User talk:Bluecoordinationfine Voyage Tips and guide

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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 need help, check out Help, or post a message in the travellers' pub. New users are also welcome to post any questions or concerns to the arrivals lounge. If you want some practice editing, please do so on our graffiti wall. If you are familiar with Wikipedia, take a look over some of the differences here. If you want to contribute with information about the place where you live, see Wikivoyage:Welcome, locals. Pashley (talk) 12:34, 25 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for creating such useful hiking articles. These are a great addition to Wikivoyage. Ground Zero (talk) 12:37, 31 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks a lot! I hope Wikvoyage can be an entry point for a lot of hiking trails in the future. Bluecoordinationfine (talk) 13:46, 31 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hello Bluecoordinationfine, it's good to see a contributor focusing on hiking destinations. I notice, however, in many cases you've changed lively writing that helps convey a passion for travel into dull, lifeless "just the facts" writing. An AI bot could do that, and it's not what makes for a '''good''' travel guide. I would like to ask that you re-visit many of your recent edits and revert your changes. I don't really want to go through all your changes and do it myself, but they really are a degradation in quality. In the future, please try to use a livelier tone and style that conveys some excitement for whatever you're writing about. Regards, Mrkstvns (talk) 18:18, 31 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hey! Thanks for the feedback. I was under the impression that I was "doing it wrong" so to speak, when I read some of the other articles on Wikivoyage. This prompted me to make the change.

It's good to know that this is not what's expected, I'll do my best to improve this in the future. Are there any specific changes you're referring to? Bluecoordinationfine (talk) 18:24, 31 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Have a look at Wikivoyage:Tone. Pashley (talk) 11:57, 1 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the link! I'll look through my recent changes. My reason for making some (if not most) of them is that the text was rather vague. In some cases, I also checked the information. For example, some descriptions listed "an open vista" or something similar, while the trail is mapped through exclusively forested regions.

At least the factual basis is good now. Bluecoordinationfine (talk) 12:04, 1 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for moving the listings out to the village and town articles. Those are better places for such listings. Ground Zero (talk) 12:31, 2 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks, and thanks for the help as well! Some parts could definitely be improved, and I plan to review it again later, especially for a few of the towns in the Pyrenees. I’m also unsure about where certain listings should go. Refuges and mountain huts, for example, often feel more connected to the trail itself than to any particular town or region. Still, I’d prefer not to place them directly in the itinerary sections.

I saw that you could refer to listings like this: Hotel Saltsjöbaden, do you think that's the right approach for hiking trails as well? Bluecoordinationfine (talk) 09:23, 8 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Some people like that style of linking, others argue that the reader may be surprised by the link, and prefer to link like this: Hotel Saltsjöbaden in the [[Stockholm archipelago#Grand Hotel Saltsjöbaden| Stockholm archipelago]]. Use you judgment about which style works best in the context.

You could put a mountain hut or refuge in the article for the nearest town, but the only way to get to it is on the trail, so I don't know that makes the most sense. I think I would leave it in the trail article, but I am not a user of trail articles. You know better than I do.

By the way, I saw your comment about times and distances. While you may use an app, not everyone does. A Wikivoyage trail article is probably better for planning, while the app is better for use on the go. I think the times and distances would be useful for Wikivoyage readers. Ground Zero (talk) 11:27, 9 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the reply! I'll keep the linking style in mind.

The thing that concerns me a bit about the durations, is that you can definitely go overboard with it as well. It's another way to describe a section of trail, so it would make sense for others to also add a km count, and then, why not add an elevation change as well? We'd end up creating the same kind of structured data that's also in the section headings, but in an unstructured way scattered throughout the text.

I was thinking about whether a wikitext element would help there, so this data would be captured consistently. As an example of an imaginary wikitext element:

A side trail from point A goes to Pretty Mountain B {{duration=3|distance=12|elevation_gain=100|elevation_loss=100|units=metric}}.

If there's no structured element, I worry that it might become hard to read, so then it feels safer to avoid creating this situation, and let users handle it using hiking apps (OsmAnd etc.). For now, I'll keep the durations in the text. Bluecoordinationfine (talk) 12:04, 9 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks again for your improvements to these articles.

I think elevation change would be a really valuable addition to trail articles. I like your idea of a template. That could be really useful. Ground Zero (talk) 12:13, 10 July 2025 (UTC)Reply