Hey guys! I'm puzzled as to why the article Latacunga appears with a Contents box. Is this article somehow using a different skin or something? How was it invoked when other destinations appear normally? Just trying to understand what's going on....

Mrkstvns (talk) 19:14, 24 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

The {{pagebanner}} tried to include a photo that did not exist. I have removed it, so the table of contents no longer displays and the default banner image does now. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:31, 24 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

The banner photo was deleted last month, see commons:Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Latacunga_banner.jpg. AlasdairW (talk) 22:11, 24 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

It can be undeleted and uploaded locally if it satisfies our EDP – which in this case probably means one cannot replace it with an equally good unencumbered one (deleted because of copyrighted artwork shown in the image). If needed, one can ask it to be undeleted for evaluation. –LPfi (talk) 11:49, 25 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

And at the risk of getting a little too technical, the copyright on artwork was not just something like "I took a picture of a movie poster" or something that is typically and obviously a copyrighted creative work, but Ecuador lacks a freedom of panorama, so that taking photos of buildings, sculptures, and other architectural structures is covered by copyright, so a new banner should probably focus on natural phenomena. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 13:30, 25 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks guys. I've added a new image that focuses on the natural landscape, as suggested by Justin. Feel free to replace it if you find something better. Cheers! Mrkstvns (talk) 13:47, 25 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm disappointed that my efforts to monitor c:COM:Deletion requests missed a Wikivoyage pagebanner. Wikivoyage is not bound by Commons' requirements for all photos to lack copyright restrictions on their commercial reuse, so if the preexisting pagebanner was better, we should indeed request undeletion for the purpose of uploading it locally with a warning for reusers. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:18, 25 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Shouldn't we be getting notifications from the Commons deletion bot? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:24, 25 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

We should, but the bot that took care of this (or this functionality of the deletion bot if it was the one) has been defunct for a long time now. This is essential infrastructure maintained by volunteers instead of the WMF). I don't know whether the maintainer has withdrawn or just hasn't been able to fix it.

The Commons folks are quite frustrated as the WMF launches all kinds of new projects (some of them loudly criticised from the outset) instead of taking responsibility for essential infrastructure.

–LPfi (talk) 17:01, 25 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

@MusikAnimal, why isn't User:Community Tech bot working here? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:13, 27 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Does it work anywhere? phab:T339145 suggests that it was disabled on 6 June 2023, and a bug filed 14 June, triaged as High priority on 12 Dec that year ("given how long the outage has been"). Work seems to be ongoing, more or less, since then, but I see nothing on the progress since September. @MusikAnimal: any news?

Not being notified of deletion requests is quite frustrating, and also means that more or less every deleted image should be restored for evaluation of whether it can be replaced or locally uploaded – and that undeletion and evaluation has to be redone for every use (there is no way to coordinate discussions on that matter across uses).

–LPfi (talk) 07:57, 27 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

I've commented at phab:T339145#10684901. I actually never dismissed the last ping from last October! Fixing this bot is on my ever-growing list of to-dos, where it has had to compete with multitudes of other things people are demanding my attention on, combined with a stressful past three quarters at the day job working on the monumental multiblocks project. In defense of my team, we didn't have the Python expertise needed to fix the bot, and the original author left the Foundation years ago. That's why it died. I spent long enough finally figuring out the Python bit and got stuck on the Toolforge part. @Taavi being the gem that he is was going to help me at the 2024 Hackathon, but both XTools and something else critical that I maintain (I don't recall what) decided to break that weekend, so I was stuck working on that instead :-P

We happen to have another hackathon just one month away, and barring "Unbreak Now!" tasks getting slapped in my face, I will personally see to it that this bot gets revived. I realize it shouldn't take a Hackathon to fix a bot that a WMF team signed up to write and maintain. We have learned a lot about reducing maintenance burden since the bot was first written 7 years ago, and had it been written with those learnings we have today, I think it would still be running.

One thing that would help is to "award tokens" or comment at phab:T339145 indicating how important this is to you and your wiki. To my knowledge only enwikivoyage has ever filed complaints. I hope you know that in my heart that was enough for my desire to bring it back to life, especially when I read you were (or are) planning to do this work manually! :cries:

All of that said, I guess I can more or less promise something to come to fruition sometime next month, hopefully sooner. Please note that this comment is 100% in my volunteer capacity.

Warm regards and sympathies! — MusikAnimal ^talk 22:05, 27 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

I appreciate your commitment and efforts. I've been doing my best to monitor all deletion requests for quite a while, mainly in order to try (clearly not entirely successfully) to catch efforts to delete images in use on Wikivoyage, and secondarily on other sister sites. If this bot started working again, I would dearly love to stop working so much on deletion requests and instead do other things that are more fun and possibly more useful to me. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:37, 27 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

When that team was started, they weren't supposed to have any maintenance responsibilities at all. The idea was that they would do something that was either pretty permanent (e.g., create a complex wikitext template) or that would be taken over by another team (e.g., add a small feature to the visual editor that the Editing team would maintain, or a tweak to a MediaWiki skin that the Web team would maintain). Instead, a lot of the requests have been maintenance oriented.

In my experience, the WMF management is great at many things, but not at allocating staff for maintenance. Even when they say "Oh, your team needs to spend half its time on maintenance", they don't really grasp that internally. It's "Why didn't you do as much as I expected?" when more "So glad you dropped this new project in favor of fixing the unscheduled maintenance problem" is needed. My comment isn't about a single person. I've seen this pattern in every manager running Product teams for years. There's something about the overall system that is downplaying maintenance needs. For example, teams are usually told not to put any of their maintenance work into the annual goals, even if maintenance is their primary role. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:37, 30 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

That's sad, but it seems to confirm what Commons is seeing and frustrated about (although there it is mostly about taking maintenance responsibility for essential volunteer-developed tools). And MusikAnimal, thank you for your commitment. I hope you will succeed. –LPfi (talk) 17:09, 30 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

IMO Commons has always been neglected, but prioritizing potential projects there is seriously complex and value-based. For example: if you could put a dev team on Commons for two years, should you make the UploadWizard better for newcomers, the batch upload tools better for GLAM professionals, or the reviewing/deleting tools better for admins? Each of those audiences will tell you that their needs are "clearly" the most important, and none of them are actually wrong. The project you would choose depends on what your vision for Commons is. And that means it's difficult to get agreement to do anything.

If any of this was easy, then it would have been done years ago. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:40, 31 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think that what's frustrating for Commons is not that, but WMF putting resources into projects they don't want. There was the filter thing, which everybody told won't work, and the structured data suggestion tool, which Commons protested loudly about. Both took quite some manpower that could have been used for badly needed other things.

I understand WMF sometimes prioritising needs of non-regulars (there has been some controversy about the upload wizard), but those large-scale what-did-I-say projects are quite bad for how WMF is seen, especially as there often seems to be nobody listening on the WMF side (I see the upload wizard feedback page is now monitored, thanks for that!).

–LPfi (talk) 19:08, 31 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

As I said, the question is which audience is being prioritized. When we say "projects they don't want", the question is which "they" you're talking about.

An image filter is feasible, within some reasonable limits, and some people actually do want one. While nobody was satisfied with the structured data suggestion tool that we actually got (e.g., far too much "smiling" and "blonde hair" for photos of women), there were and still are people who would like a quick and easy way to get more structured data in place, so that it's easier to find images. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:06, 1 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hello everyone, I’m writing to announce an upcoming event called Wikidata and Sister Projects that will be a mini online conference to highlight the different ways Wikidata can be connected and integrated with the other WM projects.

We are currently looking for session ideas and speakers for our program and wanted to reach out in case there were any editors here that might have a cool idea for a session proposal. Sessions can be found on the event discussion page. As previously mentioned, we would like to showcase the relationship between Wikivoyage and Wikidata and how data such from listings/VCards is a collaborative effort between the 2 projects, or how structured data aids in geoshape and map creation.

The event is scheduled between May 29 - June 1st, 2025. If you have any questions about the event, would like more information or have a session idea to propose, please feel free to get in touch by replying to this post or writing on the event page or on my talk page. Thanks for reading, - Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 07:19, 1 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Danny Benjafield (WMDE) Is it still possible to propose session? It says proposals need to be submitted by March 31, yet your announcement here was made on April 1. I am planning to submit a lightning talk about linking tourist points of interest and pictures to Wikidata. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 14:41, 2 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hello @OhanaUnited, it is still possible (and warmly received) to submit a session idea, I updated the pages with a new deadline. Looking forwards to your proposal! Thank you, - Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 15:46, 2 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Done! I have submitted. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 19:50, 2 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

It seems many articles have had their breadcrumbs broken? Araçatuba has {{IsPartOf|Northwest São Paulo (state)}} at the bottom but nothing appears, similarly does Legnica, while Lądek-Zdrój only contains Lower Silesian Voivodeship (with no further breadcrumbs to Poland. Anyone know what's up with this? //shb (t | c | m) 00:57, 3 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Screenshots here for reference. //shb (t | c | m) 01:00, 3 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Pinging @Andyrom75, Jdlrobson: if any of you have any insight into this. //shb (t | c | m) 01:02, 3 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

@SHB2000: Even ordinary articles like Delhi, India, London, New York City, and Paris are lacking breadcrumbs right now. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 03:40, 3 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

London and New York have them now, but the others do not! Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:45, 3 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Same for me. //shb (t | c | m) 04:10, 3 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

@SHB2000: Did you purge, like I mentioned below? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:27, 3 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

It's a hit or miss after purging. //shb (t | c | m) 08:38, 3 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Sometimes you need to purge two or even three times. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:41, 3 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Still no luck. Though what Andyrom said is probably true. //shb (t | c | m) 00:12, 4 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I purged Araçatuba and it now displays correctly. This will fix itself over time on all pages. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:57, 3 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

@SHB2000, I agree with @Koavf: it's a "temporary bug" and if you purge a page, it will be shown correctly. In the medium/long term, all the pages will be shown correctly without performing any action. I suppose it has been originated by a wrong change injected server side and then reverted. ...but I can be wrong... Andyrom75 (talk) 21:00, 3 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I believe this might relate to phab:T389523. I've pinged a few people to get confirmation. Jdlrobson (talk) 06:07, 4 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Purge does not work. At the page The Hague the breadcrumbs should show as:

Europe > Benelux > Netherlands > Western Netherlands > South Holland > Rotterdam-The Hague Metropolitan Region > The Hague

But after purging 10x, it stayed unchanged as:

Rotterdam-The Hague Metropolitan Region > The Hague

FredTC (talk) 08:05, 4 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Off-topic but I never thought that a small country like the Netherlands can be too diverse to have long breadcrumbs like this. Of course, the cities in West Bengal (India) boast similarly long breadcrumbs, but the parent country is waaay bigger than the Netherlands. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 10:26, 4 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

It seems to be an issue with [[Template::IsPartOf]]. I haven't figured out exactly what yet, but replacing {{IsPartOf|...}} with {{#isin:...}} directly seems to restore the breadcrumbs, and https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Special:ApiSandbox#action=query&format=json&prop=pageprops&titles=Czech_Republic confirms that the geocrumb-is-in page property is not present using the template but is (correctly) present using the parser function directly. Investigting. Cscott (talk) 16:30, 4 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hm: a null-edit seems to work to create the page property, but "merely" action=purge does not. I've filed phab:T391128 because technically the page property should be required: it should fall back to the method it used to use before recent changes. But for the moment, doing a null-edit on the affected pages seems to create the page property correctly. Cscott (talk) 16:47, 4 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't have sufficient permissions on this wiki, but a null-edit to Template:IsPartOf should fix all of the pages with this issue at once by forcing them to update their page properties. (action=purge rerenders the page but doesn't update page properties.) Cscott (talk) 16:54, 4 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I also have a patch to GeoCrumbs to fix this, but it won't roll out until April 9 or so. Cscott (talk) 17:03, 4 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Null-edit of the template didn't actually cause refreshlinksjob to run on all of the linked articles, for some reason -- or it's running really slowly, I'm not sure. In any case, I backported the patch just now, and the pages should be fixed and if not `action=purge` will fix them. Cscott (talk) 13:57, 7 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I made a null edit. Jdlrobson (talk) 17:05, 4 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Really annoying, some articles show only the next article right above it, other articles show the 2-3 articles above, many articles don't show the breadcrumbs at all. I hope WM contributors who know coding can fix this asap... --Ypsilon (talk) 22:10, 4 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Cscott: You should have the perms now. //shb (t | c | m) 22:52, 4 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

(I love the way this community handles permissions. Give people what they actually need, and don't make a big fuss over it.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:03, 6 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

(Oh god yeah enwiki is really annoying in that regard.) //shb (t | c | m) 06:04, 6 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Now it seems all articles only show what's directly breadcrumbed above it but not the full list. At least it's somewhat consistent on that now. //shb (t | c | m) 00:18, 7 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

It looks fixed right now. Grahamsands (talk) 14:50, 8 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Seems so on my end too. //shb (t | c | m) 21:29, 8 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

A lot of help is needed in that article, but first, we need to resolve a question on Talk:Donghai Island. Your assistance will be greatly appreciated! Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:43, 5 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

(Apologies for posting in English)

Hello everyone, I am excited to share news of an upcoming online event called Wikidata and Sister Projects celebrating the different ways Wikidata can be used to support or enhance with another Wikimedia project. The event takes place over 4 days between May 29 - June 1st, 2025.

We would like to invite speakers to present at this community event, to hear success stories, challenges, showcase tools or projects you may be working on, where Wikidata has been involved in Wikipedia, Commons, WikiSource and all other WM projects.

If you are interested in attending, please register here. If you would like to speak at the event, please fill out this Session Proposal template on the event talk page, where you can also ask any questions you may have.

I hope to see you at the event, in the audience or as a speaker, - MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:18, 11 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Why do we have both MediaWiki:Abusefilter-warning-telstra and MediaWiki:Abusefilter-warning-telstra-not-declined? Codename Noreste (talk) 15:02, 12 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I would welcome other views on how to proceed here. There is a discussion about whether this article should have subregions or not. One user has restored a bunch of subregion articles that do not follow Wikivoyage style (twice) without discussing it on the talk page. Ground Zero (talk) 10:52, 13 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

In particular, this user is adding long lists for cities and towns for which we do not have articles, creating red links. Do we have a policy on this? Ground Zero (talk) 11:01, 13 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

The user ignored my requests and warning on their talk page, has continued to add more redlinked cities to Noth Brabant and the subregion articles, while not participating in the discussion. I have blocked them for two hours to try to get their attention. See User talk:KeesNB1969NL. Ground Zero (talk) 11:09, 13 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Biggest myths about studying overseas busted by Reddit user: Why do Indian students struggle after moving abroad?. Relevant to our coverage on studying abroad. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 13:39, 16 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Sbb1413: I get a 404 error when I click that link – I assume it only works within India? //shb (t | c | m) 14:07, 16 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

@SHB2000: Sorry for the wrong link, here's the correct one. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 14:30, 16 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Perfect, that works; I'll give it a read sometime later today. //shb (t | c | m) 14:36, 16 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps, but I think the article says little. It doesn't answer the question in the heading, it doesn't even try.

It says that a visa is not a lottery ticket, that you need to do your research on the job market (and presumably costs, studies etc.), that you need to study in earnest, not just get an exam, and so on. In short: a visa and admission to a university don't necessarily give you a high-pay career.

We could give a warning in a sentence or two, but mostly this is common sense, at the abstraction level given in the article.

–LPfi (talk) 19:38, 16 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Where do people think is a good place to put this information? I think this will be useful for people to know just in case they need legal documents to be notarized and sent back to their home countries while travelling abroad. Your country's embassy can provide this, but if I'm not wrong, you can look for a notary public if your country has no diplomatic post. And Commonwealth countries have what we call a "justice of the peace" who can notarise some documents for domestic use. The dog2 (talk) 18:48, 16 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

How likely is it that a traveller needs a notary? I expect the likelihood of needing one depends on your home country - what documents need it. Although I occasionally need to get my signature witnessed, I have been able to ask anybody that knows me to do this; I don't think I have ever had to get a document notarized. There are also probably loads of complexities about foreign notaries being accepted in your home country. In general, I would suggest phoning the nearest consulate and asking advice. I think that notary services are not something we need to list, but if there is some local quirk to be aware of, then it should go in the country's cope section. AlasdairW (talk) 20:35, 16 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, my answer is "nowhere." User:The dog2, as a U.S. citizen, I have to get a document notarized at most once every 10 years on average, yet you think we should yet again increase the length of the United States article by adding information of notarization. Could you please stop and have some self-control?! Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:01, 16 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I too think this is incredibly niche to mention. //shb (t | c | m) 23:14, 16 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

+1. Ground Zero (talk) 00:14, 17 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Here's a fun fact about notaries in California: The Spanish cognate, notario, is an important type of legal specialist. Having your will drafted by a (Mexican) notario is a very good thing. But in California, a notary public is basically a secretary who took a six-hour class and passed a multiple-choice test. As a result, California no longer allows people to get their wills notarized (it's banned, not merely non-required), because so many immigrants thought that they were paying for a really valuable legal service, and the family got nasty surprises after their loved ones died.

On the general question: I don't think this is a useful thing to add. It's rarely needed while traveling, and if you do need it, you probably need specialized advice. For example, if you need a notarized signature for home-country real estate purposes while you're abroad, then you need to find, in your current location, a notary service that will be acceptable to your home country. But if you're updating your will during a long stay, you need someone that will be acceptable to both your home country and your current country. Providing a recommendation might encourage people to do something that doesn't actually work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:15, 17 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Possibly it could be added to Working in the United States. If somebody is in the US for a year or three, it is much more likely that they will need a document notarized to be accepted in the US, and so the difficult question of foreign acceptance is avoided. Also the Working in article is only 13k, and needs expansion in other areas. AlasdairW (talk) 20:53, 17 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Also, if you are living abroad but you still have assets back home, you might need notarial services for things like delegating a power of attorney to a family member back home. The dog2 (talk) 20:55, 17 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Would you? If so, though, that's not specifically about working or studying abroad. I'd like some comments from fellow workers (i.e.,

not members of the leisure class or people who are purely business owners) in the U.S. on whether they've needed to have anything notarized for work. I don't ever recall doing that. I believe the last time I had to have a document notarized was in connection with opening a corporate bank account, so I'd argue that if we decide to cover notarization in the U.S. at all, it should be in a "doing business in the U.S." article, but I still doubt its inclusion would be necessary, and I hope no-one wants to start that article right now, with all the totally unnecessary, manufactured chaos that our "dear leader" is producing. Maybe "avoiding trade with the U.S." would be a more useful article...(but it's not about travel). Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:15, 17 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Never for work, though if you work in real estate or some other legal-adjacent field, you might visit a notary frequently.

I have needed to have documents notarized a few times. A durable power of attorney might have been one of them. However, in California, I believe that having two witnesses for the power of attorney is also acceptable, so it might have been something else. It's been more than a decade since I needed a notary. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:51, 17 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

(edit conflict) You could be living abroad for work. But anyway, I was thinking more of notarization in general rather than in the U.S. specifically. There is the Hague Convention of 1961, and signatory countries will generally grant legal recognition to documents notarised and apostilled by another signatory country, with a few exceptions (e.g. India does not legally recognise documents notarised and apostilled by China). The dog2 (talk) 21:53, 17 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

If you work in real estate, you probably wouldn't be reading Wikivoyage for this kind of advice anyway. //shb (t | c | m) 23:53, 17 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

This discussion has demonstrated convincingly that the use of notaries is such a rare and exceptional occurence that notary services should never have been stuck into a country-level article. The attempt to do so shows a lack of understanding of what Wikivoyage is trying to do, or a disregard for the project's objectives, especially when it is a pattern of behaviour. Ground Zero (talk) 01:58, 18 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I agree it's very unusual for a traveller to need notary services on the road. However, I think a brief discussion of apostille certificates might be reasonable in a general article such as Visa, Working abroad, or Living abroad. I've needed an apostille twice in the process of applying for work visas. I don't see a case for mentioning this anywhere outside of the context of visa application processes, though. Issues like delegating a power of attorney are not really travel advice, but drifting into the realm of general life advice. —Granger (talk · contribs) 21:37, 20 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

There is a discussion in Wikivoyage talk:Don't tout#When should promotional user pages be deleted?.

It seems that we have a practice of speedy deleting user pages of touts, which isn't documented is Wikivoyage:Deletion policy#Speedy deletions. I assume that means that the policy should be amended. The question is whether any user page with promotional content can be speedily deleted at sight, or whether there needs to be some consideration of the specifics of the user page content or the user's contributions. If there is admin discretion involved, we should probably have some guidance.

At the moment, the discussion is about whether preserving a user page can be required for attribution purposes, or whether attributing the username itself suffices legally (in cases where the user's contributions are copyrightable, and we thus need to respect the licence).

Other issues should also be discussed.

Please share your insights and opinions in the linked thread.

–LPfi (talk) 08:26, 18 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Some articles or sections on food don't include any advice for vegetarians, such as Spanish cuisine, Russia, and Brazil. This would reduce discouragement from vegetarian travel to these countries since they don't have any specialized advice. The template should look like:

This article or section does not provide advice for vegetarians. You can add advice for vegetarians based on personal experience, or by using information from the corresponding article on Wikipedia.

Categories: Articles needing advice for vegetarians

Faster than Thunder (talk) 00:16, 20 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't see how adding more tags will help for what would otherwise be a niche problem. //shb (t | c | m) 00:27, 20 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

experience in Wikivoyage has been that these sort of templates tend not to achieve very much of anything, except to add clutter to an article. Wikivoyage doesn't have the large contributor base of Wikipedia, unfortunately, where a template like this would be so effective way of addressing gaps in coverage. Any contributions you could make by adding listings for vegetarian restaurants would be very welcome, and would achieve much more than a template noting that we don't have such listings. Ground Zero (talk) 01:03, 20 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

This template would make it easier to find others interested in such improvements, even among the sheer contributor base of Wikivoyage. This would be more effective if categorization is attached to the template. Faster than Thunder (talk) 03:46, 20 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

And past style tags that do exactly as you propose have proven to not work as you suggest on this site before. //shb (t | c | m) 03:50, 20 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

This template could be added to almost every Wikivoyage article. We have a way to find others interested in making a type of improvements: create a Wikivoyage:Expeditions. Adding templates is not how you find others interested in such improvements. Ground Zero (talk) 03:52, 20 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm your target audience, as someone who hesitates to add vegetarian-specific content because I consider my dietary preferences to be niche.

I agree that this template is not worth the visual clutter. I wonder if there's instead a way to leverage the Travel as a vegetarian article, both to highlight the cuisine articles with useful content, and to somehow call attention to articles that are missing the opportunity? Gerode (talk) 04:12, 20 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Gerode, that's a good idea, but it's also helpful to have information in the more specific articles. I'd rather have both/and instead of either/or.

IMO it would be nice to have a little bit of information for a variety of "niche" diets. That could include vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, low-carb, diabetic, etc. Perhaps if it feels weird to add a paragraph about vegetarian food, it'd feel less weird if you add a couple of lines about another dietary pattern. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:16, 21 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Gerode: I see nothing at all wrong with adding information about restricted diets in destination articles. We provide information for women travellers, people with disabilities, LGBT people, why not vegetarians and other restricted diets? It would only be an improvement yo our travel guide. Ground Zero (talk) 11:06, 21 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I couldn't agree more with this. And the point isn't whether vegetarianism is mainstream in most Western countries - it is - but that information useful to vegetarians is good to include, and for that matter can often be useful for non-vegetarians who want to eat more vegetables, too. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:08, 21 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

…Or want to experience a different kind of meal – as good a variation as going to the Nepalese or Georgian restaurant, if the vegetarian restaurant is good. Also in mainstream restaurants, the vegetarian options can be as good as the non-vegetarian ones in their price range. At cafeterias, the vegan/vegetarian options are on occasion more tempting than the non-vegetarian dishes of the day. –LPfi (talk) 15:25, 21 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

@WhatamIdoing, Gerode, Ground Zero: Maybe this won't be as nearly as bad of an idea as when I first thought of it a while ago, but is there any interest in creating an expedition specifically for improving everything related to food and drink on this site (more than just vegetarianism)? I'd be down for it if there's general interest. //shb (t | c | m) 05:42, 21 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I didn't say vegetarianism is niche, I said the way I like to eat is niche 😛 Enough so that I don't find individual Eat listings to be useful for me personally for most destinations, even ones with high-quality articles. I need to ponder what a delightful-for-me wiki-based food and drink experience would look like. (And in the meantime, be bolder about adding places near my home that I like!) Gerode (talk) 18:00, 21 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

SHB, I don't know what tends to result in a successful expedition. If we decide to create one, then maybe a note at w:en:Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Food and drink would find some new contributors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:26, 21 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Good idea – and would be a great way to get some contributors over from Wikipedia. //shb (t | c | m) 22:42, 21 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Faster than Thunder: Whatever said by Ground Zero and SHB2000 are unfortunately true. Wikivoyage does not have the workforce equivalent to Wikipedia (although the English version is way more active than some Indian-language versions), and that's why I discourage users adding such templates. I remember adding a {{movetodistrict}} template at the Drink section of Kolkata years ago, but I moved those listings to districts only recently. If the vegetarian issue seems pressing, I suggest starting a discussion at the talk page of the affected article. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 04:01, 20 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Really, the best solution is just to add vegetarian listings yourself when you see that they are lacking. Even if you don't know the city in question yourself, it's better than nothing to look up eateries in any halfway reliable source you have and put descriptions in your own words. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:30, 20 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Though in the case of cuisine articles, bringing up a lack of vegetable dishes on the talk page could be appropriate. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:31, 20 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I definitely agree and is a very good point you bring up regarding cuisine articles. //shb (t | c | m) 04:36, 20 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Templates requesting editor action are only useful if it is a five minute task which can be done without knowing the article subject. For example crop when a banner is the wrong dimensions, or Dead link. In the case of Spanish cuisine, the template would not be useful as the corresponding Wikipeda article doesn't have a vegetarian or vegan section. If you can find some information on vegetarian dishes in restaurants in Spain, it would be better to start a section with the limited info that you have (and even if you check many menus and find no vegetarian dishes then saying the options are poor is a start). AlasdairW (talk) 12:29, 20 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Vegetarian is certainly not niche, in developed western countries it's a mainstream offering in most outlets, so much that I wouldn't even mention it in a listing. Any half-competent chef can serve veggies on request, especially with cuisines where meat is an add-on rather than the basis. East Europe is evolving fast as they see what westerner visitors expect. Any attempt to specially flag such places will sink under the clutter of flags. Vegan and GF are rapidly expanding from a lower starting point so I'd always mention this if either the restaurant website or customer reviews did so, but give it a few more years, that might no longer be necessary. Grahamsands (talk) 13:09, 21 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Any Western half-competent chef can serve veggies, but whether they can fix a culinary experience with what they have at hand is not as sure. If I have vegan guests, or even vegetarian ones, here in Turku (200,000 inhabitants), the restaurants where I'd take them for a nicer lunch or dinner can be counted on one hand's fingers. In other restaurants the vegetarian options are not among the flagship ones. Off the beaten path the vegetarian options may be quite mediocre, and you can find the odd place where there is no vegetarian choice at all ("a hamburger without the beef, please").

Ergo, for Western countries like Finland, I would still try to list vegetarian restaurants in any city article, and describe the general situation in the country article (Travel as a vegetarian#In the West shows that such summaries are needed).

–LPfi (talk) 15:14, 21 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

The "cuisine" articles linked seem to be about introducing people to a specific kind of national or ethnic cuisine (Spanish cuisine, Russian cuisine, etc) as an overview (without restaurants), so I'm not sure those are the proper articles for this information since the vegetarian options may lie outside of the traditional cuisine, but the country articles should definitely say something about it. And restaurant listings can obviously say if a place is vegetarian/vegan or if it has enough variety of options to make it worth noting. But it's really up to editors to add that information if they are aware. I agree with others that it's too niche to be worth having its own box demanding special focus from editors. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 15:41, 21 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Still, they may be watched by people who are knowledgable of the cuisine scene in the related region, so their talk page may be a good venue for a discussion. Also, most cuisines have some mainly vegetarian dishes, which could be made vegetarian by minor tweaks. I think a Cope section, like Finnish cuisine#Dietary restrictions would suit most cuisine articles. Often the cuisine is found in a region sharing other features, such that specific other options (such as going to a Buddhist restaurant) may be relevant. One can also point out in passing that a dish may be a good option for those with certain diets, or issues with a seemingly suitable dish (such as fish sauce in Vietnam). I agree that the country articles should say something about these issues (also about halal/kosher and other common diets). –LPfi (talk) 08:01, 23 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

The coming days/weeks things for parts of Rome and/or The Vatican might be different from usual. The death of the Pope will have consequences for the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel, and also for the Santa Maria Maggiore church.

• Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel could be closed at certain days. During the election of a new Pope the museums could be opened, but the Sistine Chapel will be closed. What happens with tickets ordered and paid for online?
• Santa Maria Maggiore might be closed for preparations for creating the gave for the Pope. After the burial it might become very busy with very long queues of waiting people.

Do we provide info to the travelers for the coming days/weeks? FredTC (talk) 14:48, 22 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Absolutely. Please go ahead and provide that information, and thank you! Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:51, 22 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

@FredTC, you might want to use Template:Cautionbox. It takes a date, which will make it easier to find and remove that information in the future. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:41, 22 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

The latest versions of Gemini can now create Wikivoyage listings with a very simple prompt. here's an example where everything is factually correct (no hallucinations!), and everything except the price range and opening hours was correctly formatted on the first try. I tweaked the prompt a bit and it did better on those too.

I'm not sure I want to encourage people to do this, but whether we like it or not, the technology is now here. Jpatokal (talk) 07:28, 23 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Very interesting; amazing how far AI has come (I also have mixed feelings, but it does mean that we could use Gemini to format things for us). //shb (t | c | m) 07:59, 23 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

What's important to me is that the content is good.

I would worry more about trying to write whole articles. I worry less about tools to organize a description of a place you've already hand-selected. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:37, 23 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I just used Gemini to validate that a whole bunch of Kraków/Old Town listings still exist and add latlongs. It nailed the job with this prompt: "check if these hotels still exist. if yes, add latlongs to the listing. if no, delete the listing. return results as a code block, with a list of deleted entries at the end." Jpatokal (talk) 06:53, 28 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Naive (literally ignorant) question: How do you know the results are accurate? -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:54, 28 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

You'd have to manually double check (that's at least been my prior experience using Gemini). //shb (t | c | m) 07:17, 28 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

The newer versions of Gemini are capable calling external services to genocide addresses. AFAICT all the locations are accurate. Jpatokal (talk) 22:41, 29 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I used ChatGPT to create initial drafts for Aklavik and Fort McPherson, and then modify them locally before submitting first save. ChatGPT definitely knows our article skeleton structure and create contents in this structure in the correct order. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 13:58, 28 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Forgetting about AI for a second: SingyeDzong asked me where the buttons are to add blank listing templates in articles from an iPhone. I checked several articles and couldn't find an easy way to do this (I was thinking I'd have to resort to copying an existing templated listing and then changing all the contents of every tab, which would be a huge pain!). Why is there no "Add a listing" button in sections of articles in Wikivoyage mobile, and what can be done to make this process a lot simpler? Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:01, 23 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

You can see the absence of the links by clicking this link: https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Pella_(Iowa)?useskin=minerva There is no [add listing] button, and there are no little edit buttons at the end of each listing. The listing editor doesn't appear to load at all in that skin. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:43, 23 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Seems the listing editor only works on Vector? //shb (t | c | m) 23:56, 23 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Seems to be the other way around, rather. Line 28 in MediaWiki:Gadget-ListingEditor.js explicitly forbids the extension from running on Minerva. That line was added following this discussion from almost two years ago.
― Wauteurz (talk) 00:21, 24 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

We really need to improve the mobile experience. We should assume substantial number of our readers and editors to be reading or editing while on the road. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 13:34, 24 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I am a bit confused as I added the listing editing on mobile beta a few months ago and was waiting for feedback which I never got.

I see it on https://en.m.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Ikoma for example when I expand a section. It appears as an icon next to the edit link.

If the beta one looks good then with at least 2-3 people's support I can turn it on. Jdlrobson (talk) 15:55, 24 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

screenshot: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/F59381242 Jdlrobson (talk) 15:57, 24 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

This looks promising. Does it only show the item that you click on the edit button on mobile? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 14:04, 28 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

[edit conflict]

There is a really simple cause why the listing editor is not available for mobile versions: it uses the jQuery library jquery.ui which provides the dialog-elements support which is not available on mobile devices (better: on Minerva skins). Of course you can change the skin on mobile devices but this would not be a real helpful tool on mobile devices.

For my opinion, their is no simple replacement the jQuery library. The tool has to be reprogrammed from scratch which would be a comprehensive project, and I do not know who should do it. When the old tool was created there was no alternative like OOjs which is, moreover, more difficult to use than jQuery.ui. --RolandUnger (talk) 16:07, 24 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

See w:en:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Recreation in Huntington, West Virginia. This is about an article, w:en:Recreation in Huntington, West Virginia that might be more useful if transwiki'd here and merged into Huntington (West Virginia) than if it is left there.

(NB: If you copy/paste or transwiki anything (e.g., one or more sentences) out of that article, please say so at the AFD. Just a quick heads-up or a link to a diff would be helpful to them.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:11, 24 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Wondering if any WikiVoyage folks are planning to attend Wikimania? And is anyone planning on traveling about the region afterwards? I was thinking of heading towards Urganda, Rwanda, and Burundi plus maybe Virunga National Park, but the last bit appears a bit unstable right now. Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:58, 26 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

This year's is in Nairobi, Kenya from 6–9 August 2025. There will be some virtual activities for those who can't be there.

We should look into updating the relevant articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:46, 26 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I will take part online. --RolandUnger (talk) 05:08, 28 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Me too, but no submission this year. And due to work i can only attend online on Saturday. -- DerFussi 05:33, 28 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

There are various problems with this article that I address in the Talk:Aguacate Mountains Biological Corridor#What to do with this article, but one I'd like some opinions about is the article title itself. I deleted a paragraph-long ref-tagged definition of the term "biological corridor" in this edit, and my position is that the phrase is not used in vernacular English and therefore violates Wikivoyage:Naming conventions, and also that if English-speakers require a long definition to understand what it means, it's the wrong phrase.

Would any of you disagree with renaming the article "Aguacate Mountains Nature Preserve"? Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:49, 27 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I am not sure that we should use a translation of our own for the page name – the name most commonly used in English may indeed be the native one. If we make up our own name, it should probably be a descriptive one, not pretending to be a proper name. There may even be some legal difference between nature preserves and corredores biológicos in Costa Rica.

We should indeed not have definitions like the one you removed in our articles. Nonetheless, we should mention the English term (perhaps green corridor is the handiest) and explain it in short.

–LPfi (talk) 11:38, 27 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

But does "green corridor" really have the same meaning? Also, a simple way to avoid the issue of whether a translation is official or not is to simply use lowercase: "Aguacate Mountains wildlife preserve" (or whatever). But being concerned about legal names is highly un-Wikivoyage. We have no articles about the Republic of Korea, the Democratic Republic of Korea, the Arab Republic of Egypt or most of the other official country names, and we expressly avoid debates on whether or where there are de jure borders. Instead, we have Wikivoyage:Naming conventions and Wikivoyage:Be fair#Political disputes. So I suggest banishing legal definitions from this discussion. Having said that, isn't the park we're discussing quite big and not just a little green corridor like the one depicted in the Wikipedia article you linked? Is there anyplace in an English-speaking country called "X Green Corridor" or "Y Wildlife Corridor" that passes Wikivoyage:What is an article? I doubt it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:39, 27 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yes, I intended to suggest using the lower case. We don't need to think to hard about legalese, but using a misleading term isn't good.

The article I linked and w:es:Corredor ecológico linked from there suggest that corredor biológico indeed is synonymous to green corridor. For large such corridors, see Barakee National Park, which is described as such, citing an authoritative English source (I think I rescued the article because of a discussion here, but cannot recall details). That park is smaller, but not by magnitudes.

Depending on species, corridors like those shown in the Wikipedia articles may suffice, but some cautious ones might need corridors of significant width, like these parks. If the distance is long (in relation to the species), the species need to be able not only to move along the corridor, but to live and thrive there, to allow the next generation to spread further along it. Of course, the parks may also have other functions, even when founded mainly as green corridors. I assume the images were chosen partly to show the corridor aspect clearly.

–LPfi (talk) 22:02, 27 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I would object to any translation or invented term. The article as-is has the official name. The term "biological corridor" is what is used in Costa Rica, and if you search on the name, you'll find references to the official SINAC page describing biological corridors here: https://www.sinac.go.cr/EN-US/CORREBIOLO/Pages/default.aspx

As you can see in that article's map, there are more than 40 biological corridors in Costa Rica. Whether '''ANY''' of them deserve an article is a worthwhile question since these aren't destinations intended to be tourist attractions. In fact, the ethical traveler will stay FAR from the biologial corridors, which were established for wildlife to move between protected areas. When humans invade those corridors they scare away the animals, some of which may well end up in a far worse conservation status than if the travelers had stuck to the national parks and areas that provide good tourist infrastructure. (I have the same complaint about including Biosphere Reserves or Ramsar sites, and we do indeed have articles on those).

As another matter, I suggest merging Aguacate Mountains and El Camino del Cielo y Colibríes into this article since they are all of fairly low traveler value and all 3 articles describe the same area with slightly different spins and details.

Comments? Mrkstvns (talk) 18:09, 28 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

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