You are the most important resource Wikivoyage has. Please add information, join discussions, make comments, or ask questions. Your knowledge makes Wikivoyage a better guide; your comments on our processes make Wikivoyage a better project.
Your contributions should mostly be original work, created by you. In general, please don't copy text or images from other web sites to Wikivoyage. There are exceptions if the material is your own work or has been released under an appropriate license; see Wikivoyage:Copyleft. For a large collection of images which can be freely used here, see Wikimedia Commons.
If you have a question about how to contribute to Wikivoyage, you can post it in the Wikivoyage:Arrivals lounge (primarily for questions from new users) where it will be answered by one or more of the old hands here. Questions about a specific place should generally go on the talk page for the relevant article. You can also ask questions in the travellers' pub (general discussion) or Wikivoyage:Tourist office (questions that do not fit elsewhere).
There are lots of articles on Wikivoyage that "aren't quite there yet". Don't assume that just because something's left out, misspelled, or weirdly formatted that we want it that way. You could plunge forward and fix it, or ask a question about it on the relevant talk page, or just ignore it.
General guidance
[edit]We have a help section with lots of info on how to work with our software, a manual of style with ideas on how articles are formatted and policies and guidelines describe how we work together. Our guide to writing tone describes how we hope to create a lively guide, and to shun dry, encyclopedic writing.
We also have several articles that offer guidance for specific types of user:
- Wikivoyage:Welcome, newcomers
- Wikivoyage:Welcome, Wikipedians
- Wikivoyage:Welcome, locals
- Wikivoyage:Welcome, business owners
- Wikivoyage:Welcome, tourism professionals
- Wikivoyage:Welcome, copyeditors
If you have some particular info you want to share, see the guidelines about where you can stick it. Have a look at article skeletons to see what the headings all mean. If you're still not sure, ask, or put it where you think it fits best and someone else will move it to the right place.
Not all information you might want to share belongs on Wikivoyage; some would not belong in any travel guide. Our goals and non-goals article explains what we're trying to do, and what we're not trying to do. There are guidelines on what should or should not be covered at Wikivoyage:Illegal activities policy, Wikivoyage:Sex tourism policy, Wikivoyage:Be_fair#Political disputes and Wikivoyage:No advice from Captain Obvious. We also try to avoid encyclopedic content, e.g. a list of all the administrative divisions of a city or a long essay on a region's history. Such things might fit better on Wikipedia; consider adding them there instead.
Wikivoyage is a travel guide, not a travel journal. Try to share what you learned, not what you did. Avoid using first person pronouns like "I" or "we". Also, do not sign or date your contribution, except on talk (discussion) pages (see Wikivoyage:Using talk pages).
Communicating with other users
[edit]Wikivoyage has a large and active community of people who want to make this project a success. You may not see us at first, but we're here! Other people working on Wikivoyage are here to share their knowledge and make a great website. Articles you work on can and probably will be changed by other people. Making changes will often inspire others to make additions to your work.
When you edit an article, a "summary" box appears at the bottom of the page so you can make a short comment describing your change. It is generally a good idea to use this feature. In particular, if you remove information (say a restaurant has closed), make a note of the reason there.
Every article has an associated Talk page where we discuss how best to work on that article. If you're wondering what's up with some article, why it's this way instead of that, check the talk page by clicking the discussion link. If you want to make radical changes to an article, it is usually best to discuss them on the talk page first.
Wikivoyagers sometimes use Wikivoyage:Jargon in edit summaries or discussion pages.
In dealing with other contributors, you should generally assume that people are trying to do what's best for travellers and for the project. Sometimes, though, that is clearly not the case; see Wikivoyage:How to handle unwanted edits.
Creating an account
[edit]Please consider creating a user account. Other Wikivoyagers will get to know and trust your work, and can more easily communicate with you. You don't need to give your name (in fact it's recommended you don't give your real name); you can edit under a pseudonym if you like. You can also create a user page if you want, where you can talk about yourself, places you've been, ideas you have. Or you can just leave it blank; your choice.
Once you have a user account, other Wikivoyagers can send you messages through your user talk page. Immediately to the right of your user name on the top of the page there are two icons, the alert icon and the message icon. When there are new messages on your talk page, the talk icon turns light blue and next to it the text "You have new messages" will appear (with yellow background). You should check to see what someone has to say. When someone has mentioned you (your user name, to be precise), have thanked you for an edit or reverted one of your edits, the alert icon turns red. Click the icon to open a menu, to see what it is; if you've been mentioned somewhere, there is probably a discussion going on that you will find interesting.
Not creating a user account can lead to problems. With no account, your edits will be tagged with your IP address rather than your username and all edits will be tagged at recent changes as unchecked. Once you have an account and have made some edits, other Wikivoyagers can spend less time checking your work and more time improving the guide! Also, since some systems assign IP Addresses dynamically, your address may be different each time you log in so you may miss messages left on an address's talk page or your address may be blocked because someone else misused it.
Once you have an account, you can do additional things if you wish: add yourself to the List of Wikivoyagers by location or list yourself as a docent for destinations you know well.