Wikivoyage talk:External links

Some things that have moved:

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

Swept in from the pub

There's a discussion at User_talk:Ioannawfy24#What_not_to_link_to,_and_don't_edit_war that I think raises more general issues worth some discussion here. The main question is whether links to the weather site wfy24 are legitimate or are violations of our external links policy.

We do link to some reference sites, e.g. China#Money & quite a few other places link to xe.com for exchange rates. Is that a good thing? We also have a whole article on Smartphone apps for travellers; is that where a link to wfy24 might belong?

If we are going to link to a weather site, is this the right one? I've been using wunderground.com for years, don't recall why I started there. It handles my main concern -- typhoons in SE Asia -- adequately, but there are many others.

Looking at the wfy24 home page, I see they have lots of travel info, & our policy is not to link to other travel guides. Pashley (talk) 14:56, 26 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

As the site has broad weather coverage, I think adding a link to Weather alongside other international weather services, rather than to individual cities, could make sense. Besides the policy on competing travel guides, what is relevant is how good the forecasts are. I don't know how to evaluate that, but more important than resolution is how well topographic features are taken into account by the weather model. It is a problem for most weather forecasts within our archipelagoes, and certainly is in mountainous terrain.

As a side note, I think it is quite funny that the service currently warns about severe cold in Lapland, which today and in the coming days seems to have rather mild temperatures of −5 to −14 °C (23 to 7 °F) – rather mild related to what you'd expect this time of the year. The Finnish Meteorological Institute gives the lowest-level warning ("potentially dangerous") about severe cold when the temperature is predicted to get under -20, -25 or -30 (depending on area; Lapland is in the last category). For the critical warnings ("very dangerous") the limits are -35, -45 and -45!

–LPfi (talk) 17:49, 26 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

(But it does not warn about the driving weather, which is awful in much of the country, including in Helsinki ("dangerous" according to FMI.) –LPfi (talk) 17:52, 26 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

As per Pashley's last paragraph, I do not support linking that site anywhere. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:13, 26 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

I also oppose linking to that site. We don't link to other travel guides. The link that was added to the Vienna took readers to the landing page of the site, and not to information about the weather in Vienna. Ground Zero (talk) 19:47, 26 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

I am not keen on that site. I think we should prefer to link to the relevant government weather agency - National Weather Service in the US, Met office in the UK, MetService in NZ etc. News organisations that have extensive weather coverage for that country are also acceptable, eg the BBC. AlasdairW (talk) 21:58, 26 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

Ditto. This isn't currency exchange where there is no one single official website that has all the conversion rates. Government agencies have official websites for the weather, as Alasdair mentioned. //shb (t | c | m) 22:48, 26 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

I agree with @AlasdairW; government agencies are fine, anything else needs to be specific to the region and more compelling than the universal platforms or the various thin interfaces over NWS/ECMWF/etc.

I'm not opposed to weather app "listings" in Smartphone apps for travellers or similar travel topics; competing apps can state their case there, alongside others. Gerode (talk) 00:04, 27 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

As long as there isn't a long list or an arbitrary selection. The one we list should be well-established and reliable. The problem I cited above, about warnings on expected temperatures and lack of locally important warnings: dangerous driving weather, slippery pavements (today is the day of the year when emergency clinics get crowded). Apps with global coverage may not be good at covering such region-specific risks. –LPfi (talk) 11:25, 27 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

Why is social media not a reliable source in general, and to begin with? What happens if you use them in articles? ~2026-18962-24 (talk) 17:19, 26 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Use them how? Give an example of what you're thinking of. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:02, 26 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

@~2026-18962-24 @Ikan Kekek Is reliable source even a term on this project? Purplebackpack89 21:05, 26 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

it isn't lol. //shb (t | c | m) 23:55, 26 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

We do link to social media pages (like Facebook) when a small business (cafe etc) uses that as its only online presence. Such a page that appears to be created by the business, is only a little less reliable than a regular webpage for the business. The important thing is to check that the information makes sense, and that there is other evidence of the business existing.

AlasdairW (talk) 00:06, 27 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Oh for sure – but usually only FB (I think there was consensus against Instagram links sometime back). But "reliable source" isn't a term we use here. //shb (t | c | m) 00:11, 27 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

Hi Lately I've been seeing more and more restaurants and other places that offer Whatsapp as a contact system, in addition to mail or telephone.

Finally today I found a Climbing guide which only offers Whatsapp or Telegram as contact for customers. Not address or Telephone. Additionally they offer email or web. ( and looks like a real business !)

Is there any policy about messaging applications to be included in the listings?? Any chance to add a new field (or fields) in the listings to include Messaging??

I'm afraid times are changing. I never filled the FAX or Tollfree fields. Also many times I find 2 telephone numbers, the fixed line and the mobile, and I always doubt which one include in the listing. Also many times the business says you can use the mobile for messaging. Mmorell (talk) 17:58, 27 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Honestly, yep... whatsapp/signal/instagram/... would be much more important these days for most businesses than fax/phone, at least outside Germany :) I seriously doubt more than 1% of our visitors book hotels by phone... Perhaps we can improve the templates a bit there... -- andree 18:42, 27 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I saw a travel magazine recently that recommended contacting hotels by phone before booking (e.g., to make sure the hotel existed). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:22, 27 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

This makes sense to me. I've also had this no-phone-number situation with Line and WeChat in some regions. Gerode (talk) 20:22, 27 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Whatsapp, Telegram, Facebook and Instagram are proprietary platforms, in contrast to universal communication protocols such as e-mail, the World Wide Web, and telefax. Wikimedia projects have been wary of endorsing proprietary platforms; but they can be considered for individual services which offer no other contact information. /Yvwv (talk) 14:08, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I agree with the fact that are private services. But reality is that in Spain whatsapp is almost universal. Event government has whatsapp lines for servicing people. And a policy explaining when and how to use those comunication systems may be useful for colaborators. On the example I mentioned at the begining I write the whatsapp contact in the content section of the listing, but I don't know if it's right or not. If there is no guidance every one will use his own way and thats not good for standarizing data. Mmorell (talk) 07:16, 30 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

While updating a listing in Stuttgart, Germany, I visited the city's official website. It is available in German and several other languages, but upon selecting the English version, a notification appeared stating that the content is automatically translated by DeepL. In such cases, what is the preferred approach? Should I link to the original German version of the website, or is it better to provide the English URL, even if it relies on machine translation?ShuaiXuesheng (talk) 16:53, 10 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I assume the translation link is easily found on the page, in which case I'd link the original. I wonder, now that AI translations are offered everywhere (including in Firefox, where it took some time for me to find how to disable it), what added value do direct such links from city pages offer? They might check that the translations are sensible, but more likely, at least for less common languages, they just rely on the tool. Perhaps the translation is even offered by the content management system and they just didn't disable it. –LPfi (talk) 21:50, 10 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I think we should still link official pages in English when possible, but in these kinds of cases, I would tend to support linking the German-language page. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:59, 10 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

From my experience, municipalities seem to do everything they can to cut costs. I often see job postings looking for someone to manage the entire media presence of a city with 500,000 people on a part-time basis of just 15 to 20 hours a week. It’s frankly unrealistic. And they are trying to cut corners in the exact same way when it comes to automated translations. Personally, I believe that if DeepL or similar tools are used, we should always link back to the original source language.ShuaiXuesheng (talk) 10:28, 11 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I agree. The landing page of the municipality is the least like to change. The addresses of other language versions may change from time to time and make the link obsolete. Ground Zero (talk) 11:37, 11 April 2026 (UTC)Reply