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The latest versions of Gemini can now create Wikivoyage listings with a very simple prompt. here's an example where everything is factually correct (no hallucinations!), and everything except the price range and opening hours was correctly formatted on the first try. I tweaked the prompt a bit and it did better on those too.

I'm not sure I want to encourage people to do this, but whether we like it or not, the technology is now here. Jpatokal (talk) 07:28, 23 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Very interesting; amazing how far AI has come (I also have mixed feelings, but it does mean that we could use Gemini to format things for us). //shb (t | c | m) 07:59, 23 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

What's important to me is that the content is good.

I would worry more about trying to write whole articles. I worry less about tools to organize a description of a place you've already hand-selected. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:37, 23 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I just used Gemini to validate that a whole bunch of Kraków/Old Town listings still exist and add latlongs. It nailed the job with this prompt: "check if these hotels still exist. if yes, add latlongs to the listing. if no, delete the listing. return results as a code block, with a list of deleted entries at the end." Jpatokal (talk) 06:53, 28 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Naive (literally ignorant) question: How do you know the results are accurate? -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:54, 28 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

You'd have to manually double check (that's at least been my prior experience using Gemini). //shb (t | c | m) 07:17, 28 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

The newer versions of Gemini are capable calling external services to genocide addresses. AFAICT all the locations are accurate. Jpatokal (talk) 22:41, 29 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

At the very least, please verify all of it yourself before adding any of it to Wikivoyage. It would be very unfortunate to hurt the accuracy of our articles with AI hallucinations. —Granger (talk · contribs) 13:19, 30 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Indeed, I just spot-checked four of the sets of coordinates you added and all four appear to be wrong. Therefore, I've reverted the edits. In the future, please check the accuracy yourself, to avoid adding AI misinformation to articles. —Granger (talk · contribs) 13:26, 30 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I used ChatGPT to create initial drafts for Aklavik and Fort McPherson, and then modify them locally before submitting first save. ChatGPT definitely knows our article skeleton structure and create contents in this structure in the correct order. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 13:58, 28 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Wondering if any WikiVoyage folks are planning to attend Wikimania? And is anyone planning on traveling about the region afterwards? I was thinking of heading towards Urganda, Rwanda, and Burundi plus maybe Virunga National Park, but the last bit appears a bit unstable right now. Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:58, 26 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

This year's is in Nairobi, Kenya from 6–9 August 2025. There will be some virtual activities for those who can't be there.

We should look into updating the relevant articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:46, 26 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I will take part online. --RolandUnger (talk) 05:08, 28 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Me too, but no submission this year. And due to work i can only attend online on Saturday. -- DerFussi 05:33, 28 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

There are various problems with this article that I address in the Talk:Aguacate Mountains Biological Corridor#What to do with this article, but one I'd like some opinions about is the article title itself. I deleted a paragraph-long ref-tagged definition of the term "biological corridor" in this edit, and my position is that the phrase is not used in vernacular English and therefore violates Wikivoyage:Naming conventions, and also that if English-speakers require a long definition to understand what it means, it's the wrong phrase.

Would any of you disagree with renaming the article "Aguacate Mountains Nature Preserve"? Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:49, 27 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I am not sure that we should use a translation of our own for the page name – the name most commonly used in English may indeed be the native one. If we make up our own name, it should probably be a descriptive one, not pretending to be a proper name. There may even be some legal difference between nature preserves and corredores biológicos in Costa Rica.

We should indeed not have definitions like the one you removed in our articles. Nonetheless, we should mention the English term (perhaps green corridor is the handiest) and explain it in short.

–LPfi (talk) 11:38, 27 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

But does "green corridor" really have the same meaning? Also, a simple way to avoid the issue of whether a translation is official or not is to simply use lowercase: "Aguacate Mountains wildlife preserve" (or whatever). But being concerned about legal names is highly un-Wikivoyage. We have no articles about the Republic of Korea, the Democratic Republic of Korea, the Arab Republic of Egypt or most of the other official country names, and we expressly avoid debates on whether or where there are de jure borders. Instead, we have Wikivoyage:Naming conventions and Wikivoyage:Be fair#Political disputes. So I suggest banishing legal definitions from this discussion. Having said that, isn't the park we're discussing quite big and not just a little green corridor like the one depicted in the Wikipedia article you linked? Is there anyplace in an English-speaking country called "X Green Corridor" or "Y Wildlife Corridor" that passes Wikivoyage:What is an article? I doubt it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:39, 27 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yes, I intended to suggest using the lower case. We don't need to think to hard about legalese, but using a misleading term isn't good.

The article I linked and w:es:Corredor ecológico linked from there suggest that corredor biológico indeed is synonymous to green corridor. For large such corridors, see Barakee National Park, which is described as such, citing an authoritative English source (I think I rescued the article because of a discussion here, but cannot recall details). That park is smaller, but not by magnitudes.

Depending on species, corridors like those shown in the Wikipedia articles may suffice, but some cautious ones might need corridors of significant width, like these parks. If the distance is long (in relation to the species), the species need to be able not only to move along the corridor, but to live and thrive there, to allow the next generation to spread further along it. Of course, the parks may also have other functions, even when founded mainly as green corridors. I assume the images were chosen partly to show the corridor aspect clearly.

–LPfi (talk) 22:02, 27 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I would object to any translation or invented term. The article as-is has the official name. The term "biological corridor" is what is used in Costa Rica, and if you search on the name, you'll find references to the official SINAC page describing biological corridors here: https://www.sinac.go.cr/EN-US/CORREBIOLO/Pages/default.aspx

As you can see in that article's map, there are more than 40 biological corridors in Costa Rica. Whether '''ANY''' of them deserve an article is a worthwhile question since these aren't destinations intended to be tourist attractions. In fact, the ethical traveler will stay FAR from the biologial corridors, which were established for wildlife to move between protected areas. When humans invade those corridors they scare away the animals, some of which may well end up in a far worse conservation status than if the travelers had stuck to the national parks and areas that provide good tourist infrastructure. (I have the same complaint about including Biosphere Reserves or Ramsar sites, and we do indeed have articles on those).

As another matter, I suggest merging Aguacate Mountains and El Camino del Cielo y Colibríes into this article since they are all of fairly low traveler value and all 3 articles describe the same area with slightly different spins and details.

Comments? Mrkstvns (talk) 18:09, 28 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

The discussion is now forked. I think I mistakenly answered your question in Talk:Aguacate Mountains Biological Corridor#What to do with this article. Anyway, I am not sure that we should avoid articles on such corridors, Ramsar sites and nature reserves in general, in the cases where there is sustainable tourism and visitor infrastructure sanctioned by the responsible organisations (and informed parties seem not to criticise these too heavily).

Often income from visitors is key in keeping the locals positive to the preservation efforts, and thus to their success, and harm can be kept to a minimum by directing visitors toward less sensible parts of the area (such as having a birdwatching tower at respectful distance). In this case, there are roads through the area, and some more traffic, by visitors, may not significantly increase their impact. The SINAC does refer to a programme of sustainable tourism.

Tourism to sites of ecological value has a positive educational effect, as long as it is arranged in sustainable way. What sites to recommend differs between regions, and some of them may happen to be in a nature reserve or at a Ramsar site – or in a large green corridor as in this case. Lists of UNESCO Biosphere Reserves and Ramsar sites are available on the net, and also us having them probably isn't bad, at least if we add information on whether visits should be avoided. We might want to link to destination articles for some of the sites, while adding a note on "no tourist infrastructure – visits not recommended" on the rest.

–LPfi (talk) 09:58, 30 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

"No visits recommended because of lack of tourism infrastructure" is very different from "Responsible tourists should consider steering clear of this area to avoid causing environmental damage," but the latter sounds preachy and would be very likely to be deleted as not in an appropriate tone for Wikivoyage, so a wider discussion may be needed on Wikivoyage talk:Tone. Ikan Kekek (talk) 13:04, 30 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yes. I tried not to preach, but there might be better wordings conveying the intended meaning more clearly without preaching. Linking "visits not recommended" (or whatever we come up with) to Sustainable travel could perhaps make our view clear (we should add a mention of this issue somewhere near the top of the article). –LPfi (talk) 20:53, 1 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

The voting period for the revisions to the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines and U4C Charter closes on 1 May 2025 at 23:59 UTC (find in your time zone). Read the information on how to participate and read over the proposal before voting on the UCoC page on Meta-wiki.

The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. This annual review was planned and implemented by the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, you may review the U4C Charter.

Please share this message with members of your community in your language, as appropriate, so they can participate as well.

In cooperation with the U4C --

I am pleased announce, thanks to the rockstar that is @Taavi, the Commons Notification Deletion bot is finally back up and running! You should start seeing new talk page notifications soon (for eligible deletion discussions that are started after roughly 15 minutes ago).

Pinging @Ikan Kekek @SHB2000 @WhatamIdoing and @LPfi who have been asking for this for a very long time. I apologize for the two years of downtime. I am making efforts to ensure the bot stays running and something like this won't happen again.

Cheers and happy editing! — MusikAnimal ^talk 09:07, 4 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Awesome – I've been looking forward to this for a very long time and I'm very glad you and Taavi have made it possible! Thanks again. :) //shb (t | c | m) 09:09, 4 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm really relieved to hear this and look forward to decreasing my participation at c:Commons:Deletion requests. Thank you, and many thanks to Taavi! Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:06, 4 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

This is great news. Thanks for letting us know. Taavi, you're awesome. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:43, 6 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I wanted to do this in the Agadir guide, but I can't see any way to do it. The only possible way seemed to be to compare 2 differences, but when I pressed "undo," it undid only the last of like 4 or 5 edits. This is an absurd situation that makes moderation kind of impractical. Am I missing something obvious, somehow? Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:22, 4 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

My only resort seemed to be to revert each edit separately, but that often isn't even possible because a touter has changed the wording. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:30, 4 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

You could try going to the history, opening the last good revision, clicking "Edit" from there, and then saving without making any changes. This technique works on desktop, but I haven't tried it on mobile. —Granger (talk · contribs) 23:23, 4 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Try it; then if you can figure out how, let us know. It appears to be impossible. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:02, 5 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I often begrudgingly use rollback + message on talk page because anything else is just so painful/near-impossible to deal with on Safari (on mobile). I do use an enwiki userscript to restore certain revisions, but this only works on desktop. //shb (t | c | m) 23:26, 4 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm not convinced that this is how it's meant to work. @Trizek (WMF), have you heard about this problem? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:08, 5 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

(Apologies for posting in English)

Hi all! We have good news to share regarding the ongoing problem with graphs and charts affecting all wikis that use them.

As you probably know, the old Graph extension was disabled in 2023 due to security reasons. We’ve worked in these two years to find a solution that could replace the old extension, and provide a safer and better solution to users who wanted to showcase graphs and charts in their articles. We therefore developed the Charts extension, which will be replacing the old Graph extension and potentially also the EasyTimeline extension.

After successfully deploying the extension on Italian, Swedish, and Hebrew Wikipedia, as well as on MediaWiki.org, as part of a pilot phase, we are now happy to announce that we are moving forward with the next phase of deployment, which will also include your wiki.

The deployment will happen in batches, and will start from May 6. Please, consult our page on MediaWiki.org to discover when the new Charts extension will be deployed on your wiki. You can also consult the documentation about the extension on MediaWiki.org.

If you have questions, need clarifications, or just want to express your opinion about it, please refer to the project’s talk page on Mediawiki.org, or ping me directly under this thread. If you encounter issues using Charts once it gets enabled on your wiki, please report it on the talk page or at Phabricator.

Thank you in advance! -- User:Sannita (WMF) (talk) 15:07, 6 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Does anyone remember whether we're using any of these? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:44, 6 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't think we've ever used charts on this site – like, ever. //shb (t | c | m) 22:23, 6 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

@WhatamIdoing, SHB2000: We do have {{Climate}}, but it probably never used the Graph extension. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 03:35, 7 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks.

@Sannita (WMF), I notice that mw:Extension:Chart/Project#Deployment Timeline only list mw.org and Wikipedias. What's the schedule for the non-Wikipedias? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:04, 7 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hi @WhatamIdoing, thanks for the question. The deployment for non-Wikipedia wikis will happen this week, along with most of the Wikipedias that are not scheduled for the next two weeks. It is up to you if the extension will be useful for your work or not. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 11:19, 7 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I believe it is useful for making a remastered version of the existing {{Climate}} template. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 11:38, 7 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

@WhatamIdoing and the others: there's a correction to my last message. There's been a change in the schedule yesterday for scaling purposes, so all non-Wikipedia wikis will be addressed after the deployment will be completed on all Wikipedias. This means that all non-Wikipedia wikis will have to wait until the end of the month at least. Sorry for the delay. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 11:06, 8 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yeah I think that just uses some very complex css but never the formal MW extension. //shb (t | c | m) 09:39, 7 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Some of you may have heard of the discovery of account compromises back in March this year – I won't go into too much detail but I've linked the statement from the WMF if you want to learn more about it.

While I cannot say for sure whether it's directly related, from late this month checkusers and oversighters will also need to enable 2FA – so what stands at WV:2FA will still remain. While we don't have any CUs or OSs on this wiki, there is a similar phabricator task open that may in the future disallow bureaucrats from granting interface admin perms to someone who doesn't have 2FA enabled. No timeframe for this has been given, but something worth noting (cc @Ikan Kekek, ThunderingTyphoons!:).

I know in the past that the 2FA system was previously terrible to use (and it did have its issues – also why I didn't enable it until last year), but the WMF has come a long way and now the system doesn't have nearly as many issues as it once did. My point? There's never been a better time to enable 2FA than now, all the more so if you're a sysop, template editor or just a user with a significant edit history on this site. //shb (t | c | m) 04:30, 8 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hello, I still have a tourist pass to visit Bologna in Italy to give you for free, more information here, contact me if interested. Una tantum (talk) 09:57, 11 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm a bit confused. You said there's free tourist cards (cards, in plural) but it's only available to the first OSM/Wikimedian that messages you? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 00:14, 12 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hello @OhanaUnited, above here I wrote "a tourist pass", and in the talk page I wrote "We still have a Bologna Welcome Card Easy to give away for free", it is not plural. I asked for a microgrant, I bought my own and my friend's one. But I don't like to take advantage of microgrants just for my convenience, so I asked for more, and one pass is still available. Una tantum (talk) 08:02, 13 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

The results of voting on the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines and Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) Charter is available on Meta-wiki.

You may now submit your candidacy to serve on the U4C through 29 May 2025 at 12:00 UTC. Information about eligibility, process, and the timeline are on Meta-wiki. Voting on candidates will open on 1 June 2025 and run for two weeks, closing on 15 June 2025 at 12:00 UTC.

If you have any questions, you can ask on the discussion page for the election. -- in cooperation with the U4C,

Keegan (WMF) (talk) 22:08, 15 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm new to Wikivoyage, and I've seen some things labeled as [citation needed] but in most articles I don't see any citations. Do you cite or not? I'm a bit confused. I'm creating a new page. AtTheTownHouse (talk) 03:14, 16 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

We don't cite, as long as whatever mentioned in articles are factual. If you find certain things dubious in an article, either be bold enough to fix that yourself, or raise the issue at the talk page. However, if you find the issue unanswered, you can raise the same issue here as well. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 03:28, 16 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Welcome, AtTheTownHouse! And please link the articles where you're seeing a [citation needed] tag. That should never be in a destination article on this site. See Wikivoyage:External links for a fuller explanation of the guidelines here. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:05, 16 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

To add onto what Ikan Kekek said, Special:AbuseFilter/70 (which is a public filter) will actively tag any edits that add references (with a few false positives, but it's tag-only). We really don't do any references here and they're often actively removed when spotted. //shb (t | c | m) 04:27, 16 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I wonder if that filter could be expanded to tag any edits that contain the exact phrase "citation needed". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:26, 16 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Seems SHB did that addition. –LPfi (talk) 21:51, 16 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Haha yeah, did so right before my earlier comment (04:23, May 16, 2025, UTC). //shb (t | c | m) 22:03, 16 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I want to create a page for Katy, Texas, but it has already been deleted. It says the reason is because it was blank except for saying "a town in Texas." If I add more, can I create this page? I know enough about it to at least write more than that. AtTheTownHouse (talk) 03:16, 16 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

@AtTheTownHouse: Go to WV:VFU to request recreating a deleted page. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 03:25, 16 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

One doesn't need to recreate the page to start over. Actually, it is easier to start from scratch, as you then don't have to copy the city template manually. However, I cannot find a deleted Katy (nor a Katy (Texas) or Katy, Texas). When asking about a specific page, please add a link to it.

Anyway, @AtTheTownHouse:, if you can tell enough about the town to make the article useful for a traveller to there, please just go ahead (re)creating it. The deletion reason is shown, so that you can decide whether the deletion reason is relevant to the page you would create.

–LPfi (talk) 09:13, 16 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yes, to clarify, WV:VFU is only for pages that were deleted through the WV:VFD process. //shb (t | c | m) 11:01, 16 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Katy (whatever the article's name) might very well have been deleted based on a VFD thread, on what to do about worthless stubs. If the stub was created before 2013, undeleting it would require attribution to WT. I don't think we should undelete it, and new users should not ask for undeletion (unless the page is protected) but rather plunge forward creating the page with worthwhile content.

When I now look in Wikipedia (I had never heard of the town), I see that we are unlikely to want an article on this town or even Greater Katy – The only tourist attractions seem to be a shopping mall and a successful high school football team. Those are probably easy to list as attractions in Houston/West Houston or Houston/North Houston (Katy seems to be on the border of those]]. They don't have too many Dos or Buys, and I suppose you wouldn't want to sleep there just to go shopping or to a high-school football match.

–LPfi (talk) 12:32, 16 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

As LPfi stated, if you have only a small number of things to list in Katy, then they're better being put in Houston/West Houston, but if you can add enough to make it a good standalone article, by all means, do re-create the standalone article. Best regards, Mrkstvns (talk) 16:21, 16 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I can't believe y'all just said high school football wasn't important enough to make a trip for. In Texas. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:37, 16 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Sorry for that, just not my cup of tea :-) But still, even if you go to Katy for the football, you might want to do other things during your trip, especially if you come from overseas, and then you might want to stay somewhere more central for those other things. –LPfi (talk) 21:14, 16 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I didn't include the football because it was hard to find information about the football team, which team, and where I would even put it. I still added a few attractions, though. AtTheTownHouse (talk) 18:15, 23 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I finally finished the first (although clearly incomplete) version of the Katy article. Please help to improve it, as this is my first page and I'm not sure if I did it right. AtTheTownHouse (talk) 18:13, 23 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

[undent]Or you might not, and this site is not only for international or even out-of-state travelers. Let them try to create a usable article with adequate content. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:30, 16 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yes, of course. –LPfi (talk) 21:53, 16 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Let who? I'm not sure if I can tell who you're talking about, sorry. AtTheTownHouse (talk) 04:05, 17 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Oh wait nevermind oops AtTheTownHouse (talk) 04:08, 17 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

@AtTheTownHouse, the net result is that we think it's okay for you to create Katy, and that we'd like you to make sure the article includes at least one hotel/place to sleep and at least one thing to do that's in the city.

Alternatively – it's up to you – you could add information about places in Katy to either Houston/West Houston or Houston/North Houston (just pick one), and we'll make sure that anyone searching for Katy gets pointed to the one you pick. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:16, 17 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks 98.194.105.133 20:16, 17 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Oh wait forgot to log in 98.194.105.133 20:16, 17 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanjs 98.194.105.133 20:18, 17 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Okay thanks this time for real AtTheTownHouse (talk) 20:19, 17 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

There appears to be a couple of museums and several hotels in Katy, but the info on travel Katy and the City of Katy websites are not in complete agreement, and one attraction is "coming in 2022". So there is potential for creating an article for Katy. I think the other places called Katy are so small that there is no need to make it Katy (Texas). AlasdairW (talk) 21:35, 17 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Wow, I'm super impressed with how Katy has gotten its start in life. @AtTheTownHouse, you're doing a great job. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:01, 24 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks! By the way, if you have any comments, I just want to say that I will not be editing for a few weeks, so I will not be available. I'm saying this just in case anyone wants to contact me. If you have comments, feel free to post them, but they will likely not be read until a few weeks later. Thank you! AtTheTownHouse (talk) 00:30, 25 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks! By the way, if you have any comments, I just want to say that I will not be editing for a few weeks, so I will not be available. I'm saying this just in case anyone wants to contact me. If you have comments, feel free to post them, but they will likely not be read until a few weeks later. Thank you! AtTheTownHouse (talk) 00:32, 25 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

No worries. I hope to see you again in a few weeks. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:38, 25 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

In some mildly optimistic news, we've finally reached 33,333 articles with the creation of Nassarawa. Thanks to everyone who has made this happen! //shb (t | c | m) 08:35, 16 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

That's a good achievement, but it also tells us about our obsession with arbitrary patterns, like round figures (30,000), strings of the same digits (33,333), and so on. These are meaningless to many other number systems, like 30,000 and 33,333 are 7,530 and 8,235 in hexadecimal, respectively. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 09:36, 16 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Haha definitely true – but I also think the fact that article count milestones on this project tend to be several years apart has something to do with this too. I expect 40k articles by 2034 and there's not a whole lot apart from 35k in between. //shb (t | c | m) 09:54, 16 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

We have 36,000₁₀ = 𒐞 * 𒐕^𒐖 (10*100₆₀) – that's quite a round figure (and in an important base) – or 2⁵·3²·5³, the first prime numbers (in any base) raised to the previous of the numbers (with overflow rotation).

:-)

–LPfi (talk) 22:33, 16 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

True, that's another worthy milestone for a project of this size. //shb (t | c | m) 02:19, 19 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

This milestone makes me happy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:17, 17 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Looking at the Houston page (I use it as a formatting example,) I see little icons at the top for Wikidata, whatever GPX is, and a map. How do I add these? AtTheTownHouse (talk) 03:35, 19 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think you have to link your article to the corresponding Wikidata item, and I am not sure how to do so without accessing WIkidata directly. I usually link my articles to the corresponding Wikidata items directly. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 04:25, 19 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

@AtTheTownHouse, the easiest way to get the Wikidata link is: Create the article, and leave a note here. One of us can do it for you. Let me know if you'd like instructions for the second-easiest way. :-) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:00, 19 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

For the map, you can normally get that by filling in the {{geo}} parameters at the bottom of an article. //shb (t | c | m) 04:33, 19 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Courtesy link: Houston. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:49, 19 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

• Wikidata: Connect a listing to a Wikidata item.
• GPX: Include {{climate}}
• Map: Include {{geo}}

Incidentally, there are other topicons, including quality- and UNESCO-related ones generated by {{pagebanner}}. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:03, 19 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Where is a good place to find climate data? AtTheTownHouse (talk) 23:26, 19 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't think there's any Katy-specific data, because it's right next to Houston and Sugar Land. Which one do I use, or do I not use any in that case? AtTheTownHouse (talk) 23:31, 19 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

For the US, from memory I think we use NOAA's data? //shb (t | c | m) 00:10, 20 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Oh ok noaa only does Houston, not sugar land. thanks. AtTheTownHouse (talk) 00:43, 20 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Ah, dang, that's a bummer. :( //shb (t | c | m) 04:33, 21 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Sannita (WMF): may I ask how this affects Wikivoyage when you say "some of the hypothesis involve your project"? TIA, //shb (t | c | m) 02:28, 26 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

The proposed solutions mention the Wikivoyages in several places. The main issue is that an abstract article about Someplace shouldn't be rendered the same in Wikipedia and Wikivoyage. This affects also the technical solutions, such as where to store statements and functions. –LPfi (talk) 07:21, 26 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Can you explain further how we have abstract (vs. concrete?) articles on Wikivoyage? Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:27, 26 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

We don't have any abstract articles at the time being, and I assume Wikivoyage in English may choose never to have them. For smaller languages, though, it is unrealistic to cover all interesting places with proper articles. The mission of Abstract Wikipedia is to provide a framework for creating articles in a way that allows automatic translation into something at least half-way decent. It's like having listings fetch key information from Wikidata, but scaled up to complete articles (or less complete – at least lively language on personal impressions will certainly be missing for the foreseeable future). –LPfi (talk) 07:43, 26 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I see – I still don't understand how this will fully get (even after reading the hypothesis), but I suppose it's something for smaller language projects. //shb (t | c | m) 09:47, 26 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hi @SHB2000, it seems that @LPfi covered most of my arguments here already, so I would just repeat them at this point. The part that interests your project refers to the hypothesis that abstract content might (but it's still not sure at the moment) be stored in a dedicated namespace of your project. But again, this might happen, and you're free to refuse to store/use abstract content to further your development. This is entirely in your right, and we do not want to force any adoption of the project without consensus. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 10:01, 26 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

And yes, Abstract Wikipedia is primarily intended for projects that have so far developed a small number of articles, in order to help them accelerate their growth and hopefully provide more knowledge to their communities and recruit a higher number of volunteers. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 10:03, 26 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Sounds perfect. Thanks to both of you for explaining! //shb (t | c | m) 10:10, 26 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Seconded. I understand. We should discuss in a separate thread whether it would be better to encourage, allow perhaps without comment, or disallow abstract listings on this site. I think we probably don't want abstract articles, but we should discuss that, too. Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:22, 26 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I can see abstract listings being useful for more obscure parts of the world for English speakers for this site at least, but overall sounds like it's something to help smaller language Wikivoyages benefit from us rather than the other way around (which is also great). //shb (t | c | m) 13:30, 26 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I mentioned listings as we already use Wikidata for them (coordinates) and have discussed e.g. opening hours (too complicated to be workable). I don't think "abstract listings" are an option at this point – somebody needs to decide a listing is wanted and would include some manual language when adding it. We still might have some valuable insights in how – and how not – to design abstract Wikivoyage articles for them to be useful. –LPfi (talk) 14:04, 26 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I have two thoughts about this:

• We need some way of separating a block of text that works for Wikipedia from a block of text that works for Wikivoyage (or another sister project). That suggests not using the English Wikipedia as the storage place for everything. The Wikipedias might all want "Jupiter is the largest planet in the Solar System. It is the fifth planet from the Sun", but if Wikivoyage were to have an article on the planet, it would probably sound a lot more like "Jupiter isn't a viable destination, but travelers interested in astronomy and navigationby the stars may be interested in the Big Museum of Jupiter and the Annual Jupiter Festival".
• I think that the English Wikivoyage could benefit from Abstract content. It's obvious that we could 'translate' our Star articles into Abstract, and thus other Wikivoyages would benefit. However, imagine how much we could benefit if @Sannita (WMF) brought it:Roma up to Star status, and then translated it for us to copy whatever bits we wanted in Rome. Keep in mind that while Abstract is set up to do dynamic autotranslation (e.g., always giving the latest population estimate, if the sentence says "the population of Rome is ___"), you can actually copy and paste the results as plain old text into an article.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:07, 26 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

If I understand correctly, Abstract Wikipedia works with programming that could have been done in the 1980s, more or less like Lsjbot's articles, although not confined to info found in already existing datasets. "Not a viable destination" would need to be an item to insert and translate. That article on Jupiter would have very little in common with the Wikipedia one.

For Rome, population statistics etc. would be easy to write in abstract form, but an abstract star article would need a lot of article-specific functions, which need to be translated to get a version in another language – and lively language is hard to translate automatically (think "blind and therefore insane"). Copying over listings would work, and a good abstract article should have a good selection of those.

I think an abstract Wikivoyage article should focus on being reasonably complete by having information: roads and trains for getting in, listings with coords, contact details and Wikidata link, and suggestions in Go next, but quite little running text, mostly identical across articles except data values (…is a village/town/city in X…), and likewise a dry list of facts in the listing "content", not like the lively writing in Wikivoyage:Listings.

–LPfi (talk) 17:47, 26 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

As Wikivoyage has generally has more structured articles than Wikipedia, I think that we could make use of an Abstract Wikivoyage. Two areas look like possible starting points: listings and the phrases in phrasebooks.

If a tool could create an abstract version of a listing that exists in another language, then the listing could be offered when editing the same section of an article here - "Would you like to add a listing for the Lawnmower Museum?". Some parts of listing could be updated in all languages when edited in one - we would show the last updated entry price for the museum whatever language it was edited in. A difficult part is identifying when listing elements are language specific - we may use a different url from another WV to point to a page in English, and we don't care that the museum has labels translated into Spanish.

In English WV we have a standard set of phrases for phrasebooks, and most phrasebooks keep fairly closely to this list. This list is also the basis for phrasebooks in some other language WVs. It would appear to be reasonably straightforward to scan the existing phrases to create an abstract phrasebook, but inconsistencies would need to be reviewed. There are about 300 phrasebooks in English, 50 in German and 20 in Polish. Maybe we can use this to offer over 200 phrasebooks in Polish. AlasdairW (talk) 22:44, 26 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

For listings, yes, the abstract versions would be easy to create. For the name, we only need to identify the native name, its romanisation, and the language of translated names. There are already structures for all this in Wikidata; also "official URL" has a language attribute. Amenities of hotels can likewise easily be described. Nothing will be automatically fetched, so no worries about info irrelevant for English speakers. What is hard to do is the lively language of the examples I linked above.

For phrasebooks, I am not sure it is that easy, or rather whether creating an abstract phrasebook helps compared to just translating the template and using a dictionary (or whatever way you otherwise use for getting translations). Grammar and pronunciation sections needs to be written with the audience's language knowledge in mind, and translations of phrases need to be done with some understanding of the context, thus mostly manually. For a good phrasebook, you also need to note peculiarities in the relation with the target language, such as the liberty/liberté etc. now added to the French and Italian phrasebook and warnings for specific false friends.

–LPfi (talk) 04:57, 27 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think phrasebooks is one of those things (along with travel topics) where it's more or less impossible to create an abstract version of. //shb (t | c | m) 05:23, 27 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Why do you think that?

We can already write things like "hello, a cup of coffee, please" by invoking Wikidata. It would require expansion (e.g., to add "a" and "an"), but it doesn't seem impossible in principle, at least for simpler sentences. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:24, 27 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

The question is whether there is any point of doing that. If every phrase has to be purpose-translated, then why not just write the non-abstract phrasebook? The point with the abstract articles is that there are standard phrases that can be used across articles, such as words for amenities you will find in many hotels. For the phrasebook phrases, the question is whether the same Sámi phrase would suite the phrasebook in English and the one in Latvian (or whatever).

When the English phrase is translated differently depending on context, some commentary needs to be added (formal/informal, feminine/masculine). This commentary is redundant or awkward in languages that make the same distinction, possibly treating the two (or more) forms as totally unrelated (the person is deceased, the cow is dead).

For the cup of tea, you may need to word that differently depending on whether you are a man or woman, and whether the one you are asking for the cup is a waiter, the café owner, your host or your host's young child.

–LPfi (talk) 20:59, 27 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps an example would show what I was thinking of:

In French phrasebook, we have:

How much is a ticket to _____?

Combien coûte le billet pour _____ ? (kom-BYAN koot luh bee-YEH poor)

One ticket to _____, please.

Un billet pour _____, s'il vous plaît. (ung bee-YEH poor ____ seel voo pleh)

On Polish WV there is pl:Rozmówki francuskie, their French Phrasebook.

Ile kosztuje bilet do...?

Combien coûte le billet pour...?

Poproszę jeden bilet do...

Un billet pour..., je vous prie.

We also have Finnish phrasebook, which has:

How much is a ticket to _____?

Paljonko maksaa lippu _____in? (PAHL-yonk-aw MAHK-sah LEEP-poo _____?)

So I think that a Finnish phrasebook on the Polish WV, could have

Ile kosztuje bilet do...?

Paljonko maksaa lippu _____in? (PAHL-yonk-aw MAHK-sah LEEP-poo _____?)

"One ticket to" is not exactly the same (translating the French used in Polish, it is saying "I beg you" rather than "please"), so this phase would require some manual adjustments when it was abstracted. AlasdairW (talk) 22:24, 27 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't think that the idea with Abstract is to program in "please", but rather to swap in whichever word or phrase is used in that language to indicate politeness and respect while making a request.

We already have a software switch for gender, so this is not some miraculous future tech; this is an expansion of what has been possible for years. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:39, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

For Finnish, there is no word or phrase that indicates politeness, but one often uses the conditional (?) verb form instead. In some cases one would just use that word form in the phrase (in the Finnish phrasebooks and in phrasebooks for Finnish) – but here the question is instead with no sign of politeness, which is common in that language. Something like "could you" is problematic as most languages make a distinction between thou and you. I think the common cases can be handled decently, but for less well-known language families – those that benefit most from the abstract articles – the edge cases will be more common. It is likely that abstract phrasebook have to be tweaked for specific languages to avoid the odd case of very problematic renderings. –LPfi (talk) 06:02, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

@WhatamIdoing: LPfi's basically explained why I don't think abstract phrasebooks will work. //shb (t | c | m) 23:25, 27 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Infobox sandbox test Nutritious, filling content goes here. Yum yum!

I've hacked up Template:Infobox/sandbox which add new image/caption parameters, so you can easily add an image to your infoboxen instead of trying to manually hack it in. Example:

{{Infobox/sandbox
|Infobox sandbox test
|Nutritious, filling content goes here.
|image=Dessert_Merlion_Singapore_Cafe_Kaya_Toast.jpg
|caption=Yum yum!}}

If there's no objections, I'll roll this out to the main Infobox template, the params are optional so it shouldn't break anything. Jpatokal (talk) 06:02, 27 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Support – Will be useful for articles like India and Kolkata, which already use images in infoboxes. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 06:15, 27 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

This is a tangent, but I think we should consider renaming that template, or at least changing its Wikidata links. Wikivoyage doesn't do Wikipedia-style infoboxes. These are just simple boxes, more like pull quotes or boxed warnings. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:29, 27 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Change the Wikidata link, but keep the name. It is an infobox, although not a Wikipedia-style one. Of course, if somebody comes up with a better name, then I won't object. –LPfi (talk) 21:06, 27 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

@WhatamIdoing, LPfi: Maybe {{Info}} can be used instead of {{Infobox}}. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 02:40, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

For us, this is an infobox, not just info. I wouldn't support such changes just to conform. Somebody who wants a Wikipedia-style infobox should just be directed to {{quickbar}}, and somebody who tries to use {{infobox}} quickly sees that it isn't what they are looking for. A see also for the former is more useful than a name change. –LPfi (talk) 06:11, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'll fix the Wikidata links so that {{quickbar}} is matched with the Wikipedia-style infoboxes, and {{infobox}} isn't. I'm not sure what our {{infobox}} should be matched to; I don't think that enwiki has anything similar. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:28, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

...No, that won't work. {{Quickbar}} matches "Infobox Country". I'll remove the {{infobox}} links. That much is certainly correct. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:29, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

(undent) I've deployed the new version. I had to tweak it a bit to stop it from adding extra padding when the new params are not used, but it should be OK now, please ping me if not. Jpatokal (talk) 07:58, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

More languages • Please help translate to your language

Dear all,

This year, the term of 2 (two) Community- and Affiliate-selected Trustees on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees will come to an end [1]. The Board invites the whole movement to participate in this year’s selection process and vote to fill those seats.

The Elections Committee will oversee this process with support from Foundation staff [2]. The Governance Committee, composed of trustees who are not candidates in the 2025 community-and-affiliate-selected trustee selection process (Raju Narisetti, Shani Evenstein Sigalov, Lorenzo Losa, Kathy Collins, Victoria Doronina and Esra’a Al Shafei) [3], is tasked with providing Board oversight for the 2025 trustee selection process and for keeping the Board informed. More details on the roles of the Elections Committee, Board, and staff are here [4].

Here are the key planned dates:

• May 22 – June 5: Announcement (this communication) and call for questions period [6]
• June 17 – July 1, 2025: Call for candidates
• July 2025: If needed, affiliates vote to shortlist candidates if more than 10 apply [5]
• August 2025: Campaign period
• August – September 2025: Two-week community voting period
• October – November 2025: Background check of selected candidates
• Board’s Meeting in December 2025: New trustees seated

Learn more about the 2025 selection process - including the detailed timeline, the candidacy process, the campaign rules, and the voter eligibility criteria - on this Meta-wiki page [link].

Call for Questions

In each selection process, the community has the opportunity to submit questions for the Board of Trustees candidates to answer. The Election Committee selects questions from the list developed by the community for the candidates to answer. Candidates must answer all the required questions in the application in order to be eligible; otherwise their application will be disqualified. This year, the Election Committee will select 5 questions for the candidates to answer. The selected questions may be a combination of what’s been submitted from the community, if they’re alike or related. [link]

Election Volunteers

Another way to be involved with the 2025 selection process is to be an Election Volunteer. Election Volunteers are a bridge between the Elections Committee and their respective community. They help ensure their community is represented and mobilize them to vote. Learn more about the program and how to join on this Meta-wiki page [link].

Thank you!

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2022/Results

[2] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Committee:Elections_Committee_Charter

[3] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Committee_Membership,_December_2024

[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_committee/Roles

[5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2025/FAQ

[6] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2025/Questions_for_candidates

Best regards,

Victoria Doronina

Board Liaison to the Elections Committee

Governance Committee

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:08, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Since my request for input and support on Talk:Main Page went mostly unnoticed, I'm bringing this proposal to the pub to ensure it gets the daylight it should have, as these are proposals to change the look of a rather important page.

Here's the backstory: For longer than Vector 2022 has been around, I've been bothered by the balance of elements on the main page. The new skin only did it injustices, so I've taken it upon myself to mend the shortcomings of the main page in my quest to make Wikivoyage work in Vector 2022. This all so our site looks a bit more appealing in the new skin. I know many regular editors stuck with their old preferred skins when we got the new skin imposed on us, but this still is something that will affect Wikivoyage's appeal to new editors and readers. If the main page looks chaotic and messy, they'll be less likely to stick around. So to each and every editor, regardless of which skin you use: Please chime in!

That being said, these are the changes I have developed, and have ready to deploy:

• Wider {{Mapbanner}}: Some small tweaks to the template which make it use all the page width available to it, and moves the globe image and image map accordingly.
• Centred JCaroussel: For the same reason, to make better use of the width on the main page, I've got some CSS changes to the JCaroussel ready that center the featured articles. Scaling them up to simply be full page width I have found to be too tedious to bother with.
• Overhauled {{Banner}}: Vector 2022's scaleable font plays too much with the banners for featured articles to where sometimes the blurb isn't even entirely visible. In the same process, I've simplified the way in which this template is used for each category, foregoing the need for a 'section' and 'section-link' parameter, replacing them with a 'type' parameter. Its style is mostly in keeping with the existing banners and should simplify the process for featuring articles more than it complicates them.

What do these changes look like? In the case of {{Mapbanner}}, I cannot easily give a working demonstration as its stylesheet currently overwrites any changes I make to it. Instead, this image is the best I can offer. You'll have to take my word for its functionality being unchanged. The centred JCaroussel and overhauled {{Banner}} can be seen and interacted with on this page. I've done my best to ensure that these changes are in keeping with Wikivoyage's current main page style. I know that entire overhauls are not that popular, so I hope these proposals are good enough.

I am looking for a broad consensus to roll out at least the first two changes, but ideally all three. I don't feel comfortable rolling some of these changes out with only two people expressing support for them. Please, throw your questions and concerns in my direction, and I hope we can together fix what I consider to be the biggest remaining issue with Vector 2022. Thank you in advance.
― Wauteurz (talk) 14:19, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Support as the developer of these changes. Vector 2022 dictates how new readers and editors get presented our site, and with its current chaotic and undependable nature, something has to be done. ― Wauteurz (talk) 14:20, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Wauteurz: Any idea for better responsive design of the Wikivoyage main page, as more people access our pages via phone than PC? Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 14:47, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Sbb1413 For clarity, these changes only affect the appearance on desktop devices. The changes to JCaroussel also apply in Minerva (mobile), but due to screen size limitations they won't have an effect in most cases. My main goal is overseeing the damage caused by Vector 2022's roll-out on Wikivoyage. Since mobile devices use Minerva, I mostly leave the mobile appearance alone.

As for my thoughts on mobile, I don't think any of the regular editors have any experience in mobile design, let alone responsive mobile design, so I'm mostly wondering why it's responsive in the first place. I'd personally suggest removing the responsive elements (mostly the feature banners) and replacing them with DotM, OtBP and FTT in simple presentations akin to Picture of the Day and Media of the Day on Commons' main page. The 3:1 banners also are a big problem in my eyes. They're far too short to work on mobile, and I think a square or tall ratio would work leagues better in a mobile format. ― Wauteurz (talk) 15:31, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

• Support very much agree that these changes will be needed sooner than later. //shb (t | c | m) 18:48, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Support. Thanks for doing this! As a choosing beggar, I would love to see the mobile front page fixed as well though, the DOTM banner is completely broken at the moment and the padding/spacing of the entire page is wonky at best. Jpatokal (talk) 00:03, 29 May 2025 (UTC)Reply