Talk:Indianapolis Voyage Tips and guide

This article has Star potential. It's well written with great information. However, for Star status it needs both to be entirely complete and to exactly match the manual of style. If you see how it can be improved, please plunge forward or point it out on the talk page.

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I've pretty much rebuilt and rewritten this article. I go to these bars, I go to these restaurants, I go to these shops and I experience this city everyday. It's nice to be able to have the chance to share it with other people. I tried to offer up mainly local establishments for people to visit, since chains populate most of this country anymore. Please write if you have any questions or curiousities about Indianapolis. And please, other Hoosiers, add your travel info! :) (WT-en) Missvain 00:48, 15 December 2006 (EST)

Missvain, you've done an incredible job expanding our coverage of this interesting city. Thank you so much -- your work is going to help thousands of travelers.

Would you be interested in acting as a docent for the Indianapolis article? That way, if readers have questions, they can ask you directly on your user page. --(WT-en) Evan 07:31, 15 December 2006 (EST)

Evan, thanks, yes, I would like to be a docent. I thought I added the docent note at the bottom of the page, but perhaps I did it incorrectly? Thanks a lot for the encouragement. (WT-en) Missvain 09:44, 15 December 2006 (EST)

A few months ago this article sucked so I have to give props to Sarah for bringing it in line with MoS and filling it out, but now it's a little too informative. Should Indy follow the guidelines for a huge city and be broken down into districts? Viewing this in the eyes of a traveler this article offers an amazing amount of information that can't be found in any paper guide book, but since it's all lumped together it's very hard to discriminate which information is relevant to my needs. The amount of information is kind of a roadblock (pun intended) rather than a help so I'd encourage breaking the article down into districts for readability. -- (WT-en) Andrew H. (Sapphire) 15:14, 15 January 2007 (EST)

• I am sorry it took me so long to get back to you. I'd be totally okay with putting the entries into districts, it's just an overwhelming task that I struggle with when it comes to districting the page. Perhaps you can give me some tips or ideas about doing this for my fair city. Thank you! (WT-en) Missvain 14:04, 14 February 2007 (EST)
  • Wow this guide has loads of info! We need to get this split up I think. The first thing we need to do is to come up with some ideas for where the districts should be, then we can begin shifting the listings out... Any suggestions for districts? -- (WT-en) Tim (writeme!) 12:22, 12 August 2007 (EDT)

Split Makes sense to me, but I have no emotional investment in it. -(WT-en) Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 17:24, 12 August 2007 (EDT)

Suggestion from Koavf on my talk page is for districts to be Westside/Speedway, Northside and Carmel, Southside and Greewood, Eastside, and Downtown. Any further comments? -- (WT-en) Tim (writeme!) 16:09, 14 August 2007 (EDT)

I would recommend defining clear district borders before proceeding to split, see recommendations in Project:Geographical_hierarchy#Districts_in_cities for more details. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 16:18, 19 October 2007 (EDT)

Yeah, that district proposal sounds just right to me. And as soon as someone does come up with nice, clear borders, lets do this—this article is a lot to take in at one time. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 17:51, 21 April 2008 (EDT)

Just noticed that Missvain moved Shapiro's into the "moderate" price category with the comment, "moved shaprio's to moderate. it's a pricey cafeteria!!" While I'll agree it's slightly more expensive than the average cafeteria, I think it's still "cheap" overall. Seems to me the useful comparison is to all restaurants, not just to other cafeterias. Thoughts? (WT-en) Chuck Carroll 15:05, 4 February 2008 (EST)

• Hi Chuck..I honestly think it's moderate still. I know you get a lot of food for your money, but man, the average budget traveler might not want to opt to go to Shapiro's. I can only afford to honestly throw down for a lunch there once in the blue moon. But, either way, it's listed, and that's cool! And whats pricey for me isn't always pricey for others :) (WT-en) Missvain 22:14, 20 April 2008 (EDT)
  • I still disagree. You can get a full meal there (i.e., not just an entree) for 12-14 bucks, which is less than half of what you'd spend at some of the other restaurants in the "mid-range" price category. Is it more expensive than, say, Yat's? Sure. Will some very budget-conscious travellers opt to avoid it because of the price? Sure. But I don't think a restaurant where the entrees cost less than $10 should fall in the "mid-range" category. If the cutoff between budget and mid-range is that low, there are quite a few other restaurants currently listed as "budget" which would have to be moved to mid-range. (Bazbeaux, Greek Islands, Iaria's, Shalimar, Bosphorus, just of those I'm familiar with.) (WT-en) Chuck 12:39, 16 December 2008 (EST)

I'd agree that the cafeteria should be kept in the budget category. (And I dropped a wad of cash at Greek Islands last time I was there!) Anyway, I've been meaning to mention here that this is one heck of a guide. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 14:19, 16 December 2008 (EST)

Isn't this article too long for Indianapolis? It's just as long as the Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, and Paris articles. Surely if one can find this much to write about for Indianapolis, then the aforementioned cities articles should be even longer as they have much more history, attractions, and facts to offer. —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) 66.192.176.30 (talk • contribs)

It's not half as long as the guides for those cities. Chicago has 27 articles included in its guide, NYC has 27 as well, and is barely half finished. London has 69 articles (this is probably too many). San Francisco has 15. Indianapolis has only one, and I think it does a good job of covering the city. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 08:31, 21 May 2009 (EDT)

I think I can understand, although not necessarily agree, with the anon comments above. I think the article is well on its way. I have spent time trying to clean up abbreviations Project:Abbreviations, price ranges, etc., today. I also attempted to start to split up the Eat/Budget items, and see the mid-range currently has 19 listings (if you like, cool; if location makes better sense, perhaps someone with more expertise on Indy could take a stab). Two things would probably help: The +/-7 rule of thumb could probably be applied to sections, and 2) trying to be concise when possible Project:Tone.

Unbeknownst to most, Indy has an awful lot to offer visitors. I'd definitely split the city into districts rather than reduce the size of the article. A division along the lines of Downtown, Broad Ripple, North Side, West Side, East Side, South Side would probably make sense, although that may be a bit more districts than one would want. Maybe North and West could somehow be combined? Or create a giant Outskirts article to cover North, West, and East? None of those areas have much to see, although there is plenty to eat! --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 19:15, 16 September 2010 (EDT)

Support the above. (WT-en) Zepppep 12:54, 17 September 2010 (EDT)

I was just going to ask whether the city should be districted, when I noticed this thread. I want to detout and copy edit the entire "Drink" section, but boy is it freakin long! It looks like the discussion got some way toward a consensus to divide the city into a couple of articles in 2010 before it mysteriously petered out. What do you all think now? Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:16, 6 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

@Ikan Kekek: I've made this city guide my mission here, so I'll be happy to head up districting it. For what it's worth, I'm a lot more familiar with the city now, so I can do a more intelligible job chopping it into districts. I have also been going through and updating/correcting a lot of entries. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:37, 6 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Wonderful! Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:41, 6 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

A first attempt From what I can tell, I think the following districts would be reasonable for cutting up this article but I also have some caveats below:

• Downtown. This is a more-or-less logical place to start in any city. There are definable cultural districts and historical boundaries that make this straightfoward. I would imagine that we could include Fountain Square/Fletcher Place as well, since they are more accessible from downtown than from the Near Eastside.
• Near Eastside (and Irvington). Again, this is actually defined by NESCO with pretty clear borders.
• Far Eastside and Lawrence. This is a broad crescent along the city and what is technically an entirely separate city itself.
• The Southside, Beech Grove, and Southport. Southport is a tiny town which is not included in Indianapolis; Beech Grove is somewhat more sizable. The extreme southeast is mostly farmland and the extreme southwest is largely industrial, so there are really only travel attractions in the center of the southside leading to Greenwood.
• The Westside and Speedway. West of the White River, including the barrio, Haughville/Stringtown, Speedway (again, a technically separate city surrounded by Indianapolis), up through Eagledale/Georgetown.
• Meridian-Kessler/Rocky Ripple/Broad Ripple (and South Broad Ripple). Including the Fairgrounds, Butler's campus and the Art Museum, and cutting across a band through much of the North and Northeast side. This is a bit of a hodge-podge but I feel like it's not unreasonable that someone would travel through these parts of the city and they lead into one another pretty logically in my view.
• The Northside. Trader's Point, Zionsville, Geist, Fishers, Nora, and Castleton--all south of Carmel. These are all similar enough from 72nd Street through 96th (where the county and city end) and lead into Carmel geographically, culturally, and socio-economically. The parks and reservoirs on the Westside and in Lawrence can act as boundaries for this district.

Indianapolis is most identical to Marion County for legal reasons but some communities have not been incorporated. To the traveler, this distinction is irrelevant. The Northside and Southside immediately lead into Carmel and Greenwood respectively--the urbanization is indistinguishable. On the Westside, there are some suburbs which have grown significantly in the past 15 years, so Moorseville, Plainfield, Avon, Danville, Browsburg, and Pittsboro (starting roughly south and heading north) could all have genuine tourist appeal. The Eastside immediately drops off into farmland and the tiny community of Cumberland (Indiana). I'm not sure how we should approach this in the guide. It makes sense to me that from a traveler's perspective, it's immaterial if they are staying at a hotel on 86th Street and go a mile north and are in Carmel. I'm not 100% how to approach this. I made Cumberland (Indiana) for instance, only because it's a separate municipality and I found similar articles on very small towns which are not travel destinations for anyone (e.g. Shelbyville (Indiana). But anyone staying on the far eastside has easy access to Cumberland and vice versa. It seems like it's not helpful to break up the Indy metro area into separate articles on Beech Grove and Southport. The only exception might be Anderson (Indiana), which is sufficiently far away and has enough resources of its own. Thoughts? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:29, 21 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Justin - I don't know Indianapolis myself, and I'd wager that if you haven't received any responses to this post yet, you're not going to. I'd say proceed with the districting as you see fit. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 15:50, 16 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

@AndreCarrotflower: Thanks for writing back. I understand if you're not familiar with my hometown but can you help me understand the questions in my last paragraph? This is really vexing me... —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:17, 16 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps you can be more specific with your questions. The upshot is that you can divide things up however it makes the most sense from a travel perspective. You are not limited to following municipal boundaries. Powers ^(talk) 18:48, 16 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

@LtPowers: There are small communities which have guides here but they are not likely travel destinations in part because of their obscurity and size and in part because they are right next to major cities which might be actual travel destinations. Should these smaller guides be redirected to the larger cities? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:12, 16 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

They can be. I can't make any blanket pronouncements on whether they should be or not. Powers ^(talk) 14:47, 17 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

See here. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:54, 10 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

Hi - I took the liberty of removing the entry about the Indiana Ice, as they are currently listed in a "dormancy status" by the USHL and aren't playing until at least next season "while the organization focuses on development of a new facility and permanent home, The Lyceum Pavilion, in the Indianapolis area" (according to Wikipedia article).

Added information about Indianapolis's current ECHL hockey team, the Indy Fuel. —The preceding comment was added by 50.90.246.124 (talk • contribs)

Thanks for plunging forward and taking care of this. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:12, 23 January 2016 (UTC)Reply

• Polly's Big Slice
• Indy Late Nite
• Sandra's
• Eagle's Nest
• Tlaoli
• White Rabbit
• Mann's Grill
• Just Pizza
• More Than Just Pizza
• Pogue's Run
• Georgetown Market
• Love Handle
• bnb on Lynhurst
• rabble
• Lawrence go-kart park
• Famous tomato
• Thirsty Scholar
• La Parada

—The preceding comment was added by Koavf (talk • contribs)

More instances of {{convert}}. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:27, 18 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

In terms of quality, I think this fits well. @SelfieCity, Traveler100, AndreCarrotflower: Libertarianmoderate (talk) 23:27, 19 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Yes, it's quite a good article, and is at guide status. But a quick scan through quickly reveals that it needs work before becoming a star article. For a start, it has too many listings in my opinion (which maybe should mean districtification or some cleanup), and a lot of these don't have coordinates. If this is going to be a star article, all of the business listings in See, Do, Eat, Drink, and Sleep should have coordinates. However, the article is well-formatted, so that is a plus.

But there are some other issues as well, I'm sure, so I actually think this would make a better destination of the month at the moment, and then perhaps in the longer term become a star article. Selfie City (talk) 00:03, 20 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Indianapolis was up for DotM a while ago and ended up getting slushed. If you want a rundown of what improvements the article needs, that's a good place to start. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 00:12, 20 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

I agree that it's close but not there. :/ I've had districtifying the city as a project for years--it's such a mammoth undertaking. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:24, 3 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

I agree with the comments made above; more work is necessary before Indianapolis can be promoted to a star. All listings must have a marker and contact info, attractions must have Wikidata/Wikipedia references, and districtification is likely necessary. Yes it would be a mammoth undertaking, but the recent example of Brussels proves it can be done step by step.—The preceding comment was added by 82.132.185.65 (talk • contribs)

Yep, definitely needs work, of the kind already mentioned. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 10:27, 5 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

• Result: slushed. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 17:59, 10 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item is missing permission information and may be deleted:

• Irwin Library Butler Univ.jpg

You can see the details at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 05:52, 9 January 2022 (UTC)Reply

Not visible on the page, but anyway, should presumably be deleted from Commons. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:10, 9 January 2022 (UTC)Reply

@Ikan Kekek: I already replaced it. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:12, 9 January 2022 (UTC)Reply

Cool, thanks. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:47, 9 January 2022 (UTC)Reply

What does this article need to be featured as Dotm? What time of the year would be suitable? /Yvwv (talk) 11:00, 6 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

Re: time of year: around the Indy 500. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 14:23, 6 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

Wikivoyage:Destination of the month candidates/Slush pile#Indianapolis mentions that this city should be divided into districts. Any spontaneous ideas about districts that would make sense? /Yvwv (talk) 12:24, 2 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

My perspective is the same as above #Making districts. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:54, 2 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• The Childrens Museum of Indianapolis Welcome Center.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 17:52, 24 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

Wikidata issue, not visible here. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:30, 24 December 2022 (UTC)Reply