User talk:KevRobbAU Voyage Tips and guide

Contents

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 travellers' pub or on my talk page. Thanks for contributing!

Thanks for starting the Barraba article. Please note that a travel guide doesn't use footnotes, and that the pagebanner you added has the wrong proportions (should be 7:1, and at least 1800 px, or preferably 2100px or more wide).

--Ypsilon (talk) 09:52, 1 September 2019 (UTC)Reply

I just want to say, I love what you're doing! We've for years suffered from the bad edits of a vandal who uses Telstra. This guy creates nearly blank articles about tiny villages that are useless, sometimes with swathes of plagiarized text from Wikipedia or even regular "copyright, all rights reserved" sites. You, instead, create articles about tiny villages and then fill them with real content that's useful for people who want to spend time in rural Australia. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:03, 3 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

Yes some great contributions here. --Traveler100 (talk) 07:11, 4 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

Thank you all. This is a steep learning curve for me, so I apologise if I come across confused or ill-tempered. KevRobbAU (talk) 10:14, 13 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

Is this someone trying to mimic you or a duplicate account of yours? --Traveler100 (talk) 13:17, 3 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

Yes, it's me. I speak several languages and try to keep the accounts separate. Looks like I failed in this case! KevRobbAU (talk) 10:15, 13 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

Rather than get into an edit undoing loop, information on section names and usage can be found at Wikivoyage:Article skeleton templates/Sections. Do not want to stop your great contributions, just was making minor edits to Tingha to keep to current naming conventions. And not being rude here but take a look at Wikivoyage:Where you can stick it, I did not pick that title :-) . --Traveler100 (talk) 11:27, 4 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

Indeed. Please look at my last two edit summaries in the history of the Tingha article. We have no "Contact" section: The section is "Connect", and it covers mobile phone connectivity and the like. But no need for me to repeat myself here; look at the edit summaries at the link. Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:31, 4 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for all your advice and help! KevRobbAU (talk) 10:16, 13 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

Hi, KevRobbAU, and thanks for your great work! About the "Go next" section, your directions are great, but what I'm not seeing is anything about why a traveler would want to visit Town X or Town Y. Have a look at 1-liner listings for some ideas, but basically, in "Go next", it's good to very briefly summarize what the draw is for Towns A, B, and C. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:40, 20 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Almost all of the places in the region I'm writing about don't have an entry, or their entry is not up to standard. I am slowly working my way through writing entries for those places, and it takes me at least two days to research, type-up, and publish and entry - even for the little hamlets. I don't see the point right now in writing a 1-liner for a place that doesn't have an entry, or its entry is, frankly, rubbish.

Almost all of these places, excepting annual events in some, are not so much destinations but pass-through places - a traveller is more likely to want to know where they can get fuel, food, and somewhere to sleep overnight or somewhere to stay if their car breaks down. That's why I include so many entries in the Go Next sections - it's useful, necessary, and important to travellers in that part to know how far away their destination is, how long it will roughly take, and where along the way there is fuel, food, etc. - the distances are so great with so few facilities and amenities in between. I have have had people from Barraba and Bundarra thank me in private for the work I have done on Wikivoyage. They either didn't realise that there are so many things to see and do, and some have said my information was useful in deciding in relocating for a "tree change".

I'm not as 'salesman' nor do I have a diploma in tourism - I can't write a sales pitch. I can only write 'Come for the birdwatching, come for the fishing' a few times. I feel I have more important work to do in getting articles created in Wikivoyage and linked with Wikipedia. These places have been doing it tough with 10-year drought, bushfires, floods, and now Covid-19 lockdown, they need as much help as they can get it getting themselves out there and getting their communities back on their feet, and their local councils provide little or no help when it comes to tourism promotion. I'm doing 99%-100% of the heavy work in getting these entries published to the standard they are - I think that's enough on my part. If someone else wants to write 1-liners in the meantime, they can go for it. There's other entries with more serious issues than a lack of 1-liners.

KevRobbAU (talk) 14:07, 20 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

I think you're selling your writing ability short. Your reply was very convincing. But I would say "last fuel, food and lodging available for 100 km" would be a fine 1-liner listing. Yes, even if it's repetitive. (By the way, one little trick in talk page threads is to put one or more colons at the beginning of paragraphs to indent in order of posting.) Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:29, 20 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

This is an accusation that I take very seriously. I would appreciate it if you would explain in what way I have abused my administrator privileges so that I can reflect on my actions. Thank you. Ground Zero (talk) 02:34, 3 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

I object to your heavy-handed approach to this whole matter. I object to you forcing your opinion on a topic you clearly demonstrate that you have neither knowledge or experience. Your entire manner is bullying and intimidating without the slightest doubt. I know that if I pushed the issue further you would have used your administrative privileges to silence me. You have shown nothing but bad will in this whole business. Your actions demonstrate that are trying to dominate this. This is not about me being thin-skinned, this about you being abusive. There are none so blind as those who do not want to see and those who do not want to hear. Let me be even more blunt - I didn't write those articles to benefit you - so back off. This whole affair started with your heavy-handedness and arrogance in dealing with my entries - there would have been no blow-back if you had taken a more serious and professional path. Are you really for the travellers, or for yourself? Maybe it's you that should think about how you do things here - not me. You've gone from hero to zero in 48 hours in my book. I'm happy to resolve this, but in all resolutions you don't always get your way - including you. My accusation will stand until I get an apology.

KevRobbAU (talk) 02:44, 3 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

In light of your comment on the Manilla Talk page, I unreservedly withdraw my accusations.

KevRobbAU (talk) 03:09, 3 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

To be clear then, neither Ikan Kekek nor I used any administrator privileges in this dispute. Therefore we did not abuse them. Further, neither of us mentioned our status as administrators at any time during the discussion. The accusation you made about us abusing our administrator privileges was based entirely on things you imagined, and not on anything either of us did or said. Based on your last comment above, I was going to leave it at that.

Taking the dispute to the Facebook page, and continuing it on your user page, however, does show that you have difficulty interacting with others, so keeping an eye on your edits is a reasonable precaution. Note that having other editors monitor your edits does not mean that they will be reverted. There is no retaliation or punishment here, just prudence. Ground Zero (talk) 16:10, 21 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

This whole matter started with your disrespectful actions and inexcusable behaviour. I have lodged a complaint with the Wikimedia Foundation who have provided me with a case number while my complaint is being investigated. I am now compelled to escalate this through the Arbitration process. I may have to have a thick skin when it comes to edits to my articles, but I certainly do not have to have a thick skin when it comes to catty remarks and stand-over tactics. I will always respect the role of an admin, but not the person with the badge when they behave unkindly and rudely. I'm the most easiest guy to get along with, and I don't bite - unless I'm bitten first. And I'm no doormat. It's you that needs to update your human relationships skills, not me. I wouldn't be kicking up a fuss if I was in the wrong. You should be putting the traveller first and not the Wikivoyage process. You should have engaged with me when you saw my entries. I had posted many articles with the information that offended you before you took action, so I wonder why you took offended in that particular entry. I also had Ikan chip in unhelpfully at the same time as you - and 2 vs 1 is totally unfair, ganging up! Is that how admins are supposed to operate? I am still ticked off, and rightfully so. If you and Ikan are representative of the Admin pool, then I'm glad I was passed over. Think and ask before you trash someone else's hard work, and you won't have to experience criticism in this way. It's been unnecessarily unpleasant for the both of us, but I won't back down from what I believe is justifiably right. KevRobbAU (talk) 17:36, 21 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

I will, of course, cooperate with and respect the Arbitration process.

After I corrected some punctuation and capitalisation problems, did other clean up, and removed information about litter bins, you falsely accused me of deleting information about public toilets. I did not delete that information.

You falsely accused me of vandalism (twice). A disagreement about the level of detail that is appropriate is not vandalism. I believe that including minutiae like litter bins makes the article worse for travellers, but since you were adamant, Ikan Kekek and I left you have your way.

You falsely accused me and Ikan Kekek of abusing admin privileges. We were acting as contributors in this dispute, not as admins, and did not use our admin privileges, or even mention being admins. The fact that we are admins has no bearing here.

You falsely suggested that Ikan Kekek said that you were "blocked for vandalism". He did not say that.

2 vs 1 is not ganging up. It is about establishing consensus, which is how Wikivoyage works. If Ikan Kekek had said that he thought litter bins should be included, I would have accepted that and moved on. You would not accept the views of two other contributors. Ground Zero (talk) 19:39, 21 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

You still have not addressed why you decided on that particular article. You seem to come across as someone who can't admit they are wrong. I cannot spell this out clearly enough - the way you approached this with your dismissive and pedantic behaviour has lead to this point. I still believe that the wanton removal of facts without basis, merely because of opinion and not correcting an error, is vandalism - and I won't be convinced otherwise. Stop being a bully. I won't be intimidated. KevRobbAU (talk) 23:29, 21 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

I came across that article largely by chance. I edit widely across Wikivoyage to improve articles in a variety of ways. I noticed the word "currently" which should be avoided because Wikivoyage contains text dating back to 2003, so it is meaningless to the reader. It is vague and goes out of date quickly. I replaced it by "as of Feb 2021", for clarity. And then I fixed capitalisation and punctuation errors to improve the article. And then I removed references to litter bins for the reasons that I have explained repeatedly. You are free to disagree on whether they should be included or not, but making the false accusations listed above is not a constructive way of resolving a dispute.

I have not threatened or intimidated you in anyway. Calling me a "bully" is another false accusation.

Your response to a disagreement over what is appropriate content has been a barrage of false accusations and name-calling. Who is the bully ? Ground Zero (talk) 00:22, 22 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

My complaint to the Arbitration Committee has been lodged. Any further replies from you will be supplied to them as evidence. KevRobbAU (talk) 01:11, 22 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

Of course they would be. I stand behind my comments and actions. Ground Zero (talk) 01:17, 22 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

Dear Admins,

I'm trying to work on my own sandbox, when it says my edits have been not updated and I have been identified as a vandal called Brendan John Williams. I am not a vandal, and how can I vandalise my own sandbox when theoretically I could type anything into it before I publish it? Could you please remove the block.

Thank you.

KevRobbAU (talk) 23:54, 16 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

You are clearly not blocked; if you were, you couldn't have posted here. What is the error message you're getting, and did you try to insert any link when you got the message? Sometimes, there are problems with blacklisted URLs, and if that's the issue and you can figure out which URL is causing the problem, that's something we can remedy. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:06, 17 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Also, to avoid any problem: If there are links that might be an issue, you can type them here as [name] dot com, so that they're not blocked here. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:07, 17 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

@KevRobbAU: By any chance is your internet service provider Telstra? We have had problems with edits from this ISP before, and as a result there's an edit filter which prevents certain edits from IP addresses registered to Telstra. Now that you're logged into your account you should be able to edit the sandbox, and I see that you have. If you have trouble again please let me know.

@Ikan Kekek: KevRobbAU probably referred to a block because MediaWiki:Abusefilter-warning-telstra says "please leave a message on the Travellers' pub to get the block removed." It might be good to rephrase that warning. —Granger (talk · contribs) 14:51, 17 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Hi Ikan, the issue seems to have been resolved after 1-2 hours, so I assumed it was either a glitch or an admin had removed the block. There was no mention of any URLs causing issues in the warning. I had rebooted my modem to see if a new ISP address might resolve the issue, but it didn't at the time, therefore I concluded I was actually blocked due to this and the warning message sayihg so. Maybe the vandal-filter policy for Telstra should be tweaked - Telstra is Australia's largest communications provider, not some little fly-by-night company favoured by troublemakers - being negatively affected simply because I am with a certain internet provider did not sit well with me.

KevRobbAU (talk) 00:22, 18 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

I'm sorry you had that trouble. We'll consider the costs and benefits of the Telstra filter and whether it should be tweaked or eliminated, but the constant stream of different uncommunicative sockpuppets posting inane or unreliable (sometimes plagiarized) stuff from that ISP causes us a lot of unnecessary work, so it's tempting to eliminate some of that. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:50, 18 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

So, technical people, what do you think? Are there ways to better avoid false positives? If we eliminate this filter completely, I suppose somewhat more work will be needed to revert undesirable edits. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:21, 18 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

I'm not one of the technical people, but does this filter even work? We still get plenty of edits from the vandal, and this isn't the first time someone else has been caught as a false positive.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 08:08, 18 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Idk but I frequently use a Telstra wifi and I get no problems. I also can't see why you decide to block telstra entirely considering it's Australia's largest network provider. TravelAroundOz (talk) 10:00, 18 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

@KevRobbAU: Anyway, I'll be on the lookout. Btw, I'm currently using iinet so it's not a problem for me now but which part are you in? TravelAroundOz (talk) 10:50, 18 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

I suppose the tweaking should be discussed behind the scenes, as any tweaking would be depending on the specific edit patterns by the vandal – which they could change accordingly. Regardless, it would be easy to exempt established users and specific Australian users. –LPfi (talk) 12:36, 18 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

TravelAroundOz, we don't block Tesltra entirely, as should be obvious. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:32, 18 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

I'd still say we are pretty draconian. See AbuseFilter/17. –LPfi (talk) 16:41, 18 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

I think we should talk at the filter, so that we agree on the current situation. –LPfi (talk) 16:45, 18 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Oops. I might have made something unintentional. Can somebody check my filter edit? –LPfi (talk) 16:59, 18 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

Hi all,

The cities Gunnedah, Boggabri, and Narrabri are in the wrong region in New South Wales, Australia - they are placed in the Central West region when they actually belong in the New England (New South Wales) region. Is it easy enough to transfer them across to where they should be?

Many thanks,

KevRobbAU (talk) 11:58, 26 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Sure. Just note in the edit summaries where you're moving them from and to. Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:01, 26 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

And remember to change the {{IsPartOf|}} template at the bottom of each of the three articles (only visible in edit mode).--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 12:24, 26 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

What do you mean. Narrabri is in the Central West. TravelAroundOz (talk) 23:42, 26 February 2021 (UTC)Reply