User talk:Vidimian Voyage Tips and guide

Contents

Due to a bug in the software, we had to remove all destination docents. You'll have to manually re-instate yourself as docent if you wish to do so.

About your Talk page, I can move your old talk page here and make a redirect from the old location to this page. That makes more sense than writing on the Talk page of a user account you can't access. --Globe-trotter (talk) 23:44, 20 September 2012 (CEST)

Thanks for notifying about the bug interfering with the docent feature (I haven't declared myself a docent for any destinations as of yet, though).

And the talk page; I was thinking about using it till the end of 2012 and then having it as some kind of talk page archive, without changing its name, and linking it from this one, which would from then on be used as a usual talk page. Hmm, let me think a little about what to do with it first. Vidimian (talk) 23:55, 20 September 2012 (CEST)

Hey, would you mind stopping by wts-old and adding an information template tothis image [1] with a statement of your authorship. I'm trying to get the last of my uploads taken care of ;) --Peter ^Talk 19:29, 2 December 2012 (UTC)Reply

Done, along with a short description for TR-010. (Thanks for the notification.) Vidimian (talk) 20:42, 2 December 2012 (UTC)Reply

Wow, I can't believe that your admin rights were overlooked in the migration!! I've restored them now, and can merge your old account contributions into your new one, if you like. --Peter ^Talk 02:10, 19 January 2013 (UTC)Reply

Were they? I thought I was able to use the delete/revert buttons even before we left Wikivoyage e.V. (and even before the site was open to the public without a password). I was meaning to apply for the account merge for some time, but I think I'm just lazy. Oh, one question on this though: When the accounts are merged, what happens to the watchlist? Do you get the watchlist of the old WT-en account, or the watchlist of newly created account on WV (or the global WMF account)? Or you lose them all and start from scratch? I'm asking because it took me a lot of time a few days ago to watchlist all the articles that I have a personal interest at (and I think there is still a stray article not on the list here and there). Vidimian (talk) 08:54, 19 January 2013 (UTC)Reply

You will keep your current watchlist. Also, you can grab stuff from your old watchlist by logging in and going to Special:EditWatchlist/raw. From there you can copy and paste the contents. --Peter ^Talk 19:44, 19 January 2013 (UTC)Reply

Thanks. I will apply for the user merge, just I don't know when. Vidimian (talk) 21:31, 19 January 2013 (UTC)Reply

No need for applications—I know you're the same person ;) I have merged your accounts. Your old user page is here and your old talk page at User talk:Vidimian/Archive. Use them however you like! --Peter ^Talk 01:55, 20 January 2013 (UTC)Reply

Oh, thanks. You've saved me from a bit of writing and moving (the old user page to somewhere, and the old talk page to somewhere else... sounds like too much and too boring work!). Vidimian (talk) 02:08, 20 January 2013 (UTC)Reply

Hi, it's your Michiganite partner/co-typist, CurvyEthyl. A lot has changed with my thinking, in case you're wondering why my userpage has made dramatic changes. --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 10:07, 17 August 2013 (UTC)Reply

	The Wikivoyage Barncompass
	You are doing great job adding pretty page banners. Keep it up! Danapit (talk) 20:14, 10 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

Hey, thanks a lot for the barncompass—it's always nice to be appreciated! One of the greatest things I love about banners is that seeing a nice banner up on an article is already very awarding in itself, though. Vidimian (talk) 21:51, 10 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

Hello! Is it intentional that you do not add banners to Wikidata? Other language versions could benefit from having them too. --Alexander (talk) 11:50, 19 May 2014 (UTC)Reply

Hi! Yeap; I've found the instructions at Wikivoyage:Banner Expedition#Adding the banner to the article too hard to follow (or just found adding them to en: easy enough). At any rate, they are periodically moved to Wikidata by a bot, but a request for that might be long overdue (currently at 268 and rising)... Vidimian (talk) 14:34, 19 May 2014 (UTC)Reply

Well, the bot will not run unless someone comes to ask for that. --Alexander (talk) 15:36, 19 May 2014 (UTC)Reply

Hello! Sorry for writing in English. As you're an administrator here, please check the message I left on MediaWiki talk:Licenses and the village pump. Thanks, Nemo 19:22, 18 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

Hello. I have seen from the many good additions you made on the Via Egnatia page that you are a history expert in Turkey. I'm about to write a new page on the Via Pontica (first in the German Wikivoyage), but I can not find any information about the course of the Via Pontica from Istanbul to the Bulgarian border. Can you please give me hints, what is known about it. DocWoKav Oct, 12th, 2019

Hi! I consider myself a history lover but certainly not an expert. Regardless, I think you will find this study fairly useful (many of my edits to the Via Egnatia page are derived from that research as well). The Black Sea road between Istanbul and the Danube Delta is referred to as A 4 in that study, and the route within Turkey is described as, north to south, Staniera (İğneada) - Medeia (Kıyıköy) - connection to Bizye (Vize) - Podima (Yalıköy) - Makra Teiche ("the Great Wall"/the Anastasian Wall) - connection to Sergentzion (Binkılıç) - Lake Derkos (Terkos) - Philea (Karaburun) - Kilios (Kilyos/Kumköy) - Thimea (?, probably Rumelifeneri) - along the Bosphorus - Constantinople. A fork ran from Philea to Pyrgos (Kemerburgaz) - along the Barbyses (Kağıthane River) - down to the Golden Horn. Hope this helps. Vidimian (talk) 19:48, 13 October 2019 (UTC)Reply

Thanks a lot, this is very helpful! DocWoKav Oct, 14th, 2019

I put the Via Pontica in English now. Would be a pleasure if you could correct and contribute -- [User:DocWoKac|DocWoKav]] Nov.8th, 2019

Great to hear! My pleasure to edit it. Vidimian (talk) 22:58, 8 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

Hi!

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Thank you. /Johan (WMF)

18:14, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Hello.

Can you find information about the current status of tourists sites and other visitor attractions in the Hatay, Antakya, Iskenderun, Gaziantep, Kahramanmaras articles and update them? The devastation in these places is so large, that most tourist sites and accomodations, have either been badly damaged or are completely destroyed. There is still no full picture of the damage and destruction of the historic heritage of those places. These articles will need to be completely overhauled, since many of the attractions and accomodations that are listed, likely don't exist anymore.

Yours sincerely, 31.200.10.127 17:34, 20 February 2023 (UTC)Reply

Hi.

Many shops, accommodation venues, etc in the area are likely gone forever, but I guess — or want to believe — the heritage sites will be restored to their former glory, but given the scale of devastation, that may take decades. So instead of removing their listings, I somewhat unconventionally added "post-earthquake status" reminders to those that I have personally observed or have online reports about, all in or near Antakya.

I volunteered for relief efforts in the Hatay area for about a week; I think I have no proper words for what I saw, experienced, and felt there. This was just months after I had a very happy trip there, so it still pains me a lot to edit the articles about those fair places beyond this or indeed to edit a travel website in general at the moment.

Best, Vidimian (talk) 09:07, 22 February 2023 (UTC)Reply

My sympathies to you. I salute you for helping! Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:07, 22 February 2023 (UTC)Reply

Thank you Ikan. I'm not gonna lie — that wetted my eyes. Vidimian (talk) 10:25, 22 February 2023 (UTC)Reply

I can't even imagine! Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:50, 22 February 2023 (UTC)Reply

Yes, I hope that all these devastated beautiful provinces can be restored, at least in the next decade, especially with earthquake resistant buildings and with restored historic heritage later on. These people and places must be spared another horrific and avoidable tragedy like this, and other high-risk places in the rest of Turkey. 31.200.10.127 11:01, 22 February 2023 (UTC)Reply

Ditto. Those beautiful lands and their good, proud people have never deserved to go through such misery. Vidimian (talk) 11:14, 22 February 2023 (UTC)Reply

Hello.

l feel uncomfortable about asking this, when the survivors are continuing to suffer horribly and some areas look like Hiroshima; do you have any information about the state of the museums in the earthquake zone and the artifacts inside them? I have read that most of the major museums miraculously survived the earthquakes with few damages. But I have not come across detailed information, including about the museum artifacts. I know that the people must be the first and foremost priority, but the decimated cultural fabric, is part of their heritage.

Yours sincerely, 31.200.18.161 10:51, 10 April 2023 (UTC)Reply

Hello.

I've been seeing online reports about the state of some museums in the zone every now and then. I think little is miraculous about steel frame buildings, e.g. both archaeological museums in Antakya as far as I know, surviving the quake. I've found muze.gov.tr, the official visitor website for the museums and archaeological sites managed by the Ministry of Culture, is often quite up-to-date, so whenever I come across with a site that is closed to visits due to the quake while surfing that website, I make a point to try and mark their Wikivoyage listings as such. I think that's about the extent of what we could do here at Wikivoyage per wv:ttcf — if the place is closed to visits until further notice, it's closed, period, whether the artifacts within are perfectly preserved or all smashed.

Best, Vidimian (talk) 10:54, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for the information. I also read that the museums are closed until further notice; I guess we will learn the fate of the artifacts sometime in the future, when they do or do not appear, after the museums are repaired and reopened. 31.200.18.161 13:38, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply

Oh, it didn't occur to me that you might be asking this out of personal interest and not for using this information for Wikivoyage articles. If that is the case, sometime ago I did a bit of searching about the three museums of Antakya that I hold dear, mainly due to a visit soon before the quake. I remember reading some of the standing and hanging artifacts at Hatay Archaeological Museum fell down, therefore suffered slight damage, but these did not include the most iconic ones such as the statue of Shuppiluliuma which didn't move even an inch, and all were wrapped in a plastic/paper composite material just in case against the possibility of strong aftershocks tumbling them down. St Peter's Church itself was undamaged, but a supporting wall of its outer yard was partially collapsed. The mosaics at Asfuroğlu Archaeological Museum got slight damages due to plaster falling down from the overhanging structure, but nothing serious. I also remember searching for the fate of the statues on Mount Nemrut but I couldn't get a definite answer for that quest. If you can read Turkish, googling the Turkish name of the site you are interested in plus deprem (Turkish for "earthquake") lets you have at least a partial picture of the damage these days. Vidimian (talk) 16:07, 11 April 2023 (UTC)Reply

Yes, I asked this out of curiosity, not for advertising reasons or use. I visited Antakya, Iskenderun and Vakifli, including its major museums and other tourist attractions you have mentioned, in the autumn of 2010. My brother visited Antakya and Iskenderun as a tourist only in October 2022 during the Expo. It is upsetting to think, that many of the people I met, the landmarks and sights are gone. My brother could not establish contact with most of his acquaintances in Hatay and he fears the worst. The landmarks and sights can be hopefully rebuilt in their original form and earthquake proof, but the community will never be the same, because of the large loss of life and subsequent immigration of the traumatized homeless victims, many of whom may not wish to return (for example the entire miniscule and elderly Jewish community was moved from Hatay, and many of the Armenians of Vakifli have left it as well). I have read that most of Antakya will not be rebuild in the same place due to its location on an alluvial plain. The souvenirs and tourist brochures, the latter which my brother thought of throwing away have become sentimental values, after the earthquake struck. I hope that this time, the buildings are rebuilt to withstand such strong earthquakes, and that they don't rush into a building spree without the proper analysis, so that this tradegy is not repeated again. ~~~~ 31.200.18.161 07:47, 12 April 2023 (UTC)Reply

I passed through Vakıflı well past midnight while looking for somewhere safe to park my car and sleep in it during post-quake relief work in the area, and as far as I could tell, it was in a far better shape than nearby Samandağ, which was grotesquely devastated beyond words (literally). But that was my first time there, and it was just a quick glance into what headlights could manage to reveal across total darkness (there was no electricity supply anywhere within a radius of hundreds of kilometres during the week or so I was there), so...

I heard the Antiochian Jewish community, comprised of a dozen individuals before the quake, lost two members, the community leader among them, and their synagogue. The rest of the community was airlifted to Istanbul, as far as I know.

I envision Old Antakya, the eastern bank of the river, to be reconstructed in its original place, perhaps with destroyed buildings getting steel frames or something, and then covered by original façade material to restore the historic look. The local guide who took me through Antakya before the quake (and was alive and well in Ankara the last time I had news of him) told me that there were proposals to dig up Kurtuluş Caddesi to uncover the colonnaded street of Roman Antioch but these proposals were eternally postponed as the street served as a major thoroughfare for that part of the city, so this tragedy might have kicked the door open for them to come true. The rest of the city would perhaps need to be moved towards the mountains to the south, east or north, which I guess have more seismic-proof ground. But only time will tell... Vidimian (talk) 10:43, 12 April 2023 (UTC)Reply

Hi Thanks for your edit on Istanbul. 👍

Do you think it would be useful to travellers to also include the € equivalent for each TL price?

I noticed that inflation is very high in Turkey — the outlook isn't great with Erdogan ruling — and often prices are outdated just after a few months. I.e. all the effort one puts into finding out prices in TL is for nothing when in a few month the inflation jumped again and no one knows what these past TL values actually mean or relate to. Even if knowing the exchange rate of that time when a listing was updated, it is just a guess whether the price was from that exact point in time.

However, I feel that giving the € equivalent, at least travellers would get an approximate feel for the involved costs, even if the TL is not in range anymore. Prices (in TL) are quite regularly adjusted in Turkey (see museums) and generally stay within -/+10% of their € equivalent.

Cheers Ceever (talk) 20:50, 21 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

Hi.

The Turkish lira has been in a free fall since late 2021 (or perhaps even earlier), sadly, and that fact has become more pronounced this year. Like you do, I don't expect it to end any time soon, given Erdoğan's great understanding of the basics of economy.

However, the museums in Turkey rarely accept foreign currency (and those run by various governmental departments, i.e., the overwhelming majority, almost never do), let alone quote the admission fees in foreign currency. Besides, the museum price increases are not yet (and hopefully will never be) at the extent of hyperinflation, when the price changes can be expected daily or even hourly. They seem to change twice yearly or once every few months (the norm in the previous years was to increase them once at the beginning of the year, if that). So in order not to mislead the possible users of our articles, I think we have two possible routes that might be followed:

• Keep the prices in TL and update them as best as we could (the |lastedit= parameters in the listings are there for a reason after all). Perhaps a reminder at Turkey#Buy would be helpful.
• Keep the prices in TL, and have an additional rough equivalent in a hard currency at the rate around that time of the year but make it clear that it's just an approximate estimate for the benefit of the user, and doesn't mean the mentioned hard currency would be accepted in all cases at the ticket office (or the counter or whatever). And that hard currency has to be the euro, IMO, since the Turkish economy and tourism is most connected with the eurozone.

I interpret Wikivoyage:Currency#Which currency to use to allow either route to be taken.

But at any rate, I believe this is best discussed at Talk:Turkey as it would effect a large number of articles.

Cheers, Vidimian (talk) 15:19, 22 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

Hi @Vidimian:

Well, I don't know whether this effort regularly updating the TL prices is really justified. You say that hard currency prices can only be a rough estimate, but isn't this even more true for the TL itself after a few month. As I said, I have the feel museums keep their TL prices in a certain range or € or US$. Hence, having a hard currency equivalent would therefore be much more useful to the traveller than a non-talking TL price. Also, I don't understand, why one would assume that any hard currency in brackets means that the traveller could pay in this hard currency—I wouldn't assume this, not for Turkey. But maybe to make it more obvious, one could add a "~" to indicate an approximation and thus not a potential alternative payment.

Either way, I was just trying to help you find a less costly solution to this inflation problem. If you are happy updating it regularly, that's good. If you actually not intend to do so, maybe this additional information would be useful and more effective to the traveller than just TL.

What do you think?

Cheers Ceever (talk) 15:08, 9 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

Hello Ceever. Lest you think I overlooked this, I intend to start a discussion at Talk:Turkey, but to provide an example I want to work on an article first by updating the prices in TL and putting the rough € equivalents next to them in brackets. But I guess I need some time. Best, Vidimian (talk) 21:00, 14 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

Ceever, I made a proposal at Talk:Turkey#High inflation. Vidimian (talk) 00:50, 15 August 2023 (UTC)Reply