Welcome and some remarks about village articles
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To help get you started contributing, we've created a tips for new contributors page, full of helpful links about policies and guidelines and style, as well as some important information on copyleft and basic stuff like how to edit a page.
If you are a Wikipedian, then you may notice some differences in policies and the style of our articles. These include:
- NPOV → be fair (not quite the same thing!)
- be bold → plunge forward
- Village pump → travellers' pub
- External links → We do not use a separate external links section, but incorporate primary links only into the text itself.
- sandbox → graffiti wall
- stub tagging → article status
It may also be very useful for you to check out Wikivoyage:Welcome, Wikipedians. If you need help, take a look at Wikivoyage:Help, or else post a message in the Wikivoyage:Travellers' pub, as a reply below or on my talk page. Thanks for contributing!
Note that unlike Wikipedia, which has articles about every village, Wikivoyage has a what is an article page that gives pointers for what does and does not get an article.
Every village is unique, but so far, you have not captured that in the essentially identical articles you've started about Hausa villages, so my suggestion is, instead of creating more of them, consider starting either a travel topic about visiting the Hausa countryside or defining a rural area that could be covered in a single article. That way, you can cover the things that are unique or otherwise characteristic of the Hausa countryside without worrying about the need to avoid duplication or the problems with a proliferation of articles about undifferentiated villages without specific sights and so forth.
Please let us know whether you have any thoughts or questions. I think this is valuable content, if we can organize it in the way that best serves the traveller.
All the best,
Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:59, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
A Sulaiman Z, thank you for your contributions to Wikivoyage, and for testing new articles. Each article should start with a "lead paragraph" that explains why a reader would want to visit. This is important for drawing more readers to the article from search engines like Google, because it is the lead paragraph that potential readers see in their search results. Wikivoyage articles should never start with a subheading like "Understand ". I hope that helps. Ground Zero (talk) 12:04, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
- Hi @Ground Zero,
- Thank you for your kind feedback. I now understand the importance of adding a "lead paragraph" before the sections. I’ll make sure to include it in my future contributions and will update the existing articles accordingly. A Sulaiman Z (talk) 12:18, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
- @Ground Zero, but I checked my new created articles and I think that I added this "lead paragraph" in each article. Or is there any section which you mean by the "lead paragraph" which I couldn't understand it ? I need more clarification please. Thanks A Sulaiman Z (talk) 12:35, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
- Take Makoda or Dambatta as examples. These article start with the "Understand" section. There is no paragraph before that. You could split that text between a lead paragraph that focuses on what is interesting about the place for a traveller, followed by "Understand" which has more detailed information, such as its history. Ground Zero (talk) 13:00, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
- @Ground Zero, thanks. A Sulaiman Z (talk) 13:17, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
- You've ignored my remarks that started this thread, though. Please comment on them and deal with the issue I brought up. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:17, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
- Hello
- @Ikan Kekek A Sulaiman Z (talk) 15:27, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
- Hi @Ikan Kekek,
- Thank you for your message, and I appreciate the feedback. I understand the concern about the redundancy, and I assure you that my intention was never to disrupt the project. As a new contributor, I am still learning and trying to contribute to the best of my ability. My goal is to enhance the content based on the guidelines and the available resources.
- I fully respect the collaborative nature of this project and acknowledge that I should have better communicated with other editors before making those changes. I am committed to improving and adhering to the standards set by the community.
- However, I would like to express that it’s important for new contributors to feel encouraged and supported. Being treated with respect and understanding goes a long way in building confidence. I value the opportunity to learn from experienced editors like yourself, and I hope to continue contributing constructively.
- Thank you for your understanding.
- Best regards, A Sulaiman Z (talk) 15:30, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
- You're implying I may not be treating you respectfully. If you feel that way, please point out where I did that. I believe I've been quite respectful, and that's certainly been my intention, because you are making unique contributions. However, I don't think travelers benefit a lot from a bunch of essentially identical articles about villages, and that's why I'm calling for some focus on the perspective of the traveler and how best to inform them of how to get the most out of a visit to the Hausa countryside. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:44, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
- Hi @Ikan Kekek
- Thank you once again for your thoughtful reply.
- I appreciate your clarification and I truly understand your perspective. I didn’t intend to imply that you were being disrespectful personally; I only wanted to express how certain corrections or warnings can sometimes feel discouraging to a newcomer who is still learning the system.
- I am grateful for your recognition of my contributions, and I am willing to learn more about how to improve my edits by focusing more on the perspective of the traveler. I will continue working towards creating articles that are more useful and engaging for travelers.
- Thank you for your guidance and support.
- Best regards, A Sulaiman Z (talk) 16:14, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
- You're implying I may not be treating you respectfully. If you feel that way, please point out where I did that. I believe I've been quite respectful, and that's certainly been my intention, because you are making unique contributions. However, I don't think travelers benefit a lot from a bunch of essentially identical articles about villages, and that's why I'm calling for some focus on the perspective of the traveler and how best to inform them of how to get the most out of a visit to the Hausa countryside. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:44, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
- You've ignored my remarks that started this thread, though. Please comment on them and deal with the issue I brought up. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:17, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
- @Ground Zero, thanks. A Sulaiman Z (talk) 13:17, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
- Take Makoda or Dambatta as examples. These article start with the "Understand" section. There is no paragraph before that. You could split that text between a lead paragraph that focuses on what is interesting about the place for a traveller, followed by "Understand" which has more detailed information, such as its history. Ground Zero (talk) 13:00, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
Hi. You're trying to add a thumbnail of the image already used as a pagebanner on that page and edit warring with a user who keeps removing the redundancy. I don't think you mean to vandalize or be disruptive, but you can't just ignore other editors on a wiki. Please stop doing this, so we don't have to temporarily block your editing privileges. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:12, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
- I've protected that page for an hour. If you continue edit warring after that, someone will have to suspend your editing privileges, and no-one wants to have to do that. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:14, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
- @Ikan Kekek: I looked at the article history and I can only see one instance of A Sulaiman Z adding this image, and of it being removed. I agree that it should not be repeated in the article, but this isn't a case edit warring. Ground Zero (talk) 16:38, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
- Hi@Ground Zero, A Sulaiman Z (talk) 17:32, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
- Hi@Ground Zero,
- Thank you very much for taking the time to review the situation and for your fair observation. I truly appreciate your understanding and support.
- As a new contributor, I am still learning the editing standards of Wikivoyage, and your balanced approach gives me more confidence to keep improving. I will continue doing my best to contribute positively to the project.
- Thank you once again for your encouragement.
- Best regards, A Sulaiman Z (talk) 17:35, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
- As @Ground Zero pointed out, there was no edit warring. I mistakenly thought that @A Sulaiman Z was doing something fishy by making a thumbnail image out of the banner, but I'm happy to have been proven wrong about that. I'd love to see A Sulaiman Z edit and add new content on African destinations. We have far too few editors who pay attention to that region. Cheers! Mrkstvns (talk) 18:30, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
- Hi@Mrkstvns,
- Thank you very much for your kind words and understanding.
- I truly appreciate your encouragement and I am excited to continue contributing to African destinations on Wikivoyage. Your support motivates me to work even harder to improve the content and make it more valuable for travelers.
- I look forward to learning more and growing as a contributor.
- Best regards, A Sulaiman Z (talk) 18:43, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
- Sorry for getting this wrong. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:07, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
- As @Ground Zero pointed out, there was no edit warring. I mistakenly thought that @A Sulaiman Z was doing something fishy by making a thumbnail image out of the banner, but I'm happy to have been proven wrong about that. I'd love to see A Sulaiman Z edit and add new content on African destinations. We have far too few editors who pay attention to that region. Cheers! Mrkstvns (talk) 18:30, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
- @Ikan Kekek: I looked at the article history and I can only see one instance of A Sulaiman Z adding this image, and of it being removed. I agree that it should not be repeated in the article, but this isn't a case edit warring. Ground Zero (talk) 16:38, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
District articles
[edit]Hi. About the article you started about Fagge: most cities do not get district articles on Wikivoyage. Until the Kano article starts to get overwhelmingly long, there's no need to discuss district articles for that city. Therefore, it is best to merge Fagge content into the Kano guide and then turn the Fagge article into a redirect to Kano. But if you'd like to propose to divide the entire city of Kano into districts for the purposes of Wikivoyage, please start a thread at Talk:Kano, specifying the names of the districts, their boundaries, and approximately how many listings in total each district article will have.
Best,
Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:40, 3 May 2025 (UTC)
- Hi@Ikan Kekek,
- Thank you for your message and the guidance. I now understand that separate district articles are only recommended when the main city page becomes too long. I’ll follow your advice and begin merging the content of Fagge into the Kano article.
- Also, I appreciate the invitation to start a discussion at Talk:Kano about potentially dividing the city into districts. I’ll take time to study and map out the district names, boundaries, and potential listings before opening a thread.
- Thanks again for your support and encouragement. A Sulaiman Z (talk) 20:54, 3 May 2025 (UTC)
- Sure thing. Thanks for continuing to add content! Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:07, 3 May 2025 (UTC)
- Hi @Ikan Kekek,
- Thank you very much for the encouragement! I truly appreciate your guidance and support as I continue learning and contributing. I'm excited to keep improving articles and sharing useful information about places in Nigeria and beyond. A Sulaiman Z (talk) 23:38, 3 May 2025 (UTC)
- Sure thing. Thanks for continuing to add content! Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:07, 3 May 2025 (UTC)
Please avoid encyclopedic trivia
[edit]This was a conservative edit. Exact numbers of square km and supposedly exact population to the person are encyclopedic facts that are trivia to most travellers. Have you looked at star-level destination guides yet? Menzies, Childs and Churchill are small villages; Travemünde and Caldas da Rainha are smallish towns; Santa Fe is somewhat bigger; Ann Arbor and York are more or less medium-sized cities; Albuquerque is a larger city; and there are several huge city articles in Category:Star articles. Nigerian cities are certainly different from cities in any other country, but you can get a very good sense of what to include and omit in Wikivoyage articles by looking at these and other star-rated articles. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:29, 7 July 2025 (UTC)
- Hi@Ikan Kekek,
- Thank you very much for your helpful feedback on the Garun Mallam article. I appreciate your time and guidance.
- You're right, I now understand that including precise census figures and geographic measurements leans more toward encyclopedic content rather than practical travel information. I will improve my contributions to make it more traveler-friendly by using general language (e.g., "a small rural district" instead of specific area/population figures) and focus more on what visitors can do, see, and experience.
- Also, I will take your advice to explore the star-level destination guides to better understand the tone and structure expected on Wikivoyage. This will help me improve my future contributions.
- Thank you again for pointing me in the right direction!
- Best regards, A Sulaiman Z (talk) 06:07, 7 July 2025 (UTC)
- Certainly. But I'm not saying not to provide any population figures, just that an approximate number and a year in parentheses are sufficient. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:49, 7 July 2025 (UTC)
- Hi @Ikan Kekek
- Thank you again for your constructive guidance! A Sulaiman Z (talk) 07:56, 7 July 2025 (UTC)
- Sure thing. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:01, 7 July 2025 (UTC)
- Certainly. But I'm not saying not to provide any population figures, just that an approximate number and a year in parentheses are sufficient. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:49, 7 July 2025 (UTC)
Connecting articles to the guide
[edit]Hi A Sulaiman Z, it is great that you are improving Wikivoyage's coverage of Nigeria by creating new articles. However, because you are not connecting them to other parts of Wikivoyage, the only way for readers to find them is by using the search function. Look at Madobi, for example. It isn't linked from other articles. If a reader is looking at the Kano State article to find places to visit, they won't find Madobi there.
Here are the ways we connect articles together so that readers can navigate easily through Wikivoyage and find information:
1. Always put a link to a destination article in the article of the region to which it belongs. For Madobi, put Madobi in either the list of "Cities" or the list of "Other destinations ".
2. To include Madobi on the map of the Kano State article, you have to add the Wikidata number. Go to the Wikidata site, search on "Madobi", and at the top of the page, you will see a number that starts with the letter Q.
3. Always put this template at the bottom of the article: {{IsPartOf|}} with the name of the region after the |. This creates a line pagebanner that looks like this:
- These links help the reader navigate to other articles they ma be interested in.
4. Always put this template at the bottom of the article: {{geo|lat|long}} with the latitude and longitude coordinates (which are available from Wikidata).
5. It is customary to include a link to the region (Kano State in this case) in the first paragraph of this article.
Doing these things will draw more readers to your articles, and make Wikivoyage more useful for them.
I have made these edits to some of your earlier new articles, but it is up to you to make them on others, and on all new articles that you create.
If you have any questions, please ask. Regards, Ground Zero (talk) 11:16, 7 July 2025 (UTC)
- Hi @Ground Zero,
- Thank you very much for your kind guidance and for taking the time to explain how I can better connect my articles to the wider Wikivoyage structure. I now understand the importance of linking new destination pages to their regional articles, adding the {{IsPartOf}} and {{geo}} templates, and ensuring each article is properly linked from related content like Kano State.
- I will make sure to apply these steps and will continue to use this structure in all my future articles. I truly appreciate your help and your edits on some of the previous pages; this helped me learn a lot.
- Please feel free to let me know if you notice any further corrections I should make.
- Thanks again for your support and encouragement!
- Best regards, A Sulaiman Z (talk) 13:22, 7 July 2025 (UTC)
- You're welcome. Are you going to follow my advice by adding Madobi to the Kano State article, including the wikidata number so that it is placed on the map, and by adding the templates to the bottom of the article? Please do all of the 5 items above, not just #5. Thank you.
Deleting article status
[edit]Hi again. Could you explain this edit? I hope it was unintentional to delete the article status. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:19, 7 July 2025 (UTC)
- Hi @Ikan Kekek,
- Yes, I added the template because I think it is a template which improves an article but when I published the article it showed me that the article is incomplete or something like this. That is why I removed it because it's a negative template for my contributions. Thanks A Sulaiman Z (talk) 18:35, 7 July 2025 (UTC)
- No, it is a required template. Never remove it. It is there to encourage editors to improve articles. If the template says "outline", you can improve it to "usable" be adding more information. Wikivoyage:Article status explains what the criteria are for each level of article status. Ground Zero (talk) 18:53, 7 July 2025 (UTC)
- Hi @Ground Zero,
- Thank you for your clarification and guidance. A Sulaiman Z (talk) 19:31, 7 July 2025 (UTC)
- No, it is a required template. Never remove it. It is there to encourage editors to improve articles. If the template says "outline", you can improve it to "usable" be adding more information. Wikivoyage:Article status explains what the criteria are for each level of article status. Ground Zero (talk) 18:53, 7 July 2025 (UTC)
Local Government Area (LGA) articles
[edit]Hello. I see that you have created several articles for Local Government Areas today. Please take this slowly, as I am not sure that LGA articles are useful for travellers.
Although these articles have a reasonable amount of content, they are generally lacking the exact details required to make the information useful. For instance in Dambam you have added "Weekly market: The main commercial activity in town, drawing traders from nearby villages.", but this misses the details of where and when the market is. A useful entry would be (some of theses details may be wrong, but please find the correct details):
- 1 Weekly market, Azare-Potiskum Road. We 7AM-noon. Grain market, drawing traders from nearby villages.
Also remember that the article is for travellers, so they will not be buying livestock. Don't repeat the same text in several articles - Fura da nono is listed in multiple places without details of exactly where to get it, or how it is different in Dambam from Giade. AlasdairW (talk) 21:40, 9 July 2025 (UTC)
- Hi @AlasdairW
- Thank you very much for your thoughtful feedback and for taking the time to review the articles I’ve created. I truly appreciate the points you raised, especially regarding the need to provide more precise and traveler-relevant details like exact market times, locations, and avoiding repetitive content.
- I fully agree that articles should be useful for travellers, and I’m actively working on improving the quality and depth of the information I include. My intention in creating articles on LGAs in Nigeria is not to flood Wikivoyage with templates, but to gradually build reliable and culturally rich travel guides for parts of the country that are underrepresented.
- Many of these LGAs; though rural; have specific characteristics that are of interest to travellers: cultural festivals, local foods that vary slightly by region, ethnic diversity, traditional markets, and sometimes even significant historical or religious landmarks. As someone familiar with these communities, I aim to present that local insight in a way that can eventually meet Wikivoyage standards.
- You are right that some sections (like "fura da nono" or the weekly market) can become repetitive. I am now working on making each mention more specific; such as stating where it is available or how it's prepared differently in a particular area. I'm also learning how to use templates like see, eat, and drink more effectively to provide useful and standardized content.
- Regarding your note on livestock: that’s a very helpful reminder. While local travelers might engage in such trade, I’ll be more mindful to frame content for international or general-interest travellers.
- Thanks again for your guidance; I am here to contribute meaningfully, and I’m open to collaboration, corrections, and continuous learning as I expand coverage of Northern Nigeria on Wikivoyage. A Sulaiman Z (talk) 05:00, 10 July 2025 (UTC)
- It's possible that some visitors might find it interesting to view livestock or livestock trading, but I fully agree with AlasdairW about adding information specific to each place covered by an article, so I'm glad that's something you plan to work on. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:27, 10 July 2025 (UTC)
- Hi @Ikan Kekek,
- Thank you very much for your thoughtful response and encouragement. I’m glad to hear that including livestock trading can still be considered relevant for some travellers especially those interested in cultural and rural experiences. In many areas of Northern Nigeria, livestock markets are not only commercial hubs but also deeply connected to local life, traditions, and festivals, which I believe can enrich the travel experience.
- I also appreciate the reminder to focus on providing more detailed, location-specific information in each article. I’m now taking steps to:
- Add exact locations, days, and times for local markets.
- Use specific listing templates like see, eat, and drink where appropriate.
- Avoid repeating generic content by emphasizing what’s unique about each town or village.
- My goal is to improve coverage of underrepresented areas in Nigeria while aligning with Wikivoyage’s traveler-oriented standards. I welcome further feedback as I continue refining these articles. A Sulaiman Z (talk) 06:42, 10 July 2025 (UTC)
- Wikivoyage will definitely be better with improved coverage of Nigeria. Thank you again. Ground Zero (talk) 10:19, 10 July 2025 (UTC)
- Hi @Ground Zero,
- Thank you for your encouragement. A Sulaiman Z (talk) 11:47, 10 July 2025 (UTC)
- Wikivoyage will definitely be better with improved coverage of Nigeria. Thank you again. Ground Zero (talk) 10:19, 10 July 2025 (UTC)
- It's possible that some visitors might find it interesting to view livestock or livestock trading, but I fully agree with AlasdairW about adding information specific to each place covered by an article, so I'm glad that's something you plan to work on. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:27, 10 July 2025 (UTC)