This document is neither official nor policy. Wikipedia's link policy is at Wikipedia:External links.
Where to link
[edit]In general, Wikipedia's usage of links falls into two main categories:
- Citations from reliable sources, used as the factual basis for a Wikipedia article, and
- External links offered as a source of additional information for the reader.
It is almost never advisable to cite a wiki (such as Wikivoyage, or even Wikipedia itself in any language) as a reliable source in Wikipedia. Wikis are not subject to the oversight and verification that editorial staff normally exercise over books, news and published magazine articles.
This means that Wikivoyage links are normally placed in the "external links" section of an article about a place or travel-related topic and link to additional information in Wikivoyage that is not in the Wikipedia article.
Just as Wikipedia may link to images in a Wikimedia Commons category to avoid a large image gallery in an encyclopedia article, or link to a news article on Wikinews as Wikipedia is not a newspaper, so travel itinerary or "how-to" instruction (go here, see this, do that...) learned from personal experience on the road may be worthy of a link as useful material that fits here but not there.
Links to articles
[edit]A link from a Wikipedia article to the same-topic article in other projects (such as Wikivoyage) is normally provided by Wikidata. Click "Wikidata item" from the sidebar "Tools" menu on a Wikipedia page to open the corresponding data record (for instance, w:Montreal is d:Q340). Scroll down to the "Wikivoyage" section to add the language code (English is "en") and article name (Montreal) for Wikivoyage's article. (Oui, celà va sans dire that Wikivoyage en français has an article on Montréal, so that will be listed too - with "fr" as the language code for the French language.)
This will address the most straightforward case, where there's an exact 1:1 correspondence between Wikipedia and Wikivoyage articles. In other cases, the alternative is to create a templated link to Wikivoyage from the Wikipedia article's "external links" section.
How to link
[edit]In most cases, there will be templates available on individual Wikipedias to link to other Wikimedia projects in the "External links" section of an article at the end of the page. It's best to use these instead of directly using the voy: interwiki prefix. For instance, on many versions of Wikipedia:
- ==External links==
- * {{wikivoyage|Madrid}}
or:
- * {{wikivoyage-inline|Madrid}}
will make an entry in the external links section (on its own, or in a small box) pointing to:
Madrid travel guide on Wikivoyage
Templates on the English-language Wikipedia for links to Wikivoyage are listed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikivoyage. They include:
- {{wikivoyage-inline}} - a normal link as shown above, with the project's logo
- {{wikivoyage}} - a small box linking to Wikivoyage
- {{sister project links}} - a box listing multiple Wikimedia projects. For instance: {{Sister project links|voy=Paris}}
- {{user wikivoyage}} - for user pages
The available templates will vary from one Wikipedia to another (French Wikipédia, for instance, provides {{autres projets|wikivoyage=Madrid}} which generates a box with a link and a logo for a list of various Wikimedia projects). Non-English Wikipedias will usually prefer to link to Wikivoyage in their own language, where available. If a language has a Wikipedia but no local Wikivoyage, sometimes these templates do point to English-language Wikivoyage.
Even if a link is from one Wikimedia project to another, it is still grouped with the "External links" (or the sidebar, if linking via Wikidata or between various languages of the same project). Each wiki operates independently of the others and many sites that mirror the English-language Wikipedia may not have local copies of sister projects like Wikinews, Wikibooks or Wikivoyage.
When to link
[edit]Add a link from a Wikipedia article where there is significant information in the equivalent Wikivoyage article that is useful to Wikipedia readers. All Wikivoyage articles that are at "usable" status or higher should have links from Wikipedia. Articles at "outline" status that contain significant travel information should also have links. High-level articles about countries and regions (eg, states) that are at "outline" status should often have links. For those low-level "outline" articles that contain little travel information, a link is best avoided.
Links to listings
[edit]How to link
[edit]First the wikidata parameter must be set on the Wikivoyage listing entry of the point of interest. (This is the Q number you see on page reached from the Wikidata item link on the Wikipedia page). This creates an anchor on the page so that clinking the link on Wikipedia will take the reader to the part of the article where the listing is.
Second add the Wikivoyage template on the Wikipedia page of the point of interest using the page name of the article on Wikivoyage where the listing is. The wikidata code for the page anchor is automatically added.
For example for the Eiffel Tower on the the Wikipedia article add {{Wikivoyage|Paris/7th arrondissement}}, or also use a second parameter such as {{Wikivoyage|St. Louis|Gateway Arch}} to get the correct description on the link.
When to link
[edit]When the listing on Wikivoyage has information not typically allowed on Wikipedia, such as opening times and prices. Preferably when the listing content is of reasonable length and useful to a visitor.