Talk:Vienna Voyage Tips and guide

This article was the Collaboration of the week between 11 August 2007 and 17 August 2007.

Contents

Great Work, can anybody say what is still needed here? --Franz Nahrada, hotel keeper, Vienna, www.karolinenhof.at --62.99.146.88

I've done very, very minor redit at the beginning. The article needs a lot of editorial work. It was probably done on a German windows edition, that'd explain the odd character problems. I'll see what I can do about the layout over the next few days. -- (WT-en) Nils 07:52, 15 Apr 2004 (EDT)

So, I moved this page back to Vienna from Vienna (city). I don't know if there's another Vienna, and even if there is, this one is by far the most well-known. Am I way off, here? --(WT-en) Evan 00:25, 18 May 2004 (EDT)

• Hotelindex Vienna, http://www.hotelindex.at/en/wien/index.htm Hotels, apartments and private accommodation in Vienna.

I moved this from the article itself, as it doesn't jibe with our external links guidelines.

Also see Vienna hotels guide: http://www.hotels--vienna.com Vienna Hotels, Hostels, Pensions - Guide to Vienna Austria

It'd probably be useful to mine for information, though. --(WT-en) Evan 11:55, 11 Jun 2004 (EDT)

I recommend to exchange the link http://wien.gv.at/stadtplan/ in the section "external links" through the link http://wien.gv.at/stadtplan/suche.asp?lang=en which is the english version

Guest

Can somebody identify the palace in the image I just added? Or, better yet, replace it with a better picture... (WT-en) Jpatokal 13:25, 25 Oct 2004 (EDT)

c&p from an reversed edit: WARNING: THE NEXT PARAGRAPH IS PURE BULLSHIT FOR AMUSEMENT PURPOSE ONLY!!! Vienna has never forgotten it was the capital of a large and influential empire. Its residents act as if it still were - the small doses of courtliness, the extremely polite forms of address long-forgotten in other German-speaking countries, the formal mode of dress. Vienna is a city both modern and extremely old-fashioned all at once. Like Munich, its residents are formal, but Viennese formality is an entirely different animal. Waiters address you with honorifics, a man who bumps into you on the street is half-likely to implore your pardon with a small bow, you are treated as if you were a long-lost prince or princess returning home. If you can handle this kind of luxurious treatment, Vienna is for you. NOW WAS THAT FUNNY OR WHAT ROFLS.

what exactly is so funny about that paragraph, I don´t quite understand...? (WT-en) Gryffindor 08:32, 8 Aug 2005 (EDT)

the funny thing is that its sort of true (says i, who lives there ...) (WT-en) Akalos 16:46, 20 Aug 2005 (EDT)

I don't know in which Vienna you live, but this is not true for the City I live in. Although certain things are old fasioned, the part about the treatment of tourists is definitely wrong and should be removed. (WT-en) Mihi 12:17, 3 August 2006 (EDT)

I second that. People are certainly not "more than likely" to bow if they bump into you! I actually found people in the US to be far more polite when it came to bumping into each other when I traveled there this spring. --(WT-en) Chingona 06:47, 31 July 2007 (EDT)

Is there any area in which Viennese are as polite as any other country? I travel a lot and quite frankly it's the worst I've seen in terms of courtesy to both Austrians and tourists. Grocery cashiers, rude people quite literally shoving you out of their way in the street, really clear racism, blowing smoke in your face, nonexistant customer service, blahblah. If anyone interested in going to Vienna is reading this take my suggestion and go elsewhere in Austria, it's a beautiful country filled with wonderful people (with exceptions as always) and beautiful scenery- FOR THE MOST PART. Avoid Vienna if you're used to Eastern or Western courtesy. if you're dutch you're fine. :p 66.25.14.195 23:00, 18 December 2008 (EST)

This page has lots of content, but much of it is just a godawful mess. Anybody want to take a sharp editorial pen to it? (WT-en) Jpatokal 06:40, 16 Mar 2005 (EST)

How about a dozen sharp editorial pens? :) It's amazing how much editing can be done to an article by how many editors without fundamentally altering the underlying content. - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 19:17, 14 June 2006 (EDT)

Any idea why this is happening today? My guess is that it's some blog posting that points to this article. It's unusual that 99% of the edits were from registered users, though. --(WT-en) Evan 19:21, 14 June 2006 (EDT)

Is there a full moon? Did anyone respond to Maj's questions about where they all came from? - (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 20:23, 14 June 2006 (EDT)

I don't mind having a go at it. I was in Vienna on holiday a couple of weeks ago - it was fantastic - so I've got some information and experiences floating around inside my head which I could use to try and improve the article a bit. However, I'm not entirely sure what to do about the first part...

(WT-en) VincentVega 16:12, 29 Jul 2005 (EDT)

One paragraph states that, "Outside the 'belt', there's the Hundertwasser House, the Hundertwasser Kunsthaus, the Donauturm Tower, and... not much more of interest."

The bold part of the sentence is totally wrong. Outside the belt there are almost all Heurige, and the Wienerwald, which to many Viennese are more important than the inner city and offer many options of spending evenings, going hiking in the woods, etc. I suggest reconsidering the "outer-belt" part --131.130.33.114

Plunge forward. -- (WT-en) Colin 17:17, 25 Nov 2005 (EST)

I don’t know who wrote this article but it’s amazing. It was very helpful, informative and I actually used many advices from the article. That article saved me time and money on my travel. Thank you many times :) All the best 64.56.235.16 11:24, 28 April 2006 (EDT)

You're welcome -- a lot of the info as originally written is many years old, given it was meant for a travel guidebook that was going to be published in 2000, but I'm glad you could use it! :) (WT-en) Bittergirldotcom

OK, I've been dancing around this subject for a while now, but these apartment listings have sliped down the slope. Maybe this is a good set of examples to try and hash out a (clearer?) policy... (WT-en) Maj 11:37, 4 August 2006 (EDT)

Wow. I'm not sure how to do this objectively, but I notice jordan's palace is listed twice (once with an SEO-style link), contains lots of cross-links from it's website (bad sign), yet rents only four apartments. Who has time to spam so much for four apartments? -- (WT-en) Colin 13:46, 4 August 2006 (EDT)

• Central Apartments Vienna http://www.central-apartments-vienna.com: 4-star holiday and vacation apartments in prime location in the city centre of Vienna - Austria. Family friendly holiday and business apartments offered as studio or 1-bedroom apartments for your accommodation within walking distance to major tourist attractions. Telephone/Fax:+43 1 8777191, e-mail: [email protected]

• Vienna Apartments, http://www.vienna-apartments.at Apartments in the heart of Vienna.

• Vienna Center Apartment**** http://www.vienna-center-apartment.at. modern apartment for 4 - 6 people, 3 separate rooms in the very center of vienna city at stephanslpatz; totally renovated and fully equiped 2005, kitchen & bathroom + tube, cable-tv & wlan-internet access from 120€/night, perfekt accommodation for business and holiday, Fax:+43 1 9251599, e-mail: [email protected] .

Kent County is in central

• 185 controlled apartments in Vienna, Apartment Owner Association of Vienna. http://www.apartmentservice.at

• Accommodation Vienna http://www.accommodationvienna.com Portfolio of private accommodations in Vienna, near to subway. Good prices.

• Apartment Vienna, Choose your holiday home from a portfolio of private apartments in Vienna. http://www.apartmentvienna.biz

• Flat / apartment in Vienna, Apartments and hotels in Vienna. http://www.dwellan.com/at/accommodation-holiday-apartment-vienna.html

• Holiday Vienna http://www.viennaholiday.at Nice holiday homes in Vienna. Fully equipped apartments - englisch website.

• Vienna Apartments, Exclusive Apartments in Vienna. http://www.viennaapartments.at

• Vienna Apartments Rental, http://www.vienna-apartments-rental.info Praterstrasse 76, 1020 Vienna. Budget Apartment near the City Center. Direct Access to U1 (Praterstern) railway S1,S2,S3 & tramways O + N. Sat-TV, CD-Player, full kitchen incl. Microwave, big Bathroom.

• Vienna Citycenter Apartments, inexpensive 4 room apartments, accommodation for your vacation in Vienna. http://www.jordanspalace.com

• ViennaCityFlats http://www.viennacityflats.at. Apartments in the very city centre of vienna; new kitchen & bathroom, cable-tv & wlan-internet access from 95€/night.

• Vienna Apartments http://www.vho.at/hotels/hotellist.apartments.vienna.en.html List of Apartments in Vienna;

can someone look up the adress of havelca and altwien? --201.231.137.198

see Guide to Cafes in Vienna: http://www.tourmycountry.com/austria/cafesvienna.htm

I made a new translation. --80.109.17.241 16:48, 20 May 2007 (EDT)

I rolled back the addition of the following text. I think there may be some value in mentioning this issue, but it needs to be reworded. (WT-en) Maj 17:14, 20 December 2006 (EST)

While violent hate-crime very rare, Vienna is the European city with the highest volume of racist graphitti. There is no major street free of calls to deport or kill black people[1]. For a large part of the population being of african heritage is equivalent with being a drug dealer.

This is quite simply BS. I live in Vienna. This is clearly not how the vast majority of people think. 84.112.111.89 12:13, 1 July 2007 (EDT)

Changed to be more factual. There are some bigots everywhere, although it is also important that people know that, I do not feel there is reason to emphisize this as it is sadly normal and in no way limited to Vienna. More important is the few actual attacks that have occured, including a few police beatings of Western and African black people. (WT-en) Cire 09:20, 17 February 2010 (EST)

I removed the following as it doesn't fit our Project:External links policy, but it's a good source for listings to add to the guide. (WT-en) Maj 17:20, 20 December 2006 (EST)

See www.helge.at/wlan/ for a list of free WLAN hotspots offering internet connection in Vienna.

Note this source of information on Vienna that could be useful for international tourists and visitors of the city. Might provide useful bits for this site, too.

Highlights of Vienna www.wienkultur.info

The airport transfers page is bad. It seems to center around going to the city, but not back towards airport. (Theres a big difference in terms of taking taxi due to the Schwechat tariff situation). Also excludes the CAT+CAB option which could be great value. Also excludes REDCAB which is a nice flat rate. I dont know how to edit very well tho...

It seems the Taxi info is wrong. web pages for tourists rip people off for large amounts. There are plenty of Taxi companies who charge 26, 27, 28 Euro for the trip from the City (regardless where) to the airport or vice versa. Also, the cost of public transport went up last month. The page needs updating 84.112.111.89 12:17, 1 July 2007 (EDT)

Please feel free to plunge forward and update. Furthermore, if you are interested to become a regular contributor, you might find the articles listed on this page helpful: Project:Manual of style. Take it easy. (WT-en) WindHorse 12:28, 1 July 2007 (EDT)

This guide seems to be getting pretty long, and the list of attractions is huuuuuuge - which is fantastic. So, in my opinion, breaking this up into districts would make this guide easier to find your way around. Any thoughts? I think it would be great to get a consensus going before any work is done, so please discuss below! -- (WT-en) Tim (writeme!) 14:14, 1 July 2007 (EDT)

That might be very useful, but because all the really important stuff for travelers is in the Altstadt I'd suggest figuring out what the districts are then make the "Vienna" guide pertain to the Altstadt. Just a suggestion, and I'm not sure I'd buy it. -- (WT-en) Sapphire • (Talk) • 04:16, 11 August 2007 (EDT)

Actually, now I'm not sure. Using my scalpel, I've realized a lot of stuff was crap that was repeated multiple times. I think I've trimmed somewhere around 10,000 bytes of useless info from the article. This should be a useful, relevant, and wieldy guide by the time the CotW is up. -- (WT-en) Sapphire • (Talk) • 04:15, 13 August 2007 (EDT)

I think the best thing is to make districts, but to make various quarters within the central Wien 1010 area districts of their own. Some standard guidebooks already do this. I may make a start on this after allowing for discussion. (WT-en) Sailsetter 11:35, 11 August 2008 (EDT)

I do agree that Vienna would deserve districts. The length here is a little unwieldy for one article. A quick look over, though, and it seems most attractions are located in the Altstadt (Eat and Sleep are pretty spread out though). Maybe it's time. I imagine if people start putting in some effort to districtize, a lot more attractions, hotels, and restaurants might pop up, too. If there's interest and I have time, I might compile a couple test pages to see how lopsided it would be. I'd love some more discussion on this. (WT-en) hokiesvt 08:19, 18 March 2009 (EDT)

I agree to the districtification, was just going to propose that. Someone here who knows the city well? (WT-en) Ypsilon 07:42, 31 July 2009 (EDT)

Prices in Bratislava are one fifth of Vienna's? Prices of what? I think that they are similar.

To me it was like one third, I bought a quarter pizza slice in vienna for 2.80 and in bratislava it was 1 euro. Also one bar of chocolate, bananas and a bottle of coke cost me a whopping 5 euro, in bratislava I left the grocery with a bag full of food at approx the same amount of money. 5 euros and something cents.

As for the section - train to bratislava- I wrote down the information from the page, but heard in agony at the counter that also the "einzelfahrschein" one way ticket was 14 euro. An outrageous price which made me run to eurolines at erdgasse and take the bus at vienna's regular tarif 6 euro. What a difference, but to sum it al up I quite sure the staff understood me correctly as I asked it twice and in german. Also 14 euro for a one way ticket, is that true?? If so we should warn others--(WT-en) Damian 09:40, 3 December 2009 (EST)

I have just posted on the original authors wikipedia talk page asking them to upload the .svg for http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Metro_de_Vienne_correspondances.png, so we can make a few edits to it. We need the writing at the top in English, and the intermediate station names need adding. -- (WT-en) Tim (writeme!) 03:59, 11 August 2007 (EDT)

I have begun creating a new map, albeit it is solely a U-Bahn map. It should be done in a couple days. -- (WT-en) Sapphire • (Talk) • 18:07, 28 August 2007 (EDT)

I studied abroad in Vienna all summer and lived at the Benediktushaus, which is 6a Freyung in the first district I believe, PERFECT location, and It's a working monastary/bed and (really good) breakfast that is very cheap, but to sleep boy/girl in a room together you need a marriage license.

On the topic public transportation expenses, I discovered very quickly that if you have accommodation in the city centre, you can easily walk to all main attractions. It is not a stone throw away, but also not miles so that you have to take the metro for 17 stops. Places like stephans dom, hundertwasserhaus and schonbrunn palace are within walking distance. I was almost about to waste 10 euro on the 48 hour travel pass. As I remained in the city centre all 2 days of staying, I saved myself a tenner. Maybe we can add it to the page to choose wisely for the card if you are on a tight budget. --(WT-en) Damian 09:50, 3 December 2009 (EST)

The paternoster was replaced with a normal elevator some weeks ago :(

I deleted the listing. (WT-en) Sailsetter 18:46, 8 July 2008 (EDT)

Could I make a plea for people to always include the district (e.g. 1010 for the central district) in Vienna listings, and to add them where necessary if they know them? This information is as important as including arrondissements for Paris. (WT-en) Sailsetter 09:42, 8 July 2008 (EDT)

I took the liberty of explaining this, selecting the fomat that is used of street signs as it is the shortest, and brought it to the start of the orientation section. Please help by formating addresses in this consistant form. (WT-en) Cire 09:15, 17 February 2010 (EST)

I've revised the Stephansdom listing to make that the primary name, since that's how it's usually referred to even in English. (WT-en) Sailsetter 11:04, 9 July 2008 (EDT)

I've removed the reference to "Julie Delpy's Euro-love movie" from the list of films in which the Prater's ferris wheel appears since apparently there's no movie of that name -- at least imdb.com doesn't list it that I could find. If anyone wants to add it back, please verify the film's title. (WT-en) Sailsetter 10:11, 19 July 2008 (EDT)

The revision of 29 August 2008 adding a Sleep listing for City Apartments Vienna for some reason totally messed up the formatting of that section -- all the Mid-range listings following it were mushed together instead of being on separate lines, and there were asterisks instead boxes. It looked terrible. I couldn't figure out why it looked that way, and the only way I could find to fix it was to delete that listing, so I did. I have no objection to the listing, but if the person who added it wants to put it back, please be sure that the formatting is correct. (WT-en) Sailsetter 19:45, 11 September 2008 (EDT)

• This usually happens when you miss the closing tag. The software should give a clearer warning for this... (WT-en) Jpatokal 01:43, 9 October 2008 (EDT)

Hi. There's a couple of images not appearing properly in the Vienna article. Can someone please assist? --(WT-en) MarinaK 20:48, 7 October 2008 (EDT)MarinaK.

Done. (WT-en) Jpatokal 03:30, 8 October 2008 (EDT)

Hi Jani. Thanks, but they are still not appearing on my computer, right hand side near the Churches section. Could it be my computer? Thanks. --(WT-en) MarinaK 21:26, 8 October 2008 (EDT)MarinaK.

I'm still getting this thing where the first time I look at a page I get an earlier version, and it's not because I haven't cleared my cache, because I did before I logged on to Wikivoyage, but using the browser refresh button brings up the new version. In fact, it happened on this very page just before I wrote this. So try refresh (or whatever it's called on your browser that reloads the page.) But I thought this was supposed to be fixed. (WT-en) Sailsetter 11:19, 9 October 2008 (EDT)

Hi. I deleted this reference- It is hard to get pingas' as it is a reference to drugs (ecstasy). --(WT-en) MarinaK 14:04, 9 October 2008 (EDT)MarinaK

I've changed 1st cent. bce to 1st cent. ce. Though the province of Pannonia (the part of modern Austria where Vienna is) was incorporated by the Romans in the 1st cent. bce, inscriptional evidence shows that the garrison at Vindobona wasn't established until the first cent. ce (see e.g. The Oxford Classical Dictionary entry.) (WT-en) Sailsetter 17:52, 13 November 2008 (EST)

A huge portion of this article is copied verbatim from the Lonely Planet Vienna guide. I am sitting with the book at my side and many, many entries are copied word for word. Is this not a problem?

That would indeed be a problem, can you give us and example of two or three sections that have been copied verbatim? --(WT-en) Stefan (sertmann) ^Talk 05:40, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

Also, what edition (year)? --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 15:16, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

I owe you and all the contributors to this article a massive apology. Now that I'm at home, I just hauled out the book to find the pieces that I could've sworn I'd just read earlier that morning in the guidebook, and the language which leapt out at me must have actually reminded me of... this article, which I had read earlier, and NOT the guidebook. Certainly they both cover the same territory, since they're both about, you know, Vienna. I'm truly sorry for any heart attacks/angst my completely baseless (and sleep-deprived, if that's any defense) accusation may have caused. If it's any consolation, there are some great turns of phrase in here that stuck with me long enough to cause me to to write my weak flame. I guess I should be happy I don't have an account on here to link me to my ridiculous comments!

Thank you for returning and letting everyone know. Do you have anything to add to Wikivoyage from your trip? --(WT-en) inas 00:08, 25 September 2009 (EDT)

I wonder whether ticket validation is required from the airport to Vienna downtown if riding by S-Bahn? The current listing is unclear on that, and in the train station in the airport I couldn't find evidence for validation required. However, as travelers frequently have a very limited time (and enegry) when riding from the airport, we'd better add clarity on this in the article.

Please help? --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 19:26, 3 February 2010 (EST)

Yes technically tickets have to be validated if they have not been automatically, and purchased before boarding. My personal experience (and Viennese common knowledge) say conductors don't ever actually charge a penatly and are happy to sell you a ticket or validate yours for you. There are now additional ticket machines on the platform itsself as well as on the way to it from arrivals, to make it so people don't miss trains while waiting to buy tickets. (WT-en) Cire 09:48, 17 February 2010 (EST)

So can we add this piece also? "Conductors are happy to sell you a ticket or validate yours for you" --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 10:30, 17 February 2010 (EST)

Thing is that there is a 1 in 1000 chance that you'll catch a conductor on a bad day, they're racist, etc. and that they DO charge you a fine which is €65-95. The English language page of the ÖBB site (missing current information): [2]. I guess from my point of view I would be fine with adding that since it applies to the vast majority of cases, and forgeiners can otherwise always plead ignorance or just not pay the fine as no one is going to come after them back home. --(WT-en) Cire 06:47, 18 February 2010 (EST)

Thanks for the edit adding that to the article! --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 12:08, 21 February 2010 (EST)

• tupalo.com/en/vienna/
• www.restauranttester.at/
• www.qype.co.uk

--(WT-en) DenisYurkin 12:47, 7 February 2010 (EST)

• http://www.7tm.at/: shops in 7th district

moved from User talk:(WT-en) Cire

Cire, the important point on Vienna tax refund is that for C terminal, you not only have to ring for an officer, but also to ride to a different terminal by bus for tax refund office and return back to C--because C itself doesn't have tax refund office. However, this doesn't apply to any other terminal--so all the above should be specific only to C. Could you change your wording to include that, or should I? --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 10:17, 17 February 2010 (EST)

How is it now? Thanks for the clearity. --(WT-en) Cire 10:21, 17 February 2010 (EST)

Thanks, it looks better now. I will check whether we lost anything else in your edit--will let you know. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 11:15, 17 February 2010 (EST)

There's one more thing that is different from 'as intended' now:

If (you tell them that) any applicable purchases are in your hand luggage you have to visit another office by the gates

The original point was to suggest telling custom officers that all the purchases are in checked luggage, not in hand luggage--which helps to avoid visiting another customs office near the gates (which is extra hassle and time spent). How can we reflect that idea in the current writing? --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 05:59, 18 February 2010 (EST)

Thats exactly how I understood it. The (you tell them that) does indeed say that. Lying to customs is illegal, could land you in jail or make you miss your flight and no matter how innocent the case may be, even this phrase is probablly against policy. Personally I am fine with it as is, since its not promoting it rather just stating the case. --(WT-en) Cire 06:31, 18 February 2010 (EST)

So can we re-write this piece to make it more clear that it saves time (though maybe illegal) to say that everything is in checked luggage? The current edition is too implicit on this, at least from my non-native-speaker point of view. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 06:44, 18 February 2010 (EST)

Definatley can see how that could be too subtle. I'll gave it another shot. --(WT-en) Cire 07:18, 18 February 2010 (EST)

It's nearly perfect now, thanks for that! --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 07:28, 18 February 2010 (EST)

moved from User talk:(WT-en) Cire

Cire, what did you mean by this? [3] Alternatively the ÖBB sell point-to-point tickets _vaild not valid for transfer_. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 11:16, 17 February 2010 (EST)

For the record: fixed in this edit: [4]. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 16:54, 24 February 2010 (EST)

Re this edit [5]:

1. By general priority: instead of In the order of preference for an average traveler: -- again, I'm not native speaker, but By general priority sound too unclear / ambiguous for me. Can we preserve the original clarity while still making the phrase as short as yours?
2. The normal S-Bahn ... headed towards 'Florisdorf' or 'Südbahnhof (Ost)' go to Wien-Mitte--can we put the destination (Wien-Mitte) as early in the sentence as possible (maybe the equally important "the cheapest and nearly the fastest option." should also go to the beginning of descriprion), while putting the rest towards the end?
3. Follow train and S-logo signs from arrivals, its seperate platform just past the CAT platform.--keeping the essence of this would be helpful for a first-time visitor. Can we find a way to preserve the most important part of this?
4. Departs at :05 and :35 past the hour.: and again, for a non-native speaker, "past the hour" doesn't give a clear idea of "applies to every hour".
5. --otherwise S-Bahn does the job just right. -- can we keep an idea of this removed piece more explicitly than in your above edition?
6. Duty-free: Even for a cursory tour, plan at least 1 hour.--not sure it's a good idea to remove it; at least until we find a better way to give an idea of size and/or to compare duty-free shops between different cities, see Pub#how_to_rate_size_of_duty-free_shops.

--(WT-en) DenisYurkin 16:37, 24 February 2010 (EST)

1. Yes, I think its clear. Its understandable from that train being first that is the most common and best transportation.

You mean "these are the cheapest and nearly the fastest option" helps to understand that? But it's deep in the prose, and it's not on the surface for a reading-on-the-go. Maybe change to a short "By preference:" ? And whatever phrase we choose, can we put it after a paragraph break, again to help reader who scans an article for a right choice? --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 16:45, 26 February 2010 (EST)

2. Good idea. + more info on direction Südbahnhof as there are also trains headed to the countryside from the airport--would not want :people getting on such outbound trains.

Thanks for addition. I'm only not sure it's very clear what is meant: "(The train makes a huge loop before getting to Südbahnhof, transfer at 'Rennweg')". Does it apply only to "trains heading to Südbahnhof (Ost)"? And what's "transfer at 'Rennweg'" is al about? (I'm not an expert in Vienna, that's why I'm asking--although an average reader is not as well. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 16:45, 26 February 2010 (EST)

3. Sure. There is a new way of getting there signed out the airport more clearly (along with the monitors in the arrivals area) where you go outside and don't pass the CAT, so that could be equally as misleading. Hence the removal, tried to include some info.

I'm not sure I understood this comment, but the edit [6] definitely helps, thanks! --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 16:45, 26 February 2010 (EST)

4. + every. Its a common use in Central Europe for scheduals, but clearity is indeed needed for tourists. Do you think thats clear enough now?

It's definitely better now; I'm not sure I can propose any better phrasing. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 16:45, 26 February 2010 (EST)

5. I see where you are going. It is the biggest caboodle in Vienna and indeed should not be encoraged. How about something like this?

Yes, I meant to stress that it's over-advertised. I'm not sure I understand caboodle in this context, though :-) --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 16:45, 26 February 2010 (EST)

6. Don't know that much about duty free shopping. It does not seem like an unordinate amount of stores to me and it seems like everyone would have a unique idea of how much time they wanted to shop, etc. Feel free to restore that sentance if you feel otherwise, as said, don't know much about it. Prehaps a sentance describing variety, what makes it different from other duty free shopping areas would be useful.--(WT-en) Cire 09:57, 26 February 2010 (EST)

Restored, at least until someone comes up with any better description of variety and/or size--I'm not sure I have enough details from my only visit, which was quite short. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 16:45, 26 February 2010 (EST)

Everything look okay and clear on 1. and 2. ? [7] --(WT-en) Cire 17:56, 26 February 2010 (EST)

1. is definitely fine, thanks :-)

2. is better, but for a non-resident there are still few questions.

• "For 'Südbahnhod' or 'Meidling'" means "if your final destination is near Südbahnhod or Meidling", right? Then maybe we could state that more clear, like this: "If you travel to 'Südbahnhod' or 'Meidling', transfer at 'Rennweg' to a train in the opposite direction (as S7 trains make 50 minute loop before arriving in Südbahnhof)"?
• can we remove S7, S2 and RSB7 from the first sentence, as they make reading it more difficult, and put them to some later details, like into "Take any train headed towards ..."? So that the first sentence read as easily as something like "The normal commuter railway (called S-Bahn in Austria) go to Wien-Mitte, as well as stopping at other useful hub stations including direct connection to every subway line in the city and numerous trams and trains."

I've also added a piece to clarify on conductors, but please feel free to make it shorter if it could keep clarity. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 09:20, 6 March 2010 (EST)

Is there a reason for listing all the stops of the U-bahn? I would like to improve clarity by write sub-sections for each mode of public transportation. Descriptions of induvidual lines seem like they should be saved for districtification. --(WT-en) Cire 11:25, 26 February 2010 (EST)

Vienna desperately needs maps! Public Transport, Districts, Map of Innerestadt, etc.--(WT-en) Cire 19:29, 26 February 2010 (EST)

Are you planning to districtify Vienna? If so, I will try to help with drawing a districts map. Looking at the underground train system map, it will be very hard to draw that without breaching copyright. Rather as it is with London. --(WT-en) Burmesedays 20:23, 26 February 2010 (EST)

This could well be the number 1 candidate for districtification anywhere on Wikivoyage. The article is massive (double the size of Paris for example) and there is a lot of detail already present. The content is excellent, and it would be great if someone could come up with a travel districts scheme.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 02:28, 27 February 2010 (EST)

Seems to me that there is just too much info here. Much is not even about Getting In but about getting out. So much text about ticket options may put people off from wanting to scroll further down the page. (WT-en) Shep 01:23, 27 February 2010 (EST)

Indeed. There is a discussion about the size of the Get in section above. --(WT-en) Burmesedays 02:09, 27 February 2010 (EST)

Obviously as (WT-en) Burmesedays stated above, Vienna is indeed the number 1 candidate for distrification--only the China and Japan pages are longer. There is also a reason why Vienna hasn't been districitified: there's no good way to do it. I would stick to the regular 23 districts certain ones could have a share a single article, though I couldn't think of which ones though other than maybe 7.&8., 15.&16., 17.&18. It might just be easier to keep them all seperate as they all have their own infastructure seperately including each their own history museum, cultural center, etc. Adresses are district based. This is also how most information is found online. I realize that is a ton of district articles for such a small city. What makes Vienna different is that all the districs are very urban, at least each have an urban core, and there are no other suburbs to speak of, making Vienna a very compact city. There doesn't seem to be anyone else active to who really farmillar with this city. I would be prepaired to write certain articles (2., 23.) but without maps and more contributors its hopeless. --(WT-en) Cire 07:04, 27 February 2010 (EST)

I will certainly be happy to help with maps, but as I have been to Vienna only once in my life, I am afraid that would be the extent of my specific input. When you first look at districtification I know it seems like a gargantuan task. It can be done very successfully though. There were only about 4 or 5 users involved in the London project, and that was a truly huge and complicated task. For some inspiration, you might want to look at the London districtification discussions which have their very own talk page here (the final districtification discussion starts at header "Districts 2"). Whilst understanding your point about the urban nature of Vienna, my first my first reaction is that 23 districts is too many. We managed to do inner and central London with 22 districts, and I guess that is a fairly vast area compared to Vienna. Districts with a very different nature were successfully combined. Might I suggest you give some serious thought to coming up with a list of districts (they do not need to follow existing administrative boundaries), and we can at least get the discussion rolling?

Finally, I do not think writing the articles should be a barrier. As long as the articles are created and the exisitng listings moved to the correct article, then they can grow over time.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 08:24, 27 February 2010 (EST)

In my experience, the most difficult task in every districtification project is to reach a consensus on which districts to choose, and where specifically each disctrict border should go--especially when there is no regular local experts (which is not the case for Vienna, where we have Cire :-) ) When agreement on districts is reached, moving content to district articles is much easier, and can be done as a CotM. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 10:03, 27 February 2010 (EST)

The first basic rule of thumb in creating districts is that each district should be able to support a good travel article, with all the standard sections filled out. The second rule is that we don't want to wind up with loads of empty district articles.

For some easier to read examples of districts discussions (London was extremely complicated), look at Talk:Edinburgh#Districtification or Talk:Washington,_D.C./Districts_discussion#Comprehensive_districts_proposal. This discussion is also pretty interesting, judging by which, Vienna could potentially wind up with something like the number of districts that Chicago has (21).

But Vienna obviously doesn't yet have nearly as much content as Chicago, so it wouldn't be good to start with 23 districts, even if you think that is where we should eventually wind up. It can be quite useful to start off with a rougher districts scheme, with amalgamations like "West Vienna," and then break it down further as more content gets added.

Lastly, one knowledgeable contributor + a mapmaker is definitely enough on Wikivoyage to get a good "districtification" job done ;) --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 11:44, 27 February 2010 (EST)

Nice to see so much response. Also very interesting to read other experiences. I think Vienna will be rather straight forward, especially if we were ready to make the jump to 23 districts at once. To do it otherwise I have no clue how you would lump districts together as an intermediate step as very few have both geogephic and topical cohearance. Doing 1, 2, 3, 4+5, 6, 7+8, 9, 10+11, 12+13+23, 14+15+16, 17+18+19, 21+22 would result in 12 articles albet very odd ones. It seems to me just as easy to write more in 23 clear articles than 12 where you're not quite sure what they're about and why they're even a single article, only with the plan to pull it out of the muck later. Prehaps I am being a bit to Viennese but I really can't see many combinations; districts play a big role in this city. In terms of districtifacation I think we are lucky in that Vienna, as there are very defined districts so no need to battle over where to draw borders making maps. Any Viennese knows which district she's in at any given moment, there's no doubting that the 23 districts administrations actions strongly reflect their residents values, so I think 23 articles maybe appropriate. Good to know that selecting the districts is the worst part. Size-wise one article per-district does indeed seem regular for an urban city this size. For now I (and I hope others) will try to beef up the main article so that it can later be districtized with plenty of content. --(WT-en) Cire 22:20, 27 February 2010 (EST)

I'm more optimistic about amalgamated district articles, which of course can be broken into parts when we have the content to do so. For a good example of an article covering disparate areas, see Chicago/Southwest Side (although that article will not ever be broken into parts, as there isn't a reason to do so). It's just a matter of providing separate understand information for each distinct district (or neighborhood in the Chicago example), and then filling the later sections with listings. Central districts are probably safe to create right away, while the outer districts should be easy to group into articles like Vienna/West. Ultimately, I think a districts scheme using one article per Viennese district could make a lot of sense—I just don't want us to have a guide languishing with 10+ empty articles before we build up enough content, as that tends to turn off future contributors and readers, in my experience. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 00:02, 28 February 2010 (EST)

A somewhat messy example is Tokyo, which coincidentally is composed of precisely 23 wards. However, some of the outer wards without much in the way of tourism are bundled together into single articles (five wards in Eastern Tokyo, for example), and some of the busiest inner wards have been subdivided still further (Minato) because one single article would be a mess! The nice thing about both Tokyo's wards and Vienna's districts is that it'll be very easy to split up multidistrict articles later if it becomes necessary. -- (WT-en) D. Guillaime 15:26, 28 February 2010 (EST)

I now indeed see the benifit of lumping districts together for now. Looking at the article there still isn't very much content outside of the cliché tourist sites in the center and resturaunts clustered around certain areas. My suggestion for articles:

Center:

• Innere Stadt(1)

East:

• Leopoldstadt(2) & Brigettenau(20)
• Florisdorf(21) & Donaustadt(22)

South:

• Landstraße(3) & Simmering(11)
• Wieden(4), Margareten(5) & Simmering(10)

West:

• Mariahilf(6) could also go to Wieden-Margareten or possibly Neubau-Josephstadt although doesn't fit with either Alsergrund or Simmering, at all.
• Neubau(7) & Josephstadt(8) & Alsergrund(9)
• Meidling(12), Liesing(23) & Heitzing (13)
• Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus(15), Ottakring(16) & Penzing(14)
• Hernals(17), Währing(18) & Döbling(19)--(WT-en) Cire 18:58, 2 March 2010 (EST)

I agree with (WT-en) Cire to some extent, but taking the characteristic of different areas into account, I would like to see South and West being re-grouped. 4,5 and 12 are very close from their "look and feel", but quite different to 13. I would group 10 and the eastern part of 23 (eastern of the Südbahn) and 13+western part of 23. If you do not like to split political districts, you could also group this way: (3,4,5,12)(11,10)(13,23).

It's more difficult with the outer western disctricts (14-19), though. From my gut feeling, the inner parts (mainly between Gürtel and Vorortelinie) could be one group and the oute parts the other group. That, of course, has the disadvantage of a more difficult mapping between logical and political districts. So, if this is not wanted, I would go for 14-16 and 17-19, although the outer parts of 17 and some parts of 16 (Wilhelminenberg) definitely better fit to 18 annd 19 (e.g., among others, in terms of house prices).

So, my favorite would be the following 9 districts:

Center:

• Innere Stadt(1)

East:

• Inner East: Leopoldstadt(2) & Brigettenau(20)
• Outer East: Florisdorf(21) & Donaustadt(22)

South:

• Inner South: Landstraße(3), Wieden(4), Margareten(5), Meidling(12)
• Outer South: Favoriten(10), Simmering(11), Liesing (23)

West:

• Inner West: Mariahilf(6), Neubau(7), Josephstadt(8), Alsergrund(9)
• Outer West South: Hietzing(13), maybe including that part of Liesing(23) that is called "Mauer" and is south of 13 and west of Südbahn.
• Outer West Middle: Penzing(14), Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus(15), Ottakring(16)
• Outer West North: Hernals(17), Währing(18) & Döbling(19)

I live in Vienna since ever (44 years now), but that does not qualify me any futher than someone else, its just to let you know from what viewpoint I may see the things. In particular, I am probably not qualified to look at Vienna from the tourist point of view, so take that as a suggestion and feel free to do whatever you like. --KMG 13:20, 12 April 2011 [MEST]

This looks fine to me. One question: will we have enough content in Outer West to justify splitting it in three articles? If not, I suggest to merge them into one for now, reducing the number of districts to seven. I am ready to start districtification but would like to have some more comments first, --(WT-en) ClausHansen 09:36, 15 May 2011 (EDT)

Are there really no other comments to KMG's one month old suggestion above?, --(WT-en) ClausHansen 14:46, 16 May 2011 (EDT)

Obviously this has beeen plunged forward on, great to see it finally being taken on! I am personally not able to get that majorly involved right now. It seems like it might make sense just to name the articles by the district names, as the not-so-cardinal directions are not very exact.

I still think this district lumping is silly. There are just too many that don't make sense (georgraphically: Landstraße + Meidling!, I can't image someone would visit both Simmering + Liesing at once, etc.). The article hasn't been changing very fast, the district articles are non-existant and there need to be maps. I'm just confused because I don't see any organization of this stuff. Not trying to be a nay-sayer, but just point out why this has been done. (WT-en) Cire 15:05, 26 May 2011 (EDT)

The get in section of this article is very, very unwieldy and almost unreadable. I strongly think it needs culling somehow. It is longer than the whole article for some important cities. I will not attempt that as I know nothing about Vienna, but I hope somebody takes the axe to it. Some suggestions:

• Take out all the detail about Bratislava airport and just link to that section in the Bratislava article.
• All that bus detail, country by country is just scary! Is this really useful? Can it not be summarised? Lots of it would seem to belong in Austria to me, rather than Vienna.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 07:02, 13 February 2010 (EST)

Much of that is my doing, yes the bus and train detail is important, for budget travelers and people going to more remote places especially because much of it is nowhere else online, but I agree it is way too long. The fact of the matter is that there is a slew of different tickets on offer and substatial price differences. I don't know how else to summarize it, but will try to work on that. I realize that this is not a price comparison site. Some of the bus and train info could be put in the Austria article, but that actually links to the Vienna article currently as that is where the vast majority of buses go and train leave and are ticketed to or via. Info on Bratislava Airport seems minimal and relevant to me, the transfer info is only relevant in the Vienna section. --(WT-en) Cire 09:35, 17 February 2010 (EST)

Thanks for the response Cire, and I would add that it is evident that a large amount of good work has been done here and kudos to you for that. Please do think about how the bus info might be better summarised. I will too and let you know if I have a eureka moment :). The Vienna article is great but the get in section a little overwhelming in its current format. --(WT-en) Burmesedays 11:59, 17 February 2010 (EST)

What's wrong with having GetIn that detailed? As long as Vienna will be districtified sooner or later, the main artlice's length will be somewhat reduced. And if that's still a problem--maybe we should separate it into a standalone article "Getting in to Vienna" ;-) ? --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 13:04, 17 February 2010 (EST)

There seems to be an established principle at WT that nothing should be too long. We limit the numbers of cities and ODs described in country and region articles, hotel listings in a city article are pruned when there are too many etc. I think the same princple should apply for Get in. Describing every route in to a major city or country, complete with operators, schedules etc, is not desirable in my opinion as it overwhelms the rest of the article. Others may disagree, of course.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 06:10, 18 February 2010 (EST)

If anyone finds other article that cover a large amount of information but with better organization it would be great to have them as examples for ideas. Every other article that I can find just lists bus companies but to list 2-3 dozen bus companies with destinations seems less useful. --(WT-en) Cire 07:59, 18 February 2010 (EST)

You might find Chicago useful.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 08:04, 18 February 2010 (EST)

Interesting as I wrote/updated a good part of Chicago#Get_in. The bus table is also my doing. Thanks. Things there are more straight-forward with only a fraction of the mass transport (train and bus) compared to what is comming into Vienna, I will think about how to simplify like that. --(WT-en) Cire 08:34, 18 February 2010 (EST)

There seems to be an established principle at WT that nothing should be too long

I doubt very much that we should sacrifice useful content only for the sake of keeping articles short enough. As long as there's no space for conciseness, and the content is maintainable, I see no reasons for trimming it.

(I admit I'm not very much a target audience of the section in question, but the principle in general sounds a wrong direction for WT at all).

--(WT-en) DenisYurkin 16:03, 19 February 2010 (EST)

We do sacrifice useful content all the time. Everytime a list of restaurants or hotels is pruned, that is exactly what we do. And I think it is desirable to keep articles to a manageable size so that users will actually read them, and not get lost in mass of text.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 02:25, 27 February 2010 (EST)

Please help to move relevant information to Austria and link to it as needed. Suggestions of good example transportation hub city articles still sought. --(WT-en) Cire 11:20, 26 February 2010 (EST)

Looking around, I cannot find any city articles which have quite the amount of the Get in detail as this one does. So I am not sure there are any such examples. I still think the bus information could be tabulated. --(WT-en) Burmesedays 02:25, 27 February 2010 (EST)

I'm still very new to Wikivoyage, so I don't know if there are similar situations in other articles for other sorts of listings, but would it be thinkable as Denis suggested to create an external 'Vienna_GetIn' or 'Transportation in Central Europe' or even 'Coach Travel in Europe' travel topic page where buses and tickets could remain listed? Tabulating the section into a list of a couple dozen bus companies without any comparison and deleting information on the very complicated ticketing systems that the railways expect people to understand seems equally as disorienting, but indeed the article is huge, overwhelming and wont be ready for distrification, short of a miracle, anytime soon. --(WT-en) Cire 06:36, 27 February 2010 (EST) edited --(WT-en) Cire 18:58, 2 March 2010 (EST)

Re: Talk:Vienna#Get_in_section and the bus/train table you added to Chicago, I have been meaning to alter the information you added significantly, precisely because I'm not sure just how far we should get in describing each individual route in and out of the city (the train routes in particular are endless), and because we generally try to avoid large html tables. I have waited to do so largely because a) the information you added is of high quality, and b) I hate to undo changes made by new Wikivoyageers who clearly have a lot of potential to improve the site!

As Denis said, though, Chicago is the usual example we give of how to properly write a good huge city article. (As a principal writer of that guide, I hope I didn't just come off too pretentious ;) Washington, D.C.#Get in is another example that I consider worth looking at. And since Vienna, unlike the former two recommendations, has no districts, Hiroshima#Get in might be another good example to look at. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 16:20, 18 February 2010 (EST)

Thanks for the message. I disagree with you about describing routes if there are several ways to obtain tickets, operators, etc. Many travelers use this site exclusively for logistical information, as they are not the type to travel using guides, and this info can often not be found on elsewhere online. I think that such infromation is highly valuable and articles like Chicago lack that quality by not describing pricing or listing all rail and coach operators. It gives the apperiance that there is only limited service; I was hoping to elborate and add some missing listings but it sounds as if that would not be welcomed. Whereas Washington DC includes as much information on the services as Vienna does, there are just many fewer services. Fact of the matter is Vienna is a unparelled transportation hub and there are lots of chaotic ways of doing things, and many seperate operators, tickets, stations, etc. while the infastructure is catching up to the influx of east-west travel. Of course that shouldn't be an excuse for the article to be chaos and I agree entirely that Vienna#Get_in is too long but I also highly value the information so it seems like we should retain it until a better format can be found. I have been working to consolidate this information into the general railway and eventually bus selcetions in Austria, as much of the information that was in the article including specific lists of cities, etc is possibly not needed, or is not Vienna specific. Your help would be warrented and indeed welcomed in this endevour 8).

I know html-tables ar not appricated as they are not always easy for all users to edit. I thought that one might be okay, as it is informative and seems relatively straight-forward to maintain. I can understand that may not be the case. Thanks for communicating and not just weeding things out. I hope we can find a decent solution. --(WT-en) Cire 10:45, 26 February 2010 (EST)

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swept in from User talk:Jc8136#Vienna

Hi Jan. I am happy to see you've recently been contributing to Vienna, which is great as the article needs a lot of work; districtification, etc. However, simply deleting sections and marking the edits as minor is not really policy and does not improve the quality of the article. There are lengthy discusions about the issues on the talk page, which need more input. If you are less farmiliar with the destination or a certian type of travel there then please don't edit the content. For instance the deletion of alternative airports, which are commonly used; just as I wouldn't try editing content for instance about the expensive hotels I know little about. --(WT-en) Cire 22:30, 25 March 2010 (EDT)

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moved from User talk:(WT-en) Cire

Hi Cire! I must say that i really don't like the tone of the message you left at my talk page. First I'm a regular business traveller to Vienna and if you had a closer look in the history of that article you would have noticed that i edit this article for a couple of years. Second I have seen the discussion before but some points of your development have gone wrong. The whole get in section is way to long and obvious facts don't need included per our Project:No_advice_from_Captain_Obvious policy. Also you can't be serious to list MUC and BUD as options for Vienna. It's like flying to Paris and then take the Eurostar to London or flying to Frankfurt and then go to Amsterdam (about the same time). If we would do this in all European articles, they would be full of alternatives because within 4-5 hours you reach mostly every major hub of some airline! Third the duty-free/tax refund is quite long and i never experienced illegal behaviour on this airport and i doubt that this is regular. Duty-free rules are rather simple in Europe so i doubt but prove me wrong. Also to say Vienna has a big duty free area is really funny. Have you ever been to Dubai, Bangkok, Singapore, Brussels or even my home base Zurich airport? Their duty free sections are huge! Vienna is rather average. (WT-en) jan 04:52, 26 March 2010 (EDT)

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swept in from User talk:Jc8136#Vienna Hi Jan- I appologize that I came off abrasively, I was frustrated with the acute attempt to solve this article's issues which many (including myself) have put a lot of time and effort into recently. Indeed I am glad to see intrest in the article again. Undisputed are the length of the article and section. Hence I have been encouraging proactive solutions, rather than quick-fixes deleting useful information. Regarding the specifics, many discussions have taken place recently:

• Alternatie Airports VIE has less inter-continental service than large European capitols. I know many people who do this, in order to avoid connecting though a large hub and to save money. Infact I am off to BUD today to fly abroad. I think the shuttles between the airports are also proof that people do this. Other examples of similar situations are Frankfurt Airport for Berlin or Warsaw for Krakow. These are similar and I assume noted situations. Linz, Graz etc are not as used as far as I know, due to Ryanair also being at Bratislava.

I don't doubt that people actually travel from Vienna to BUD to save money but you should see it on a bigger scale that if we allow it in Vienna then people will try the same in other cities,too and several articles will have a bigger list of Get in section than the rest of the article. The aim of Wikivoyage is not to list a complete list of transportation options (see policy we are not the yellow pages) but the most used ones. I don't think that Vienna fits the exception of the general rule because with Bratislava airport there is a low cost option. Have a look at our star articles Chicago, Singapore and Bali which are bigger but have a significant smaller variation.

• Duty-Free was discussed, I also questioned wether it was anything special but don't know much about duty-free shopping and other users insisted that the information was appropriate.

We are on the same page and we should keep it out. Vienna airport is tiny and duty free too. Just refer to common sense that it can't be giant because it is a secondary airport.

• Tax-Refund Again, I don't know because I am an Austrian tax-payer, but I was told this is the process and that check-in agents and others implicitly encourage this and have heard about the wink-wink nudge-nudge approach which is not uncommon in Austrian bureaucracy. --(WT-en) Cire 05:53, 26 March 2010 (EDT)

I know the Austrain laissez faire policy on that airport but travellers should not count on it as Austrians once in a while have to proof the tax rules to the EU and during that weeks you have no chance...

Cire: I also left a note on the Vienna talk page concerning the bus section. It's to huge and it needs to be trimmed. Buses might be popular in the Balkans and former countries of Eastern Europe but a general overview is enough. (WT-en) jan 06:23, 26 March 2010 (EDT)

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Hi! User Cire has questioned and reverted some of my edits in the get in section. As Burmesedays already stated above the section is overwhelming and partly infos are not true:

1. Duty free shopping with 75 shops are giant? Every traveller that has seen a serious hub (Frankfurt, Heathrow, Singapore, Bangkok etc.) knows that the tiny duty free selection is neither giant nor even average! Also travel value is a major chain that offer world wide the same products and can be hardly state outstanding...
2. Alternative airports: Listing MUC und BUD is not really favourable for travellers. If this would be policy then Paris CDG needs to be listed in London (or Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris in Frankfurt and vv) and because you can travel it in the same time.
3. Bus companies: Most should be shifted to Austria because it is not Vienna specific.
4. Tax refund: It's just common sense and by our Captain obvious policy it should stay.

I don't want to start an edit war so i will wait and start on the weekend with some changes (beside the duty free that i already made). (WT-en) jan 05:22, 26 March 2010 (EDT)

One point to the buses: E.g. Eurolines are named almost in every section instead of being listed once with a brief point that they connect to most neighboring countries. Same goes for a couple of others. I suggest we name the biggest seven companies and the rest leaves. (WT-en) jan 05:27, 26 March 2010 (EDT)

Indeed. These things have been discussed and the argument its just too long so lets delete some crap is getting frustrating.

1. Duty free, some way to compare substaintially to other airports via # of shops etc.
2. Alternative airports: compare to FRA for Berlin and WAW for Krarkow. Its normal and there are even buses running the route to Budapest Airport. For instance 4 of 12 cars parked outside Budapest Terminal 2B yesterday at noon had Vienna liscense plates.
3. Most bus companies only stop in Vienna, and not elsewhere in Austria.
4. Common sense is not clear weather to listen or avoid conflict?

No one has responded to the solutions I have suggested of additional articles, etc. Otherwise please prove which information is relevant to the most travelers and edit it as nessicary. --(WT-en) Cire 03:25, 28 March 2010 (EDT)

Jan:

First, if a dutyfree is tiny in a given airport, we'd better state that clearly instead of keeping silent on size of duty-free shopping area at all. Dutyfree shopping is an essential component of travel for some categories of travel. If you propose to rule it out entirely unless it's something really outstanding, please explain your reasons for such a rule.

Second, personally I never been in Frankfurt or Singapore--and I easily assume there are larger dutyfree areas (I've been in Dubai and find that not too much larger than Vienna, if not opposite--but it's almost offtopic here). However, we still don't have any guidelines on how to compare dutyfrees--if you have an idea, please share in relevant discussion: Pub#how to rate size of duty-free shops. Before we reach any consensus there, what's your suggestion on how we can specify size for dutyfree in Vienna, if not giant?

Third:

> Also travel value is a major chain that offer world wide the same products and can be hardly state outstanding...

There are other dutyfree chains in the world as well, and again we'd better specify which one operates in Vienna than remain silent on that at all. I believe it can be useful for some travellers (including myself), and if you can share anything on how TravelValue is bad (or good), I will do my best to find where to stick it.

And finally, if you disagree with a small piece in a paragraph (finding 70 shops as far from giant), I believe it's more respectful to remove only a questionable piece rather than whole paragraph altogether, as you've done with DutyFrees in this edit [8]. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 05:24, 27 March 2010 (EDT)

Denis: Please have a look at our star articles and you won't find a paragraph concerning dutyfree and beside Vienna i can't remember an article that has duty free as a serious topic. I think for 90% of the travellers it has absolute no value as nowadays price differences between duty free and not are significantly shrinking. I would say having a duty free section is rather the exception than the norm at Wikivoyage. As per our captain obvious policy it is worldwide standard that their is duty free shopping but we don't need to mention it.

I would strongly prefer to trim the Get in section and keep the dutyfree and tax refund section out of the article. The size of Vienna is European average i would say (i will be in Vienna in two weeks and have a look again if something changed since December) and article reach a length that does not benefit the travellers. Denis, where do you see the benefit? It's pretty standard and if one day Vienna get promoted to star it will definitely go. (WT-en) jan 17:45, 27 March 2010 (EDT)

I believe that the fact that our star articles have no info on dutyfree or taxrefund is their shortcoming. I see several reasons why info on dityfree should be included:

• dutyfrees can easily compete with (and compare to) regular stores in the cities. They don't need to be better; the fact that they are on par makes them equally eligible to list as any regular stores. Knowing what can be found at airport can help a traveler to better plan their overall shopping during the trip.
• dutyfrees have also some benefits which regular stores can't boast (outside of being free of taxes, which I agree is not always a serious distinction):
  • they are last-minute chance to buy most typical souvenirs and local specialties for those who missed earlier chance in the downtown. Knowing what can be found in airport if missed in the city helps a traveler to better plan their shopping (and spend less time hunting for souvenirs in the downtown, saving that time for enjoying the destination).
  • the same especially applies to business travellers who have little or no shopping time in the downtown, but easily have an hour or two to spend in an airport.
  • dutyfrees are virtually the only place to have shopping for transit travellers. Knowing what shopping can be possible even in the airport helps to plan how much time to allow for connection, and even which city to choose as a connection for their final destinaion.
  • there's probably more reasons that aren't that obvious for me right now

Yes, it's yet an unresolved challenge on how to present all that info in a concise and easily-readable form, but that's a different story from whether they should qualify at all.

I don't find anything related to Captain Obvious in size, selection or operator of any given dutyfree shop.

And it's 3th or 4th time I add section on dutyfree to a major city at Wikivoyage during my membership here, and you are first who challenges its usefulness.

Length of GetIn section is a separate issue, and I disagree that we should just trim it entirely for the sake of fitting into an artificial limit. Anyway, DutyFree or TaxRefund do not bring a great difference in reducing the section's size. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 17:34, 29 March 2010 (EDT)

Denis: I think we are moving here in a more general discussion that is not focussed on Vienna. Star article have gone through a nomination process and were challenged quite heavy by our most active and experienced editors. I think he lack of duty free listings is so no shortcoming but intended as the value for travellers is low. Also if i had seen a duty free listing before i would have challenged it earlier. To answer some of your points:

Transit travellers nowadays face severe restrictions on carry-on shopping in the world (liquids can't be transited in the EU, North America and most airports in SEA and Australia, which results that tons of duty free is seized e.g. Frankfurt Airport seizes three tons per day of which the majority is from transit travellers!) and size is restricted by most airlines (US airlines only allow one piece of carry on incl. duty free shopping though it is not strictly enforced).

I do a lot of travelling for business and most of my colleagues stopped buying because especially in Europe and North America you have curbside on most airports regular priced shops that allow an unrestricted shopping after the flight.

Denis if you really want to keep this discussion ongoing then it should be discussed in general on the policy about what should be in the Get in section? I think for Vienna we can agree that duty free is a) not big compared to other cities b) there is nothing special and c) that is not really cheap. I go to the Billa supermarkt that is between the terminal and the train station if i need really something to buy in Vienna at the airport. They have a big variety of stock and have good prices. (WT-en) jan 04:07, 31 March 2010 (EDT)

First, if you believe Billa worth mention much more than Viennese duty free, please go ahead and add it--it would definitely improve the article. It would be helpful if you give idea of what product categories it covers (souvenirs? clothers? leatherware? perfumes? electronics?)--and if you could give an idea of prices there.

Second, I disagree that particular Viennese dutyfree is of little value for most travelers. Even if only a small category of travelers like Russians and CIS citizens coming to Austria would benefit from that section, it is worth keeping--not less than any other special needs-oriented content: vegetarian, gal&lesbian, disabled, younameit. When you spend only a day or two in Vienna, and most of the time in a skiing resort where prices are higher than in dutyfree in most cases--dutyfree helps. Or if you are a transit traveler by a regular airline (not a discount one) from Russia and CIS, beyond liquids you face virtually no limit. And we can delist it only when we provide a full-scale alternative: "go to this mall, and you'll get everything you wanted from dutyfree, 30% cheaper and spending equal amount of time including way to there and back". Do we have such alternative/s right now?

Third, it's not the largest, but it's also far from the small. Moscow's large Domodedovo hub has much weaker selection (and even number of stores I think)--so telling that it's average size is better than just telling nothing.

To summarize on [9]:

• I don't mind if we change "giant" to a more "moderately-sized"-like characteristic
• if you have an idea how to rewrite "1 hour for a cursory tour", please share it
• I don't mind to rewrite the 3rd sentence to "there's no shops after security check or passport control".

What do you think? --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 16:40, 3 April 2010 (EDT)

Denis: You might have seen the response of LtPowers in the travellers pub who suggested to bring it in the Buy section. I'm still strongly opposed to keep this section at all and would say as a compromise to shift a brief version in the buy section even so i'm not convinced of the need for this article. I think that even the biggest ski fanatic from CIS/Russia will find some time to shop in Salzburg or Vienna downtown if they want to and do care about prices... Billa is a standard Austrian supermarket chain [10] so mostly food oriented.

When it comes to the listing in the buy section: I wouldn't try to characterise the duty free section and simply state that there are xyz shops and not state how long it takes. I only need 2-4 minutes to pass the duty free section and i guess most others would agree but maybe some women spent a day... It depends what you want and tour sounds pretty big for me. Maybe a stroll is fine instead of tour and I don't mind the last sentence. (WT-en) jan 13:55, 4 April 2010 (EDT)

As Billa is mostly about groceries, I don't think it can seriously compete to dutyfree beyond alco-chocolate-food specialties.

As for "find some time to shop in Salzburg or Vienna downtown", again it'll take much more time in the downtown in Vienna to cover the same breadth of brands, while for Insbruck I doubt even half of brands are present there at all; not sure if Salzburg is anything better.

I don't mind to move that piece to Buy, if it can change anything. I think it will add inconsistency (as in eg Singapore dutyfrees are mentioned exactly in GetIn, although not as detailed or a separate section.

I'm fine with "stroll" instead of "tour".

The list of shops is literally 70 names, and I don't have enough experience with it to choose any 3 or 4 that are of most interest to most dutyfree customers.

However, we can change "Even for a cursory tour, plan at least 1 hour" to something like "even if you're going to visit every other shop, plan at least 1 hour overall"

So, are you OK with something like the following, moved to Buy (just the next section after Malls, for example)?

=====Duty-free shopping=====

Vienna airport has a duty free shopping area with 70 shops. Plan around one hour if you're going to visit every other shop. The shopping area is just after ticket control counters, so you only need to checkin before getting to shops, not pass security check nor passport control.

--(WT-en) DenisYurkin 17:57, 6 April 2010 (EDT)

Denis, if you go to Kohlgraben/Kärtner Strasse in the Vienna city center you have a broader varierity of shops within a walking distance of 20 minutes. Innsbruck might have fewer shops but Salzburg can definitely compete with it when you look for souvenirs. Also this article covers Vienna and should not be a guide for everyone going to Austria. It's not Vienna specific so it should not be in this article. Concerning other cities: If i pass articles i change it but i'm usually not searching for duty free. I adapted your suggestion for the buy section above. Regards, (WT-en) jan 11:48, 10 April 2010 (EDT)

Just undeleted it into #Buy section: [11]. I still wonder why you insist on deleting the "operated by Travel Value" piece. And if you have an idea how to make this more clear from the article, please feel free to just do so: "if you go to Kohlgraben/Kärtner Strasse in the Vienna city center you have a broader varierity of shops within a walking distance of 20 minutes". --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 06:18, 17 April 2010 (EDT)

Jan, could you clarify what exactly do you object re paragraph on tax refund? --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 17:04, 27 March 2010 (EDT)

Denis: style doesn't have this section and most star or strong guide articles don't have this either. I think common sense should be clear where and when illegal activities start. (WT-en) jan 17:51, 27 March 2010 (EDT)

1. Similarly to duty free shops, I don't believe it's necessarily an issue with this article rather than the star ones.

2. I'm fine to stick the general info on tax refund to some generic travel topic like Buy if you secure some support for it in Pub. Until then, I don't see any alternative than to include that info into a destination guide like this.

3. I'm not sure I understand your piece: "common sense should be clear where and when illegal activities start". Could you clafiry it? --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 06:26, 17 April 2010 (EDT)

The infobox is a very unobjective presentation of the situation and it generally advises to avoid on vacation apartments, there are many honest apartments, I urgently ask for an objective presentation! It is not correct that most apartments are not operated 100% legally (prove it!), it is good to find independent review though.

Where is the proof that they are used by sepculators and are of low quality ant that they play a role in gentrification! (please give examples!).

There are hundreds of apartments that are operated 100% legally and morally - so this is a vilification of these "good" apartment owners!

It should probably be re-written and presented in the sleep section text and not as an infobox. Illegal apts and their owners ripping off renters is a global issue and not one unique to Vienna. Gentrification is not necessarily a bad thing either. I will re-write.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 06:54, 27 March 2010 (EDT)

I agree, a rewrite is definately called for. It was the only solution I came up with on my part as maitinance against spammers has been soporatic. It is important that this is somehow noted, even though it is indeed a problem elsewhere as well. I find the infobox appropriate as a form since its a side note and the article is too texty as it is, but obviously sleep section needs work, but again brings up the question of how to do that/the role districification would play in how the listings are organized. Nowhere does it state that speculation/gentrification/negative social effects/etc. are negative (or positive), it states that they occur. This is not the place for that discussion.

Regarding Austrian Residential Law you can see many of these places are not allowed to be rented/sub-let/etc for short-term by looking at the covinance and zoning, simply ask any of the 23 district advisory offices. It is frequent that appartments are on lower-leval spaces with less sunlight etc., which are exactly the cheapest aparments and those that would otherwise be avialible to the growing number of residents who can't afford better housing. --(WT-en) Cire 03:25, 28 March 2010 (EDT)

Being a Viennese inhabitant for almost 15 years, I have never heard that expression before. Allthough I do kind of like it (and I will make it part of my daily vocabulary), I would suggest that a more applicable synonym be used. 195.190.143.254 10:52, 25 May 2010 (EDT)

Hi! I'm on a regular basis in Austria and i think it refers to music of DJ Ötzi and other oustanding artists of the Austrian culture. It's partly used in German (so called Denglish like Handy). Feel free to change it in the title and just shift it to the text. Regards, (WT-en) jan 10:57, 25 May 2010 (EDT)

I must admit it may be a construct used in my circles and it is possibly of little meaning (although both of you seem to understand it albeit in context). Its sort of a localization of eurotrash, feel free to switch it out or just remove it.--(WT-en) Cire 20:59, 4 June 2010 (EDT)

Hi!

I have seen that you have removed the "Apartments" section in Vienna, I do not understand why this should violate the guides in Wikivoyage regarding rental listings. Having a look at the policy regarding "Rental listings":

1) Holiday apartments / vacation rentals are a common, and increasingly important way of accommodation for travelers in Vienna who do not want to stay in a hotel, but want their own temporary "home" in a foreign city instead. Advantages are higher privacy, more space compared to a hotel/hostel room and higher freedom, they have a full kitchen and are therefore interesting especially for families with children, sometimes guests love the feeling to "live like the Viennese" (as they are mostly in houses where also flats with normal residents live). There has been long time the consensus that apartment rentals are OK in Vienna, why suddenly not any more?

Many apartments are listed in the pages of the Vienna Tourist Board, listed in travel review sites like Tripadvisor, or even bookable by the big booking systems (expedia & co) - why should they not have a place in Wikivoyage?

2) They have been in an own section in "Sleeps".

3) All other apartments included phone number, address etc - if these items are not met, please remove only the items that do not meet these requirements, not the whole section.

4) Most of the apartments listed here are only touristic apartments, mostly a minimum stay of between 1 and 4 nights - they have nothing to do with ordinary flats and provide full vacation rentals including all services like (final) cleaning, water/currency, many times internet access, they are fully furnished, sometimes they also have a reception.

For an objective view and to grant a full overview of accommodation for travelers, I apply to keep the section within Wikivoyage/Vienna and not to delete it anymore. —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) Amunra68 (talk • contribs)

Hi! First please sign entries and second this decision and discussion has been made several times e.g.: Talk:Bucharest#Short_term_rental_apartaments_in_Bucharest_-_clarifications and read also Apt. (WT-en) jan 09:40, 14 June 2010 (EDT)

Hi! I don't know how the situation in Bucharest, but in Vienna apartments are a common way of tourist accommodation, as a proof I would like you to have a look at the official page of the Vienna Tourist board where apartments/vacation rentals have their role besides hotels, hostels and guest houses - especially have a look at the "Hotel Guide" link (PDF document) where you can find sections about hotels, pensions and apartments. Apartments in Vienna have an own "star" categorization (* - ****) with their own rating criteria.

I understand that the wikivoyage apartment policy is against rental agencies and real estate agents, but I cannot see why it should be against a common form of travellers' accommodation.

As outlined before, many travelers prefer apartments/holiday homes to hotels and hostels because they offer more space and freedom (own kitchenette, ...) - and therefore they are compliant with the wikivoyage apartment rules, moreover it would be negligent towards travelers to Vienna to ignore a complete part of the accommodation spectrum. (WT-en) Amunra68 10:42, 16 June 2010 (EDT)

In addition to that, I must outline that the apartment listings that were listed in this section are alltogether neither real estate nor rental agency listings, but they are their own form of tourist accommodation - maybe there is a misunderstanding of the wikivoyage apartment policy. Pls. take into account that the term "Appartement/Apartment" in German in this context refers to "vacation rentals", not to ordinary homes. (WT-en) Amunra68 10:51, 16 June 2010 (EDT)

Hi! Especially the Vienna sleep section was source of continious and repeated violations of most of our policies if you have a look in the history of the article. It's our aim to serve the traveller and not spamming business owners. Most listed businesses (i dare to say 100%) were listed by the owner/agency and not travellers and also some of them are listed on our blacklist because they willfully violated our policies. I think to cool down this agencies/business owner we will not have this section for a pretty long time. (WT-en) jan 11:13, 16 June 2010 (EDT)

Regarding this, it has been a very time-consuming fight for many contributors. I agree that it may be best to put the apartments in time-out for a while. Vienna has surprisinly few active contributors and is presumably one of the most popular articles that needs a ton of work. In short: we're all better off giving it a rest and working on other aspects, another use of our resources (other than fighting listings) will be benifical to travellers. Travelers who frequenty use apartment rentrals will still be able to find those elsewhere online and better be able to evaluate those listings than the listings here.

Concerning the wikivoyage policies, there are plenty of things in this article that don't conform to them. I think they tend to be seen more as guidelines and its common to deviate from them. Again the problem is that there are management companies with multiple properties pestering the site, not technicalities of the wikivoyage policy. --(WT-en) Cire 23:47, 19 June 2010 (EDT)

I have no idea how to add a thing to this discussion section, so here goes:

I saw that you removed an edit I made to the Vienna page. The edit I put in looked like this:

"If you need assistance booking a place to stay, you can contact Vienna Hotels, the booking service of WienTourismus, the official tourism organization of the city of Vienna. They reserve lodgings for you in all of Vienna's accommodation establishments including hotels, guest houses, seasonal hotels and apartments.

• <sleep name="Vienna Hotels" address="Obere Augartenstraße 40, A-1020 Vienna" directions="" phone="+43 - 1 - 24 555" email="[email protected]" fax="+43 - 1 - 24 555 - 666" url="http://hotels.wien.info/english/HotelSearch.htm" checkin="" checkout="" price=""></sleep> "

I understand how that looks like a third party site which is not allowed, but I am actually working with the city of Vienna's tourism bureau: www.wien.info/en. The "WienTourismus" is a service by the city of Vienna to assist travelers from all over the world find accommodations. No one hotel, motel, apartment or hostel is favored: it is a service by the city.

I wanted to put a link to the information on wien.info, as it seemed like a legitimate site for wikiTravel, however I wasn't sure what link or page to link to. The WienTourismus seemed the most probable.

I'd appreciate any advice you can give me. -HReisig

Please see the external links policy. The very first entry under what not to link to is "Hotel or travel booking services or aggregators". Vienna's city government was already linked prominently at the very top of the page, in the first sentence; I've replaced that with wien.info as the city's official tourism site, but that's the one and only place in the article it should be linked. — (WT-en) D. Guillaime 22:39, 23 August 2010 (EDT)

Thank you. I appreciate this. -HReisig

Hi! I'm the owner of Vienna á la carte. We provide private sightseeing tours in Vienna. I added a Tours section to the article (they have one in the London articel for example) and listed our the business and our tours. Now, after reading the guidelines regarding the listing of tours I am not shure why it was removed?! I'd be glad about any advice, since I have no previous experience with Wikivoyage.

Thanks for your feedback! ulrich Hahnkamper

London's is a horrible example right now and almost needs removal completely. Please read the tour operator policy for guidance. -- (WT-en) D. Guillaime 17:02, 10 March 2011 (EST)

Hi, everyone. I'm starting to think that I'm moderately Europhilic, but I found an interesting BBC News article here [12]. It's about Vienna's plans to erect a memorial someplace, but campaigners want it placed in Heldenplatz (Heroes Square) alongside war memorials. Thanks for reading this post, and sorry if I did anything offensive. --(WT-en) CurvyEthyl 22:32, 23 April 2011 (EDT)

I am very furstrated with this article, without completeing discussion it has been poorly districitified. I am planning on reverting it to one article if no solution is suggested. Please see my post from May 26th. --(WT-en) Cire 06:54, 13 November 2011 (EST)

Maybe districtifying has been done too fast, but Vienna was the article that most deperately needed it. Hard reverting of all the work done wouldn't be a proper solution. Instead, we might need to revise the boundaries and give better names to the districts by discussing it further here (on the Talk page). Unfortunately I don't know Vienna well enough to be of help. --(WT-en) Globe-trotter 12:39, 13 November 2011 (EST)

Well yes, I'm all for the article being done right. Distrification didn't work because 1.) the discussion on it was never completed and it certainly wasn't broken up in a way that makes sense to me, 2.) there was much too little (re-)writting of the main article and new district articles, and 3.) no-one ever bothered working on maps etc. A lot of this has to do with the small amont of contributors in Vienna. The article went from being terribly long to an outright terrible mess with fragmented sections. I was an adovate of planning distrification before taking it on. Its frustrating that the discussion here was disregarded, only for a very poor attempt to be made. The article is worse than before. Since no-one else has come forward to work on this article I figured I would put it back into a form where it was at least still managed and legible, other solutions are very welcome. --(WT-en) Cire 16:31, 14 November 2011 (EST)

Has anybody who speaks German/is from Austria had a look at the "talk" section? Two qotes:

"Most Viennese speak a range and mix of Austro-Bavarian and German as their mother tongue, unlike in most other parts of Austria where pure Austro-Bavarian is much more prevalent. You are extremely unlikely to ever come across a person who can't speak German; in fact, it has become more and more used as a language in common life in the capital, almost to the dismay of the Austro-Bavarian dialect, so with the possible partial exception of really old people in the outer suburbs, everyone will be able to speak German to you more or less fluently."

and

"Should someone be so proud as to continue speaking Austro-Bavarian and you don't understand (you might, since the languages are close), just ask the person to speak in German and he/she will."

Excuse me but, please, wtf is Austro-Bavarian?? Having lived in and around Vienna my whole life, i have never ever heard of anybody in this area identifying themselves as Austro-Bavarian speakers, not to mention anybody actually speaking such a language which, according to the text, seems to be so different from German that native Austro-Bavarian speakers might not even be able to speak/understand German?

Obviously, the German spoken in Vienna differs from how people speak in other parts of the German linguistic area, but usually this dialect is identified as Viennese, not Austro-Bavarian. And the article totally lacks any hint of the other linguistic groups living in Vienna.

I suggest changing the text, any feedback would be appreciated.

--(WT-en) Lifewontwait 22:13, 30 June 2011 (EDT)

Clarified section. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viennese_German for background. greetings. --Axisstroke (talk) 14:14, 27 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

This is my first contribution to WikiVoyage, so pardon me if this is out of protocol. I'm currently attending a conference in Vienna with about 350 people. The weather has been in the 90s (Fahrenheit) for the past few days and most people say their hotels do not have air conditioning. There does seem to be one hotel that has some air conditioned rooms. Call me one of those spoiled Americans, but I think something should be said that one should not have expectations of a/c if one goes during the hot season. -- Kosboot (talk) 11:17, 29 July 2013 (UTC)Reply

Plunge forward and write this note at the beginning of the "Sleep" section. Thanks, and welcome to Wikivoyage! Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:32, 29 July 2013 (UTC)Reply

The current split is kind of working, but could need some readjustments. In Vienna there is a strong distinction between inner districts 2-9 and outer districts from 10 on.

As evident consequence the district Meidling needs to move to outer south. It anyway doesn't provide any information to the current inner south district article, so besides redrawing the map, this would not cause much work, but clarify the current distinction.

Having the 2nd and 20th together is kind of ok, as their caracter is similar, even if the 2nd is the historic part.

The outer west is also a bit problematic as it throws together districts with little to no connection, but this could be dealt on once it reaches a certain size. So I would vote for keeping the outer west for now. Greetings --Axisstroke (talk) 14:13, 27 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

I agree that Meidling (12) should be moved to the outer south, as it really doesn't fit in well with the western districts.

For the outer west, it really does seem to be a hodgepodge of mismatched districts. Perhaps we could eventually break off Hietzing, and either move it to the outer south, or have stand on its own (if it has enough entries). On reading the previous long-winded discussion of districtification, Cire's suggestion of Meidling(12) + Liesing(23) + Heitzing(13) makes sense to me; however we can probably get by for now until we have more content.

I have absolutely no experience in drawing maps. –StellarD (talk) 21:09, 29 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

If one looks into Paris the split is done per district. I do think that longterm one should aim for such a split, as it better represents the identity of Vienna.

No Viennese distinguishes "Vienna Outer foo" or "Vienna Inner foo", but knows the locations of the districts. I do agree that the current split is really artificial. Also nobody will google for "Vienna foo", but maybe for "Vienna Döbling".

Hence I agree that we should move Hietzing (13) on it's own. If you are ok I can start the page.

Also I'll start on moving Meidling (12) to outer south. I'll ping the map drawer to redraw with this 2 changes for now. --Axisstroke (talk) 13:39, 8 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

I think following the traditional (numbered) districting makes much more sense, the only issue currently is that for some districts there isn't enough content yet and we'll end up with bare outlines. However it seems the Paris contributers faced the same dilemma, and since then the various districts have been fleshed out decently enough. Hietzing seems like a good place to start. StellarD (talk) 06:22, 9 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

Done the Hietzing split out. The german wikivoyage also splits Vienna per it's districts. It is definitely the way to go. It seems we'll find enough content for them. (:

Once Innere Stadt and Hietzing are looking good I'd propose to split up the inner districts 3-9, but no rush needed. --Axisstroke (talk) 19:54, 9 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

Innere Stadt is looking excellent (guide status!?!) and Hietzing is okayish with not much missing, hence I'll ask in some days for a redraw of the map with the inner districts 3-9 on their own. This should make it less confusing to add to them. Best --Axisstroke (talk) 02:47, 16 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

Innere Stadt is just about there – it needs just a couple minor additions (e.g. Dom- und Diözesanmuseum, Theatermuseum), and Stephansdom still needs a little attention.

It does look to me like 3-9 are about ready to split off. I should mention that my acquaintance with a few of the more outlying districts is limited – it's been a number of years since I lived in Vienna (although I do visit often). At some point I'll have to resort to simply translating from de.wikivoyage… ;)

–StellarD (talk) 04:53, 16 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

I do know many parts of Vienna like my pocket. (; Nevertheless before any further split I want to polish existing districts and groups. Seen due to the split how much an article needs to recover after splitting, ouf. Especially the inner districts still miss a lot. I'll jump from one to the next or so.

On the positive side noticed that the newer articels do show up in google as they have no old WT concurrence.

The next split after this is the Vienna International Airport. This will allow to trim down a bit the Vienna page itself, that has an horrible Get In/ Get Around (See all discussions above :). Thank you a lot for all your help!!! Warm greetings. --Axisstroke (talk) 00:29, 22 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

I think the new articles are coming along nicely. Thank you for taking the initiative to split them off! I'll start making some new page banners soon.

Eventually when the main train station is completed it would be good to have a separate article for that, but there doesn't seem to be a policy on WV to allow that. Anyway as I haven't taken the train since all the construction and rerouting started I may not be much help, but will contribute what I can.

It would be great to get this collection all to guide status – I think we can do it eventually :)

Best wishes, –StellarD (talk) 09:58, 22 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

Hey StellarD,

Most of the inner districts grew a bit and allmost all should be usable (~5 hotels >= 10 restaurants, many sees and some dos). It be great if you could go over them and check. Josefstadt, Neubau and Margareten are waiting for your banner. (:

In the next phase I will not focus on one of them, but randomly add good missing bars and restaurants. Also cinema, theater, train stations and swimming pools, I do plan to add soon. --Axisstroke (talk) 16:32, 14 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

P.S. We seem to differ on the Listings style. I learned *not* to add spaces in Frankfurt by User:W. Frank. First of all they are not needed, plus when you click on add listings, none gets added. More importantly when you close a listing one has to remove the accompagning spaces as suddenly a paragraph is built (but that is of course just nitpicking ;).

Hi Axisstroke, I'll review the text and resume work on banners in the next week – I'll be travelling for the next couple of days so will be offline for a little while.

Re: line breaks, when I first started editing here I found many guide articles with extra spaces, and many without, so it was completely unclear to me which was preferred. (And I always edit with the 'edit' tab, haven't tried the other method). Personally I find it harder to look at a solid wall of text and think it's easier to read when it's broken up, but anyway if you prefer to go without that's fine too.

Best, StellarD (talk) 21:31, 14 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

Hello StellarD,

No rush needed indeed. Thanks for your reviews! Kind greetings --Axisstroke (talk) 22:00, 14 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

P.S. Concerning linebreaks, ok I do better understand your argument, hmmm. Open style is indeed more eye pleasing. Used to think of it as useless data..

I believe since we have Vienna International Airport now, it is superfluous to repeat its content in the main article. I think we should simply link to that article and state that all the details on the airport, connections from there, as well as available ways of getting to the city from the airport (and vice versa) are to be found there. That way, we only have one article to update whenever something changes (and it does and will with regard to VIE), and we will not have to confront the traveller with two articles with potentially divergent information (whenever we fail to update one of the articles, which I find likely given the workload and limited manpower we now have). PrinceGloria (talk) 05:39, 16 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

I do completly agree, please go ahead. The Airport article was to created to move the content there.

Not sure how to cut the other transport mess, which lists every single bus or rail connection with highly likely outdated prices, any suggestions? --Axisstroke (talk) 08:07, 16 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

What about using tables, was was done in Karachi? I haven't tried to build one yet, but Vienna's 'get in' section seems a good place to try it out. –StellarD (talk) 06:29, 19 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

God almighty, this is the longest section for arriving by bus EVER. Can we do anything about it? PrinceGloria (talk) 07:55, 9 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

I consider it a full mess, also it kind of devalues all the content after it. I am quite unsure of it being uptodate as Bus schedules do shift regularly. StellarD proposed in the last point above to make a table out of it. --Axisstroke (talk) 08:48, 9 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

P.S. The Austria section references to it, maybe some stuff should go there.

Maybe we could check which companies still operate and group it under headings, like:

• From 'Mordovia - Mordovia Bus, Wendy Boatcomesin

Then the travellers truly interested in schedules, routes, prices and all other details could go there. We'd just need to update the list once in a while when a new company enters the business or one of the listed cancels the connection to Vienna. PrinceGloria (talk) 08:58, 9 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

I'm not sure how this section could be edited down much without removing useful content. I definitely would be against posting schedules, but we don't want to eliminate names of bus companies and URLs, though it would be defensible to remove ticket prices. We generally don't mention the prices of long-distance buses or long-distance or commuter trains in articles about the US, just what the routes are. It's different when there's a unitary fare, for example for the New York subway. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:00, 10 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

After bidding farewell to James Last (who is one of the few with a reasonable explanation as to why list last "Last Tournee" was not really the last), the Viennesse are growing out their beards in anticipation of the Eurovision Song Contest due to take place there in 3 weeks. And we're about to feature Vienna on our front page tomorrow.

Content to have seen it selected for the front page and awarded the guide status, I was comfortable about presenting it to the world out there, but now I discovered in horror it is anything but one of our prime articles. Even the main article contains outdated info, awful formatting, questionable advice and fragmented, barely legible passages. And I didn't even check all the districts. It would be good to do an emergency brush-up! PrinceGloria (talk) 05:03, 30 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

I have raised the issue before about nominated cites with old district but was overruled as not being important! Agree does not look good. --Traveler100 (talk) 07:40, 30 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

This article is full of footnote-style external links. Can someone run a bot that will convert them all, please? It would be a time-consuming and rather mind-numbing task to convert them all manually. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:59, 30 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

It is discussed above and has been a problem as early as 2014. Apparently a big portion of the links has become dead and it is in the nature of buses that connections appear and disappear with little warning or advance notice all the time. What can we do, after all, the "get in" section is one of the first things people read... Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:57, 23 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

Feel free to clean up and remove, Rome2Rio is much better at keeping up-to-date bus schedules if anybody would need them. PrinceGloria (talk) 09:43, 24 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

Should this article have one?

Berlin does. Hobbitschuster (talk) 18:35, 12 June 2018 (UTC)Reply

What would the benefit be? Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:54, 12 June 2018 (UTC)Reply

To the right is the map with all Wikidata items for the districts of Vienna. This should simplify the work in case we want to change the district set-up in the future. The tool Wikidata Extractor has been used to create the mapshapes.--Renek78 (talk) 09:09, 19 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Various emergency numbers were just added to "Cope". Are there any mountains in Vienna from which someone might have to be rescued, or should that number be removed from the list? Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:59, 3 May 2020 (UTC)Reply

Should we include a Template:Warningbox about the recent terrorist attack in Vienna? AFAIK currently, authorities are still looking for terrorists on the loose.廣九直通車 (talk) 06:43, 3 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

I suppose that group is keeping a low profile at the moment, so no need to address it specifically. The situation is probably as dangerous across most of Europe. We could have something for France, as France is directly involved in the conflict, but with the lockdowns I suppose travellers have other reasons not to visit crowded attractions. –LPfi (talk) 12:08, 3 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

Isn't the difference with Vienna that one of the actual shooters is still at large and being hunted by police? The Viennese public are being told to stay at home where possible and avoid the 1st district / city centre altogether.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 12:34, 3 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

I suppose people are told to stay at home mainly not to allow the suspect to blend in in the crowd. The shooter might of course be a madman shooting around, but if this was a planned attack (as I've understood), the shooter probably did not plan to move on to another target the days after, as the situation would change in hard to predict ways by the first shooting, and a second attack would then need to be ad hoc. Better keep a low profile for a few weeks and attack somewhere else later, or go on with whatever life he has. So, I don't think we need a warningbox. –LPfi (talk) 13:34, 3 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

No offence, but unless you're a hitherto unannounced expert on terrorism, I don't think your theories about what will happen next have any validity (whatsoever) against advice that's coming from the Austrian authorities, and that advice, as far as I am aware not being able to speak German or know which news sources in Austria are reliable, is to stay off the streets. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 14:24, 3 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

They probably know better than I do. But the question was asked here instead of relying on them, so what was I supposed to do? Refrain from answering because I am not the "hitherto unannounced expert"? I also did tell why I think people are told to stay at home, regardless of any risk assessment. Have any foreign governments issued travel warnings because of the shooting? If there seems to be consensus among them that Vienna is a dangerous place, then I agree we should put up the warning. –LPfi (talk) 14:48, 3 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

Yes, UK, Australia, Canada. Bear in mind all three of those countries are advising against most overseas travel because of the pandemic, but these warnings are targeted at their citizens already in Austria. I also checked Ireland's equivalent page, but they said nothing about the attack.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 15:27, 3 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

I've added a brief warningbox. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 15:36, 3 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

I note that on the UK site terrorist attacks are said to be very likely in Austria (Vienna not mentioned) and France, highly likely in Germany, likely in Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands, and cannot be ruled out elsewhere. We have no warningbox for this in France or Austria, and probably not in the other country articles. –LPfi (talk) 16:41, 3 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

But OK, I don't object us helping the police in their manhunt. –LPfi (talk) 16:43, 3 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

I guess the difference there is between the ever-present potential threat (which everyone in Europe lives with to greater or lesser degree), and the immediate, actual threat from someone who is currently armed, dangerous, probably in psychological distress, and on the run.

Austria goes into some sort of lockdown at some point this week, so I'm not sure whether the advice to stay at home due to an active shooter will be superseded by an order to stay at home due to the virus? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 17:01, 3 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

OSM strategy is probably the best here - the editors should always consider that the content may be exported for offline use. So probably adding information relevant for a few days (or in this case hours), is not too useful - and may quite confuse readers who will still see the stuff 1/2 year later, somewhere... Not to mention that WV probably won't be 1st (not even 10th) source of information on this topic, not even for the WV editors themselves. Of course if global authorities would name Vienna as risk area, that's a different story. -- andree.sk(talk) 20:20, 3 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

@廣九直通車, ThunderingTyphoons!, LPfi, Andree.sk:Is this warning box still needed? I cannot find any news source saying that this event is ongoing. Ground Zero (talk) 20:42, 5 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Ground Zero:OK, so per these information discussed, I think the warningbox is not really needed now.廣九直通車 (talk) 01:29, 6 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

I think it's worth considering whether we want to try to keep up with news events by posting warnings about events that will be over quickly. Wikivoyage is probably not where travellers will look for information during a terrorist attack. Adding a warning to an article creates the risk that no-one will think to remove it two days later when the danger has passed. I think we should focus on dangers that are more enduring, recognizing that Wikivoyage cannot be as timely as a news site.

I'm not suggesting creating a policy about this. I'm just suggesting that contributors be less eager to try to report on current events here. Ground Zero (talk) 12:42, 7 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

I agree. However, we could create a {{best before}}, which puts such warnings – and anything that will become outdated, such as closure of a major road, in a maintenance category when those two days have past. Cf w:update after. –LPfi (talk) 12:53, 7 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

years ago, in a different iteration of this wiki, travel related news were their own category on the main page. I'm not sure we should (re-) introduce this as I see the danger of straining already sparse resources for little potential gain. Hobbitschuster (talk) 13:55, 7 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

I agree with Ground Zero and Hobbitschuster. —Granger (talk · contribs) 15:41, 7 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

The "best before" template would be good if people used it. I think it would be better as a field in the warningbox, which would kind of prompt people to fill it. I agree with Hobbitschuster that a travel news page would strain our resources. Ground Zero (talk) 17:16, 7 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

I agree about the news. A "best before" in the warningbox would be OK, but a separate template allows it in any part of the article, such as the mentioned road closure and anything else that does not warrant a warningbox or even a cautionbox. –LPfi (talk) 17:46, 7 November 2020 (UTC)Reply