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Welcome
[edit]Hello Buaidh! Welcome to Wikivoyage.
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! --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 00:24, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
Wikivoyage guidelines on new templates
[edit]Hi, User:Buaidh, welcome, and since you're adding templates that are new to Wikivoyage, it will be important for you to read Wikivoyage:Using MediaWiki templates. Wikivoyage is not template-happy like Wikipedia and likes to minimize the learning curve for new users who aren't already deeply steeped in Wikipedia's create-any-templates-and-use-them culture (or what seems like that to some of us, anyway). This may be in flux, and there have been arguments about how friendly or unfriendly we should be toward inessential templates that someone finds convenient, but you will see that we have guidelines on where and how new templates can be used on this site.
Thanks and all the best,
Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:47, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
- I believe I have complied. Yours aye, Buaidh (talk) 15:41, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
Welcome
[edit]Buaidh, welcome to Wikivoyage. I appreciate your enthusiasm for this project, and thank you for your contributions so far. I hope you will continue adding content to our travel articles.
Wikivoyage aims to be different from Wikipedia. Wikipedia is already a great encyclopedia, and Wikivoyage can't compete with that. We're building a travel guide here, so we write in a different style.
The lead paragraph is very important because that's what people using search engines will see in their search results. If they see the first few lines of article are just listing encyclopedic factoids like a city being the 16th most populous in a state, they will probably choose to read the article from the encyclopedia they already know, Wikipedia. If they are looking for travel information, they will pick a website that is telling them why they might want to go to that place.
You can help Wikivoyage be a better travel guide and improve its search engine optimization by putting the interesting travel information up front in the lead paragraph, and putting the details in "Understand ", or leaving them out altogether.
One other point,: people don't come to Wikivoyage for precise census data. We include population information to let readers know whether they shoukd expect a big city with full services, or a small quiet town. To make Wikivoyage easier to read and less formal, we provide rounded population numbers, e.g., to the nearest thousand.
Thanks again for your contributions. Ground Zero (talk) 07:13, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Good point. Thanks, Buaidh (talk) 14:33, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Also, please stop putting municipal government links on the first line. While you may see tourist offices linked at the beginning of many articles, Wikivoyage policy has changes, and we no longer do that. We put tourist office links in the Understand section — see Wikivoyage:External_links#External_link_usage. Some people add a link to the municipal government if there is no tourist office but I encourage you to look at the links you are adding. Are they useful to visitors? Or are the about utility bills, waste collection, and council meetings? Most of these sites gave no information for visitors, and are just a waste of the reader's time. Wouldn't it be better to add information about places to see, places to eat, and places to sleep? Ground Zero (talk) 16:56, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Will do. Buaidh (talk) 17:35, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- also! Why paste the article's first paragraph on every edit summary, every time? It's messing up the recent changes list with too much unneeded text, could you please keep it cleaner? Otherwise, your edits are welcome, please keep them coming. Ibaman (talk) 18:06, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Folks are welcome to edit these as wish. Buaidh (talk) 18:45, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- @Ibaman: FWIW, I don't see this hugely problematic. I know people who give edit summaries such as this. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 21:00, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- also! Why paste the article's first paragraph on every edit summary, every time? It's messing up the recent changes list with too much unneeded text, could you please keep it cleaner? Otherwise, your edits are welcome, please keep them coming. Ibaman (talk) 18:06, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Will do. Buaidh (talk) 17:35, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Also, please stop putting municipal government links on the first line. While you may see tourist offices linked at the beginning of many articles, Wikivoyage policy has changes, and we no longer do that. We put tourist office links in the Understand section — see Wikivoyage:External_links#External_link_usage. Some people add a link to the municipal government if there is no tourist office but I encourage you to look at the links you are adding. Are they useful to visitors? Or are the about utility bills, waste collection, and council meetings? Most of these sites gave no information for visitors, and are just a waste of the reader's time. Wouldn't it be better to add information about places to see, places to eat, and places to sleep? Ground Zero (talk) 16:56, 22 February 2024 (UTC)