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There's a month and a half left until April fools, so we could start thinking about what article (or which articles? if we run more than one) we should run. Some suggestions from previous discussions that sound interesting to me are Gibberish phrasebook or Captain Obvious travel guide. Ypsilon (talk) 18:04, 16 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

We can make a popover for "Plan your next trip with Wikivoyage AI (Beta)!" And however you interact with it, it just sends you to a random Itinerary article. Gerode (talk) 20:22, 16 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

Another idea: we can have the homepage/featured articles have constant popovers/warning boxes saying things like "39 Wikivoyagers already searched for destinations like this today", "Hurry! Only 4 Stay listings left for your dates!", "This is the lowest price we've seen for Creative Commons content". And a huge red blinking clock. Gerode (talk) 20:55, 16 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm not sure how technically feasible those ideas are. //shb (t | c | m) 22:04, 16 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

The AI one should be pretty easy: Link everything to Special:RandomInCategory/Itineraries. You could do the same for Category:Star articles or Category:Travel topics if you wanted to offer destinations or general advice as alternatives. It can be set up as an old-fashioned choose-your-own-adventure series of pages, or perhaps someone could make a little Javascript interface (radio buttons or tickboxes – they [or at least most of them] don't have to do anything, so long as you can click on them). WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:10, 17 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

Or the AI one can simply be a link to Special:Random. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:34, 17 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

That would usually result in the person ending up at an "Outline" article. I'd rather have them end up at one of our better articles (Guide or Star status). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:11, 17 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

Seemingly that can be done with Special:RandomInCategory/Star articles. However, is there a technically feasible framework that would make this suitable for 1 April? Just redirecting a feature to an excellent article doesn't look like a joke.

(Should we have that link on our main page year round?)

–LPfi (talk) 07:28, 18 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yeah that doesn't seem nearly as fun of a prank. //shb (t | c | m) 08:01, 18 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

Imagine a long list of questions like this:

1. Do you like to travel by yourself or with others? 🔘 Solo travel 🔘 One special person 🔘 Groups
2. Do you prefer short trips or long trips? 🔘 Day trips or overnight 🔘 Weekends 🔘 A week or more
3. How soon? 🔘 This month 🔘 Next month or two 🔘 Later this year
4. How far? 🔘 Close to home 🔘 The farther, the better
5. What's your favorite travel mode? 🔘 Car 🔘 Bus 🔘 Train 🔘 Plane

and at the end it has a button labeled something like "Have AI find your best destination!" that takes you to a random page (or to a page that we think would be a funny result, like Staycation). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:35, 18 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

That could work, but e.g. the fourth and fifth questions above require analysis of the answer and the user's location, for giving a sensible answer. We might intend to make fun of lousy AI engines, but the reader might just blame our judgement in choosing what AI to use.

Staycation might work, if "Close to home" is chosen, and Mars for "The farther, the better". One could provide star articles for some ("right") combinations of answers, with a good-enough probability that somebody trying alternatives would get one or more of those.

What framework is there to code this thing?

–LPfi (talk) 09:14, 19 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

Your house is another possibility for "Close to home", if we want the result to be obviously joke-y.

I assume that if we don't take the hypertext route (i.e., each question is on a different page, with each answer taking you to another page, and the last one taking you to the destination), then it would have to be written in Javascript. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:28, 19 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

As I'm now adding April's Discoveries to the template, I'll be adding three references to Joke articles from previous years for the set displayed on April 1st. If there is no interest in creating a Joke article this year, then there'll at least be something. Ypsilon (talk) 19:32, 11 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Great idea, just write my first post Time and Clock here in OZ. WolleNadel (talk) 17:02, 1 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

The Caption Obvious idea sounds awesome and I've whipped together Draft:Travelling with Captain Obvious. Please chip in! I'm not quite sure if the best tone for this is "absurdly obvious" or "absurd explanations for obvious things", so currently it's a bit of both, but let's see how this develops, we've still got two weeks. Jpatokal (talk) 03:15, 14 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

That's a great start! One small thing, though: the draft namespace doesn't technically exist on Wikivoyage – I'll move it to Wikivoyage:Joke articles/Travelling with Captain Obvious instead for the timebeing. //shb (t | c | m) 03:20, 14 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hey, thanks for starting up this! I added some good advice from Captain Obvious but surely there has to be a lot more that travellers need to be informed about. --Ypsilon (talk) 10:53, 16 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hey everyone!

I wanted to bring up an interesting conversation happening over at Wikidata about forming a user group called trainer. The idea is to ensure that activities, especially those organized by Wikimedia affiliates, are led by experienced users who really know their stuff.

I think it would be great to kick off a similar discussion here. My suggestion is that any such events be accompanied by a sysop and that organizers give a heads-up about their plans at least thirty days in advance. We've all noticed how some activities can create more challenges for our volunteers than they solve, so I believe this could be a positive step toward improving the relationship between our communities and those seeking funding. Best, Galahad (sasageyo!)^(esvoy) 04:35, 20 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'd be in support of something like that. It prevents competitions that cause chaos such as the Africa Expedition we previously had that only waste everyone's time and any other net negative events. //shb (t | c | m) 04:40, 20 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

Giving notice 30 days in advance is a long time. Even 2 weeks is more than sufficient. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:41, 20 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

1 week would be fine. Notice is less important than participants not posting copyvio, copying the same information in every destination article in a country, etc. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:03, 20 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

I disagree about the notice; advance notice is quite important, especially if the event is organized by a Wikimedia volunteer/affiliate funded by some Wikimedia community fund Galahad (sasageyo!)^(esvoy) 06:08, 20 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think 1 week or 10 days would suffice. I do agree notice is important – it allows us to prepare for an expedition beforehand and better track the participants' contributions as opposed to it being thrown all at once. I also maybe think we could lower the bar to patrollers, since patrollers are generally trusted enough to fully understand how Wikivoyage works. But overall, I still support any change as opposed to the status quo which in the past has caused us to waste months unnecessarily on cleaning up problematic articles which could be better spent elsewhere. //shb (t | c | m) 07:37, 20 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

I agree that a bit of notice is good, but the quality of the edits is the most important thing. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:31, 20 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yeah ultimately we want both. //shb (t | c | m) 09:15, 20 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think it would be good if we had 1 week's notice in advance of the event being advertised. It is better that we comment on event details before people the event is announced. This may mean that we get 14 days notice of some events and 100 days notice of others.

I think we can be more relaxed about the trainer requirements for in person events than online events and competitions. The amount of damage that 20 people at an event in a classroom for an afternoon can do is small compared to a month long competition. (I occasionally get invites to Wikipedia or Commons events held at a local university, run by their Wikimedian-in-residence.) AlasdairW (talk) 00:19, 22 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

I made a draft at User:SHB2000/Organising events – thoughts? //shb (t | c | m) 03:56, 22 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

The notice has several functions. For us being prepared to handle the edits caused by the event, a week is plenty. For us to convince organisers that they need to rethink their concept (points by number of articles created and the like), the discussion may require weeks – before the announcement that would include such issues is published.

Requiring an admin gives misleading signals about their role. The only reason why an admin would need to be involved is if the event causes a need to delete or hide created content or to block participants – nothing a well-planned event should cause. Autopatrollers and patrollers (as suggested by SHB) are more relevant groups.

Anyway, we cannot forbid and at least not prevent events that break our rules. Thus the page should focus on advice, and be made visible enough that "outsiders" will stumble upon it when in a preliminary phase of the planning. This includes WMF, which oddly enough often have people that don't understand the communities in such roles.

–LPfi (talk) 08:54, 22 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

The goal is to provide advance notice for community preparedness. Ideally, an enwikivoyage sysop should manage any resulting issues, not as a requirement but as a precaution. As a program host once said, "It's better to have a sysop and not need it than to need it and not have it"

Although I don't believe I have the right to vote in this community, I suggest including examples of well-organized events in the draft policy. Best, Galahad (sasageyo!)^(esvoy) 14:03, 22 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

Every user has the right to vote or express an opinion here. It's a wiki! Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:07, 22 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

There are definitely things I appreciate about the draft (e.g., restricting it to medium- and large-scale events, rather than a few friends, and naming the problem of mistargeted incentives).

However, I wonder whether the thing we would really want is: If you're organizing this event, you need to know how to edit Wikivoyage yourself.

This would sound less like "Please follow these steps in announcing" and more like "Before you plan an event, you should first contribute a significant amount of material to a couple of Wikivoyage articles".

This community has been generous in providing ample feedback to would-be organizers who are taking the trouble to get familiar with our approach, and I think it is easier to teach what you know. We could suggest some other ways to learn, e.g., reading this page for a couple of months, patrolling RecentChanges to see what others are reverting, watching the low-traffic Wikivoyage:Arrivals lounge, etc. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:03, 23 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

I assume we're all good on moving this into projectspace now? //shb (t | c | m) 04:22, 9 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Done – it's now at Wikivoyage:Organising events. //shb (t | c | m) 22:48, 14 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't feel a need for a user right for vetting people. Any of the regulars is welcome to set up an editing workshop whenever they want, e.g., at school, at work, or as a community event at their local library. Any of us could do it, and some of us have. We don't need a user right to do this.

The point behind a user right is to give you relevant tools. In the case of user rights such as w:en:Wikipedia:Event coordinator and w:en:Wikipedia:Account creator, it gives you tools that are useful for running an event (e.g., helping people create their accounts). User rights also make it easier to figure out who has these tools, because it puts you in lists such as Special:ListAdmins.

Unless specific tools are actually needed, I don't think we should create a user right. That tends to lead to a behavior we call "hat collecting" (trying to make yourself look important by getting as many user rights as possible, even though you aren't using them). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:33, 22 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

As someone who has seen plenty of people try at hat collect, I must say it's rather rare on this wiki and almost anyone who tries to hat collect is almost always stopped. That said, I'm still indifferent because I do see the use of allowing non-admins to use the mass message feature but at the same time, I do think autopatroller or patroller should be enough. //shb (t | c | m) 22:20, 22 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

I agree. I don't see why some special status is needed. If we've recognized someone as an autopatroller, we consider them a trustworthy editor. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:22, 23 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think there is still plenty of merit in discussing whether having a permission to allow non-admins to use Special:MassMessage, though. //shb (t | c | m) 01:43, 23 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'd trust a patroller to use it. If they're going to abuse it, they shouldn't have been made a patroller. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:51, 23 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

Personally I'm fine either way of whether we want mass message to be included with patroller or a separate perm, so long as it's not bundled with autopatroller (since autopatroller requires a lower trust level than patroller and we have had to remove autopatroller from a few users before). //shb (t | c | m) 04:01, 23 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yes, we have. We agree. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:02, 23 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hello. I'm looking for a solution for our listing editor because it's still at version 2.1 and I think that's why it doesn't work anymore. Can you tell us how to solve the problem? Is it enough just to copy and paste the .JS and .CSS from here or is there another problem? Thank you very much in advance. Crochet.david (talk) 12:27, 2 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Crochet.david, what does "doesn't work anymore" mean? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:58, 3 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'd assume broken (speaking from experience) because it's outdated. //shb (t | c | m) 02:14, 3 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Broken, the [edit] button is missing?

Broken, the [edit] button is there, but does nothing when you click it?

Broken, the editing window opens, but it's blank?

Broken, the editing window opens, but it's missing parts?

Broken, the editing window opens and works, but it doesn't save your changes?

Broken, the listing tool screws up the rest of the page when it saves your changes?

"Broken" is vague. We might need specifics. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:38, 4 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Looking at fr:Cheongju as an example, I see no "add listing" button and clicking the edit button at fr:Les Pavillons-sous-Bois does nothing when you click on it. //shb (t | c | m) 03:09, 6 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

If the [add listing] button is gone, it might not be loading at all. Andyrom75, would you mind taking a look at this? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:58, 7 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Also pinging @Jdlrobson:. //shb (t | c | m) 03:10, 7 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

The code from MediaWiki:Gadget-ListingEditor broken in 2023 with updates to MediaWiki.

I forked this into a new version MediaWiki:Gadget-ListingEditor2023 and have been slowly slowly trying to improve the code to make it more maintainable and to have tests and to support all projects to avoid this happening again. The code still uses jquery.ui for example which was deprecated 10 years ago, so there's a lot of catching up to do. I underestimated the work here, and to be honest, in my opinion it's crying out for a modern rewrite using Vue.js from someone who understands its functionality better than I do.

It should be functional at least (for now) and any pull requests for improving the code are welcome. There are instructions on MediaWiki:Gadget-ListingEditor2023 for how to incorporate it into your wiki. Jdlrobson (talk) 06:09, 8 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Jdlrobson, fr:voy cannot implement the LE2023 as it is, because they performed several customization that should be analyzed first.

@Crochet.david, @WhatamIdoing, I would love to take a look at it, but because of several personal issues I'm not able to take such commitment in the short term. Once solved at least part of them, I'll check if there's any quick fix to implement to restore the old functionality. Andyrom75 (talk) 10:01, 8 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for your feedback. We can wait. Crochet.david (talk) 13:31, 8 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

I wonder if this problem is happening at the other Wikivoyages, too. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:59, 8 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

I assume that the breakage is a result of the new Parsoid parser. The Parsoid support is only available at the English, German and Spanish branches. I think that this problem is available on all other Wikivoyages. --RolandUnger (talk) 17:27, 9 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Then it's probably time to ping @SGrabarczuk (WMF), who can ask the Content Transform team to look into this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:43, 9 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hello All,

Greetings from the Wiki Loves Bangla Team!

We are excited to announce that Wiki Loves Bangla 2025 is coming soon! This year, the contest theme will focus on Birds of Bengal, inviting participants to capture and share stunning images of Bengal's diverse birdlife.

Contest Details

📅 Dates: 1 – 31 March 2025

📍 Theme: Birds of Bengal

🎯 Organized by: Bangla WikiMoitree

Wiki Loves Bangla is an international photography contest hosted on Wikimedia Commons to document Bengali culture and heritage worldwide. As part of the Bangla Culture and Heritage Collation Program, it is held annually with a specific theme, inviting participants to contribute their photographs to Wikimedia Commons to expand free knowledge. Through this campaign, you can become part of a community dedicated to preserving and showcasing the beauty, behaviour, and biodiversity of Bangla’s birds. This initiative aims to highlight the richness of Bangla’s natural heritage to the world.

How can I participate?

The contest runs from 1 - 31 March 2025 on Wikimedia Commons. To take part, simply:

📷 Capture photographs of Birds of Bengal.

📤 Upload your images to Wikimedia Commons under the Wiki Loves Bangla 2025 category.

📖 Learn more about contest rules and guidelines on the contest page.

Why participate?

By contributing, you help in documenting the rich birdlife of Bengal, making knowledge accessible to all. Plus, there are exciting prizes to be won!

Prizes

1st prize: BDT 50,000, crest, and certificate.

2nd prize: BDT 25,000, crest, and certificate.

3rd Prize: BDT 15,000, crest, and certificate.

If you are interested in participating in the photography campaign, start photographing and get ready for the photo campaign happening on Wikimedia Commons. For more information about the rules and prizes of the contest, refer here. For any questions, email us or join our telegram group here.

Warm regards,
Wiki Loves Bangla Team.
~ Moheen ^{(keep talking)} 13:44, 13 March 2025 (UTC) #WikiLovesBanglaReply

We have several articles about things that involve relatively long-term residence abroad: Retiring abroad, Working abroad, Teaching English, Digital nomad, Studying abroad, ... There are some issues that are common to most or all of these; some are currently covered at Retiring_abroad#Taxation, Retiring_abroad#Housing, Retiring_abroad#Moving & Retiring_abroad#Health. Some other articles already link to some of those & more links might be added. Other issues are not covered at all as far as I can see:

For many types of long-term visa you need a document from the police at home, or wherever you have been living recently, certifying that you are not a criminal. In many cases you need to get the destination country's embassy to certify that the document is genuine.

If you want to marry at the destination, in some countries (at least China & Philippines) you will need a document from your country's embassy or consulate certifying that you are single. To get this, you may have to show the consulate other documents -- divorce decree, death certificate if you are widowed -- & I've seen situations where someone had to fly home to get the documents.

Would it make sense to centralise this information in a "Living abroad" article & link to it from the others? Pashley (talk) 15:37, 14 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yes, "living abroad" can be a broad topic, covering subtopics like retiring abroad, working abroad, teaching English, studying abroad, culture shock, etc. Of course, "living abroad" should be distinguished from mere "travelling abroad", as you will be staying in a foreign land for longer periods than average tourists. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 17:22, 14 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

I've always felt that moving is a form of travel and would be good to cover in a comprehensive travel guide, but so far, every article that's not about traveling somewhere temporarily has been an exception. I will add that all temporary or permanent residents of Germany are required to have medical insurance, and I was very shocked to find out recently that medical insurance for people on resident visas in Germany can be punishingly expensive, depending on a person's age and medical risk factors. Anyone interested in moving there temporarily or permanently as a freelancer needs to know about this and would benefit from knowing a lot earlier in their investigation and planning of a potential move than I did. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:12, 14 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

A Living abroad article sounds like a good idea to me. The other articles mentioned above (Working abroad, Studying abroad, etc.) can link to it as appropriate. —Granger (talk · contribs) 02:51, 16 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Because the topic is so broad, I think it makes more sense to use Living abroad as a list of the articles we've already created for specific circumstances. Ground Zero (talk) 00:08, 20 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Ground Zero: That may make sense, and I will draft a list similar to concerns shortly. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 02:27, 20 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Specifics for students, those who retire etc. should be covered in those articles, but general advice on the common issues fit better in the general article. I think it needs to be a proper article rather than a link list, but let's see how the article develops. –LPfi (talk) 07:04, 20 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Pashley, Ikan Kekek, Mx. Granger, Ground Zero: I have created living abroad as a list of articles related to living abroad. It can be converted to a full-fledged article if needed. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 03:18, 20 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

In Europe we have people of all ages who can afford to travel for extensive periods in a recreational vehicle, some of them even while working remotely. Many of them are from Northern Europe, who travel south during the winter. Since the weather conditions are changing, we are now also seing people from Southern Europe who travel north during the summer. My understanding is these people are "living abroad" even though they are not doing so permanently, but I would classify them as tourists because some also change destination country once in a while. Can Wikivoyage cater to this type of tourists? 2A02:AA1:1166:C7DD:C81B:4E7A:E9F6:E942 21:33, 25 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Actually, most articles in Wikivoyage deal with tourists, including the ones you're talking about. However, in my conception, "living abroad" means not just staying in a different country for extended periods, but also staying there for practical reasons, including education (learning or teaching), work, and retirement. They are not mere "tourists" in the sense that they are not just travelling to a different country for pleasure. Probably that's why many private space travellers don't like the term "space tourist", as some of them have had practical reasons to go to space (like filmmaking). Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 02:56, 26 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Odd comparison. But I don't think we need to care about whether people are living abroad permanently or just for an extended time – or living vs staying. We are giving advice for visa issues, moving (part of) your belongings, culture chock, health insurance etc. Some of those may not apply to a specific person living abroad, but they can nevertheless benefit from any advice that applies. The article is hardly relevant for RV folks who stay short enough that a normal visa, travel insurance etc. suffice – even if they feel they are living abroad – but if something is useful for them, all the better. –LPfi (talk) 09:50, 26 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm curious if West Bloomfield would be considered large enough to create a page - I know we don't want to have lots of tiny places with almost nothing on that page and that consolidation is preferred, but I don't see how it would fit into the current structure of Oakland County as there are a number of different places (parks, restaurants, community centers, etc.) that would probably clog up that page. I'd go ahead and forge ahead and make it, especially since it's already listed on the Oakland County page, but there's a bit of an issue I'm running up against - I definitely wouldn't call the area a city, as it is very much unincorporated, but I also wouldn't call it rural - it's more of a suburb. I understand that there is a suggested way to treat suburban areas, but said suggestion appears to make the assumption that the area is a suburb of a city, which. Isn't really the case here.

If I'm being silly and an unincorporated township should just get stuck on the county page, please let me know. Froglegseternal (talk) 18:16, 14 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

The size of a town is not what determines whether it passes the what is an article test. I can think of at least one tiny town that has a star-rated article. From your description of the number of attractions in this town, it sounds to me like it could merit an article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:28, 14 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

We have city articles for settlements of any size - cities, towns, villages, townships etc (we don't care about official status). If the article is going to be about West Broomfield and the surrounding countryside, with much of the things being in the country (or other settlements) then a rural area article would be better. However as west Broomfield has a population of 68,000 it sound more like a town than a township to me (in the UK a township suggests a population of 68!). AlasdairW (talk) 22:30, 14 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

We need to be carfeful as to what we mean by the word "township". In South Africa, for example, the word is usually used to describe the poor urban areas which are often a legacy of Aprtheid and which are inhabited mainly by non-white people and which are often devoid of facilities. Tourists are usually advised to avoid such areas. Martinvl (talk) 16:18, 29 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for that reminder.

It looks like the US has two kinds: The w:Survey township and the w:Civil township. I'm more familiar with the former. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:06, 29 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Do you think the risk of confusion is great enough that "township" should have an entry in the English language varieties article? Such an entry risks detailing too many trivialities travelers won't care about, but if we can avoid that, it might be helpful. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:24, 29 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

I would agree with adding an entry to that article. When I saw the heading on my watchlist, I assumed the discussion was going to be about South African townships. I didn't realize the term was used in the United States for a different purpose, and I was born and have lived here all my life. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 03:51, 30 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Good idea, I've added it. —Granger (talk · contribs) 18:32, 30 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

MediaWiki message delivery 23:14, 14 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Just a reminder that these events are "for up to an hour", but in recent years, it's usually been "for less than five minutes". Most people won't notice this at all, but if you do, just wait a couple of minutes and try your edit again. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:50, 15 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

I am writing an article for Fort McPherson. It is the only community with gas stations within a 3-hr drive. I consulted "Where you can stick it" and it says Put these types in the Get around - By car section of the City or Park page. Does that sound right when most travellers are getting into the remote place to fuel up gas, not necessarily getting around the community itself? My gut feeling is to put it into Get in section as almost all traffic are transient. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 16:54, 17 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

I would still put it in "Get around," but if that's the main reason people stop there, it should also be mentioned in the lede. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:39, 17 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

I agree. Keeping standard info in standard sections is good, and the petrol station is relevant also for getting around locally. Having a mention in the lead covers the rest. You don't need the local petrol station to get in. –LPfi (talk) 08:20, 18 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

I would also favour putting it in "Get around", making it clear that the town's main purpose is being a service town. //shb (t | c | m) 08:25, 18 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Buy could also work, I remember seeing that in some articles about remote Australian towns. Possibly the way of thinking has been that one of the reasons to stop there is to Buy fuel.--Ypsilon (talk) 14:45, 18 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Northwest_Territories#Get_around might also have something about gas in the region - ideally this would be a link to a definitive list of gas stations in the region, but could be a list of places (outside Yellowknife) that have gas stations. In Fort McPherson, the gas stations could have listings giving opening hours, lat/longs, details of shop or other facilities etc. AlasdairW (talk) 20:41, 18 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yes that would also work – though for Australia it's largely due to service/gas stations also acting as that town's convenience store and essentials (like post). There's a bit more nuance to it but that delves way too much into economics/planning. //shb (t | c | m) 03:18, 19 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thank you all. I'll keep it in "Getting around" and add a point in the lead. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 19:12, 19 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't want to hijack your thread, but I think a tangential issue could be calling these "gas stations" in the first place, since there are other types of general fueling stations that offer electricity, hydrogen, or natural gas (compressed or liquid). There are even stations that only have diesel and not petrol/gasoline. I think we should prefer a more generic term like "fueling station" to "gas station" for this reason and also list other vehicle fueling options as appropriate. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:31, 19 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm a big fan of honest, direct, simple communication. Inventing a new catch-all term is a bad idea when everyone in the world already knows what a gas station or petrol station is. Explaining any deviances, or availability of electric charging etc. would be appropriate, but I wouldn't try to guess what the next commonly used term will be as the world's energy technologies evolve. Mrkstvns (talk) 20:54, 19 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Is "fueling station" a new term? I think it's been around for several decades. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:54, 19 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Koavf, Mrkstvns: We already have a lot of possible generic terms to use instead of gas/petrol station, like filling station, fuel provider/supplier, (re)fuel(ing) station, motor station, service station, and vehicle station. I think we should use "filling station" as the generic term, as it is widely used across different Wikimedia projects (except in Commons where "fueling station" is used). Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 03:34, 20 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Of the terms you cited, I think "service station" is best because it carries no association to a specific kind of energy. (You don't really "fuel" or "fill" an electric car, you "charge" it.) Just a thought.... Mrkstvns (talk) 13:09, 20 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

I agree with you, with the minor caveat that in the U.S., we sometimes distinguish between gas stations where you can only get gas and service stations where you can also get some other services for your vehicle. I'm a non-driver, but I believe that service stations normally can do more than changing your oil, such as at least minor repairs. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:34, 20 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Which, to also be clear, were much more common in the mid-20th century, but the vast majority of x stations are just "get gas and maybe some snacks" or maybe a car wash, but rarely any basic mechanical servicing. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:38, 20 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Justin is correct that there are other fueling stations, but when it only sells gasoline and diesel, then "gas station" seems like a reasonable choice. There's a public charging place for electric cars near me. It's in the middle of a shopping center parking lot and I think it can charge 20 or more vehicles at a time. I wouldn't call that a gas station, but I'm not sure I'd call it any sort of fuel station. I'd probably call it a shopping center with some charging points.

I share Ikan's perception that a "service station" offers vehicle repairs (at least changing tires and oil). A store full of junk food with fuel pumps outside is the common type in my area, and I would not call them "service stations". WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:38, 20 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yes, we can use the term "gas station" (or "petrol station" in the Commonwealth) if the fuel station primarily sells gasoline (or petrol) and diesel. However, I prefer "fuel station" or "filling station" for most cases, and "charging station" for electric cars. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 17:59, 20 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm with Mrkstvns and WhatamIdoing. For my example at Fort McPherson, it's definitely a textbook example of a gas station (sells gas & diesel, plus a convenience store with junk food and pop). In my view, "fuel station" is unclear and open to ambiguity. Is it to fuel up gas? Electricity for electric cars? Or hydrogen gas for fuel-cell cars? Charging station is exactly that, to "fuel" up electric cars. If a non-gas station (e.g. shopping centre, tourist attraction) has standalone electric charging facilities, I will call it a charging station. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 18:05, 21 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

We are coming towards the 200th anniversary of passenger rail transport. On 27 Sep 1825 a steam-hauled train ran from Stockton-on-Tees to Darlington and back, acclaimed as a huge success as there were only two breakdowns and one serious injury. Might WV commemorate this in some way? Possibilities:

• Update / upgrade any rail themed pages such as “Rail travel in X” and itineraries.
• Perhaps one of those pages would be suitable for dotm / ftt.
• Update / upgrade any “Get in by rail” sections, at least for major mainline stations.
• Ditto any heritage lines and railway themed museums.

Any other thoughts? Grahamsands (talk) 14:30, 19 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Interesting bit of trivia. I'll have to keep my eyes open for an opportunity to add some rail related content. There are probably also some train museums that have been overlooked. Cheers! Mrkstvns (talk) 20:57, 19 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Maybe is it worth considering running Rail travel in Great Britain for FTT? //shb (t | c | m) 21:34, 19 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Done – I've now nominated it for FTT. //shb (t | c | m) 08:09, 21 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Many thanks for that. The article is in good shape and looks to need only minor update.

The anniversary will of course be most marked in GB - Natrail and the heritage industry are already noticing. But I'd like this to extend to other countries as far as possible, especially when we consider how far the GB rail network now lags behind others. Just look at China for the speed and extent of their system. Grahamsands (talk) 13:55, 21 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yeah the current GB rail system does leave much to be desired (privatisation + HS2, what else can I say) especially when a lot of Asian countries (particularly China) excel in rail far more. :( (I'd still take the GB rail system over the rest of the Anglosphere, though). //shb (t | c | m) 02:26, 23 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hey guys! I'm puzzled as to why the article Latacunga appears with a Contents box. Is this article somehow using a different skin or something? How was it invoked when other destinations appear normally? Just trying to understand what's going on....

Mrkstvns (talk) 19:14, 24 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

The {{pagebanner}} tried to include a photo that did not exist. I have removed it, so the table of contents no longer displays and the default banner image does now. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:31, 24 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

The banner photo was deleted last month, see commons:Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Latacunga_banner.jpg. AlasdairW (talk) 22:11, 24 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

It can be undeleted and uploaded locally if it satisfies our EDP – which in this case probably means one cannot replace it with an equally good unencumbered one (deleted because of copyrighted artwork shown in the image). If needed, one can ask it to be undeleted for evaluation. –LPfi (talk) 11:49, 25 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

And at the risk of getting a little too technical, the copyright on artwork was not just something like "I took a picture of a movie poster" or something that is typically and obviously a copyrighted creative work, but Ecuador lacks a freedom of panorama, so that taking photos of buildings, sculptures, and other architectural structures is covered by copyright, so a new banner should probably focus on natural phenomena. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 13:30, 25 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks guys. I've added a new image that focuses on the natural landscape, as suggested by Justin. Feel free to replace it if you find something better. Cheers! Mrkstvns (talk) 13:47, 25 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm disappointed that my efforts to monitor c:COM:Deletion requests missed a Wikivoyage pagebanner. Wikivoyage is not bound by Commons' requirements for all photos to lack copyright restrictions on their commercial reuse, so if the preexisting pagebanner was better, we should indeed request undeletion for the purpose of uploading it locally with a warning for reusers. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:18, 25 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Shouldn't we be getting notifications from the Commons deletion bot? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:24, 25 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

We should, but the bot that took care of this (or this functionality of the deletion bot if it was the one) has been defunct for a long time now. This is essential infrastructure maintained by volunteers instead of the WMF). I don't know whether the maintainer has withdrawn or just hasn't been able to fix it.

The Commons folks are quite frustrated as the WMF launches all kinds of new projects (some of them loudly criticised from the outset) instead of taking responsibility for essential infrastructure.

–LPfi (talk) 17:01, 25 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

@MusikAnimal, why isn't User:Community Tech bot working here? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:13, 27 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Does it work anywhere? phab:T339145 suggests that it was disabled on 6 June 2023, and a bug filed 14 June, triaged as High priority on 12 Dec that year ("given how long the outage has been"). Work seems to be ongoing, more or less, since then, but I see nothing on the progress since September. @MusikAnimal: any news?

Not being notified of deletion requests is quite frustrating, and also means that more or less every deleted image should be restored for evaluation of whether it can be replaced or locally uploaded – and that undeletion and evaluation has to be redone for every use (there is no way to coordinate discussions on that matter across uses).

–LPfi (talk) 07:57, 27 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

I've commented at phab:T339145#10684901. I actually never dismissed the last ping from last October! Fixing this bot is on my ever-growing list of to-dos, where it has had to compete with multitudes of other things people are demanding my attention on, combined with a stressful past three quarters at the day job working on the monumental multiblocks project. In defense of my team, we didn't have the Python expertise needed to fix the bot, and the original author left the Foundation years ago. That's why it died. I spent long enough finally figuring out the Python bit and got stuck on the Toolforge part. @Taavi being the gem that he is was going to help me at the 2024 Hackathon, but both XTools and something else critical that I maintain (I don't recall what) decided to break that weekend, so I was stuck working on that instead :-P

We happen to have another hackathon just one month away, and barring "Unbreak Now!" tasks getting slapped in my face, I will personally see to it that this bot gets revived. I realize it shouldn't take a Hackathon to fix a bot that a WMF team signed up to write and maintain. We have learned a lot about reducing maintenance burden since the bot was first written 7 years ago, and had it been written with those learnings we have today, I think it would still be running.

One thing that would help is to "award tokens" or comment at phab:T339145 indicating how important this is to you and your wiki. To my knowledge only enwikivoyage has ever filed complaints. I hope you know that in my heart that was enough for my desire to bring it back to life, especially when I read you were (or are) planning to do this work manually! :cries:

All of that said, I guess I can more or less promise something to come to fruition sometime next month, hopefully sooner. Please note that this comment is 100% in my volunteer capacity.

Warm regards and sympathies! — MusikAnimal ^talk 22:05, 27 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

I appreciate your commitment and efforts. I've been doing my best to monitor all deletion requests for quite a while, mainly in order to try (clearly not entirely successfully) to catch efforts to delete images in use on Wikivoyage, and secondarily on other sister sites. If this bot started working again, I would dearly love to stop working so much on deletion requests and instead do other things that are more fun and possibly more useful to me. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:37, 27 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

When that team was started, they weren't supposed to have any maintenance responsibilities at all. The idea was that they would do something that was either pretty permanent (e.g., create a complex wikitext template) or that would be taken over by another team (e.g., add a small feature to the visual editor that the Editing team would maintain, or a tweak to a MediaWiki skin that the Web team would maintain). Instead, a lot of the requests have been maintenance oriented.

In my experience, the WMF management is great at many things, but not at allocating staff for maintenance. Even when they say "Oh, your team needs to spend half its time on maintenance", they don't really grasp that internally. It's "Why didn't you do as much as I expected?" when more "So glad you dropped this new project in favor of fixing the unscheduled maintenance problem" is needed. My comment isn't about a single person. I've seen this pattern in every manager running Product teams for years. There's something about the overall system that is downplaying maintenance needs. For example, teams are usually told not to put any of their maintenance work into the annual goals, even if maintenance is their primary role. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:37, 30 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

That's sad, but it seems to confirm what Commons is seeing and frustrated about (although there it is mostly about taking maintenance responsibility for essential volunteer-developed tools). And MusikAnimal, thank you for your commitment. I hope you will succeed. –LPfi (talk) 17:09, 30 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

IMO Commons has always been neglected, but prioritizing potential projects there is seriously complex and value-based. For example: if you could put a dev team on Commons for two years, should you make the UploadWizard better for newcomers, the batch upload tools better for GLAM professionals, or the reviewing/deleting tools better for admins? Each of those audiences will tell you that their needs are "clearly" the most important, and none of them are actually wrong. The project you would choose depends on what your vision for Commons is. And that means it's difficult to get agreement to do anything.

If any of this was easy, then it would have been done years ago. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:40, 31 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think that what's frustrating for Commons is not that, but WMF putting resources into projects they don't want. There was the filter thing, which everybody told won't work, and the structured data suggestion tool, which Commons protested loudly about. Both took quite some manpower that could have been used for badly needed other things.

I understand WMF sometimes prioritising needs of non-regulars (there has been some controversy about the upload wizard), but those large-scale what-did-I-say projects are quite bad for how WMF is seen, especially as there often seems to be nobody listening on the WMF side (I see the upload wizard feedback page is now monitored, thanks for that!).

–LPfi (talk) 19:08, 31 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

As I said, the question is which audience is being prioritized. When we say "projects they don't want", the question is which "they" you're talking about.

An image filter is feasible, within some reasonable limits, and some people actually do want one. While nobody was satisfied with the structured data suggestion tool that we actually got (e.g., far too much "smiling" and "blonde hair" for photos of women), there were and still are people who would like a quick and easy way to get more structured data in place, so that it's easier to find images. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:06, 1 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hello everyone, I’m writing to announce an upcoming event called Wikidata and Sister Projects that will be a mini online conference to highlight the different ways Wikidata can be connected and integrated with the other WM projects.

We are currently looking for session ideas and speakers for our program and wanted to reach out in case there were any editors here that might have a cool idea for a session proposal. Sessions can be found on the event discussion page. As previously mentioned, we would like to showcase the relationship between Wikivoyage and Wikidata and how data such from listings/VCards is a collaborative effort between the 2 projects, or how structured data aids in geoshape and map creation.

The event is scheduled between May 29 - June 1st, 2025. If you have any questions about the event, would like more information or have a session idea to propose, please feel free to get in touch by replying to this post or writing on the event page or on my talk page. Thanks for reading, - Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 07:19, 1 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Danny Benjafield (WMDE) Is it still possible to propose session? It says proposals need to be submitted by March 31, yet your announcement here was made on April 1. I am planning to submit a lightning talk about linking tourist points of interest and pictures to Wikidata. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 14:41, 2 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hello @OhanaUnited, it is still possible (and warmly received) to submit a session idea, I updated the pages with a new deadline. Looking forwards to your proposal! Thank you, - Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 15:46, 2 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Done! I have submitted. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 19:50, 2 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

It seems many articles have had their breadcrumbs broken? Araçatuba has {{IsPartOf|Northwest São Paulo (state)}} at the bottom but nothing appears, similarly does Legnica, while Lądek-Zdrój only contains Lower Silesian Voivodeship (with no further breadcrumbs to Poland. Anyone know what's up with this? //shb (t | c | m) 00:57, 3 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Screenshots here for reference. //shb (t | c | m) 01:00, 3 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Pinging @Andyrom75, Jdlrobson: if any of you have any insight into this. //shb (t | c | m) 01:02, 3 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

@SHB2000: Even ordinary articles like Delhi, India, London, New York City, and Paris are lacking breadcrumbs right now. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 03:40, 3 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

London and New York have them now, but the others do not! Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:45, 3 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Same for me. //shb (t | c | m) 04:10, 3 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

@SHB2000: Did you purge, like I mentioned below? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:27, 3 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

It's a hit or miss after purging. //shb (t | c | m) 08:38, 3 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Sometimes you need to purge two or even three times. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:41, 3 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Still no luck. Though what Andyrom said is probably true. //shb (t | c | m) 00:12, 4 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I purged Araçatuba and it now displays correctly. This will fix itself over time on all pages. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:57, 3 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

@SHB2000, I agree with @Koavf: it's a "temporary bug" and if you purge a page, it will be shown correctly. In the medium/long term, all the pages will be shown correctly without performing any action. I suppose it has been originated by a wrong change injected server side and then reverted. ...but I can be wrong... Andyrom75 (talk) 21:00, 3 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I believe this might relate to phab:T389523. I've pinged a few people to get confirmation. Jdlrobson (talk) 06:07, 4 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Purge does not work. At the page The Hague the breadcrumbs should show as:

Europe > Benelux > Netherlands > Western Netherlands > South Holland > Rotterdam-The Hague Metropolitan Region > The Hague

But after purging 10x, it stayed unchanged as:

Rotterdam-The Hague Metropolitan Region > The Hague

FredTC (talk) 08:05, 4 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Off-topic but I never thought that a small country like the Netherlands can be too diverse to have long breadcrumbs like this. Of course, the cities in West Bengal (India) boast similarly long breadcrumbs, but the parent country is waaay bigger than the Netherlands. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 10:26, 4 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

It seems to be an issue with [[Template::IsPartOf]]. I haven't figured out exactly what yet, but replacing {{IsPartOf|...}} with {{#isin:...}} directly seems to restore the breadcrumbs, and https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Special:ApiSandbox#action=query&format=json&prop=pageprops&titles=Czech_Republic confirms that the geocrumb-is-in page property is not present using the template but is (correctly) present using the parser function directly. Investigting. Cscott (talk) 16:30, 4 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hm: a null-edit seems to work to create the page property, but "merely" action=purge does not. I've filed phab:T391128 because technically the page property should be required: it should fall back to the method it used to use before recent changes. But for the moment, doing a null-edit on the affected pages seems to create the page property correctly. Cscott (talk) 16:47, 4 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't have sufficient permissions on this wiki, but a null-edit to Template:IsPartOf should fix all of the pages with this issue at once by forcing them to update their page properties. (action=purge rerenders the page but doesn't update page properties.) Cscott (talk) 16:54, 4 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I also have a patch to GeoCrumbs to fix this, but it won't roll out until April 9 or so. Cscott (talk) 17:03, 4 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Null-edit of the template didn't actually cause refreshlinksjob to run on all of the linked articles, for some reason -- or it's running really slowly, I'm not sure. In any case, I backported the patch just now, and the pages should be fixed and if not `action=purge` will fix them. Cscott (talk) 13:57, 7 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I made a null edit. Jdlrobson (talk) 17:05, 4 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Really annoying, some articles show only the next article right above it, other articles show the 2-3 articles above, many articles don't show the breadcrumbs at all. I hope WM contributors who know coding can fix this asap... --Ypsilon (talk) 22:10, 4 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Cscott: You should have the perms now. //shb (t | c | m) 22:52, 4 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

(I love the way this community handles permissions. Give people what they actually need, and don't make a big fuss over it.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:03, 6 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

(Oh god yeah enwiki is really annoying in that regard.) //shb (t | c | m) 06:04, 6 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Now it seems all articles only show what's directly breadcrumbed above it but not the full list. At least it's somewhat consistent on that now. //shb (t | c | m) 00:18, 7 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

It looks fixed right now. Grahamsands (talk) 14:50, 8 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Seems so on my end too. //shb (t | c | m) 21:29, 8 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

A lot of help is needed in that article, but first, we need to resolve a question on Talk:Donghai Island. Your assistance will be greatly appreciated! Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:43, 5 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

(Apologies for posting in English)

Hello everyone, I am excited to share news of an upcoming online event called Wikidata and Sister Projects celebrating the different ways Wikidata can be used to support or enhance with another Wikimedia project. The event takes place over 4 days between May 29 - June 1st, 2025.

We would like to invite speakers to present at this community event, to hear success stories, challenges, showcase tools or projects you may be working on, where Wikidata has been involved in Wikipedia, Commons, WikiSource and all other WM projects.

If you are interested in attending, please register here. If you would like to speak at the event, please fill out this Session Proposal template on the event talk page, where you can also ask any questions you may have.

I hope to see you at the event, in the audience or as a speaker, - MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:18, 11 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Why do we have both MediaWiki:Abusefilter-warning-telstra and MediaWiki:Abusefilter-warning-telstra-not-declined? Codename Noreste (talk) 15:02, 12 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I would welcome other views on how to proceed here. There is a discussion about whether this article should have subregions or not. One user has restored a bunch of subregion articles that do not follow Wikivoyage style (twice) without discussing it on the talk page. Ground Zero (talk) 10:52, 13 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

In particular, this user is adding long lists for cities and towns for which we do not have articles, creating red links. Do we have a policy on this? Ground Zero (talk) 11:01, 13 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

The user ignored my requests and warning on their talk page, has continued to add more redlinked cities to Noth Brabant and the subregion articles, while not participating in the discussion. I have blocked them for two hours to try to get their attention. See User talk:KeesNB1969NL. Ground Zero (talk) 11:09, 13 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Biggest myths about studying overseas busted by Reddit user: Why do Indian students struggle after moving abroad?. Relevant to our coverage on studying abroad. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 13:39, 16 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Sbb1413: I get a 404 error when I click that link – I assume it only works within India? //shb (t | c | m) 14:07, 16 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

@SHB2000: Sorry for the wrong link, here's the correct one. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 14:30, 16 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Perfect, that works; I'll give it a read sometime later today. //shb (t | c | m) 14:36, 16 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps, but I think the article says little. It doesn't answer the question in the heading, it doesn't even try.

It says that a visa is not a lottery ticket, that you need to do your research on the job market (and presumably costs, studies etc.), that you need to study in earnest, not just get an exam, and so on. In short: a visa and admission to a university don't necessarily give you a high-pay career.

We could give a warning in a sentence or two, but mostly this is common sense, at the abstraction level given in the article.

–LPfi (talk) 19:38, 16 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Where do people think is a good place to put this information? I think this will be useful for people to know just in case they need legal documents to be notarized and sent back to their home countries while travelling abroad. Your country's embassy can provide this, but if I'm not wrong, you can look for a notary public if your country has no diplomatic post. And Commonwealth countries have what we call a "justice of the peace" who can notarise some documents for domestic use. The dog2 (talk) 18:48, 16 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

How likely is it that a traveller needs a notary? I expect the likelihood of needing one depends on your home country - what documents need it. Although I occasionally need to get my signature witnessed, I have been able to ask anybody that knows me to do this; I don't think I have ever had to get a document notarized. There are also probably loads of complexities about foreign notaries being accepted in your home country. In general, I would suggest phoning the nearest consulate and asking advice. I think that notary services are not something we need to list, but if there is some local quirk to be aware of, then it should go in the country's cope section. AlasdairW (talk) 20:35, 16 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, my answer is "nowhere." User:The dog2, as a U.S. citizen, I have to get a document notarized at most once every 10 years on average, yet you think we should yet again increase the length of the United States article by adding information of notarization. Could you please stop and have some self-control?! Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:01, 16 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I too think this is incredibly niche to mention. //shb (t | c | m) 23:14, 16 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

+1. Ground Zero (talk) 00:14, 17 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Here's a fun fact about notaries in California: The Spanish cognate, notario, is an important type of legal specialist. Having your will drafted by a (Mexican) notario is a very good thing. But in California, a notary public is basically a secretary who took a six-hour class and passed a multiple-choice test. As a result, California no longer allows people to get their wills notarized (it's banned, not merely non-required), because so many immigrants thought that they were paying for a really valuable legal service, and the family got nasty surprises after their loved ones died.

On the general question: I don't think this is a useful thing to add. It's rarely needed while traveling, and if you do need it, you probably need specialized advice. For example, if you need a notarized signature for home-country real estate purposes while you're abroad, then you need to find, in your current location, a notary service that will be acceptable to your home country. But if you're updating your will during a long stay, you need someone that will be acceptable to both your home country and your current country. Providing a recommendation might encourage people to do something that doesn't actually work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:15, 17 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Possibly it could be added to Working in the United States. If somebody is in the US for a year or three, it is much more likely that they will need a document notarized to be accepted in the US, and so the difficult question of foreign acceptance is avoided. Also the Working in article is only 13k, and needs expansion in other areas. AlasdairW (talk) 20:53, 17 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Also, if you are living abroad but you still have assets back home, you might need notarial services for things like delegating a power of attorney to a family member back home. The dog2 (talk) 20:55, 17 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Would you? If so, though, that's not specifically about working or studying abroad. I'd like some comments from fellow workers (i.e.,

not members of the leisure class or people who are purely business owners) in the U.S. on whether they've needed to have anything notarized for work. I don't ever recall doing that. I believe the last time I had to have a document notarized was in connection with opening a corporate bank account, so I'd argue that if we decide to cover notarization in the U.S. at all, it should be in a "doing business in the U.S." article, but I still doubt its inclusion would be necessary, and I hope no-one wants to start that article right now, with all the totally unnecessary, manufactured chaos that our "dear leader" is producing. Maybe "avoiding trade with the U.S." would be a more useful article...(but it's not about travel). Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:15, 17 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Never for work, though if you work in real estate or some other legal-adjacent field, you might visit a notary frequently.

I have needed to have documents notarized a few times. A durable power of attorney might have been one of them. However, in California, I believe that having two witnesses for the power of attorney is also acceptable, so it might have been something else. It's been more than a decade since I needed a notary. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:51, 17 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

(edit conflict) You could be living abroad for work. But anyway, I was thinking more of notarization in general rather than in the U.S. specifically. There is the Hague Convention of 1961, and signatory countries will generally grant legal recognition to documents notarised and apostilled by another signatory country, with a few exceptions (e.g. India does not legally recognise documents notarised and apostilled by China). The dog2 (talk) 21:53, 17 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

If you work in real estate, you probably wouldn't be reading Wikivoyage for this kind of advice anyway. shb (t | c | m) 23:53, 17 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

This discussion has demonstrated convincingly that the use of notaries is such a rare and exceptional occurence that notary services should never have been stuck into a country-level article. The attempt to do so shows a lack of understanding of what Wikivoyage is trying to do, or a disregard for the project's objectives, especially when it is a pattern of behaviour. Ground Zero (talk) 01:58, 18 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

There is a discussion in Wikivoyage talk:Don't tout#When should promotional user pages be deleted?.

It seems that we have a practice of speedy deleting user pages of touts, which isn't documented is Wikivoyage:Deletion policy#Speedy deletions. I assume that means that the policy should be amended. The question is whether any user page with promotional content can be speedily deleted at sight, or whether there needs to be some consideration of the specifics of the user page content or the user's contributions. If there is admin discretion involved, we should probably have some guidance.

At the moment, the discussion is about whether preserving a user page can be required for attribution purposes, or whether attributing the username itself suffices legally (in cases where the user's contributions are copyrightable, and we thus need to respect the licence).

Other issues should also be discussed.

Please share your insights and opinions in the linked thread.

–LPfi (talk) 08:26, 18 April 2025 (UTC)Reply