 12 Aug 2005 (EDT)

User:(WT-en) Qx was not logged in when he/she voted. --(WT-en) Comrade009 20:14, 12 Aug 2005 (EDT)

 * I've done the usual delete-n-add message on the talk page. -- (WT-en) Colin 21:24, 12 Aug 2005 (EDT)

I removed a badly formatted vote from User:tyron1 "Tyron Wilson". There is no such user here at wikivoyage, so I am unable to notify the user of the error. -- (WT-en) Colin 21:37, 13 Aug 2005 (EDT)

(WT-en) Jannosch is really fr:User:(WT-fr) Jannosch. This leads me to wonder if we accidently discriminated against Other Language users! Uh oh. Maybe we made a mistake requiring logins. -- (WT-en) Colin 19:05, 15 Aug 2005 (EDT)
 * Considering how close the vote is... wow. Just wow. --66.188.138.70 20:59, 15 Aug 2005 (EDT)

User:(WT-en) Tyron1 may have been ja:利用者:(WT-ja) Tyron1. -- (WT-en) Colin 19:09, 15 Aug 2005 (EDT)

(WT-en) arnaudsugiez is perhaps fr:User:(WT-fr) arnaudsugiez -- (WT-en) Colin 19:12, 15 Aug 2005 (EDT)

I wrote a note in English to each of the aforementioned otherlang wikivoyagers. If anyone can write in their langauges, please write them a note asking them to vote again! -- (WT-en) Colin 19:16, 15 Aug 2005 (EDT)

 * In the end the vote margin appears to have been fairly significant (6 votes) so I think the winner is clear, but I do agree that this should have been handled better. (WT-en) Jpatokal 20:59, 15 Aug 2005 (EDT)

 * Congratulations, Mark! --66.188.138.70 21:00, 15 Aug 2005 (EDT)

 * Thanks, though it feels a little early for that. To me it feels more like everybody who contribute[d|s] deserves thanks and congratulations.  I think User:(WT-en) Comrade009's design is very well thought of by a lot of folks so some aspects of it should be used in the overall branding scheme even if the compass star is going to be the logo.  However the puzzle aspect of his has a very high negative rating so that part probably won't achieve a consensus; the use of icons is more interesting going forward.  It's also clear that the colours from the old logo and the slanted W logo (and the logo with User:(WT-en) Owl's handwriting) are really good, so I think we should adopt those. -- (WT-en) Mark 04:20, 16 Aug 2005 (EDT)

Somebody's clock is wrong
My watch shows 9:30PM EDT, 1:30AM UTC. --(WT-en) Evan 21:30, 15 Aug 2005 (EDT)

 * Huh -- you mean EDT is not the same as server time?

16 Aug 2005 (diff) (hist). . Wikivoyage:Logo voting page; 00:59. . Jpatokal (Talk)

 * So if the server is running UTC, why on earth was the voting time zone set to EDT then!? (WT-en) Jpatokal 22:37, 15 Aug 2005 (EDT)

 * And seems like the comment dates are also in EDT. Curiouser and curiouser... (WT-en) Jpatokal 22:41, 15 Aug 2005 (EDT)

 * One can set one's timezone for dynamically-generated text in the preferences (for example, I have mine set to +1 hour for BST). Unix-based (and most other-OS-based) servers always store their time in UTC and then rely on the software to adjust for timezones. Comments, on the other hand, are just part of the text of the page, so a time zone needs to be chosen for these. It seems that, when mediawiki was configured for WT, this was set to EDT. That said, the clock does seem to be almost 3 minutes out. -- (WT-en) Owl 03:17, 16 Aug 2005 (EDT)

 * Indeed. But I haven't touched my TZ settings, so why does it pick UTC as the default, not EDT? (WT-en) Jpatokal 04:26, 16 Aug 2005 (EDT)

Next steps
A few days have passed and the results have not been seriously — or, actually, at all — contested, so I guess it's now official — Mark's Compass Star is the winner.

So what's next? Is it time to plaster the logo all over Wikivoyage, or Mark, are you still keen on making tweaks to it?

I would suggest that the exact version chosen in the contest should be put in place immediately, and if Mark (or others!) want to produce alternate versions and/or debate details then we could consider a Round 3 for picking the best variant. (WT-en) Jpatokal 04:11, 18 Aug 2005 (EDT)

Next steps
A few days have passed and the results have not been seriously — or, actually, at all — contested, so I guess it's now official: Mark's Compass Star is the winner. Congratulations!

So what's next? Is it time to plaster the logo all over Wikivoyage, or Mark, are you still keen on making tweaks to it?

I would suggest that the exact version chosen in the contest should be put in place immediately, and if Mark (or others!) want to produce alternate versions and/or debate details then we could consider a Round 3 for picking the best variant. (WT-en) Jpatokal 04:11, 18 Aug 2005 (EDT)

 * I'm pretty keen on making some tweeks. We should probably also make guidelines governing it's use.  That said I would tend to think that multiple variations can be used at the same time.

 * I'm also keen on doing a full rebranding which would include changing the default css (especially the background image). I think we should play around with using the icon idea (but not the puzzle) idea from Comrade009's entry for various branding bits like maybe with the canned messages the way Wikipedia does.

 * I'm also convinced that the Logo both text and emblem will improve with lots of tweaking over time. I really don't think we should hold a contest every single time.  My feeling is that contests create winners and loosers and a lot of ill will.  IMO, like everything else with Wikivoyage the branding exercise should be about collaboration, not about competition. -- (WT-en) Mark 04:19, 18 Aug 2005 (EDT)

 * wow! Making CSS work in IE is hard.  Sorry it's taking so long. -- (WT-en) Mark 10:08, 20 Oct 2005 (EDT)

-->


text:
Wikivoyage talk:Long articles

Uh... what's this for? All this stuff is already listed in Special:Longpages. -- (WT-en) Evan 17:22, 8 Nov 2003 (PST)

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

title: Wikivoyage talk:Long articles


text:
Wikivoyage talk:Main Page policy

Pretty good policy, I should say. There's only one thing I don't find logical: ''Do try to keep Featured links in order from oldest to newest, with oldest first. Here, "oldest" means "on the Featured list longest".'' I think it should be the other way around. A "new" link should be more prominent than an "old" one. This is also the way the News section works. (WT-en) DhDh 10:27, 23 Nov 2003 (PST)

 * You are absolutely right. That makes much more sense. I'll change the policy. -- (WT-en) Evan 11:47, 23 Nov 2003 (PST)

I realized that my caveats from Talk:Main Page were lost, so, here goes: we have lots of stuff on the Main Page that doesn't conform to this policy. Some stuff is CIA Factbook import crap, and it'd be great to start replacing those links on the Main Page to links to countries that have been converted. There's other things on there, too. I have added stuff that probably doesn't conform to this policy. It's more of a going-forward thing than a current-practices thing. -- (WT-en) Evan 11:54, 23 Nov 2003 (PST)

title: Wikivoyage talk:Main Page policy


text:
Wikivoyage talk:Manual of style

Some stuff that's been moved:

 * Commonwealth vs. American spelling → Project:Spelling
 * One-liner listings → Project:One-liner listings
 * Capitalization &rate; Project:Capitalization

Garbled English
I know I am a second language speaker and my English is probably not all that good either, but there are some pages here on WV (naturally mostly when it concerns regions where English proficiency is low) that have been written in an English so garbled, it is hard to make out what was meant. See this diff for one example of what I mean. Given that en-WV attracts even more second language speakers than en-WP does (by virtue of many language versions that are quite alive on Wikipedia being dead in the water or not even existent on WV), we might wish to do something about this. But I don't really have a good idea of what precisely could be done. An expedition? A new maintenance category? A "language rating" analog to the "Latin-rating" of the Latin Wikipedia? Or is this just a non-issue that will solve itself over time as copy editors read and correct the articles in question? Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:21, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

 * Whatever we do, we wouldn't want to embarrass anyone who has an unwarranted sensitivity about their English proficiency (the possession or lack of which is not a moral question!) I did look at those edits and passed by attempting to copy edit them right now, as it will be a big job. But in this case, it's a single article. It's much more difficult in the case of users who edit dozens of articles at much lower levels of English — that's a problem, but I'm not sure what to do about it, as everyone has the right to edit this site in good faith. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:28, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

 * I agree. And we should of course not exclude people with limited English proficiency, nor make them feel bad. Ultimately, we depend on people with limited English in many regions of the world. But on the other hand we have to take our readers into account who will have to read and understand those texts. And while I don't have firm data, some readers may assume the quality of the information to be bad if the quality of the English is. That's one of the reasons I copyedit from to time (mostly my own mistakes, tbh) - I do think your-you're or their-there-they're are among the things some readers will use to judge the quality of our coverage. Much like some Germans judge forum contributions primarily by the number of typos. And not entirely without reason. If a native speaker has not had enough time to sort out the most obvious spelling mistakes, how could (s)he have had enough time to do some research? Of course in this particular case, it might also have been a machine translation, which would make communicating with the editor in question even more difficult... Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:36, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

 * Fully agreed on all points, but as people say a lot in the US, nowadays, "it is what it is" (though that's a kind of annoying expression, sorry). Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:13, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

 * There is a Manual_of_style template that would point to these kinds of articles without being specific about the quality of English. Andrewssi2 (talk) 19:41, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

 * From my own personal wiki I sometimes search Wikivoyage for common misspellings, repetitions and grammar issues - This could probably be incorporated on Wikivoyage for editors to use as well - See: Wikipedia:List of common misspellings - perhaps fine tune lists to common issues found in Wikivoyage - might prove useful - Matroc (talk) 21:52, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

 * While this is a good and important thing to do, I doubt it will help much for articles with next to incomprehensible English. Though I doubt that there is any type of "machine" that could detect that. Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:02, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

 * Kind of off-topic, but it would be good to have a bot that scans for material copied directly from Wikipedia. Andrewssi2 (talk) 22:08, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if User:EranBot/Copyright is filtering out text from Wikipeda or not, but it catches a number of copyvios already. -- Ryan • (talk) • 22:12, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

 * I'm a native English speaker with experience both teaching the language and editing things written by non-natives. Within reason, I'm happy to copy edit things here, and suggestions for what to look at can be made on my talk page.

 * However, except perhaps in areas like China or the Philippines where my main interests lie, I am not going to put in the effort required to fix a really garbled article. A much better use of my time, also easier and more enjoyable for me, is polishing the already very good English in articles from fluent-but-not-perfect non-natives, of whom we have many. Pashley (talk) 07:22, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

 * I am quite concerned that we have well intentioned editors whose native language was not english, and am impressed that Ikan Kekek doesnt actually single out our common editing area in the above discussion, it is as he says in part, not wanting to embarass or harass editors with limited english skills, the problem is the sheer volume of time going into areas where the english leaves one somewhat puzzled at original intentions. I am thinking there is no real machine level help on this, but simply time and patience, which at times might not be easily available. JarrahTree (talk) 11:08, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps an expedition is the way to go? It has a number of advantages:
 * Choose the right name and it reduces the risk of offense being given. After all, if the article is selected as worth improving, this is kudos for the contributors
 * It is not personal, and can be listed for attention by people with local knowledge which can help in deciphering the intended meaning.
 * It gets many eyes, so a realistic result is more likely.
 * Probably others I haven't thought of yet. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 07:32, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

-ing forms
I notice that - to the best of my knowledge - the Manual of Style nowhere prohibits the use of the -ing form, yet a certain editor who shall remain nameless regularly excises them in their "copy edits". Are they in the right, are they in the wrong or is it just a pet peeve either way with nobody having the right of it? Hobbitschuster (talk) 18:19, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
 * But I think although it may be "Sleeping car" it is not Sleeping train, it is Sleeper train. --Traveler100 (talk) 18:37, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
 * There is no prohibition against gerunds, they are part of the English language. I replace them by an active verb where doing so makes the sentence livelier. Using active verbs instead of gerund phrases seems to be an easy win for improving Wikivoyage's writing. Of course, it doesn't work everywhere. See: I even used "improving" in the last sentence! Ground Zero (talk) 18:48, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I think word policing has already gone too far on this site, including the systematic extirpation of "located", "situated" etc. (which are sometimes but not always extraneous), and we've become too reliant on WV:Words to avoid in our copyediting efforts, rather than the common-sense considerations of which words make a sentence flow better, to the point where I wonder if WTA isn't doing more harm than good and should be deleted outright. At any rate, I think we should focus less on that and more on adding content. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 19:00, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
 * True. I think the same is the case with the euro symbol. It's too minor to really spend a lot of time worrying about.
 * If I see "located" in an article, I remove it, but otherwise I don't spend a lot of time on the word. I also feel that some of these frustrations (this one and the above) are just users trying to find negative things to say about each other, rather than serious issues that need to be corrected. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk | contributions ) 19:24, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
 * [edit conflict] We might want to recommend what is guideline if not policy on sv-wp: do not change wording where there are different opinions, unless doing significant additions or copyediting to the article. Nobody owns an article, but many of us have preferences on how we write, and systematically attacking some words or figures of speech raises more irritation than it is worth. There are lots of articles in need of copyediting, and not choosing articles to edit based on whether they have some specific "easy win" the author may not agree on lessens friction (don't take me wrong, I myself generally appreciate others improving on my language). --LPfi (talk) 19:34, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I take a wholistic approach to copyediting: when I edit an article, I remove touting; I update where there is something obviously out of date; I do my best to correct time, date, phone number and currency formatting; I break up long, consulted sentences; I improve the syntax of sentences obviously written by people whose English is weak (it's clear when someone is thinking in a different language while writing in English); I fix capitalization, punctuation and formatting errors. Focusing on one element of my copyediting and suggesting that it is just a pet peeve or a personal preference is not fair comment. Ground Zero (talk) 20:31, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
 * And using active verbs is not my idea. It comes from, amongst other sources, The Elements of Style, which is a widely used and respected source. In 2011, Time named it as one of the 100 best and most influential books written in English since 1923. As Wikipedia says
 * "William Strunk concentrated on specific questions of usage—and the cultivation of good writing—with the recommendation "Make every word tell"; hence the 17th principle of composition is the simple instruction: "Omit needless words." The book frames this within a triplet credited to an influential lecturer:
 * Omit needless words
 * Use active voice
 * Use parallel construction on concepts that are parallel"
 * These concepts are common to lots of other references on good writing. Its not just me. Ground Zero (talk) 20:42, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

 * OK. I haven't been following your edits, nor this conflict more than what I have happened to come across. What you describe is more or less what I am trying to recommend, given you don't have a less than optimal way of finding articles to edit. The diffs I have seen pointed out are dominated by the possible pet peeves of the other user, but they may not be representative. And I am not going to tell native speakers what is or is not good writing. --LPfi (talk) 20:45, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
 * LPfi, from what I've seen of your edits, your English is excellent, as is that of other regular contributors for whom English is a second language. My comment about contributors whose English is weak is not about anyone in particular, but about articles I sometimes come across that have sentences that use English words with syntax from another language. I do not think that not being a native speaker should ever be used as a reason to exclude anyone from a discussion, or to dismiss their views. We should instead turn to outside references like Strunk to guide us on writing. Ground Zero (talk) 20:53, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Strunk was an American, so here is the perspective of the Englishman George Orwell, who is famous for, inter alia, his essay "Politics and the English Language". There he sets out six rules for writing clear and tight prose:
 * Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
 * Never use a long word where a short one will do.
 * If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
 * Never use the passive where you can use the active.
 * Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
 * Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
 * Numbers 3 and 4 are germane here. I do not think that I have ever applied them in a way so as to run afoul of #6. There are, of course,lots of others who written about good writing, and there are those who disagree with Strunk and Orwell. I cite them because they are widely respected as authorities and to demonstrate that this is not a personal vendetta, or my personal style. This is about good writing, which is something we could use more of in Wikivoyage. Ground Zero (talk) 22:23, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Ground Zero - I was not, nor do I think anyone else was, singling you out for your edits. I've seen several others doing the same thing, in many cases far less carefully than you. I think it's important to note, however, that Wikivoyage strives for a casual and informal tone. I'd say leave strict adherence to the advice of style experts like Strunk to sites where formality is de rigueur. (As for Orwell, "if it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out" is pretty rich coming from the author who wrote about a horrible totalitarian dystopia where the official language was Newspeak.) -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 22:47, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Strunk and Orwell were writing about good writing, not about formal writing. Formal writing would use longer sentences, more complex sentence structure, more phrases like "it should be noted that". Formal writing is not vigorous or lively. And no-one is advocating "strict adherence" to anything. I am just defending myself from Hobbitschuster's attempt to personalize this by claiming that preferring the active voice is just a "pet peeve" of mine (above), or that cutting out needless words is a "personal little crusade". I am following the advice of widely respected authorities on good writing, and using my discretion on when to do so and when not to. Your dig at George Orwell does not make him any less of an authority on writing. Ground Zero (talk) 23:03, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
 * [Edit conflict] I often edit for brevity, but only when I believe it makes the sentences in question more elegant or at least more readable. As for Strunk & White, their opinion has carried way too much weight - it's just an opinion, and some of their viewpoints were opinionated indeed. For example, the idea that you should favor commas before "which" but not use them before "that". Why? Because they said so. I don't agree. I spent a brief few months on alt.usage.english on USENET (remember USENET?). Too many of the users there were crazy, so I didn't stick around after a while, but a lot of really good points were made on how wrong Strunk & White were, if you considered their prescriptive advice against actual, often longstanding usage. That said, Andre, I think "located" and "situated" are in fact rarely necessary, though there's nothing at all horrible about them, either. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:04, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm not against the tight style of writing, but may I say that the writing style that is currently on Wikivoyage seems good to me — it's good English that doesn't add too much information nor have short, choppy sentences. I know I've strayed from this sometimes, like when I partially rewrote the lede for the Atlanta article, but generally I think something between the Dickens style and the Orwell one is appropriate for what we're doing (topics and politics aside, of course). To brag a little on myself (although I'm not even sure if I wrote the lede), I think the lede of Monument Valley is a good example of the form of prose that is best on Wikivoyage. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk | contributions ) 23:10, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I also think that the pursuit to remove all of the words on WTA has perhaps gone a bit too far. It's important to ask yourself whether removing the words or phrases will actually improve the legibility, flow and flair of the article. If someone is reading Wikivoyage for the first time and sees a "located" or another WTA word, is it going to negatively impact their opinion of Wikivoyage or make it harder for the reader to comprehend what the sentence says (at a conscious or subconscious level)? Many times the answer will be yes but at other times it will be no. Apart from the extreme marketing hyperbole, all of the words listed on WTA are suitable to be used on Wikivoyage in certain contexts, just as they are used in English writing elsewhere.  Gizza ( roam ) 01:48, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Perhaps WTA should be changed from the "status" of "guideline" to the "status" of "essay". --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk | contributions ) 02:18, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I think we should do away with it entirely. We know touting when we see it; we know empty flowery marketing-speak when we see it; we know Captain Obvious when we see him; and we certainly know first-person pronouns when we see them. The article is completely superfluous. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 02:28, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, at Wikivoyage_talk:Words_to_avoid I proposed to move a lot of the words from the list, but it was met with a lot of opposition. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk | contributions ) 02:57, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Sure, it's easy to dump on Strunk, or on Orwell, but it's not just them. Here are some other guides on writing that recommend using active verbs: University of Iowa, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, simplewriting.org, crazyegg.com, English Grammar for Dummies, Rice University, Penn State, study.com, Royal Roads University, Towson University. It's not just Strunk, Orwell and me. Ground Zero (talk) 03:50, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't need to read any sources on that. I used to be a writing tutor. Passive voice has its place, but active voice is and should be the default. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:00, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I think words to avoid is a useful compendium and useful to refer to in edit summaries or comments on user talk pages. So I oppose deleting it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:02, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
 * How about renaming it Words to watch? That would help signal that it isn't a list of prohibited words, but rather a list of words that are often unclear or otherwise should be used sparingly or with caution. —Granger (talk · contribs) 10:59, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I notice Wikipedia uses a similar title: w:Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch. —Granger (talk · contribs) 11:00, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I support rethinking the approach to words to avoid. Word policing tactics that have evolved over the past couple of years risk driving away editors – I myself have curtailed my contributions here because of it. Yes, good clean writing should be encouraged, but IMO the current push for style over substance will never permit the site to grow to its full potential. Context matters. –StellarD (talk) 11:59, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Since most of us who edit with reference to WTA are already participating in this discussion, I'm not so sure the page needs to be changed. We just need to remember that these are words to avoid, not words that we must never, ever use in any circumstance. Perhaps we can all be a little less zealous / strict enforcing it, as we want to encourage new editors, rather than driving them away. On the other hand, we all need to be prepared to have our edits changed by others; if anyone  here is unhappy about someone else rewriting their contributions within the agreed upon manual of style, they should reconsider whether a wiki is right for them.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 13:26, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
 * The problem is, who decides when it's okay to use a certain instance of "located" and when it isn't? Should we perhaps not remove words like "located" at all? Or should we remove them based on circumstance? That's definitely the challenge here. What one person says is an appropriate use of the word (per WTA) may not be with someone else (also following WTA), and the result could be an edit war. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk | contributions ) 14:47, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I think it would be fine to change the title to "Words to watch", and I also think it's fine to remove words like "located/situated" that are simply not needed but don't do any harm to an article unless (like almost any other word) they're used over and over again. I sure hope never to see a "Located, located, located, located" edit summary again. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:22, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Definitely agree that that kind of edit summary is more likely to turn newbies (and oldies) away than something worded more politely.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 15:38, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

I'd agree to removing "located". --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk | contributions ) 15:40, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
 * If you want to re-name that page, then I recommend changing the title completely, perhaps to something like "Tips for better writing". WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:30, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

WTA is a guideline, which means contributors must use their discretion in applying it. Even our policies should be applied with discretion, because we are not making laws here. (Many laws even allow for some discretion to be exercised.) I certainly do not apply WTA in an absolutist manner. (Any suggestion that I do is simply wrong. My edits demonstrate that I do not remove every instance of "located" or "currently", just most of them.)

Our inability to have an absolute, inflexible law does not mean that we should abandon the principles of WV:tone, which include "Lively writing is welcome", "Be conversational and informal", and "Be concise". We need readers as much as we need contributors, and providing the information is an interesting and informal way just key to attracting and keeping readers, whom we hope will become contributors. That means there will be disagreements that should be resolved through talk pages instead through arbitrary wholesale reversions or edit wars. I am always willing to discuss and negotiate changes on talk pages, and other contributors should be prepared to do so as well in this collaborative project. Ground Zero (talk) 17:39, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

 * "Tips for better writing" is a good idea. Then, the "Words to avoid" section could be a "words to watch" section, and we could have other sections that suggest writing sentences only as long as is necessary to get your points across elegantly, thereby regarding sentences (like this one) that have multiple clauses with caution, etc. Recommendations to use active voice when passive voice isn't necessary could also be part of such an article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:33, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't object to incorporating WTA into a "Tips" article, but I expect it will be a challenge to get agreement on the other parts of the article, given the resistance to standard references in the matter.
 * Let's remember that this discussion began with a question about whether the Manual of Style prohibits the use of the -ing form, and the implication that if a particular form of the verb isn't prohibited, then it shouldn't be changed. I have been told by other contributors that if a word isn't on WTA, it shouldn't be removed. I use the general guidance provided by WV:tone as the basis for my edits, rather than WTA, but it seems that some contributors either don't like WV:tone, or feel that it isn't specific enough to be useful in determining what edits are appropriate. Ground Zero (talk) 23:54, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

 * "Tips for better writing" sounds reasonable to me. We should remember WTA is by no means an absolute rule, and be careful not to sacrifice clear, lively writing in order to follow arbitrary rules like avoiding "located" or using the active voice. —Granger (talk · contribs) 23:50, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Although we should remember that using the active voice and not using needless words is how most standard guides on writing suggest you can make your writing livelier. No-one is suggesting making the WTA guideline an absolute enforceable policy. No-one is suggesting that, so I don't know why some are spending so much time arguing against it. We also should not require contributors to use only their left hands while editing. But no-one is suggesting that either. Ground Zero (talk) 00:10, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
 * To put it plainly, some people quite obviously feel that you, and possibly I, have been overzealous in making style edits.

 * As for "standard references": This is not Wikipedia. There is absolutely no reason to refer to any external style guide in order for Wikivoyage to have its own style. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:16, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Same here. It's easy to go around and look for minor edits to make, but harder to really contribute. Our goal should be to bring down the number of outline articles, since they are currently over half of Wikivoyage's articles. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk | contributions ) 00:50, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Ikan Kekek, by standard references, I mean what most of the rest of the world thinks about good writing. I'm sure that we don't think that the few dozen active editors here are going to come up with a better approach to good writing than the numerous style guides I've mentioned.
 * SelfieCity, I have so far raised all of the city and park-level outline articles in Canada's four western provinces to usable, and am on the verge of completing Ontario. See my user page. So I make "real contributions" in addition to improving the readability of the articles in line with WV:tone. There is so much crappy writing, bad formatting, incorrect punctuation, random capitalization and so on here, that copyediting is an important part of improving the quality and usability of Wikivoyage. There is nothing in our Manual of Style that says that the only thing that matters is hotel and restaurant listings, and the rest of the article can be shitty. We can and have to do better than that if we're going to be taken seriously by readers. Ground Zero (talk) 01:39, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I hope everyone realizes how much great work you've done. However, the choice isn't between no style edits and editing everything. When people push back, they don't say "This site should be full of shitty writing, grammar and spelling mistakes, etc." They say things like "Don't edit the life out of an article in order to streamline it as much as possible" or "leave a few 'locateds' alone and do something else". We shouldn't ignore them. Also, if you'd prefer to refer everyone to Strunk & White, don't expect them to thumb through the book. We already have Manual of style. Adding some more style information, based on experiences we've had here and without a lot of things Strunk & White deal with that are irrelevant here, might be useful. Or maybe not. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:18, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) I agree that copyediting is important, and we have many articles that desperately need it, especially about destinations where English isn't the main language. I rarely find myself disagreeing with Ikan Kekek about style edits, and only occasionally with Ground Zero. But I do sometimes see edits (I can't remember from who – mostly other users, I think) that strike me as overly strict enforcement of WTA. —Granger (talk · contribs) 02:22, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Ikan Kekek, I absolutely do leave some "locateds" in, and a lot more than I used to. I included the key points from Strunk and from Orwell above. I don't think we need more than the appropriate parts of those. Some of the push-back is coming from people who don't like having "their" articles edited. In the particular case of this discussion, Hobbitschuster is objecting to me making verbs active on the basis that -ing verbs are not prohibited by the Manual of Style. I don't think that his absolutist position, which ignores WV:tone, is something that we should try to accomodate. As I indicated in my first reply, I use gerunds sometimes, but I do change them to active verbs where it makes the writing liveler. I am always willing to discuss and compromise, but some editors are not interested in doing that.  Ground Zero (talk) 03:37, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
 * City-busz and I have done quite a lot of work on the Hungary articles, and when I go through some old listings that were written before City busz or me edited on Wikivoyage, I can hardly understand them at all because they are poorly written. While writing is extremely important on the website, I'd agree that copyediting is important too. The key is to not get distracted from the central goal of the website, which is a travel guide, not articles that follow Strunk's guide to every letter. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk | contributions ) 05:08, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
 * It's a good thing that no-one is advocating following Strunk to every letter then. Ground Zero (talk) 10:43, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Are tables too encyclopedic for a travel guide?
For many of our national park lists, such as Canadian national parks, South Australian national parks, Tasmanian national parks or United Kingdom national parks which use a table to list all the parks, I'm wondering if it comes off as too encyclopedic for a travel guide. I quite like the table format, it lets you put an image for every park, and it tells you the area of the park too giving the traveler a glimpse of how large the park will be, but not sure about the established date tho. Want other comments before I continue using table formats for our other national park topic articles. -- SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 09:26, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

 * The description, such as in South Australian national parks, is essential. For me, in many of the tables, I think combining the name and description in one table cell would be beneficial, as you'd get double the width, which allows both not word-wrapping the name, and having more space for the description. I think the year of establishment is quite irrelevant – who would choose what park to visit based on that year? The area could perhaps be a parenthesis in the description.

 * In fact, I don't see much of an advantage in the table format. As the images are high, the other columns (except for the description) will be very sparse. With a clear before every park, you'd get the images aligned, and with a suitable standard format any information (area, location) will be easy to see:

established 1891,, Adelaide – South Australia's first national park, home to several historic sites and waterfalls. By today's standards, it's only a conservation park, but it remains for historical reasons.

established 1959,, Limestone Coast – A park with coastal dunes, limestone cliffs and natural bushland.

established 1979/2013, /, Outback – Vast openness with nothing in sight. From a travel perspective, it is often considered to be part of the same park as the Nullabor Wilderness Protection Area. Unfortunately, its area was significantly reduced in 2013, where much of it is now part of the Nullabor Wilderness Protection Area.

 * –LPfi (talk) 11:14, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

 * This format would take the same space vertically, but allow much more space for the description. In this format there is also no need to have just one paragraph; there could be a listing line, a description paragraph, and one more paragraph or line for some other information, whatever that'd be. –LPfi (talk) 11:19, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
 * That works and I like that format. I might try that out in Tasmanian national parks soon. As to the established year, I only included it because I saw it in Canadian national parks, but I could see the merit in including it if it was just designated in 2021 or a time sometime recent as the visitor facilities may not have been well developed if it is recently new. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:22, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
 * A variant:

Vast openness with nothing in sight. From a travel perspective, it is often considered to be part of the same park as the Nullabor Wilderness Protection Area. Unfortunately, its area was significantly reduced in 2013, where much of it is now part of the Nullabor Wilderness Protection Area.
 * Outback
 * National park, protected area
 * Established 1979/2013

 * –LPfi (talk) 11:25, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

 * The suggested format doesn't work in mobile. The names and first words of each entry are cut up and squashed by the photo.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 16:03, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

 * Oops. Is it perhaps the same problem that I get on desktop with tables of content on Wikipedia, when some headings are long and there is an adjacent image? I think there are some other situations where "special" text clashes with images or maps. I assume this format not working is a bug, which should be reported and fixed rather than avoided (in the long term, at least). The only odd thing I see in this format is that the images don't have the thumb parameter. Would adding it help? –LPfi (talk) 16:15, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Vast openness with nothing in sight. From a travel perspective, it is often considered to be part of the same park as the Nullabor Wilderness Protection Area. Unfortunately, its area was significantly reduced in 2013, where much of it is now part of the Nullabor Wilderness Protection Area.
 * Outback
 * National park, protected area
 * Established 1979/2013

 * The thumb parameter reserves a little more space, which can be used for a caption. I don't see why a caption wouldn't be nice to have. The length of the list of parks wouldn't grow too much. –LPfi (talk) 16:18, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, adding the thumb parameter appears to work. Good thinking!--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 17:00, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think the table format is a big problem (though it does seem to be unnecessary). However, I think that including the year of establishment is too encyclopedic.  Sometimes dates are relevant context (e.g., "South Australia's newest", "Established at the end of the Great War") but most travelers really don't need to know that.
 * If you did stick with a table format, then adding a column for sleeping options (with content like tent, RV, cabins, hotels) might be useful for travelers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:13, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't think that tables per se are a problem, but please note that we should use best practices for accessibility and internationalization, see this edit for added semantics, color not being used alone for identification, and conversion of km squared to mi squared. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:40, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

 * We should include alt text for images as well. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:43, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I prefer LPfi's table-free format, with descriptions, and volunteer to convert the Canadian parks article. The date of establishment feels very encyclopedic. It should be omitted. If the park is very new and doesn't have facilities, that should be included in the description, or better yet in the article. I don't think that issue needs to be addressed in the overview article. Ground Zero (talk) 22:33, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Aesthetics-wise, I don't have strong feelings, just when it comes to accessibility and best practices. Either way, great work. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:37, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I started this format on Tasmanian national parks. Curious to see how it'll turn out. -- SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 04:39, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
 * However, I can't seem to get the background color of #CFECEC to work in Tasmanian national parks. Is there a way to change the bgcolor? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 04:46, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Never mind. Seemed I just forgot to add a . SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 05:50, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Finished the conversion in Tasmanian national parks. As a side note, does anyone know what's happening in the last box? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 07:13, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Which site? The information about Macquarie Island isn't in the new tables formatting.   WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:12, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
 * It's the Walls of Jerusalem one. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 19:58, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Managed to fix it. Don't exactly know what was causing it, but anyway it's resolved SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 02:48, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

Background colours
I don't think that using background colours to denote UNESCO sites is beneficial or necessary. As I understand, using background colours reduce accessibility for visually impaired people. The UNESCO point can be made more clearly by including that information as text in the description of the park, rather than using the "code" of a background colour. What do others think? Ground Zero (talk) 12:12, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

 * The contrast in this case is probably strong enough that it meets the usual W3C accessibility standards. However, it would be better to indicate the UNESCO listing in text for the sake of people who are listening to the article (e.g., via 'smart speaker' or text-to-voice on your computer, in addition to people using screen readers).
 * As a broader opportunity, we could consider adding a special field for identifying UNESCO sites (or similar), so the listing templates displayed a little icon or standardized label. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:44, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
 * To be fair, I don't really have an opinion on this. The only reason I coloured in the background of Banff is merely because the former table had it. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 06:54, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Small font for minor attractions?
In Stockholm history tour I have experimented with smaller font for minor attractions which are less important for the article's theme, but happen to be within sight of the itinerary. Would you find small-font sections to be generally useful for itineraries and travel topics? Or would they add confusion? /Yvwv (talk) 17:24, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

 * I don't think so. Small font means harder to read, and there is no reason that some attractions that we still include should be hard to read about. To keep them readable, the difference has to be small, which means the solution doesn't save space – and sometimes it looks like just a glitch. I think putting them in parenthesis or to have grey markers would be better. In fact, I think grey markers would be an unintrusive way to show that they are of less importance. –LPfi (talk) 17:55, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree with LPfi. For the sake of people with visual impairments, small fonts should not be used on article pages. Ground Zero (talk) 01:56, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * For the sake of everyone, really. Why don't you emulate Siena, where there is a subsection for "Secondary sights"? Just subdivide attractions into "Major attractions" and "Secondary attractions." Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:08, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't see how that would work, as this is an itinerary, where sights are presented in geographic order. –LPfi (talk) 06:28, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Simple. Have two subsections per section, where warranted. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:13, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Or maybe add something in the text description? "While you're walking to the Next Big Thing, you'll pass by This Little Thing" or "If you're interested in Special Subject, you might want to take a detour over to Special Little Thing.  Otherwise, go straight on to the Next Big Thing."
 * (On my screen/browser, the difference between normal and small is only noticeable if I'm looking for it, and then it looks like a glitch.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:58, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I am someone with a lot of visual impairments, and generally, text that is not visually appealing is not easy for me to read (such as red-coloured text or anything bright in colour). However, anecdotally speaking I don't have an issue with small text, as you can just zoom in, except you can't really zoom in when it's printed. How about using <abbr title="minor attraction">m which produces <abbr title="minor attraction">m . SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:13, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * In mobile view the <small> ... </small> does not work, and that is the way I prefere. However, the Timeline section is made small in a different way, that also shows smaller in mobile view. When walking with your mobile device in your hands, thing are OK (for me), except for the timeline section. If you walk with a printed version of the article, you do see the smaller text parts. To me that looks quite ugly. --FredTC (talk) 12:11, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * In any case, destination articles should be rather strict to Manual of style, while itineraries and other travel topics could be more experimental. /Yvwv (talk) 12:14, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Biased articles
There are some region articles that are biased toward particular subregion(s), such as Jersey Shore and Poconos and Endless Mountains. Should such articles be assigned a lower status (i.e. outline) than they otherwise should? Also, should we have a maintenance template for biased region articles? JsfasdF252 (talk) 22:31, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
 * A biased article is not a reason for a lower status per the Region article status. SHB2000  (talk | contribs | meta) 23:39, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

 * I just restored the reply above. I'd add that we definitely do not want to use more and additional kinds of maintenance templates. Unlike Wikipedia, this is a fairly small wiki, so if you see a problem, please fix it to the best of your ability, or if you want to remind yourself about the problem for later and let others know, post about it on the page's talk page, though with the understanding that someone might well reply by saying "thank you for volunteering to fix the problem." The bottom line is that while you can ask other people to fix a problem, we are all volunteers, so if it really bugs you and you have the time, you should fix it yourself, or at least start fixing it, and maybe others will help. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:10, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

 * I will not remove those comments again. I am so sorry. Tailsultimatefan3891 (t | c | ca) 14:18, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Listings vs. markers
{{swept} This edit was done with the summary "replace all listings with markers", & I've seen other such changes elsewhere. It is not clear to me why this might be a good idea.

Manual_of_style does not even mention markers, though it links to a page with much detail on listings. If markers are sometimes to be preferred, then the manual should give some guidance on when. Pashley (talk) 22:31, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

 * The change was done because the older revision was infested with error messages – there's a screenshot at Talk:Old towns which resolved by changing the listings to markers.  SHB2000  (talk | contribs | meta) 22:44, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the ping. In my view, listings should mainly be used in bullet-point lists of POIs that need the structured information (like address, hours, and prices) that the listing template is designed for. Markers should be used in the middle of a paragraph or sentence of prose, and for the names of cities and other destinations that don't need this structured information. Listings have extra computational overhead (which was the motivation for the edit linked above). They also automatically include a period and the word "edit", which interferes with readability when they're used in the middle of a sentence. —Granger (talk · contribs) 22:44, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I'd suggest to ignore any computational complexity factor (that argument get obsolete fast). You can use inline=yes to put it in the middle of a sentence. "Edit" doesn't show in the "rendered" offline guides :-) just 2c.... -- andree 06:16, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
 * We have in fact got bitten by the computational limits. I think we should keep them in mind in the case of computationally heavy templates. –LPfi (talk) 07:58, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * +1, especially with mapmasks. SHB2000  (talk | contribs | meta) 08:13, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * In travel topic articles, itineraries, region articles and the like, we want to point to the main listings in the lowest-level destination article. Using the edit link of a listing adds fields for details we don't want to have there. Using markers instead (when we don't want to just use running text) would avoid this problem. –LPfi (talk) 08:01, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

How to format km²?
How do you think we should write the exponent in square kilometres? One can either write km² as such, or write an ordinary 2 as superscript: km2. Wikipedia recommends the latter for any exponents, but I think the situation on Wikivoyage is different, as we don't need complicated expressions: km² is hardly ever ambiguous even if you don't see the exponent. In the wikitext km² is nicer than km<sup>2</sup>. km2 uses km2.

This is not a big deal, especially if either is difficult to type for you, but for the template and for AWB, there should probably be a consensus. Also in normal editing, consistency would be nice.

The exponent in km² is included in any font and should thus be optimised – by whatever criteria the designers used – while the one in km2 is an ordinary digit, the position of which is decided by the web browser (and browser designers don't seem to worry too much about such details). The latter may look nicer by chance. The appearance of both options vary depending on browser, font used and line spacing (which may need to be locally increased for the "2" to fit), so what looks nicer for one person may not for another.

One example where km² is extensively used is Finnish national parks: km² and km2 (with the caveats above on different rendering in different configurations).

–LPfi (talk) 07:39, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

 * I prefer km2 because I have no idea how to format km² on a Mac without using cmd+C and cmd+V. -- SHB2000  (talk | contribs | meta) 08:04, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

 * The exponents (¹, ² and ³) are available from the Special characters menu above the editing window, in section Symbols. Regardless, what you type can be changed by anybody copy editing the article like the hyphen → dash issue (or people just writing "km2"). With my keyboard the exponent is available as dead caret followed by the digit, on keyboards without dead keys probably as compose caret digit (on Unix & co). No idea about Mac. –LPfi (talk) 09:23, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
 * We have Template:Squarekilometer which has the benefit of also translating the the number into square miles: . For square values the conversion is very useful as readers are less likely to know the conversion than with linear values. AlasdairW (talk) 14:56, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's the km2 I mentioned above (which seems to be a redirect). Probably the template should be used where the area is important but, as with temperatures, there are places where a lot of parentheses are distracting. And the template is easy to tweak if we decide to prefer km². –LPfi (talk) 08:00, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I think km2 is easier from the perspective of content authoring, but km² does look better. Not sure it's really a very important issue though. Mrkstvns (talk) 15:19, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

title: Wikivoyage talk:Manual of style


text:
Wikivoyage talk:Manual of style for the US

Hi all, I've started this page because I think we need more consistency in US articles. I don't really care what standards we use, just that we have standards. Edit away or tell me what a bad idea this is! -- (WT-en) Colin 23:39, 14 June 2008 (EDT)

Road Nomenclature

 * Swept in from Talk:United States of America

So here in the United States, we have the original highway system (Route 66), the Interstate Highway System (Interstate 80) and also state routes (California Route 1). Sometimes a state route (California 97) preserves the same number across a few states (Oregon, Washington 97) or provinces (B.C. 97). It seems like we really ought to have a standard way of specifying the roads. I see stuff on wikivoyage like I-80, I80, Interstate 80, Route 66, US 66, SR 97, CA 97, etc. Shall we standardize how we type these darn things in?

So here's a proposal to start things off. I'm not much attached to these! This is just to start the conversation.
 * I-80 for Interstate 80. I see this dash stuff all the time on interstates.  I don't know why it's only interstates that get the dash
 * US 66 for Route 66. Most maps don't make it clear that Route 66 is the same as US Highway 66 so it's nice to specify the US instead of Route
 * SR 97. It's an abbreviation for state route.  Each state has a differently shaped sign for their state routes.

Comments please? -- (WT-en) Colin 23:51, 7 Jul 2004 (EDT)

 * There is no "California 97." It's "US 97," a route that continues with the same identity into Oregon and Washington. There are many highways like this, though they are not as predominant as they were prior to the advent of the Interstate Highway system. There are also "State Highways," officially and unofficially identified differently from state to state. (In some states, some abbreviation of the name of the state may precede the highway number, such as M-xx in Michigan; in others, the designation may simply be the word Route or Highway, while in others, the state's name may be used in full.)

 * State highways that cross state lines may keep the same number in both states, or the number may change as one crosses the border. In some cases, a state highway in one state will connect with a local road without a number in another. 4.243.146.84 01:14, 29 December 2006 (EST)

Oops, I hadn't seen this! I guess I agree with your proposal but it's also important to have some context for people. If you start just talking about "use the SR 97 to get there" it might not be clear that it's a road (versus a train or bridge or whatever)... And is "SR" a commonly used abbreviation? I haven't seen it... I'm just not sure how obvious the US road system is to someone from say, India, or Africa... but maybe I'm making assumptions. (WT-en) Majnoona 17:55, 30 Oct 2004 (EDT)

 * AAA uses the SR nominclature. This makes a small bit of sense to me since 1) you don't have to figure out the two letter abbrev for the state route (CA for California is obvious, but what does Idaho use?) and 2) if a state route crosses a state boundary, the number is frequently preverved.

 * You're right that this will confuse visitors from afar. So if we can agree on some kind of standard, we should explain the plethora of road names and how they are expressed in the USA article.  Of course, this only helps folks who consult the USA article before going somewhere, but that's kinda how we do other stuff like phone numbers, so it seems like our style of doing things.  We do, I think, need to at least explain the US Route / Interstate / State route division in the article.

 * I'm not super-attached to my proposal above. It was more just a point of reference for discussion.  Do you have a preference for spelling out State Route or any other ideas? -- (WT-en) Colin 18:32, 30 Oct 2004 (EDT)

I'd prefer to refer to the highway by whatever name it is locally known (i.e. what it says on the signs). If a road is called "M-37" in Michigan and changes to "Indiana 37" in Indiana (it doesn't, but just for example), then call it "M-37" in articles about Michigan and "Indiana 37" in articles about Indiana. Because I honestly wouldn't recognize "State Route 37" or "S.R. 37" as being "M-37" (a road that nearly runs through my backyard). While it might be nice to nail down whether it's "US-69" or "U.S. 69" or whatever, I don't think completely consistency nationwide is necessary. (P.S. The reason interstates have a dash in the name is to make sure people don't mistake "I96" for "196".) - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 19:06, 10 April 2007 (EDT)

 * I agree that if there is a local way of doing it, we should follow it. Here in Northern California, most people call it "Highway 11" whether it is a US Route, State Route, or Interstate.  Though for Interstates, "Interstate 11" is just as common.  And those darn Southern Californians call it "The 11" regardless of what it is.  So we need an overall standard, but then alter that for states where they do have a commonly-used way of saying it. -- (WT-en) Colin 09:07, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

 * What people say probably isn't as useful as how it's identified on signs. People drop the prefixes, use traditional names, etc. in conversation, but I don't think we should do that here.  What I meant is that, if state highways in Michigan are named "M-xx", then that's what we should call them in Michigan. - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 08:10, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

Road designations
(Following section swept in from the Pub)

I'm not sure where a section should be inserted, or if I should declare style policy with at least some attempt at consensus, but it would be nice to have something. I posted the below to the MoS discussion page: "I can't find any other place discussing it, so I'll just kind of stick it in here. I've been using (at least in the US articles) what I think is the official designation system. Interstates are prefixed with 'IH-', Non-interstate federal highways are prefixed with 'US-', state roads are prefixed with 'SH-' (I had to kick myself several times to stop using the prefix 'TX-', which we Texans know isn't really official, but use any way), and others that might not be so popular across the country (I really don't know), like County Road ('CR-' here), Farm-to-Market Road ('FM-'), and Ranch Road ('RR-') are just spelled out. I wouldn't mind having a stated consensus on this though, especially with 'FM-' (In Houston, at least, if you ask for 'Farm to market road one nine six zero', you'll get a blank stare about half the time, but everyone knows of 'FM ninteen sixty')." But I'm not familiar enough with even the whole US to tell which road types are widely known, and which just stick in my head. Please comment on the following list: (WT-en) Jordanmills 13:36, 10 April 2007 (EDT)
 * Interstate Highway "IH", widely known
 * US Highway "US", widely known
 * State Highway "SH", widely known
 * Farm-to-Market Road "FM", somewhat known
 * County Road "CR", mostly local
 * Ranch Road "RR", mostly local

 * In my experience, interstates are always prefixed with "I-", and state highways vary by state (e.g. here in Michigan they're prefixed with "M-"). I don't think most people would understand "IH-" or "SH-".  "FM-" and "RR-" are completely foreign to me, but if that's what the designation for a particular road is, so be it.  The bottom line is that roads should be identified to by whatever name people use for them. - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 16:40, 10 April 2007 (EDT)

 * I've seen it mostly as "IH-", but a quick look at the NHS web site (which, I guess, is about as official as it gets) shows their regular use of "I-".  I'd venture to say that your usage is more correct here.  While I've also seen "SH-" and "SR-" used interchangably, the DOT/FHA also uses state-specific abbreviations for state highways and state routes.  Additionally, there is apparently some difference between a "U.S. Highway" and "U.S. Route".  Though I can't wade deep enough into the paperwork to figure out what it is.  I may have dug myself too deep here. (WT-en) Jordanmills 18:44, 10 April 2007 (EDT)

 * Talk:United States of America. I think we should have a Manual-of-Style entry for countries (or at least the major ones) describing our writing conventions. The country MoS would cover addresses, phone numbers, and highway stuff. The MoS for a country would not override the project-wide MoS, of course. -- (WT-en) Colin 17:30, 10 April 2007 (EDT)

 * Oh goody, link and discussion. I think country-specific MoS entries for country-specific naming conventions sounds like a good plan. (WT-en) Jordanmills 18:44, 10 April 2007 (EDT)

Addresses
I'd argue pretty strongly against option 1 ("Always spell out street abbreviations"), since that would add around 50 pages to the printed Chicago guide! That is, length being a consideration, having iterated avenue, boulevard, street, etc. throughout all listings will lengthen our guides & unnecessarily increase costs of printing them. My preference would be to never abbreviate within prose, but to always abbreviate within listings. That said, "always abbreviate" might be more desirable in being a simpler rule to follow. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 00:00, 15 June 2008 (EDT)

 * Cool. Listings vs. prose seems a reasonable differentiation to me.  Be aware there's a bug in the listings template though
 *
 * -- (WT-en) Colin 02:24, 15 June 2008 (EDT)

 * I'd be fine with "Always abbreviate". (WT-en) Jpatokal 03:32, 15 June 2008 (EDT)

 * Also prefer to always abbreviate – (WT-en) cacahuate  talk 01:15, 22 June 2008 (EDT)

 * Fine by me. Additionally, I prefer not to use a period after abbreviations—is that kosher with everyone else? --(WT-en) Peter Talk 01:51, 22 June 2008 (EDT)

 * Yes. I. Too. Hate. Periods. – (WT-en) cacahuate  talk 02:23, 22 June 2008 (EDT)

We should draw up a list of "abbreviatable" names though. First shot: Ave, Rd and St are OK; Blvd and Dr are a little borderline; everything else should be spelled out in full. (WT-en) Jpatokal 03:18, 22 June 2008 (EDT)

 * I'd add a few: Hwy, Fwy, Pl, Sq, Ct, Expwy. Those are all pretty common, I think. Which abbreviations should we not use? --(WT-en) Peter Talk 19:53, 2 August 2008 (EDT)

 * Is there a reason for this discussion on addresses to be geographically restricted? Would there be objections to moving the current prose, and discussion to Project:Abbreviations?  --(WT-en) inas 19:44, 13 August 2009 (EDT)

 * Not from me, but I'm not familiar with publishing standards outside of the U.S. Would it be kosher to leave periods off street abbreviations in the UK, for example? --(WT-en) Peter Talk 21:45, 13 August 2009 (EDT)

 * Yeah - I don't think our experiences with spelling should push us to become too parochial. Check the Royal Mail  site, for their abbreviations which look much like what has been suggested above, without periods.   --(WT-en) inas 22:12, 13 August 2009 (EDT)

Phone numbers
Re: Inas' removal of the phone number guidelines: Yes, U.S. numbers are very straightforward, and therefore don't need much explanation—country code, three digit area code, seven digit local number split by 3 then 4. But as a template, this is useful for countries that have more convoluted systems. Take a look at Hovd—I don't understand which digits are referring to city codes, local codes, etc. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 21:44, 13 August 2009 (EDT)

 * I think the standard in Project:Phone numbers, full country code, a dash between the numbers you have to dial anywhere, and spaces between the numbers that can be dropped locally, is as good a standard as I have seen for a traveller. We have just about all the info embedded in the number, and any extras in the Contact section.
 * If you can point out how this policy differs from the one at Project:Phone numbers, then I can see the reason for it being here. If there is no difference, what is the point of the duplication of the information?  -(WT-en) inas 22:16, 13 August 2009 (EDT)

 * We don't use dashes between the numbers you have to dial everywhere. AFAIK you now have to dial local area codes throughout the entire U.S., but I could be wrong. There was a disagreement before regarding parentheses, which are very commonly used for U.S. area codes. We've decided against them, but it's news to me that parentheses are ruled out in the main phone numbers policy (that's good news IMO).

 * Above all, though, this isn't a policy page, it's a draft of proposed guidelines for editors working on U.S. articles. It collects the various rules, and shows in a convenient format with examples how they should be implemented. I see the goal to be similar to the Project:Administrator's handbook in this regard—a quick how-to manual. Idiosyncracies should also be detailed here, but I don't think that should be the entire scope of the page. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 00:32, 14 August 2009 (EDT)

 * Disagree. Wherever you list the same info twice, chances are it will eventually diverge - people will make changes here, just because it is easier than getting wider consensus on the main policy page.   We should make every effort to minimise divergence between articles based on geography where is no necessity to do so.  Your comments highlight inadvertent divergence that has already happened due to this policy being here.  This page even says that the primary WT mos overrides what is here, so which to use?   --(WT-en) inas 00:44, 14 August 2009 (EDT)

I'm not a fan of the current style. I think using italics to distinguish mandatory parts of the phone number is not obvious enough, and hard to read, and useless if the number is already italicized or if formatting isn't preserved.

My preference would be to use dashes and parentheses, as in +1 404-234-5678 (in metro areas where 10-digit dialing is required) or +1 (808) 234-5678 (in the other 90% of the country where only 7 digits are required for local numbers). It doesn't rely on text formatting, it matches how numbers are usually displayed by local businesses, and it is totally unambiguous as to what part of the number has to be dialed. Thoughts? --(WT-en) BigPeteB 16:27, 27 March 2011 (EDT)

US or U.S. ?
Personally, I prefer the shorter "US" form (which is also consistent with our usage for the UK) as currently used throughout our proposed article.

However, I would love for a final decision to be made on this, as Abbreviations mandates the longer "U.S." form. -- (WV-en) A l i c e ✉ 21:26, 28 October 2012 (CET)

 * I think you should take this discussion to Abbreviations. Hopefully this policy will never see the light of day, as have a manual of style for each country would be a very retrograde step.  Could I also just say that every time we start a another discussion on where to put dots in a name, another travel fairy dies.  --Inas (talk) 23:05, 28 October 2012 (CET)

Postal Codes?!?
1) Why is the proposed policy section called "Postal Codes"?

I thought you had Zip codes in the US?

2) Why (when you propose abbreviating everything else) do you propose to ignore the US Postal Service standard and propose "Two letter postal codes should never be used in place of a state name. Spell out "Texas" rather than abbreviating the state as TX." -- A l i c e ✉ 23:30, 29 December 2012 (UTC)